It's blood for blood and
I've come to eat you alive.

Like Moths to Flames - Bloodsport

A brief blanket of silence settled over the clearing before a yell-turned-howl ripped from Ace. His body shook once, like a full-body shiver, just like I had seen Gallipolis do. Halfway through his yell, he fell to all fours, one moment a man, the next a wolf. He threw his massive head back once more and let out a howl, which was joined by others, dozens as more and more of the group in the field changed from Human to animal. The woods seemed to shake with the sound. I wouldn't have been surprised if the hunters thought better of their attack and turned tail. Unfortunately, they weren't so easily shaken.

The wolves' calls ended just as Ace pounced into the forest's shadow, a moment later a Human scream echoed back to the waiting group, abruptly cut off in death. And then chaos broke. Wolves and men and women were everywhere, running at each other, from each other, fighting or avoiding particular fights, close range, long range. Bolts flew, bodies collided, bones snapped, and something like smoke bombs exploded in small puffs around me...and then I heard the first shot, and then another, and another.

My eyes snapped to the source, a tall man and woman just emerging from the tree line. They shouted orders occasionally, firing at targets and pointing out others. A closer gunshot broke my concentration on the leaders. I had never been in a situation where guns were used, and consequently it seemed strange to hear them now, barbaric, like the noise was an offense to the fight around it, a cheap weapon that stole the skill, the beauty, the art from the kill. There was no grace, no dance with death when guns were involved. It was insulting.

Each gunshot sent a small shock through me, like a tremor, something I couldn't control. I felt James' fire intensify a moment later, burning through my veins and prickling my skin. That's when I realized what the tremors were, when I realized I was feeling what he was. If flinches could be shared, not in the body but in the mind, then I was sure I felt him flinch with each shot, like his mind tightened or braced itself each time the sharp noise reverberated through the clearing.

I felt my Shift shudder after the sixth gunshot. It ripped out of wherever it was kept and then I was running, running to anywhere I saw a hunter, to anywhere it looked like help was needed. The hunter's numbers were clearly more than the pack had expected, which made me glad they had us. The weapons the hunters had gave them the upper hand in many ways too. Where the pack had claws and teeth, the hunters had bullets and bolts. Range was on their side. Luckily Kael and Nevaeh seemed to be evening the field all on their own.

I saw them from the corner of my eye as I drove my elbow down into a man's back, he crumpled at the blow. Kael glanced over, his eyes black pools, and smiled sharp teeth before spinning into the path of a woman with throwing daggers. He had his staff with him, as usual, and made short work of the woman. She fell to the ground after just four blows, her body lying in an unnatural way, her bones no longer holding their proper shape. Kael grinned down at her before moving to his next.

Just as in training, Kael was all brute force, the complete opposite of Nevaeh. She spun and twisted, flipping over opponents with a grace that made her look more like an entertainer, a dancer in a circus, than a killer, though the trail of still bodies behind her begged to differ.

I felt oddly proud of my Clan members, and envious. I wanted what they had. I wanted to see what I could do, really do. Part of me knew exactly what to do, but then there was another part that doubted my every move. My mind couldn't keep up with my body and it was throwing off the movements I knew I could execute, the plans I knew I could carry out. It was frustrating, but I couldn't get my mind in sync with the rest of me no matter how I tried.

In training it was all so natural, every movement seemed to connect with the next, it was innate. But out here everything was chaos and something in me, even with my Shift's aid, just couldn't quite finish, couldn't quite follow through. I was pulling my punches, and I knew it.

Suddenly a pulse slid through my mind. Something was disturbing the string connecting James and myself, something was warning me. I looked around, trying to find him, but he was lost in the confusion around me. The woman from earlier caught my attention then, the one who had shouted the first orders. Her arm rose from her hip slowly, holding something dark...a gun. I followed her eyes but I already knew, her mind screamed it.

Take out the biggest threat.

The world seemed to slow as she aimed, as James' eyes met hers just as my own found him, and then the unbelievable happened, he froze. It was only a second, but a second is a lifetime to a bullet.

I saw the shot fly, I saw it cut into him, I heard his sharp intake of breath, I saw the blood fall. He dropped to a knee, one arm clutching his chest, vainly trying to keep the blood from pouring out, to stop his veins from emptying. And then there were so many hunters converging, I lost sight of him.

With a gasp that tore at my throat I was back, standing in the field, looking at James as he stood frozen before the woman with the gun. It hadn't happened yet, it hadn't been real. Everything seemed to slow again, and just like in my vision I saw the bullet fly as I heard the harsh noise of the gun. I felt James' mind flinch and my heart dropped. It was going to happen, what I had just foreseen was really happening.

I threw out my hands, by instinct or fear, I wasn't sure. I felt my hair lift from my shoulders as the entire field plunged into a windstorm. I felt a rush of power, and I put all of it, all of me, into making a wall between the danger and James. I pulled the air and packed it together like I was making a sand castle or crushing brown sugar. I threw the shield up before him, just in front of his chest where the bullet would hit.

My breath felt frozen in me as the shot hit my shield. James flinched just like in my vision, but he didn't drop, he simply stood there, only for a moment, and then he was back, fighting those around him in his fluid, deadly style, each movement melding into the next. My shield had worked, the bullet hadn't even touched him. I felt myself take in a deep breath of relief as I silently thanked the heavens. The woman took aim again, or tried, but James made sure to keep his opponents, her allies, between them at all times, denying her a clear second shot.

The surprise of what I had done along with the new feeling of power I had were quickly eclipsed by a deep, rolling rage. Similar to how I had felt after the Serpentine injured James, but this was more immediate, more raw. I had actually seen someone try to kill my Pair, to hurt him right in front of me, and in a way he feared. The hate I felt for the woman in that moment overwhelmed me, filling every inch of me. The rage made me see red. I sent it out, all my anger, all my hate, I threw it out, travelling on the winds still whipping around me. I sent it straight to the woman who wanted my Twin dead.

There was a lull, or maybe it was just in my mind, but then it hit her, a shot of air so hard, so dense, it was as if she had been thrown against a concrete wall going eighty miles an hour. Her body expanded in a grotesque way, like when a droplet of water hits a hard surface, and the noise was both sickening and beautiful to me. Her skin burst, her bones shattered, and then there was the blood, spraying back on the hunters near her, wet flecks of meat clumping in the fur of the wolves as they fought, her spray misting into the air before sinking and settling to the grass, a pink fog. Her remains fell to the ground so distorted, they didn't even look human, just a sodden pile of red-stringed gore.

The sound rippled through the field and many of the fights halted momentarily, shock on the hunters' faces, confusion of what unseen force had burst a fellow fighter, fear that they could be next.

The smell of her blood hit me then, carried back on my wind. The bloodlust it gave me, along with my Shift and the new power coursing through me from my Sign left an ache in my mind. The ache quickly grew to a burn and then a sharp pain, all in the matter of a few seconds. I felt something rise and start to overtake me, panic welled, then everything turned red and I was gone, swept away.

It was like looking in a mirror, but one that didn't show a perfect reflection, instead a distorted version, still holding the essence of who you were, but not the details. Everything I had ever held in poured out, every tendril of self-control snapped and the red world my new vision showed me was soon matched by the hunters' blood as one after another fell before me.

I understood how James could flow so beautifully, how his movements could be so deadly but still look like a dance, effortless and graceful yet filled with power. A mix of Kael and Nevaeh, a mix of strength and speed. I saw every movement of my enemies before they were even close. I saw each look, each thought, each muscle jump as they came, and then I saw each pained face, each drop of ruby, each light leave their eyes as they fell. I tore into them with ferocity. All I wanted was their blood, their pain, their sacrifice.

Soon, I found myself in the same vicinity as James, fighting and turning as if choreographed. We fought as one. His knives slicing and mine stabbing, or mine distracting as he dealt the final blow. Blood covered my hands and arms, sprays of it on my gear, streaks on my face and in my hair. I caught a glimpse of a smile on James' face, his bright teeth gleaming as he spun away from a hunter, distracting him so I had a shot to his back, my knife coming clean through his chest, pushing the skin from the inside.

James was even more beautiful in red, with his dark hellish eyes, and the own Devil's grin. I felt my heart jump at just the sight of him. He was covered in blood too, and its red gleam only added to his beauty.

The inflated numbers of hunters made the fight more of an endurance game than skill. For each man we cut down, there was another, for each mutilated body that fell, there was a new wave eager to join the pile. Ace's light coat, now a shallow red from my vision with splotches of darker crimson where true blood stained him, caught my eye. He was across the yard, expertly diving and leaping at the male leader I had seen earlier.

I wondered if he knew their other was dead, that I had killed her. I wondered if she had been something to him, besides just the co-leader of these fanatics. A moment later the fight around us turned and the more I looked the fewer hunters I saw. There were some still tangled with enemies, but the number of mangled human bodies that littered the grounds showed who the victor would inevitably be.

James slowly spun in a full circle, taking a three-sixty view of the tail-end of the battle. His eyes were still dark orbs, his Shift not yet yielding to his humanity. I was frozen watching him for a moment, in awe of him. He ended his sweep and his attention came to me for the first time. He raised one eyebrow before he snapped his head to the right as if he had heard something.

A wolf was across the yard, standing between two hunters splitting his attention. He chose his target and charged just as the other pulled a wicked-looking gun from a holster at his hip. James' mouth tightened, a cold smile at its edge, then the man burst into flames, completely engulfed in the sudden fire. A terrible scream filled the field as he dropped the gun. The thick smell of burning flesh soon followed. James' voice filled my mind, almost audible from the sheer strength of our connection.

Don't steal a kill...but let's end this now.

A second later he flicked his wrist toward a group on our left, and flames leapt up at his silent command, covering one of the hunters. Then just a finger rose toward another group and in turn one of the fighters began to yell as fire sprung up from the ground, engulfing him in mere moments. James' smile grew as he chose targets, each with some minute movement, each who subsequently caught fire.

Soon, I joined him, using my new found Sign to send sharpened blades of air, decapitating and halving hunters at times, or merely removing a hand to help the wolf locked in battle. Sometimes I sent walls of wind smashing and crushing, or slowing a hunter's advance. I loved the panic and shock my Sign lent to the conflict, an invisible enemy was so much worse. Within a matter of minutes the fight was over, with all the hunters dead, dying or captive, staring down the snouts of their enemies, helplessly pinned to the ground, or trying to cower away.

Ace slowly stalked over to James and myself, dragging a barely conscious body in his teeth; the man I had seen earlier, the leader. He dropped the man next to the remains of the woman I had obliterated, but she had no effect on him. He had a large portion of his shoulder missing, along with deep rakes across his chest and back. He was losing blood quickly and I could tell he would be dead soon. He raised his eyes though, with a look of fear mixed with awe on his face.

"Who are you?" He asked weakly.

James smirked his signature tight smile, which looked even more lethal as he buried his Shift. His eyes returned to their naturally unnatural color and his teeth lost their demonic points, then recognition dawned across the man's face.

"You're the man from the streets. That's not possible, you were one of them, but now you...who...what are you?"

At this James crouched down, his head cocked to the side, and my dreams of his childhood flooded my mind. I knew what he was going to say before he even opened his mouth.

"I'm an Angel, can't you tell?"

His eyes flashed black for a split second before returning to their deep, dark navy so quickly it could have merely been someone's imagination.

"Now it's my turn to ask questions. Why did you come for this pack? They've done nothing wrong, they're under my protection and my contract. Why them? Who set you on their trail? Who could have possibly told you their location?"

The man's eyes shifted between the wolf by his side and James, but I could tell he wasn't going to answer. I dove into his mind instead of waiting, ripping into his memories. It was like nothing I had ever felt before, I didn't just hear or feel his thoughts, this time I saw them, snippets and snapshots, emotions and beliefs all rolled into one moment, all sent to me. It was amazing and terrifying. I took a deep breath and focused.

"A man came to him, a man who works for...the Collector?"

My heart pounded at the name, tickling another memory. I knew he was the Fallen, but hearing his title from my own lips for the first time made my chest feel tight. I couldn't tell if it was from some innate excitement, a draw to Heaven, or the exact opposite, or maybe a muddled fusion of the two, but whatever the feeling was, it was as potent as a drug.

I continued as the man's thoughts flowed through mine.

"He could do things and promised to give them power if they went after Ace. The man blamed Ace for the murders in the city and he," I motioned to the mangled man before us, "believed it. He still does, even now. And he wants the prize the Collector offered. He'll never stop, he's obsessed. None of them will stop, not when the man dangled immortality in front of them. He promised to make them gods."

The man on the ground looked at me as I finished, a new terror on his face.

"How do you know that? Are you all gods? Are you like the Collector?"

I grinned before my Shift receded like the tide going out, leaving my humanity, the me I had grown up with, to breathe. My vision faded to blacks and grays, and then back to colors, though the amount of blood present almost made my red memories seem accurate. The grass was a muddy rust, green feebly trying to show through. The wolves were splattered with the color, Kael and Nevaeh were coated in it and James and I didn't look much cleaner. I could feel it drying on me in some places, running like little rivers in others. I could taste it, smell it, breathe it. The bodies and parts littering the ground were all red too.

I looked up, trying to ignore all the blood, trying to act normal, but it was close to impossible with the way my mind was spinning. I felt panic growing, a fear of the loss of control I knew was barreling towards me, filling my mind. I felt something like fire creep up my arm, it reminded me of the men James had burned, but this heat didn't hurt me. I looked over to see James' clear eyes searching my face, one finger barely brushing my wrist to get my attention as he stood next to me.

Stay calm, Angel. Just breathe. Pull from your Sign, you've found it now I see. And it's so strong. I couldn't have asked for a better first showing, a better partner.

His mind overflowed mine, pushing out the panic, and I smiled at him, feeling more in control. I felt my cheeks warm at his compliment. One corner of his mouth curved in response before he looked back to the hunter, but he was already unconscious from blood loss.

Ace turned his back to the man and faced his pack instead, after a small shiver he returned to his Human form. Many of the others changed as well, until there was a mix of men and women wearing nothing but their enemies' blood, as well as snarling wolves and cowering hunters before us. Ace raised his arms at his sides as he addressed the crowd.

"Brothers, sisters...and friends." He turned back to say the last words to James and I. "You've fought well, you've protected our home, our way of life, our children and our alliances. But we can't let our justified bloodshed go too far. We're civilized creatures. We're all from the same beginning, though some have fallen further from our regal nature than others."

A murmured laugh rippled through the crowd, as the Human Shifters looked down at the hunters cowering before them.

"We must be fair though, as law dictates, an eye for an eye, a life for a life, so I'll leave this decision in your capable hands. If you believe the man or woman at your feet would have spared you, you are welcome to escort them from our property. However, if you believe the opposite, I trust you to deal justice where justice is due."

Ace gave a little half-bow before shuddering once more and dropping to the ground on all fours. He circled the leader's barely conscious body once before tearing into him. His pack followed suit. Kael and Nevaeh appeared by James' side and we silently turned and walked to the tree line, leaving the screams and howls behind us.

The header song seems apt now, no? It was due time for some violence. It's been awhile since we had some good old fashioned gore. Too many feels, too much cute, I needed to break that fluff up. I regret nothing. But what's with these Red Shifts? James, Jordan... is it a True Pair thing, an sixteenth thing? Or do they just have a whole lotta rage in their teeny, tiny hearts?

All of the above? Let's find out.

T