There was a blockade sat up on the perimeter of Antonia. Two guards stood at the entrance and took to their fighting stance when Sous appoarched.
She held her hands up to show her defenses-nothing. She wasn't expecting to find Antonia in such a state and wondered if it was always like this.
The guards came to her and began to pat her down. One of them pulled out her wand and took it.
"Hey!" She stepped forward to reach for it back but the other guard stopped her, putting his hands on her arm. Sous looked at him and then the other guard. "I'm just here on a mission and there was an accident just outside of Thornside Village. The driver is dead, we were attacked."
The two guards exchanged looks and took hold of Sous' shoulders.
"Open the gates!" One of them yelled out and Sous found herself being dragged inside. She was slammed onto the ground and ordered to get up. "What's with all the blood on you?"
Sous rolled her eyes getting to her feet. "I just said we were attacked."
The other guards looked her up and down. He shook his head at the other. Sous took this time to look around the place. Besides for the soldiers that walked around, everyone looked so malnourished.
The men and women and even the children were thin and frail, with their cheeks sunken in, their eyeballs practically popping out of their heads. Many of them had blisters and bites, probably from rodents or even fleas.
The guard poked Sous with her own wand. Sous tried to take it back but the guard hid it away from her. "Come with us."
They took her roughly once more by the shoulders and began to drag her through the town. They threw her into a military truck. She sat down on one of the benches.
She could smell that they were wolves but they looked so weak with the exception of the guards. This town was a military wolf town.
The guard who was sitting in the back of the cart with her began to ask questions. His steel toe boots were big and heavy on his feet.
"If you were attacked, why ain't you got wounds?" He was young, maybe in his late teens. Dirty too and thin but not as thin as the regular citizens.
"I did...it healed."
"Oy that's some healing then uh?"
The van stopped abruptly, almost knocking Sous off her bench. The guard took her by the arm and the two jumped down from the back.
Before them stood a large castle similar to what Clarence lived in back in his village. That was strange for a wolf to live in a castle. That was normally reserved for humans or vampires. Still, they dragged Sous inside through the gate.
She heard the gate close behind them as they made their way to the inner chambers. Soon she was being led down some dungeons.
"Wait, wait, wait," she said trying to turn away. "I just came to get some potions. Once I got the potions, I was to go to the city Usapolis." She tried to exclaimed.
The guard pushed her down the stairs and she tumbled down. She managed to get up only for the guard to grab her once more and pull her toward a cell.
She saw that others were down in the cells. Others from different species: vampires, humans, an elf even.
Sous fell to the floor when they shoved her into the cell. She ran just as the cell doors closed and she was locked inside.
She didn't have her wand just her two seals and she was sure that it was her father's power that saved her back there.
"They gone eat us!"
Sous took hold of the bars and looked in the direction of the comment.
"Hmm hmm. They gone cut us up and put us in a stew."
Sous could see through the dim light coming from fire pillars that it was one of the humans talking. When she looked at the others, they bowed their heads, not meeting her eyes.
The man was old, seemed to be missing an eye, and barely had teeth in his mouth. He licked his crusted dirt ridden lips. "Hmm hmm, they ain't gone eat me. I'm too sickly. I'm for dire times."
"All times are dire times," said a vampire. Sous saw his cell was different than hers and the others. His cell had even more tiny bars to prevent him from flying away by dispersing into bats.
Sous stepped away from her bars and sat on the bench. She supposed it was time to try out the other seal on her neck.
On the ground, there was a stick. She picked it up and began to sharpen the point by extracting her claws. Come sundown, she would use it to stab herself in the neck. Her goal wasn't to put up a fight but to simply escape. She would go somewhere else for the potions or she would tell Shadow back in Thornside Village.
"The King is a selfish one."
Sous jumped. She hadn't realized someone was in the cell with her. She laid the stick down on the bench and peered into the darkness. An elf came forward. Tall, longer hair that was split on the ends, his hair dry and damaged, filled with dirt and debris.
"That's what he calls himself anyway," said the elf, looking up at the cell's window. "He starves his kingdom, wanting all resources to go to him, his family, and his army." Sous listened to the elf as he spoke with such a softness to his tone. "He's killing his own wolves."
Sous was starting to think this mission Shadow had given her was more than just obtaining potions. So when the sun went down, she picked up her spike, and dabbed it into her neck.
A dark red flash filled the cells, the same color as the demon she drained to get this power. The bandit worked with knives so her power was that of blades for her first seal. And as the red light disappeared and the smoke cleared, Sous stood the same but her arms were heavy. When she looked down, she saw brown scales that fed into a large two clamp claw for both ofn her arms. When she side stepped and looked into a puddle, her upper body was not that of her but of a being with four horns that curved sticking out of her head. Her fangs hung about two feet from her mouth, her hair was dark and long and her body was covered in the same scales. Her legs and feet however were the same as Sous'.
From Sous' frog shaped mouth, she let out scream. She awoke all those down in the cells.
With new power and force, she burst through her cell, the bricks collapsing. She ran through the cells breaking them all open, not sure nor caring who she was letting out. She was primal, animalistic only going on the need to cause havoc and destruction.
Sous ran up the stairs, destroying the walls as she did. She jumped upward when she saw a guard and landed her claw in his gut. The guard hadn't any time to react. She opened her claw and tore his body into threes.
She left bloody foot prints behind her as she ran with the prisoners for the exit. The guards turned into wolves and aimed at her. She picked one up and tore it in half, throwing its body parts out. It tumbled down the castle stairs.
Sous stepped to one wolf who pissed itself when Sous appoarced it. Sous slammed her claw on it, squashing it like a bug. Guts and blood spilled out.
She descended the steps slowly, waiting for something. She walked down the main street, the citizens didn't scream, didn't run away. Their bodies was just too weak for all of that.
"ROAAAARRR!"
'Roar', wolves don't roar.
Sous turned in the direction of the sound and saw the beast that she saw yesterday. It stood on the castle tops with several others that looked just like it. Its seals shined brightly in the night sky, it had just a loin cloth to cover it's bits. And...and it had wings.
Sous stepped forward and leaped hundreds of feet into the hair. She landed on the rooftop of a building and then leaped again, heading toward the castle. She slammed her claw down where the wolf beast was.
She missed, causing the tip of the castle to crumble into dust and bricks. The wolf beast flew into the air, all of them. They howled and whimpered at Sous. Sous kept her eye on all of them but it was the Alpha she wanted.
Sous leaped forward and struck the Alpha who blocked her attacked with its arm. She kicked its head while still in the air. The Alpha grabbed her foot and twisted her leg, causing her whole body to twist. Sous twisted upward with her own momentum and got loose from the Alpha's grip.
With her frog mouth, her tongue shot out and coiled itself around the beast's neck. The beast was quick to cut the tongue with his own claws.
Sous' tongue coiled back in her mouth, blood spilling from it.
From behind, two beast took hold of Sous' shoulder and flew her toward the sky. She bit one of them and with her tongue having regenerated, took the other beast by the neck and threw him two football yards away.
Her claw grabbed the beast. She squeezed him and inch by inch, she watched his eyes pop out then burst. She watched blood spill from his orifices like ears, nose, and even his ass. Her claw cut deep into him until finally.
Snip!
He too was cut in half.