• A.K.A Wolf Act XII- Stranger


    I was terrified of sleep, what if I didn’t wake up? What if this whole thing was just a dream and I was back at Surt-Lim’s torture chamber? All of my answers were happily answered when I awoke in Zero’s arms. I woke up with a jolt, I guess, and made Zero end his sleep as well. I looked up at him and he matched my gaze. With a sigh my head slowly fell back to his chest, “Morning,” I murmured sleepily. I could feel Zero’s smile on my face, “Sleep well?” I managed to let a laugh out during my long yawn, “Well, sleeping on pine cones isn’t as good as the travel agent said but, good for the most part.” Zero kissed the top of my head, “good.”

    I got up to walk to the nearing river and became a wolf along the way. I lapped up a few gulps and then just dove into the waist-high, crisp water. I scratched my back on the pebbles that blanketed the bottom, walked back over to Zero and shook off all of the excess water onto him. I could just see how awake he was now. He tackled me to the ground, also a wolf, and licked my nose once he had me pinned. I was officially in heaven. And guess who comes and pries my wings off and throws me back down to the unforgiving earth, Hotaka…who else. “Hey! Can you lovebirds stop face eating and check this out?!” he called from my mountain den’s mountaintop. Zero let out a small chuckle as he blinked back into his human form. Ah, that one insignificant laugh. How it tickled my heart. I was almost too dazed that I couldn’t change back into my human form so, I didn’t. I trotted up the side next to Zero and I saw Sparks and Ichio, also as wolves, staring at a giant pillar of smoke. I ran to the edge and took a few good whiffs of the air. “It’s a city,” I lightly barked at Hotaka. He immediately took a pen out of his pocket, ran down to where our backpacks were and came back with a clipboard filled with paper.

    “But, how does a semi-large civilization like that emerge in a time that consists of only 24 hours?” he muttered to himself. We were all thinking the same thing; “What the hell did you just say?” Zero said with one cocked eyebrow. Ichio couldn’t help but wheeze out a laugh. Hotaka sighed, “How the heck did that city get to where it is in only a day?”

    And then, I swear I saw the pillar of grey clouds shift slowly to the right “Did that city just…move?” I whined to Hotaka once more and his mouth dropped slightly, “I do believe that it did, Yukiru.”

    A loud pinging noise suddenly echoed thought the forest and mercilessly assaulted my eardrums. Flickered form my wolf form and human form like a broken lighter until my body did what my brain commanded and stayed human. Everyone else seemed to be just as much distress, clutching their heads and gritting their teeth like someone was slowly barbequing their brains. Then, all of a sudden, the noise stopped. Just stopped. Sparks and Ichio looked up at me with eyes that pleaded for an answer.

    Hotaka shook his head, his short, brown hair lightly flopped against his tan face, “I don’t like this at all I suggest we move out tomorrow; tonight if possible.”

    I couldn’t help but be curious as to why it was only Hotaka that was excessively suspicious of the ‘Moving City’ but I wanted to find out what was going down in our once docile forest.
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    We didn’t end up leaving that night so that’s what we would do as soon as the sun’s rays kissed the dew-jeweled grass. Ever since I awoke from my ‘death’, Zero always slept right next to me, even with me on top of him. Whenever I would ask him why, his only response was; “I want to see you wake up and not jus assume that you will.” I guess that added to my security and only made me fall deeper for him. With that being said, as soon as Zero woke up form last night, I did. The first words out of my mouth were, “Oh…my God!” The city that we saw last night was about 100 yards from my face.

    Even thought I was pretty mush scared shitless, Hotaka looked like he was about to attack the damn thing.

    We all blinked into our wolf forms; just in case the city was infested with human-eating monsters or something like that…stop laughing.

    Hotaka was the first to approach the mobile buildings with me and Sparks closely behind him. It seems Ichio and Zero had the same thought; ‘this place ain’t scary.’ So, they were last and were walking like they could destroy that city in a matter of minutes. Maybe, if they were on superhero steroids and were on some kind of male PMS but, I’m pretty sure their huge egos wouldn’t let them be scared of some silly MOVING CITY.

    Anyway, as we entered the city, the cobble stone roads were surprisingly smooth compared to the soil we were living on. There were actually people dressed in regular clothes and living like, I assume, normal humans would. Adults and children were walking around as if their city wasn’t transportable. But, the only weird thing was that they were all staring at us like we were some kinds of Gods. And, to add to the strangeness was that every single person, young and old, were wearing a small, glistening pendant and each and everyone was giving off a different ringing tone. Much like the one I heard last night. I felt Sparks step closer to me; still the same old Sparks.

    I looked to my right and one male human looked like he was going to pass out. Were we really more than a white, black, brown, blonde and tan wolf pack that just randomly decided to walk into a mobile town? The ringing was so high pitched and almost wasn’t comprehensible and able to hear but, with every passing moment, another different frequency of ringing encased my eardrums and almost tormented them.

    As we all walked, people began to follow us, mostly children but a few adults wanted to get a peak at us like we were some kind of new exhibit at the zoo. As we progressed down the road, more and more humans decided to follow us. And I wanted to quicken or pace but no one seemed to think the same. After about 3 minutes of nothing but being viewed under a microscope, there was a huge building with a cross on the top about 200 feet away with an elderly and plump man standing on it’s wide, marble foot steps. It’s not like we could take a left turn at Maple street and get the heck out of there. And turning around was obviously not an option so; we just kept for the giant building.

    Once there, the hefty man, who I now realized was some kind of holy man and the building was a temple or church of some sort had his arms open, as if waiting for an embrace and had this giddy smile of his face, “Welcome. We have been awaiting the arrival of the Halflings for hundreds of years! Thank you, and once again welcome.”

    I naturally wrapped my neck around Spark’s to nudge him a little closer to me; there was something about this city that just…I didn’t like. Suddenly, a very odd scent filled the air, as if someone put a fan right behind a dead carcass yet, it wasn’t a dead animal I was smelling; it was another wolf…a female wolf. She stepped out from behind the holy man. Her deep coffee fur shone in the small and almost non-existent sunlight. She stood so nobly by the man, almost like he was her master. The tips of her tail were strikingly bright silver and her luminous blue eyes would drag anyone in. Hotaka seemed to be dumbfounded by her and so was…ZERO?! I’ll beat him up for that later. She stood broadside to us and seemed like she could rule the world with one paw. The man chuckled and his huge belly moved with every jerk, “That’s Kumori. She’s a Halfling just like you all. I could never get her to become human though, so no one really knows what she looks like.”

    Hotaka was the first to become human; he still had those silly studded bracelets on and the large read scarf that had been my clothing for about a week when I first met him and Zero. Kumori seemed to be just as freaked out as the city humans. I followed Hotaka and became human, and not a few seconds afterwards, the others did the same.

    “What exactly do you mean, ‘Halflings’?” Hotaka asked in a sort of pissed off tone.

    The holy man chuckled, “Why, the ones who cross between man and beast, of course.”

    So…that’s what we are? Halflings? It’ sounded like some sort of disease nobody survived from.

    “Whatever. And, why were you waiting for us all this time?” Hotaka asked again, sounding more creeped out than mad now.

    “To save us all,” the man said again, “Oh, my name is Octa and this is the town of Nobell.”

    I couldn’t help but let out a small giggle, Nobell? Really> After all of those piercing ringing noises Octa has the gall to name the city Nobell? HAH!

    “Listen, Octa, we’re not some random group of superheroes! And, you guys went onto our turf so, if you could just show us the way out, that’d be great.” I’ve never heard Hotaka act like this before. It was almost unsettling. There was just something about this place that brought out the worst in Hotaka, which irritated me and Zero a little bit. I don’t know why but I knew things were going to get really messy really fast.

    End of Act XII

    **Hello all A.K.A Wolf readers! This is your author speaking and I know it is hard to imagine characters with our a description/picture so, that is what this little add on is for!**
    Yukiru wolf form Yukiru -picture her with black hair-
    Zero wolf form Zero
    Surt-Lim
    Sparks -picture him with blonde hair- Sparks wolf form -again with blonde fur-
    Ichio Ichio wolf form-minus the purple marks and darker fur-
    Hotaka wolf form -make his fur brown- Hotaka