[Fiction] Pow wow: Fourth of July.

[Wakinyan]

Exploring Totem's coat sends shudders coursing along him to his tail and back. Instinctive low growls accompany it as he leans into Salamander's touch. In the privacy that he created Totem's breathing begins to turn to a pant.

He breathes her in, she smells to good to him. He watches her with one eye almost like a T-rex who eyes up two helpless kids stuck in a jeep would. She looks to good to him. He realizes now that he is in trouble. His tongue slithers out and runs along the nape of her beautiful neck. It moves and traces the art that was not long ago placed upon her.

In a moment the beast pounces from the abyss. Pupils dilate, feathers and fur raise and fluff the signs would be obvious to a zoologist. A male set and determined to pursue a female, to claim her.

The paw holding the teenage girl moves, gripping her a bit tighter in his grasp. The flames that play across Juri's form suddenly spread up the animal that holds her. Almost like fire spreading across the floor of a gas soaked room. Much like Juri's flame it is cold but, it roars like a bonfire until the Griffin is engulfed in raging fire.

Mighty wings outstretch to their fullest glory. Revealing Totem and Juri to the world again. The fiery beast roars out, forcing the booms of the Plasmaworks to cower from him. It demands all attention and it is what he wants. Holding the small woman close to him like a coveted possession he scans the area. Showing the world that what he holds is his paw and dares challenge. The moment is as intimidating as it is inspiring to see. Nothing could look more majestic or more fearsome.

Then with another earth shattering roar, sounding more of triumph than a call of challenge. The Griffin coils and launches like a comet into the night sky, mixing briefly among the Plasma then passing them to climb higher in the night sky. Once high overhead, wings beat the air leaving swirling fire trailing behind him. Sailing off into the night with Salamander firmly tucked into his grasp heading deep into the Badlands.

Air rushes past as huge wings flap hard to put as much distance as it can from the crowd of onlookers. Totem holds the girl close against him but does not harm her by it. After the roars he is silent for a long moment as the air streams around them.

Finally with a voice quavering from the war raging inside him he speaks. "Juri..." He struggles to speak in a rough almost unintelligible growling. "If you can get away from me go... I can't stop." Looking into his eyes they flash from hardened eyes of a male lost in lust to that of a scared and worried emotional wreck on the verge of tears.

"I'm sorry."

[Lemmy Chillmeister]

Lemmy looks at ronin for a moment and then grins, "It's all good dude. Shit happens, the world rolls on." He offers his hand to shake and then the roar peels out across the gathering, "SHIT!!!!!" Lemmy hollers as he throws himself to the ground.

[ronin]

ronin's hand had already been retracted by the time Lemmy had offered to shake it. Not because the gesture had been rescinded, no. ronin smelled something for the briefest of moments, some barely perceptible fluctuation in the fabric of the moment. He had only a moment to react, and in that moment, he was gone.

If it hadn't meant a cluster-fuck that would have killed dozens if not scores of people, ronin would have challenged Totem right then and there, as his bellow invited. A second's appraisal told him, though, that if fought here and now, this would be a fight with no winners. Watching from nowhere, he opted to let it go until Totem had cleared himself from the scene, unless he made a motion to attack anyone else. Thousands of thoughts raced through his battle-seasoned mind. Things he had noticed for no apparent reason upon his arrival suddently took on a deep significance. The lay of the land, obstacles in the vicinity, the number of people in the immediate area, wind speed, temperature, time...all factors in the tragic theatre of warfare, signs that ronin had learned to read over hundreds of years of having them burned into the fabric of his very soul.

This is what he lived for. And in that instant, he recognized it.

Totem took off like a shot, clutching Juri in his talons as the beating of immense wings carried them off into the night.

ronin kept them in his sights, steeled himself, and gave chace by way of rapid-fire teleportation.

"Totem!!", he growl-yelled when he had at last attained cohesive sway with Totem's flight, the man himself keeping aloft using his own powers. "Stop this now, or I will!"

[Singularity]

Singularity smiles at Codex's remark, "It looks like they will let anyone in, does it not?"

His head snaps back forward in response to Totem's roar and his white clothing snaps tight against his defined body. He tracks the griffon's flight into the air, his jovial expression replaced with a cold look of precision and focus. "Can you still read his mind, Codex," he asks, eyes still trained on the flying beast, "This might just be something innocent and I do not want to assume." He lowers his body slightly as ronin flies up to intercept, "Oh no, I think this is going to get a lot worse very quickly. Please tell me you can stop any of them before it explodes into something very bad."

[Sakurako Hino]

Sakurako sees Totem launch himself up into the air with his roar. She is locked. Again. His roar sending her back to a spot long ago when she forsake the very name she is still known occasionally as. Out of cowardice...

"Not again... please not again..."

[DigiGeist]

DigiGeist wonders why the meterlogical fireworks stopped. Then he sees the crowd move back from his vantage point across the lake. Then he sees Totem shoot up, a faint roar is heard.

"Damn it..."

He knows something happened. But what... He starts to think and can only come up with one thing to get there quickly.

"Feets... don't fail me now..."

He starts running, and... Somehow starts running across the lake!

[Ghostwriter]

Codex closes her eyes, tears streaming down her cheeks. She has no choice, or people will die.

Her anima banner blurs as she utilises her telepathy.

"Got him," she murmurs before throwing her head back and screaming eerily.

The sound hurtles towards Totem, focused into a single psychic attack.

[Wakinyan]

Pushing hard against the night air leaving the festival as quickly as his wings could do so. Totem kept juri tucked close into his chest covering her with his paw and fur to the point where she could almost not be seen.

His challenger approached quickly. His eyes locked onto the smaller male as he screamed for Totem to release what was his by right. All he heard was a rivals challenge and he answered in kind.

Barrel rolling the Griffin lashed out with his hind paws to rake, kick the other male away from him. He folded his wings and broke into a spiraling dive to gain speed and accelerate away from the pursuer.

It would have been a perfect text book maneuver if not for the wailing screech that engulfs his senses hammering at his mind and forcing the beast to roar in pain. For a moment he is lost in hazy white mist as his mind reels from a onslaught of pain.

The stunned Griffin regains his senses in the last possible moment before plunging headlong into the earth. Pulling out of his dive and skirting the rocky desert hills his rear paws kick off hard propelling him high into the night sky again. He bellows in frustration and pain, the other male must have struck him but he didn't see it. His anger grows through the fog of stabbing pain in his mind. Still he keeps Salamander close and safe as he can against him. Letting her go cannot be an option.

[Bastian]

A stark naked and rushed-seeming Bastian materializes at Codex's side. He is more transparent than normal, though he pulses with life-energy.

To Codex he says,

"Sister, what is the distress?"

His eyes catch the distant movement of Totem arching back up into the sky. His eyes blink, he licks his lips and gasps,

"Oh, my!"

[Singularity]

Singularity narrows his eyes slightly as Codex screams into the night and strains to keep the griffon in sight over the darkened kilometers. "I could hold him until he calmed down, Regan, if he did not have Juri."

His brow rises quickly and turns back to Codex just to see Bastian appear mid-air. He stays silent and vigilant, waiting to see what the new arrival does.

[DigiGeist]

DigiGeist sees a rock in the water, and jumps unto it at top speed and jumps, his foreward momentum and leap carry him to the shallows on the other side. Knee-deep in water, he wades to shore. Looking to see if someone familiar is around to get some info on what's going on.

[ronin]

Blood pounded like an industrial press in ronin's ears. His challenge to Totem wasn't an entreaty; it was a challenge. The gruff albeit calm, smiling and cheerful man of only a moment ago was gone, replaced with something not so much dark and sinister as stern, resolved and engrossed in his bloody business.

All of a man's work is bloody business, a voice that was not ronin's own echoed within his skull.

His nostrils flared, his brow furrowed, and his muscles tensed into a sheet of vascular steel in preparation for the imminent onslaught. He held his fists aloft in front of his face, refusing to draw his blade. He hoped that he would not need it, but it was potential he had seriously underestimated Totem.

No, he decided. No, he didn't. Totem was an altogether different breed of beast, but he could still bleed. ronin snarled, gritting his teeth behind what mind have been the most clever little smile. At last!!, that subdermal voice within was unheard.

The mythic form raced towards ronin with savage force, rolling forward furiously to execute an attack. The nameless man calculated his movement in his mind, preparing his counterattack, a strike that even in his battle-lust, would prove nonfatal if it struck true. The power within him burned and screamed and hissed, begging for a release, but obstinately, the man inside him holding the sanguine beast at bay, he denied it. And hoped he would not need it.

Without warning, Totem broke off his attack, reeling from some unknown horror as he snapped and thrashed downward. In the faint distance, he heard what must have been a woman's scream, a peal of utter helplessness and misery. He was certain it could not have come from Juri. Someone must have attacked him, but from where or who, he could not tell. The barely noticeable blip of psychic backlash emanating from Totem before his plummet to the ground spoke of someone tampering with Totem's mind, an idea ronin found immensely frustrating, to the point of anger. Children should stay out of warfare, and anyone interfering with this battle increased the chance of civilian casualties with their every action. ronin accounted for other novas joining the fray, of course, but hoped the cloud cover would keep them at bay. He swore with frustration to find fortune not on his side.

Below him, through the haze of light snowfall, Totem bellowed with rage and pain, and ronin steeled himself for another rush. If only he would move Juri somewhere other than against his chest...

[Ghostwriter]

*Totem! Regan yells psychically. SNAP OUT OF IT! YOU'LL HURT JURI AND YOUR TRIBE!*

[Wakinyan]

A growl of the beast is all that Regan gets in response from her friends mind.

Ronin assesses the situation, he sees the beast seem to freeze frame in time for a only moment. Seeing yet another attack upon the creature he seizes the opening. Winking out of existence only to reappear on the beast's back.

Quantum surges through him as he tries to peel away the Griffin's protective coat but it refuses to yield, leaving Ronin only long enough time to mutter "Shit." before a claw rakes across him drawing gouges across his leathery face, and nearly knocking him from the beasts back. before he even has a chance to recover the same talons rip across him again slicing his chest and batting him from the animal, sending him spinning for several meters in the air.

Enough is enough, he cannot risk this stupid male harming his mate. Totem dives to the deck amid the boulders and scrub. He hits the earth hard causing it to rumble it's discomfort. With his paw still cradling the girl he deposits her behind a boulder on the ground. He takes a dangerous wasted moment to examine her. His eyes still burn with desire but show an honest concern for her. He turns back to face the opponent in the sky. Standing tall upright and proud, shielding Salamander behind him as he growls and waits for the attacker to come at him again.

[Sakurako Hino]

Sakurako sees Ronin get hit... Then something snaps...

"No... Not this time... Not him... NOT AGAIN!!!"

Sakurako flares up, as every last ounce of energy she can pull in moves through her body.

She feels the barriers shatter.

She runs over to a plasma charge launcher, and disengages it from the network in one pull. She then aims it toward Totem.

"Damn you... Damn you Ronin, why to you have to be so wreckless!!!"

Sakurako can't fire. Ronin is all over the place on the Griffin, and Juri is in a precarious spot... Sakurako can't do a thing... She sees the trio hit the dirt. Juri depositied off near some rocks, while Totem and Ronin are within eyelashes of each other.

"What can I do... What am I doing... these things are nothing more than pyrotechnics..."

She puts down the mortar, then makes a decision...

"I'm jumping in."

[ronin]

That's right, Totem, the bleeding samurai says to himself. Drop the girl, come play with me.

His clothes torn away by Totem's vicious assault, ronin stands before the gryphon, hovering in the chill nighttime air, bare-chested, his torso crying tears of steaming blood onto the ground far below. The kid had chops, he had to admit. It had been a long, long time since anyone had so much has scratched him. ronin was pleased, and impressed. Lightning flashed for a glimmering instant behind him, emphasizing his horrible transition. ronin gives his opposition a look of righteous condemnation, and with a nod to the heavens above, the deep, bloody rungs cut across his body begin to seal, sewing themselves back together as if he were clay, forming his body back into the seamless, gruff, hairy frame of a man. Totem could not be sure if the scars on ronin's Torso were given by himself or by others, for the marks he left behind were shouted down by the cacophany of blade-kisses left over the entirety of his opponent's body, a symphony of steel written into his ancient skin.

ronin stared deep into Totem's eyes a moment, an apparent standstill as they sized each other up. Creeping fog shifted all about in time to the snow, roiling about the ground and threatening to engulf the scene.

He looked down at Juri -- or what he could see of her, knowing where she was -- and without taking his eyes off Totem, attempted to speak to her mind.

Is this what you want?

[Vox Via]

Looking to sky he let out small sigh. Maybe it was not meant to end in peace. Maybe whatever the Utopian did interfered with the time.

"Codex, I see you are ignoring your own rules, and you call me a poser? Utopians are truly funny people."

He made his was calm to Sakurako.In a verry soft and gentle tone.

"My sister, everything is alright.You nor will anyone else be needlessly harmed.You have nothing to fear."

[Bastian]

Bastian blinks for a moment, then vanishes.

He reappears beside Salamander, but his eyes are focused on Totem. He is far more opaque now, but with half a buckskin clad leg sticking out of a boulder, he is obviously not quite solid.

{Telepathically - if this works}

**Salamander, I am Bastian. What do you want to happen here? Do you care for him enough to stay? If not, I can send you back to the others. Your choice. What do you want me to do?**

[Juri 'Salamander' McClendon]

Things have happened so quickly she scarcely has time to understand them. On the ground, the roar, being held tightly and then suddenly going airborne with Totem above her. The feeling of his body moving against her as his wings pulled them through the air was almost hypnotizing. Every fantasy movie in the world seemed to have a moment where the main character is carried by a large mythological creature as it flew, and here she was actually experiencing it!

Totem turns his head towards her, his beak opening and closing a few times like he was trying to speak to her.

The roar of the passing air made it impossible to clearly hear what he was saying. That's something the movies never go into, the faster you go the harder it is to hear anything other than air rushing across your ears. Even tucked up against his chest didn't buffer that enough for her to understand what he said, and he had a powerful voice. She couldn't read the movements of his beak like reading lips either.

What if, if, she was in danger? Was he trying to warn her? Initially, she thought he might be losing it like he did at the XWF match all those months ago. That roar and pose on the ground was pretty damn intimidating. Now she wasn't so sure. It didn't make sense that he'd warn her if he intended her harm.

Communication was going to be useless until they got the ground. If she had to, she'd defend herself when they touched down. Everything burns, after all, if it gets hot enough. If she had to get away, she'd just toast one of her sandals and transmit through it once she wasn't in danger of falling. And her arms were pretty well pinned against her side for the moment anyway, so she might as well just enjoy the ride for the moment.

Except now she was nervous. What the hell was happening, anyway?

Direction and angle changed and suddenly they were in a dive. Her stomach tightened with the same feeling she got riding a roller coaster, attached to another object's inertia as she currently was.

Once they weren't falling anymore, she could feel sharp movements from Totem's body, quick and harsh. The flight became disorientating to her, moving in sudden directions and with jarring jerks and slips. She felt jostled and perilously close to being dropped, but she had no clue where was what any more. The horizon and the ground turned and dipped and vanished as Totem moved above her.

The ground rushed up fast, terrifyingly fast. Were they going to crash? There'd be nothing she could do if that was the case. But no, at the last minute everything stopped moving and he set her down.

On the ground again. Great feeling. She feels more comfortable now, where she isn't going to fall and smash her skull open if he dropped her. What a ride though, what an adrenaline-pusher. Whoo! She leans back against the boulder to catch her breath. Not quite was she was expecting from her first meeting with him, but still a thrill.

Out of nowhere, someone appears out of the rock beside her. She is startled, and backs away quickly in a messy crabwalk.

A Sioux man. A ghost? He's partially in the rock, partially out of the rock, like a ghost? He says nothing to her, but is instead looking directly at Totem on the otherside of the boulder.

She turns her head to see Totem getting ready to engage someone. Ronin?

The ghost is warning her, then? Letting her know that Totem, what, needs help?

Is that what was happening in the air moments ago?? Was he defending her from ronin? Was ronin attacking him trying to get to her? She had made a lot of people pissed at her, some of the were apparently cold-blooded killers. Did one of them really want her dead?

Ronin was there, after all. She did stop paying attention to him, and Totem could have seen him better than she could. Did he try something while she wasn't looking, and that caused Totem to cry out and take her into the air?

She is angry now. Furious. What did this bastard do to Totem? She calls the fire to her, cloaking and bathing her body in it. She rises to her feet, nodding once respectfully to the helpful Sioux ghost who aided her.

She screams into the night, and the fire surrounding her builds and builds in power and intensity, sending waves of heat and light in all directions. An inferno centered on her, the flames extend into the night sky and outward to the sides, appearing almost wyrm-like in shape and size. Great elongated neck and taut-wings ready to strike. She holds the fire in that shape as she walks forward towards the confrontation.

The sheer heat oozing off of her is causing the nearby foliage to smolder. Soon it will combust.

Looking at ronin, "Just what the fuck do you think you're doing, you fucktard?"

[ronin]

To Juri's verbal assault, ronin can but snort, a look between exasperation and resignation on his face. He lowers his eyes and sighs, then speaks to Juri, in a voice that is loud, strong, and gruff, but subdued.

"The truth will out in the end", he says, and in the literal blink of an eye, he is gone.

[Sakurako Hino]

Sakurako stops in her tracks.

"Is this common sense... I mean I gotta help him... Perhaps I'm right, I should hold back, unless called on..."

She starts stepping away from the scene. Hoping indeed things work out.

"No, this sort of thought is silly, cowardly... But... Ronin hadn't called on me to..."

She stops in place, not even sure what to do. The thought that popped into her head made sense, yet didn't.

"Yes... Everything is alright..."

Finally convinced, she moves off.

[Wakinyan]

A Multi-ton boulder goes hurtling past the floating form of Ronin.Totem steadies himself as he gathers more huge stones to throw. Still trying to shake off the white mist of pain and haze that burns in his head, growling constantly now as he protects Salamander behind him.

He hears her scream and turns to help her. Flames that comes to life around her tells him he is wrong. She doesn't need help. She is like him now larger and as fierce fire leaping from her small body showing him her true form. He relishes the thought of breeding with such a fine strong female but he realizes the usurper must be dealt with.

Salamander like him is rejecting the male challenger. He listens to her roar at the floating male and is pleased at her tenacity, he chose well. Maybe the lesser male will leave now that she has rejected him. Maybe then he can have her in peace, otherwise he must kill him.

Then in the glare of the fire he sees yet another male near his fiery dragoness. He curses them all for following him. They are flies who buzz around ones eyes on a hot summer day, clouding vision. If she wanted to mate with them she would have came to them!

He prepares to let loose the boulder grasped in his hand when he notices that at least for the moment the first challenger is gone. Now what to do about the new one.

[Bastian]

Bastian follows Juri into the sky. He knows that she doesn't understand him, but she does seem to have risen up to challange someone, and he goes forth to support her. He glows softly with ectoplasmic/etheral energies and rises up to follow her. His understated beauty cloaked by the True Rebirth of Fire ahead of him.

Bastian catches less than elegant challenge by Juri and catches ronin's withdrawal from the field. As he rises up from behind Juri so that Totem can see him, he lowers his head and turns it aside as an obvious guesture of not meeting eyes. Simultaniously, he raises up both of his ghostly hands, palm-outward, in a sign that he carries no weapons.

Having failed to contact Juri, the Ghostlike Bastian attempts to mind-talk with Totem.

{In his native Souix}

**Brother, has the danger passed?"

[Wakinyan]

Totem's mind is a swirling mass of vibrant emotions and powerful feelings. Pain stabs at him while unbridled rage and lust roars like a hurricane within his mind. And like a hurricane the eye of the storm is calm and peaceful. Concern and emotion for Salamander's safety his mind's eye creates her in exquisite detail within the peaceful center.

The rest of the mindscape is torn asunder by the powerful storm. Something dances amid the storm and howling winds. With little effort it seems at home within the fury. It dances in the shadow. A small lithe female form, graceful but with a dark and terrible menace about it that seems easily as dangerous as the storm it dances within.

If Totem can speak he cannot be heard above the howling wind. All that Bastian receives as he looks within his mind is the terrible storm.

[Bastian]

Bastian takes but a moment of selfish pleasure to dance in the emotional storm before responding,

{Still in Souix}

**Brother Totem, the Pawnee have crossed back over the river fewer than when they came against us. The Crow hide in their teepees like women. The BlueCoats have gone back to their home to fight one another. Now is the time we should dance by the fires and celebrate the hunt. You have won.**

Bastian doesn't fight the fires of rage and pain but instead choses to fortify the feelings of love and pleasure that also exist there.

He magnifies the warmth of Totem's feels from having his woman standing at his side and of them both driving his enemies far away. The pain and anger are used to feed this new, euphoric feeling of success and triumph. He is hurt, but he is also victorious.

As he does so to Totem, Bastian also speaks to Juri.

"Salamander, he rides a terrible, yet beautiful emotional storm that resides within his soul. The Spark of his power is working strongly, and you are still in some danger. He wants you, and wants to be with you, but ... there is also another with whom you must contend, ... or learn to be at peace with."

[Ghostwriter]

*Bastian, can you keep him calm?* Codex sends, her telepathic voice more than a little worried. *He won't respond to me. Of course, my Dolorous Cry has that effect on people. I didn't know how else to respond... Hell of a lot more people and all than at the XWF.*

Chagrin ripples through her mind-voice. *I'm swallowing my pride and asking for help here. I don't like the idea of killing my friend, and I'd sooner he was kept out of Bahrain. Never mind me being a Utopian. I overreacted, and I don't want him to hate me when it's over. Help him. Please.*

[Juri 'Salamander' McClendon]

ronin's departure confuses her. She hadn't expected that reaction out of him at all. And what did those spooky words mean? She is missing something.

A new voice now speaks to her, the Sioux spirit. She listens to his words, but they, too, confuse her.

"My thanks for your help. I mean no disrespect, but your words are a bit cryptic. I'm in danger? What other?"

[Wakinyan]

Standing at the edge of Juri's flames letting it lick at his massive frame Totem watches the newcomer curiously. He has submitted to him yet he still speaks to her.

Speak to her..

He doesn't stop them, he looks down at Salamander wrapped in her fire and his eyes soften and go wide. He has no wish to harm her but still has every intention on making her his own this night.

He takes a step forward but falters. The tons of stone in his paws fall to either side of him. Then the Griffin slumps onto all fours and shudders. His mind begins trying to mend itself from the brutal assault that hammered it. The Beast inside howels it's victory as the damage uproots the consciousness that held it at bay. Yet deep within a voice screams into the wind desperately wanting to be heard against the deafening gale.

[Bastian]

(To Codex)

**There is no pride to be swallowed, Sister. We are all the same Breed. I am doing what I can by attempting to deflect his rage and pain by calling upon his own strengths of love and devotion to Salamander. He must save himself. If things go poorly, I will attempt to shield Salamander, but the rest of you must come quickly to my aid.**

"My apologize, Salamander. Totem's heart burns strongly for you, but he also loves another woman. He is in both a great deal of pain, and conflicted with shame and desire. He holds a pure love for both of you, but is battling himself over a perceived lack of devotion to a single mate."

Turning to face her, Bastian has an odd smile on his face.

"The King of the Skies battles with the man who would wishes a companion to share earth."

Turning back to Totem,

"Or, less cryptically, two women have approached him with more compassion and understanding than he ever hoped to find."

[Sakurako Hino]

Sakurako, seeing things are indeed changing for the better starts slinking away, as the fireworks subside into their finale.

She heads for her small dome that she has used for the festival as her "home base". After disarming the loose plasma charge, and venting it's gas to prevent a misfire, she decides to go to bed.

Before closing the hatch that is a pseudo-airlock (it has no use as one in an atmosphere), she activates a sign. Built into one of the dome walls.

Do not disturb.

[Ghostwriter]

Codex senses the change in Totem's thoughts and grits her teeth, giving Singularity a brief, despairing look.

"No matter what, I love you," she says softly to him - before attempting to channel the emotional storm through herself.

A whirlwind of emotions descends on her as she drains it from Totem's mind, attempting to bring new clarity to the bestial side of him.

*Bastian, help me channel this!* she shrieks silently before the feelings overwhelm her.

Those who are nearby would see the Utopian woman crumple to the ground, her eyes wide and pupils dilated.

[Wakinyan]

The hurricane suddenly reverses its course and the winds rip and wash away from the eye of the storm. Unending rage, lust and raw instinct is torn from its mooring and pushed into Codex's mind ripping at her senses and slashing barriers that she fought so hard to manage herself.

The psychic gale buffets Bastian as it travels from the huge griffin to Codex. There it begins to destroy as much as it is able to in its fury. Amid the wreckage of Totem's mind a small figure approaches as the storm drains from him. The female emerges from the dark wind, scales glistening from a light source that doesn't exist. Silks of a harem dress that hides very little of the athletic form beneath. Apep stands before Bastian and from her forked tongue slithers. "Pigeon is not yours to toy with or save. He is the beast." Then the beautiful reptile falls to ash and blows away with the rest of debris.

The storm seems to leave yet, it continues to rumble distantly on the horizon neverly truly to be banished. The mental image of Juri at the center of the mindscape still sits placidly on her rock. Fire circling her as she sits in the Lotus position, order and calm from one who is fire. Nearby in Totem's wrecked mind scape a bronze skinned young man huddles in a ball. His naked form is cut and slashed from head to toe. His long dark hair that was once a head of raven black braids is dirty and tousled. He whispers "Regan, why?"

With a lurch Totem's mind is his own again. Hurting like hell he looks down at himself, the paws and body of a griffin are still there. He is still every bit what he was before the beast took him but now his head is burning. His friends have only given him a reprieve and delayed it taking him. He looks toward Salamander and Bastian. His eyes begin to fill with shame and he looks away.

"I'm sorry Salamander."

[Bastian]

**CODEX, NO!!!!**

His voice whispers to the fading image,

{ancient aramaic}

"I know, Tempest, I know ..."

"Totem. Stay with us, Brother."

Bastian's voice is both desperate and stern in equal measure.

With that, he vanishes from sight.

A flash of thought later, he appears at Codex's side, kneels, and looks down at her face. His hand graces her forhead and flares. Codex's aura flares in response, then dims. Bastian grimaces in pain.

His hand reaches down into her head, the seems to suck in Bastian's entire body, which vanishes inside of her. Then, Codex's body begins to glow softly and becomes slightly translucent.

[Ghostwriter]

The library looks like it has been struck by a massive cyclone. Books and images lie scattered everywhere, and in the eye of the storm, the slight figure of Codex clings to a pair of images, one a tall, black-haired woman with vaguely Asian features and the other a perfect silver statue of a man.

Her psychic image has changed since the last time Bastian perceived her mind. She has lost the pudgy librarian look that she once possessed, and is now closer to her physical appearance except that the skin is more a pale gold than parchment-hued, and her hair is the colour of molten gold. Here, her looks are much improved on the aged handsomeness that she possesses in the real world; she is lithe and fit, but her eyes are ancient with the knowledge of civilisations.

Her rose and beige clothing is torn from the wind and the feathers that sprout randomly from her skin, claws extending from her fingers. Her eyes flicker between blue and hawk-like and her voice is a mingling of her medium soprano and the scream of a raptor.

"Help me," she whispers. "I can't hold on. Help me..."

The glowing figure that is Bastian somehow manages to wade through the chaos of her mind without stepping on anything, as if Codex manages to clear a path for him in her own mind.

He gets close to her and places a hand on each of hers, keeping hers on the statues.

Suddenly, they are one for what seems like an eternity. The emotional maelstorm spirals into them, like water into a funnel. They separate, but Codex realises that he is not only in her mind, but also in her body.

Her psychic self has changed dramatically. Narrow wings tapered like a kestrel's but coloured a rich golden-brown sprout from her shoulders and her eyes, still ancient, have turned into a raptor's gold-flecked brown. Her face has lost years from it, and seems no older than a teenager's.

"Thank you for healing me," she says. "I owe you one."

[Lemmy Chillmeister]

Lemmy stands back up as the noise abates and turns to see what is going on. The entire spectacle unfolds before him. As he stands there the wail and cry of pain and ectasy starts up again, unnoticed to all but Lemmy because of the screams in the crowd and Totem's own roars. A smooth hand snakes across Lemmy's shoulders.

"Hey lover, I hear the noise and decided to show up. That prettybird, Totem?"

"Yeah." Lemmy's voice is hushed, watching the magnificance of Juri explode.

"Nice. That Salamander?"

"Yeah."

"You want?"

"Oh yeah."

"Me too. Prettybird too. This could be fun."

[Bastian]

{{Note: Codex's body is speaking, but taking on different tones}}

"You owe me nothing more than than to live your life well, sister. That is all that I have ever wanted from you.

In Codex's mind, Bastian reaches down to the foot of Raptor/Codex and slips a book from underneath her. He picks it up and thumbs through it then he shows her the book. It is the "Illiad".

"A piece of your foundation, sister," he adds with a smile.

Bastian hands the book over to Codex and steps back. As he does so, he fades away from Codex's mind and shimmers back into the real world. When he stops, he is inches away from her, staring into her face.

"I had best check in on Salamander and Totem."

{To Totem}

**Brother Totem, Codex is okay. Can I talk to you some more?**

[Ghostwriter]

In the real world, Codex's body ripples in its glowing, translucent state as she falls through Bastian. When she solidifies, the glow ripples along her back, sprouting into a pair of narrow, tapered wings coloured the rich golden-brown of her psychic image's wings.

She suddenly overbalances as she fails to compensate for her new back-ornaments, landing on her hands but catching herself in time. She looks up dazedly at Bastian and Singularity before giving a weak smile.

"I didn't expect this to happen..." she whispers as she tries to get up. "I think I'll live. Thanks, Bastian, for not letting me become a vegetable."

[Juri 'Salamander' McClendon]

She watches the Sioux ghost. He goes through many changes, both in posture, tongue, and solidity. Then Totem is apologizing to her, the Sioux man is leaving and vanishing into the air.

"Apologize," she asks him, still burning brightly into the night air, "for what? What's happened here? I am soooo confused. What happened with ronin just a second ago? Who was that spirit? He knew both our names. I'm so lost."

[Wakinyan]

**Not now please Bastian. I need to be alone with her.**

Totem moves closer as Salamander's fire flickers across him. He ignores it to speak to her.

"I guess Ronin was trying to stop me. Stop me from." He pauses and inhales deeply before continuing. "I let myself get carried away with you. I was going to take you as my mate." He says it bluntly and watches her closely. "He was just trying to stop me from forcing myself on you even if he was over zealous.” He stops to let that sink in then sputters. “ Please don't leave yet I am not going to hurt you. I need to be honest and tell you what I can. You deserve that."

The big beast suddenly looks withdrawn, shuffling his front paws nervously. "I have trouble dealing with my instincts. You saw my XWF match I lost it then, I wanted to kill Ravana. This time when I saw you, inhaled you, touched you. I wanted to mate with you. Enough so that I took you like I did. As for the dark haired ghost his name is Bastian he's been hanging around the Pow wow sampling the baselines girls. He helped with the opening dance as well. A telepath, he and the Team Tomorrower named Codex went into my mind and helped me regain control. I think it hurt Codex badly."

Totem leans back and grabs a scrub brush outside of Juri’s conflagration. Thrusting it into the inferno mindless of his arm it bursts into flame in front of her, offering her a way to leave. "There I have said what you needed to hear. I want you to stay, I still need you but if you need to go, go now. I will never hold it against you."

[Singularity]

Sivler eyes widen as Singularity watches Bastian's return and then narrow in response to the Terat's subsequent leap into Codex's body. His feet shift apart and his fists begin to clench with enough force to create diamonds. Silver energy leaps into existance around his hands, hissing and crackling as the air is ripped apart at the molecular level.

The confused bystanders near the Utopians instinctually begin to back away, one nova reeling in the throes of something unseen and the other holding rock solid as bioenergy steams from his hands. Singularity's head remains tilted slightly forward, eyes locked onto Codex and all expression has left his face. Energy subtly begins to build around him, driving even more unease into the few baselines bold enough to stay close. His solid body seems to fill more and more with power, waiting to be released and directed into destruction. The few bystanders bold enough to stay close enough will later comment on how immobile, how frozen Singularity seemed... except for the fire burning in his silver eyes. The burning quantum around his hands might be an obvious expression of the power building in him, but only those silver eyes show the true level of rage and intensity waiting to be unleashed.

Singularity watches Bastian return to the physical world and imperceptively turns the laser-like focus to him. When Codex solidifies and falls to the ground, Singularity almost appears instantaneously next to her. The howling silver energy disappears from his right hand as he reaches down and gently helps her up, *Please tell me you're ok, Regan, pleasepleaseplease.*

The fear, relief, and adoration rushing over the psychic link isn't reflected on Singularity's face as raging silver eyes remain locked on Bastian. The still hissing left hand fills the background as Singularity finally speaks to Bastian with an intensity unseen before, "What... happened?"