Raven Wolf - 02 - The Oracle - Chapter 10 by Kurapika < Submission

Keywords male 1116346, female 1005819, cat 199562, wolf 182357, feline 139225, mouse 50330, skunk 31784, jackal 11013, catgirl 7897, series 4428, novel 1211, chapter 513, raven wolf 329

Chapter Ten

Iuana and Teddy are outside of the village of Raven Wolf among the green trees that surrounded the wild’s home, Iuana walking ahead of Teddy she now dressed in the traditional clothing the members of her tribe would wear instead of the test subject uniform she had been wearing before, she turning and looking back at him after hearing him ask her a question. “So you did hear about the suitor thing then... just like everyone else in the village?”

Teddy rubs the back of his head having indeed heard about it, he feeling and speaking like a shy teenager. “I’m just a little bit confused, that’s all... I mean, I didn’t know about the- I mean I didn’t even consider and you never mentioned it, so I guess I thought that you...”

Iuana leans back against the tree she is by, she looking back to Teddy as she explains to him. “It’s not something I’ve been hiding from you... it’s only been this way since father spoke to me about it last night.” She sighs to herself. “Honestly... I thought I had more time... and maybe even that my father would over look the idea and let me choose for myself who I would spend the rest of my life with. It really seemed as if he would... but I guess I was wrong...”

Teddy lowers his head. “Oh...”

Iuana walks back to him, placing her hand upon his shoulder. “I was not lying to you when I said that I liked you, and that nothing would make me happier then to have you with me. Despite the complications that had recently surfaced that has not changed.”

She turns from him moving forward. “Please do not let this change your mind about staying here in the village with me. You have nowhere to go, and the people here are good and will accept you with open arms, and at the very least you will be here for me, even if I can have you as nothing more than a friend.”

Teddy sighs to himself pitifully as he looks back to her, it felt like he was being dumped even though they were not even a couple. “I really don’t know about staying here... but like you said... I don’t have anywhere else to go...”

*******

Yula sits on it bed in his newly appointed room, he picking at the beads in his clothes as he watches and listens to Teddy, the grey wolf pacing in front of him and complaining to Yula. “I should have known from the moment I first saw her. I knew she was the daughter of the chieftain since my first day of knowing her! I know the traditions and trials involved with wilds, my parents explained them more times than I can count, so why did I never once consider that this was going to happen. I’m so stupid! Stupid! Stupid! Stupid!”

Yula watches Teddy as he continues his pacing. “Well it’s a surprise to me, I never heard about anything like that until now.” He begins mumbling to himself. “Of course I really don’t know much about wilds to tell you the truth...”

Teddy lets out a frustrated growl. “Why would she lead me around like this? She practically told me ‘it’s not going to work out so let’s just stay friends.”

Yula looks to the side as he thinks back, Teddy’s pacing and complaining reminding him of another ordeal Teddy had complained about several years back when he had been his security guard. “This reminds me of the time Rose dumped you.”

Teddy stops his pacing as he looks back to Yula. “Why you gotta open up old wounds like that?”

Yula shrugs his shoulders having not realized that he was being insensitive to the situation. “I... didn’t mean to...” His eyes move from side to side he not sure what else to say, he giving Teddy a sheepish grin. “Sorry...?”

Teddy holds his hand to himself. “What’s so bad about me anyway? I mean it’s not because I’m a wild, she’s a wild too, so it shouldn’t be a problem like it was in the city.” He clenches his hand into a fist. “I know what it is it’s my stupid name! Why did mom curse me with such a dorky name?”

Yula stares at Teddy speaking up once again. “I’m pretty sure your name has nothing to do with it...”

“Then what did I do?”

Yula looks Teddy over, it being obvious, Teddy having stated it himself. “You just said it was because of tradition!”

Teddy pauses as he thinks over what Yula said, he letting out a loud sigh as he sits down on the bed next to him. “I’m rambling nonsense aren’t I...?”

Yula nods his head yes. “Yeah you really are.”

Teddy sighs as he falls back onto the bed, covering his forehead with his arm. “You’re right... this is exactly like the time I broke up with Rose...” He closes his eyes. “And there wasn’t even anything between me and Iuana to break up yet...”

Yula frowns to himself, his left ear titling to the side as he thought the situation over. “I don’t see why you’re being so hard on yourself... I mean she’s not married yet, it’s still at least six months until the trails for her suitor, and even after that it’s not like she’s going to be married to him right away.” He looks back to Teddy the solution to the problem obvious. “Why don’t you enter the trials?”

Teddy looks back over to Yula, although it seemed completely acceptable for wilds and their traditions, it wasn’t the way things worked. “I can’t just beat up a bunch of wilds and then marry her... relationships are much more complicated than that. You start with dating first, that way you’ll figure out if you really work well and actually want to spend the rest of your lives together, and if not, end it without breaking any really big commitments.”

Yula nods his head supposedly understanding his point. “Yeah... like how you and Rose didn’t work together so she dumped you.”

“Honestly Yula will you stop bringing that up? I’m hurting enough as it is.”

“Sorry.”

Both Yula and Teddy let out a long sigh, Teddy eventually speaking up. “So... how was your day?”

Yula frowns as he folds his hands on his lap while thinking back. “I had a dream... and I told it to Shiya... and then a lot of old guys got really angry with me...”

Teddy sits back up as he stares at Yula confused. “What...?”

Yula looks back to Teddy. “One of the old guys has a really scary growl too... it literally sent chills down my spine, he had hackles all along his back too, I’m not kidding it made him look twice as big as he actually was.”

Teddy seems confused. “Wow... what kind of dream did you have to make them so angry?”

Yula looks over to Teddy. “I can’t talk about my visions, I’m only supposed to share them with Shiya remember?” He looks to the side, despite that rule he couldn’t help but bring some things about it up. “But you know… I think it was about the super soldiers that Shiya mentioned.”

Teddy is interested in this information. “Really?”

Yula nods his head yes. “I think so anyway... Eleven was in it... and so was that soldier that works with your sister.”

“Zack Magellan?”

Yula again nods his head yes. “Yeah, except in the dream he really didn’t have a name, instead he was called by the number written on his collar. Twenty-Six.” He tightens his hands into fists, although he knew he wasn’t supposed to talk to anyone but Shiya about his visions he couldn’t help but bring details like this up to Teddy. “The people that took care of them were all so strange looking... they didn’t have tails at all, and absolutely no fur on their bodies. They looked so weird. I don’t think they were domestics at all... I think it was someone else that made the Super Soldiers.”

Teddy thinks over what Yula had said, it did coincide with what Shiya had said when he had first mentioned the super soldiers, he said they were a product from a military much more advanced than the one Teddy had come from.

Yula looks over to Teddy. “So then I wonder who the other one is.”

Teddy seems confused by Yula’s comment. “The other one?”

Yula nods his head as he looks back to Teddy. “Yeah, when Shiya was talking to his sister she said that Shiya had two Super Soldiers in his pack. I know that Eleven is one of them, so who do you think the other is?”

*******

Lumia is leaving the town grocery having just finished buying something for her to eat, she taking a sandwich from a bag and uncovering her face just enough to beginning to eat it while looking around the town. “Gee... everything here looks so old. I don’t think there’s a computer anywhere that I could plug dad into.”

She swallows her mouthful of food, taking another large bite as she walked. “I gotta get back to the city...”

She comes to a stop when she sees something, Lumia letting out a small frightened squeak as she quickly runs out of sight hiding herself behind several cans of trash in hopes that she wouldn’t have been seen. Lumia remaining as still as she possibly could as a soldier walks past her through the street that she had just been on.

Lumia watches him pass by, it not looking as if he caught sight of her his mind preoccupied with other things right now. Lumia’s attention is caught when she notices that this soldier is carrying someone, another soldier whom had probably gotten hurt, a wolf of wild decent with a coat light grey in colour, her eyes closed as she rested against him, she looking a lot like the security guard Lumia had been following all the way out here. “Teddy...?”

She watches the two of them pass by, he heading toward and taking his fallen comrade to see the town’s doctor. Lumia keeps her distance from them as she watches, the computer voice of her companion eventually speaking up. “-That must be Mr. Conner’s twin sister, his file did mention that she was in the military as well-”

Lumia stares at the two. “What do you think happened to her?”

“-Ran into trouble is what one would logically assume-”

Lumia growls in annoyance that much clear to anyone. “I meant what kind of trouble! Sometimes you really get on my nerves!”

She kneels down on the ground speaking to electronic companion. “You know that surveillance group we messed up isn’t that far from here, do you think those two might be from it?”

“-I couldn’t tell you Lumia... not only did I have to remove myself from the military network as soon as that hacker showed up, but I’ve had to sever connections to the internet as well to lose him, it’s bad enough he managed to find me and take my files on you, after that he went on trying to shut me down!-”

Lumia lets out a frustrated sigh. “Where the heck did they get such a skilled hacker? There’s no way that a domestic could comprehend your coding, it should be impossible!”

*******

A humming of machines fill the air, the computers that filled room that Vaan right now occupied busily working away as he continued his search for information. A perplexed look fills his face as he stopping his typing for a moment, placing his hand on a large set of headphones he was wearing and listening to something, and looking back to General Mort who right now sat at a desk in the room with him. “General Mort, I found a heavily encrypted message that appeared through communications about thirty eight hours ago. I just finished de-coding it and I think that you may want to hear it.”

General Mort looks from his work. “Play it on the speakers.”

“Yes Sir.” Vaan switches the output of the computer’s sound, so that what he was listening to would play on the speakers.

“-My son is not the reason I have contacted you. The domestic military has sent a super soldier after me-”

“-It’s not going to be the first one you run into either, the domestics have managed to get their hands on five of them. They’ll sick all of them upon you if they haven’t already-”

“-You know about the domestic’s acquiring them?-”

“-Yes, they’ve been in their position for several years now. Their presence on the field has mostly been to test both their abilities and obedience, though it looks as if now they are officially being used-”

General Mort stands up walking over to the computer that Vaan worked at. “I recognize that voice, that’s Raven Wolf’s leader. Who is that woman he’s speaking to?”

He looks back to the monitor reading over some information. “Her source came from the old South Africa continent. It will take me a few more minutes to get an address, the route this communication took was not direct as to keep from easy being tracked.”

The old communication between the two continues to play on the speakers, there something about it that concerned Vaan. “I don’t understand how your target knew about the Super Soldiers in the first place to tell that Magellan was one of them. Not many people know about our existence in the military right now, but both the subjects in this communication do, the female voice on the transmission even knowing exactly how many the military right now has, how long we have been in military hands and even our rolls in the military until now. Whoever she is she’s someone with a lot of information, and a lot of power to be able to get that information.”

The printer near him finished printing out some words on a sheet of paper, Vaan bringing it to the General’s attention. “That’s the location your target’s transmission originated. It took a while to find it, the route was bounced from place to place so much you could classify its coder with anthropophiba.”

General Mort picks up the sheet of paper reading over the coordinates. “That should be within that town that my last communication from Magellan came from-”

The general is interrupted when Vaan suddenly yes out. “That’s impossible!!”

General Mort looks back to him. “Are you having trouble pinpointing the location of the other recipient?”

Vaan shakes his head no, he skipping back and replaying what he had just heard/

“-For now you have two super soldiers of your own, put them to good use and that will be sure to buy you some more time-”

General Mort frowns, that indeed something he had not expected to hear. “Raven Wolf has two super soldiers? Now that is interesting.” He looks back to Vaan. “See if you can find out who they are.”

Vaan nods his head as he returns to his work on the computer. “Yes sir.”

General Mort looks back to the scientist in the white coat that currently looked after this subject. “Berights is incredible, I should have had brought him onto the project years ago.”

The white mouse nods his head, his whiskers twitching. “He would do even better if the equipment he worked with was more advanced, Sixty-Six is from genetic batch number six hundred forty-eight. They were super soldiers created especially for gathering data intelligence. But like the rest of the super soldiers we managed to acquire this batch of solider was labelled as defective and the project, and soldiers created from that batch were terminated.” He fixes his glasses. “Apparently the soldiers of sixteen forty-eight had below average combat capabilities.” He laughs as he looks back to Vaan. “Pathetically below average, when we tested him his shooting accuracy was never higher than eight to ten percent, as opposed to the other super soldiers who all boast ninety eight to a one hundred percent accuracy range.”

General Mort laughs at the information. “The True Blood’s certainly do have high expectations for their science experiments.”

*******

Tahki sits beside Achak as she too looks over the jars he had been trying to distinguish, a frustrated look filling her face as she looks back to Achak. “Why don’t you just label them?”

Achak pouts at the idea, his eyes moving to the side as he mumbles sadly under his breath. “Father never had to label anything...”

The two look to the entrance of Achak’s hut when they hear someone enter, Eleven smiling as them as she approaches them. “Sorry to intrude, but Kit, the young domestic boy, is having trouble getting to sleep.”

Achak nods his head happy to be of service. “Of course, I’ll get something ready for him right away.”

Tahki quickly looks back to him. “Be very careful, Kit is only a boy so he much more likely to be seriously hurt if you make a mistake.”

Achak looks back at her assuring her that he would be fine. “No worries, I’m just going to give him some of my tea.” He makes his way over to a pot over a small fire that had recently been made. “Makes me sleepy all the time, should work for him.”

Tahki turns away from Achak, that indeed sounding safe enough, she now looking to Eleven. “Speaking of the kid, that soldier that was chasing Shiya and his companions shot at Kit and tried to kill him when we were crossing the ice. Kit recognizes the soldier too, he says this is not the first time he at attempted to kill him.”

Eleven nods her head, well aware of the attempt. “Don’t worry about it.”

Tahki raises her voice, very surprised by the reaction she had gotten from Eleven. “Don’t worry about it? How could I not worry about it!?”

Eleven begins to explain. “It’s impossible for Twenty Six to kill Kit, just as it is impossible for me to harm a child. Give us any target and our accuracy and speed in taking out the target was unparalleled, but make a child the target, and none of us, not even Twenty Six who was the best among us, could kill the target.”

Tahki frowns at the information. “That’s your defect...? Why everyone in your group was terminated?”

“Yes. The military that right now has Twenty Six is probably not aware, else they would not have given Kit to him as a target.” She looks to the side. “I should have know that it was Twenty Six when Shiya brought the boy here... the wound he had wasn’t fatal at all... it had missed it’s mark so badly I assumed that a rookie had taken the shot... I suppose there only being one bullet wound through me off, our group was trained to shoot two rounds when the intent was to assassinate... Twenty Six’s second round missed him completely.”

Achak approaches Eleven handing her a warm cup of tea to give to Kit, Tahki speaking to her once more before she leaves. “Well... what do you intend to do about Twenty Six. I know he’s from the same genetic code as you, but he’s not on the same side as us. That makes him our enemy. You do know that don’t you?”

Eleven nods his head. “Yes, I know... I can’t fight him.”

Tahki doesn’t seem happy with this information. “So you’re going to leave him for me to fight alone? You said that he was the best in your group, that means his combat skills are through the roof, my scores were average for my group, I was nothing compared to the top six in my group.” She raises her voice. “And in addition to that! You know that I want to take a timed leave from the Raven Wolf’s warriors, I’ve talked to both you and Shiya about it, you were supposed to replace me in leading the warriors, if you refuse to fight this person then I can’t leave!”

Achak speaks up, joining the conversation between the two of them, Eleven and Tahki good friends that usually got along very well. “Eleven does not intentionally try to make a mess of your plans I’m sure. She knows how important this leave of absence from the warriors is to you. This situation is unexpected, and if she cannot fight against him then she cannot fight, there is nothing either of you can do to change that.”

Tahki turns away from the both of them, Achak continuing to try and ease her frustration with the situation. “We can postpone our plans for a family until this threat is over with, it is for the best anyway, the tribe could not fight without you if what Shiya said about there being five Super Soldiers in the military is true.”

Tahki still does not look happy over the idea, she though not arguing with what Achak had said. She baring her teeth angrily as she slams her fist upon the ground. “Raven Wolf has always been in battles against the military, but it has never interfered with my life outside of battle as it does now! The super soldier experiments were supposed to be something that remained a memory, I will tear these soldiers apart for once again dictating my life!”

*******

Zack and Dolly are back in the small town they had been in before following their targets to the village of Raven Wolf, Zack sitting upon a chair in the hospital and looking out the window while Dolly sleeps in one of the hospital beds. Her body resting and recovering from the ordeal she had been through from falling into the freezing ice water.

Zack keeps his eyes fixed on the small town outside, he hardly paying attention as he thought back to something Dolly had said the day before.

“We know that Raven Wolf’s village is in this area. It’s not an exact location like we were originally hoping for but it’s better than nothing. Once we return and give the general our information he’ll be able to put a much more prepared group together and we’ll have no trouble reaching the village.”

She closes her eyes the warmth from Zack’s body helping to calm her shivering some. “But once that happens... what’s going to happen to Teddy...?”

Zack looks back to her, the situation obviously difficult for her. It wasn’t just Dolly either, Raven Wolf also had with them someone that he had known among them.

The snarl leaves Zack’s face as he stares at her, the woman he faced not a wild like the other members of Raven Wolf, she a female skunk that carried the exact same white makings and eye colour as him. “Eleven.”

Zack thinks back to her appearance, there no doubt that she was indeed the person he remembered. Though everyone in batch number thirteen forty two looked that same to anyone else that saw them, those that worked with them needing to depend on the numbers marked on their collars to tell them apart, the members within the batch were always able to tell one from the other without the help of these collars, they never becoming confused over who was who. “Eleven...”

Zack is no older then fourteen, he getting up to leave and be on his way when a voice stops him. “I don’t blame you for leaving me behind.” He looks back to the girl that had spoken, Eleven sitting upon the ground, her leg wounded badly and keeping her from walking. “I’ll only slow you down... you’ll get caught if you stay with me.”

Zack walks back to her kneeling down in front of her. “I’m not going to leave, I’ll be right back I promise. I’m just going to see if I can find something to help with your leg that’s all.”

Eleven frowns not believing him. “That’s not how we were taught to act, we’re supposed to only look out for ourselves remember.”

Zack quickly begins arguing back with her. “Who cares what Zephyr said! He said we were defective, terminated the project and destroyed everyone! Because of him you and me are the last ones left of batch thirteen forty two!”

He holds his hand to himself. “We’ve only got each other to depend on now! Neither of us is going to be alone.”

Eleven smiles up at him. “So you’ll come back for me?”

Zack nods his head yes. “Of course!”

Eleven lifts her hand to him. “Do you promise?”

Zack again nods his head as he takes her hand, gripping it tightly in his to seal the promise. “I promise.”

Zack closes his eyes, just thinking back to that was uncomfortable, that having been the last time the two of them had seen one another until they had crossed paths in the middle of battle. Zack having never gotten the chance to return, having been caught by the domestic military and used in its service ever since.

One of the villagers that worked at the post office in the small town enters the room, getting Zack’s attention. “Excuse me, there’s a call for you from a General Mort.”

Zack gets up, leaving the room and following the villager to the post office without a word, he soon arriving within the post office and answering the phone that was meant for him. “Zack Magellan.” There is a pause as he listens to the voice on the other end, he answering the questions as they were asked. “Yes sir... No sir... Yes sir... Yes sir... No sir... No sir, we think that Mr. Conner found out about the tracking devices and had them removed... No sir... we have no idea where they might be at this point…Yes sir, we’ll contact you as soon as we find something.”

He hangs up the phone, turning around and heading back toward the village doctor to rejoin Dolly as she recovered.

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Raven Wolf - 02 - The Oracle - Chapter 10

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