Young Writers Society

Amy smiled and eagerly took the bar from him. "Thanks so much!"

James blinked a few times at Ari's food-from-a-shoe gesture, having been familiar with it before. "Okay. Let's rest for a moment, then," he agreed.

Tasha sat down where she was and Ari handed James a stickers bar.

James gave Ari a nod of gratitude while Amy immediately shoved the entire bar in her mouth hand chewed loudly.

He extended the offer to Tasha, who ignored it, and him, and Ardeshir just shrugged and then shoved the stickers bar in his face in typical Ari fashion.

James shrugged slightly to himself when Tasha refused the offer of food, but he knew neither Ari or him would insist she eat it if she didn't want to. It did come from his shoe after all, and she had to reason to trust the integrity of his shoe.

As they stood, chewing, he looked out over the hill into the trees, trying to visually map in his mind where they were headed. But it was then that he heard a quiet shuffle in the trees. It was momentary, and lasted but a second, but his head jerked to the side. Could be an animal, like every other little noise. But no. His gut knew the sound of a footstep verses an animal. He shoved the rest of the stickers bar in his mouth.

Amy's head had turned a second before his.

"They're here," she whispered.

James had already pulled his gun. He tossed Tasha her sword. And it was then that he began to see people popping up and crawling up the hill from every side.

Ari's greatsword came off his back and Tasha slid her foot back to take a more balanced stance as she moved closer towards the party so no one would come up behind her. She was unsure of what was happening but she wasn't about to take any risks.

A shot rang out and something whizzed past Amy - her, barely dodging in time to miss it. Without much thinking, she hid herself behind Ari, at least from one angle.

James ducked, keeping his head low, and began to move towards the approaching thieves. As he slid slowly on the slant of a hill, he heard Rita's sharp voice call out.

"Tiberius! You're surrounded, so just hand yourself over you f***in' liar! If you weren't wanted alive I'd have your head!"

Ari brandishes his massive sword and Ursuku hisses as he presses up against his master's leg.

"I thought you didn't care about the money!" James retorted as he sent a shot out at the man coming towards him. Humphrey, was his name. He knew all of their names. Humphrey dodged the bullet, and came at him with his fists.

"I care now that I know how gods*amned much it is!" Rita yelled from the other side of the hill.

James dodged the punch. He couldn't argue with her. From the perspective of a theif, that was fair.

Meanwhile, Amy nervously jumped out from behind Ari to meet an attacker coming at them from the side, only to quickly regret it when she was met with a gun pointed at her. She froze.

Ari turned on the guy with the gun with a bellow, sweeping his sword down to defend Amy.

Amy backed up and the guy with the gun pulled away with a curse.

James leapt onto Humphrey's back and threw him to the ground by his neck. Humphrey groaned, and Sybyl waved a sword at James the moment he got to his feet. He backed away, jumped up and grabbed the branch of a nearby tree, and swung his feet into her face.

Not a very kind move, but effective.

Tasha lunged into combat on the offensive, attacking a thief next to her with a swift flurry of blows. Sparks flew as he defended himself with his daggers and parried slash after slash.

Ari's sword hit the ground next to the second thief as she darted out of the way, her smaller size and superior maneuverability giving her an edge. There was a hollow thunk as his greatsword slammed into a tree root and got stuck there - and he wasn't fast enough in letting it go. The thief attacked him when he was off-balance and despite his size he hit the ground, hard. Ursuku caterwauled and started to race towards him but was intersected by another of Rita's band and cut off from his master.

James had knocked the sword out of Sybyl's hand as she fell to the ground, and proceeded to use it as he was met with another swing of a weapon - this time a big club that nearly hit him in the face. His arms trembled slightly as he was met with the full force of Hoss's strength. Hoss looked pleased to have finally met him in the midst of the fight, and James could feel his stomach drop with dread.

Hoss pulled his club back and went in for another powerful swing. James dodged and began to run, barely slipping between the swipes of two others.

Amy could feel her heart pounding in her ears as Ari so quickly fell to the ground. Ursuku wasn't able to get to him, and as the big cat's cry filled the chaos, she could feel her blood begin to boil. She was not going to be useless. A snarl met her lips, and in an instant, she was a wolf. There was no gradual shift. No in-between forms. One moment she was a human, the next, she was a large, golden wolf, lunging at the thief who brought Ari to the ground. The thief screamed, but it was nothing she wasn't used to, and as she tackled her to the ground, it at least gave her a moment of pleasure to know that she was intimidating enough to protect Ari.

Ari scrambled to his feet and Tasha's eyes widened as she watched, the momentary distraction giving her adversary the opening to slice at her and make contact with her side. She let out a yelp of pain and retreated several steps, reorienting.

Amy looked back at Ari with a brief flash of a grin - though she was still kind of snarling, so she didn't know if he caught it - and pushed the thief out from under her feet. The thief scrambled away, and others began to back away from her as the hairs of her back raised and she bared her teeth.

James looked over to catch Amy shifting to a wolf - the distraction, unfortunately, causing him to get whacked upside the head with a bat. His head throbbed, but he was able to process that he'd heard Tasha yell in pain. He cursed, forcing himself back onto his feet before the bat-wielder could hit him again and he began to weave his way through the mess of thieves to her. His usual dexterity was hampered by his dizzied head, but he was able to get in a few effectively non-fatal slices enough to get people out of his way.