Ugh… I feel like I’ve just woken up from that water chamber… Lumina said in a groggy voice. The tranquilizer that had hit her shoulder was barely wearing off. She frowned, pulling it from her shoulder and throwing it far away from her. She then stood up and raised her rump up to stretch. “Now… where am I?” She asked herself as she gave a big yawn.
Lumina was an experiment that had escaped from her birthplace: the lab, to try to live the way real lions did. She had escaped with her two friends, Emmy (the most normal looking of the trio) and Rain (a wolf/house-cat hybrid). They both wanted to live out in the wild too, instead of being held captive in the lab.
As Lumina scanned the savannah, she quickly remembered how she ended up here. Sadness overcame her as thoughts of Rain and Emmy went through her mind. She couldn’t imagine living without them. I must find them… She thought, and immediately began wandering the savannah, searching for them, but not with much luck.
        After hours of searching, Lumina needed to rest. She sighed hopelessly, and noticed the sun was sinking on the horizon. While she was looking up at the sky, there was a branch suddenly snapped and Lumina whipped her head towards the sound.
        Rain? Emmy? Is that you? she thought as her heart raced excitedly. She leapt to her feet and ran towards the noise.
        “Emmy, Rain, it’s me, Lumi! I finally found you!” She called out, running through the tall yellow grass. But her hope was shattered when a human stepped into view. She tried to skid to a stop, digging her claws into the ground, but it was too late as she slammed right into him. The human screamed in surprise, and Lumina yelped as she knocked him off his feet, and fell on her face. The human scrambled away from the lioness, and quickly jumped to his feet. Lumina shook her head and looked up when she heard a metallic click. Her pupils shrank in fear as she stared up the barrel of a tranquilizer gun. Oh great, more darts.
        “What was that?” another human called out, a short distance away. The man in front of Lumina swallowed nervously and stammered, “E-Everyone load up your g-guns! An exotic animal r-ran right into us!”
Several more humans came running; Lumina could hear their feet through the grass. Oh-no… it’s the Professor’s labcoats! She jumped up onto her paws and ran as fast as her legs could take her.
        “There she goes! Don’t let her out of your sights!”
        Lumina ripped through the savannah; she heard an engine fire to life, and the humans’ shouts. The engine began to follow her, and guns bristled in the humans’ hands. She felt adrenaline pumping through veins as she panted for air. But as fast as she ran, it wasn’t enough; the humans in their noisy engines gained on her.
When she turned her head around to see how close they were, one of the humans, with jet-black hair, hung out of the side of the vehicle and aimed his gun at her. Trying not to panic, she told herself to run faster.
        “Say good night!” cackled the human as he pulled the trigger. Lumina felt the stinging pain quickly spreading through her body, then a numbing sensation, followed by drowsiness.
Even though her body was shutting down on her, she continued to run, not planning on giving up just yet. Eventually her legs started to drag and she collapsed on the hard ground, panting loudly as she tried to gulp down enough air for her lungs. The vehicles stopped right in front of her, shining their bright headlights into her half-closed eyes. The black-haired man stepped out of the car, and placing his foot on her chest, bent down until he was on Lumina’s eye level.
        “You’re such a strange species of lion… I can’t wait to do all kinds of experiments on you!” he said evilly. Lumina struggled to move her eyes to get a good look at him, still panting loudly.
She realized that this human wasn’t one of the Professor’s labcoats. He didn’t wear a white lab coat like she expected. Instead, he wore a plain black shirt and pants. His eyes scared her; they showed no sign of kindness, just emptiness… and he seemed to fill that emptiness with hate.
Lumina felt her eyelids closing slowly; sleep was taking its toll on her. She passed out as they slung her into the back of the vehicle, and revved the engine.

                                                           ***

Lumina’s eyes flickered open. She rolled from her side to a crouching position, taking in her surroundings warily. The first thing she noticed was that the dart was removed. Was it all just a dream? she wondered tiredly, yawning as she looked around. The lioness immediately realized that it was no dream when she saw she was back in a cage. She looked through the bars of the cage, and realized that the room held the same kind of instruments as the Professor’s lab. How could I have let someone else catch me? I don’t want to be in this hell hole! she thought angrily, rattling her cage. A sudden growling came from her stomach and reminded her that she hasn’t eaten since she had escaped from the Professor. At a far corner in her cage, there were two large bowls: one was piled with raw beef and the other was filled with clear water. She quickly trotted over to it and gulped down the meat without even hesitating to taste it. She then lapped up the water clean to wash it down.
By the time she was finished with her meal, something was thumping around in the next cage over. Lumina turned around and saw a tigress banging her head against the bars in frustration. The tigress was snow white with black stripes, had tiny blue wings on her paws, and a purple swirl on her hip surrounded by four blue dots. Near her tail tip was a silver goddess cuff. And I thought I carried a lot of jewelry on me… Lumina thought.
“Umm… why are you banging your head on the bars?” Lumina spoke finally.
The white tigress turned to Lumina; she had silver earrings, a silver necklace, and a purple hourglass shape between her green eyes.
        “I’m frustrated. This is the only way that I can get it out of my system… who are you anyways? I’ve never seen a blue lioness before. Which lab did you come from?” She asked without a hint of shyness.
“My name’s Lumina and yes I did come from another lab. But how’d you know that?” Lumina asked, sitting as close to her as the cages would allow.
“Call me Luna, and I know for a fact that there aren’t any blue lions out in the wild.” Luna chuckled.
“Oh right, I forgot about that…” Lumina laughed weakly. “So I’m guessing you’re wild then?”
        “Yes, I was a regular tigress before, but these blackcoats caught me as a cub and did a whole bunch of experiments, causing me to look like I do now.”
        “Oh. I’m sorry that you got caught.”
        “Sorry? Are you kidding me? I’m actually glad that they caught me! I look fricking awesome! Plus I have these psychic abilities!”
        “What?! You like it here?”
        “Hell no! I want to get out of this damn place! I hate being inside a building twenty-four-seven. I don’t even get to see the sky anymore…” Luna said, growling at the injustice.
        “Well, if you hate this place so much then why don’t you use your so-called ‘psychic abilities’ to get us out of here?” Lumina said sarcastically. Luna fell silent, and then glared at her.
“I can get out of here, but they’d catch me before I could get out of the building…” An idea then formed in her mind and she grinned at Lumina. The blue lioness folded her ears back, feeling uneasy.
        “Why are you looking at me like that?” Lumina asked nervously, not liking the look on Luna’s face.
        “Well… I’ll never get out of the building by myself. But now that you’re here, you can distract them for me while a find a way out,” replied Luna.
        “Oh gee, thanks. How am I supposed to distract them?”
“When the blackcoats open your cage to examine you, jump out of their arms. Run around, create havoc or something.” Luna explained. Lumina frowned suspiciously. I just met her, but what have I got to lose? Either I trust a stranger and escape, or stay here for them to turn me into jelly, Lumina reasoned.
But Lumina didn’t have time to be suspicious of the tigress. Luna’s smile disappeared and she looked at the door.
        “What’s wrong?” Lumina asked in concern.
        “They’re coming…” Luna whispered, not moving her eyes off the door.
“Wait, who’s—.”
There was the sound of a doorknob turning, and in walked the black-haired man that had shot Lumina; she backed up in her cage with a threatening growl as the man and his assistant drew closer. They both wore black labcoats.
        “So this is our new guest, Doctor?” the assistant asked the man, looking at Lumina.
        “Yes, we just got her in last night. The stupid cat ran right into our group.” he replied.
Get ready… Luna’s voice echoed in Lumina’s head. Lumina was shocked for a half-second, then realized these must be the ‘psychic’ ability Luna had mentioned. Lumina’s friend, Emmy also used telepathy occasionally. Lumina nodded to Luna to show she understood.
“Okay then, let’s get her out of the cage to examine. I’m sure she has many stories to tell about why she’s blue.” The man said, kneeling down to her cage and unlocking it. Lumina felt her heart beat fast with excitement. She looked back at Luna and noticed that the tigress wasn’t taking her eyes off of the humans. Luna was waiting for the right moment. Lumina took a deep breath and prepared herself.
He opened the door of the cage and Lumina leapt forward from the cage, roaring and raking her claws at the humans, startling them. She launched from the cage, landing on the tile floor. Immediately she knocked over a very expensive-looking instrument; it fell with a nice, loud, crash. Lumina laughed as she slipped from the room, knocking over any more instruments she could reach.
        “SHE’S GETTING AWAY!!” The woman screamed. She ran up to a wall where an alarm box was mounted, and slammed her fist onto the button. Instantly the whole building was flashing with red light, and the air was pierced with sirens. The doctor ran after Lumina, and his assistant tripped over the shattered instruments as she followed.
As soon as they left, Luna sat on her haunches and cracked her knuckles, getting ready to make use of herself. She cupped her paws like she held an invisible ball. Slowly the invisible ball formed into a ball of crackling purple light-energy. When veins of lightning began flickering from the purple ball, she threw it at the lock on her cage. There was a bright flash and a crack. When the smoke cleared, there was a gaping hole where the cage door had been.
        “Hehe… tonight’s the night I blow this taco stand,” Luna said to herself, jumping from the cage and running out the room to find Lumina.
Lumina continued to run through the halls, knocking over anything that might be expensive. But somewhere she had made a wrong turn, and now she was faced with a dead end. Lumina was trapped.
        “She’s over here doctor!” the woman assistant screeched from the end of the hall, blocking Lumina’s way out. The Doctor ran into view, and Lumina backed into a corner as he slowly walked up to her; holding a needle that looked too much like the sleeping darts for Lumina’s liking. Where is that crazy tigress? Lumina repeated over and over in her head, praying that Luna was on her way.
Her prayers were answered. There was a deafening roar from behind the humans, and the blackcoats visibly jumped.
        “What the..?” the Doctor gasped as they turned around. To their surprise, they saw Luna with a ball of light in one of her paws, only this time it was red.
        “It’s experiment 21792! And what the hell’s that in her paw??” cried the woman. Luna just tossed the ball around like a catnip toy, and then threw the ball at them.
        Look out!! Luna called out to Lumina telepathically as the red ball arched towards the humans. Lumina ran past the doctor over to Luna’s side, just before the ball exploded over the humans’ heads. Bits of red rained down on them, and then there was a flash of bright red light, and the humans’ labcoats were on fire.
        “OH MY GOD, I’M ON FIRE!!!” The doctor cried out in agony, dropping to the floor. His assistant screamed beside him.
        This way Lumina! Luna thought to the blue lioness, motioning for her to follow. Lumina skidded across the cold floor, her claws clicking as she ran. She was hoping that the blackcoats weren’t right on their tails. Luna led her through a jumble of halls. They threaded around the building like a mouse in a maze, knocking down anything in their path. If they met any blackcoats, they ran in the opposite direction. When they made a turn to the left, they came to a door.
        “Here’s the exit. Now we have to open it… but… I just don’t know how…” Luna panted. Lumina looked up at the door and noticed the little steel box next to the handle; it was just like the one at the Professor’s lab!
        “Quick! Knock one of the blackcoats out and bring me their plastic card.”
“What for?”
“Just do it! I’ve done this before.”
Luna just shrugged and turned to find a lone blackcoat. A growl and a roar was heard around the corner, and within a few seconds, she ran back with a card in her mouth.
“Got it. But why do you need it?”
“Hand it over and you’ll see.”
Luna nodded and passed the card to Lumina. She got up on her hind legs and slid the card through the box. A beep was heard and the door automatically opened.
        “Holy crap! How’d you do it??” Luna said and an amazed voice.
        “It doesn’t matter, let’s just get out of here before the door closes on us!” Lumina replied, shoving Luna out the door with her paws and then followed her out.
As soon as they were outside, the sun was shining brightly down at them. Lumina was pleased to see that there were no fences to stop them from escaping.
        “RUN!!” Luna roared.