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K, THIS is where it get's furry. This chapter is also the last compleated one I have and is a bit shorter than the others.... Now I just need to keep writing this thing.

Sypher Island: God's Blade

Ch. 3: Undertown

Sypher Island's lower two levels, Undertown, were darker than the star-filled night around it, shaded by the mighty towers and roads above it, and the dregs of Sypher's population filled it.

At the very heart of the city, a lone Pill BUG drove down from the well-lit, up-kept streets of the third level to the decrepit, dim streets of the second that were held up only by the jumbled mass of wooden slums beneath Sypher.

The Pill BUG crawled along the road, its oblong, steel, hemisphere of a body supported by armor-clad legs that clattered metallically as it came to a stop by a lone alley way darker than the dark streets around it. Its armor plates opened from the middle of its body and two Ant BUGs walked out, fallowed by Officer Sid. Between the two of them, the Ants dragged Zano's limp, numb body, still wearing only a hospital gown.

Zano was dimly aware of his surroundings through the haze of grief and pain, only dimly aware of Sid explaining that Zano's resent exposure to beast made him dangerous, but with no symptoms, Zano could be allowed past the second level in a few years.

It didn't matter to him any more.

It didn't matter that they dropped him in a lonely, dirty alley; it didn't matter that they left him only a bag with some money, and it didn't matter that they drove off, leaving him all alone. He was just as alone as he had been on that hospital floor, drenched in his father's blood.

Zano wrestled with his gilt, and his own quick mind worked against him as he desperately tried to find someone to blame. He asked himself endless questions he couldn't answer. Why couldn't the nurses be closer when he was hurt? Why couldn't Dukka have been strapped down or stopped when he woke up? Why couldn't Zano have been awake sooner, why couldn't Dukka have been asleep longer? Why...?

Zano stumbled over blaming Dukka. He had killed his dad in cold blood, but he couldn't think of him as a killer, he could only think of the memories. Every time he could almost think of Dukka as an evil person, he remembered the time Dukka stared down the bullies who were teasing Zano in the first grade, or the time Dukka broke his leg and in Sypher Park and Zano waited for help with him for hours. The sparring lessons, the high school classes, and all the happy moments they shared as kids.

And then the angel.

Zerlom had told Zano that Dukka was being possessed, controlled, and he didn't have his own free will anymore. So, no matter how desperately he wanted to, he couldn't blame Dukka. Even worse, he felt sorry for him, for how far he had fallen.

Zano slowly became aware of his surroundings--the dark, dirty alleyway his eyes had already adjusted to, and the subtle voice, Zerlom's voice, in the back of his head telling him he had to move on. Zano was going to save Dukka. Hating him wouldn't bring Zano's dad back, and neither would saving him, but it was the least he could do for his truest friend.

Zerlom's voice rang in his head: Move, Zano. Worry about Dukka when you're safe.

A small shiver ran down Zano's spine that had nothing to do with the weather. He wondered if the voice was really the voice of an angel that came to him in a vision, or not? He decided to question his sanity later, because wherever the voice came from, it was right. He didn't want to be crying in a dark alley in a thin gown when some random mugger came along.

Zano started to assess what they had left him and groaned aloud. They had left his best duffle bag: a gleaming white, exceptionally durable bag with zippered pockets for everything from a trench coat to toiletries. It would draw more attention than polished gold down those dark streets.

He had less luck with the clothing. In the bag they had left him was his best pair of blue jeans, his newest white and black shirt, and to top it all off, the jacket he had been wearing when he fell into the huge vat of Feral-amphetamines. Zano was sure that every beast user for miles would smell it. It was like Sid wanted him to get mugged.

Zano was a little happier with the rest of the stuff. He found the sewing kit he had used to patch holes in his oldest sparring gear, his oldest, thickest black shoes, and a basic med pack that held some common supplies, like a skin-binding glue and blood-replenishing pills.

Then Zano opened the last compartment in the bag and pulled out his dad's old sword-battle-warn handle; plated, bolted and bladed hilt; and a nicked old scabbard and belt made of tattered black leather. He gave a small, sad smile as he remembered his dad telling him that even when you do God's work, you have to make sure the Devil doesn't work you. He remembered for the millionth time in the last few hours that he was never going to see his father again.

Zerlom's voice in the back of his head urged him to wipe his new tears away and move on. He quickly questioned his sanity once more before getting to work.

First, he spread out his clothes and started to cut into the fabric with his father's sword, opening the knees of the jeans, slicing the edges of the shirt, and splitting the right shoulder and left elbow of his jacket. Then he rubbed each piece thoroughly on the grimy alley wall, fraying each cut and covering the new colors with dirt and grit.

As soon as he finished, he changed into his new clothes and old shoes and rubbed the white hospital gown in the same grime. Next he clumsily sewed up the bottom of the dress closed, the arms together over the neck, and he started to move everything else from his duffle bag to his new, makeshift, dirt-covered sack.

He paused when he came to the blade in its dark scabbard, then decided to wear it proudly at his waist.

He completed his scruffy look by rubbing dirt all over his face and hands, and all through his bright auburn hair to; dull its usual ostentatious color. He turned the corner of the alley into the dark, strange streets of Undertown, hoping he was ready for whatever came his way.

He wasn't.

Dukka sat cold and alone in a dark, damp space. He felt a coarse wall scrape his skin through the thin hospital gown; he felt the frigid air chill him to his bones; and he felt his own body grow bony, curved horns, wicked, sharp claws, and painfully swollen limbs. And worst of all, he couldn't tell if it was real.

The chilly voice of his own daemon echoed through his skull.

You killed three people getting out you know, it taunted.

"No," Dukka muttered, "no, no, no...."

You killed a nurse, it cruelly continued, with your bare hands.

"No, no...," Dukka repeated desperately, trying not to believe the blood he could feel between his own fingers.

The baby she was holding broke its head to pieces on the floor, it added with twisted joy.

Dukka kept muttering, faster and louder with every word.

The daemon savored his pain. And let's not forget, you killed him, it said unemotionally.

Dukka would have given anything to shut it out.

You killed Father Amos.

Dukka's wordless scream of pain shot from the depths of his soul, out through the depths of Sypher Island, and echoed into the depths of the unfeeling night. The only response Dukka had was the endless, cruel laughter of his own personal daemon.

Half a city away, Zano walked the Undertown streets with only the voice in his head to guide him.

Turn left here, Zano, Zerlom urged.

For a moment, Zano thought he saw a stark white duster and wings just around the corner.

Are you going to tell me where we're going? thought Zano, and the voice was silent.

Zano took a measured breath as he took the corner, and let it out slowly when no one was there. He tried to shake it off: he could be seeing things because he was tired, or maybe it was stress, or maybe it was a local. It seemed like every lone, midnight walker he passed held his jacket close with a scaly hand, had narrow cat's eyes that gleamed from under their hood, or curled a wicked smile over yellow fangs. And every time Zano passed one, he made sure to walk like a predator, like he was looking for trouble. An extra swagger to his step, a raised head and extended jaw, a hard look to his eyes and the battle scarred blade at his hip sent a clear message: anyone who messed with him was going to hell the hard way.

Zano was still scared that someone would take one whiff of his jacket and try to mug him for drugs, but he knew that if he looked nervous or weak for just a second, some bullying punk would think he could push him around, so Zano kept up the façade that kept everyone else from messing with him.

He kept walking, turning when Zerlom said to, and tried to analyze every detail in Undertown. He was in an apartment district and he noticed that the buildings were packed extremely close together, like books on a shelf, with only the occasional alleyway to separate them. Each building had about ten stories, each with a dozen of its own faded signs. Each level looked like apartments, but Zano couldn't see any vacancy or 'for rent' signs, so he figured they were only for the shop owners and he would have to keep moving until he could find a job with a place to sleep.

He noticed that, unlike the higher levels of Sypher, which had gracefully curved roads with vast space between them and the buildings offering grand views of the lower levels and the sky, Undertown had roads that went right up to each building, so the only views of the first level slums were occasional ramps that fell below the road into pitch blackness.

The only light that found the second level flooded from the ramps that came from the third. Each of these ramps were guarded by no less than two Ants, and every time Zano passed one of these, he saw mechanical eyes glow red behind each Ant's glass visor, scanning Zano's face and hand print, bracing themselves in case Zano decided to try to escape the dark streets.

As he passed about the sixteenth of these ramps, Zano heard something strange around the corner, hushed whispers and the occasional leather-sounding thud. He felt confusion with a hint of fear as he rounded the corner to the dark alley.

This was one of those rare alleys in Sypher where it passed through to the next street, the buildings on each side rose high into the night, and in the shadows of the alleyway, three darker shadows were mugging the smaller shadow of a young kid.

Zano suddenly felt torn between his two choices. If he started a fight with the BUGs right around the corner, he could get in even more trouble, but those guys were mugging that kid, he had to stop them, but Sypher law didn't exactly favor him when he stopped Dukka, but the BUGs could definitely hear this from where they were and they weren't doing anything, they probably weren't even on, but....

Zano's mind was made up for him as one of the silhouettes swung a large fist into the kid's gut, making him crumple like a paper bag on the floor and making the same, leather like thud.

Zano carefully laid his dirty bag on the ground and stepped farther into the alleyway.

"Stop, right now!" he shouted in a voice he hoped sounded more confident than he felt.

All three men suddenly stopped and stepped out into the meager light coming from the street, revealing their gruesome features and stepping between Zano and their pray.

The first was wearing only black jeans and crouched close to the ground. He giggled in a way that chillingly reminded Zano of the Dukka-thing, making his naked, pail green scale covered body shake and the sickly yellow hair that sprouted in three lines over his head shake like a lion on a bad mane day. He scratched his large, pointed ears with his clawed feet as he kept giggling.

"Can I kill him Scar, please?" he asked. His cat-like eyes shone the same green light in anticipation as his scaly tail rose behind him.

The guy he was talking to was wearing the same black jeans and generic, white sneakers. His bare chest and arms were covered in an insect's exoskeleton and his namesake, a red, puckering scar, ran from his left deltoid down to his naval. His fingers drummed thoughtfully at the sword at his hip as he replied.

"Dunno' Eddy. Whaddya' think, Boss?"

The apparent boss of the group was wearing green pants and a dark hoodie in a mottled gray pattern that was popular for how it seemed to blend in with the shadow around it. His hands were more like paws and his head was shaped like a wolf's, muzzle and all; spike-like horns kept his hood from covering his reflective yellow eyes.

He sized up the scruffy young man with blazing hair in front of him and a literally wolfish grin spread across his snout.

"What are you gonna' do if we don't stop?" he asked Zano, a dangerous anger behind the challenge.

Zano assumed a fighting stance, feet apart, right side forward. He had nothing left to say.

The boss smiled at his scaly lackey.

"Crazy Eddy," he said, "eat him."

Eddy gave a howl of feral joy and bound toward Zano on all fours who stood ready and unflinching. Eddy closed the gap and bounced for him with blood lust in his eye. Just as his claws were inches from Zano's coat, He took a quick step to the side and slammed his left fist into Eddie's temple. Eddie collided with the wall in mid air and was out before he hit the ground.

Zano turned in time see Scar bellow, rage contorting his face, and charge, sword raised. Zano ran to meet him with his had on his father's blade. He drew his sword and batted Scar's past with the same movement. Scar's blade-edge passed inches from Zano's shoulder, who grabbed his sword wrist. With a quick jerk into Zano's own elbow, Scar's was broken. Before he could even start to yell, Zano's knee jammed into his gut.

Scar doubled over in pain, holding his lifeless arm and unable to breath. He felt the cold steel of Zano's blade on his neck. He wasn't even looking at Scar; he was staring down the boss.

The boss knew when he was out-classed and out-gunned, and he despised losing to anyone, but he wasn't about to fight this guy without a weapon and some kind of advantage. He swallowed his pride and bottled his anger.

"Scar," he said, venom dripping from every growled syllable, "pick up Eddie and let the nice kid with the nasty sword have our little friend."

The boss passed Zano and left the dark alley, followed closely by Scar carrying his limp arm on one side and the unconcious Eddy on the other.

As soon as they disappeared around the corner, Zano rushed to his bag and brought his med kit to the unconscious kid at the back of the ally. The kid's bright red hoodie and faded blue jeans stood in stark contrast to the mound of trash and dirt he was sunk into. Zano took out some feel-goods; anesthetic pills mixed with adrenalin that made most injuries seem to go away for a while. Zano lifted the kid's hood to give him some and suddenly paused in shock. The kid had truly red hair, not carrot top orange and not Zano's dark red either. The was it fell across his soft face and the shape of his thin jaw made him look even younger than he probably was, and from out of his hair came large, pointed fox ears tipped in black.

Zano couldn't believe that even this kid was a user, but he quickly decided that it didn't matter; he still had to save this kid. He tilted the kid's jaw back, his mouth open (it was filled with regular teeth but slightly longer canines) and popped the feel-goods down his throat. There was a long pause, and than the kid suddenly shot up, wide eyed and with a literally bushy fox tail. His breath was ragged and fast, like he had woken from a terrible nightmare.

"What...?" he gasped, and Zano tried to calm him.

"Shhhh, they're gone now," he assured him. The kid grabbed Zano's jacket with black paws and started leveling his breathing. "Where do you live?" Zano urged, "We need to get you some place warm and safe." The poor confused kid's reflective caramel eyes were already starting to look around sluggishly as he struggled to overcome the sudden drop in energy that came after the adrenalin high.

"7th street, 1236, second story, apartment 23," he gasped between breaths, slowly falling asleep with every word. "Thank you," he whispered.

Zano lifted him in his arm's, and the strange kid's last thoughts before he fell asleep again was that he had been saved by a guardian angel with blazing, auburn hair.