You guys are seriously lucky I managed to pop this out before my camping trip. Do not expect this to happen again. On another note, the 'new Ultimate LifeForm' mentioned in the prologue is finally revealed!

Chapter 4: Hunt for the Beast

"Punch."

I punched.

"Kick."

I kicked.

"Again."

I kicked again, harder and faster.

"Duck."

I ducked.

"Jump."

I jumped.

"Chaos spear."

I concentrated my energy and…

A few pitiful sparks of chaos energy was all that happened.

"Nocny, concentrate."

"I am concentrating!" I shouted.

"Not enough," Shadow shot back.

"You're not concentrating enough," I huffed.

He glared at me.

"Listen, Nocny," he said.

I folded my arms.

"You won't last longer than five minutes into a real fight like that," Shadow said. "You need to learn how to focus your chaos powers."

"I'm trying," I muttered.

"I have to go do something," Shadow said. "Stay here and train."

I watched him leave.

Then I left.

Stay there and train? Yeah right! No way was I going to spend that long doing something completely useless anyway.

Shadow never ever let me leave the lab where we lived. It was 'too dangerous' or something. We live in a lab because I am his clone. A female clone though.

The lab is a nice place, but I wish I could leave.

"Hey, Phil," I said to a human scientist as I passed.

"Hi, Nocny," he replied.

"Tommy, what up?" I asked a younger human a minute later.

"Dad brought me to work today," he answered. "This place is totally pog!"

"That doesn't give you the excuse to blow up the beakers," Wilbur, another human scientist and Tommy's older brother, grumbled.

"Where's Technoblade?" I asked.

"Getting blood drawn," Wilbur answered.

"Thanks," I said, walking off towards the blood-drawing room.

It was on the way, anyway.

"Techno! How's it going?" I asked when I reached the blood-drawing place.

Techno was some clone-hybrid of some sort.

"Good," he answered.

"Nocny, please don't bug the patients," nurse Niki said.

"Alright, alright, I'm going," I said.

A few minutes later, I reached my room.

It was a simple square room with reinforced metal walls (to keep stray chaos spears from burning through.) My bed was in a corner, and I had a nice little carpet and a desk.

"Hi, Prism," I said.

The vent above me clanked a bit as a bat girl jumped down.

"How'd ya know I was here?" she asked.

The bat was my friend Prism, a girl with glasses, long sleeves, and a mini skirt. Her fur is gray, and there's a brown stripe going horizontal across her big ears.

"Chaos sense," I answered. "You know that."

"Yeah, but how come your chaos sense works if you can't even chaos spear?" Prism asked.

"Look, I don't know!" I said.

"Alright, alright," Prism said. "Anyway, I came here to give you your payment for that mission last night."

"Good, 'cause I'm running out," I said.

Prism reached into her pocket and brought a bottle of transparent pink liquid.

"Thanks," I said, taking the bottle.

The reason I needed the pink liquid is because my eyes are multi-colored. The liquid is actually eye-drops, made specially so that my eyes both look red.

"I think you look pretty with multi-colored eyes," Prism said.

"Well, I don't," I replied.

I walked into my bathroom to put the eye-drops away. I looked in the mirror.

My quills are done with one on each side of my face, framing it, and the rest in a ponytail. My black quills have streaks of color on top, with the ones on my right side being blue, and my left, pink. My eyes are originally pink on the right side, and blue on the left.

I'm wearing a black tank top and a yellowish leather skirt with triangle pieces cut out of the sides for full maneuverability. My boots are black with circles on the sides, the right boot's circles colored blue, and the left one's, pink.

My fur is black, and I have highlights going down my arms staring from my neck and down my legs. The highlights on my right side are colored blue, and the left side, pink.

I'm wearing goggles pushed up to my forehead.

"The boss has another mission for you," Prism said.

"Really?" I asked. "So soon?"

"Yeah, I thought it was strange too," Prism agreed.

Suddenly, my chaos sense pinged.

"Shadow's coming!" I hissed.

Prism gasped and flapped her wings, flying back into the vent. (Nobody really knows that someone keeps sneaking through the vents, right…?)

Shadow knocked on the metal door, the sound echoing through my room.

"What do you want?" I asked.

Shadow opened the door and stepped in.

"I notice you aren't training anymore," Shadow said.

Oh yeah, that.

"Well, I did for a bit, and when I was finished, I came here," I lied.

"You'll need all the training you can get if you're going to do this mission, Nocny," Shadow said.

"Mission?" I asked. "Wait- really?! You're finally letting me out of this stupid lab?!"

"Nocny, you were kept here for your own safety," Shadow replied. "You are older now, and I think you can survive this mission."

"Thank you!" I yelled. "What's the mission?"

"I will teleport you to a forest where a beast is residing. Your mission is to find this beast, and capture it," Shadow answered. "If you make use of your skills, you shouldn't get too horribly injured."

I gulped.

"So, when am I starting?" I asked.

"Now," Shadow said. "Meet me in the training room when you are ready."

"OK," I said.

Shadow chaos controlled out of the room.

"He's gone," I told Prism.

As Prism dropped back down into the room, I remembered that she also had a mission for me.

"Oh, sorry, I won't be able to do your mission," I apologized. "It's just, this is the first time Shadow's asked me to do something like this, so I can't just say no, and-"

"Nocny, don't worry," Prism interrupted. "Actually, the Boss's mission is the same, so…"

"Wow. That's weird," I said.

"Yep," Prism agreed.

"Welp, I better go get to the training room," I said.

"Alright, see ya," Prism said.

As Prism left through the vents, I gathered up an extra set of black gloves (fingerless on the thumb, ring, and pinkie fingers) and the bottle of eye-drops.

Leaving my room, I headed for the training room.

"Hi Tommy, bye Tommy," I said as I passed him.

"Hi Nocny!" he called after me.

Soon I was skipping through the halls of the lab, brimming with excitement.

I can't believe Shadow's giving me a mission!

I've been outside before, when I went on missions for Prism, but it was never like this.

The ground was cold and muddy, the trees looming and exactly identical to every other one, and I had no idea where to start looking for this beast.

I sighed, starting to walk in a random direction.

I'll prove myself to Shadow, I thought. I can do this.

The night was long, the walk was long, and I wasn't sure I wasn't just walking in circles.

Suddenly, my chaos sense pinged.

I froze.

A huge weight hit me from the side and I was rolling down a hill, getting soaked and muddy.

"You won't get me!" the thing said.

"Who are you?" I asked, twisting out of it's grip and standing up.

I saw a beast as tall as me standing on all fours.

"Um, aren't I the thing you're after?" the beast replied.

"Guess so," I answered.

I leaped into the air and landed on the beast's back, jumping off of there to land behind it. The beast buckled under the force of my jump, but quickly got itself together and turned to face me again.

"You won't get me," the beast snarled.

"I will," I said. "I have to," I whispered.

The beast charged at me, and I sidestepped. Except, well, it was pretty muddy still. I slipped and skidded on the ground.

The beast pinned me down and growled.

"You can't kill me," I said.

I really hoped it couldn't kill me. You see, I didn't know if I was really immortal like Shadow. I am his clone, but since I couldn't do a chaos spear by choice, I wasn't sure.

"Why would I kill you?" the beast asked.

"I dunno, 'cause you're a beast!" I answered.

Then the beast did something I did not expect. It started crying.

"Uh," I said, unsure of what was happening.

"Sorry," the beast sniffed. "I guess I'm just a monster, aren't I?"

"Huh?" I was really confused now. "Shadow just told me to find the monster. Why wouldn't you be one?"

"Well, I'm a Werehog," the beast said. "So a hedgehog in the day, and a Werehog at night."

"Interesting," I said. "So you're not a monster?"

"I am a monster. Look at me!" It exclaimed. "I'm big and furry and claw-y and I'm horrible!"

"Right now you are, but you said you're a hedgehog during the day," I reasoned.

"Huh," the beast said. "Oh, you're probably just saying that to make me feel better."

"No I'm not!" I protested, even though I definitely was.

Someone crying is always an awkward situation.

"My name's Stacey," the beast said. "What's yours?"

"Nocny," I answered.

"Nox - knee?" Stacey asked.

"Knocks - knee," I corrected. "The 'O' has a bit of a snoring sound."

Stacey stared at me. Then she burst out laughing.

"What?" I asked, annoyed.

"Your name is snoring!" Stacey laughed.

I snickered, trying to hold back a real laugh. Well, it didn't work.

Fifteen minutes later, Stacey and I looked at each other, wiping tears of mirth from our eyes. Sometimes, it's really nice to have someone to laugh with when you're cold, lost, and muddy, and have no idea what is even happening.

"The sun's coming up," I commented when the light started getting into my eyes.

"Oh, good!" Stacey said.

Pretty soon, Stacey had morphed into a blue hedgehog with a brown long-sleeved turtleneck and long green skirt.

"Huh," Stacey said.

"What?" I asked.

"Your eyes are multi-colored," she answered.

"Gah!" I exclaimed, turning away and digging through my pockets to find my eye-drops.

"It's OK," Stacey said. "Now you know my secret, and I know yours."

"Uh, yeah," I said, carefully using an eyedropper to drop the eye-drops into my eye.

"Hey, let's go back to the house," Stacey suggested.

"What house?" I asked, putting the eye-drops away.

"My house," Stacey answered. "Now that I'm a hedgehog again, it should be safe."

"Alright," I said. "Lead the way, I guess."

I followed Stacey through the woods. It was still wet and muddy, and the sun hadn't warmed the air yet so it was pretty chilly.

Half an hour later, Stacey said excitedly, "We're almost there!"

We rushed past some undergrowth and out of the treeline.

There wasn't exactly much of a house anymore.

I was once on a mission for Prism's boss

"You ready?" Prism asked.

"Oh yeah," I replied, smiling.

Getting outside was always fun

"Woo hoo!" Prism called out into the night as she flapped above my head.

"I can't believe you do this every day!" I said, running across the roof.

But I shouldn't have done it

"Intruders!" a guard snarled.

"Get them!" another guard ordered.

It was just like normal at first

"Are these guards stupid or what?" Prism asked. "The vents are the most obvious place to hide in."

"Then why are we hiding here?" I asked.

"'Cause people never look here," Prism answered.

Well, it wasn't

"Fire!"

It all burned down

"Nocny? Are you OK? Nocny!"

It was ashes

"I'm fine."

Jagged pieces of metal from the building spread all over

"Why did your boss even send us on this mission if they knew it was too dangerous?!"

"She didn't know!"

"Then why send us on a mission she knew nothing about?!"

"Don't talk about her like that!"

"I'm never talking to you again! I want nothing to do with you and your boss!"

It burned

It was all burned down, ashes spread all over the ground.

"My home!" Stacey gasped.

So, I really do want to know what you guys think of Stacey and Nocny. Also, If you see any errors in my writing, feel free to let me know :)