It didn't take as long to get to Nuclear's lair this time since they already knew the way.  Once again, Kit and Kat were the guards, and once again, it was easy to get past them.

Kasai led the way — as usual — and explored around.

There was no sign of Lightning.

"Huh... he's not here." she muttered to herself.

"But he has to be!" Katie barked.  "There can't be anywhere else....can there?"

"I don't know."

"Can we get out of here before that other werewolf finds us?" Doug growled.  "I don't like her."

"I'm pretty sure none of us do." Flash pointed out.

The group muttered their agreements before Kasai broke them up.

"Quiet down!  If you don't, we'll just get caught."

The group remained silent again.

"Well, we have to, uh... uh..." Zakk tried thinking of a pun before his eyes widened in horror.  "I don't have a pun!" he pouted.

The group sighed with relief.

"For once." Sasha muttered.

"Hey!" Zakk complained.

Flash laughed a little.  "Silly, silly dragon."

Zakk rolled his eyes.  "Can we just go..."

Kasai led the way back out again, not saying another word.  She seemed to be deep in thought.

All of her thoughts focused around one thing:

Where could Lightning be?

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~ • ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

Fosc walked into the prisoner tent slowly, his tail twitching behind him.

He stared at Lightning, who was still unconscious.

"Pfft. These 'rulers' are so weak. It's so easy to overpower them. Hopefully Lord Nuclear will prove to be much stronger when he's in power."

He watched as Lightning slowly woke up.

"...argh...wha...?"

"Well then. About time you woke up."

Lightning froze and looked at the lion neko standing over him. "W...who are you?"

"That's not important."

"Are you defying me?"

"Why wouldn't I?"

"You know I can easily kill you right now."

"Try if you must."

Lightning growled and tried sending a bolt at Fosc, but nothing happened. He flinched. Why did it hurt so much?

"See? You can't hurt me."

"...w...what did you do..?" Lightning narrowed his eyes.

"That's not important either. I wouldn't get too comfortable if I were you. We'll be leaving soon. This is only our temporary camp."

"...camp?"

"You'll see later."

Fosc flicked his tail before going to check on the other less important prisoners.

A young dog neko immediately yelped and whined when she heard Fosc walk in. She cuddled closer to an older, male dog neko nearby.

"Still scared of me? I thought you'd warm up to me by now." Fosc muttered darkly.

"W-w-w-what d-d-do you w-w-want!?" the neko whined. The male put his arm around her protectively.

"Stay strong, Choco. The more fear he senses, the more he'll hurt you." he whispered.

Choco just whined more.

"Oh, nothing." Fosc growled lowly.  "Just making sure you aren't too comfortable."

He went into his lion form and unsheathed his claws, swiping at Choco and scratching her across the face.  She yelped and howled, whining in pain.

The older neko immediately barked and growled, getting in front of the younger defensively.

"Oh, Barry... I should've known you'd try to stand up for your daughter." Fosc muttered, his tail twitching. "Mind if I just..."

He pounced at him, sinking his sharp fangs into Barry's arm. Barry let out a howl of pain and struggled to escape Fosc's jaws, barely succeeding.

Choco cuddled closer to him again, whining even more. Fosc glared at them and licked the blood off of his mouth, then cleaned off his claws before walking out again, switching to human form on the way out.

Rosa rushed up to him. "The coast is clear, Fosc!" she reported.

"Good. Tell Terry it's her turn to guard the camp now." Fosc instructed, heading back to his own tent.  Rosa saluted before going to alert the phoenix.

"Terry!  Terry, get up!" she chirped.  Terry groaned and got up, glaring at Rosa.

"What is it."

"It's your turn to guard the camp, that's what it is!"

"Fine."  Terry shoved Rosa out of the way before marching to the front of the camp to stand guard.

Rosa huffed, twitching her tail.  "Rude much?"

She went to join Fosc while Terry kept watch.

Thankfully, she didn't notice the husky neko crouched down, keeping a sharp eye on them before running away again.