Wow, what a long time it has been, but here we are with chapter 3 {it is chapter 3 right?} It is now about 3:30am, and the last bit of this is insomnia induced, so if it is complete gibberish I apologize in advance. I don't own The Tribe, other people do. Please r/r at the end.

Chapter 3: Stubborn Warrior

It was the morning after the massacre, and only two people were awake, looking at the carnage that the Technos left behind. The bodies of the enemies and their friends were left there as blank faces, staring endlessly into the void with their empty eyes. Jay simply shook his head in a disappointed astonishment, death was never the answer, hadn't society learned that from the virus? He turned his head to Ebony who was putting on the brave, strong face which only meant that she too was devastated. An ugly task was now at hand, being that they had to do something with the bodies. There was no way they would be able to get enough coffins for all the bodies, but maybe that was a good thing; every scratch would be visible without the coffin covering any part of them. The tribes would see the people they new and respected killed by the Technos, and the Technos would see their peers, their friend killed by their own leader. Yes, Ram was to blame for all this death, he had probably known that there would be casualties, it was a doomed suicide mission from the beginning.

"What do you suppose?" Ebony asked in a small, defeated voice. She did not look at him when she spoke, because she knew that it should be her dead on the floor, not them. The "what if" scenarios kept running through her head, if she had just been more cooperative with Ram, if she had agreed to marry him, than perhaps this wouldn't have happened, perhaps he would have spared her friends. Jay sighed.

"I'm not sure," he looked from face to face, this shouldn't have happened, "Separate them to different sides of the room, they'll be less noticeable that way maybe."

"Good plan," came a voice from behind them which belonged to Amber. She had that placid look on her face from just waking up. "Technos on the left side and Mall Rats on the right," her instructions annoyed Ebony.

"Who put you in charge here?" her brows furrowed in frustration, Amber had no right to try to lead now.

"And who do you think would be a better leader, you?" she gave a little laugh, "Oh yes, last time you were in power you banished your friends in their moment of need and basically lost control of the city."

"I did what I had to do!" she raised her voice in anger seeing as Amber had to dig up the past.

"Tell me Ebony, did you ever really consider any of us friends?" she took a step forward boldly, "Or were we just pawns the whole time?"

"How dare you even ge-" Ebony was cut off by Jay, deciding finally to step in.

"Enough!" he stepped in between the two bickering women, "We don't need to be arguing, we need to be working together to get everything sorted out," there was a silence as both Ebony and Amber agreed with indignant nods.

"Alright," Ebony finally broke the silence caustically, "Technos on the left, Mall Rats on the right then. Should we wake Salene to help?" Amber smiled.

"I think we best leave her alone, besides she looks far to comfortable."

"Meaning?"

"Go see for yourself," she gave a hand motion gesturing to two to go see, but stopped them as they headed for Salene's room, "No, in Pride's room," Jay and Ebony cast suspicious looks at each other, lined with curiosity. They made there way to Pride's room, but with every step taken they were reminded of his condition which made their hearts sink.

"Well would you look at that," whispered Ebony as they entered the "nature room" to see the couple fast asleep in each other's arms, "Who knew?"

"I did," gloated Amber, "They never really showed their affection to each other that much, but you could see it in the way they looked at each other---I'm just glad one couple made it out of this alive."

"Yeah," Jay's face darkened as he realized that he would have to be the one to break the news to Ved and Siva, who would surely overreact. Then again, how could somebody overreact to that kind of news? The people they loved, the ONLY people they loved were killed right under their noses. They would probably end up blaming themselves for the incident, and Jay doubted whether either of them would ever be the same again.

"You okay Jay?" Amber asked as she noticed his far away stare. He blinked back into reality.

"Oh," he replied slowly, "Yeah, I'm fine. Come on, we should get to work moving the bodies," they all turned to leave, but heard a voice from the main entrance.

"Hello?" called the voice of a young man. His loud entrance caused the sleeping pair to stir from their sleep, to see the three people spying on them. Jay didn't care that he had been caught though, he was more concerned as to the voices owner.

"Who is that?" he whispered urgently to the others.

"Relax, it's our contact, he's going to try to sort out Pride," Amber stepped out of the room closely followed by Ebony and Jay. Salene sat up from the safe arms of Pride, a little sore from the awkward position she had slept in.

"Contact?" she asked sleepily as she stretched out her arms.

"Patch," he explained, "His brothers were taken by the Technos a while back, but it was a good thing they didn't get him. He is like Jack on a computer, and the fact that he's been reading upon medicine helps out too."

"Do you think he'll be able to help you?" she stared at him with worry, he looked worse than he had before; he was pale and his whole body was cold, aside from where she had been laying.

"I hope so."

"You don't look so good," she admitted quietly, not able to look into his eyes.

"I know," he whispered, looking down bitterly, "I've said it before and I'll say it again; don't worry about me, I'll be fine."

"I'll worry all I want to," she teased, trying to raise his spirits, "Somebody has to dote over you, and it might as well be me," she was happy to see that she had gotten a smile out of him.

"Hello Pride," Patch said nervously as he walked into the room. He turned his attention to Salene, "Hello, Salene right?" she nodded.

"How you been Patch?" Pride asked, and it was just so like him to ask about the welfare of others when he was the one suffering.

"Oh, you know been better, been worse," with shaky hands he placed a bag down on the chair that Salene had sat on the night before, "I guess we shouldn't waste time, may I?" he indicated to the bandaged.

"The sooner the better," he gave a hollow laugh, with a sense of nervousness that only Salene seemed to detect.

"You do know what you're doing, right?" she questioned anxiously.

"I'm not going to lie to you," he explained, "I am nowhere near being a doctor, but I guess I'm the closest thing to it," as he spoke he cut the bandages down the middle and pulled them away. Patch cast an uncertain look at Salene who did her best not to look at the injury that seemed like a gaping hole in his side. Pride moved his head to see the extent of the damage, but Salene gently moved his to face her.

"Don't look," she begged him, taking a hold of his left hand.

"Well?" asked Pride gravely. Patch shook his head.

"If only we had the right supplies then we could staple it, not literally of course, or maybe we'd be able to even sew it up, but---" he was cut off.

"But we don't have the supplies," interrupted Pride, "Is there anything you can do?"

"Well," he began but promptly shook the thought from his head, "No, no, no, we couldn't do that, it's just so, so," he could not find the words to finish the sentence that he was muttering to himself.

"What is it Patch?" Salene demanded, bringing forth an irritated sigh from the "doctor."

"Okay," he gave in, "There was a tactic used a long time ago, before electricity, before modern times really, and it was used when a person got stabbed or shot with an arrow in battle-"

"Just get to the point," an annoyed Ebony said from the doorway, nobody had even noticed her presence there until now.

"Right," he took an unsure breath, "They would heat stone until it was red and press it to the wound, forcing it to close up basically," there was a long silence as everyone in the room contemplated this idea. Finally Ebony spoke:

"That is just ridiculous!" she exclaimed, "Do you know how painful and unsafe that would be? Surely there must be another way."

"Well, there isn't," he said shortly, "But if you want to think of another way, while Pride bleeds to death, than be my guest," he gestured to the wound, that indeed was still bleeding to everyone's horror.

"I'm bleeding to death?" Pride's voice was low and almost inaudible, because he did not think of this possibility; he had just thought that the wound itself would kill him, not the bleeding.

"From what I can tell by just looking at you," he gave him a look over, "From your pupils, and your coloration, and," he paused to feel Pride's pulse from his wrist, "From your heart rate, you really should have a blood transfusion, but seeing as we don't have the knowledge or means to do that, we just need to pray that you haven't lost that much blood," this rung clearly through Salene's head, hadn't she just thought about this possibility last night? She unknowingly gave Pride's hand a worried squeeze, cauing him to look up at her, and then back at Patch.

"Alright then," he took a deep breath, "Do what you have to."

"Pride," Salene began to argue but was stopped.

"I've seen this done in the Eco Tribe before, and it usually works," he was trying his best to convince her.

"The key word there being "usually," what happened when it didn't work Pride, huh?" Ebony took a step forwards with her arms crossed. She had never particularly liked Pride, and he had never liked her, but she respected him for the warrior that he had proven he was. "Well?" he took a deep breath and looked from Ebony to Salene to Patch to some distant place I his own mind.

"There is no other way," he decided calmly.

"Oh I can't believe this!" Ebony raised her voice, bringing alarm to the two people clearing the bodies in the main entrance. Amber entered the room followed by Jay.

"What's all the commotion?" Amber looked from person to person, much like Pride just had, only, she was seeking answers.

"We're gonna burn it," Pride informed her, knowing very well that she knew what he had meant, for she had seen it done also.

"Oh no," she wasn't disagreeing with him, she was more saddened and dismayed by the whole prospect, "You realize how many people di-" he cut her off before she could finish. Pride had wanted them to believe that the percentile of people who lived from this technique was large, so they wouldn't worry.

"It has to be done," he said firmly, giving her a look that could stop somebody dead in their tracks; it was his intimidation factor, his "Eco Warrior" coming out.

"Right then," Patch jumped into the conversation again, "If you're sure that's what you want to do, we can put some sheet metal in the oven or something."

"No," everybody had their eyes on Pride once more as he disagreed, "I will not let the same force that did this to me attempt to cure me. No electricity, no sheet metal, nothing modern," he sounded disgusted by the whole concept of technology at this point.

"So what you're saying is that you want us to find stone, heat it over a fire, and use that?" Jay wanted to make sure he got it straight, "Do you know how infectious that could be?"

"I don't care," if he could, he would have crossed his arms stubbornly.

"Pride, be reasonable," Salene looked at him with pleading eyes; he hated to see her so distraught, but these were his principles, if he was going to get well again, he wanted it to be a gift from nature, not a fixed error of mechanics.

"This is the way it's going to be," the tone of his voice meant that there was no swaying him, and that the matter was closed.

"Fine," she said shortly. Ugh! Salene wanted to scream at him, to slap him, shake him, anything to bring him to his senses! Didn't he care that he might die because of his integrity?! Well, that was Pride for you; it must be where he had gotten the name. There was a long pause as the tension became unbearable, making everybody seem uneasy.

"We best be finding a suitable stone then," Ebony was addressing the others, but was staring at Pride with her icy eyes. They turned to leave.

"No need," Salene stood up off the bed, "I think I have just the thing," she left the room without another word, leaving everyone confused and curious.

"I'll start a fire," Jay offered, which made Ebony snort.

"With your bare hands?" she gave him a look of disbelief, but he just smiled.

"I wasn't always a Techno Ebony," he brought his attention to Patch, "You'll need the fire in here I guess?"

"That would be best I think."

"I guess we'll use that sheet metal after all," he looked at Pride, "If you don't mind using it for the base of the fire, you know, so the whole mall doesn't catch on fire," Pride simply nodded in agreement, "Alright then, Ebony, Amber, you two get some fire wood from outside-"

"We have some already stored," interrupted Amber.

"Good, then let's get to work shall we?" the exited to gather the supplies.

"So why do you want this to be natural and all so much?" Questioned Patch.

"I don't know," he sighed, "Grudge on technology I guess. After all, I heard that the virus was man made, which just goes to show you how much human development can cause."

"We don't know that it was man made Pride."

"Right, and all of a sudden all the adults just drop dead of a dormant virus?" he laughed, "That sure doesn't sound convincing to me." -------

Salene entered her room to find Mouse hugging her knees on her bed.

"Is Pride gonna be okay? Only her eyes were visible behind her legs.

"He is going to be just fine," Salene put on the brave face and forced a smile, still unsure of it all. She began rummaging through her drawers, looking for something.

"What are you looking for?" Mouse got up and walked over to her curiously.

"Remember when I showed you that stone carving?" she asked as she continued to look. Salene was referring to one of the days she had entertained Mouse, trying to keep her happy and out of the way of the stressed out older kids, when she had decided to show her a gift she had received from her grandfather.

"Uh huh," Mouse nodded vigorously.

"Well," she said pulling it out of the bottom drawer, "This is going to save Pride's life," *I hope*

To be continued.

Cliffhanger, mwhahaha, I know, I am evil beyond evil, but can you blame me? This chapter was so long to begin with, so I thought I'd leave you hanging my whole 2 readers. Please r/r