Chapter Twenty Seven- Searching

The two mammals slowly wandered the long abandoned city streets for what felt like hours, when in all reality it had only been about a half an hour.

Officer Gabriel Moorson was so dizzy that he could just barely walk without leaning onto something, and with him carrying his knocked out comrade it was much harder.

The bear's head was spinning, it felt as if it'd been hit with a hammer tenfold and he had the headache of a lifetime, he was practically just barely conscious.

His vision was blurry as he and his much more well off teammate combed through empty streets in an effort to find something that could get them out. So blurry in fact, that he couldn't even make out the stripes on the tiger in front of him.

He tried to compose himself as they wandered, limping as fast as he could in order to catch up with his teammate.

"God, this place is like a fucking maze" Frank said in front of him, making a fist in frustration as Gabriel nodded.

"It always was a damn maze, Frank . . ." he replied as the tiger looked at him "yeah? Well whoever designed this damn city needs to be shot" the tiger's anger made the bear grin a little.

"Amen to that . . ." He said with a weak and delirious sounding chuckle.

"How is Mason doing?" His friend asked as Gabriel looked at the wolf on his shoulder and shook him lightly "mmmh . . . Still out cold" the bear answered.

He watched the tiger shake his head "god damnit . . ."

Even when half conscious, Gabriel was still incredibly on edge, he was expecting something to happen at any second, he was just in no way prepared for it.

He glanced at their surroundings constantly and analyzed them as best he could, but his blurred vision didn't seem to help very much with that.

"Here." Adler's voice suddenly said, as Gabriel turned to him "this looks like a main street, there could be something for us here if we follow it" the tiger said as he pointed a thumb at what he was talking about.

Gabriel nodded and took a deep breath as he watched Frank dash across the road, preparing to do the same and hopefully not fall while doing so.

He pushed himself off the wall and dashed for it, almost immediately falling forward after he left the wall.

But he managed to somehow retain his balance and stumbled into the middle of the road before trying to book it as fast as he could towards the other side.

He grunted and growled in pain as his body began hurting while he did this, slamming himself against the brick wall of one of the buildings as he finally made it across.

He saw Adler look at him worriedly at first, and then half amused "talk about a hard landing, you alright?" the tiger asked as Gabriel pressed himself against the wall for a moment.

"I . . . Yeah, I'm alright . . ." He said through heavy breaths "I'm just . . . I just can't walk right now . . ." He watched the tiger nod in understanding.

The two mammals continued moving after that, now along the edge of a large road. The road in question didn't have much to offer in terms of places to search.

Aside from a few emptied out stores on the ground floor, most of the buildings along the road were apartment complexes.

He looked at his teammate again as they moved "do we even know what direction we're going?" He asked as the tiger stopped for a moment "no, but hopefully we're going South . . ."

Gabriel nodded slowly as they continued, glancing at anything that looked even remotely useful to them, in which there was nothing of the sort.

"Frank, you hear anything now?" He asked abruptly as the tiger paused momentarily again, he watched his ears prick up suddenly before quickly going flat, he had a feeling that wasn't a good sign.

"What is it?" he asked worriedly as Adler turned to him "I hear mammals alright . . . Sounds like a lot of them, we need to change course" the tiger said as he looked at their surroundings.

He pointed a thumb to himself as he made a left into one of the abandoned apartment buildings, Gabriel followed.

They entered into the derelict building slowly yet frantically as Frank shut the door behind them and placed his paw on his head, cursing to himself "god fucking mother fucker!" the tiger angrily whispered pacing back and forth.

Gabriel saw this as he stood there "we could find a way around them, Frank . . . These buildings are definitely good cover" he said, trying to offer a solution to their predicament.

Adler looked at him and then at the building they were in "we don't even know where they are . . . They sounded close" he said with a sigh.

"But c'mon, let's find a way around them" Frank said as he gestured for Gabriel to follow him.

He nodded again and followed the tiger, adjusting Mason on his shoulders and looking at the unconscious wolf for a second.

The two mammals snuck their way through the apartment complex, looking at opened and unlocked apartments as they passed them by. Gabriel thought of searching them, but suspected that there wouldn't be anything useful in them anyways.

Despite seemingly now having an abundance of cover from the enemy, the two SWAT officers still felt as if an armed thug was going to appear from around a corner at any second.

The suspense was practically killing them both as they were ready to throw paws with whoever ran into them, out of pure anger and desperation.

As the two made their way through multiple buildings and went to move into the next one, they were met with quite a predicament: there wasn't a building there, well not quite.

There was one there, however it seemed like it was in the middle of construction, and it definitely wasn't completed.

The building in question had obviously collapsed over time after its abandonment, leaving the large remnants of it in rubble and scattered across the entire plot of land, and it certainly wasn't meant to be just another apartment complex, it seemed a bit bigger.

The two officers now overlooked a large construction site from one of the broken walls of the apartment they had just come from, seemingly with a large pit in the middle of the site.

Alone, a regular construction site posed almost no problems for the officers, but in that aforementioned pit, laid the problem.

There appeared to be numerous large crates near the center, rifles and guns could also be seen from the SWAT officers' view, and the most troubling thing for them, was that this place seemed to be the source of those voices Adler had heard.

There were multiple trucks parked at the edge of this construction site, all white in color and plain, some of them were loaded with the same large crates they looked at before.

As they observed, the two watched multiple mammals come into view carrying weapons and crates towards those trucks. They weren't quite sure how many there were, but considering their current situation, it had somehow just gotten vastly worse.

Gabriel looked at Adler with a concerned face as the tiger punched the wall beside them and cursed lowly "fucking cunt!"

"There's no way we're getting around that . . ." Gabriel added "yeah, no shit" Frank replied angrily.

He watched the tiger stare at the construction site, his eyes seemingly in deep thought as he tried to find out a solution to their problem.

Adler looked at him after about three minutes "what've you got Frank?" He asked as the tiger sighed "you're not gonna like it Gabe, but I'm going in" he was right, he didn't like that idea.

"Are you kidding?" Gabriel asked with a weak scoff as Frank stood there "no, you stay here and try to wake Mason up, I don't care how you do it, don't worry . . . I'll figure this out" the tiger explained.

"You don't even have a damn weapon, how the hell are you-?" "I'll get one then" Frank interrupted coldly.

"Just fucking trust me on this, alright? There's no other options" Adler said as Gabriel shook his head "fine, just don't die." He said and watched the tiger nod.

Adler got up and hugged the wall for a second "and you wake Mason the fuck up!" he whispered before dashing off.

"God, please don't fucking die . . ." he said as he looked at the unconsious wolf beside him.

AN: Oooooh they found something big, and Adler is going in by himself to see what is up. I really hope y'all like Gabriel and Adler so far, yeah both are pretty weird names but I'm not very good with that kinda stuff, I hope you really like the interactions between them. Now, Reviews here are really important, because the next chapter is something completely new and I wanna know what ya think of it! But I won't spoil anything so keep reading!

Anyways, see ya!

A Laughing Wolf.