Mercilessly, lightning bounced and arced around high above as flashes of light encased the sky. Thunder proceeded it's reign as it boomed all around.
The rain was nearly blinding, but they kept pushing forward.
Surely death was a more pressing issue. And so the pounding of footsteps against the muddy ground continued through the forest.
"Don't stop! We'll lose em', just keep running!"
Four figures sprinted swiftly past a giant boulder that jutted out of the ground.
Growling soon followed suit, three pursuing figures in turtlenecks trampling on all fours and whizzing past the stone not long after, bounding hungrily after their targets.
Purposely falling behind the group of escapees, a rat pulled his bow and aimed it back, sending three shots out behind him, causing the pursuers to skid into a brief halt to dodge any chance of getting stuck by one of the coming projectiles.
"There, down there!" the rat said in a rushed tone as quietly as he could, beckoning the group to follow as he lead past them and slid down the small gorge. He dug his hands into the ground, gathering mud.
"Cover yourselves in mud so they can't sniff us out." the rat ordered, fulfilling his own command as he began coating his fur with the wet dirt.
"Seriously?" a human said, already worried about the lute strapped around his waist being dirtied up.
"Just do it!"
Frustrated growls and yaps commenced nearby the hidden group as they hid amongst the rain and soaked leaves. They seemed to continue on for minutes. But in reality, the mutes were gone within seconds.
Not before giving out their frustrated howls, of course.
Still, the group waited a bit longer for safe measures, only opting out of cover when the rat mute waved a hand.
"It's clear. We can get up now."
Close to an hour had passed before they found any sense of peace.
This being in the form of a restaurant.
"We definitely lost them...for now at least." Lute said to no one in particular, sliding down against the restaurant's front door with a hand against his forehead. He wiped as much mud off of his precious instrument as he could, a finger reaching for a string to pluck before bringing it away, refraining all together.
Knox lead Kara to a seat and helped her to sit as she rested her head against the table, her hands still over her face.
Finding no other useful thing to say or do, Knox propped himself against the nearby wall and store at the ground, paying no heed to his stained clothing. He tapped the saya casing to his katana as he remained silent.
Piercer looked amongst the worn out and emotionally strained group of humans, conjuring relatively recent memories of his own clan. His fellow Archerats. Images of their broken bodies and lifeless forms. His best friend's life as it ended right before him. His elder...and then he realized something he long kept himself from admitting.
That this was his clan now.
Piercer looked up with conviction as he approached a wordless Knox.
"I'm sorry we couldn't fulfill your end of the deal, Piercer..." Knox told the Archerat without making eye contact. "You can leave whenever you like. Forgive us for wasting your time."
Piercer raised a hand and rested it against his chest in front of his heart.
"My life began almost as quickly as it ended. And it began again with you all." Piercer told him with unmoving eyes as Knox finally met with them. "The deal's off because I am no longer in need of it. My faith and loyalty now lies with all of you. You all have the spirit of an Archerat, that much I can tell. And so as it stands, you are my clan."
Piercer lowered his hand from his chest and out towards Knox.
"I'm not going anywhere." Piercer finished, giving the human a wide smile.
Almost hesitating, Knox slowly brung forth his hand and met with the Archerat's, shaking in agreement.
"And as grim as things are...with no clear path to take as we stand here breathing in the air of uncertainty, we do not know if your friends are truly gone. I...didn't have the luxury of not knowing, unfortunately. But you all do. Let's not lose hope on the idea that they've maybe escaped."
Wasting no time, Piercer moved towards the grieving form of Kara, whose face was still covered in her arms.
"Let's not lose all of our hope now. Regardless of the outcome, we must keep moving forward for your friends as I have for my own. We will make it through this together." Piercer reminded, cupping the side of Kara's face with his hand and giving her a cheery smile.
"Just across the street, there's a clothing store. We can get out of these worn fatigues and find us all something more fitting. Let's start with that."
Looking into the mirror, Piercer could only sigh in a slight agitation as he watched himself slide the black shirt with a simple skull design on the front.
"What, that the only good size for you?" Lute asked as he walked by in his newly chosen red windbreaker jacket.
"I hate shirts. Rubs my fur the wrong way."
"Aw, don't worry." Lute said, strolling up as he eyed a nearby hat but decided to leave it be. "You'll get your clan attire clean again at some point. Maybe by then, the shirt will have grown on you, ha ha."
Piercer stretched the collar of the black t-shirt with disdain. "I highly doubt that."
On the other side of the store, Knox had finally gone through a string of choices before settling on a navy-blue jean jacket and a black undershirt. He looked continuously into the mirror as if looking for something more. He jumped a bit as Kara called from behind.
"You okay?"
Knox turned around failed to make eye contact with her immediately. He leaned against the nearby wall and grunted. "Can't get it all out of my head."
A small, weak smile grew on Kara's face as she came close and wrapped her arms around him.
"You did...everything you could to make sure we were all safe. Don't blame yourself for what happened. That was...something else." Kara looked to the ground as if in some kind of doubt, but quickly brung her sights back up. "And what Piercer said was true. We don't know if they're actually...gone. We have to keep hope. We have to try..."
"You don't think it was the Mod Frogs, do you?"
The sudden accusation hadn't failed to cross her mind before. It was one of the first agonizing thoughts that sped through her mind the moment she found their old hideout in burnt ruins.
"...it's something that's been on my mind." Kara admitted, clenching her fists.
Footsteps came from across the store, revealing to be Lute and Piercer's.
"Hey, nice shirt, Piercer." Kara chuckled, brushing a hand through her newly-dried hair.
Piercer narrowed his eyes, unintentionally blushing.
"Quiet, you."
The road Knox's group walked upon was wet but relieved of the rain's relentless downpour.
The sky had yet to clear up, but all that was left of the storm that haunted them was a little drizzle and the light gray sky that foreboded a lot less then before up above. The road extended into a curve flanked by two rows of trees on each side that led into their own stretch of forest.
"Hey, have you ever thought about the possibility of finding another burrow? I can't imagine there being any nearby...but there has to be more in Las Vistas." Kara brought up, recapping her water bottle as she gazed down the roadway.
"That Mod Boss really got me thinking again...how there are burrows all around the world. It's crossed my mind before, but it's been awhile since I've thought about it seriously. It's kind of crazy." Lute added, looking down at the wet pavement.
"I really miss that feeling of safety. Even though it's always a risk in our experience...it was still a lot more than this..." Lute added again with a hint of melancholy.
"Don't worry." Knox budded in, "We'll find another place to rest soon. And maybe this time actually get some sleep. But keep a close eye on our surroundings. No telling if those wolves are back out and at it for us..."
Knox trailed off his speaking after he caught ear of a distinct noise that seemed to be getting closer.
His ears twitching, Piercer seemed to have caught it, too.
"You hearing it, too Knox?" Piercer asked as he tensed up at the unfamiliar sound.
The group pondered the coming commotion for no more than a few seconds, and by the time any of them caught what it was, they were a few too late.
"Move off the road, that sounds like motor-"
The group had time to take only a few steps before a squad of scooters came roaring down the road. They had just the right amount of time to clear out of the way, running into the nearby woodlands.
But not without a reaction to their actions.
"The hell?" a feminine voice rang out as Knox and rest of the group heard skidding against the pavement of the road and a crash that followed.
"In the forest, they ran into the forest! After those halfwits!" another rather feminine voice called out.
"Run." Kara vocalized, beginning her dash further inwards before anyone else. The rest happily followed.
Only one problem.
Kara stopped her sprinting as she met the edge of a sudden drop in the forest's elevation. A steep fall with rocks resting throughout. A large river separated any chance of getting to the other side. They weren't going down there without getting hurt. And there was no coming back up.
"Aw, dammit! Now what?" Lute asked in panic.
"What do you mean? We fight." Piercer told him, cracking his neck muscles and reaching for his arrows, growling when he remembered he failed to craft new ones. He gripped his dagger as the footsteps came closer.
"Fine by me." Kara replied, pulling out her buck knife and holding it in front of her.
The assailants finally came into view, stopping when they caught sights of their prey.
"Hey, where you punks going?" a feminine mute, now revealed as a humanoid skunk wearing a biker jacket which was ordinated with various patches. Four other skunk mutes in similar fashion stalked up beside her, eventually spreading to gate off any exit their quarry could take. Two skunks with a 'seven' and 'two' on the shirts they wore under their jackets walked up front and center.
"Who the hell are all of you?" Kara asked, her knife gripped and at the ready for any sudden moves.
"Who the hell are we? What do we look like to you?" the head mute skunk with a stockier build asked back sharply, extending the metal pipe in her hands towards them.
"Skunks." Piercer replied simply taking a step forward and posing for a fight.
Lute stepped up in front of Piercer and looked to the skunks with a nervous expression.
"Hey, hey, easy everyone we don't..." Lute looked back at the sharp fall behind them all, gulping.
"We don't have to fight. You can just let us go and bam! No issues!" Lute finished.
"Oh, a nice, big no to that, human. Not only did you make us crash our scooters, but if you haven't noticed...humans are in high demand. You're all not going anywhere...except for you, rat boy. We don't have any interest in fuzzballs."
Piercer growled through his gritted teeth. "You're all dead."
"Look..." Kara spoke up, slapping the flat end of her buck knife against the palm of her hand. "I've had a long ass day, and I'm not going gently into that good night...so saddle up skunk freaks. It's gonna get messy."
"That's it. Hey, punks. I'm Wheels. And this fella next to me is Loretta. And we're the Scooter Skunks. Remember all of that while we thrash ya! Let's get these f-ckers!" the skunk now known as Wheels finished as she began the charge. Her five fellow bikers followed suit.
"Let's get this, and make it quick." Knox told them, yanking out his katana as he ran fourth to meet Wheel's pipe full-swing.
He followed with a side swipe, which Wheels stepped back to avoid. But she wasn't quick enough to dodge the follow-up charge Knox made against her which sent her to the ground on her back. The katana's sharp tip was pointed downwards at Wheel's forehead. Her surprised look now melted away, Wheels smiled knowingly as she watched one of her fellow skunks swing a bat in his direction. Knox leaped back just in time.
Piercer was quick to pounce on a Scooter Skunk and strike her in the neck, rendering them unconscious in seconds. As one other mute skunk approached from behind, Lute came quickly behind them and swung his lute down full-force against their helmet. Dazed, the Scooter Skunk had little time to fully turn around as Lute swung the lute instrument again, this time cracking her across the side of her face. The skunk mute fell with a thud.
Kara dodged swing after swing of the rusted metal pipe Loretta had as she tried to find an angle of attack.
"You have to excuse me, I'm a little rusty. Being captured for a week by mute snakes does that to you." Kara quipped as she ducked under another one of the Scooter Skunk's swings.
Kara took advantage of the loss of momentum the mute had to lash out the knife in her hand, earning Loretta a cut across her cheek. The Scooter Skunk jerked back in revelation to the stinging on her face and then in an abrupt rage, pushed her foot against the leafy ground and met Kara swiftly with a blow to the human's shoulder with her pipe.
"Ah, sh-t..." Kara cursed, holding her right shoulder and stepping back to distance herself from the pipe-wielding skunk.
"What's the matter, pumpkin? Did I hit you too hard?" Loretta taunted as she circled her, smacking the rusted pipe in her other hand.
However, Loretta's eyes widened when she met sights on Knox as he approached, stopping her in her tracks. He had Wheels captive with his katana blade against her neck. She looked around her briefly to find that she and Wheels were the only Scooter Skunks still standing.
"I'd advice you to let us go." Knox told Loretta as he neared the blades edge closer to Wheels' throat.
"You wouldn't." Loretta replied, retracting her statement and reaching a hand out to Knox as he neared the blade even closer.
"Okay, okay! You win!" Loretta surrendered by dropping her pipe and kicking it away from her. "Just let her go."
Knox nodded, looking to his gang.
"You guys get a head start first." Knox told them as they ran back for the main road they were just on.
As his friends dashed away, Knox paired glaring eyes with Loretta.
"This isn't personal. We've been through enough, and we just want to be left alone. Go find your human prize money elsewhere." Knox uttered to her as he pushed Wheels onto the ground in front of her, turning to catch up with his group.
Knox met up with everyone at the road and eyed the scooters parked along the pavement.
"Let's take the bikes, we need to get as far away from here as possible. Now." Lute told them as he caught Kara's wincing. "You okay Kara?"
"Yeah, one of the skunks clipped me in the shoulder." Kara chuckled sourly as Piercer met beside her.
"Here, ride with me. We're not risking you riding your own and falling off cause of that." Piercer told her as he mounted a scooter, Kara holding on behind him.
Knox and Lute picked one of their own as they all started the engines and propelled forward down the road, skunk gas flowing out behind them from the exhausts.
"Of course they expel gas. Actual skunk gas. Of course." Lute commented aloofly as they all sped further down the road.
Loretta and Wheels both made out of the forest to find them long gone.
"*sigh* Goddammit." Loretta remarked as they found their means of transportation out of sight.
On their last ounce of gas, the skunk scooters puttered and went empty, leaving the three humans and rat mute to walk again.
The road had led them to another section of the Las Vistas district. One they were not at all familiar with. They continued until they were met with a fantastic view.
"Whoa...never been down here before, have we?" Lute asked as they were met with an large embankment that revealed another level of houses and buildings down below with overgrown and colorful flora and plants decorating all around.
They took a moment to gander at the beautiful setting sun that accompanied the marvelous perspective.
Kara blinked as she noticed something. Something within a rather exclusive section of houses separated from the rest.
"Am I tripping or..."
Knox, Piercer and Lute looked at her as she winced her eyes, trying to confirm her suspicions.
"No way in heck..." Kara muttered as she gripped her sour shoulder, looking to Knox and holding and outstretched hand towards Knox. "Hand me your binoculars, dude."
"What's going on?" Knox responded, unstrapping his backpack and digging through before finding the binoculars.
Binoculars now in hand, Kara scanned the area of interest, her mouth opening wide at the unbelievable confirmation with a hardy laugh to follow.
"You're all gonna want to see this. This is unbelievable."
Kara handed the binoculars down the the three and watched as they all grew visibly shocked at the revelation.
"A community of humans...and mutes?" Knox said aloud to no one person in particular.
"This...is too hard to believe. This is all definitely possible...but right out in the open like that?" Lute added, still bewildered.
Kara stood up, turning to the three with a wide smile plastered on her face.
"We have to check it out. There's no questioning that." Kara declared. "This could finally be it, guys. This could be the place that bares with us for the long haul."
Knox continued his stare down the edge of the road, shaking his head after a short thought.
"You're right. We can't pass this up. We've gotten ridiculously lucky with this. Good eye, Kara." Knox said, looking further down the road alongside the steep cliff.
"Let's make our way further down the road. We'll find a way down."
It only took less than an hour before they were finally in the overgrown city. Even less to make it in front of the community of interest. It was a large neighborhood with houses stretched out relatively far.
The only thing separating them from it was a large gate that looked to have been built and integrated pretty contemporaneously. It was new-looking, painted a dark blue. And it was really tall.
Everyone finally gave in to their curiosity and removed themselves from hiding, walking up to the gates and awaiting what their next move was.
"It's always common courtesy to knock, right?" Lute said, cautiously walking up to the gate and readying a fist to meet with the blue barrier.
"HALT!"
The sudden booming call rang out from above and at the last second. Two beings emerged from above the gate, supposedly held up by a platform of some kind.
The two were a human and squirrel mute respectfully, each holding crossbows that were locked and trained on their positions.
Lute slowly retracted his fist from the gate.
"Listen, we don't want any trouble. We just saw this community a few miles back and-"
"Silence! You're all still trespassers. Visitors and trespassers are all the same here. Now I'd advise you all to leave now, or we will shoot."
"Please," Kara started, unstrapping her knife to lay on the ground in front of her. "We came a long, long way and we don't really know any other safe place. We saw that mutes and humans were living peacefully here and thou-"
"Thought what?" the squirrel mute spoke up. "That this is Kumbaya town? Sorry lady, but everyone here earned their right to be here."
"No need to victimize the travelers, you two." a deep voice called from inside.
The human and mute lowered their crossbows and looked away, getting down from their platforms. A moment of suspense hovered over Knox and his posse as they glanced at each other while a small verbal commotion went on behind the gate.
Then it began to open.
Slowly and surely, the large blue gates swung outwards, gradually revealing the unfamiliar world within. Through the mild gap were the sights and sounds of children playing in the background and a few other older folks at work. A hammer struck against metal as Kara caught sight of a antelope bringing down a hammer.
It was not long before the two crossbow-wielders took their positions back up on the gate perches, a rather tall figure revealing himself from behind the gates.
It was a slender and rather tall human who wore a stand-out navy blue tailored suit with a silver tie to accompany it. His black dress shoes clacked against the ground as he approached.
"Well...seems we've attracted new guests. Please forgive those two. My name is Devland..." the well-dressed man revealed as he waved a hand out, gesturing at the community they were so inclined to learn about.
"And welcome to Lensvile."