Young Writers Society

Tabitha stepped onto the ground, and let herself be revealed. The guard heard something, and looked up. He gasped, and scooted away from her.

"Don't worry!" Tabitha kept her voice low and padded in a semi-circle around the guard boy. "I just wanted to talk."

The boy whined. Blood trickled out of his mouth. "Okay, okay. No talking then." Tabitha smiled slightly. Her pearly whites lit up the area around her a small bit, and the boy seems perplexed about her. "I want to help. Don't worry. But we need to get you some help. Can you walk?"

He reluctantly nodded.

"All right. Let's take you back to your place," she said, smiling wide.

---

"I'm not sure, why do you think they sent an Eye to oversee your mission?"

Lordy skipped his was back down the alley and headed towards the bar. A few beggars scattered the street, but besides that, the place was desolate. Nothing but the dim candle light from inside houses and the light from the stars above let him know where he was going.

He stopped just before the entrance of the bar before fixing up his suit and making his way inside.

"I'm back!" He sang to a crowd full of cheers.

The one thing he could count on were his associates being drunk half past midnight every night.

"Where is the boy?" Lordy asked the crowd.

A few shouts and fingers pointed to a room in the back of the bar. Lordy did a little bow and made his way to the back, grabbing a random drink off a table on his way there.

---

Vincent put his hands on his hip, "I dunno, why do youuu think they sent an Eye to oversee my mission?"

Tabitha found a small covering to wrap the boy's hands, more to just cover them up as there was already bandaging around it. The boy was losing quite a concerning amount of blood already, so if she wanted information out of him, she'd have to get him to someone who could actually use their opposable thumbs to actually help in some sort of manner.

She lifted a corner of the covering and wiped his mouth with it. He groaned from it, but she shushed him gently. "I'll be right there with you, just get back to your... home?" He thought for a moment, then shook his head. "Barracks?" A nod. "Okay, barracks."

She nestled in on his shoulders and disappeared. He whimpered. "Just take the alleys. Don't want a soldier to see you before the barracks." They might just off you too early.

As they set off, Kitshire felt herself smiling. Not on the outside, no, no she couldn't do that, not here. But... inside, she had a grin a mile wide.

---

"Not to banter, that's for sure." Mercury stood and wavered. "Food? We don't have much here; this isn't a long term habitat."

Lordy hummed all the way to the room, with subtle enthusiasm as he opened the door to find- nothing. The room was empty. Where the boy should have been there were pools of blood on the floor, but not the person they belonged to.

Lordy tightened his grip on his cane.

Turning back to the crowd at the bar, he asked "Where is the boy?"

Everyone was silent.

Lordy's lip twitched and his forehead pulsed, "Where- is the BOY?!"

---

Mercury was trying to get a little too comfy. Running away with Vincent? Dragging him to a tiny cave like space? Trying to make him dinner?

"Are we on a date?" Vincent asked.

He couldn't gage Mercury's reaction.

"If not, I don't understand what we're still doing here. By the looks of it, now there's TWO of us who can kill Lordshire. I'm sure you're more than capable of handling yourself in battle."

They took another backalley to a small network of paths little used by soldiers.

Besides the boy's huffing and groaning, it was silent. She was able to bask in the glory of not doing anything for a bit.

They reached the barracks shortly thereafter. It was mostly empty.

---

Mercury fished out a bar of closed packed nuts, something the Eyes kept around for easy meals, and stuffed one in his mouth. He tossed another at Vincent.

"My mission was recon. So yours has changed. No more... barging in half cocked." He swallowed the piece of the bar he was chewing. "If we kill this suspect without pertinent information, like who he is and why he's important, another one just like him will pop up in his place. Then that's my head. And then yours."

The crew members were running all directions as Lordy shouted orders at them.

"I WANT EVERY STREET AND EVERY CORNER SEARCHED. FIND THAT BOY AND BRING HIM BACK TO ME!" Lordy barked.

He made his way back out the door with a scowl on his face. He debated going back to the hideout, but he wanted to stay nearby to hear any news as soon as possible.

He paced back and forth for a bit before deciding to begin searching for the boy himself. Fueled by rage and impatience, he wondered if there was a traitor in his camp.

---

"Alright, so I'll play along with you then," Vincent said, snacking on nuts Mercury gave him, "What's our new plan then? Hide in the bushes and watch? Just sit there until something happens?"

Tabitha jumped onto a table and brushed everything off. It was fairly easy for her to do. Lots of experience. She pulled up a chair for the boy and he sat down, dumping his hands onto the table like they were weights he didn't want to carry anymore.

Tabitha rubbed against the boy's head. "I'll find someone to help."

She pounced into the air, but instead of landing gracefully (like all cats do, thank you very much), she floated to the barracks tent opening. She peeked out, and there were plenty of soldiers meandering about. This seemed to be an area just outside the city and the castle walls.

"OHHHHHH MY, SOMEONE PLEASE HELP... MY HUSBAND. HE IS SOOOOOO INJURED." Tabitha said in a shouting, well, kinda shouting but also kinda not caring voice.

No one turned to pay her any attention.

She rolled her eyes. They were really going to make her do this, huh.

Finally, she let out:



A lot of heads turned in her direction, and she went invisible but left the tent flap flapping open.

A few soldiers came running in. "This man needs a medic!"

Right away, someone with a satchel rushed in. "Everyone, out!" Good, less chaos for her to ask her questions.

She picked up a pen and paper and floated back to the boy and the medic.

---

Mercury packed a small satchel of supplies. Now that he knew the Eyes felt that Lordshire was important, he wanted to be prepared for anything.

"Precisely. Do you know how to climb onto roofs?"

Lordy knew he promised to let the boy go, but he was never actually going to do it. I mean what would the boy do? Call him a liar? You can't do that when you're dead.

He walked up and down the streets as some of his associates rushed by in different directions. I have to learn to stop playing with my food, Lordy thought.

Suddenly, one of Lordy's crew members ran up to him, "Sir! We think he's in the barracks! An injured boy was making his way there!"

Lordy glared at him, "And you didn't... stop him?"

"We uh-"

A screamed filled the air from nearby. Lordy rubbed his temple and began to make his way towards the sound as a few of his associates followed.

---

"I've been climbing up trees and hiding in plain sight since before you lost your eye," Vincent told Mercury, "Of course I can do recon. I just hate how boring it is."

As the medic worked on the boy's hands, Tabitha, invisible, put the paper outside of the medic's light but just inside the boy's eyesight. She couldn't care less about what the medic was doing. With her tail, she wrote a delicately written question.

Do you know Lordshire?

The boy glanced at the question. He shook his head quickly.

What did Lordshire ask?

The boy just groaned in response. Oh, right, he couldn't talk.

Did Lordshire ask about a cat? She had to get the important questions out of the way.

The boy blinked in confusion. Then shook his head. Well, darn. Obviously Lordy wasn't asking the right questions.

Did Lordshire ask about an enemy?

The boy mumbled incomprehensible at that. Well that doesn't really answer her question.

Did Lordshire ask about--

Then the back tent flap was shoved open.

Oops.

---

"If it's boring to you, you can just go back to your general and tell him it was a mission failure and the Eyes request he stop meddling in their business." Mercury stuffed the satchel in a fold of his robe and walked to the entrance they came through not long ago.

Lordy got to the front of the tent where a guard stood watch. He approached them and they held their hand up to stop him.

"Wait a second sir, where do you think you're going?" The guard asked him.

"Bruce, is that you under there? Can't you recognize me?" Lordy asked in response.

"I know boss," Bruce said, scratching the back of his head, "I just gotta make it believable in case anyone's watching. There still a lot of Capitol guys in there so be careful."

Lordy nodded at him, "Now can I go inside?"

"Yeah, just uh, push past me or something."

And Lordy did just that. As he walked inside the tent, the smell of fresh blood hit his nose. He found the boy on the floor with a medic rushing to patch him up.

"Well, well, well." Lordy said, walking towards him, "Look who it is."

---

Mercury sounded angry, Vincent didn't understand why he was making it so hard for him to do his job. As far as he could gather, the less about a mission he knew, the better. All the unnecessary information would just weigh him down.

"I don't leave without completing my mission." Vincent began, "I'll tell you what. I'll give you a day to show me that you're right about this. After that, I'll go back to the Capitol with Lordshire's head and yours."

Tabitha froze for a moment, thinking Lordshire was talking about her. Then she remembered she was invisible.

Still, this wasn't, well, good.

---

Mercury scoffed. "As if I didn't already poison you with that bar."

Before Vincent could respond, Mercury slipped through the crack with a "Let's go."

Lordy put on a fake pout, "Oh dear, how did this happen to you, my child?"

The boy looked at him with fear in his eyes, while the medic sat there confused.

"Oh come now, we have to get you back home to take care of you," Lordy began approaching the boy, "We can't have something like this happen again, we need to find out who did this to you."

The boy frantically tried to squirm away, but he seemed to be in too much pain to get very far.

"I think he-"

"I know some of the best medics in the city, we'll patch him right up." Lord cut the medic off.

Two of his associates picked the boy up as he continued to squirm, unable to free himself of their grip.

"Tell the general I send my regards." Lordy waved to the medic as they started to leave the tent.

The scowl returned to his face once they reached the street. He was going to be questioned for this later, but not before he got some answers about what was going on.

---

Poison? Mercury's nuts were salty but they didn't taste infected. Maybe he was joking?

"Ha ha," Vincent said dryly, "So where are we going now exactly?"

Somehow, Tabitha knew Lordshire was lying.

Drat! She was not getting the information she needed!

She followed him and the "guards" out of the barracks.

---

"We're just going to stake out their headquarters. Garner what information we need to take the next step. Which, before you ask, will still not probably be killing our target."

Lordy had a sneaking suspicion that they were being followed again. Not by anyone who he was worried about, but someone small, hairy, and... invisible. For what it was worth, he tried to tell Tabitha that curiosity killed the cat. What he failed to mention to her was that curiosity was his nickname.

But he wasn't worried about her at the moment. He had to know what this guard let slip by. They got to the hideout and tied the boy up once more on to a chair.

"Now listen, boy. It seems we got off on the wrong foot so let's start over shall we?" Lordy paced back and forth, "My name is Lordy Lordshire, leader of the rebellion, KING of the common people, and soon to be the reason YOU ARE ON YOUR DEATHBED."

At this point Lordy was right up in the boys face, "I need you to TELL me HOW you got out and WHO helped you, otherwise I will rip EACH of your teeth out ONE BY ONE until you BLEED OUT."

---

"Alright fine, if you say so." Vincent reluctantly agreed to Mercury's plan.

The made their way out of the cave, back to the real world, and began heading back to the direction they came. The streets were lonely when it was night time. All they could see were a few beggars lying on the cold floor.

"Where do you think these people live?" Vincent asked Mercury.

Lousy Lordy like screaming at random points when he talked. Did he think that was intimidating?

Well, apparently the boy did, because he was cry-mumbling and the tears intermingled with his blood.

Did... did he forget the boy couldn't talk?

"Lordy..." Tabitha's disembodied voice floated out to their hideout. "Lordy, he won't be of much use to you." Tabitha appeared on the boy's shoulder.

She unsheathed just one of her long claws, a useful tool that she did not use all that often.

"Shhh. It's okay. I'll protect you from the mean, scary man." She said soothingly in the boy's ear.

She hooked her claw into the boy's neck, letting the blood gush out, and the boy stilled.

Tabitha smiled at Lordshire. "What? Cat got your tongue?"

---

"Where did you knock again? Oh right." Mercury hopped up and clambered onto a railing opposite their supposed hideout. He pulled himself onto the second story, and onto the shingled roof.

He shifting into a position more comfortable for longer periods. And now they wait.