The lion's den very much spoke for itself. It looked like a gigantic Roman colosseum, the ground covered in sand and a huge gate at the other side of the arena. Seats lined the walls and spectators sat in them, cheering for the next battle.

Dan and Ciara had tumbled through the portal into the middle of the arena, gotten up to brush themselves up and had had only just enough time to take it all in before the gate opposite them slowly opened.

This was when Dan realised why this was called the Lion's Den, as at that moment, a very big and very ferocious-looking lion strolled out of the gateway and lifted his head to emit a thunderous roar.

"What do we do?" Dan asked Ciara, desperately, looking around for anything to defend himself with but saw nothing.

"Just stay calm and don't panic: I can somewhat communicate with the animals in this place, I should be able to calm this guy down…" Ciara replied in a whisper through her teeth. She gazed down at the lion and gave a ginger grin, "Now, look here, mate – maybe we can come to some agreement," she suggested.

The lion didn't look impressed, only shook his head and made his golden mane sway back and fourth. He looked back up at Ciara with a look in his eyes that only a killer could have. There was no swaying this cat.

But instead of ambushing Ciara and killing her, the lion turned to Dan and gave another roar, getting ready to pounce. Dan was going to run but he knew that that would never help the situation so he just stood and swallowed, his saliva stinging his dry throat.

"Hey, don't you dare!" Ciara snapped.

Dan flashed her a warning glare. She must be an idiot to threaten a lion…

The lion swerved around and smacked her square in the jaw with his huge paw, claws leaving scratches on her face.

"Come on, we've talked about this, Tau!" Ciara sneered, "Only harm as self defence! I wasn't going to do anything to you, just don't do anything to Dan."

The lion pounced on her again, aiming for her face, knocking her onto her back and pinning her there whilst Dan slowly edged away.

Seeing as the lion wasn't attacking her, Ciara did nothing to fight back: only defended herself, covering her face with her arm.

"Dan!" She called, "Whatever you do – don't run! Tau would only chase after you. Slowly walk away and try to find something to distract him with. Don't worry about me, I'll be fine."

Hearing this, Tau the lion got up and glared over to Dan (who was currently looking very scared and shaky) before jumping up and running after him, hell-bent on slaughtering him.

Following Ciara's orders, Dan stayed frozen to the spot. If he was honest, he couldn't have moved anyway: he was petrified and couldn't move for the life of him.

Ciara lay on the ground, the breath taken out of her, her grey wings sprawled out in the sand beneath her.

"Come on…" she groaned to herself, "Heal, heal, heal…"

Just as he thought he was doomed, Dan heard a very familiar, deep voice called out from the left of him.

Dan didn't know whether he was imagining the voice at first – maybe he was just hallucinating in his pure terror, but it seemed so… real… he'd know that voice anywhere.

"Hey!" It called out, "If you want to hurt Dan, you'll have to get through me!"

Dan didn't dare look to see if the voice belonged to who he thought it did, but he saw Tau look to the left and stop running. A scowl formed itself on his face and he slowly backed away, creeping back to his cage behind the gate.

Breathing a sigh of relief, Dan keeled over to catch his breath and then stared to his left… there he saw a very familiar face…

"PHIL!" He called, ecstatically, jumping up and wasting no time in running over to his best friend and pulling him into a warm embrace, "I thought I'd never see you again!"

Phil laughed, quietly, and hugged Dan back, almost wanting to cry,

"You must be Phil!" Ciara hummed, happily, suddenly appearing next to them, seemingly unaffected by the lion attack, the scars on her face completely faded.

"And you are..?" Phil asked, turning to her but still keeping an arm around his friend.

"Ciara," Ciara replied, "The voice on the loudspeaker. I'm so glad to finally meet you: I've had to put up with Daniel here being all sad and grumpy. We can't stay here, though. No time to explain – we've got to run!"

Dan looked up at her, one stray tear making its way down his cheek,

"Now?" He asked, innocently.

"Yes, now! Come on, we don't have a minute before they send in more animals!" Ciara explained, spinning around and darting for the other gate: to freedom.

"Come on, Dan," Phil said, grabbing his Dan's hand, "We can't waste any time."

"But Phil-" Dan whined. He really didn't want to break away after only just being re-united with his companion.

"Come on! We can talk later!" Phil smiled, weakly, dragging Dan along to the gate.

Ciara was right, more lions and bears were beginning to come out of no-where: literally appearing in front of them out of thin air.

Dan quickened his pace, the sooner he got out of here, the sooner he could talk to Phil and find out exactly what had happened and how he had survived the 'incident' in the woods.

Or maybe it wasn't time to talk about that just yet – after all, it was still a touchy subject for both of them – maybe the best idea was just to sit down and appreciate that they were together again.

And Dan was going to make sure that nothing separated them ever again.