Pack's territory yet again we have no choice but to assume this was all their doing.  At this time I'm officially declaring war on the Silver Tail Pack." said a both saddened and furious Pyrix to his pack.

Chapter nine: Nobody's gonna save you

Silver tail pack territory: One week after Star's capture

Ember was getting desperate.  She had been looking for anything that could help her find her mate almost non-stop for an entire week.  As soon as she had gotten news of his disappearance she began to completely devote herself to organizing searches and getting into arguments with Zirco who had more to worry about than just Star's disappearance.

But to Ember finding Star was the only thing of importance.  Still, despite her best efforts she had yet to come up with anything that would help her; and the rest of the wolves were starting to get impatient and believe that this was a lost cause.

At the beginning Ember had at least fifteen other wolves that would help her on her searches but that number had fallen to the point that only four other wolves were willing to look for Star anymore and even they were about ready to give up.  This lack of support made it even harder to look for Star and it was only getting harder for Ember.

She was expected to have pups within the week and all this stress and activity were bad both for Ember and her pups.  It wasn't even a good idea for her to be out like this but Ember was stubborn and she wouldn't take no for an answer when it came to this.

(a wolf howl)

"Damn, we gotta go already?" said a frustrated Ember who was now just staring at the old-growth forest landscape  that was all around her. "Where are you Star?" thought Ember as she took one last mournful glance before leaving to meet up with the rest of the search party who by now was getting ready to head back and report to Zirco.

Thirty minutes later: Zirco's den

"So, it looks like you didn't find anything again" said Zirco as he addressed Ember and her search party.

"Yes, but that doesn't mean we should stop trying.  I know we can find  him if we have just a little more time" said Ember.

"Well we don't have any more time for this.  I know that he's your mate and we all miss him but in case you didn't know we're at war now and we simply can't keep spending all our time on this.  We don't even know if he's alive or have any idea of what happened to him.  It's just not fair to the other wolves that disappeared, to our pack, and I'm sure he wouldn't want you to endanger yourself and the pups." said Zirco as he walked up to Ember and tried to comfort her.  "I know how much he means to you but for now you're going to have to stop worrying about him and start worrying about yourself."

"But I still have to keep looking." pleaded Ember to Zirco.  She knew it was getting less and less likely that she would find him but giving up was not an option.

"No you do not!" shouted Zirco who was not going to hear any more excuses.  "I'm ordering you to stop going out looking and you're going to rest up because your almost ready to give birth." Zirco then turned toward the rest of the search party who had been standing there in awkward silence while Ember and Zirco were talking. 

"I want you to walk Ember back to her den and I want at least one of you there at all times so she doesn't run away.  Also, tell the rest of the pack that we're done searching.  If Star's still alive then he'll have to get himself back."

Chapter ten: Our only chance at freedom

Three months after Star's capture: The room where the wolves are kept

"Do you think this will really work?" asked number thirty four.  He and Star were standing near the entrances to the battle arena and another fight  was about to take place.  They were distracted by the wolves rushing by them and heading off to fight.

"Well, I don't know what's going to happen.  We've tried to be as prepared as possible so now all we can do is hope it all goes according to plan" replied Star.  "Still, we can't afford to screw this up so let's just hope it works."

"Okay, let's just hope that the rest of us don't screw this up. "

"They won't.  They have just as much to lose as us if this doesn't work out right.  And besides as long as he doesn't find out what we're doing then we shouldn't fail." said Star as he tried to act confident in his plan.

The previous night

"So this is all the wolves that you were able to get?" said Star as he looked gloomily upon the small semi-circle of wolves that were surrounding him and thirty four.  Because there was almost no light Star had a hard time figuring out how many wolves there were but by his count there couldn't have been more than about twenty.

"These were all the wolves I could get that I could trust not to betray us" replied thirty four in a rather annoyed tone.  He had spent the last few months working on finding wolves he could trust and it hadn't been easy for him because not only did he have lots of enemies, but it was hard to trust him seeing as how he wasn't able to give away any real information.

"Fair enough" replied Star "I guess I should tell them what we're going to do before they leave us." Star cleared his throat before aligning himself so he could meet the eyes of the rest of his allies.

"If you want to back out now then this will be your last chance.  I'm afraid that I can't risk any of you telling the other wolves what we're planning on doing because if they know then the whole plan will be ruined" Star waited for a response and he even expected some of them to leave but after a whole two minutes in which nobody left Star felt that it was safe to continue.

"Now here's the plan.  From what thirty four told me there's going to be another fight tomorrow and that's when we'll make our move.  I'll only tell you this  once so make sure you don't forget it.  The first part of our plan is..."

The present

"It looks like we should get going then" said thirty four as he watched one of the exits close.

"Yeah, well good luck" said Star as the two of them left for the arena.

Chapter eleven: Counterattack

Despite having fought dozens of times since he had been abducted Star never had stopped being nervous when he entered the arena, and today he was even more nervous than usual.  He had learned that after his first fight that because of the darkness in the holding room and because of the unusually high amount of light in the arena it was best if he closed his eyes as he entered so he could adjust to the light changes  without being blinded.

As Star was entering the arena through the tunnel he tried hard not to think about the possibility of him failing and having everybody die because of him screwing up.  But try as he might that thought was always popping into his head whenever he tried not to think about it.

And then there was Ember.  Star knew that he would never see her again if this didn't work out so he tried hard to not think about her and losing her forever either.  But she was also the driving force behind his desire to escape so Star also wanted to keep her in mind at all times so he could motivate himself to not fail.

When Star had gotten close enough to the arena to see light penetrating the darkness of the tunnel he slowly closed his eyes as much as possible forcing him to grope the walls of the tunnel until he had finally entered the arena.

Star like most every time was one of the last few wolves to get there and he was the last of the conspirators to arrive. It was not long before entering that he had came across another wolf in the sea of carnage that was not allied with him; so Star quickly pounced upon the wolf and sliced it's neck causing blood to splatter along the cement floor.

This action and Star's arrival had not gone unnoticed because within a couple of seconds of bringing down the wolf one of the conspirators and Star's allies ran up to Star and tackled him to the ground causing Star to let out a huge gasp for air as all the air in his lungs was forced out of his body by the impact on the ground.

The wolf in question, number one hundred, was unable to enjoy his victory for long before another conspirator had begun to attack him.  Pretty soon it was only the conspirators left fighting save for Janx and his followers.  Within minutes of Star's defeat the battle was over as quickly as it had started and to everybody's surprise and amazement Janx was the last man standing and had had finally won.

The previous night:

"The first part of our plan is that we're going to give up on winning this time.  We're going to throw the battle." said Star to the group of wolves who were around him.

As he expected the looks on the wolves faces quickly went from anxious to either downright confused or furious with many having a combination of the two looks.  For a few seconds nobody knew how to react until number one hundred dared to speak up.

"Are you mad?!" shouted one hundred. "If we just throw the whole battle then how the hell do you expect us to escape?" This cause the wolves to start to murmur amongst themselves and Star had to politely but firmly get their attention back to him before they gave up.

"Listen, the reason we have you here is that we can trust you to not only not betray us but also to not tell the person who we're going to throw the battle to" said Star.

"And who would that be?" asked number one hundred to Star.

"The person that we're going to let win is number twenty eight" said