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Rain fell, cold and biting, down against the empty city.
Empty, save for the few souls with nowhere else to take shelter for the night.
Lupe paced in front of the building’s front doorway. She didn’t flinch as the rain and wind beat against the canvas the pack had secured over the opening. She turned to the others, huddled together near the opposite wall of the room.
The larger room—perhaps it had once been a living room—was filled with upturned and scattered furniture, some of it broken. One table and chair—completely wooden—had been smashed to chunks and piled together near one corner. Various other belongings from the original tenants lay haphazardly about the floor.
Canus was standing over the pile of makeshift firewood, staring at the nearby outer wall with a large hunting knife in one hand. The large, blue-furred wolf hummed for a long moment, before striking the wall with the blade several times, slowly carving a thin gash.
“Gotta make sure to let the smoke out,” one of the dark brown wolves huddled near the wood pile said calmly, “but not let the rain in.” He pulled on his beaten, blue shirt.
Canus simply nodded at Diablo, before returning to his work.
A large figure emerged from the dark, interior hallway. A tall, lean light-brown wolf with broad shoulders returned to the group, arms keeping several objects pressed against his blue-and-yellow shirt. He knelt down next to the two children. He opened the first book, tearing a single page out.
“Dad!” The young female wolf breathed.
“Relax, Maria,” her father spoke. “I was able to find blank ones to use. You know I would never burn a written text if I had any other choice.”
“Lobo,” Lupe spoke up, taking a step towards her mate.
“Yes?” The tall wolf looked up from his task at the pack leader.
“I am going to go see if I can find any food the Overlanders may have left behind when they evacuated.” Lupe picked up her spear, twirling it once. “Diablo, Reynard. Come with me. Lobo, you are in charge until I return.” The two brown wolves stood, as her mate nodded once.
Diablo and Reynard grabbed their packs as they followed Lupe out of the building, past the tarp covering the doorframe. Reynard made a soft sound of disgust as they walked right into the torrent of rain.
“Must we endure this?” The wolf raised his arm above his face, squinting against the storm.
“Our rations are dangerously low,” Lupe insisted, pulling the hood of her poncho over her own face. “We may have to take shelter here for a few days, until the weather clears and it is safe for us to travel again. So, we must take this opportunity, while the wind and lighting has subsided, to forage for whatever supplies and food we can find.”
“Perhaps we’ll be fortunate enough to find sufficient food nearby,” Diablo said softly, twitching his nose but otherwise appearing unfazed by the rain.
“Indeed.” Lupe held her spear low and perpendicular to the ground, before she led the other two down the side of one street.
Her refined observation skills noted every little sign that a large number of people had been through the same area, quite recently and quite quickly—as well as the signs that not every individual made it with their fellows in their exodus.
Lupe frowned. She could only hope that the captured survivors did not suffer for long.
The sound of the rain was the only companion the three wolves had as they travelled down the street. Every so often, Lupe would stop them in front of a building and cautiously open its door—if one still remained—and peered in its darkness, always holding her spear at the ready with her every muscle tense in anticipation.
They had no way to know for certain if Robotnik’s forces had left behind any of the Overlanders. And the proud people didn’t generally get along very well with the other races of Mobius to begin with; add the heightened tension and paranoia caused by the recent exodus, Lupe had to be prepared to fend off an attack.
Eventually she stopped in front of a building at the corner of an intersection with another street, the building’s front walls consisting primarily of glass windows. She looked up at the sign, adjusting her hood with one hand in order to get a better look against the rain. The lights were off, but she could just barely make out the lettering.
Qwik-E Mart
A convenience store, then. That would likely be their best bet. It wasn’t a normal grocery, but they really couldn’t spend all night searching and risk being caught if the storm picked back up again.
“We will search here.” Lupe nodded towards the building. She approached the door slowly. When it didn’t open on its own—not that she truly expected it to, what with no power in the city—she gently pressed the tip of her spear into the crack between the two panels. Nudging them apart slightly with her weapon, she then quickly grabbed both sides with her hands and forced them further with much more effort. She only pushed them far enough to quite comfortably permit each wolf entry, if only one at a time, before picking up her fallen spear again.
Once inside, Lupe pulled out a small, belted flashlight from her pack, strapping it on top of her shoulder, the band against her underarm.
“Reynard,” Lupe ordered in a soft whisper, “you will search the front area. Diablo, you take the middle and back aisles. I shall be in the back rooms.”
“By yourself, chief?” Reynard asked.
“Any stragglers left in the city will no longer be in any condition to put up a firm threat,” Lupe said. She raised her spear a slight amount. “I am more than capable of fending such attackers off, if need be.” She paused. “Remember, gather the food with longer shelf lives first; we can’t afford to have all our food perish in the middle of a wasteland. I believe that Overlanders prefer to mark their expiration dates on the bottom of food packaging.”
“Is this not a form of theft, though?” Diablo asked quietly. “This is a store; its keepers’ living depends upon the sale of these goods. Even if they are not here….”
“The Overlanders abandoned this place indefinitely,” Lupe said. “There is no sign that they have any intention to return—or that they even can—let alone to do so before even their preserved foods spoil. If, by some miracle, they can and do, then when we reestablish the Nation in our homelands again we can offer to make reparations as thanks.” She took a long breath. “It is better than letting ourselves starve.”
“Aye, chief.” Diablo nodded once, accepting this answer without further question. He then vanished into the darkness of the store.
Lupe went into the back rooms, lighting her way with the dim illumination of her flashlight and keeping one hand firmly gripped around her spear.
The first had nothing of immediate interest; it was an office of some sort, and the bookkeeping of an Overlander business held no value to Lupe or her responsibilities as pack chief. The next room had been firmly locked, which she chose to respect—at least for the time being. However, the next room seemed to fit more into Lupe’s needs.
The room was completely dark. Her flashlight revealed the front row of shelves, casing shadows on the less distinct rows behind it. The visible shelves were still mostly filled with cardboard boxes of varying sizes, nearly all of them still folded or taped closed.
Lupe glanced about the room, listening. When she was convinced that she wasn’t going to be ambushed, she walked up to the first row. She pulled out a hunting knife from her pack, swiftly cutting one box open and searching inside it.
She pulled out a soft, blue paper pack of some sort of food. Lupe didn’t know a lot of human written languages, especially the few used in the Overland—she usually left that to Lyco—but she was able to discern that it was a sort of oatmeal, with no real flavor added to it.
It won’t exactly be the pack’s favorite meal, but it will put food in our bellies and keep the children from starving.
She opened her pack, quickly placing a number of the food pouches in it.
Now, something else. Perhaps some sort of jerky—it had been a while since they’d been able to hunt and would likely be even longer before they could, and it was important that the pack kept some sort of meat in their diet.
After tearing through a few boxes and finding only candy and perishable foods—nothing that would really be valuable in travel—she found a box with green-labeled cans. The label had an drawing of a sandwich consisting solely of some sort of pinkish meat.
Canned meat, then? It wasn’t jerky, but it would certainly last at least a couple of years, so long as they were kept out of the heat. She put as many cans as she could comfortably fit into her pack. Maybe the children will like it? Maria and Marcos were both fond of some odd meals that the rest of the Pack had never been.
Either way, it should fulfill their need for meat, especially if Diablo or Reynard weren’t able to find—
Lupe cut herself off when she heard the sound of something moving. In the room. Behind the shelves. She belted her knife and grabbed her spear with both hands in a ready stance. She slowly stepped through the room, past each row of shelves, letting the light on her shoulder illuminate each one.
Something was alive in here.
Holding her breath for a long moment, listening, Lupe was able to determine that the subject—or subjects—were somewhere in the back end of the room, behind the last set of shelves. And, they were trying—quite poorly—to hide their own breathing.
Lupe crouched as low as possible, stalking slowly to bring that last aisle into view, holding her spear at the ready as her flashlight illuminated the far corner to reveal—
—A pair of human children.
A pair of girls, to be more precise. Both with long hair, mildly unkempt—probably from their current living conditions—one of them blond, the other’s hair a fair shade of ginger. The blond one started to speak, before the ginger-haired one clamped her hands around her companion’s mouth.
“Who are you?” Lupe asked in a firm, tense tone.
The blonde managed to free her mouth.
“Please, don’t hurt us!” She begged.
“I have no intention of harming you,” Lupe said calmly. “What are your names? Where are your parents and the other humans? Why were you left behind?”
“I am Aerial,” the blond said after a long silence. She looked at her companion, who made a motion with her hands that Lupe didn’t recognize. “My sister’s Athena. Our parents are… gone.”
Lupe thought as much.
“Where did the others go?” Maybe they’d overheard some plan of….
“Away. They’re not here. All gone.” Aerial brought her knees to her face, hiding her eyes against them. “All gone.”
Whatever they did encounter of Robotnik’s attack, it was clearly enough to traumatize her. Likely her sister, as well. The girl still hadn’t spoken, after all.
“Chief!” The voice of Reynard sounded from the doorway.
“Is everything all—?” Diablo asked as they ran up to her. They froze when they saw the girls huddled together in the corner.
“It would seem we have a pair of survivors, after all,” Lupe said.
…
After finishing gathering up their findings, Lupe, Diablo, and Reynard escorted the human girls back to the building where the rest of the Pack was taking shelter. The entire Pack then shared a simple meal of stew—one they shared with the girls.
Reynard had been fervently against this at first.
“Why should we give up precious resources—food—to outsiders? Ones we haven’t even decided what we’re going to do with, yet?”
“The human children have yet to tell us their account of what happened to them, their people, and their city,” Lupe said firmly between bites of her own food. “Until then, they are still children; Pack law decrees that all children are taken care of, so long as we have the means.”
Reynard had grumbled slightly, but did not argue further against his chief.
Eventually, after the entire group had finished their relatively quiet meal, Lupe readdressed the girls.
“As we are all now aware, I discovered you while foraging for supplies in this city, which is otherwise abandoned. Please, tell us to the best of your ability, how you came to be in that place, and what happened to your people and your city that led to your… situation,” Lupe hesitated, biting back the word abandoned.
Maria and Marcos left their father’s side to each sit on opposite sides of their mother. Lupe instinctively reached for the head on her right—Marcos—and ruffled his hair gently with one hand.
“We were sleeping,” Aerial said, pulling her legs up against her chest and resting her chin on her knees, “when the… big things came.”
Athena adjusted the blanket over her sister, letting it sit on her shoulders better, before making a few, quick gestures with her hands.
“Y-yes.” Aerial nodded at her. “R-robots. Big, metal, scary robots. Not like the ones at the hospital. No.”
Athena made another gesture, but Aerial said nothing else for a long moment.
“Mother, what is she doing?” Maria asked Lupe.
The wolf chief turned to her daughter for a moment.
“Young Athena does not speak in the same manner as we do, though she understands spoken words as well as each of us; she uses her hands to talk with others. Aerial knows this language, and is able to translate for us.”
“Kind of how Leeta and Lyco know how to read languages and stuff we can’t?”
“Yes.” Lupe smiled. “Something like that.” She looked at the girls. “Please. Continue.”
“Ma and Pa woke us,” Aerial said. “It was late. They said that the General had ordered the city to be evacuated. We had to leave right away. We didn’t even have time to grab food or Athena’s ball.” She paused, as Athena signed to her. “Yeah. Then, Ma took us outside with her. The street was filled with people, all of them running. She held our hands as we ran to join them. But, there were so many people, and it was dark—some of the street lights were broken—and people were pushing and running and shouting. And, there were robots. Flying things with creepy smiles and wings and arms that grabbed people and… and took them away. I lost Ma’s hand, and so did Athena, and then… we couldn’t find her anymore. There were just so many people.
“I twisted my ankle, stepping on something in the street, and nearly fell down. Athena grabbed me, helped me get out of the way of all the people running. She took me into a side alley, and helped make my ankle better. But, then the people were all gone. Ma and Pa, too. Athena helped us to hide, helped me to stay quiet, as the last of the creepy robots came through. There was a man with them. Short, maybe even shorter than us. He had a big nose, almost no hair at all, and a mean face.”
“Sounds like Robotnik’s lackey,” Lobo said. He looked at his mate. “The one you told us about.”
“Snively.” Lupe nodded. “It would not surprise me. Even if he is not loyal to Robotnik, he is loyal to the empire, which he clearly covets for his own. It is little wonder that he’d try to spread it again.” She paused. “Even against his own people.”
“When the robots were gone and we were safe again, everyone else was gone, too. Athena suggested we go to the store and get food. She said that taking it wasn’t wrong; the store people were gone and we were hungry and couldn’t even get back into our home.”
“A reasonable conclusion,” Lyco said calmly.
“We were still hiding there and eating what we could, when you found us.”
“How long were you hiding there?” Lupe asked.
Aerial looked at her sister. The red-haired girl hesitated, looking at her hands for a long moment, before she looked at Lupe and simply shrugged.
“And you have no clue where your parents and the other Overlanders went to?”
“No,” Aerial said as Athena shook her head. “Ma never said. We’d never been out of the city. It is dangerous, she always said.”
That it is, Lupe thought as she nodded. The wolf chief stood up, exhaling slowly.
“Mother?” Maria asked.
“Stay here, children.” She looked at the others. “Lobo, Diablo, Reynard, Leeta, Lyco. Please come with me.”
She led the majority of the Pack’s current members into the dimly lit hallway.
“It would appear I have a decision to make.”
“There is no decision,” Reynard said instantly. “Leave the brats here in their city. Get rid of them, if you must. But, we cannot afford more drains on our resources, and on humans, no less! Have you forgotten the wars their people waged on ours? Even before Robotnik?”
“I have forgotten nothing.” Lupe looked at him, forcing her voice to remain steady. “You are not the only one to have lost a parent to those wars.”
“Perhaps, but there is no justice in exacting revenge upon innocent children,” Diablo said. “I say we do something to assist them, even if it is solely to accept their company while we are here. They are still children.”
Lupe nodded.
“Lobo?”
Her mate was quite for a long moment, staring at the ground.
“I am torn. On one hand, our supplies are limited, even with our foraging tonight.” He exhaled. “On the other hand, I am also a parent, and they are still children.” He eventually nodded once. “I will stand by whatever choice you make.”
Lupe looked at the remaining pair. Sisters, like the human girls were—and twins, as Lupe suspected them to be as well.
“I am inclined to agree with Reynard,” Leeta spoke, “in that we cannot afford to take on more members, particularly children who can do little to assist us at their current age and experience. Yet, I disagree with any sort of outright abandonment or… or worse. They are still children, as we’ve established.” She sighed.
“I believe we should take them in,” Lyco said. “They are children in need of help, and their parents have essentially abandoned them, if unintentionally. It would be wrong if we did not do everything we could for them; it is not as if we have not gone through worse, and they would be more than capable of carrying packs to assist in our level of rations. Besides,” she lowered her voice, “where would Leeta and I be if you had not taken us in when our own pack was… lost?”
“A very good point.” Lupe nodded. “Very well. Athena and Aerial will remain with us, at least for the time being. If we find the Overlanders on our way to our homeland, we can reunite them with their parents. Until such a time, however, they are to be considered members of the Pack.”
“But—!” Reynard started.
“Would you like to be the one to tell them otherwise… or to carry out your other suggestion yourself?” Lupe asked.
Reynard faltered, before looking away.
“It is decided then.” She looked at the others in the room through the doorway. Marcos was talking to Aerial, smiling and laughing at something she’d said. Maria was watching Athena intently, focusing on the girl’s hands as they moved deliberately.
Though, Lupe thought to herself as she led the group to rejoin them around the fire, it may be the children who benefit most from this. All four of them.