'Sure, putting out a fire with fire is an excellent strategy,' Nāga groused.

Ora's lips curled into a humorless smile. He'd burn down Roma, the secret headquarters of the USCA, and himself with it, turn it into his pyre till the blaze reduced Oppenheimer to cinders too.

A faint, non-perceptible movement disturbed Ora's tranquil fantasies. He stopped the ax mid-fall and his nostrils flared.

His forked tongue snaked out to taste the scents as a blur burst from the underbrush. He glimpsed gray pupils, wild with rage.

As the young male lunged forward, a makeshift blade glinting in his fist, Ora pivoted.

His frenzied attacker didn't notice his lazy maneuver.

Shifting slightly, he anchored himself as he grabbed Felix's forearm. As he twisted it, the ulna split. In a blink, he shoved the werewolf face down to the ground and pinned him with a knee on his backbone.

As Felix's scream echoed through the trees, cawing ravens flapped their wings as they flew off in a panic.

"You do know what this clumsy pounce cost you, boy?" When he spied the sharpened metal piece, he snorted. "Pathetic."

Felix threshed around and slipped free, only to flip and land a weak punch on Ora's abs.

He tightened his core to absorb the strike and seized Felix's clawed wrist. In a fluid motion, he applied pressure until the joint shattered and the tendons tore.

"This is the difference between youth and experience. You act unmindful of the consequences... isn't that why you're here?"

His other hand squeezed Felix's neck to hush his howls and lifted him to dangle his gangly frame in the air.

Felix, whose visage embodied youthful innocence, gasped as tears streamed down his smooth cheeks. His limp arm swung as Ora cut off his windpipe. Determination gave way to desperation. As the rush of adrenaline evaporated and fear replaced fury.

"Do I have your attention, boy? Did you think this through?" This sloppy assassination attempt amused Ora. "Say you succeeded. What next? How would killing me help?"

The transponders embedded in their spinal column would paralyze him as he approached the invisible perimeter. To date, no one had escaped Hellridge.

Ora, too, had speculated how far he could venture before the implant activated. But he resisted the temptation to test the deterrent's efficacy or call his captors' bluff.

'To what end?' Nāga asked, unperturbed by Felix's attack. 'It is foolhardy to try.'

Ora nodded. They had a good reason to live. But so did this idiot.

When Felix tried to kick him, Ora twisted his neck until his vertebrae fractured.

The werewolf fell to Ora's feet. A lifeless heap, his arm, with a splintered ulna sticking out of the torn skin and tissue, continued to bleed.

Ora could have refrained from the final blow, but it was easier to haul the comatose Were than to wrestle with an uncooperative idiot of a wolf.

'Now he is doomed,' Nāga muttered.

Not many mothers and children survived the birthing. If they did, the second birth, the ascension of their beast, caused a fair number to succumb during their first transformation. But of all changelings, the New World Shifters grappled to control their alternate creature form.

'After all, they transform into animals who cannot speak to their Were,' Nāga added. 'Imagine if we couldn't converse.'

Most learned to balance their bestial instincts with the social structure of the integrated packs. Felix hadn't.

He'd taken five lives with no discernible motive, except he was angry. The entitlement of the privileged younger generation here baffled Ora. They experienced few real struggles and were given everything on a platter. No wonder Felix hadn't adjusted to the frugal lifestyle at Styx, a punishment by itself. But their existence here was the antithesis of the well-ordered, civilized packs the USCA boasted about.

Sans any guilt, Felix justified his deeds as an accident or that he'd been provoked. His resentment for those who held him responsible had festered into irrational rampages. Now he'd squandered his last chance to obtain a pardon. The future that awaited Felix was crueler than a quick slaying.

The USCA's penal system was diabolical. He'd underestimated its wickedness initially. Hellridge was purgatory; it offered a slim chance at redemption. But once a delinquent was sentenced to walk past Hell's Gates, they didn't return. It would've been kinder to kill those consigned to the three dreaded prisons, the Mine, Abyss, and Peak, where Irredeemables suffered through their lifetime, serving the USCA. Those locations were way worse than these untamed jungles.

Yet Ora wasted no pity for the youngling and kicked him to vent his frustration. If not for the stupid non-occide rule, he would've finished Felix. Shiftercide was a taboo due to their dwindling population. The Coalition of the Americas droned on about evolving into greater beings. They preached a balance of animal instincts, higher skills, and sensibility.

'And the importance of education. Equality. Following the rules. The value of life, but only of its citizens,' Nāga scoffed.

Ironically, the creator of that bloodless law that protected every shifter had masterminded many a genocide. Caused the collapse of societies. Written tragic tales of unmitigated pain and suffering. He'd inflicted such damage, it paled the misdeed of any other Therianthrope in their history. The ripples of his rebellion had affected their species worldwide.

With a foot, Ora flipped Felix. His eyelids fluttered and his eyeballs rolled within the sockets. As he couldn't shift to heal, he faced a slow recovery with permanent scarring. But werewolves had more brawn than brains.

'It's a fitting penance,' Nāga tittered.

Ora dressed in the tattered jeans and snagged Felix's foot to drag him to the settlement. The sharp rocks, twigs, and debris scraped his scalp, leaving a bloodied trail.

He wondered if Felix acted alone. Frequent ambushes kept him entertained since he had been granted the grandiose title of the infamous 'Alpha X'.

'We ought to mount a head or two on stakes or hang a carcass in the courtyard to quell any brewing revolts,' Nāga suggested.

In the past, he'd gone to such extremes thrice with favorable results, but very unfavorable feedback from their jailers.

As he trudged back, Ora decided this incident was a perfect excuse to remind the sixty-nine miscreants under his charge he was the devil. He guarded the gates of hellholes their leaders had created and he would not tolerate them stepping out of line.

The prisoners of Hellridge would bow to their Alpha or share Felix Hawthorne's dire fate. Someday soon, so would Herod Oppenheimer.

So, what do you make of Ora & Naga?