MARK OF THE BEAST V: FAUNA
"Stand back." My voice waivered as I swiftly drew my swords. "We don't mean any trouble."
"Well, you just woke up in it." The tenor chuckled. Into the moonlit clearing he stepped, first revealing a snout of wiry whiskers. The white light glinted off his one open eye like a feline slit of jade, standing out against the tiger-like graphite mottled fur of his face and appearing more akin to the snowy tufts at both crooks of his jaw. His muscles of his arm, like iron cables, were drawn as tight as the bowstring his onyx claws plucked back toward his shoulder.
"Let 'em be, Steele. Anything with a talkin' tongue probably has a family that'll come hunting for 'em." Approaching the center of the clearing, pushing us back into the shadows as a semicircle, he was followed by a monolith of a moose, standing nearly twice as tall as his accomplice on his hind legs. Over one colossal shoulder, he leaned a weathered axe, with a razor-sharp head as large as a dinner plate perched up next to his velvety, palm-like antlers. His other hand stroked curiously at the bushy brown fur sprouting from his chin.
"You ain't a predator, Russet. You see humans…" The fiery bobcat spat, licking his lips menacingly. "…I see dinner."
"Don't smell like humans though, bud. Step out into the light, eh?" The moose coaxed, stooping down and pressing a hand to lower the cat's arm. "We ain't gonna hurt you." Eyeing them nervously, I felt the trunk of a tree against my shell, stopping me from backing up any further, and had no choice but to sheathe my weapons and set a foot into the clearing. "Thought I caught a whiff of some turtle."
"Walkin' and talkin' and everything…" He finally loosened the hold on his bow, sliding a feathered arrow into the quiver on his back. "…Just like us." His claws retracted into his fingertips as he stretched his palm out midway to me. "Name's Steele."
"Leonardo." My hand clasped his, and in wonder, he regarded my foreign fingers as they wrapped around his.
"Call me Russ." The moose smiled from beside him, his gargantuan hand smothering mine in a firm shake. Over my shoulder, I saw my brothers approach cautiously behind me to introduce themselves. "So, what's a bale of turtles doin' napping up in our woods, huh?"
"We're on the run. Some old enemies are on our tails. We're trying to get somewhere the government won't find us."
"Well, you can't get there from here." Steele laughed. "Trust me, we've been lookin'. Only place in the world that's safe from humans is on the move."
"Don't get too many turtles 'round these parts this late in the year. What, came up from the lake bottom for some air?"
"We're not really the hibernating type." Don explained.
"Wouldn't have taken you for a regular type of turtle anyhow." Russet boomed, spinning his axe around dexterously to lean on the handle. "Pardon me for askin', but you four…you're mutants too, eh?"
"Too?" Raph interjected. "Figured the only place making ooze was in New York."
"Ooze?" Steele countered harshly. He turned to lock eyes with Russet. "The essence?"
"If we're thinkin' about the same thing, Steele and I don't know where the essence is from. Only that they were usin' it in the compound."
"What compound?" I asked.
"Secret lab in the Adirondacks, leftover from the Cold War." Steele spat. "Ten years ago, when the humans shut it down, they left us in cages to rot. We were the only two to escape."
"I'm sure you all have some likewise stories, but on account of the 'skeeters round the water here, we ought to get back to camp." The moose picked his axe back up over his shoulder. "Long trek ahead of us tomorrow, you know?"
The six of us trudged along the beaten path through the forest, in the direction of a faint campfire that appeared on the horizon as we continued north. The pair explained that they were travelling from their summer stomping grounds in Quebec, through the Appalachians to Georgia for the winter. Such a journey usually took four or five months one way, though they lingered the longest there in Vermont and New York, being so close to whatever abandoned complex they hailed from. Every year, they diverted from the straight path southwest to go back to the facility, ostensibly for supplies.
"Steele uses the barbed wire for snares and whatnot. I usually try to find tarps and blankets in the barracks." Steele explained. "The whole experience…it's a bit like visiting the Garden of Eden." He looked away. "And Hell, too."
They described how scientists used the mutagen and selectively bred mutants to sort for certain traits, like intelligence or strength. I was awestruck to hear that TCRI wasn't the only ones with their hands on such a potent chemical, but knowing they drove around the city with unsecured containers of it falling out the back, I figured it was only a matter of time before the government stuck their nose into such research.
"The compound got shut down a few weeks after we were born." Steele sharpened his claws on each other as he told his story. "Russ and I were the only ones in our litters with talkin' tongues and whatnot, so we were kept in outdoor pens instead of the cages inside. That's the only reason we could get out so easy."
"They reckoned one of us would eat the other, or clobber 'em, or something. Didn't count on us buddying up and breaking loose." Russet parted the fur on his forearm to reveal the ghost of a deep scar. "Fish and Game was after us for a year or two, rootin' through the Adirondacks just a couple steps behind us. Then we figured they were tracking us with the chips they'd put in when we were born."
"A little fancy claw work by yours' truly, and we've been free beasts ever since." Steele spoke solemnly. "Or as free as beasts can be in a man's world."
Finally, in a mossy gully upstream from where they stumbled upon us, we found their campsite. Pale birch bark was plastered around a frame of young saplings, giving them a relatively spacious wigwam. Russet plopped down onto a stump next to the crackling fire pit, and Steele snuck into their shelter momentarily before emerging with a worn leather pouch and a long wooden pipe, ornately carved with spirals and runes. As they packed the pipe with what looked like tobacco and shared it between them, we told them our story of mutating and growing up in the sewers, learning ninjitsu and taking on the Foot. They seemed curious, but simultaneously disappointed.
"Shame you brothers aren't living in your kingdom." The bobcat gestured to the trees enveloping us. "Humans kept you swimming in their filth, like they kept us holed up in their labs. Ain't you ever yearned to go home?"
"Depends where you consider home." I offered. "I've been surrounded by nature before, and my heart never stopped calling out for Manhattan both times."
"That's 'cause it's all you know, eh?" The moose chuckled. "I understand your bad blood with these Foot characters, but a mutant's calling in life is loads higher than that. The six of us, we're the only beasts with enough brains to stand up to humans. Someone's got to stick up for the rest of us."
"Have you seen what the humans are doing to us?" Steele snarled. "Hunters, loggers, farmers, bulldozers. Every trek to Georgia and back, the thinner the woods get, and the closer we come to being gunned down by some hairless ape."
"Humans are animals, in a scientific way." Russet continued. "But they're the only ones bent on killing everything else that moves and grows. All in the name of progress."
"Human technology never stops advancing, and every step of progress they make enables them to treat the planet better." Don countered. "Pretty soon, the oil platforms and coal mines are going to close for good."
"That means more factories for their new fuel, more trains when they stop using cars, and more junkyards too." Russet shook his head. "No amount of side-steppin' is gonna stop them going down the road they're on."
"And being as strong and smart as we are, it's our calling to turn 'em around and send 'em the way they came." A stream of wavering O's streamed from his whiskered muzzle.
"What's that supposed to mean?" Mike scratched his head.
"Gettin' rid of technology and driving humans out of our kingdom. Don't you deserve to live in the sunlight?"
Thanks for reading! Hope you guys like Russet and Steele (tackily named after their colors lol), I don't like writing OCs all that much but personally I think they make a cool duo.
