Poochyena whined softly. She was lying down with her head in her paws. The two humans were still behind the door, but they were no threat. Poochyena could smell the fear on them. They smelled like prey, the male in particular was pudgy and soft. She wanted to sink her teeth into his gut and tear away his layers of fatty meat. It had been so long since she'd had a proper kill. But she couldn't kill them. Dust had commanded her not to. She couldn't disobey him, he had said the words.

It was the ball. One moment she had been just another hyena of the pack, hunting the prey, and this human was in the way, with only a small Totodile and without one of the human boom makers in his hands. Much easier prey. And then the ball took her, and her world changed.

She had a name. When Dust spoke the words, they were nothing but noise to her, no different than the sounds every other human made. But when he spoke to her, she knew the meaning of them, just like she knew that the sound 'poochyena' was her.

What Dust commanded, she did. She had to. There was not even the possibility of not following his commands. Poochyena needed to obey Dust, just as she needed to breathe.

In a way, their minds were connected to each other by the ball. Part of him was in her, that was how she knew that he was in trouble.

She sensed it not long after he had climbed out of the window. Dust was in danger.

Poochyena looked at the door in front of her. She wasn't needed here. That much she was sure of.

The hyena padded over to the door that led out of the room. In her wild state, she would have been trapped, but now she knew that the shiny knob could open the door. She reared up on her hind legs and grabbed the knob with her teeth. Rotating her head to the side, she managed to turn it and pull the door open.

She bounded down the hallway and down the stairs, heedless of the humans who shouted as she ran past. She ran through the busy lobby, and between the legs of a male human who was walking through the door. He cursed angrily, but she was already gone before he could turn around.

Dust was close. She could smell him.

"Get this bastard in there. No, not the girl. Load her in another carriage. I want her far away from him. I don't know, just drive around the city. You can bring her back when we're done with Prince Charming here."

The words meant nothing to her, but the voice meant everything. It was the big human, the one she knew was with the yellow haired boy, the one who had come with the dogs.

Poochyena growled. She could feel Dust's hate for this man coursing through her.

He climbed into one of the wheel boxes humans used, pulled by a team of horses. Poochyena started after it, but hesitated when she saw the female.

Maddie. The name came to her. Dust's feelings were strong around her, strong enough to make Poochyena pause. The girl was unconscious, slung over the shoulder of one of the bad humans. Poochyena growled at him. The man looked down at her and muttered something she didn't comprehend.

Poochyena would have torn his leg off, but there was no time for that. The wheel box Dust was in was pulling away. Poochyena followed it. Maddie didn't matter. Only Dust did.

Poochyena had seen human cities before, but usually only for short times when Dust let her out to feed her or use her to fight. The only time she spent prolonged periods of time in the stone jungles humans lived in was to stand guard over Dust while he slept in a dirty alley, but she never went anywhere or saw anything but the tall dark walls surrounding her and the occasional foul smelling humans who scurried off when she growled at them.

It was much different out on the street. Horses and wheelboxes were everywhere, whinnying and clacking loudly on the cobbled ground they went over. Poochyena darted around and under legs and wheels, trying to keep pace with the wheelbox Dust was in, but it looked just like all the other ones to her untrained eyes, and the city was so overwhelming. Sights and sounds and smells assaulted her senses. Bright lights that shone against the dark buildings, shouts from humans and the braying of the horses, the smell of dirt and horse shit and garbage. It was intoxicating.

"Out of the way you mongrel!"

Poochyena heard the anger in the human's shouting and just barely managed to get out of the way of the horses he was driving. The street was too dangerous.

She darted to the sidewalk, weaving through the stream of humanity. The wheelbox was getting away, she could see it now. Poochyena ran after it, heedless of the people around her. When a female human in a dress too wide to go around without stopping got in her way, Poochyena leaped and tackled her to the ground. She ran over her, ignoring the shouts and screams behind her.

The wagon was rounding a corner, so Poochyena cut into an alleyway. She knew enough about cities to know that alleys were shortcuts.

Rattatas scurried out her way as she went past, but a big ugly Raticate nearly as large as herself refused to move. It sat on its trash heap, baring its long teeth. Poochyena raised her hackles and growled, hoping that would intimidate the rat into backing down.

It didn't. The Raticate leapt at her face and they fell together in a heap of fur, claws and gnashing teeth.

The fight was short, but when Poochyena rushed out of the alleyway, fur matted with sticky blood, the wheelbox was nowhere to be seen. She put her nose to the ground to try and track it.

The Raticate's blood made it hard to smell anything else, but she could pick out the smoky smell of the fiery horses. This street was empty unlike the one she had been on, so it was likely that this scent was the right trail to follow. Poochyena padded after it.

It was some time before her nose brought her to a short but wide building. This street was dark, lit only by a single gaslamp on a pole. A human stood at the door of the building, holding one of the long boom makers. He was in the lamplight.

Poochyena crept silently toward him. The light would hurt his night vision, something humans never had much of to begin with. As long as she kept out of the light, she would be able to catch him unawares.

He never saw her, but before her jaws closed around his neck, he managed to give out a shout. Another human came out the door and pointed a boom maker at her, but Poochyena was too fast for him. She slammed into him and when he fell she killed him too.

Tonight was a good night. In the ball, time didn't pass the same way it did in the outside world, but Poochyena knew it had been a long while since she had last hunted. It was tempting to devour the humans' flesh right then and there, but no, she had to find Dust.

The building was dark on the inside. Poochyena snuck down the hallway, body low to the ground, ears up and alert for sound. She could hear human voices through the walls, but she had no idea where to look for them in this building. Humans lived in mazes. Poochyena didn't understand why they didn't simply dig dens like sensible creatures.

Voices were coming down the hall, three of them. Poochyena saw the approaching light of a lantern. She couldn't hope to kill three humans alone, not if they had their boom makers. She looked for a place to hide. There, a door in the wall, and it didn't even have a knob. She darted through it and the door swung shut behind her.

The room was illuminated by a small blue light, but she didn't need her eyes to know what was in here. The smell of meat was overwhelming. Cow meat, pig meat, bird meat. If Poochyena had had a concept of an afterlife where good hyenas went after they died, it would have been something like this. Poochyena did not have have a concept like that though, so to her this place seemed like a room full of food.

Meat hung from the ceiling, long strings of sausages, and in the corner a skinned and gutted hog dangled from a hook. There were baskets of vegetables on the floor and bags of potatoes too, but they didn't hold any interest for Poochyena. She bounded up onto a counter, knocking over a metal bowl and sending it to the floor. She took a sausage in her mouth and pulled on it, bringing the whole string down. She ripped into the meat, savoring its flavor in her mouth.

It suddenly occurred to her in the part of her brain where human thoughts sometimes came that blue was a strange color for a light in a human building. They normally used fire or the yellow glass lights that Poochyena had no idea how they worked.

Snatching up another sausage, Poochyena walked over the counter to the small object that sat on the end of it. A blue circle stared back at her from a metal ball, red on top and white on bottom.

Now that was interesting.

Poochyena nudged the ball off the counter. It dropped to the floor and the room was filled with blinding white light.

Poochyena couldn't see anything, but she could hear Totodile down on the ground. She bounded off the counter, landing in a bushel of vegetables she couldn't see and knocking it over. She whined softly to let him know it was her and went over to where she smelled Totodile was and nudged him with her nose.

The angry snap of his teeth surprised her. Poochyena backed away from the croc. Totodile was a docile and friendly creature, why would he try to bite her? Something was wrong with him, she could smell it on him. Something was very wrong.

The door suddenly opened, filling the room with lantern light. A human stood in the doorway, lantern in one hand, long knife in the other.

In that moment, she saw exactly what was wrong with the croc. His teeth were growing, his snout lengthening. His long powerful tail thrashed behind him, knocking over bowls and kitchen tools. His muscular limbs stretched and widened, wicked black claws on his feet glinted in the light. A crest of orange spines ran down his back. His red eyes shone with deadly intent as he stood to his full height.

The knife dropped from the human's hand, his eyes wide with terror. He looked like he wanted to scream, but the only sounds to come out his mouth were little squeaks.

The crocodile opened his massive jaws and roared.