Hi everyone!
Here's the second chapter of my story, enjoy! :)
As his packmates got closer, Soto was able to hear what they were saying. They were apparently arguing, and it didn't surprise the alpha.
"Why don't you believe us?" Oscar asked, annoyed. "Tell me one good reason why we'd pretend that Soto's dead."
"I want to see for myself how the fight ended, since it happened while I was heroically trying to take the baby." Zeke answered.
"Heroically?" Oscar said mockingly, and stopped running, as they had reached the point where the battle had taken place. "You've been trapped in a hollow rock by the sloth."
"And I was stuck in there for four hours before you two noticed I was missing and came back!" Zeke exclaimed.
Lenny collapsed to the ground, exhausted by the running. When he opened his eyes again, he spotted Soto.
"Uh," He spoke, while panting, "Guys."
He nodded toward Soto, and the other two looked at him.
"It looks like someone's gotten lost while looking for his kind." Oscar laughed, slowly walking toward Soto, believing him to be a random female human who had been following the tribe's tracks.
"Too bad the only thing she'll find is the squirrel I ate this morning." Zeke said, licking his lips. Lenny, who was getting up with difficulty, was visibly drooling.
Soto attempted to growl, but the sound that came out of his mouth only made the three sabers laugh.
"That was really scary." Oscar said sarcastically.
As Oscar was getting closer and closer, Soto moved backward on all fours, until he felt his foot touch one of the large rocks of Half Peak and realized he had been pushed into a corner. Oscar was using the mammoth hunting technique he had taught them against him.
There was no way he could defend himself from the trio, lacking sharp teeth, claws and muscles. Trying to run away would have also been pointless, as humans were much slower than saber-toothed tigers, to the point that he wouldn't even have been able to outrun Lenny.
He knew what he had to do. Having his pack know that he had been turned into a female human was the last thing he wanted, since it would have been humiliating and they would have certainly laughed at him. He had no other option, though.
When Oscar was a few inches away from him, he spoke. "I'm Soto."
The trio's jaws dropped. Oscar even took a couple of steps back, shocked. Hearing a human talk their language to tell them she was their deceased leader left them speechless.
"Did I really hear what I think I heard?" Lenny, after a few silent moments, asked in confusion.
"Yep." Zeke answered, bewildered.
"Humans are smart, don't forget it," Oscar said. "Strange as it may seem, this could be a plan of a very advanced tribe that has learned our language and that has been spying on us to kill us." He got ready to attack again.
"There's no other explanation." Zeke added.
"And even if there was, I'm too hungry to look for it." Lenny said, and, along with Oscar and Zeke, focused back on Soto, looking at him as if he had just seen a dead mammoth.
But, while they were talking to each other, Soto had been able to think of something to say that would have left no doubt about his true identity. As Oscar was about to open his mouth and go for his throat, he talked again.
"Stay back, you mangy pack of worthless kittens!" He exclaimed. That was how Soto called them every time they made a mistake since he became the alpha. The way he had said those words immediately convinced two of the sabers.
"It's Soto." Zeke and Lenny said in unison. But Oscar was still skeptical.
"No way." He spoke.
"His body's not there." Lenny noticed, looking at the point where Soto had been impaled.
Oscar reached the place, and after observing and smelling it and the surroundings, he came to a conclusion. "Soto did not left, there are no tracks and his smell is only here," He stated, "And so does her smell, as if she had appeared here out of nowhere."
"And look!" Zeke said. "She has the same eyes as him."
Soto hadn't paid attention to his eye color while looking at his reflection on the icicle a few minutes before. He was in a different body, but his eyes had the same penetrating green.
"He… turned into her?" Lenny said hesitantly, knowing how little sense that sentence made.
"Yes, it's me!" The ex-saber replied, hoping the trio to believe him.
"How is it possible?" Zeke asked impatiently "I didn't know it was possible!"
"Because it's not." Oscar replied, inquiringly staring at Soto.
The pack leader took advantage of that moment of confusion to tell them more. He had to convince all of them if he wanted to live.
"If I wasn't Soto, I wouldn't know that Diego sided with the mammoth, fighting against me and even sacrificing himself to prevent me from killing the giant," Soto began to tell what happened during the battle, in an attempt to have his pack believe him, "I was about to kill Diego, but then the sloth and the baby appeared, so I got distracted and the mammoth knocked me into a rock wall, some icicles fell and impaled me."
"Is this what happened?" Zeke asked. Lenny nodded in response.
"It doesn't make any sense." Oscar said in confusion. Soto, in the meantime, was relieved, noticing that the three weren't in attack posture anymore.
"Listen, I know it seems absurd," He continued, "But I woke up like this, the baby's mother appeared as a spirit and told me that the baby is going to die because he'd need milk to survive… as the cause of his death, I've been punished: I have to find the tribe and breastfeed him to be a saber-toothed tiger again."
"What if you can't do it?" Oscar questioned.
"I'll die," Soto answered, "And I don't want to, I need to be myself again and directly kill the baby, so that we can finally have our revenge on the humans."
"So you'd have to go north, right? After Glacier Pass?" Oscar asked.
"Yes, I thought I wouldn't be able to survive in this body, but now that you're here and can help me, I'm sure I'm gonna make it." Soto replied.
"I wouldn't be so sure if I were you." The only fit member of the trio affirmed. Zeke and Lenny knew what he meant, and were surprised that he had the guts to say it to the alpha.
"What?" Soto asked, incredulous, as he realized where he was getting at too.
"Who says we're coming with you?" He challenged him.
"I wasn't asking." The leader stated.
"I know, but why should I follow the orders of the current weakest member of the pack?" Oscar said.
"How dare you?" Soto snarled, and then ran toward Oscar with the intention of attacking him.
However, Oscar stayed where he was, and simply slapped Soto when he got close, throwing him several feet away, against a rock. The other two sabers couldn't believe their eyes, and Soto was shocked.
"Next time, I'll use my claws." Oscar sneered.
Soto's mind was still the one of an alpha saber-toothed tiger, and had made him attack Oscar, as he used to do with whoever in his pack showed no respect to him. Only when he hit the wall he realized how stupid it had been to think he could fight with him while he had a female human's body. He wouldn't even have been able to scratch him.
"What are you gonna do, then?" Soto, enraged, asked the trio, with the intention of making them change their mind.
"We'll go south," Oscar replied, "Where we'll be able to eat, instead of starving to death while following an incompetent leader."
Soto almost attacked him again in response.
"You see, Soto, the last time we ate something bigger than a hare was five days ago, if we don't reach the migration soon we'll die." Lenny said, taking advantage of the fact that Soto couldn't hurt him.
"If we hurry we can reach the mammoth and the sloth and eat them!" Zeke added.
"We've never wanted to get revenge on the humans," Oscar said. "When it was supposed to be a quick attack, or when there was a mammoth as a prize, it was fine, but not now."
"If this is what you want, just go." Soto, surprisingly calm, replied after a few seconds.
"Really? Just like that?" Oscar asked in surprise. Zeke, Lenny and he expected their leader to try to stop them again and again.
"Yes, but remember, lone sabers don't last long." Soto said to Oscar, sneering.
He could see how confused he was, and how worried Zeke and Lenny looked, knowing that Oscar would have been alone only if something bad happened to them.
"Do you really think they'd survive the journey?" Soto smirked, nodding toward the weaker sabers.
Oscar had to admit he was right. As for Zeke, he would have answered "yes" to Soto's question until two or three months before. Zeke used to be a very good pack member, who followed Soto's orders with responsibility and self-control, and was almost as strong as Oscar. Then, a disease came in, causing Zeke to lose weight and be constantly hungry and hyperactive. Going basically without food for a week or longer could have definitely worsen his condition.
Lenny, on the other hand, would have most likely been able to survive for months without eating, because of how fat he was. His unfitness, though, was also a problem. Lenny had sometimes shown to be able to keep up with the rest of his pack, for example when they had chased the sloth, but only if food was involved. If they headed south, food was only going to be a distant goal, and Oscar feared that it wouldn't have been enough to stimulate Lenny to go ahead, and that he, exhausted, would have given up at some point.
"We're all gonna die if we go north." Oscar said angrily.
"No, you're not," Soto corrected him, "If the humans go there, there must be food."
"Yeah, food we've never seen or heard of," Oscar replied, "We might be preys there for all we know, no saber has ever gone that far north, especially during an ice age."
"So you'd rather lead your pack to death than give them a chance to survive," Soto said, "Good plan, I'm glad Diego was the beta and not you."
Zeke and Lenny gulped. Soto had just hit a nerve. Oscar had once been the beta, namely the second in command, of the pack, but then Diego challenged him and won, reducing Oscar to a subordinate. Since that moment, Oscar had always been envious of Diego, and never missed an opportunity to put him in a bad light. Soto remembered that, during the battle, Oscar had even sneered happily after realizing that Diego had betrayed them and that they were going to fight.
Oscar couldn't stand Soto's attitude, and had been tempted to kill him after he had compared him to Diego. However, he wanted to show him that not only he could be a good second in command, but also a good alpha. Soto would have never heard of them again if they decided to go south, so he had to stay with him to do it. Plus, he knew that Zeke and Lenny were convinced that they wouldn't have survived the journey by then. And he couldn't change their mind, because it was actually true.
"You know what, you're right, we'll head north with you." Oscar stated. He heard two sighs of relief from behind him.
Soto smirked with satisfaction.
"You can stay with us until you find the humans." Oscar said.
"Don't tell me what to do." Soto replied angrily.
"Why not? I'm your alpha," Oscar grinned, while the other two gulped again. "When and if you'll be a saber again, you can challenge me and take your position back."
Soto gnashed his teeth. He had to prevent himself from attacking Oscar, no matter how challengingly and disrespectfully he acted.
"You're the beta, now," Oscar said smirking, and looked at Zeke and Lenny "Unless they want to move up the ranks."
The ex-leader stared at them with an eyebrow raised. He approached the two.
"You know, I've always wanted to taste saber's meat," Soto whispered threateningly. "Now I have a chance to do it without being considered a cannibal."
"No, thanks!" Zeke, scared to death, said to Oscar, referring to his suggestion.
"We're fine." Lenny added, shivering.
"Okay," Oscar replied, holding back his laughter, "Let's go."
The two terrified sabers quickly followed him, not wanting to stay near Soto after what he had said. Soto started to walk on all fours, but, again, he couldn't bear the cold that his paws felt when touching the snow. The human's furless bodies were clearly not made for that environment. So, he stood up with difficulty and stumbled behind his pack. Oscar, while walking, turned toward him and laughed at the scene.
Now Soto, Oscar, Zeke and Lenny will go through Glacier Pass, something that no saber-toothed tiger has ever done before. What will they find there? Will Soto reach the tribe and save the baby? Stay tuned to find out! :D