Callisto’s teeth felt like they were going to be ripped from their sockets as he was whipped around with the movement of the creature’s shaking, his brain bouncing around his skull would surely hurt later. His paws tensed further, trying his best to bury his claws into the god to hold himself on. However, his panic was soon turning to outright horror as he spotted Xevon from the corner of his eye. The man was reducing in his abhorrent size, flickers of his skin visible through the shadows.

That was enough for Callisto, he reared his roughly maned head back and with a resounding roar, slammed his jaws down onto the thinner bones towards the creature's hand. Feeling the satisfying crunch of bone and the cry from the creature as its hand contorted from the broken bones, severing the connection to the fingers that were grasping Xevon. His ears were barely visible where they were pressed against his skull, his neck twisting in a death shake to mangle the limb further.

Callisto only stopped in his torturous actions when he heard the sound of Xevon freeing himself from the creature’s grasp. Upon hearing this, the cat dropped down to all four paws and bent around to find Xevon.

“She will be done.” His tail flicked behind him before he forced his way towards Xevon, harshly knocking his head into Xevon’s torso to make him move. His flank still seared with pain, but he did his best to ignore it, sparing the wound not even a glance.

Lily’s lip curled at the scent, it was simply the smell of death. Old and frankly ancient, but still death. She pulled her head out from the rubble pile, slowly turning her head to look towards Finntello. Her companion looked as though he was going to keel over. She found that the terror she had felt was quick and stirred up from shock, but unlike before she did not feel frozen by the feeling. Finn however, seemed to be having a worse reaction than herself, which from recent events was unusual.

She backed up closer to him, it didn’t take too long, a pawstep or two and she was back at his side. Lily studied him for a moment before she slowly pushed her head back into his chest, it appeared that he had been like that before, even if the initial action had been one of exhaustion and fear. Perhaps it would help? Cats were supposed to be calming, right? She knew nothing about cats.

A small chuff of air left her as she squished the side of her head into him, ignoring the tickling sensation his feathers were leaving on her shoulder fur.

Callisto’s shoulders dipped ever so slightly as he felt the weight of Xevon on him, his large head whisking around to see the creature sulking its way in the opposite direction. Where he actually went, the man couldn’t care any less. As long as it was away from them.

Following Xevon skywards, he winced at the movement. Despite knowing Lily was still in the form she had manifested, new instincts would be present. They had taken years for Callisto to control, in fact he had been in many a cat fight with new living that received his blessing. As he merged through the floor, he gave a small sound of surprise as he saw his friend flickering around the hallway in a panic. It took only a moment for Callisto to figure out the root of his concerns when the room he was standing in did not contain the living pair. He quickly followed after him, traipsing down the hallway awkwardly as he tried to keep from stretching his side too much.

By the time Callisto had made it to the room, Xevon was already talking. That was when his eyes had snapped onto Lily’s form, in slight shock at her appearance. She stood at least a good few inches taller than him and when her eyes locked with his, he saw the pupils dilate.

Lily’s ears had snapped upright upon seeing this new creature, her hackles slowly rising from her position pressed against Finn. She wouldn’t let this animal hurt him. A low rumble started in her throat as the other cat froze in the doorway. She was bigger, she could take him.

As the woman began to stalk forwards, Callisto forced himself back into his regular appearance, a low groan coming from him at the movement as it pulled painfully on his wound. His hand moved to press against it, hissing at the pressure. Lily stopped, her eyes dancing over his body before it registered that this was someone she knew. Gradually, the fur on her spine began to lay flat again.

Suddenly, Xevon’s words were beginning to register in her brain, turning to look over at him. Well, at least what she thought was him. He looked like a man with the blurriness removed, but he didn’t look right. Some sort of mangled version of what she expected him to look like, did he look like this the entire time? Why had Finn not said anything? He looked…horrific. At the sight, her ears pinned back against her head and cautiously she picked her way back towards the rubble. Trying her best not to disturb or look at the bones that lay there, cuffing at the floor to pull out the metal daggers from nearby, gliding them across the floor towards Finntello.

As soon as they were in a locked room, she was going to berate Callisto for his lack of information. That and how on earth does she turn back? He did, so surely she could do the same. But on top of her concerns was getting Finn away from this room and then addressing her own emotions towards the grotesque vision of both Xevon and this room.

Lily kept close to Finn as they followed the pair of ghosts barely a room down the hallway, her eyes tracking the movements of Finn closely as he struggled with the door. When he slipped inside and immediately dropped the daggers, her eyes widened in alarm as he sharply made his way towards the bathroom and the sounds of heaving began. She stood there in silence as Xevon slipped to the floor as well, staring into the dark of the bathroom.

Callisto did not stray far from Xevon’s side, ignoring their earlier spat as he settled on the ground beside him. His own hand still pressed to his side still as he tried to lean over and check on his friend’s condition. For a brief second, he stole a look towards Lily, still surprised by her lack of reaction to what she had just seen. Considering that she had been the most flighty one of the pair so far, strange as it was, he did not care too much at this moment in time.

Instead, he focused on trying to get a good look at Xevon’s side. The stab from the creature had been more brutal on the winged man, for obvious reasons Callisto assumed. Xevon was constantly pestering and arching up at the creature, of course the blows would be harsher for him. Only when Lily’s foreboding presence approached him, did Callisto bring his gaze back up to her, eyebrows furrowed.

“How do I change back.” It was not expressed as a question. She did not have much concern for how she came off. Her form casting a shadow over the two translucent men as she waited for a reply.

Callisto’s eyes remained steady. “It will hurt again, can you make no noise?” No judgement to her earlier cries of agony, he had expected her to turn into some little fluffy thing, not this. At least, not yet. Lily dipped her head, yes. “Simply focus on the desire to return to normal. It is not complicated.” With that, he turned his head back around to Xevon.

Lily’s ear flicked, that wasn’t great instructions. With a huff, she peeled away from them, still giving Finn a wide berth, unsure if he would want any comfort at the moment or if the thought of that would be mortifying.

It took her a minute, but after sitting in silence and trying to block out the sounds of the room. She could feel the now familiar crackling pain in her bones. She gritted her teeth to suppress the sounds she wanted to bleed out. Admittedly, it was not as painful as before, her bones seemed to bend and twist rather than break to return to her human state. Her lungs still heaved in compensation for the lack of noise, her spine bent over herself and all her muscles tensed. But eventually, she felt the familiar touch of her clothing on her bare skin and let out a sigh. Her head was hanging limping over her knees.

Only when she felt like the world was no longer spinning around her, did Lily use the bed frame to drag herself to her feet. Tilting her head up once more, she gazed into the bathroom, debating her next move. With light steps, she walked gingerly towards the bathroom door but kept herself against the wall so that she would not see inside without first talking.

“Are you okay?” Her voice was soft despite their recent discovery, even to herself the lack of disgust to the blood was surprising. Perhaps it was down to this transformation of sorts, at least that’s the only reason she could think of. She should be throwing up violently as well, sobbing but she wasn’t and did not know why. She winced at the sound of the retching, her lips settling into a thin line.

Lily pulled her head back as Finn appeared from the bathroom, taking her a little by surprise, following his gaze back towards the two ghosts. Watching as Callisto’s eyes remained trained on the injury to Xevon’s side, ignoring the conversation taking place. His expression was a mixture of annoyance and overwhelming concern. Finn was right, it was one of their bodies that they had found, but which one? Her head tilted as she observed them and from the winged figure’s apology, she could pick whose poor corpse they’d uncovered. A flash of guilt came over her as she realised she had been nudging his remains around, even if unintentionally. She focused her eyes on the ground by her feet.

Yet, upon the mention of the daggers, her attention dragged across the floor to where the two blades sat neatly by each other. Why did they need these things when apparently all four of them were some kind of magic…thing?

“What do they do?” Lily continued to stare at them.

Callisto finally pulled his eyes away from Xevon to look at the living, his eyes darkened under his lashes. “They’re the only way you’re going to get out of here alive.” His voice was hoarse, dehydrated. “So do not misplace them.” He grunted, shifting the hand that pressed against his own side before pulling it away. At least he had managed to avoid having a chunk taken out of him, Xevon was not so lucky.

The woman’s eyes narrowed. “Again. What do they do? Answering cryptically is not helping.” She muttered, her own expression changing to something closer to irritation. Her own tone surprised herself, not entirely sure as to where the animosity had risen from. Continuous annoyingly riddle-like answers were beginning to get on her nerves, but these two men had just fought whatever that creature was in order to keep them hidden. Instead of apologising, she simply looked away, pretending to be studying the daggers rather than dwelling on the matter at hand.

Callisto’s eye twitched at Xevon’s comment, pausing in his ministrations to look up at him. “If you weren’t wiggling I could be done a lot faster.” With that, he hooked a finger around a tendril, the feeling of it against his skin was disgusting. As he flicked his hand to whip it out of Xevon’s side, he watched as his friend’s image divulged into something more akin to his corpse than himself. A blatant wave of sorrow drew over Callisto’s face at the image, it made his heart break at the memory of Xevon’s demise. He had not been around, he had been off scurrying the other living person around in search of the cellar door. By the time they had found it, the creature had already found them. Within a second, the poor woman was gutted and sprayed across the room. It took Callisto a day to find Xevon’s remains and consequently Xevon’s soul.

Lily remained staring at the daggers, she did not exactly want to see anything unpleasant even if it did not unnerve her, it still was a little disturbing to see. Only when she clocked that Finn was looking at her did she raise her head and meet his eyes.

“What happens if we use both at once?”

Callisto’s eye twitched again. “Bad things. Will you just believe what we say, for goodness sake.” His words were muttered irritably as he struck to remove the last tendril he could see, albeit a little aggressively into his friend’s side. Flicking it out, he paused and looked to Xevon. “Sorry.” His voice barely audible through the gruffness.

“Fix him?” A flash of defensiveness came over Callisto and he whipped his head up to look at Finn. The judgement in his pink eyes burning, offended that they would announce that Xevon was somehow broken. His current state was not exactly ideal but how on earth can you fix something like this? A time machine maybe. But that was stupid. “Unless you can reverse time, then no. I doubt it.” Callisto’s eyes kept burning holes into Finntello as he sat himself up a bit straighter. Ignoring his own wound and the scalding squirming sensation within it.