"I wish...I wish...I WISH I brought my cigarettes with me," Celeste pined uselessly, "I could use one RIGHT now."

"You're hopeless when it comes to those things, you know that?" Josh remarked in a disgusted tone that would have set Celeste off in a fit of retorting under normal circumstances. "But," Celeste thought as she timidly glanced at the towering, muttering masses of nervous people around her, "these are hardly normal circumstances."

Tess skipped up beside her friends, undaunted by the uncanny stillness of the night. No fear penetrated her beaming face.

"This is sooo cool," she cried excitedly, jumping up and down, "all of Torrisham Crossings will be evacuated in a few minutes! The whole neighbourhood's here!" Tess gestured at the crowd surrounding the trio before she punched Celeste in the shoulder. "Isn't this fun? We're having an adventure!"

"Right. And I'm having a bloody nervous breakdown. I can't believe Mavericks are going to be storming this area." A hellish trick of illusions was acting out Celeste's worst nightmare before her eyes: to die the same brutal death her father had at the hands of some bloodthirsty reploid.

Josh cleared his throat. "Uhmm...has anyone seen any of our parents? I mean, I think we lost 'em all in this huge crowd."

"Aw man, that bites. Last I remember, my mom was right beside me as we walked to the meeting place...that is, to say, the park that we're standing in." Tess remarked with a tremendous yawn. "Herded me out of bed...damn, it's late and I'm bloody tired."

Alarmed, Celeste was about to break away from her friends to search for her mother and brother, when a commanding voice froze her in her tracks.

"Okay people, settle...quiet, now...please be quiet....uh...WOULD EVERYONE SHUT THEIR FRIGGIN' MOUTHS FOR A WEE SECOND?!"

Startled, the evacuees fell silent with no delay.

"Thank you." The burly voice belonged to a stocky reploid clad in blue armour with silver trimmings. "My name is A.G. The fellow beside me is Hack. In case you're wondering, yes Mavericks have threatened to destroy your neighbourhood in a matter of days, and yes, you're all going to die horrible, bloody, painful deaths if you stay here. Doesn't that make you all feel warm and cozy inside? Now, here's the good news: A.G. and I have been assigned to lead you to safety. MHHQ, to be exact. So, everyone stay calm...stay together...stay in sight of Hack and I...and let's be on our way."

With those words, the tide of now homeless people slowly surged forward after their guides, leaving their lives behind, riding on the faint hope that someday, things would be back to normal. Fat chance.

Now Celeste was hopelessly lost in the slow moving sludge of nervous evacuees. Josh and Tess were nowhere to be seen, but Celeste had no choice but to go with the flow, so to speak.

Seconds dripped into minutes, and minutes seemed to drag on into hours. With all those strangers huddled around her, blocking out the sky ("Damn, I HATE being short!"), time lost all meaning. However, after an infinite span of time that consisted of nothing but keeping up an unwavering trot, Celeste dully noticed that the evacuees around her seemed to be marching slower and slower, then finally grinding to a complete stop.

"What's goin' on?" She muttered sleepily to herself, her lack of slumber beginning to take its toll. Of course, most of the humans were far too tied up in their own affairs and worries to pay much mind to her. However, Celeste DID snag a few threads of conversation that was running through the restless crowd...something about 'lost', and 'Maverick occupied territory'. Even in her muddled state, Celeste could piece together some of what was happening. As she did, a fearful emotion sent a shudder down her spine.

The refugees had been led into Maverick occupied territory.

Panicked, Celeste managed to claw her way up near the front of the tide, where she spied the two 'guides', A.G. and Hack, holding a feverish conference between themselves.

"I TOLD you we took a wrong turn!" Celeste could hear A.G. hiss ferociously.

Hack looked downcast. "I guess I made a small mistake."

"SMALL!? Hack, this territory is occupied by Mavericks. If a batch of them just happen to see us here with a large group of humans, what do you think they'd do? Invite us for tea and chit chat? I REALLY don't think so. And why are we just standing here, arguing? Let's get the hell out of here! Get the herd moving again."

Hack obediently cleared his throat. "Ladies and Gentlemen, boys and girls..."

"...and werewolves of all ages!" A raspy voice suddenly sang from the cloaking shadows.

Every single refugee jumped simultaneously.

"Heee! That was funny," came an invisible, insane giggle that was just to the left of the last hail. "all of you jumping at once like that. Do it again!"

"Tea and chit chat?" Another rough voice hurled from the darkness. "Sounds smashing! I say, how about that local sports team? Do they suck or what?"

"I thought I detected the stench of humans coming from this direction," came a low growl/purr, "and it seems that I wasn't mistaken after all. How does one greet a multitude of guests...? I guess we can start with introductions."

With those last words, an aqua green reploid werewolf drew itself out of the dancing alley shadows that circled the terror - stricken humans like vicious, shapeless beasts. "I'm J.T."

A beige werewolf was the next to emerge from behind the refugees. "Howdy. Duskclaw here."

An ebony werewolf seemed to appear out of nowhere in front of the refugees. A towering nightmare of razor claws and teeth whose forbidding bulk struck every human dumb with fear. "Maugrim at your service."

Finally, a slightly less formidable, dark blue reploid werewolf revealed itself. "And I'm Sabre, yup, that's right. You'll notice that we have you surrounded, so it's in all your best interests to stay calm and tell us why two Hunters are doing something as stupid as leading a pack of humans through Maverick occupied territory."

A.G and Hack, being the brilliant rocket scientists that they were, raised their arm cannons and aimed them at Sabre. Chuckling, the lupine reploid simply bounded into the air and brought his bulk crashing down on poor, solid Hack, who was promptly torn up by merciless metal claws. Before A.G. could even react, his fate was sealed by Duskclaw's slashing teeth.

Of course, viewing this slaughter did little to boost the humans' morale and keep them calm. Panic rang through the crowd like a raging virus, and Celeste, caught in her worst nightmare, was nearly trampled. Her mind screamed at her to do something...anything! Propelled by a deadly mixture of fear and rage, she threw herself at Sabre and bombarded the werewolf with a hail of punches, not stopping until at last fatigue forced her to fall back, panting. She finally allowed herself to look up at the face of her victim to see what damage she had caused with her attack. To her horror, Sabre was staring right back down at her, amusement twisted on his lupine face.

"Are you QUITE finished?" The Maverick rumbled.

Speechless, Celeste could do nothing but stare right back, silently.

In one fluid movement, like a hen picking up a worm, Celeste was scooped up into one of the wolf's brawny arms. Crying out, Celeste pumped her legs uselessly. Sabre laughed in response to his prisoner's struggles.

"A human female. I'm sure we could find LOTS of uses for one of these....OW!"

Yelping, Sabre released his clutch on Celeste to nurse the arm that she had just sunk her teeth into. Celeste landed on the ground with a jarring crash. Before she could make her escape by slipping into the panic-stirred crowd, she heard a dull explosion prior to feeling a red line of pain sear through her left arm. Celeste screamed, more from shock than pain. She could hear Sabre's demonic chuckle muffled by her own cries, and she knew exactly what had happened. Sabre had shot her in the arm. The warmth flowing down her wounded arm accompanied by the coppery smell of blood confirmed this.

A strange brew of confusion, shock and rage reigned in Celeste's mind. A ferocious adrenaline surge gave her the false assumption that she had enough energy to get to her feet and run; but the amount of blood she had lost was the reality. Celeste was forced to collapse again. No one came to her aid. Behind her, Sabre was still giggling.

"Boy, you look pretty screwed up right now, my dear! I can't believe you tried to tackle me. Typical human thought process at work here. No matter...well, this is good night for you, then!"

It was the end all right, but not for Celeste, oddly enough. As soon as Sabre had finished gloating over his prey, he was reduced to a bountiful shower of debris by a single well aimed plasma shot.

"Here I come to save the daaaaay...!"

"YEAH! Woo hoo! ONE shot and he's down! I was meant for this stuff. I'm the KING! THE KING I TELL YOU! Red, tell me...WHO'S THE KING??"

"You of course, lambchop!" Red declared faithfully as she dropped to a perfect landing beside the exuberant Zero.

"Hey, lookit! The other wolves are running!"

In response to this, Zero tried to give chase, slicing through the cooling crowd like a knife through butter. He came to a stop beside where Celeste was curled up. In one smooth motion, he stooped down and grabbed of Sabre's shattered arms, which he chucked into the shadows after the other three rapidly darting wolves.

"Hey! Maugrim! YOU SUCK!" He spat.

"Isn't Maugrim a sweetie?" Red grinned, taking a spot next to Zero.

"I'll say. Hey, where did X go? I swear, I'm going to spike a metal bar through his head one of these days."

"Hmmm..." Red mused, "I think I saw him just a second ago. He's trying to calm down the crowd."

"Good. Keep him out of our hair. Whoops, what have we here...?" Zero cast his eyes down at the shaking, sobbing human a short distance away from him. He took a step closer and dropped down to the human's level.

"It's her arm." Red remarked from behind. "Take a look."

Zero did as Red suggested, and he was sorry he did. A slick river of blood cascaded down the girl's arm, visible even in the unreliable light. That 'feeling' tore through Zero's mind again, the unknown sweet crescendo of emotions that was sometimes triggered by the sight of blood.

Silently, Red watched Zero fight an interesting inner struggle. Although she was quite scatterbrained at times, Red was very far from stupid. Watching Zero's reaction to the blood, she decided that these emotions bore study, but now was not the time. She poked Zero with her lance to haul him out of his dreamworld.

Getting shot in the arm could sometimes do things that fuddle up your mind, Celeste found out. In any case, she was in quite a state. A red pain misted her eyes and clouded her judgment. When she noticed the equally red reploid crouched beside her, she automatically took a wild swing at him with her good arm, missing by about a mile or so. The reploid laughed a little, put a heavy hand on her hot forehead and gently told her to calm down. Celeste did more than calm down: she lost consciousness.

"Well, she's out of it." Red observed. "Probably for the best: with the way she was thrashing about, she was losing too much blood. Did you catch her name or anything?"

Zero shook his head. "Nup."

"She looks familiar." Red mused. "Well, no matter. We'll have to do something about her arm. I think Genesis can probably patch it up pretty good. Let's take her to him. I guess the rest of the folks will be coming with us to the refugee camps as well. Whee! A parade!" Red jumped up and down. "Ha ha, hee hee, clap my paws, squeal with glee. I'm so excited I could just barf. Let's mosey."