Another scout team was established for this week's supply run and Mitch had to make sure that they were fit and able to make the long and dangerous trek of the outside world. He was, of course, the leader of the supply run and he was not about to make the mistake of losing another hybrid to those dreadful humans. After making sure that everyone was able, he told them to change into the right clothing: black and dark blue of any sort. They parted to their respective houses and Mitch headed towards his to change as well.
Stopping at a fairly larger structure in the middle of the village, Mitch decided to enter and inform the others that he and his team were leaving soon. Mitch entered quietly and walked a few steps before hearing, "Oh, look, it's the kitty cat. Are you going to run away again like the true scaredy-cat you really are?" The remark irritated him and he turned around, looking up at the hybrid leaning against the railing on the second floor.
He glared at the smiling dog hybrid. "You done? Because you're bullshit joking is annoying." Mitch turned around and headed for the main room, seeing three people standing and conversing around one map in the center of the whole building. He tapped one of them on the shoulder. "We're about ready to go, just so you know."
The man nodded. "Alright, be careful." He placed a hand on Mitch's shoulder, but retracted his hand when he flinched.
"Always." Mitch half smiled at the man, pretending to ignore that he had flinched, and began to leave the building, the hybrid from before jumping down to the first floor and landing right next to Mitch. The building wasn't all that big - it had two stories - and the second story didn't have a center and only had chairs because this building was used for meetings and usually meetings included the entire village. The first floor had one big circular table in the middle to hold the leaders of the village when they had meetings, and also had other seats around the center table.
"Hey, c'mon Mitch-"
"Shouldn't you be changing? I swear, if you mess this up for the whole team you're bound to get someone killed," Mitch said angrily as they exited the building.
The dog hybrid stopped. "Says the guy who got Mary killed."
Mitch stopped walking and clenched his fists, deciding whether to punch the guy or shoot a remark right back at him. He decided on the latter. "At least I'm not the one who was close to being kicked out of the village for being a fucking idiot." The cat hybrid tried to calmly walk over to his house, ignoring any other comments from the dog hybrid.
"My dad's the king of this place! He wouldn't kick me out!" The dog hybrid growled. He went towards his house instead of following Mitch. Yeah, sure, he wouldn't. Plus, his dad's not the king of this village, Mitch thought.
Entering his house, he walked over to his wardrobe and searched for any black or dark blue clothing. He eventually found a plain black shirt, dark blue jeans, and his black leather jacket and changed into them, carefully wrapping his tail around his waist and pulling his jacket and shirt over his tail.
Heading out towards the main field, Mitch was stopped by a dragon hybrid. "Mitch?"
"Avi, if you're going to ask me about it, I told you no. You can't, it's too dangerous - you could get someone killed," Mitch answered, assuming he was asking about practicing his abilities in the forest somewhere near the village.
"No, it's not about that. Just..." Avi thought of his words carefully. "Be careful," Avi said, as if he couldn't think of anything else to say.
"Well, you know my response."
Avi nodded. "If you don't come back, I'll replace you, but that's not gonna happen."
"I wouldn't know, but Jack's on the team so there'll be extra difficulty. Don't worry, though," Mitch assured. "We'll be back before you know it." Avi nodded once more and the group finally left for their supply run.
The group had split up into four groups to scout the big city of Los Angeles, even though they were scouting a small part of the city. There were two people in each group and sadly Mitch decided to be paired with Jack so the others didn't have to be stuck with a jerk and so they wouldn't get killed. The pair walked on the sidewalk casually, a thick tension between them and neither of them wanted to talk. Though they were walking without a care in the world, they still scouted the surrounding area and cautiously watched the other civilians; Mitch giving them a cold stare and Jack giving them smirks.
The cat hybrid's ears twitched under his hood and he stopped, silently watching and listening for anything out of the ordinary as Jack turned to him. "What's up?" Mitch shushed him immediately, even extending his hand out to make him shut his mouth. Jack went behind Mitch as they watched each other's backs, cautiously searching the area.
Catching a figure on the rooftop, Jack pointed towards it and Mitch looked over, nodding and pointing in the opposite direction towards an alleyway. "I'll go there and you go back to the village after you find the others," he whispered and emphasized it on purpose, knowing that Jack would save himself rather than the whole team.
"I know - you don't have to tell me. You want to be the hero, be my guest. I ain't getting caught by those animals," he said, as if the humans were the hybrids. They counted off together and they both ran in separate directions to confuse the troops. Just as Mitch had planned, they were after him instead of Jack.
Running into the alley, Mitch could hear various shoes stomping onto the pavement and on the rooftops and hit a dead-end almost immediately. He simply jumped up on the walls of the nearby buildings without hesitation, like he's done it millions of times before, and continued to run once he got on the roof of one of the buildings, jumping from roof to roof. He stopped when he realized there were troops in front of him and when he was about to turn around, he saw that he was trapped. Smiling, he waved to the main officer and then he suddenly dropped down a hole in the middle of the roof, seeing it close up immediately after he'd fallen and he landed safely on the ground.
Even though darkness ruled this area, he could still see clearly and hear the soldiers shooting at the hole that sealed up on them. He walked through the building, "Hey Charles, you there?"
"Whatcha want?" Charles asked through the ear piece Mitch had.
The cat hybrid looked around for a second and then continued to walk. "Just sayin' that it's about time you saved my ass."
"I do it all the time! You just never notice." Charles sounded hurt at first, then playful. "I mean, you barely need my help. I don't know why you even need me."
"I'm not the one who wanted to put a guard on me twenty-four seven. Anyway, could you find me an escape route?" the cat hybrid asked.
"Piece of cake." Mitch could hear a few clicks on the other end. "Uh oh."
After his ears twitched at a slight noise, Mitch stopped and turned around. "That doesn't sound good." He could hear fast footsteps echoing and coming closer, and that's when he started running. "Charles, I need that escape route now!" He stopped running, seeing soldiers in front of him trying to light their surroundings and find what they were looking for. "Charles!" he said after a while.
"I-I can't, your surrounded, but don't panic- I'll try to find a way out." The hybrid could hear rapid clicking and typing noises on the other end.
"Don't try, do it and will you hurry it up!" As the troops drew closer to Mitch, he started calming down -almost to a scary kind of calm.
"Surrender peacefully and no one has to get hurt!" the main officer yelled as the troops completely surrounded him.
Mitch smirked, not turning to the officer. "Yeah, right. That's what you tell every hybrid. Well, let me educate you for once, officer. You can go fuck yourself."
The officer's expression was furious. "I guess you want to do this the hard way, Mitch." It was more of a statement than a question.
He frowned at the comment. "Guess you hate suggestions, don't you?" He smirked once more and finally turned to face him. Taking off the hood, his dark brown ears popped up, relieved that they weren't being covered anymore, and he unwrapped his tail from his waist, waving to the officer again. All the lights turned off suddenly and the troops started firing rapidly at the spot that Mitch last stood.
"Hold your fire!" The officer yelled, but they couldn't hear him through the array of loud firing bullets, especially since the building kept the sound in instead of letting it roam freely through the walls.
Running right when the lights switched off, Mitch dodged the bullets they fired with ease, but then suddenly tumbled towards the ground when he something hit him and caught himself at the last second. As Charles guided him out of the building where none of the soldiers stood waiting at the front door, Mitch followed his instructions and soon exited the building, bursting through the door and closing it immediately. He faced the door and walked back a few steps, breathing heavily; the adrenaline was slowly fading away.
A jolt of pain coursed through him. He yelped in pain and clutched his right side. "Mitch, are ya hit?" Charles asked, concerned.
"N-no... I'm fine." He winced as he tried to find the bullet wound and hissed as his finger grazed it. "Just... get me... to..." A few shaky breaths escaped him as he tried to talk, but then he fell to the ground.
"Well, well, well, what do we have here?" The sight of shoes was the last thing Mitch saw before he blacked out.
Mitch jolted awake, but then fell back down at the sudden pain coursing through him. He looked around, wondering where he was at - a bedroom. But not his own. Everything in the bedroom was evenly spaced out, yet there was very little decoration in the room, and there was one window and door that were on opposite sides of the wall. He was on the far left of the room, facing the door and on a bed, hugging the left and back walls. There were two pictures on either side of the door, emitting happiness from both of the pictures. What caught his eye next was what laid on the night stand right next to the bed.
A picture with humans?
Sitting up, Mitch looked around furiously. "Charles?!" he yelled. His breaths started getting shorter and more frequent, then he took long deep breaths as he heard the familiar voice.
"Mitch, calm down, you're safe. You're not dying, you're not imprisoned, and you're definitely not dead already. How ya doin' champ?"
He chuckled at the quick change of subject while Charles was talking. "I feel like shit," the cat hybrid stated matter-of-factly. "Where am I?"
Mitch could hear shuffling on the other end. "That's not really for me to say, it's his decision. You better be nice to him, he helped you enough already."
"Who?" he asked curiously, completely forgetting that he was in what he assumed a human's house.
"I don't know his name."
"Okay, how long have I been out?" There was a long pause. "Charl-"
"Two days." Eyes widening, Mitch sat there on the bed speechless. "Mitch?"
"WHAT?!" he yelled, louder than he expected, and cursed under his breath as his ears twitched when he heard something drop in the other room, just beyond the door.
"Relax, you're safe."
"How would you know, you're not even here."
There was a short pause as Mitch knew Charles tried to get the right words. "Because he cared for you in the past two days. Didn't take you to a hospital because he somehow knew you were a hybrid at first sight and hybrids hate hospitals. He's got a personal doctor who swore not to tell that you were here and the doctor patched you up. Anyway, he somehow knows a lot about hybrids, so he could possibly be friendly."
Mitch scoffed. "Charles, y'know 'friendly' and 'human' don't go in the same sentence."
"How'd you know he was human?" Charles asked thoughtfully.
"Because you speak like he is, idiot. Plus, there's a picture in here with humans on it. Which reminds me..." He smirked as could hear a quick shuffle and he guessed that Charles took off his ear piece. "What the fuck am I doing in a human's house?!" he said loudly, but not loud enough for the human to hear in the other room.
Charles put the ear piece back on. "Never mind that, Mitch. Seriously, this guy is legit. He went out of his way to help someone in need, this is what the world needs - more people who are understanding and accepting."
"He could be a hunter. Hasn't that crossed your mind?"
"If I had decided to kill you, in the first place, you'd be dead already." Mitch turned quickly to the side of the room where the door was located, oblivious to the fact that the human had come in already. How he didn't hear the human was beyond him. "Besides, we are trying to make peace with hybrids. We wouldn't want to hurt any of you," the human said, leaning on the door with his arms crossed over his chest and his sky blue eyes looking at the hybrid.
Mitch glared at the human. "Why'd you help me?"
"Because you looked helpless," he said, smirking at him.
"It was just a bullet wou-"
"Three bullet wounds, to be exact," The human interrupted. Mitch's eyes widened at the statement. "How you survived is beyond me. I'm Scott. You?" Scott asked politely.
There was a short pause as Mitch thought. "Coby."
Charles burst out into laughter. "Coby?" he questioned, laughing hysterically.
Mitch bit on his inner cheek - he was so going to kill Charles later. Scott looked skeptically at Mitch like he didn't believe that that was his name. The hybrid still glared at the human. "Alright, Coby." He said the name slowly, testing out the name.
The hybrid could tell that he didn't believe that it was his name. "What do you mean that you would kill me, if you wanted to?"
"I may not seem like it, but I'm just a citizen and by the way you're glaring at me, I'm guessing you thought I was a hunter," Scott told him.
"That doesn't answer my question."
"I'm saying it was a joke. I couldn't kill you even if I wanted to." Mitch stared at him, still not convinced.
"Why didn't you? I mean two days and you're a human - you might as well have killed me on sight."
"Like I said, we're trying to make peace with hybrids."
Mitch snorts. "Peace? I'll believe it when I see it."
"Well, then I'll show you if show me where it is you've all been-"
"Oh hell no!" Mitch snapped at him and began to get up from the bed, ignoring the immense pain that shot throughout his body. "I'm leaving and you aren't following me."
"That's right, Coby, you go girl!" Charles mocked, laughing.
Before Mitch could leave, Scott grabbed the hybrid's arm and pulled him back onto the bed as Mitch fell back onto the soft pillows and sheets. "You're injured, I'm not letting you leave."
Anger filled Mitch immediately after Scott had grabbed him. "Well, you can't make me stay!" He sneered at the human. "And don't you ever touch me again!" The hybrid pointed at him and glared. He stood up once more and walked out, this time not being pulled back against of his own free will. He exited the building and told Charles to guide him to the village, making sure that Scott wasn't following him.
He wasn't.