YoungJae snuck up against the wall towards a corner with both of his hands on his gun. He peered around the corner, prepared to shoot if necessarily. As he expected, a round of shots hit right where his head would have been if he came out all the way.

“Yah! Jung DaeHyun! That was my FACE, you !” YoungJae yelled out as he cocked his gun. All he got in response was a mocking laughter from the older team member. YoungJae scoffed in annoyance. He was so going to get DaeHyun for that. After taking a deep breath, he rolled forward, dodging DaeHyun’s first shot before he fired his own round of bullets at DaeHyun, forcing the older to take cover. YoungJae moved backwards towards another corner as he fired continuously. Only when he ran out of bullets did he take cover again. As he reloaded, he could hear DaeHyun moving in.

“,” he cursed under his breath as he reloaded and ran backwards at the same time. He wasn’t able to his gun before DaeHyun turned the corner and took aim at the defenseless YoungJae.

“Game over~” DaeHyun sang out with a smirk before he fired.

“Like hell,” YoungJae answered, putting his hand up, stopping the bullet mid-flight and throwing it back at DaeHyun. DaeHyun’s eyes widened as the bullet came back at him, hitting him right where his heart is, completely unprepared for the counter. He flew onto his back dramatically and lied motionless on the floor. YoungJae rolled his eyes as he walked towards DaeHyun.

“Get up, you drama queen,” he demanded, shooting his own yellow paintball over his white one.

“Ow! That hurts, you twit!” DaeHyun whined as he rubbed the sore spot where YoungJae just shot him. “You’re also a cheater! YongGukkie-hyung said no magic when we’re in the paintball field. You’re supposed to be practicing for times that you might not be able to use them in here.”

“Yeah, sure, as if that’s gonna happen. It’s not like I’m like HimChannie-hyung using my magic for flashy purposes. Besides, I doubt demons we face would be scared of turning yellow,” YoungJae countered as he fired his gun at a nearby tree, splattering yellow paint on it, with a huff.

“You sure have been grumpy lately,” DaeHyun mumbled as they went to the changing room to get out of their protective gear. “What’s up? Is it because it’s familiar hunting season?”

“It’s not fair! You know we wouldn’t have this problem with having to conserve our magic if we had familiars. And when is he going to teach us how he managed to throw a fireball more powerful than one from that mage that was a fire specialist? Because that was awesome! I’m so sick of learning basics and…doing all this useless training that has nothing to do with magic!” YoungJae ranted as he kicked his locker closed while he rubbed the sweat out of his hair with his towel.

“Hey, you know that only happened AFTER YongGukkie-hyung didn’t have a familiar. Hyung has changed our ranking much faster than any other group has ever risen in rank,” DaeHyun defended. YoungJae pouted. He knew that, and he was very grateful for everything YongGuk had done for them.

“I just…I’ve always wanted a familiar since I was a kid. And I’m just really bummed,” YoungJae sighed sadly.

DaeHyun ruffled YoungJae’s hair with a chuckle. “That would be cool, but you know how much YongGuk disapproves of-”

“YES. I GET IT. YONGGUKKIE-HYUNG HATES THE IDEA OF FAMILIARS BECAUSE OF JIEUN! BUT JUST BECAUSE HE’S SCARED DOESN’T MEAN WE SHOULD BE!”

DaeHyun flinched at YoungJae outburst and raised his hands defensively with a disapproving gaze. The younger of the two groaned, covering his face, as he apologized, “I’m sorry…I’m just…”

“Hey, it’s fine. But don’t tell YongGukkie-hyung that, okay? He’s our leader, and we should respect his decision,” DaeHyun told him softly as he patted his back. “C’mon, I know what will cheer you up. Let’s go get bubble tea!”

YoungJae chuckled as he shook his head. Leave it to DaeHyun to fix everything with food. He followed the excited older as the two changed the conversation to something more light hearted despite the thought of obtaining a familiar lingering in his mind.

~

SuMi sighed as she sat on the roof of her apartment complex and gazed at the moon. There was a full moon tonight, and she always enjoyed watching those crazy humans in the apartment complex next to hers partying like it’s nobody’s business during a full moon. They usually would get so drunk they start doing really stupid things. The party was going on as usual but she wasn’t in the peering mood. Something felt odd about the day. She sighed again.

She missed her flock. She may not have had the best relationship with her matriarch, but she still had a place within her own kind and something she could call home. She may have blended up perfectly with the humans, but she couldn’t risk having them find out who she was. They would probably all turn against her. After all, she didn’t belong with humans.

SuMi reached her hand out at the moon. It looked so close yet she knew the Wall covered above the city as well. The Wall kept her safe from other demons that would surely eat her for lunch, but it also kept her from leaving. She turned around to watch the humans in their crazy antics. Humans were such strange creatures. SuMi will never understand how these defenseless creatures managed to survive all these years. Such naïve, fragile beings…but they were nice. She wondered how nice they would be if they knew she was a demon, and a Stymphalian bird at that.

Probably wouldn’t go over too well.

SuMi checked the time on her watch. She still needed to go buy food for dinner. Checking to make sure no one was around, she jumped off the building, sprouted wings to reduce the speed of her fall, and landed safely on the ground, tucking her wings back in. She grinned, dusting the feathers off her shoulder, and began her trek to the grocery store. SuMi greeted the ahjumma at the cashier with a smile and chatted with her idly for a moment before moving towards the fruit section so she could make a delicious fruit salad when she got home.

“Hmm…blueberries…strawberries…apples~” she listed quietly to herself as she placed each package of fruits in her basket. She hummed happily as she sniffed with strawberries. They smelled delicious. She couldn’t wait for dinner~

“SuMi-sshi?”

SuMi froze. That voice…it couldn’t be. She slowly turned around and nearly screamed when she received a cute smile from the ever-so-familiar pianist. HOW DID HE FIND HER?!

“Wow, what a coincidence. I’ve never seen you at this grocery store before. What are you up to?” he asked in curiosity, no malicious intent in his voice at all. …at least, THAT’S WHAT HE WANTS HER TO THINK. Maybe he’s working with those mages with the dogs. MAYBE THEY’VE FINALLY FOUND HER LOCATION. MAYBE-

“Nothing really. Just getting some fruits for dinner,” she answered nonchalantly as if her mind was screaming all sorts of terrified thoughts at the moment. “What are you doing here?”

“Oh, my friend’s having a party close by. I decided to get some fresh air and buy a few more beers,” he chuckled, holding up a six-pack. “…they’re kind of drunk.”

“Sounds like it,” SuMi hummed idly as she tried to sneak away from the conversation, but the guy followed her, opening and closing his mouth a few times as if he wanted to ask her something. Just as she thought she was about to escape, he called out to her.

“Hey, do you…want to come to the party with me? Or if that’s not your scene, maybe you want to grab lunch some time?” he asked bravely with a shy smile on his face. Just as SuMi was about to reject him, he continued, “To be honest…most people don’t really listen to classical music anymore, so I got really excited that you came to listen to me play…umm…I hope I didn’t scare you away…”

SuMi bit her lower lip as her fists tightened around the handle of her shopping basket. Oh gosh, she just wanted to hug him for being so precious. She didn’t even know someone this precious and adorable existed in this world. No, she had to contain herself. He was human, and he sure as hell wouldn’t want anything to do with her if he found out what she was.

“It’s okay. It was just something I did to kill time,” she insisted with a bored sigh as she turned around and tried to walk away, pretending she didn’t care.

“Oh,” was all he could respond. SuMi tried to ignore the disappointment in his voice. “…well, I hope I see you around. It was nice seeing you again, SuMi-sshi.”

Peering over her shoulder to make sure he turned away, she watched him shake his head to the side and rub the back of his neck, probably feeling a bit stupid for being so forward, as he paid for the drinks and left. She giggled softly at his reaction. What was his name again? Henry?

“He’s cute~” she decided as she continued her shopping while humming to herself.

~

“Blade-like feathers…metallic beaks and talons…these things sound killing machines,” EunMi mumbled as she continued researching these Stymphalian birds that Sungjong had mentioned. She sighed deeply as she flipped through a bunch of tabs about these demons. Don’t worry, he said. I’ll be fine, he said. Yeah, like that was easy to do when he was going up against these murderous birds of prey. Sure, she trusted Sungjong could take care of himself, but everything just seemed…off. She really didn’t like the feeling.

Suddenly, EunMi’s phone rang loudly in the otherwise empty room. She answered it absentmindedly, still concentrating on the articles in front of her. “Hello?”

“Oh good, you’re not dead. Are you still in the lab?” chuckled HaNa over the phone. EunMi hummed back positively in response. “Can you let me in?”

Agreeing before hanging up, EunMi grabbed her I.D. and left her workstation to go get HaNa from outside. “So what are you doing here?”

HaNa laughed, “Shouldn’t you have asked me that before you let me in? Kyungie-unnie called me to check on you because you hadn’t come home yet. Figured you’re still in the lab. Are you almost done?”

“Umm…yeah…of course I am,” EunMi responded as she turned to her experiment.

“…you haven’t been working on it, have you?”

“What gave it away?”

“EunMi~ it’s getting late. What have you been doing all this time?”

“Well…I was doing some research.”

“On what? Demons? Didn’t your P.I. already reject the idea of demon research? You should really start focusing on your fish if you want to go home before midnight.”

“…I hate fish.”

With a huff, EunMi went back to her fish experiments as HaNa browsed through the windows EunMi had open to kill time.

“What are these? They look terrifying…” Just as EunMi opened to answer, HaNa interrupted her with a sigh and began ranting, “I bet YoungJae could tell you everything you never wanted to know about these things. Love that boy to pieces, but I’m about one conversation away from throwing him off a skyscraper. He’s been telling me allll these wonderful facts about all these different demons that I really could care less about.”

“…why doesn’t YoungJae ever talk to me about demons? I like learning about demons.”

“Because YoungJae thinks you’re weird.”

“…I’m not weird…I’m just not normal…although my idea of normal is being perpendicular to the ground, which is the plane of reference many use for these sorts of things, so yes, I am most likely normal right now,” EunMi responded with a smile. HaNa laughed, patting EunMi on the head.

“Oh yes, so very normal, Sweetie.”

“I feel you’re mocking me,” EunMi mumbled, turning back to her fish with a forlorn sigh. She wondered how Sungjong was doing.

“I’M GOING TO ING SEE ARTEMIA IN MY SLEEP,” EunMi cried as HaNa patted her back.

~

Hoya growled as he lashed left and right at the birds swooping in from every direction down at him. He panted in fury as his eyes shined gold under the full moon. Even with his intensified bloodlust, he was having a hard time against the Stymphalian birds because there were just so many of them. He grunted in pain as some of the feathers in a barrage throw at him embedded into his leg. With his teeth clenched tightly, he pulled them out and threw them back, hitting a few in the wings. A whimper from his left broke his concentration.

“Sungjong! Ah!” he called out to the fallen figure as he tried to get to his youngest pack mate. He fell forward as another barrage of venomous feathers hit his back. As Hoya glared up at the birds, his vision began to blur. Though he was more impervious against the Stymphalian’s venom, he had been battling for hours now, and his body was starting to pay the price. In the midst of the confusion, an explosion caused the flock of birds to fly around in chaos, running into each other. Another explosion covered the whole area in a thick smoke. Screams of birds echoed as they began striking each other in confusion. Hoya groaned as he saw a figure drag Sungjong away behind the trees. A moment later, the dark shadow came towards him. He growled defensively, swiping his paw blindly at it.

“Wow, you really can’t tell left from right during a full moon,” hissed a familiar voice.

“…Kira?” he groaned as the vixen slipped under him and dragged him away from the battle field to the side where they could take cover in the trees. She handed him a small vial once he was up against a tree. “Here, drink this. It should strengthen your immune system against their venom.”

“How…did you get out?” he panted as he poured the liquid into his mouth.

“Please, Hoya. It’s gonna take a little more than a huge boulder to contain me. I’m not a sly fox for nothing~” she boasted with a grin. He chuckled dryly.

“Where’s your vampire friend?” he wondered.

“Took him back to his cave. Did you think I would bring him? As if he isn’t wounded enough from his first visit here,” Kira scoffed with a shake of her head. “Heartless, you werewolves are.”

Hoya rolled his eyes at her dramatic act before asking in concern, “How’s Sungjong?”

“He’s fine. He’s just knocked out,” she informed as she shrank into her fox form so she could sneak around easier. “How are you?”

“I’ll be fine,” he reassured as he stretched out his legs, feeling his strength come back after drinking the vial Kira gave him. Hoya emulated her, morphing into his wolf form, and nudged Kira in the shoulder. “So what’s the plan?”

“Oh, so now you want to know what I think?” she questioned bitterly, earning her a wolfish grin. “Well, to be honest, I don’t think we can win this. There are a lot more birds than I realized.”

“We can’t just retreat!” Hoya argued.

“Hoya! If you guys can get out of this alive, you’ll have made a huge dent to their numbers. But you need to get out of this alive, and you sure as hell aren’t doing a very good job of that,” Kira growled back. He became silent at the truth of her statement. She sighed and rubbed the top of her head under his chin. “I mean if I lose you and the rest of my boys, what would become of me? Starved and dead, okay? And I don’t fancy dying from hunger. Horrible way to go. Besides, do you know how many demons would have my head once they get a chance?”

Hoya chuckled with a shake of his head. “Alright, vixen, what are we going to do?”

“We need a distraction. Preferably one that will hurt the birds in the process,” she mumbled to herself as she looked around before turning to Hoya and smirked. “And that’s Ms. Genius Vixen to you.”

=====================================================================

/TAKES A CANON TO YOUR LUKI SHIP/

…

Can anyone see where this may be going? XD

~Kira :3