Behind Enemy Lines

Harambe passed out cold, after a sneak attack to the back of his head. He felt it right as something stabbed straight into his nape, but surprisingly he was unable to feel the pain that should've come after.

Maybe due to adrenaline.

He opened his eyes to a dark, empty plane. It was a place he knew too well, and hated too well. 

He started punching in every single direction, then he started talking smack, since no one could hear him anyway.

"What are you doing here, Draken Alpha? Are you killed again?" The voice was as irritating as Harambe remembered it.

"Damn you! How dare you make me a shifter!" His veins on the head bulged, because he wanted to both see if his body was actually his own, and because he wanted to destroy whatever this voice is. "Show yourself!"

"I have one question for you." 

"I will not answer any questions from you!"

"Are you having fun with your new identity?"

Draken thought long and hard about the question. Ever since he returned… he'd been running. It's only been a single night and day… but he fought Uhuru, that tall elf lady, and his new identity…

He won't tell this bastard voice though. 

"It hasn't been a day, please return me back to being Draken if you think I deserve to live." This is what Draken really wanted. The experience of being a shifter of high nobility, and being headhunted at the same time doesn't really suit him.

"Draken is dead. Instead, I want you to have fun, and freedom."

All of a sudden, Draken started falling.

***

"Mistress Cleo! Please wake up!" Sata was shaking. Their group of shifters were bamboozled when the portal appeared. Of course, Hercule himself confirmed that if anyone uses that portal, it will explode into nothingness. So, how did their mistress get through?

"Mistress Cleo!"

Cleo opened her wary eyes, with a sinking feeling that something was not right. Her slit eyes were looking straight at the high ceiling of the warehouse, wondering what she missed.

"Where's Harambe?!" Cleo sat up, with a cry of indignation. She doesn't know what happened after someone knocked her out cold. Harambe was sitting at the edge of the cliff, having a minute of respite… 

Then, she's suddenly here… smack dab in the middle of Nowhere…

The remnants of the third division realized that the Crown Prince, the reason for all of the things that happened within the last day, had gone missing again. Cleo was alone, when she's supposed to be with Harambe.

Were our sacrifices in vain?

"We gotta find him!" Cleo forced herself to stand up, in vain, after some blood gushed from her sides in an apparent blunt force wound. She didn't know where that came from.

"Mistress! Don't stand up yet!" Sata carefully laid Cleo on a soft mattress. "I'll try and get in contact with HQ, and tell them what happened."

Sata halted their new operation when Hercule popped out of the portal beaten to near death. It doesn't matter to her whether headquarters will be angry if they come to their next mission late. She promised herself that she won't leave anyone from their team behind again. 

Herc, as they affectionately call him, slept on the corner with his worst wounds healing at a visible rate. His vulnerable state was a far cry from the state he was in when he fought usurper King Uhuru just a few hours ago.

Cleo was carried to another bunk beside Herc, and tended to with the same gooey, muddy substance by their lone remaining healer— a tall, and beautiful, dark skinned lady. Her face was filled with confusion and agony, owing to the fact that she lost her last remaining link to the person she loved dearest. She was trying her damnedest to hold her tears back, and remain strong in front of the people who needed her and Hercule the most. 

As the most senior member, and as the administrator of the third division. 

A mission coming from their grandmaster was accepted by Cleo and Hercule two weeks ago. Back then, the idea of a coup d'etat in Ubwiza, King Harambe's subsequent death, and the assassination attempt against Crown Prince Harambe, was inconceivable, for the two close confidants of the king.

Never would they have thought that Uhuru would be the firestarter of the coup, and the mastermind of the plot to end Harambe's reign. He did that, and much more.

Now, Hercule was almost snuffed out. Cleo and the crown prince were separated. The gallant Third Division almost became history. 

Here in Nowhere, they make their last stand.

***

The acidic rains haven't stopped pouring. Amid wet piles of crushed stone, crushed gravel, and wet bricks, sprawled a massive, unconscious man wearing torn clothing. His head had several shallow wounds, and his exposed skin was starting to sizzle from the acidic downpour. 

People came and went, some with the look of pity, some disgust, and some who couldn't care less. The sight of the unconscious, bloodied man would've been something of a spectacle in most other places but… perhaps it was a good thing this was the walled city of Somewhere, the city that never sleeps.

Night had fallen, and the same man had laid there unconscious on top of several construction materials for the most part of the day. The toxic rain had stopped, and the bright crescent moon had lit up the smoggy evening sky. Of course, the absurd humidity, and the muddy streets made it so that even the colder gusts of the night were just as annoying as that of the day.

This backwater piece of the walled city of Somewhere was a massive industrial complex. A sawmill, several factories for different kinds of goods, a waste treatment facility, and a military munitions factory all in this small piece of barren, disheartening terrain. 

The young man woke up from what seemed like a lucid dream of his, with a gagging cough that almost overwhelmed him. His eyes were unfocused as it looked up to the heavens, his limbs were festering from the acidic raindrops, his senses numb, and his mind slowly processing the events of the day. 

Passing by him with a concerned look were the industry workers, and artisans who worked the afternoon shift, going back home to their families after another day's slog. These were the same people who saw him left for dead earlier today. 

If only they knew that the young man was the Ubwizan Crown Prince, Harambe, they would've ended him right then and there.

And as his attention snapped back into the present, he could only utter these few words in his confusion.

"What the fuck is going on?"

His eyes rolled back, managing to breathe hoarsely, before slipping back to unconsciousness.