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Kael stared at his computer screen as he clicked through article after article. The world's largest particle accelerator; a politician caught being indiscreet with a mistress; mass hallucinations and their potential causes. The kangaroo wasn't really digging that deep into the material, however. He was too busy arguing with himself.

'Matt's been gone for a while, and I still haven't tried to talk to Dias. But the last time I talked to the dude, I ended up with my mind hidden away while he ran around in my body. But Matt said if I was careful, I could keep that from happening again.'

A knock at the door broke his train of thought. "Come in, dude!"

The door opened inward and revealed Axel in his jeans and t-shirt. After walking in and shutting the door, the german shepherd leaned against the wall with his arms crossed. Kael thought the fur was rather intimidating, despite his constantly friendly demeanor.

"I came to check up on Matt, but I guess he's not here, eh? So how's the kangaroo friend doin'?"

Kael rolled his eyes at the mention of the nickname. "I'm fine, thanks, man. But hey, while you're here I have a question."

"Shoot."

"Well," Kael spun in his seat so he was facing the standing shepherd squarely, "I noticed you wear a cross. I saw you playing with the necklace yesterday at the park."

Axel tugged on the silver chain to reveal a small cross. Flipping it about in a tawny paw, the shepherd shrugged. "Yeah? And?"

"How do you deal with being religious and practicing magic? Witchcraft?"

"Oh, that's it?" Axel stepped forward and sat on Matt's bed. He flicked his ears at the kangaroo as he continued, "To me it's about faith, rather than the rules. Religions have so many rules that no fur could follow them all, no matter how hard he tried."

Kael stared at his long feet, wiggling the toes against the short-pile carpet before answering. "Plenty of terrible things have been done in the name of religion, like the Crusades, or hating on the gays."

"And plenty good. Helpin' the poor, or the directionless. Medieval science had a huge boost by churches, too. But all of that, the good 'n bad, was done by furs, not my God or yours."

The kangaroo snorted and shook his head. "Funny, Dias said almost the exact same thing."

"I knew you had to be thinkin' about that Dias guy." Axel leaned back on his elbows and grinned at the 'roo. "You think he's a god?"

"Is there a difference? The dude might as well be one. At least, Laura figures so. I don't know."

"Sure there's a difference. Maybe he's as fallible as the rest of us, with his own motives."

"I'm a physicist, or at least studying to become one. I never figured I'd suddenly be talking philosophy and faith."

Axel sat up again and reached across the tiny room to put a paw on Kael's shoulder. "I feel like learnin' magic for the greater good to help furs is the right thing to do. There's nothin' for me to deal with as long as I'm doing the right thing, 'cause then I'm being true to my faith."

"Yeah, but then how do I know that I'm doing the right thing?" Kael pushed off the german shepherd's paw and began to pace the short room.

"That's a hard question to answer. For me, my parents and church taught me that as long as I'm helpin' others without hurtin' them, then it must be the right thing to do. Pretty simple, but it's worked so far." Axel's brown eyes were staring straight at the worried 'roo. "Do you think you did the right thing with Dias?"

"It saved Laura, Matt, and Chris, so probably. But it still doesn't feel right." Kael ran his claws through his black hair, pulling at it as he agonized. "Feels strange knowing this dude has so much power over what I do and who I am."

"So do your family and friends, or even the government. Why is addin' God to that list so different?"

"Yeah, but I can disown my parents, or tell my friends to screw off. Or I can break the law or tell the government to shove off. Might be consequences, but I've got that choice."

Axel shrugged. "And that's no different from my faith. I could ignore my faith, but I need to be prepared for the consequences of that. We've all got that choice."

The kangaroo looked at the cop for a few moments. The german shepherd was resolute in his faith, and Kael thought he was a good fur. A smile still gracing his brown muzzle, the shepherd cocked his head at Kael as the silence dragged on.

"I've never thought of it that way. At least, it was never taught to me that way. I mean, I wasn't ready to trust Dias when he told me all the same stuff you're telling me now, but it makes sense. I still control my own destiny, and my own choices. That having faith, or following a faith doesn't mean I have to lose who I am, or be doomed to be a sheep."

Axel nodded. "Yup."

"Dude, you've helped me a lot. Thanks for the chat, man. Perhaps I've been approaching this thing all wrong." Kael plopped onto his own bed, across from the shepherd.

"Hey, happy to help!" Axel pointed behind the younger fur at one of his posters. A buff golden retriever in bulky metallic combat armor smiled back at the pair from the wall. "So, Furs of War 3 any good?"

* * * * *

Terrance raised a clawed paw and a small ball of fire appeared above it. "This time you will die." The doberman reached back and hurled it at the husky.

Matt sucked in a quick breath of air as he imagined the protective water bubble around him, causing it to spring into place just before the fireball reached him. Instead of burning the husky, the fireball sizzled and spat against the barrier as it exploded. Normally Matt would barely be fazed by a shot from an Imp, but Terrance's spell shook him inside his watery sphere.

The doberman barked a laugh as he continued to pepper Matt with fiery missiles, summoning fireball after fireball in one paw while the other was throwing them like baseballs. Spidery patterns snaked their way across the magical barrier as the flames dissipated.

'Can't keep this up all day, can't get a spell in edgewise, either,' Matt thought as he looked around the classroom for any sort of idea or help. Chalkboards lined the front of the room, opposite of the students' desks. To Matt's left was a big wooden desk, ostensibly for the lecturer. The husky dove behind it and tipped it over to put something solid between the battling mages.

"Hah, coward! No Rhisanth to save you this time!" Terrance's voice became pitchy as he taunted Matt.

In the meantime, the fireballs had stopped, but the husky felt his fur ruffling in the breeze. The wind picked up quickly after that, and the screeching of desk legs on the stone floor harmonized with the howl of the moving air. His desk began to inch away from him. 'I'm a sitting duck, and about to lose my cover!'

Dismissing the bubble, Matt closed his icy eyes and felt for the same feeling he had in the bedroom earlier that day. Moisture coalesced into flakes of snow, and were quickly picked up by the wind. In short order, Matt had turned Terrance's windstorm into a whiteout. Keeping his eyes narrowed at the whipping weather, he moved towards the opposite edge of his desk.

When the wind began to slow, Matt clasped his staff around the ruby and the topaz, letting the snow fall to the ground and pulling together a fireball of his own. As the visibility cleared, he launched his attack. Terrance missed seeing the blistering globe until it was nearly too late, attempting to lunge behind the students' desks. A boom echoed through the room as the fireball caught the doberman in the leg, causing him to spin wildly to the floor with a shriek.

Matt brought his staff in front of him again and re-summoned the bubble, keeping his vision on where he thought the other dog had fallen as he put one foot in front of the other, climbing the stairs with quiet determination. Before he was halfway up, however, he felt the smooth stone stairs below him crack and buckle. Tapping the topaz, he leapt back to lecturer's floor below just as spears of earth sliced through the ground, breaking and blocking the stairs.

A ripple of obsidian fabric caught Matt's eye from the back of the classroom. Terrance had stood after his attack, and his hand burned with black-limned fire. "You're better than I gave you credit for, but I doubt you can handle demonsfire on your own." A jet of dark flame spat from the doberman's paw, hitting the floor near the husky like burning pitch. The black blaze began to crawl across the stone, spreading without need for wood. The stench of sulfur made Matt's eyes water.

'Crap, I'm not just fighting his magical endurance anymore! This needs to end quickly!'

The husky gritted his teeth, snarling at Terrance as he pawed the yellow gem yet again. A blur of grey and blue streaked over the lecture hall. Terrance's maw hung open as Matt swung his staff hard, hitting the black-robed mage in the thigh with a satisfying crack. A gust of wind knocked the husky away from the other mage, but Matt managed to land on the pads of his feet.

"Resorting to hitting me with a stick?" Terrance said with a guffaw and a shake of his head before he focused his brown eyes in concentration.

That concentration was short-lived, however, as Matt bounded back into close quarters with the skinny doberman. Terrance side-stepped the attack, but he grimaced as he lost the thread of his spell. Following through, the husky launched an icicle from the end of his staff before reversing his arms, lifting the bottom of the pole upwards between Terrance's legs. The projectile forced the dark dog to duck, but the staff connected again. Matt raised an eyebrow when he realized that it wasn't Terrance's body that stopped the attack, but a knife in the other dog's paw. Narrowed eyes met each other briefly.

Matt pulled his arms to the left, causing the staff to swing at Terrance's torso. His opponent, however, managed to bring the four inch blade down on Matt's forearm. Both dogs yelped in pain and stepped back.

The husky risked a glance to the front of the room. The demonsfire had covered most of the lecturer's floor, and a ceiling of smoke was lowering down upon the pair. A flash of steel from the corner of his eye brought him back to the fight.

The doberman's strikes were gaining in speed, and though Terrance was doing little more than flailing, the attacks were starting to score Matt's skin. Matt tried to pull the staff up in a defensive stance, but the other dog's magically enhanced haste was more than enough to get around that obstacle. A jab to the leg, a nick on the arm, a pommel to the shoulder. None of the injuries were deep, but Matt knew that death by a thousand cuts was more than just a metaphor.

Digging deep as his fingers clenched the emerald on his staff, Matt imagined his swing buoyed by an invisible force. Terrance was too busy slicing and dicing to dodge the stick, and the husky felt the attack hit something solid for a brief moment. An instant later, a loud crunch reverberated in Matt's ears as the skinny doberman's chest gave way to the staff's momentum. Pain blossomed in the husky's shoulder as he lifted the staff further, hurling Terrance into the demonsfire and smoke at the back of the room.

The clatter of his staff hitting the floor woke him up from his momentary trance. Matt grimaced as he realized that moving his right arm at all caused massive amounts of pain to shoot through him. Looking down, he saw Terrance's knife lodged near his shoulder.

'Augh, that hurts! I hope I crushed his damn rib cage!' Leaving the knife where it was, Matt kneeled to pick up his staff with his left paw as he scanned the dark fire. Terrance was nowhere to be seen. The husky suppressed a cough as the smoke began to leak into his lungs. 'Time to go.'

Moving with care as to not jostle the knife, Matt made his way out of the academy building. A number of furs were standing on the lawn, watching as smoke began to pour out of the squat building. Matt realized that he didn't have much left in him when his vision began to blur. The knife still hurt, and the adrenaline that fueled him was wearing off.

"Matt!" Jay's voice cut through the murmur of the crowd.

'No, that's Jason,' Matt corrected himself as the white-robed cougar approached, two faculty members tailing him. "Terrance escaped, attacked me. Used demonsfire." He sat on the grass, trying to stay upright despite the pain. "Stabbed me, little help?"

Jason let the husky lean on him as the two professors - a wolf and a raven - began to treat the shoulder wound.

* * * * *

'I hope Matt's here. And I hope Chris isn't,' Jay thought as he followed another student in through the metallic dorm doors. Jogging up the stairs lightly, the cougar's mind dwelled on how he would ask Matt about what happened. He couldn't just outright say he knew, or Matt would ask how he figured that out, which would mean he would have to explain about the CSIS agent, and that would probably just piss his boyfriend off. No, he'd just have to get Matt to admit to it somehow.

Without pausing, Jay opened the door to Matt's dorm room. The first thing that he saw was that massive moose leaning over Matt's bed. The husky was laying on the mattress in nothing but his boxers, his white stomach fur exposed for the world to see.

'What... the... f - Wait, everyone's here.'

Jay's gaze moved to Laura, Kael, and Axel all sitting on Kael's bed. The twin mattress was pretty full with the three furs side by side. Kael was leaning his head against Laura's shoulder, his eyes closed, while Laura nodded at Jay.

"What happened?" he said, his voice an octave higher than normal.

"Matt passed out on the way back," Laura said. "Chris was carrying him when he started... convulsing, I guess? Cuts were appearing all over him. Then just a few feet from the dorms -"

"A stab wound appeared between his right shoulder and his chest," Axel interrupted. "It was pretty deep. I was already here, talkin' to Kael when Chris brought him in. I've got field medic trainin', so I figured I could patch him up, at least well enough until we could get him to the hospital." Jay saw the white first aid kit on Kael's desk beside the german shepherd.

Kael spoke softly, as if he was about to pass out. "The dude was bleeding all over the place. Chris was applying pressure, but it was going to need stitches at the very least." The kangaroo heaved a sigh and opened his brown eyes. "I asked Dias to help heal Matt. The dude warned me about how it would keep Matt knocked out for a few more hours. Took a lot of energy from both of us, but it worked."

"By the time I got back upstairs, Matt's wound was closed. It'll still scar, and it'll still be sore, but it was like three weeks had passed after it being stitched up or somethin'."

Jay walked over to his boyfriend, laying asleep on the bed. He pushed past Chris, gently nudging the moose out of the way. He didn't miss the odd look that Laura shot the moose, nor Chris' own shrug in response, but he focused on hugging the husky.

'I'm sorry, Matt. I know I should trust you, like I told the CSIS officer. But I also want to find out what's going on in that moose's mind.'

Standing again, Jay turned to Chris, ready to give the moose a grilling right there. But when he saw his boyfriend's blood staining the moose's vest and matting his fur, he stopped. Jay's ears were already at half-mast, and they laid flat against his head. Everyone in the tiny room was watching the cougar.

"I, uh," Jay took a deep breath and shook his head vigorously. "Thank you, Chris, for caring for Matt. And thanks to everyone, really."

Laura gave him a sweet smile, where Kael and Axel both nodded. Chris stared at the cougar for a moment, then nodded as well.

"Matt's a lucky guy to have all of your help," Jay added quietly, leaning down and stroking the husky's fur.

* * * * *

'Man that summer went from standard university student fare to something out of some magical girl manga. Well, except for the fact that most of us were dudes, not dudettes. We ended up getting that house in Dalhousie that Laura and the guys found earlier, and man, it was awesome!

'I finally had my own room. My tail was starting to get a dent from hitting Matt's desk all the time, and now my room was big enough that I could go almost a full two-thirds of a circle on my chair before hitting my tail against something. Namely my own bed. Still, having some privacy finally was something I certainly was appreciative of. Matt and I took the rooms in the basement. We had our own kitchenette and living room, but normally we all hung out in the living room upstairs anyhow.

'Chris moved in upstairs, and I learned he was pretty good with his paws. The dude really liked fixing up the joint, and as long as we got changes approved with the landlady - some elderly marmot with an Irish accent - we could do pretty much whatever we wanted with the place. So since we all usually hung out upstairs, he turned the basement living room into a mini-workout room. Apparently he had a bunch of gym stuff at his parents' place and Mr. Alexander helped us move it all in. Man, I thought Chris was physically intimidating, but Mr. Alexander was bigger than he was, and way more... stoic, I guess? We all chipped in for a cheap treadmill, too, that we found used off the internet, which Laura had been using day-in day-out.

'Speaking of Laura, she and I had gotten closer, I think. I mean, we were friends before, but that was through Matt, right? And as much as I liked the dude, it was nice to be able to be friends with Laura on my own merits, you know? We actually hung out on occasion. Turned out she's better than me at Scrabble. But I was still way too chicken shit to ask the dudette out on a date. I was terrified it would make things awkward for her. It was already pretty awkward for me. And she still had that "mysterious" night job, which I really preferred to not think about.

'Matt was also downstairs in his own room, which he was over the freaking moon about. But of course, we needed to make sure we knew if the dude was in Ameranth and getting hurt at night, so we got a sound-activated baby monitor. At first we had rigged it to trigger an alarm to make sure he wasn't bleeding to death or getting tangled in the sheets or something. After it went off once and we all woke up, we decided we'd take shifts instead of us all being miserably tired. I'd be on call one evening, Laura the next, then Chris, and so on. He hadn't quite recovered completely from that stab wound. Even a couple months after, he had difficulty lifting his arm up over his shoulder. I wonder if he'd have been able to get that fixed if we'd taken him to the emergency room rather than relying on magic, but he didn't seem to blame me at all.

'Jay would stay over on the weekends, and he even chipped in a little for rent when he did, which was nice of the dude. But he'd been pretty quiet by the end of the summer, and even though he was less of a jerk to Chris, the two of them still didn't really get along. They weren't at each other's throats or anything, but things were tense. It got to the point that Chris made himself pretty scarce on weekends, preferring to hang out in the Kinesiology department at the university. Matt was always happier when Jay was over, though. Probably because the dude was getting some. Well, that one time they forgot to turn off the baby monitor was enough to tell me that he was definitely getting some.

'Axel swung by all the time, too. The cop was pretty cool. The dude's a lot smarter than I think he ever liked to let on, but I kinda got that figured out after our chat about his faith. It was pretty strange that a twenty-eight year old dude would want to hang around a bunch of university kids, but I guess it made him feel younger, or more likely he felt like we needed an actual adult. Either way he was involved. And he was really helpful with the demon attacks, too.

'There'd been a few more attacks over the remainder of the summer. A couple of really small ones, where one or two imps were sighted and squashed by local police. A much bigger event was when the main foyer of one of the telecom skyscrapers downtown got trashed by a bar'lgura before Matt, me, and Laura showed up to take it out. Axel called us in, actually, and helped us, too. Was pretty cool getting called in like some sort of special task force, which I guess we were in a sense, knowing magic and all.

'After that our secret became a lot less secret. Axel got a talking to by his superior about getting involved (again), then got a promotion of sorts to head an official police investigation into the use of magic in the force, pretty well like the dude had planned, I think. Again with the smarter than he liked to let on. Axel had Matt come in a few times to teach the basics, and even got paid a lot more than they paid him at the library. After that some of the smaller demon attacks were handled without our direct intervention.

'And on the subject of learning magic, most of us started honing in on our specialties. Or affinities, Matt would call them. It turned out Laura was crazy good with fire. Pretty much useless at most anything else but the basics, but she could do the coolest things with fire. She had this neat trick where she'd cover herself with flames and just run into her enemies. Not exactly the most graceful of attacks, but damn effective.

'Matt was still far better at magic than the rest of us combined, though. Granted, the dude had a three month head start, and he was pretty much told point blank by the magi on Ameranth that he was some sort of prodigy. But every time one of us learned a trick or something he couldn't do, either he pulled it off right away after watching it, or did something a bit different but better. I'd say it should have done wonders for his confidence, but he still didn't think it was enough. I guess whatever magic those magi on Ameranth were capable of must be beyond what I could imagine if he still thought he wasn't good enough.

'Or perhaps it was Jay's lack of magic that was eating at him. His boyfriend still couldn't perform a lick of magic, and probably explained why Jay had been distant, well, beyond the whole Chris thing. According to Matt, though, it was unheard of on Ameranth to not be able to do any magic at all. So the fact that Jay couldn't was really strange. But apparently he wasn't alone: in the police classes that Matt had been helping to teach, about three of the thirty officers also couldn't use magic, either. Still, I think both of the dudes were stressing hardcore about it.

'Axel, on the other paw, was pretty good with electricity. It was also kind of unfortunate, since when he used his magic, the dude's fur looked like he had gone through a hair dryer on maximum every single time. He took to trimming it a lot shorter, but as fall approached it was coming in faster than he could keep it trimmed. He also had to replace his cell phone. Twice. But his ability was somewhat unique, because furs on Ameranth only had a rudimentary understanding of electricity. Oh, according to Matt sometimes they'd conjure lighting, or even a lightning storm, but Axel being able to shock others by grabbing them was different. Without understanding the science behind electricity, what they knew about it seemed to be pretty limited. Cop didn't need to carry a Taser anymore, though.

'Chris' abilities were pretty low key. He barely had the basics down, and he even told me once that he didn't mind that he was slower than the rest of us at this magic thing, he was just happy to be around to help. Dude had a heart of gold, but it made me worry if we were taking advantage of him somehow. The one thing he was really good at, though, is what Matt had suggested: physical augmentation. He could make himself faster, and jump higher than any of us. Like a superhero, but without a cape, in a kilt. But anytime Matt suggested to him that he should try using magic to make himself stronger, the dude would freak. Like eyes bugging out and shaking paws. None of us could figure out why he had that reaction, and I think Matt even asked him, but he wouldn't say a damn thing.

'And then there was me. After my little heart-to-heart with Axel, it really helped me put a positive spin on my deal with Dias. I just couldn't handle the thought of losing myself again, and even after that talk, occasionally while channeling the dude's power I'd get panic attacks and just shut down. Usually during our practice sessions, but once Matt ate a fireball to the chest because I had just lost it during a demon attack. He was understanding, but I think the dude was also a little fed up with my instability. I was too, honestly, but I couldn't afford to lose myself to Dias' power again, either. Something I was still working on even at the end of the summer.

'Apparently using magic is a lot like any other physical skill. You can't run a marathon right out the gate, or play the trumpet for hours on day one, you need to build up endurance. So we practiced our magic, including me, whenever we could spare and hour or two as groups. We still also had our martial arts training, and Jay and Laura found a group that did kendo. We weren't sure how handy that would be in real combat, though, as it was more about discipline than self-defense. Finding someone who was capable of real sword training was more than a little difficult.

'It wasn't all work, though. Matt and Jay still went on dates. We watched (and made fun of) movies as a group in the living room, or played video games. We took trips to the park to throw a Frisbee around, and sat around talking until it was two in the morning and we should've been in bed hours ago. We even did laser tag a couple times, which was great. I still hid out in my room a lot, but know what? It was also a lot of fun hanging with the group, too. So while we were all battling the small demon attacks and learning magic, we also got to have a little bit of normality.

'Of course, classes started back up at the end of August and that changed everything. With all of us entering our second year of university, our classes were going to get harder, and more specialized. But magic, demons, and university didn't make for a good mix. What we didn't realize going into the school year was that our second year at university was going to be our last.'