Raven Wolf - 03 - The Warriors - Chapter 05 by Kurapika < Submission

Keywords male 1174208, female 1064527, cat 210454, wolf 190582, feline 148127, mouse 53294, tiger 38277, skunk 33738, coyote 11893, series 4579, book 4373, mink 3034, novel 1250, chapter 504, raven wolf 329

Chapter Five

Kitchi stands within the village entrance where Maigan and the other warriors had arrived, his brother still going on and on as he bragged to Kitchi about his heroic adventures while they and the other warriors unload the supplies they had brought back to the village, these rewards for their help.

“I was surrounded on all sides, but I didn’t doubt myself for a moment. I knew I could make it out and exactly how to do it, I leapt forward before they could react, taking out the one in front of me, and then-”

He stops talking when Shiya approaches him, Maigan quickly turning from Kitchi and toward him. “Chieftain!” He holds his hand out to the warriors around him. “I am happy to report that we completed our tasks with no casualties suffered. The chieftain of the Echoing Mountain tribe sends his tanks to you, as well as food for our tribe as payment.”

Shiya nods his head. “Very good.”

Maigan continues with his report. “We are right now in the midst of storing everything.”

Shiya looks past him toward the warriors that had returned. “You and the other warriors have had a long journey. Leave this task to me and the warriors that stayed behind, you have earned the rest.”

Maigan nods his head. “Thank you Chieftain.” He pats Kitchi on the back, Kitchi one of the individuals that was going to have to do the work. “You have fun now baby brother.” Maigan then turns to the other warriors announcing to them what their chieftain had told him.

Kitchi looks over to Yula and Teddy who are also helping with the supplies. “I swear if he refers to me as ‘baby brother’ one more time I’m going to snap!”

Yula watches Maigan leave. “I duno, he seemed like a nice enough guy.”

Kitchi picks up a pack of supplies. “You won’t think so if you were the one he was calling a little baby all the time.”

*******

Zack and Dolly are right now at a firing rang within military headquarters, the two of them having to show up there and the end of every week so that Dolly could hand in her observations and reports on Zack and so the military could test Zack and make sure his skills weren’t going soft, Zack right now in the middle of taking his accuracy test while Dolly patiently waits for him to finish on a bench outside of the room.

The shots being fired soon come to a stop, the computer reading through his information and calculating his results, Zack looking them over with a frown. “Shoot...” Clearly he was not entirely pleased with his results. He lets out a sigh walking up to the window behind him and raping on it to get Dolly’s attention, he announcing to her his issue. “My aim is off.”

Dolly looks back to him. “By how much?”

“I missed the center of one of my targets by a centimetre.”

Dolly frowns that hardly something to be concerned about. “That’s hardly an issue, now get out of there so we can go back home.”

Zack turns away from her, loading and preparing to aim his gun once more. “Nope, not until I get a better result. If I hand in a score like that I’d never hear the end of it.”

Dolly sighs as he looks back to Zack. “Is being off by half a centimetre really that bad?”

Zack looks back to her. “Not half a centimetre, I’m off by a full one! And for someone like me it is that bad.”

The test begins again, Zack firing round after round and hitting each target dead center. Dolly quietly watching him, Zack seemed to be genuinely worried over such a small little detail, of course what could she expect from someone that she assumed was a super soldier.

Zack finishes the test, he looking to his scores and reading them over a satisfied look now on his face. “Much better.” He enters some information in on the touch screen monitor and then sends his information in. “I never realized that I would do so poorly after being imprisoned for a month. Usually I do this every day.”

Dolly questions him from outside of the room. “Everyday... really...?”

Zack nods his head as he looks back to Dolly. “You know that there’s only one person who can get a better score than me on the accuracy tests.”

Dolly chuckles at the information. “Is that why you do this every day? To try and get better than him?”

Zack shakes his head no. “Of course not, it’s a military requirement for someone like me, though getting better than him would be nice no doubt, but not very likely seeing as he does this stuff everyday as well.”

He motions for Dolly to come inside the room. “Why don’t you step up and give it a go?”

Dolly shakes her head no. “I’m not due for an accuracy test for a while.”

Zack continues to try to talk her into it. “Come on, I want to see how well you do.”

Dolly frowns at him. “Then read my files.”

“But I want to see you do it.”

Dolly smirks at his reply. “You just don’t want to go back home because you’re always bored there.”

Zack shakes his head. “Not true, I’m genuinely curious to see how well you can do that’s all.”

Dolly opens the door to the room giving into the request and walking up to the booth next to Zack’s, entering her information into the computer and taking the weapon, aiming and preparing to fire. Zack smiling as he watches her. “That’s more like it.”

The simulation begins, Dolly beginning to fire round after round and hitting her targets. Although the targets that were appearing before her were not as quick nor as many as Zack’s she was still managing to hit them well in the center.

The test comes to an end, Zack leaning forward in Dolly’s booth and looking at the screen that was calculating her results. “Not bad, to be honest I expected much worse from you.”

Another voice intrudes upon the conversation between the two of them, it holding a very condescending tone to it. “Zack is that you? I haven’t seen your ugly mug around here for some time now.”

Zack and Dolly both look back to see coyote in military uniform standing outside the shooting range, he looking at them from the window to the room they were in, Zack frowning as he turns around to face him. “I’m the ugly one? I’m pretty sure that was you not me.” He stares at the coyote’s face pointing out a scar that had not been there the last time to two of them had seen each other. “And though I thought it impossible at first, I do believe that you are uglier then the last time I saw you. What exactly did you do to your face Alistair?”

Alistair bares his teeth as he thought back. “I’m sure you heard of the incident regarding the Raven Wolf’s leader entering the city. Well I was sent to deal with the problem, I was well on my way to finishing off the freckled wolf when Conner shot at me. When I was preoccupied with him the vile little wild I had pinned took a swipe at me, doing this to my face. Afterward when all was said and done, General Mort was very unhappy in concerns to us not only failing to catch and contain Raven Wolf’s leader, but for losing our funding on the project. So much so that he refused to sign the papers for me to get my face treated to keep from scaring.”

Zack grins at the information. “You must really be fuming over that, you were pretty attached to your reflection the last time I remember.”

Alistair raises his voice letting out a growl. “Mark my words Twenty Six, blood will fly for this. Conner for distracting me, Freckles for scratching my face, and you for not killing your target in the first place! If you would have killed that stupid kid I would have never been thrown into that situation!”

Dolly frowns, the person having been so angry that he had called Zack by the name of Twenty Six instead of by Zack or even his last name Magellan. She looks to Alistair’s ear curiously, she spotting a tattoo that was similar to the one that Zack had, this one though having a different set of numbers than the one Zack had.

Zack glares at Alistair as he begins to approach him, he rather riled up and ready to get into a fight if Alistair was intent on starting one. “You want my blood do you? Well then let’s do this, don’t keep me waiting.”

The two snarl at one another Dolly quickly stepping between the two of the and placing her hand upon Zack and pushing him back. “That’s enough! I don’t know what kind of bad blood the two of you have between one another but this is not the time nor the place!”

Zack frowns, backing down as he had been told while Alistair stares at Dolly, rather unhappy with her having come in between the two of them. “Stay out of this you filthy wild.”

Dolly looks displeased with the remark, Zack speaking up to defend her. “Watch it Alistair, wild or not she’s still a soldier.” He grins to himself adding to the statement, “And she’s not filthy either, her hygiene is good and her house is actually very clean.”

Alistair smirks turning away from Dolly and looking back to Zack. “Well would you look at you. Who would have thought you would have developed a soft spot for trash like this?”

Zack raises his voice. “Miss. Conner is my partner, one whom I trust with my life. She isn’t trash.”

Alistair frowns at the name. “Conner?” He looks back to Dolly. “So then you’re the Conner sister that I keep hearing about. I should have guessed, from what I understand you and your brother are the only wilds we have on our faction.” He looks back to Zack. “To think I used to be jealous of you because you always got to do the field work, the idea of both becoming as soft as you have and being partnered with something like her without a doubt kills that envy.”

He turns away from the both of them continuing on his way. “Enjoy your time rotting away under house arrest Zack. I’ll be sure to finish this with you when you’re free of your babysitter.”

Dolly watches Alistair leave, she then turning back to Zack. “A friend of yours?”

Zack frowns at the term, he answering her bitterly. “His name is Alistair Quincy, and we’re not friends. We’ve never have been friends and we never will be. We’ve been at each other’s throats since we were children.”

“Why’s that?”

Zack doesn’t seem happy to think back at what had started their dislike for one another. “Don’t worry about it. Let’s just head back, we’re done here.”

*******

Alistair enters a room where three others right now lounged, one of them a black cat who was right now frantically working away at a computer with a frustrated expression on his face. Another a bored looking tiger, who is right now reading through some files, the last a mink, who was lounging about on a bench sleeping.

Alistair approaches the tiger as he begins speaking to him. “Hey Kane, Did you know that Zack’s gone and made himself a friend?”

The tiger lets out a deep laugh as he looks over to Alistair, the idea so unlikely that it was amusing. “You’re more likely to make a friend than he is, and we all know how low the chances of that happening are.”

Alistair sits at the table across from him. “I’m not kidding you know, one of the Conner twins.”

Kane hums at the name, defiantly recognizing it. “Ah her, well hopefully Zack will take better care of this Conner then the last one he had. What with him running away and joining the wilds like he did.”

Alistair laughs at the reminder, he having almost forgotten that Zack had been partnered with Teddy before Dolly. “Luckily I won’t be stuck with someone low rate like that when I get out on the field. I was lucky enough not to be the odd man out and got partnered with you after all.” He laughs to himself as he looks over to the sleeping mink and then the cat at the computer. “While Vaan got partnered with Chase, of those two I don’t know who to feel more sorry for, Vaan for having a partner that does nothing but sleep all day, or Chase for being stuck with the most useless of us.”

The black cat immediately stops what he’s doing as he turns his chair around looking back to Alistair, he offended by the remark. “I’m not useless!”

Alistair looks back to Vaan with a smirk on his face. “You’re an out of date intelligence model. A three year old could tell by that definition alone that you are useless.”

Kane looks back to Vaan a mocking tone in his voice as he joins Alistair in harassing him. “How goes your progress? Manage to catch that hacker yet?”

Vaan bares his teeth, not wanting to answer but doing to anyway. “No, I can’t even tell you what she’s getting into... just that she’s in the system.”

Both Kane and Alistair begin to laugh, Alistair being the one to speak up. “You clam not to be useless but here you are being outsmarted by a little girl.”

Vaan yells back at him. “This isn’t just any little girl!” He leans back in his chair a smirk on his face. “If I were you Alistair I wouldn’t be talking, after all wasn’t it a kid barely in his teens that messed up your face not that long ago?”

Alistair stops his laughing as he gets up from his chair, storming over to Vaan and placing his hand upon his chest pushing him and the chair he right now sat in back against the wall. “Watch what you say Vaan or you’ll be getting one to match!”

Kane looks over to the two. “Calm down now the both of you. I know we’ve been cooped up here for a long time but that’s all about to change. Zack isn’t going to be the only one aloud outside the facility now that we’re all working the same project.” He puts down the folder he had been holding pointing it out to them, it the mission they had been assigned to. “The military is going after the weapon in the Eden of North. Do you have idea of what that means?”

Both Alistair and Vaan grin at the thought, even if the two of them didn’t particularly get along they could at least agree on that, Alistair the first to speak up. “Yeah, the true bloods are going to get what’s coming to them.”

Vaan agrees with him on this, after all the true blood had been the ones that had created and then destroyed them. “Create us, force us to endure a torturous existence and then exterminate us because we didn’t turn out as perfect as they want us to be. Their end couldn’t come soon enough.”

A mumble fills the air as the mink who is right now sleeping rolls onto his other side. Vaan letting out a sigh as he turns away from him getting back to work at the computer he is at, the fact that his partner slept all day when he was constantly working all day infuriating. “I admit though I can see why his batch was terminated... lazy good for nothing oaf.”

Alistair looks back to Kane. “So, how much do you think Zack’s little partner knows about us? Zack likes to talk a lot, no doubt she’s picked up on something.” He points to the tattoo on his ear, all of the individuals in this room carrying that marking on them. “She was staring at my number when I met her, she most likely recognized that it’s similar to the one Zack has.”

Kane picks up a photo from the files looking it over. “Though Zack is chatty he isn’t stupid, he knows better than to talk about us, he’s not going to risk being taken out of service and being confined again. If she does find out about us it’s not going to be from his mouth.”

*******

The warriors of Raven Wolf as well as Shiya and his family are all gathered around a bonfire eating, Hasson lets out a boastful laugh as he pats Maigan on the back after hearing him talk about the battle he had won. “That’s what I like to hear! I could not be a prouder father right now!”

Kitchi frowns as he looks up from his food. “He really doesn’t need encouragement dad...”

Hasson looks over to Kitchi. “Don’t look so displeased, I’ll be just as happy when you tell me the stories of your victories.”

Maigan looks over to Iuana, she right now silently eating her meal not looking up at anyone. He speaking up as he now began to talk to her. “So Iuana, I heard the announcement about the trails for your suitor. It came as a bit of a surprise to me I admit, I always thought you were against your father stepping down from his position.”

Iuana looks over to him, there very little she could do regarding the matter. “I still am, but that doesn’t mean that I will not respect my father’s wishes. If he feels that I am ready to take his place then I will not argue with him.”

Maigan grins at her. “You know, since I heard the announcement I’ve been thinking. Maybe we should just skip the competition and get right to the marriage ceremony.”

Teddy chokes on what he had been eating, Kitchi starting to pat him on the back.

Iuana stares at Maigan with a frown, though Maigan held an attraction to her she did not feel the same way, Iuana in fact hardly able to stand him. “If I end up with you as my husband there’s a good chance that I’m going to run away.”

Maigan laughs at the response, not surprised to hear her say something like that, it pretty clear to anyone that she was not found of him. “Come on you don’t have to be like that, besides I know that you wouldn’t run away no matter how much you disliked me, you much to loyal to both your father and your tribe.”

Iuana raises her voice, even if that was the truth she still didn’t expect that he of all people would be winning. “Just because you haven’t lost a battle yet doesn’t make you the strongest warrior. There are plenty of impressive warriors among the tribes and if you really think you are better than all of them without having even faced them than you are a fool.”

Maigan holds his head up puffing out his chest. “Everyone knows that the best warriors come from Raven Wolf.”

Shiya speaks up that not entirely true. “Whistling Wind had warriors that could outmatch many of our own, as do Whispering Forest and Echoing Mountain.”

Maigan laughs as he looks back to his chieftain. “No offence to those tribes, but Echoing Mountain came to us for help because they didn’t have the strength to fight their enemy, same goes for Whispering Forest, and as for Whistling Wind, well that tribe isn’t around anymore now is it?”

Shiya shakes his head, Maigan clearly too preoccupied with his own strength that he could not see the strength of others. “Asking for help is not a weakness Maigan, it isn’t good for you to confuse it as so. As for Whistling Wind, though the tribe may have fallen its members still exist and are welcome to take part if they indeed wish to.” He looks over to Teddy. “Take Teddy for example, he’s from Whistling Wind and is very impressive for a warrior, Tahki has even admitted to being impressed with him.”

Teddy looks over to Tahki completely surprised to hear this, he having thought that Tahki was impossible to impress, she never giving him complements or saying that he was doing a good job, he always staring at him with the same annoyed frown. “She is!?”

Tahki frowns back at him, not giving Teddy a yes or no answer to his inquiry, she instead just continuing to eat her meal.

Maigan frowns as he looks from Shiya and over to the grey wolf that was right now sitting next to his younger brother. “I knew he didn’t look familiar.” He calls out to Teddy getting his attention. “So you’re from Whistling Wind then? From what I understand they’ve been domesticated for several years now.” He laughs to himself, clearly thinking that any ‘wild’ that had come from such an easy going lifestyle was a joke. “Tell me, what’s it like living life as a domestic?”

Teddy looks back to him, though it was clear Maigan was taunting him he actually wasn’t particularly bothered by the question. “Decent I suppose. On one hand it was a lot more convenient. Running water, air conditioning and heating, I could pay someone else to fix something if it broke instead of having to do it myself, stuff like that. On the other hand though much more stressful what with the bills and payments, my long work hours at my extremely boring job which of course was made worse with the annoying partner I got stuck with, the stress and overtime from that job also made it so that I could never finding the time to call my cable provider and get them to fix my signal, that was actually pretty infuriating you know, I mean I bought a new TV and everything and was paying a lot for high definition channels but it was always fuzzy with static all the time, and I know it wasn’t the TV because if I put in a movie I owned it played just fine-”

Maigan stares at Teddy, he and most everyone in the Raven Wolf tribe not entirely sure of what he was talking about.

Shiya looks up from his food and over to Teddy. “They don’t have a twenty four hour help line?”

Teddy looks over to Shiya. “They do, the issue was more me being too tired to bother and just procrastinating. Usually when I get home I would just go straight to sleep, sometimes I don’t even make it to my bed and end up sleeping on the sofa.”

Yula begins to laugh at the silent confusion that Teddy had caused among the tribe.

Maigan frowns looking away from Teddy and back to Shiya. “This is a joke isn’t it? He isn’t really going to be entering the trails is he?”

Shiya shakes his head as he looks back to Maigan to clear up the misunderstanding. “I never said that he was going to enter the trials for Iuana’s suitor, only that he was a member of the Whistling Wind tribe. From what I understand he has yet to make a decision regarding that.”

Maigan looks back to Teddy with a grin. “Well then, if he’s having so much trouble deciding then clearly it’s a no. Usually one doesn’t have to think twice about such things, especially when Iuana is concerned.”

Teddy gives him annoyed frown while Maigan looks the rest of the warriors over. “So, is anyone else planning on entering the trails?” No one speaks up, they knowing that even if they wanted to they would not be able to beat Maigan. “Anyone at all?” He looks over to Kitchi. “What about you baby brother? You’re a warrior now aren’t you? So you could enter if you wanted to.”

Kitchi turns back to his brother. “I don’t want to.”

“I didn’t think so. Clearly you know you wouldn’t stand a chance against me.”

Kitchi snaps back at him that not the issue at all. “You’re wrong! I could fight you anytime, anywhere no problem! Iuana is just not the girl that I like!”

Maigan laughs at the response, he reaching over and patting his younger brother on the head. “Not the girl you like, you are just too adorable, you know that right?”

Kitchi’s frustration with his brother continues to mount, Maigan clearly trying to irritate him now.

Tahki raises her voice, interrupting Maigan’s laughter. “It takes more than strength to win the trials. The spirits will not allow someone whom they see as unfit to lead our tribe win the trails.”

Maigan looks back to Tahki slightly insulted. “My leadership skill are unmatched Tahki. Why if it weren’t for you playing favourites with Eleven I would be the one replacing you as the leader of the Raven Wolf warriors.”

Tahki frowns at the comment it not convincing her any further. “Unfortunately Maigan is it not my title that is on the line with this venture, it is Shiya’s. Leading warriors into battle is not the same as leading an entire tribe.”

A slight smile fills Iuana’s face, she for once not becoming annoyed with what Tahki was saying.

Yula looks over to Iuana as he begins whispering to her. “I bet you Teddy can beat Maigan no problem.”

Iuana sighs to herself. “If he decides to even take part... I’m starting to think he isn’t interested in me at all...”

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Raven Wolf - 03 - The Warriors - Chapter 05

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