Kimiko didn't mean to doze off. It just happened. Well, at least she felt a lot better now. She started rubbing the sand out of her eyes before she opened them. As soon as she fully woke up, she would be ready to fight. Fight what? Oh right, the wolf. Was it still there? She couldn't hear it growling and scratching anymore. It must've gotten bored.

Then Kimiko felt a drop of water hit her cheek. Kimiko picked the last of the sand out, opened her eyes, and just about had a heart attack. Standing right over her, was the wolf. How? Wolves couldn't climb. Could they? It snarled when Kimiko opened her eyes, then in a heartbeat opened its jaws and lunged its head at hers. At the same speed, Kimiko brought her knees to her chest and shot her legs straight up, striking the wolf hard on the roof of its mouth with such force that the wolf reared up on its hind legs, lost its balance, and fell out of the tree howling.

Using her chance, Kimiko leaped out of the tree and jogged toward the trench, stopping a few feet from it. She carefully edged closer to it, cautious not to repeat the event of last time, but anxious to see what was going on down there.

She soon got to where it was too risky to go any further, but still couldn't see the bottom. She noticed dirt was rising up from the trench like smoke from a chimney in a snowy winter, so there must've been a fight going on. Oh god, she was starting to sound like Clay. It was bad enough that she had come up with that stupid metaphor back at the pool. That was like something Master Fung would say. It was a good thing Raimundo had left. If he were there, she never would've heard the end of-

There was a low, angry growl behind her. Kimiko slowly turned her head. The wolf was crouched down, preparing to spring at her. Its jaw was hanging wide open with a waterfall of saliva and blood flowing out. Damnit. Kimiko had hoped she had kicked the wolf hard enough for it to receive brain damage. Apparently, she hadn't. She quickly crouched into a fighting pose and waited for it to attack. Strangely, it didn't. It just stayed in the same position, watching her with those golden green eyes intently. Kimiko wasn't even sure if it was breathing.

They were both as still as statues, unblinkingly gazing at each other. They stayed like that practically forever before Kimiko realized that it was waiting for her to make the first move. It finally dawned on her that this wasn't an ordinary wolf. She cursed herself. This was one hell of a time to notice.

She decided to just act. Anything would be better than standing around staring at each other doing nothing. She feinted to the left. The wolf pounced and Kimiko fell to the right so the wolf would land at the bottom of the trench behind her. But instead of the wolf missing her like she had hoped, the wolf's left paw collided with her shoulder, pushing her in with it.

There was no mud to cushion their fall this time, but the wolf landed on its feet, and as luck would have it, Kimiko landed on its back. Neither was injured, so the wolf decided to continue their fight. It began bucking like a wild horse that was unwilling to be broken, restless to throw Kimiko off. Kimiko was hanging on with her legs hooked tightly around the wolf's middle at first, then after a few painful bucks, she grabbed onto the wolf's pelt and hung on for dear life. She pulled her torso and head down onto the wolf's back so they wouldn't constantly feel like they were being jerked from the rest of her body.

She tried to see what was going on around her, but the fast, jerky movement of the wolf made everything blurry and all she could hear was the air whistling past her.

Suddenly something blue jumped into the wolf's path, causing it to stop dead. Kimiko saw for about a millisecond that it was a kid in a blue hooded jacket and some pretty cool shades before the kid shoved a block of wood the size of a chicken egg under the wolf's nose. The wolf leapt backward as if it were fire, then hurled itself onto its back and started rolling, crushing Kimiko and making her lose her grip.

Once she was off, the wolf scrambled up and looked ready to bolt up the wall, but the kid said urgently "No! Silvertongue doesn't know yet and I can't get his attention!"

Silvertongue? Oh right, Raimundo. So the wolf was working for him. That explained a lot. Kimiko tried to lift her head to see where Rai was, but after that wild rodeo, she felt almost as bad as she did a few minutes ago. So she dropped it, and just rolled her head to the right. She saw Clay and Raimundo sparring. Then she saw the wolf charging at Clay. "CLAY, WATCH OUT!" she yelled.

But she was too late. The wolf slammed into Clay hard. The force sent them skidding along the ground, and they wound up with the wolf lying on Clay, nose to muzzle. It bared its teeth in warning at him.

When Raimundo was looking at them, all Kimiko could see was the back of his head. (Well, the back of his hood really.) When he turned to the blue hooded kid, she saw confusion written all over his face. Then his eyes grew wide with anxiety. Kimiko rolled her head to the left. The girl was holding up the block of wood. It looked perfectly ordinary, what was so special about it? Then Kimiko saw the streak of gold on the top half of the side of the block that was facing her. It was a latch. The block was really a box. Now she understood. It wasn't the box that was important. It was what was inside the box.

Before Kimiko could wonder how something so small could be crucial, she noticed that behind the girl, a few feet away, Omi was pinned underneath a kid in a black hoodie. Kimiko shook her head clear and got up, finding she was still a little sore from being crushed, but she was well enough to fight.

But as she started for the black hooded kid, he abruptly jumped off of Omi and began scurrying up the wall as fast as a spider. Kimiko turned and saw that Raimundo and the wolf jumping up off the walls until they reached the top. Clay and Omi got up and brushed themselves off while looking confusedly up at the kids.

The only follower in the trench left was the girl. She called up to the others "I'll meet you guys at the Dwellers!", then opened the box, held it up to her mouth, and whispered something to whatever was inside. The trench was suddenly filled with blinding light. The others leapt to the top and dove into some bushes, knowing they mustn't touch the light.

In a few moments, the light faded, then disappeared. Raimundo stuck out his head to see. "The coast is clear." he told the others.

They crawled out. Raimundo swept up a gust of wind to carry him down the trench and check out the bottom. The wolf lay down to wait for his return, while the black hooded follower was still tugging himself out of the bush. When he was out, he noticed a brown sock stuck to his arm. He eyed the bush suspiciously, reached into it, and pulled out a sneaker. Then he reached back in again and began pulling out various clothing. The other sock and sneaker, a pair of jeans, a pair of plain gray boxers, and a brown sweatshirt. The boy held the clothes out to the wolf. "You wanna change back or what?"

The wolf growled. The boy set the clothes down in front of him and held up his hands. "All right, all right. Geez, I was just asking."

Raimundo rose up out of the trench, landed gracefully on the ground, and walked to the boy and the wolf. "Well, looks like everything went smoothly. Too bad about Daggereyes though."

"What do you mean?" the boy asked. "We're going to meet her, right?"

"Yeah, of course. But she would have been great to have while attacking the harpies on the way there."

The wolf snarled and wagged its tail. "Hang on." the boy said. "What are we going to tell the goblins now?"

Silvertongue grinned. "We tell them the job's been done a lot sooner than we thought and they can launch their attack at anytime. C'mon, we'd better get going."