Chapter Thirteen

Rescuing Rico

Part Four

Close to a friend

Skipper looked at Marlene as they sat in the grassy field watching stars twinkle in the moonlit sky. Not even two weeks after the appearance of the wolves did they managed to get to Denmark. On a lighter note, Kowalski had told Skipper the day before that they should be somewhere near or in Europe by now, as the grass gave it away.

Marlene smiled at him lovingly and then continued watching stars. As much as she wanted to see Rico safe and sound, she felt happy near Skipper, happy and safe. She saw that Skipper was sad. And she knew that it was because he missed Rico most. He was like a brother to Skipper, even if Rico could sometimes be a little rude or cheeky. Besides, it was bad enought to know that one of your teammates would never come back.

"Skipper, what are you thinking about?" Marlene asked softly. He looked at her.

"Oh nothing," he replied," I am just wondering when I'll see Rico again."

Marlene hugged him. "Don't worry, you'll see him soon. From what I know, he must be a bit of a thorn in Hans' backside. After all, he always manages to put on quite a fight, especially if he is fighting for freedom."

Skipper smiled and nodded. "Yes, I remember once having to hold him down, so that he wouldn't run away. I wanted to surprise Private at that time, by putting on the Lunacorns show for once, but Rico, hating Lunacorns more than anyone else, wanted to put on Texas Chainsaw. I had to fight him for the remote, which sort of made Private cry. He told me that I should not have fought Rico for a programme. From that day forward we agreed on a scheduel. Private got to watch Lunacorns for one hour a day and Rico watched something else for another hour."

Marlene giggled. "And what about the rest of the day?" she asked.

"Training."

He kissed Marlene lightly on the cheek. "Marlene?"

"Huh?"

"Would you... you know... when this is all over... go on a date with me?" Skipper asked, blushing scarlet red. She blushed as well.

"Of course I would, Skipper, you know I would," Marlene answered, smiling. Right now she felt like the luckiest girl alive. Well almost anyway. Marlene sighed and looked at the sky. Silver and Lilean curled up beside Marlene and Kitka decided to perch on her shoulder.

Meanwhile, Skipper decided to go back to Bolt, who was now slightly worried about Skipper. And he also seemed to know about the 'dove' love that was going on between Marlene and Skipper. "Hey Bolt," Skipper greeted him, stroking him behind his ears. "How was your day?" The wolf panted to show exhuastion and curled up beside Skipper, who soon fell asleep.

Daisy and Ashly were playing happily near Kowalski, who studdied their behaviour, that was of course until he began to fall to sleep. Private was also near the two playful female wolves, stroking them, whenever they came to look at him again. In the end, even Private did not last too long and dozed off. The two female wolves soon decided to return to the humans they prefered most and started sleeping as well.

Shadow however, was not as peaceful, he managed to stay awake even once most of the humans and animals had gone to sleep. He listened carefully to his surroundings, aware of every movement, of every star in the sky. Johnson laughed at the paranoid wolf. "Seriously, are you going to stay up all night?" he asked chuckling. Shadow did not move a muscle. "Come on, get some sleep, you daft wolf," Johnson continued. "Besides I am meant to be on guard, not you." The wolf shook his head. He walked up to Johnson and dropped a strange metal thing.

Johnson gasped. "But that's a part of one of those robots, how... how could the..." Shadow looked around, ears pricked. "Are you suggesting that we should be more careful?" Johnson asked. The wolf nodded. "Alright," said Johnson whilst yawning. "You can help me out."

Ironically it ended up being Johnson who fell asleep, thus being the one 'helping out'. The coal black wolf smiled as he put a blanket over the sleeping soldier. If all humans are this amusing,it might be worthwhile staying with them, Shadow thought. Let's just hope that Hans will never win this.

Oh, maybe I should mention something. All the animals now knew who Hans was. A human who wanted to rule over everything. Well, when I say all, I mean all the animals in the group. And Shadow seemed to understand this more than any other wolf in the group.

He managed to stay standing all night, until a falcon flew over him the next morning, wings outstretched... then he dozed of to a deep sleep, surrounded by dreams and nightmares. Many of which felt so realistic... it all felt like complete madness, even for such a mad wolf.

And one dream seemed to show someone... his next human friend... in lots of pain.

With Rico...

Rico felt angry, sad and depressed at once. Most of it came from the lack of room and the fact that he was barely strong enough to be awake. What was even more depressing was the number of iron bars that stood in a line, making the dark prison in which he stood in, inescapable. Thirteen, polished, iron bars, signified torcher, mocking torture.

No one likes bars, and for Rico it was torture. It reminded him of a rather bad experience.

(flashback)

Ricardo Blue was standing infront of a cell. It had metal bars that not only made him sound like a criminal, but made Juvenile sound like the worst place ever.

All he had done was a street fight. And for who? Easy. For his family's dignity. And now, even though his family tried to get him out of this situation, he would have to spend two months in this stinking, crazy place, having to watch fight after fight, after fight. Besides the food here was utterly digusting.

He shouldn't have done that. But which sixteen year-old wouldn't do so. He could not just idly stand and do nothing, whilst people were offending his whole family and his near-blind sister.

His sister was just twelve and he felt really close to her, ever since she was born. Her eyes could have been operated but his family did not have enough money to do so.

Anyways, now here he was. Suddenly a massive teenager came up to him and hit him in the face. He felt sudden rage that drove him into returning the punch. He aimed his fist and shot it out, almost braking the other teenager's nose. The head of the Juvenile department was not pleased with this. He gave Rico a punishment excercise of writing a thousand times 'I am sorry Bob' and thirty push ups for a good measure.

However, all this just kept infuriating Rico, and it didn't help that all the teenagers that were around, made fun off Rico for his clothes and fought with him. Especially Bob liked fighting him. But somehow, Bob never got blamed.

One month later, Bob had gone, to live the normal life that anyone else did, but Rico still had to stay stuck. The day after Bob had left, an even worse kid came. His name was Riley, but everyone called him Hurtfist. Out of respect.

One day, Rico accidently called Hurtfist by his real name, and recieved a punch from him. The others joined him and tried to take Rico's belongings. After that, he had his lunch stolen daily, even though he never liked lunch every day and got nicknamed 'Freako', because of his temeperament.

Even the head had called him Freako and seemed to always give him the worst tasks, like cleaning out the toilets.

(End of Flashback)

Rico sighed. And this time, he hated them even more. This time his enemies were not mere teenagers. This time they were adults with weapons capable of destruction. As his first torturer came, he glared at him. Rico just hoped his friends would come. He could withstand this torture much longer.

But he had to or else the whole world would be lost...

I hope you found this chapter interesting. In know it took so long to write this chapter, but I had so much to think about and I also couoldn't write at one point, because I was on holiday in Kos and I worried that if I took my laptop with me, it could brake or get stolen.

Thanks for reading this chapter and please review.

...To be continued...