While everyone stirred, Tzirret tried shaking his sleeping arm and causing clinking in the chains. He curled his fingers until they began to get sensation and began to speak. [i]"Well...This one hopes the ships get taken soon. He really needs to relieve him-"[/i]

There was an unmistakable muffled sound blast from outside. It caused everyone in the hold to look up at the ceiling. Anyone who was still sleeping was awake now. A baby cried in the hold while everyone else was tense and silent. Ahnasha felt Rhazii press up against her in terror, grabbing hold of a handful of fur on her side in lieu of being able to hug her.

Then there was a greater frequency of clacking boots against the floorboards above. Shouting. Screaming. Snarling. The footsteps and shadows became heavier, causing the ceiling to creak. It reached a peak with a loud wolfish howl. Those who were to fight, nearest to the hatch, began to stand and transform, breaking their bonds in the process. They knew they could not transform all at once for fear of crushing one another in the limited space.

Thankfully, Gallus had located the navigator, grabbing him from behind near his cabin, pressing a knife to his thoat, and a hand over his mouth. Gallus hissed a warning as he lead the man into a small storage closet, "Don't move, don't make a sound. Your death will be [i]much[/i] worse if you escape me, I promise." The sounds of the signal and the carnage that followed may have served as encouragement that the man was not outside.

Janius' transformation made him the only werewolf around him apart from Uthri nearby. The rest were werelions and of course Kaleeth, the largest of them all. That did not discourage him as he burst out a door from the mess, leaping upon the first slaver he saw and striking with such power that the surprised man stumbled off the side of the ship with a bloodied chest. He lunged at another, going for the throat.

Sabine had been waiting on the other ship with Peiter, ready to strike. When they transformed, their responsibility was to tear off the hatch from the slave hold, as another would do on Meesei's ship.

Not even a minute after the signal, the urge to leave the hold hit the slaves even harder as patches of dripping blood began to seep down through the gaps in the ceiling.