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The city of Thunder Bay had a population of 110,000 and was fairly big. It seemed to have a "naval" style to it, which was then blended with a hint of modern day housing and establishments. There were many trees and parks, which made it a good location for sightseers to gather around. The war had impacted the city's way of life dramatically, because it was the scene of one of the biggest fights in Canada - approximately 575 people had died fighting there, with over 3000 wounded.

Other than their war heritage, the city was dense with people, which made a good spot for Eric and Matt to hide for the time being. They entered through the city's northwestern entrance, and headed straight for a barber. He was around five and a half feet tall, and resembled the stereotypical barber. He was mostly bald, wore a white but stained apron, and had a chubby figure. Nonetheless, he did a good job of cutting Eric's hair. Instead of having his regular, combable brown hair, he had a buzz cut-style hair cut. He never would have thought of ever having that type of thing done. Unfortunately, since it was a barber shop, they did not specialize in hair dye. In light of this, they went to the local Wal-Mart, which was only a few blocks away, and luckily for them, there was a Magicuts, where there were rows upon rows of hair dye. Most were of the same color, but were from a different brand, had a different usage, or was for temporary or permanent use. He finally chose a black, long lasting bottle, which after purchasing, was used in the men's bathroom immediately.

While coming out of the bathroom, they stopped for a short moment at one of the TVs on display. It was broadcasting the CBC's national news rerun of the morning. They received quite a shock upon hearing the following news report:

"Police are currently investigating a suspected homicide of two boys yesterday, after a fight broke out at the John Adams High School in the southwestern region of Ontario. No pertinent information about the victims has been released; however, they were reported to have been brutally slaughtered, particularly in the head, and near an escape route. The large fight has been speculated to have been caused by two locals, identified only by the names 'Eric' and 'Matt'. Anyone with information on the whereabouts of the two suspects is asked to call the CrimeStoppers number at the bottom of the screen. We are now bringing you live with the chief of inves..."

Immediately after seeing their photos pop up on the screen, Matt placed his hand quickly around Eric's shoulder and gently pushed him to make him move. They made it quickly out of the Wal-Mart, and rushed through its parking lot to reach the back of another store in another plaza. Immediately, Matt spoke.

"Okay, apparently they're asking the public's help now." He looked around to confirm they were the sole participants of the conversation. "If people see our faces on the news enough times, they'll begin to recognize us easily. I'll start by putting sunglasses on at all times, but I think you're fine as you are right now. From now on though, whenever we're in public, we're going to stay in large groups, and if someone looks anywhere in your direction, just look the other way. Got it?"

"Yeah, but I didn't think we'd make national news. I mean regional would have been understandable, but do they actually expect us to run across the country?"

Matt looked stressed, and it showed especially when he tried to correctly answer the question without sounding clueless. "I'm not really sure. Maybe they're just taking precautions in case we do. There's no real way of knowing and there's no point in trying to figure it out. Come on, we should get moving."

They both moved around the plaza's walls, but stopped when they noticed two police cars go by and enter the Wal-Mart's parking lot. Eric began to sweat. "Shit... someone must've called the cops or something", he whispered, as they turned the street corner out of the plaza. "What do we do now?"

Matt tried to regain control once again. "First off, shut up. Second, we're going to try and make it out of here. Turn this street corner, it's a residential area."

They both did as he said, and after around 30 seconds of walking, a car passed by and parked along the side of the road two houses ahead of them. This seemed to have spooked Eric for a second, who thought it was a police car, but this gave Matt a bright idea.

"Alright Eric, listen", he whispered, clearly nervous. "I know I'm going to regret this, possibly for the rest of my life at most, but bear with me, okay? Whatever I do, don't let it shock you, just keep walking, and then do as I say. Understand?"

"Uhh, what are you going to do?" While Eric really wanted an answer to that question, Matt was not about to give it. He began to walk faster towards the car, whose female occupant got out, grabbing her Tim Horton's coffee from the cup holder. Matt took this as his chance. He approached her and took out his gun, pointing it directly at her face. The girl turned around and let out a gasp of pure terror and shock.

"Give me the god damn keys to the car, or I'll blow your fucking brains out!" The voice came out in a very deep and menacing tone, which fit the exact description Matt was looking for. She started to yell, but her assailant, seeing as he had no other choice, punched her directly in the face, watching her head hit the ground on her way down. He quickly proceeded to take her keys, signaling a distraught and jaw-dropped Eric to come, as he went into the other side of the car. Eric ran to the passenger side of the car, gagging at the sight of the blood oozing out of the victim's head, and quickly entered into the car, barely getting the chance to shut the door before the car shot forward. The woman's husband rushed out the door to his beloved's side in shock, after seeing the incident with his own eyes.

"Why did you have to kill her?", Eric queried, still in shock of the event.

"Desperate times call for desperate measures, I suppose." Matt glanced over at his passenger, who clearly did not take his remark very lightly. "Look, if I didn't have to do that, I swear I would have simply taken her keys; but she started yelling, so I reacted."

Matt initiated an extremely sharp left turn, which almost clipped the sidewalk, - and another car along with it - and headed down the road in speed. Suddenly, they both heard sirens, as a cop car headed straight for them on the opposite side of the street, about three blocks away. Matt, in compliance to this, activated his brakes and turned to the right, toward a street near him. The police - which soon grew in numbers - began to chase the wanted car down the residential road, while avoiding several cars parked alongside it. Matt, who seemed to have known the area, sped up and turned accordingly to the curved road, while Eric sank backwards into his seat due to the increasing speed. Matt overtook a car, whose owner had apparently failed to realize there was a chase in progress, and headed toward the end of the road. He then took a left to get back onto one of the main city roads, with the cops beginning to show signs of increased aggression.

The chase continued as the tiny Honda dangerously overtook cars, while some cops began to take safer detours in order to avoid collisions. Eric was not enjoying the ride as much as they were either; the sharp turns and sudden stops made him feel nauseous. On the other hand, Matt seemed very concentrated, and almost enjoyed it. As they approached a more populated section of the city, the police began to grow in proportion. This became dangerous for the two as they hit into their bumpers in order to wipe them out. They had almost succeeded at one point, causing Matt to come close to hitting into an oncoming car, but he regained control soon after.

Sweat began to soak his forehead when multiple cop cars popped out of nowhere, as if the whole city's police force was in their pursuit. Suddenly, a police officer decided to go on a suicide mission by driving out of a residential road with his car to block the way. Matt, who was going well over double the speed limit, had no other choice than to use his emergency brake, violently sending Eric and himself forward. The car swerved and collided sideways with the cop at 30km/h, which shook both drivers badly. The cop, realizing what had happened, pulled up his gun and prepared to shoot at them, but Matt pushed Eric and himself down to avoid the shots, slamming the gas pedal to move before other cops tried to box him in as well. He headed in the direction of another road, and thanks to his rear view mirror, noticed the cop he had collided into continued to barricade the road, giving Matt the chance to speed toward the Trans-Canada Highway 11 exit, which was fortunately only a few hundred feet from his position. They soon made it safely up the ramp and onto the highway, where Matt let out a loud cheer in satisfaction of what he had done.

After passing three exits, leaving a significant amount of space between him and the crash site, Matt took the next exit and drove into a private road in the woods, in order to rest. He placed the car into park, and turned around to see Eric outside the car and on his knees, vomiting on the ground. It was all too much for him to handle. Matt got out and came to his side to help him up, and aided him in walking up the path to the house at the end.

...

The case Parker was forced to handle reminded him greatly of the one which triggered everything the world knew as the TFR situation in 1981. He recalled the day when Dr. Omar Hudson abducted three children and tested his formula, which generated two glands, in order to create controlled cancer cells. These would grow the necessary limbs or organs for a Transforming Radical in a matter of seconds, while the second gland eliminated the cancer at the host's will.

One thing the scientist did not expect, however, was when two of his subjects died of unknown causes, while the third escaped the facility, unable to control his new form. He was arrested shortly after that for a period of 25 years, while the beast - which the world baptized "Lucifer" - rampaged and killed one million humans for over two decades, mysteriously disappearing shortly after that.

Upon being secretly released in 2006, Hudson continued his experiments in hiding. Three years later, he had legally and secretly inquired people to join the program. A surprising 1,175,000 humans from around North America took the injection, and were under strict requests to keep their new forms hidden. Unfortunately, this did not work as well as planned, when word got out and riots gradually erupted around the continent. Instances of TFR experimental facilities expanded across the world as the number of the species rapidly grew in proportion. War quickly followed, and Alan remembered every instance of it. When the UN surrendered to the TFR Army for Power - or TFRAP for short - in February of 2022, the world was never the same again.

In his surveillance center, most of Alan's personnel occupied each computer, searching for leads and traces of their wanted men. They had all of their personal information already being monitored, but the hardest part remained actually locating them. Parker was getting restless - it was 4 o'clock in the afternoon and he still had absolutely no sign of them. But suddenly, seven hours after launching his search teams, one of his employees jolted from his seat.

"Mr. Parker!", he said, clearly excited. "I found something, and, and it looks huge!"

"Alright, well quit your yelling and spill it already. Jesus Christ, you people are killing me..." While he did not show it, Parker was enthusiastic.

"Oh, right. The locals of Thunder Bay reported a police chase not too long ago, and one of the cops confirmed that the driver was one of our suspects. He was using was a stolen 2027 Honda Civic, which belonged to a woman, whose husband said she was killed by a man with a gun. He took the car and caused havoc in the city before finally leaving west via the Trans-Canada highway. They couldn't follow him because of a traffic jam, but at least now we know where he's headed."

Alan's face sparked interest. "Oh yeah? So, the little bastards think they can just murder innocent people and run with their belongings now? This dragon has some nerve, and we'll just have to match that."

...

They walked around the house in search for an ideal place to sit down, settling for a small spot near some freshly cut hedges. The area around them was surrounded by trees and had a nicely decorated garden bordering the front and sides of the house. In the back there was a small foot-high porch, complementing the backyard which was filled with some toys and a small slide, which filled the place with a family friendly atmosphere. However, the trees blocked most of the sun, which darkened the place, and the property itself, in Matt's opinion, was much too close to the highway.

After a fifteen minute moment of silence, Eric finally spoke. "Matt, could you answer something?"

"Yeah sure, what's up?", Matt replied, glad to see Eric talking again.

"Can you tell me why we're actually going to Europe?"

Matt sighed. He could not avoid the question forever. He knew a question with such importance could not be answered with a mere personal opinion - Eric wanted a straightforward answer. He did not speak for a few seconds, his head turned the other way, but Eric eyes seemed to try and pierce through it. "There's a mountain in western Russia called Mount Gubit. Ever since the war began, they claimed to have spotted a dragon flying out of the mountain, which led them to believe that there was a colony there. Since then, they've been looking for any sign of an entrance or some sort of opening to wherever the dragon came from, but they never did. I simply thought it would be best if I dropped you off there to search it yourself, you know? It's only rumored to exist, but it's your best bet."

Eric let out a smirk. "That's it? Why would you be so hesitant to say something like that?"

"Because it's extremely well guarded by Russian authorities. It's virtually impossible to get in without being detected, and when you do, they shoot you immediately. I had a simple plan to distract the whole brigade, but there's an extremely high risk of me getting killed in the act. Simply put, I'd bomb the place by foot, while you entered from the opposite direction."

Eric showed an amused but hesitant face, thinking it was absurd. "Okay... Why the hell would you kill yourself for something as simple as reaching the summit of a mountain?"

"Try to name another option."

"Alright then; how about just trying to fly in?"

"They have air support available 24/7, able to shoot down anything flying above it immediately and automatically."

"How about digging a tunnel under and through the defensive line?"

"Already been attempted several time - they were all shot and killed before they even managed to make it out of their hole."

"Throw a grenade inside as a distraction instead of blowing yourself up?"

"That'll be a riot. Twenty meter explosion radius would kill five people there, while a mere 1% of the security investigate. Then they find me and come out to kill me."

"Go in at night?"

"They double shift at night, and they have night vision available for everyone, not to mention the infrared sensors all over the mountain."

"Then go somewhere else, like Australia or Johannesburg or something!"

"You'll never sustain the constant running."

Suddenly, Eric got up and raised his hands in the air, to clearly inform his friend he had enough. Matt was still looking the other way, chin in his hand, arm supported by his knee. Eric began to shout. "This is insane. You want to blow yourself up in order to allow me to enter a rumored dragon hangout? Do you know how stupid that is? We could find another place to hide. I don't _mind _hiding! I could run all my life if I had to! I don't care."

Matt gradually got up and went in front of Eric's face. "Eric, don't you ever tell me that you wouldn't mind running. You have absolutely no clue what running actually is. You have absolutely no clue how it feels to run hundreds of mile to hide, only to have the police find you a few months later. You can't run - it doesn't work, and it's a shit load of stress on your body. Look at you; you just threw up because of that small police chase. How would you like to handle that every, single day? You wouldn't."

"Oh yeah? And what makes you such an expert?"

Finally, Matt exploded. "Because I was there! I ran all of my life with my parents! My father was a massive drug dealer and he was internationally known, so we moved every other month, running, desperately trying to find the perfect hiding spot! I've been in the United States, I've been across Canada, hell I've even been to Mexico! We never stopped running because they always found us. You have no idea how much hell that puts you through! I've never had actual friends as a kid, I've never had an actual house to live in, and I've never had an actual childhood! In fact, the day I went to get my TFR injection was the day I left my parents for good." Matt began to walk around the small space he had between Eric and the house. "Oh sure! I went back to school, but I didn't have a house; I had the woods! Do you have any idea how it feels to be living off of animal meat, stealing people's clothing, washing them in the nearby brook, sleeping on the ground, searching desperately for a job to save money for a house and then needing to wait until you turn 18 to even be able to buy one? It sucks - and I never want to live that life, nor do I ever want to see anyone I care about to do so ever again." Matt stopped yelling, and simply looked at Eric straight in the eyes. "Including you."

They both stared at each other for a few seconds, until Matt walked away from Eric and sat back down against the wall, in the same position he was in before his rant. Eric glanced around the area to allow the tension to descend again, before speaking again. "Sorry about that, Matt. I didn't know."

Matt sighed. "Its fine, no one else knows. Don't worry about it."

Eric took a seat against one of the numerous trees in the yard, opposite of his friend. They sat there for a little while, thinking about their own thoughts, until a vehicle rolled up the house's driveway, its occupants wondering why there was a Honda parked in the middle of their driveway. They exited their vehicle, only to see two intruders on the side of their house, sitting on their lawn. Eric and Matt glanced at each other, knowing that there was no way out.