Chapter Author: YouAreNowIncognito

Delmar had a hard time outrunning the wolf, she caught up at his hovel. He was hurrying to put on some clothes in his human form.

“What's the matter?" she asked. Delmar gave her an irritated look.

“You can't come."

“You can't outrun me," she answered. He looked at her then he looked down on the shoe he was holding.

“I’ve wanted to do this for a while," he gave her a light hit in her face with the shoe.

“Aoch, what was that for?”

“That's for following me the last time" he hit her again. “That’s for following me this time,” he laughed and looked at her. “No one’s going to believe you're a dog"

“How hard can it be? I'll just wag my tail and bark? Isn’t that what dogs do?” she answered amused.

“You don't look like a dog, you're too big." He laughed.

“You don't look like a human, you're too blue." she answered. She didn't realize she had hurt his feelings before she saw his expression. He turned away and rose.

“You can't come,” he said and started to walk away without looking at her. He wrapped his long scarf up around his head like a hood as usual. Angi followed right behind him.

When they got into the city she walked very close beside him. She held her head low and her ears stroked back in a very submissive way. Her tail was constantly waging in a very unnatural way for a wolf.

“You’d make a very cute pet,” he whispered mocking.

She was still way too big to be a dog but none of the humans were paying any attention through their AR glasses. Delmar went straight to the city’s train station. The train went on rails five meters above the ground through the whole city. He walked up onto the platform, Angi followed right behind. The train stood there waiting.

“What are you doing?” she asked.

“I'm taking the train," he mumbled. He pointed to a sign on the door.

“Do you know what this sign means?”

“No?”

“No dogs allowed" He gave her a sly look and walked aboard the train. “See you later". The door closed behind him.

Delmar was pleased to see the train station shrinking as the train accelerated. This was a brilliant way to get rid of her for a while. Why didn't he think of it sooner? The human world with its skyscrapers and giant commercial screens flashed by outside the window. He was a bit concerned by the address he'd gotten from the shifter Alpha though. This was not inside the shifter districts on the outskirts of town. No, this was right in the middle of Centrum. Why would a shifter want to meet him there? The whole thing seemed weird. Alpha had given him very little information. He didn't actually want to go there, there were too many people there. Sure, the humans had made it easier for the shifters over the last couple of hundreds of years. They had started to tattoo themselves, color their hair in unnatural colors, wear contact lenses in weird colors and wear clothes containing led lights. But no one colored himself completely blue… At least they had started to wear their stupid AR glasses. That way they were too busy looking at holograms to look at other people. Otherwise, they would have noticed the white wolf walking among them pretending to be a dog and they would probably notice the completely blue man sitting on the train trying to hide his face under a hood.

Delmar arrived at his destination. Of course it had to be the gods damned Confessus cathedral, the biggest religious building in the whole city. Today it was only used as a monument though. Almost no one believed in the gods or the demon wars anymore. He opened one of the massive wooden doors and peeked inside. It was dark inside. Some colored light came through the stained glass windows. He sneaked inside. The cathedral seemed empty. The walls were painted with images of giant demons fighting each other with the traditional four elements. They looked nothing like the originals though.

If only we hadn't hidden ourselves we could have been treated like gods by these people. he thought. Delmar smiled and thought of all the religious humans he had been fooling through the years with his titan form. Doing things like that were of course strictly forbidden by the shifter community, but since he was an outlaw, he didn't care about their rules.

Then he saw her. Two green glowing eyes were looking at him from the altar. On the altar, stood a giant throne. Its backrest reached up to the roof, forming a giant relief picturing four snake-like dragons climbing up among the four traditional elements.

The female shifter stared intensely at him. Except for her green glowing eyes, she resembled a human perfectly. She looked out of place in the environment. The woman looked like some human cyberpunk nerd and she would have fooled him if it weren't for the glowing eyes. Delmar didn't like the fact that she looked exactly like a human at all. Just how strong was she?

“Welcome Delmar, I'm glad you could make it" she said. “What do you think about this cathedral? It’s pretty amazing don't you think?”

“It’s too bad they don't believe in us and the gods anymore. Is a shame it's abandoned like this. Why did you even want to meet here?” he answered.

“As you said, it's abandoned, no one comes here, and it's far enough from the shifter districts. We can be sure no one disrupts us. Tell me Delmar, what do you think about the humans?”

“The humans? Not much actually. They’re noisy as fuck, they pollute the air and don't think about much but themselves.”

“Oh really?”

”Yeah, and they’re pretty dumb too. But why ask me? I'm one of those feral guys who prefer to stay in the forest and live like an animal.” Delmar paused. “But I can see that’s not the answer you wanted. I mean you don’t look like a person who takes the human form because you think you’re cool blending in with the humans and all. Plus you looked kind of disappointed of my statement” he said sarcastically.

“This is my birth form. No, I’m not taking the human form to be cool.” She didn’t seem to take any notice of his sarcasm. He didn’t like the fact that she perfectly resembled a human nor the fact that her birth form was human. Just how strong was this woman? He knew when he was out powered but he hated the fact that he probably had no chance against this woman and he hated even more to flee from a battle. The human form made him slow and clumsy. If this other shifter was going to attack him he wouldn’t stand a chance to flee until he shifted again.

“Tell me Delmar, why do you keep attacking your fellow shifters?” she asked in a calm voice.

“What is this all about?” Delmar was starting to feel uneasy and started to think about escape routes from the building. It wasn't such a good idea to come here after all.

“He wants to impress you. To show he's not as weak as you think"

Delmar turned around, displeased to find Angi sneaking into the cathedral.

“What the hell? I left you at the station! There’s no way you could have followed me"

“I found a train door without the ‘no dogs allowed’ sign. I've been right behind you all the time" she giggled. “Did you really think you'd get rid of me that easy?”

“I hoped I would…” he answered grumpily.

The female in the chair looked curious at the two.

“Who is this?”

“No one, just my personal stalker" Delmar mumbled looking away, wishing Angi could just disappear.

“So tell me, Ms. Personal Stalker. Why would he want to impress me? He doesn't even know who I am?” she leaned forward interested with the new situation.

“You’re one of the superior element shifters, aren't you?” she asked unsure.

“Oh, I think I'm starting to understand. But I don't think it's me he's trying to impress, rather Mechanical and Thermal from his own faction. I'm Radiation" she said. Delmar froze. If the lady scared him before, was it nothing compared to now. She was Radiation. The Radiation, one of the ten energy shifters, member of the top council of the element shifter’s society. One of the most powerful beings out there.

This explained the bird Alpha’s name. He had thought it was a funny name to pick. But now he understood. Alpha hadn't picked a name yet. She was still named after her element, which probably was alpha radiation. This was of course, her master since she was the leader of her faction.

Delmar shifted back to his wolf form. If nothing else would he be able to run away faster if the shit hit the fan. Once again he looked for escape routes, but the main entrance seemed like the best alternative. Radiation saw the panic spreading in his face.

“Calm down, I'm not going to turn you in and I'm not going to attack you.”

“What do you want?” he asked sounding a bit more scared then he wanted to.

“I've heard some very interesting rumors about you I want to know if they are true.”

“What?” he said surprised.

“I've heard that you know what people are thinking, that you know things about them that they haven’t told anyone. Is that so?” she asked.

“Why do you want to know?” Maybe he had been a bit too carefree with his last victims. Those who escaped must have blabbered about him reading their mind when they got into the shifter society. He didn't want anyone to actually know about this power, it gave him the advantage in several situations.

During his time with the mechanical/thermal faction when he was young it drove him mad, he didn't know how to turn it off. He constantly heard voices in his head not knowing it was the thoughts of the people around him. But after a while, he learned to control it. Now he had spent the last 350 years refining and developing this ability while living alone in the forest.

“Why don't you tell me why I want to know?” she said sly and put her hands together. Delmar sighed. He closed his eyes. Angis aura seemed like a small star in comparison with Radiation, her energy was massive. But the thing was, there was someone with an even bigger aura the room.

“What is that thing in your lap?!” Delmar exclaimed

“Ssch… don't wake him.” she said with a finger to her lips. At a closer look Delmar saw it was a small weasel sleeping her lap.

“Who is that?” he said with a softer voice.

“Nuclear, but that doesn't matter, now tell me why I want to know.” there wasn't just one energy shifter there, there was two of them.

He closed his eyes again. If he could describe Angi’s mind like a light palace, before she shot him out and built a mental wall around her, was this a whole city. The whole place rang with the phrase: We need your help, we need your help, we need your help.  She was repeating it to herself in fear he didn't hear him well, or at all. This was rather uninteresting. She wanted him to say the phrase to her and let her explain. He looked around a bit. It would be more interesting to find out why by himself. He started to look through her most recent memories since they were easiest to find, they were right in front of him. He saw her talking to the weasel a lot. They seemed to be together at all times. Nah, this had probably some clues in it but it was hard to filtrate. She walked around the city, nope. A rave party, definitely not. Some study or library. A pub. Eating salad. Come on where's the good stuff? He thought. Suddenly he found something. She was talking with two male shifters. Both of them had perfect human forms. One of them was completely dressed in white and had white hair and the other one looked like he was a sixty year old human. This was particular since shifters stopped aging when they got 20-30. Some of the really old shifters liked to change their appearance to look older so this was probably the case. Delmar stopped to listen to the discussion.

“We need to call them something" the old man said.“Gravity, don't you think you're creating an ‘us and them’ situation?” Radiation said. The old man seemed to be an energy shifter as well.“No, I think it's important to make a difference. It it's just like we call ourselves energy shifters instead of element shifters to make people understand the power differs.”“Does the power differ that much?” the nuclear weasel asked.“If it does? If I got it right, that jackal possess the power to implode things, to create black holes! He creates some serious disturbances to the gravitational field! I don't even want to think about what the others may be capable of!”“That’s how we found them" the white dressed guy said. “Gravity felt the disturbance in the field."“He could destroy the whole god damned world! He’s even more dangerous than Nuclear!” Gravity almost screamed and pointed at the small weasel on the ground.“No offense," he added rapidly. “None taken,” Nuclear mumbled, obviously offended.“Maybe we should just call them ‘black shifters?’ after that black hole jackal" the white guy said. Gravity shined up.“That’s what I'm talking about! Simple and easy to remember! You’re my man, Neutron!”

The memory faded away. Delmar wasn't completely sure about what he had seen. It was a lot of mumbo-jumbo about energy fields and terms he didn't understand. But one thing he got out of it was that there was a jackal called Black Hole who could be a threat to the whole world.

Why is he taking so long, maybe I was wrong? Radiations head echoed. Delmar opened his eyes again.

“I'm taking time because I was looking around. So, you want help with these black shifters?” Radiation looked surprised at him. Then she smiled.

“Yes”