“I'm gonna take a piss."

He walked off into the darkness about twenty feet. He wasn't particularly shy about whipping it out in front of the others, but he didn't to clear his head. He stepped behind a rock and began to urinate over a fallen log. His bladder shut down rapidly when the log moved out of the way.

Rising up from the sandy soil was a really, really, really big snake.

It had to be forty feet long and six feet around. Its back, rather than being scales, seemed to be dark brown feathers. And its viper- like head was looking straight at him.

{{ How rude, }} came a voice directly into Robbie's head.

Robbie screamed like a little girl. He wasn't proud of himself at all for doing it, but it seemed like the natural thing to do when facing a quetzalcoatl for the first time. Particularly when your pants were around your ankles. In his single prior encounter with the Raptors, he had only met one of the harpies, but not this creature.

The feathered serpent reared back and looked annoyed, or so far as Robbie could tell from its cold expression. Its tongue flicked out.

{{ You are strange. You smell of both beast and man, and you have been following us for some time. You are a Lycanthrope, no? }}

“Yuh . . . yes," Robbie stammered as the rest of the Strays approached. The quetzalcoatl didn't appear concerned.

"Is that . . ." Lothar started.

“That is," Michael replied. He was a bit of a geek when it came to knowledge of outworld species, and he had always wanted to meet one of these mythical beasts.

Behind them, the dirt shifted and a second serpent as large as the first emerged from the sand. The Strays were surrounded.

Natasha noticed that her friends were looking edgy and knew she needed to keep them cool.

"We aren't here to fight," she said.

"At least, not against you.

We've been looking for the Raptors. I'm assuming that's you?"

{{ Indeed, }} the first serpent thought, broadcasting its telepathic messages so it didn't have to repeat itself.

"We have . . . heck, this WORLD and dimension have . . . some serious problems. We need to get to a remote section of South America, pick a fight with a shaman, steal a magical jewel and bring it back to prevent an Elder God from breaking through and starting a second war in Heaven."

The rest of the Strays stared at her.

“Don't hold anything back now," Michael said, a bit sarcastically.

“Yeah, we wouldn't want them to think we're hiding something,”

Matthew interjected.

“Shut . . . up," Robbie said to one then the other. He was just happy he didn't have to say anything important.

The group heard the flapping of wings, and the remaining Raptors swooped in. Most of the Strays had never seen harpies before. First generation lycanthropes recognized the three succubae (two females and one male), the gargoyle and the four dragons, as all these creatures came from the Terran dimension's version of Earth. Succubae were light-boned winged humanoids that greatly resembled humans except for longish fingers and feet and having feathers rather than hair on their head. Oh, and the large feathery wings. The gargoyle was a squat creature that more resembled a gorilla than a person, and its skin was the color and texture of stone. Dragons looked somewhat Like European legends of them would depict, except that they were the size of large dogs. They also had long tails and leathery wings. Dragons weren't as intelligent as their counterparts. Michael had once referred to them as the Terran equivalent of “ape intelligence," or maybe a little cleverer. These ones seemed quite quizzical and were actually sniffing around the newcomers' feet.