The forest was just as strange and new as it was before they had collected the snake girl.

They were walking again, this time following the stream. It had been Ophia's idea; she had already been doing it when she found the group. A steady source of water was useful in a desperate streak away from the building and the Erasers inside.

It gurgled happily, splashing over the rocks in its path. Sometimes it widened to the point where Reflex didn't know whether she would be able to jump across it. She knew she could jump high, though she wasn't sure how far she could. Ace had easily bounded over the river to pick up a stone, barely looking at the jump. The stream had been at least thirteen feet across.

Reflex had taken to staring around at the world around her, trying to remember everything only to forget it at the sight of a new bush or plant. It was all so different out here, unlike the matching white hallways she had been born to.

Ace looked just as bewildered as her, his fur fluffed up. She wanted to touch it, to see if it was as soft as hers but had pulled back. She didn't just go around touching other's fur, no matter that she felt her instincts pushing her to do it. His nose twitched endlessly. Ace was tossing a stone up and down, catching it in his hand. She jerked her head away, focusing back on their journey away from the building.

Their desperate track through the forest wasn't ending up to be that desperate. The fear of the Erasers loomed high over them and the horrors of the building were nowhere near gone, but the initial fear had gone away.

At first, Reflex had wanted to run and to keep running until the wind was ripped from her chest and she couldn't breathe. But slowly, her wish had changed to a jog, then a walk. Ace and Neon, who had been with her right from the start of their escape, had gone from the same journey from fast to slow. She hadn't understood at first what was going on but it had quickly hit her.

They were tired.

Reflex knew she was. Not just from the running, either. Only some time before her cage had been unlocked and everything she had ever known had been destroyed, she had been in a training exercise. The whitecoat that took care of her had strapped circles to her arms and legs, ripping out portions of her fur to do so. The missing patches prickle when she thought of them. Then she had been forced to run and run and run on something that hadn't let her stop, even though she wasn't moving forward. A running machine; they had called it a treadmill.

She didn't even know how many other mutants had been trained before they had escaped. Many others might have had bleeding wounds or ripped muscles but still ran as hard as they could to escape the building.

And that was why they weren't running; they didn't have to.

There were thousands of mutants on the escape. Three - well, now four - mutants whose only purpose was to fight in the Arena weren't going to be high on the list to recapture. The ones with real importance to the whitecoats would be sought after first.

Sure, Reflex could shift - it was her proudest gift, and she treasured it. As far as she knew, there were no others that could do that. But she had heard stories, stories of mutants that could bend air to their will and alter the earth beneath them with a single cleave of their claws. The Erasers could all shift, completely. She wasn't that important. Bending her spine into position wasn't that special.

A pale green eye flicked to the mutants next to her. Were any of these the mutants she had heard about? Her gaze shot to all of them.

Neon, at least, she had an idea. Her poison was anything but ordinary, even if she was a poison dart frog. It must have been enhanced in some way, though she didn't know how.

Ophia was quiet and new. Reflex knew little about her other than what she had learned from watching her. She kept her arms, one with a long, spidery patch of scales down it, to herself, tucked up against her body. The King Cobra mutant walked strangely, too. Reflex had never seen her walk in a straight line, instead swaying back and forth. It was confusing but also hypnotic to watch, and Reflex had found her eyes drawn to it before.

Ace was, well, Ace. He was loud, but in a subtle way. He had a word or a sentence or a paragraph to throw into the conversation whenever it was too quiet but other than that he would walk in silence like the rest of them. She didn't quite know what to think about him, or what sort of power he might have.

Reflex didn't quite know how she felt around these mutants. Safer; definitely. There were two mutants with poison or venom, one even had long range attacks. Another was feline, just like her.

It was better company than the cages she had lived in.

But then again, a whitecoat would have been better than the empty room with its never ending chill.

Reflex growled, flicking her paw out to one side. Mud was everywhere in these woods; it seemed to latch onto her like a living creature. He had quickly found that she despised mud with a burning passion.

A branch caught her attention. It was darker than the others around it, and while she stared at it, she realized it wasn't even attached to the tree. It was simply hanging in the leaves. There was a tiny green bauble on the end, something shiny. She wanted to reach up and grab it but made herself keep walking forward, past the stick.

She heard a loud thump and muffled grumblings from behind her, and turned to see Ace hopping on one paw, holding the other. The rock he had been tossing up and down laid on the ground next to him.

"It just slipped right out of my hand!" He complained, setting down his paw. He shook his hands as if dirt were on them, fixing the rock with a glare. He bent down to pick up again, but it seemed to phase right through his hand and tumble on the path again. Ace seemed to bite back a snarl, instead rearing back one foot and kicking the stone. It spun away, hurtling through the woods.

Reflex turned back to the trees, a wide grin spread across her face. Ace seemed to drop things faster than he picked them up. She wondered if it was normal or if that was what his power was; losing his grip on whatever he had.

But while she had been thinking, the stream they had been following darted to one side, and she blindingly turned with it. But her ears snapped forward not a second later, catching an undercurrent of voices. She stopped dead in her tracks.

A body collided with hers, knocking her forward a step. She froze, fearing Neon's touch, but then fur brushed against hers and a male voice complained "Reflex!"

"Shh," she hissed out to them. Her ears pricked forward, each moving differently to capture the most sound. "Don't you hear that?"

Ace groaned, his fangs snapping against each other. "I wouldn't know," he grumbled, rubbing his shoulder. "I don't have foot long ears." But he stopped talking after that, curiously peeking over her shoulder. But the only thing in front of her were more trees.

"Quiet." Reflex leaned closer forward. There were a few trees around her, but only a few feet to her right through a gap in the trees, she could see a sliver of open grass. They were only inches from a field.

By now Ace's ears were snapped forward, fixed in the same direction as hers. They twitched incessantly, as of a fly had landed on them. He flicked one hand up, pointing towards the tree layer that separated them from the voices. Reflex could see out of the corner of her eye Neon and Ophia tensing, turning towards the trees. The sharp smell from Neon that burned her nose increased, her poison growing more potent. Ophia's snake fangs extended, shooting a bit out of her mouth. She hissed softly.

Ophia started to move, slowly. Her feet pressed into the ground softly, and when she lifted them up Reflex could see the imprint of scales for both footprints. The mutant crept forward another foot or so before carefully peering around the base of the tree.

There was a loud shout, one not from Ophia, before she was yanked around the side of the tree.

Reflex couldn't stop the screech that escaped her lips. She jumped forward, hind paws slamming into the ground. Claws out, fangs bared, she whirled around the corner and came face to face with a girl.

One with fair skin and a splatter of freckles across her nose. She had the brightest red hair Reflex had ever seen, one that bounced around her head in loose curls. She grinned at Reflex, showing teeth much sharper than a human's.

Reflex scrambled backward, keenly aware of Ace and Neon charging out behind her.

The girl simply looked at her through one green and one brown eye, before her gaze finally snapped to the fur covering Reflex. Her face broke out in a grin.

She turned her head sideways, allowing Reflex a quick glimpse of brownish red scales marching their way up her neck. "Another one!" She shouted. The fangs she had were eerily similar to Ophia's, in the same thin way with dangerous points. Ophia was standing only a bit off to the side, one of the girl's hands tight on her wrist. But she wasn't struggling, only looking around her with wide eyes and an open mouth.

Reflex peered around the girl, intent on finding whomever she had just called to. But what met her eyes was unbelievable.

There was a field, much smaller than she had expected. She could see the trees on the other side, seemingly much larger than the ones next to her. In the middle she could see structures, made of branches and leaves. Some were grouped together and others were separate.

But then there were the mutants.

A girl with dull red ears and a bushy tail ran past them, sprinting around the edge of the field. A boy with small white wings on his back was laying around in the center, twitching white ears on top of his head. A girl with large brown ears on the side of her head was standing by the structures, seemingly talking with someone inside. Those were only the first that Reflex could pick out. There were more in the air, on the ground, even in a pond of water she could make out near the trees. They were everywhere.

The girl grinned at her gobsmacked expression, showing her fangs retreating back into her mouth. She flicked her red hair back, and Reflex could see the same reddish scales traveling from her wrist up to her shoulder. But she was tame compared to some of the mutants around her, from ones with enormous wings attached to their back to blood red eyes and fins.

"What is this?" Ace whispered, stepping forward. His amber eyes were fixed on the mutants, and his ears were pointed so far forward she feared they might snap off. Neon had her black eyes wide open, staring around at the mutants.

A few of the mutants had stopped what they were doing, looking over at them. One of them waved.

"This," and here the girl spread her arms wide, encompassing the entirety of the clearing, "is one of the only safe havens to mutants everywhere."

She grinned at their gobsmacked expressions. "I'm Bindy," she offered. "Welcome to the Pride."

Now this chapter has flavours of bringing out new subplots and more characters... XD

I now have a steady way of bringing in new characters! But I have a request, and I can not believe I'm making it…

I need a few flying characters. Normally that seems to be the only thing submitted, with maybe a fox or cat here and there. But instead, I've gotten a grand total of two. WHAT?

So I am requested that some people submit a flying character or two. This might give you a higher chance of getting in, as for the story I need a few. One will even make the role of main character ;)

And for those who have already submitted a flying character, don't think that I'm just not using yours. I want a little competition to find the best fit for my story.

Also, can I have a few abilities? For my story I'd like a few characters to be able to do special things.

Sorry for all the requests! Please read and review!

Frost OUT!