Chapter Twenty Two- Even Deeper

Officer Nicholas Wilde was on high alert as the four teams of mammals combed through the city once again. It had been a little over an hour since they first made contact with the enemy and delved deeper into the ruined city.

They were still on the main road but now it was much different, as a former resident he knew this area all too well, it was the industrial district of the city that doubled as yet another urban district.

The tall smokestacks of abandoned factories polluted the skyline with their ominous stature and stuck out like thorns in the city's side as the SWAT team snuck through the roads and streets.

This was far bigger than the industrial and urban district they were in a few days ago, it housed much more factories and much more "living space" even though it could be hardly considered as such, the more appropriate term to describe it was "ghetto" and not the gang type.

Nick was already guessing that most of the large buildings were now falling apart after decades of being derelict and abandoned, in his mind it was a perfect opportunity for an ambush.

The apartments here were mostly hollowed out by now, having collapsed due to poor design and architecture; he knew that the factories that once littered this part of Happytown would now resemble graveyards. Hollowed out husks with their walls being all that was left . . . Or that's at least what he envisioned.

But that damned silence slowly crept itself back into the environment and his mind, it was a dead silence only disturbed by the clinking and rummaging of the mammals' weapons and gear.

Nick's eyes shifted from one side to the other as he, Fangmeyer, Grizzoli and Price were in front, leading the others forward with just as much paranoia as him.

He could see Price tap his paw pad on the trigger of his M16 and bite down on the large cigar in his mouth. The grizzly bear aimed the rifle around almost every corner they passed, it was very subtle though, he was almost silent when he did it.

Nick watched Fangmeyer quietly chew gum as the arctic wolf gripped his M4 Carbine in his paws and scanned his surroundings, lifting the rifle up at any sound he heard.

He saw Grizzoli with his M16A4, the Lion aimed it up at the buildings above them and at the streets as they passed them. His face looked like stone, hardened and completely still with full concentration.

He then looked at Redbone, the Gray Wolf held his Mp5 with a firm grip and carried the other three rifles on his back. Nick could see the wolf's ears moving erratically, scanning their surroundings with his acute canine hearing. Though other than that, Redbone seemed rather calm compared to the rest of the teams.

Mchorn gripped his minigun by the handles and held it level in front of him, the gun wasn't spinning . . . Yet, it made Nick feel a bit safer now that they had a six barreled death machine with them.

But his train of thought was interrupted by Fangmeyer "that was some damn good timing, Charlie" Nick looked at the Arctic Wolf as the Gray one responded.

"With what? The grizzly?"

"Yeah . . . I had it covered but you made it much faster" Fang added.

Nick heard Redbone laugh "no problem mate, the Rytec takes big guys out easy" he said with a grin.

"Was that the explosive ammo you were talking about?" Nick asked out of pure curiosity.

"Nah, that was just a regular round," he replied casually.

"Jesus, it sure didn't sound like it" Nick remarked.

"I put a whole magazine into that guy's stomach though, how did he-" Fangmeyer was interrupted by someone in front.

"Adrenaline, Fangmeyer, it takes a lot more to kill us grizzlies when we're angry" Price said as if it were some kind of lesson.

"More than a full magazine of 9 mil?" Delgato chimed in.

"Much more . . ." Price finished with a visible grin.

Charlie looked up at a massive smokestack as it came into view "this is where all of the factories were, yeah?"

"This is the industrial district . . . My father worked in one of these every damn day" Nick said with a snarl.

Nick watched Charlie nod "back in the 90's . . . The BBC used to send reporters here and interview the factory workers . . . I can't imagine working in those conditions" Redbone said with empathy.

He looked up for a minute and went back in his head "oh yeah . . . I remember hearing him say something about that, he talked about it a lot actually . . ." Nick said as he began to muse.

"I even think he got interviewed, actually, don't count me on it though, I've chosen to forget a lot of my time in this hellhole . . ."

"Back in the 60's the infrastructure was exactly the same, all of these factories looked like they were cop-outs of Soviet ones . . . Only shittier" Price added.

"Where's your father now?" Fangmeyer asked after acknowledging Price's comment.

"Pshht, hell if I know . . . He's probably dead" Nick said rather carelessly.

But in truth, he really did not know what happened to his father, he had run away from Happytown at 18 and didn't look back. He had no resentment towards him, but he left it at that.

"Well, all of Europe had your back . . . Seeing all that on the telly made my blood boil" Charlie said with a bit of anger.

"He's not wrong, you should've seen London during the protests in '95, there were loads of us involved" Ivory added with an element of pride.

"Good to know . . . But it didn't change much around here, not for a few years at least" Nick nodded.

Soon the conversation died down, and dissipated into that mocking silence once again.

. . .

Captain Frederick Jonas Manson held a cigar in between his pointer and ring paw pads as the silence grew around them. He blew to his side as smoke billowed out of the ignited cylinder in his paws.

The grizzled grizzly looked at the abandoned factories as they passed them, and gritted his fangs at them.

He held his M16 with a tight grip and trained it at every corner they walked past. He was ready to press down on the trigger at any second, even if he suspected that they wouldn't encounter any hostiles for a while.

"Do you hear anything, Redbone?" He suddenly asked his comrade, Manson was quickly given an answer "nah, nothin' . . . I don't like this" Charlie said, expressing his concern.

Manson looked at Charlie a bit sternly "it's just quiet, Redbone, don't let it get to you" he reminded his apprentice "Rog . . . It's just so damn erie"

Manson hadn't been to Happytown much during the Cold War, mainly because he never even wanted to touch the place, and two, he was an omnivore not a predator, though there was never a fine line that separated the two, so bears of all species were often considered as predators and thus treated like them.

Manson was lucky though because of where he grew up and his interest in the military when Vietnam began, he didn't live a very segregated life and was honestly thankful for that.

But the times he did go there, he never wanted to come back, he had heard about the conditions there in the CIA, how the director, a close friend of his who was a sheep, deeply resented the administration for the mammal rights violations there, begging him not to go so he "wouldn't get arrested for murder" Manson laughed at this because they both knew he would kill somebody if they tried segregating him.

"Fifty thousand people used to live here . . . Now it's a ghost town" Manson said with a cold face "your saying that like it's a bad thing, it's the best thing that ever happened here, that's for damn sure" Nick commented with deep resentment.

Manson looked at the red fox and nodded slowly "reminds me of Pripyat . . . With how everyone just left" Manson added and he bit down on his cigar.

"You went to Chernobyl? At least we're not wearing hazmat suits" he heard Delgato speak from the back, "we didn't. Me and an old comrade went in to . . . Finish some business . . . As long as you avoided the big pockets of radiation you were fine" Manson explained as they walked.

As they continued their way through the graveyard of factories though, Manson had a very bad gut feeling and pumped his fist down slowly but abruptly, signaling the teams to stop.

"What?" Grizzoli asked as Manson surveyed their surroundings, scanning the sudden bit of open area they stumbled into.

He only put his finger up "wait . . ." There was an elongated silence filled with nothing but strong gusts of wind, he looked at a bell tower much similar to the one in the church they were at before "we're being watched . . ."

All of the mammals behind him quickly took cover "where?!" Grizzoli whispered frantically "that tower, I know it . . ." He said coldly.

And then he saw it. The telltale glint of a sniper rifle, seemingly appearing from the bell tower "a sniper . . ."

. . .

Tatizo Duma adjusted the zoom of his sniper scope as he zeroed in on the SWAT team he was expecting, he didn't fire yet though, mainly because he was confused by how many there were, there were much more than six mammals but that didn't stop him in the slightest.

As he looked through his scope he watched a grizzly bear put his paw up, and then slowly look directly at him with a sneer. Duma's eyes widened as he came to a realization. He's been found out.

AN: Heya again everyone, sorry about the small gap between updates, school years coming to a close so, ya know . . . Anywho! Now we're back in Happytown with Team 1 as they encounter a new foe, Tatizo Duma, don't really wanna spill many beans about him since this technically marks the beginning of one of the "parts" of this story, if you could even call 'em that, so I'll keep quiet about it for now.

But on a much happier note, I noticed someone finally left a review on this story! And it really means a lot! Seriously! stuff like that really keeps me going. All of this kinda started as a little personal thing so having people take the time to tell me that they like reading it is so encouraging for me. So thank y'all so much for taking time to read this, it's really really appreciated! Oh and if you wanna just learn more about me, ya can always just peek at my profile even for a second, idk I'm just rambling a lot at this point, sorry for such a long AN this time around.

Once again, I really appreciate all the people reading this story, it makes me over the moon. Anyhow, love ya and appreciate ya!

Laughing Wolf.