Radiation had been delighted when Delmar agreed to help her with the black shifters. She had rushed up from her chair to hug Delmar.

“Welcome to the Radiation faction!” she said. Delmar was so surprised to be hugged, he didn't know what to do. She had rushed out into the rooms behind the altar to get her things before they left.

“I must warn you though, Askr, the light shifter takes care of all the faction stuff. Even though I'm the leader my main purpose is to keep Nuclear under watch so he won't blow something up.” she shouted from the other room. “But I hope you don't mind hanging with us for a while".

Nuclear, who just had woken up, yawned and inspected the two wolves. He walked up to Delmar.

“Are you the ice shifter?”

“Yeah…" Delmar said as unexcited as Radiation seemed excited.

“How much do you weigh?” Nuclear asked and squinted his eyes.

“Excuse me?” The question seemed completely taken out of the blue.

“How much do you weight? How many kilograms?” the weasel repeated.

“I don't know… why does it matter?” were all energy shifters this random and unpredictable? He thought.

“Let’s say your weight was 45 kilos.” Nuclear said starting to circle around the two wolves. “That’s… let see… 45 times the light speed raised in two. That’s….” he started to mumble numbers. “Around four trillion joules!” his eyes grew to twice the size. “And there's two of you." Now he even looked a bit desperate. “The explosion would be massive... enormous…” Angi looked at Delmar.

“Do you have any idea what he's talking about?”

“THE EXPLOSION WOULD DESTROY EVERYTHING IN A RADIUS OF 200 KILOMETERS!!” the weasel screamed at them. “And there's two of you!!” he looked like he was going to cry.

“Well, just don't explode them then." Radiation said as she came back into the room carrying a small backpack. “Don't worry, we just do these calculations to remind Nuclear why he's not supposed to use his powers. The only problem is that now he sees everyone as a walking time bomb.” she said to the two surprised wolves. She lifted the small weasel and put him on her shoulders. She went straight for the exit before she stopped.

“Oh you might want to be in your human forms, we're heading downtown" Delmar shifted.

“What about Angi?” Delmar asked and pointed at the white wolf.

“What do you mean?” Radiation asked.

“We can't walk around with a wolf in the city!”

“Can’t she shift to her human form?” Radiation looked confused.

“She’s not a shifter!”

“But she looks like one"

“I'm a demon blood" Angi added.

“Aha, that explains everything.” Radiation started to look inside her backpack. “I think I might have something we could use…” she pulled out something that looked like a dog necklace.

“A leash?” Angi asked.

“Yeah, you could pretend to be a dog!” Radiation said excited. Angi gave Delmar an ‘I told you so’ glance.

“Angi that's not a leash… that's a device for blocking a shifters abilities, a sort of handcuffs," Delmar said uncomfortable by the sight of the device. He knew what torture it was for a shifter to wear one.

“Yeah, I brought it in case Delmar…” Radiation paused, “You know what, let's not go into why I brought it. We can say I brought it in case Nuclear gets out of hand. But since you're not a shifter, it won’t hurt you” she put the device around Angi’s neck. The device was attached to a thin chain she gave to Delmar. Delmar just stared at Radiation still uncomfortable with the fact she had brought one of these.

“Look it’s perfect! A blue man with his giant demon blood wolf dog!”

“Perfect… No one’s going to be suspicious…” Delmar said cynically.

“Don't worry, where we're going, no one going to question your skin color." Radiation smiled and headed for the exit again. Delmar put his scarf in place over his head again to hide most of his face and animal ears.

They headed out into the city. The sun was setting and the streetlights were lit one by one. The streets were filled with people, Radiation blended in perfectly among the people. If he didn't know she was a shifter, he could never have guessed it. She looked just like a young cyber punk nerd with her pet weasel on her shoulder. Delmar on the other hand was not used to this amount of people. On top of it all, there were less people wearing their AR glasses here. Someone in the crowd told him to keep his dog on a shorter leash, he just kept on walking looking down at the ground and shortened the leash a bit, carefully not to pull Angi’s neck.

“Radiation, is it far?” he asked uncomfortable.

“No, it's just around the corner." They arrived to a club of some sort. Music filled the air around the club and inside, it seemed to be a giant party. Radiation went to the long cue on the street outside to get into the facility.

“What is this?” Delmar asked suspicious.

“It’s a rave party!” Radiation said overjoyed. She started to dig around in her bag again. She picked up some makeup and painted some kind of war paint all over her face with the white color. She turned to Delmar to do the same to his face. Right before she smeared it in his face she hesitated.

“You look weird enough already, you don't need this" she smiled and packed it away, then she let Nuclear crawl inside her bag.

“Why are we here?” Delmar asked.

“We're going to meet up with a guy in here" she said loud enough not to be drowned out by music. “We’re just going in and out, don't worry!” After a while, they were first in line. The guard stopped them.

“The dog stays out here!” he said authoritatively. Delmar pretended to tie Angi’s leash some meters away from the door.

“If anyone comes near growl at them and seem dangerous. Then they will leave you alone" he told her. “We’ll be right back.”

“Don’t worry Delmar, I can take care of myself. Have fun in there” she said. Radiation dragged him into the club.

Inside, the music was even louder. Lights were flashing and people were dancing. On a stage, a DJ stood and psychadelic videos were being projected behind him. Lots of ultra violet lights made everything white glow and shine. The paint in Radiations face glowed and she looked like a completely different person.

“Wait here! I'm gonna find the guy!” she shouted before she disappeared into the crowd. Great, now he was alone, at a human party, on a dance floor. How the hell did this happen? At least Radiation was right about people looking weird and that he would fit in. it didn't feel so strange to be blue in this place where everyone had weird makeup, led lights everywhere and funny clothes. He took of his jacket, at least he didn't have to sweat to death. Someone patted him on the back. He turned around. It was a short human girl with lots of glow sticks hanging around her neck.

“I love your makeup!” she shouted. “It’s very nice with the white areas under your eyes!”

“Eh… thanks, I guess"

“How did you do the glowing blue parts?!” she drew two lines over one of her eyes with two fingers and then she pointed at the glowing scar over his right eye.

“That’s a trade secret!” he said and stuck out his blue striped tongue. “Oh my gosh!” she was amazed “How do you even color your tongue like that? Are you a makeup professional?”

“You could say that" he grinned. This was actually quite fun.

“Could I take a selfie with you?” she picked up her phone.

“Em, sure.” She squeezed her head close to his and raised the phone.

“Smile!” Delmar suck out his tongue a bit longer than a human would have been able to do. She looked at the photo.

“Thanks! That’s amazing! Aren’t you going to dance?”

“No, I rather just enjoy the music" he looked at the stage and the guy jumping around to his electronic music devices.

“Okay, it was nice meeting you Mr.…?”

“My name is Delmar."

“I'm Ivy," she smiled and disappeared into the dancing crowd again. Delmar was starting to wonder where Radiation had gone. Didn’t she say they were just going in and out?

Several songs later, Radiation had still not returned. He started to look around for her. The club was bigger than he expected. It had several rooms behind the big stage room and a massive balcony above the dance floor. Several people complimented on his looks while he went through the club. It was nice to move around people without needing to try to hide himself for once. He envied the stronger shifters with good human forms who could walk around like this all the time. Finally, he found her sitting at a table on the balcony with a guy with white hair, completely dressed in white. It was the same guy he had seen in Radiations memory. All the white made him look like a lighthouse in the ultraviolet light. On the table stood several beer cans.

“I thought we we're just going in and out?” Delmar shouted irritated trying to be heard through the music.

“Hi Delmar! Yes, we were, but Neutron wanted to finish his beer. By the way this is Neutron! He’s second in command in the gravity faction. Neutron this is Delmar, he's an ice shifter”

“Pleasure" Neutron said without even looking at him, instead he stared down at the stage. Delmar got crotchety, he hated to be treated like air by the stronger shifters. It happened way too often.

“Come sit with us" Radiation said inviting.

"You know Angi is still out there waiting for us, I'll rather go out and wait with her" he said acidly. “Don't take too long, I don't know how long we can wait for you before we'll leave.” he turned around and walked out of there.

“Whoa, what's his problem?” Neutron asked surprised.

“I'm not completely sure yet, but he can help us with the black shifters" Radiation answered. “Now drink up your sorrows, I don't think Nuclear wants to spend the whole day in my bag.”

“Relax.”

“Where's Radiation?” Angi asked when he got out on the street again.

“In there, drinking beer" he said sourly. He was extremely relieved to get out from the loud noise. He sat down beside Angi. She laid down with her head in his lap and looked up at him with her azure blue eyes. He stroked her over her forehead.

“You truly are a cute pet.” he smiled. “You know we should just get the hell out of here, before they get back, I don't know if this is such a good idea." he sighed. Angi didn't say a word. She just lay there and looked up at him.

“Delmar?” he looked up, it was Ivy, the short human he met before at the dance floor.

“Is that your dog?”

“Yeah, I didn't want to leave her out here, but my ‘friends’ wanted to drink beer…”

“She’s really big, she kind of looks like a wolf. What breed is she? Some kind of demonblood breed, right?” Delmar couldn't help but laugh, the humans were really stupid, weren't they? Even though they saw that Angi was a wolf they didn't want to believe it. They thought they were so safe from all the wildlife in their city they simply told themselves that Angi had to be a dog.

“I don't know" he said, he knew nothing about dog breeds and even less about their names.

“She must be some kind of a demonblood breed with those markings. But she's really cute, can I pet her?”

“Why don't you ask her?” he said. She sat down.

“Can I pet you?” she said like she was talking to a baby. She started petting Angi’s head. The wolf didn't seem to mind, she even seemed to enjoy it. She sat up and let the human girl play with her ears and talk silly to her.

“Who’s a good doggie? You are, yes you are.”

Delmar was starting to feel a bit awkward, he felt an urge to shift into his wolf form just to see what the girl would do. Would she be scared or would she threat him just as ridiculous? Suddenly Radiation stormed out from the party dragging Neutron with her.

“Ah, Delmar, come on, let's go!” She pulled him up on his feet. He almost didn't manage to say goodbye to Ivy before Radiation had dragged him away together with Neutron holding a firm grip on their arms.

“Hey, hey! Relax!” Neutron said who didn't seem to appreciate the rough treatment. “It’s not like we're in any hurry”. She let go of their arms and let Nuclear out of the bag again.

“I know but I’m always having a hard time getting out of that place. I mean all the lights and luminous stuff! It’s a radiant paradise.”

The five of them walked down the street.

“I miss your faction, Radiation. In it you always knew what happened and you knew what you were supposed to do.” Neutron said grumpy.

“Don’t be like that, Neutron. I know no one who jumped around between the factions as much as you have.”

“It’s not like I chose to do it. It’s you guys who couldn't decide where you wanted me. I mean, first the thermal/mechanical faction, then the electric faction, then back to thermal, then radiation and now gravity? I don't know if I think gravity is the most obvious choice?”

“No, but come on. You’re the only shifter that's ever fitted in his faction. The only matter that actually have something to do with gravity. And he's so happy to have you" Radiation said.

“It’s a bit lonely being the only shifter." Neutron muttered.

“But you have Gravity, you two make a great team."

“Pff… yeah? As if.” He sent away a small rock on the ground with a precise kick. “Don’t trust a badger! You know, they won't let go of you until they hear your bones break. I don't want to break.” Neutron said miserable.

“I heard you could put pine cones in your boots to trick them to let go" Nuclear said amused.

“I don't think pine cones work on Gravity…” Neutron answered sourly.

“Where is he by the way?” Radiation asked.

“Either he's home, or he's out spying on the black shifters again. I don't think he has a real hobby.”

“Call him?”

“He's given me strict orders not to do it in case he's hiding in a bush watching that jackal.”

“So how do we find him?”

“We’ll go to his apartment I guess. He must come home sooner or later,” Neutron shrugged.

“How will we get in?”

“Don’t worry I got the spare key,” Neutron smiled for the first time that evening. “And if he's not home we could throw a party and wreck the place.”