It's three years later, in the year 1963. The City of Hargot was between the underbelly and the belly of the beast.

Nineteen-year-old, Eltchie Waberson tossed the decanter of Ovaltine at twenty-one-year-old, Cask Erickott.

"Hey, watch it, Eltchie. That Ovaltine was mixed with my best moonshine."

"Do you mean the moonshine I made?! That you screwed me out of, Cask."

"I distilled it."

"Doesn't matter. It's my recipe."

"Who's going to believe a chick can make moonshine, anyway? They'd laugh you right out of town."

"This lab's funded with my recipe. I'll shout it to every newspaper in Anagram that you've been mixing moonshine in the Ovaltine, recapping the bottles and reselling them to the refugees in Hault Horizon and DragenCamp."

"Nobody likes a rat fink, Eltchie."

"I don't want to be, but if I can bring you down I'll take what's coming to me."

"You and I used to be so tight, Eltchie. You're such a righteous chick." Cask took her by the hand and kissed it.

"The hanky-panky between us is what has put us on opposite sides."

"Just because you're Círcstêsí, doesn't mean we should be apart."

"All of us Anagramians are atheist born and raised. We don't believe in elected officials with the exception of Stenturiaon and police officers. We don't have a president, senator, secretary of state or any country, state or city officials such as mayors, aldermen, city councilman, etc. because they don't believe in them. We believe it makes life less complicated and corruptible if they don't elect those kinds of people. The Anagramians appoint generals and police after thoroughly vetting them. No more than ten to twenty police officers per location in Anagram to keep situations neat and tidy. They look to me as their guidance. I was appointed Stenturiaon. I take my position as High-General very seriously. One of the wardens has already left his post. I know I was only appointed because of the other Stenturiaon's incompetence. I've been in this job for four years since I was fifteen and I have yet to prove myself. Our marriage has been annulled and it's for the best for business and cultural purposes to instill their trust in me."

"You keep telling yourself that."

"I do every day. I'm not at all convinced." Eltchie shook her head.

"That makes two of us." Cask touched her lips with his thumb. His eyes studied the shape of her round lips. He leaned in to kiss her and she stood up straighter on her four legs. A congenital birth defect called dipygus that all Círcstêsí were born with. They were always mistaken for centaurs or as the distant cousin of them. But they were neither. They didn't have hindquarters, tails or the body of a horse; instead, their legs are duplicates.

She had long silver hair with a brownish-orange color on the ends and the crown. She had big, wide-set, diamond-shaped brownish-orange eyes. She had a tennis racket shaped body, which gave her a unique appeal. She was half-Equatoguinean and Ivorian.

She stroked the horn protruding from his head, developed from the outer layer of his skin. He was tall and stocky built. He had close-set, hooded metallic pink-grey eyes. He was half-Marshallese and Hungarian. He was born of the Kjuiorn tribe. He and Eltchie were human but, had knowledge of natural medicines from plants and animals. They preferred the name "healers" instead of medicine men or medicine women.

Being a Stenturiaon also known as High-General left an uneasy feeling in the pit of Anagramians stomachs. A woman, especially one of her revered caliber in the medicine world was unusual, unheard of, and dangerous in what was usually a male militant position.

During the Remyhk Meguro Eagar Dynasty, children weren't allowed to go to school. To communicate with their family or to eat with a fork because forks were a conduit of witchcraft. They could only eat with a spoon or their fingers. They had to share their food rations with each other. Forced to work, whatever money they made funded the government. Any child intellectuals, those caught with a book, wearing glasses, or with special needs, (which meant they had special abilities) were immediately executed or exiled.

Eltchie avoided execution and exile because of her healing knowledge. She kept silent. She tended to the wounds of the oath-bound paladins in the Civil War Rebellion against the Remyhk Meguro Eagar followers. She studied the way their bodies moved in combat and sword fighting techniques. She paid attention to how they joked, told stories and in the way in which they strategize. The honor they'd shown toward one another astounded her. The comfort they had when they drank with each other inspired her. She was a child of twelve at the time. She practiced with the other surviving children. She trained them into an army, although small, became strong and obstinate.

Eltchie laid her head on Cask's shoulder. "What I've done is a war crime. I killed the High-General punishing him for his incompetence. But I made an example out of him since no one else would. I paid no mind to his semi-omnipotence. He didn't respect his own position. What I did brought respect to it where there wasn't any. I would be dead, too for my crime, if the other High-Generals weren't afraid I'd have their heads, too. They fear me and respect me even though they hate that I'm a chick." She lifted her head and looked into Cask's eyes unwaveringly. She raised a self-satisfied brow.

"I've been trading Reimo Realms of Sin with Watch, Jinger, and Gerry in exchange for them finding the Traveling Salesman. I only gave them one." He jingled the small almost microscopic ruthenium stencils inside the plastic flask in his pocket. "I told them to bring it here. It's already killed once. But we've lost track of it, since then. It must be laying low."

"Either way it'd be difficult to track because of its abilities. I don't trust Watch, Jinger, and Gerry. They're flakes. They're better auctioneers than captors. They couldn't even keep the Astronomgonist alive."

"That just makes them terrible preservers, not incompetent captors. In their defense, there's limited knowledge on Astronomgonists." Cask shrugged. "They live their lives as simple folk under the radar of magical suspicion. They live as literal metaphors of the way the world perceives them. So they stay undetected."

"What good is a dead Astronomgonist (ɘˈstränɘmgɘnɘst)? He would've been the ultimate soldier warden." Eltchie sighed.

"No, it would be impossible to control him because of his unpredictable powers. Spare parts are all he's good for now."

"I'm not sure that's true. In the meantime, we've kept him on ice with sugar cane surrounding his body."

"Why would you do that? Astronomgonists are allergic to sugar cane. But he isn't alive so it defeats the purpose. Unless you think he's not really dead, in which case he'd be useless because the sugar cane would take away his powers."

"I'm only preserving the body until I can find better use for it besides spare parts," Eltchie shrugged.

"You can forget about it. There's no resurrection spell, no matter how powerful to resurrect an Astronomgonist."

"Jealousy doesn't become you, Cask." She tantalized the horn at the back of his head. She looked him in the eyes and whispered as he pleasurably shuddered from her touch. "If you steal from me again, I'll separate your horn from your body. And no I don't mean the one from your head."

"Try it. I'd love to see you wield a knife. The way you hold it, the commanding position of your body and your compelling, skillful technique are like art in motion." He said with a sexy grin.

"Who said I was going to use a knife?' She put her hand on the hilt of her sword in its sheath and the other hand still stroking the horn on his head.

Jezromiah Kawther, Dorothey Tolt, Sailil Melevina cornered the escaped creature.

Dorothey's wings were outstretched. She had glowing black eyes. Her Okapi stood beside her.

The creature sensed the angel-witch and demon-banshee blood inside her. He came closer and then stepped back and kept repeating this motion.

But she and her Okapi stood firm. Dorothey was sixteen years old. She had blue-grey eyes. Her rose-gold colored hair was in a bouffant bob style. Her body was a diamond shape. She was half-Indonesian and Honduran.

The Okapi had a long neck, large flexible ears, short, hair-covered horns atop its head, a chocolate to reddish brown coat with black horizontal stripes and rings on the legs and white ankles. It was 8'2 and weighed six-hundred pounds. He stood in front of Dorothey.

"No Shomari. I can do this." Dorothey said to the Okapi. Her forehead glowed green as she talked to him telepathically.

"But you're in crisis, Dorothey," Shomari replied his eyes glowing red as he turned toward her talking to her in the same telepathic manner. "What if he injures you and you get a bacterial infection? You should beat feet. Sailil, Jezromiah and I can handle this."

"Can we not mention my sickle cell anemia, while we're in the middle of recovering this creature? I'll be ok. I have just enough power in me today to put the fear of annihilation in him." She had pain in her joints and in her chest. She was pale and had shortness of breath. The fatigue overwhelmed her mind and body. She put her hand on Shomari's ears and stroked them. He reluctantly moved backward.

Dorothey nodded to Sailil, and she began performing her siren song. Sailil's voice was like Ella Fitzgerald's on a Saturday morning. The pleasantness of her beautiful voice shrilled its mind to a fever pitch and calm and continued causing him this unrelenting symptom until he growled. His teeth had an oblong shaped but had a slight acute sharp point as he gnashed them.

Jezromiah's Tizona sword gleaned in the ladle of light. He was an oath-bound paladin-warlock and dragon whisperer the last of his kind. He was half-Comorian and East Timorese-Namibian. He was seventeen years old. He had bold yellow-colored eyes and brownish-yellow hair cut in a side-patterned mullet with a small side pompadour. He had a strong square jawline. He was tall. His body build was an inverted triangle. He had broad shoulders and a broad chest, well-developed muscles, somewhat bulky.

Sailil was a siren-hamadryad merfolk-druid-wizard. She had fluorescent-rainbow colored eyes. Her hair was a darker brown and black color at the roots to the mid-shaft and lighter from the mid-shaft to the ends, cut in a short, straight mod hairstyle. She was eighteen years old. She had a curvy column-shaped body. She was half-Samoan and Grenadian-Belarusian. Sailil shot an octagon shaped energy ball at the creature netting him from the inside-out keeping his vital organs from functioning so he couldn't strike.

The creature was only stunned. She wielded her stave. Jezromiah lunged forward. He and his Tizona sword permeated with red, yellow, green, cyan, violet, blue, pink and orange lightning, and fire. Dorothey's eyes still glowing black held her hand up in the air in a motion for Jezromiah to stop.

She shook her head at Sailil to stop her siren song. She knelt down in front of the creature and with her wings still outstretched she cloaked the creature in them as it raged. Her body drained of energy held on for dear life. Her pain was so excruciating she let the creature's rage carry her asea.

Her eyes turned back to their natural blue-grey color as the creature calmed down. Dorothey let out her banshee scream. Both Dorothey and the creature fell in a lateral recumbent position together with her wings still around it. Jezromiah put his sword back in its sheath.

He, Sailil and Shomari rushed to Dorothey's side. Sailil moved the creature with Shomari's help nudging it with his horns rolling it over on its opposite side. Jezromiah picked Dorothey up in his arms and her wings wrapped around her body. The feathers of her wings had turned a tinge of yellow.

Jezromiah took Dorothey to the infirmary. Shomari followed behind. Sailil pulled and dragged the creature with her tail toward the cryptozoologist headquarters.

"Another successful recovery mission," Dr. Apatt Raddlethorpe said when Sailil brought the creature into the induction room. Dr. Raddlethorpe was the youngest active cryptozoologist in the world starting at the age of eleven.

He was eighteen years old. He had platinum-blue hair cut in a flattop hairstyle. He was half-Peruvian, Falkland Islander-Swedish and Monrovian. He had a trapezoid shaped physique. He was 6'6, with a bigger upper torso, broader shoulders, and chest, well-proportioned frame. He has darker than black-colored eyes which absorbed 3.5% of visible light, which to the mortal eye, looked borderline invisible. He was an extremely handsome man. But underneath, he was half-humanoid and parahuman-elemental-werewolf.

"Sailil, your nose is bleeding? Were you injured by the creature?" Dr. Raddlethorpe asked.

She wiped the blood from her nose with her hand. "No, it was Dorothey's banshee scream that did this to me."

She released the creature from the secure cocoon of her tail onto the platform and a cage dropped from the ceiling imprisoning the creature.

"Why is the creature in stasis?" Dr. Raddlethorpe asked.

"I think Dorothey's scream caused this adverse reaction for the creature. I've never seen a banshee scream do that before." Sailil raised a brow watching the creature floating in the cage. "Very hip." She smiled. The smile left Sailil's lips. "I'm proud of her, but I'm afraid it might've come at the cost of her health. The recovery mission got hairy. I'd better go and see how she's doing."

"The creature cannot stay in this stasis for too long."

"I don't think she's strong enough to bring it out of stasis, Doc. Besides, I don't think she realizes she put it in this state or even knows how to bring it out of it. The creature's unstable. Dorothey put herself in the path of that thing." Sailil pointed toward the creature. "She wasn't supposed to be on this recovery mission. Next time, send Popi Aseena."

"Popi Aseena is only thirteen, Sailil. She's just coming into her own as my apprentice, just like you were when you were her age."

"We were much, much younger than Popi when you and I were sent out into the field on discovery and recovery missions."

"Dorothey begged me to let her go on this recovery mission. She said she didn't want any special treatment."

"Yeah, I know she did, Doc. But you should've put a kibosh on it right then and there."