[Gallagher]

I've been poking around my files, and I found an excerpt I've always liked but never posted.

The Laws Of Nature

The Great Law was simple. Everyone raised in the academy, or that had spent even a month within its walls, knew it.

All truths come in threes.

In accordance with the Great Law, true success required only three things.

Power.

Wit.

And luck.

It was luck that provided opportunities in the first place, or so he had come to believe. By any other definition, he was utterly lacking. It was always in his hands that survival was no longer a guarantee. Yet there was no question that the Basilisk found success in his deeds more often than failure.

From what his surveillance could tell, there were only a few times of day when the security was unbalanced. Unbalanced meant vulnerable. These were times that the manifest took care to guard their youths when they were the most exposed. He understood the sentiment, the instinct of it, but he also knew how short sighted it was. The only danger to their children were the latents. Then, if the people here listened to any kind of sense, there would be no reason for the struggles of their people. No reason for him to pinpoint their weaknesses and take what they were guarding. It was, he would think at odd times, his luck that left him unnoticed when he sat out in the trees, small and colored bright like the summer birds, and watched the yards, through doorways, and into windows. His luck that the manifest took little notice when their children would gather together to watch the strange little lizard or mouse or mantis that wasn’t afraid of their grabby hands or loud voices.

It took nearly a month of watching, of waiting, for the Basilisk to strike.

Power was one thing he knew he had no short supply of. It was the strength of his legs when he cut through the yards, large and dark and quick as any beast could hope to be. It was the belief in his own plans, driving him into the building — it was no struggle to stand and push the bar of the door with heavy paws — and through the halls without hesitation, using his ears and his nose, all finely tuned and impossibly sensitive in this form, to guide him away from risks. More, it was his own will, the burn in his lungs and in his heart that told him, no matter what happened, no matter who crossed his path, he will survive and he will return home, now so many miles away.

The power of the Basilisk was what took down the only guards he encountered with quick rushes, the brunt of his weight against their backs or legs or stomachs, sending them to the ground or against the walls. And when the impact didn’t snap their heads into something solid enough to knock them out, it was the power behind his paws that overcame the weakness of their throats to silence them.

It was no concern if his attacks were caught on camera. If the security was to come, they would have to be quick, far quicker than him. It was only when he reached a bleak and strangely silent hall that he stopped sniffing the air and the floor as he paced in front of the only three doors along these walls. It was with ease that the great beast twisted and shifted himself into a new skin, rapidly shrinking, his fur turning into feathers and muzzle hardening into a beak. A stretch of his wings was all he needed before fluttering up to the top of the security camera, squawking and stretching out until the weight of a large, spotted cat snapped it from the ceiling, sending both crashing to the ground. He shook himself as he stood, nudging the useless plastic and metal with his nose, then taking it between his jaws and biting down suddenly, wrecking what remained of the device.

His ears and nose twitched as he checked for any other guards before approaching the door he needed. It was a man, not a beast, that pulled a small device from his pocket and snapped it onto the keypad beside the door. He stood still as the seconds ticked by, his eyes stuck on the small screen that buzzed with numbers and letters. A click had him retrieving the device and allowing himself into the room which was, miraculously, empty of all but towering electronics and countless written files. His time was running out, he was certain that his luck never held out for this long, but this couldn’t be rushed. It was an older, but well maintained computer that he picked out in the back of the room, its system already on, to plug into. While the signal tried to boot itself up, he searched through the files for anything that looked promising. His information had said to look for Project Cypress, but despite how questionable his wit might have been to some, he wasn’t about to leave anything that looked just as promising if he could help it.

The longer he sat, the more uncomfortable he became, until the hair stood up on the back of his neck. Not all of the files had sent, but the ones he’d been ordered to retrieve had been among the first, and it would have to do well enough. The screen turned dark, his plug tossed onto the floor in front of one of the shelving units. He rummaged quickly through the papers, spilling and spreading them until the floor around him was covered and some similar looking ones piled together. He cast a glance to the door, muttering under his breath as the Basilisk once more became the beast he had been, the small device snapped up and crushed in his jaws as the door was thrown open and the security rushed in.