AN: As promised. Comments or pm's welcome, as always. I hope you all enjoyed chapter 1.
"I'm telling you Silver, we should seriously think about moving part of the colony into one of these adjacent buildings, we're gonna need more space." Samantha said over a bowl of re hydrated cornmeal. She and Silver had been having this discussion for weeks now, Silver was reluctant, however. It was early in the morning and he didn't feel like debating either.
"We don't have the manpower to move part of the colony. You're talking about doubling our facilities, doubling the number of people we need to have on guard." Silver replied, in between bites of cornmeal.
"We have over 200 people, I'm sure we can train a couple more people how to fight." Samantha argued.
"Bishop? Do we have the manpower to train more people to fight?" Silver said, calling over to the wolf who was trying to avoid getting caught in the middle.
"No Sir, I don't think I can spare one man to train 3 or 4 nuggets how to fight of the occasional bandit or creature." The tired wolf replied sarcastically.
"See, Bishop is on my side." Samantha said, triumphantly.
"I'm not on anyone's side Sam, I'm just saying that if we needed to train a couple people to be guards, I could have a man do it. I still think expanding is a little risky." The wolf added, not trying to make anyone upset.
"Fine Sam, if you feel we need to expand, have the engineers begin looking over some of the adjacent buildings and then start giving me numbers on how this relocation would work." Silver didn't feel like continuing to argue, so he gave her what she wanted. Satisfied, Sam finished her cornmeal and left to go about her day. Silver could only shake his head and go back to eating his cornmeal.
"You two going at it again?" A voice said over Silver's shoulder. Silver turned to see Dora standing behind him, her arms crossed and a smile on her face.
"Yes. Same as always. She wants to expand." Silver replied, motioning for his mate to sit down. Dora took the invitation and sat down beside Silver, giving him a kiss on his cheek.
"You two when you bicker, it reminds me a lot of when you and Blaze used to argue." Dora teased, taking Silver's spoon and scooping a bite of his cornmeal.
"It's not so much arguing as it is debating our difference of opinions. I still wouldn't want anyone else working with me. And when Blaze and I would argue, it would never be over something so trivial." Silver replied, placing his arm around Dora's shoulder. "So why are you up this early? You're not usually up when I get to work."
"The bed was cold this morning." Dora sheepishly replied.
"Well I'd love to just lay in bed with you, but unfortunately I have a colony I need to keep running." Silver replied.
"Oh glorious leader, whatever would we do without you?" Dora said, mocking the steadily growing ego of her mate. "So what do you have to do to keep us running?"
"Today, not much. I was going to lead a group of scouts to the south edge of the city, maybe set up an outpost. The initial scout report suggests that we may find some useful salvage there as well." Silver said, reclaiming his spoon and taking another bite of cornmeal.
"Keep close everyone, we're not far now." Silver said to the rest of his group of three accompanying him. Navigating Crisis City was much more difficult on foot. Finding cross-able passages often proved difficult and Silver would need to stand on station so as to catch anyone that might fall. Even worse, the odds of disturbing a nest of monsters was much more likely on foot, which put everyone at risk.
"It should be just beyond this overpass sir." One of his scouts behind him said. The group continued forward. It was a little intimidating, looking at all these buildings from from underneath. Their looming lifelessness inspired a feeling of dread and doom, something Silver never really noticed fly above the city. He also couldn't shake the feeling that someone was watching them.
"Hey!" One of the scouts called from behind Silver. Everyone turned towards him and saw that he was running in a direction away from them, towards one of the skyscrapers. Silver and the other two scouts chased after him. Silver, being able to fly, was able to catch up quickly.
"Ray, what is it!?" Silver asked his scout, still in pursuit of whatever he saw.
"I saw a person, they ran into that skyscraper!" The scout replied. Silver only nodded and surged ahead. He flew into a hole near the bottom of the skyscraper, a building that used to house hundreds. Inside, Silver quickly scanned for the person, catching sight of a figure that began to ascend a flight of stairs.
"Hey wait, stop!" Silver called and ran after the fleeing person. Silver chased up the stairs, shedding his pack that was weighing him down. Up the stairs and around a corner, Silver caught sight of the fleeing individual again, running down a hallway. Silver levitated himself to chase the person down. And while the mystery runner was fast, they couldn't outrun Silver who quickly caught up and passed the runner. Stopping in front, Silver intercepted the person who tried to run him over. Throwing one psychokinetic wave out, Silver managed to hold this person in place so he could get a good look. The runner was a hawk, brown feathers, he looked like a mess. His cloths were torn and his messenger pack was held together by a clip.
"Calm down. Why are you running?" Silver said to the frightened young hawk. The hawk continued to struggle, trying to free himself from Silver's psychokinetic grasp, to no success.
"Hey! What's you're name? Why are you running from us?" The hawk still said nothing.
"Silver!?" A voice called out from down the hall, one the scouts.
"I'm here Aiden, I caught up to our runner." Silver called back. Down the hall, the three scouts emerged from the stair case and scanned for Silver. Catching sight of the two, the scouts walked over towards them.
"Who is he?" One of the scouts asked.
"He hasn't said." Silver replied. The hawk continued to squirm.
"Enough, you won't get out unless he lets you go." One of the scouts said to the struggling hawk.
"Listen, we're not going to hurt you. I'm going to let you go, but I need you to not try and run off. Just stay and talk for a minute." Silver said.
"Ok." The hawk finally said. Silver released him from grip, returning control of the hawk's body to him once more.
"Now, let's start with names. My name is Silver. This is Aiden, Rex, and Mikael. Who are you?" Silver said motioning to his 3 scouts.
"My name is Sky." The hawk replied, still visibly nervous.
"Why were you running from us, Sky?" Silver inquired.
"I was scared." The hawk answered.
"Do you have a place where you stay? People to stay with?" Silver asked.
"I have a group, we live here." The hawk replied.
"How many?" Silver asked.
"I don't think I should tell you." Sky responded, now showing a little bravery.
"I'd like to know. We have a group of around 200, and could always make room for a few more. " Silver said warmly.
"Ok, but if I take you to them, you need to let me talk at first. Our leader might try and kill you all if you don't let me explain. She says there are dangerous people." Sky said, still a little nervous.
"Don't worry about us, I'm sure she can't hurt us. Besides, we don't mean any harm, I'm sure she'll understand. But she's right, there are some very bad people here." Silver replied.
The group of now 5 ascended several more flights of stairs in the building. Reaching the 12th floor, Sky stopped and turned to Silver's group.
"Alright, we're on this floor. Just wait a minute and let me go explain. I'll come back." Sky said before disappearing down a corridor.
"Sir, do you think we should be wasting our time with this kid?" One of the scouts, Aiden, asked.
"I see no reason not to, he was just scared." Silver replied, leaning against a wall.
"But what if his group is hostile and he's going to warn them?" Aiden said in protest.
"Just be patient, I'm sure we can handle whoever it may be." Silver said dismissively.
"That kid said his leader was really bad, are you sure you can handle her?" Aiden continued.
"I'm sure she's not too much trouble, he was scared." Silver replied, not wanting to continue to entertain his scout's irrational ideas.
The group waited around for a few more minutes before footsteps could be heard returning. Everyone looked to see Sky returning.
"Alright, she's agreed to meet with you Silver, but only you." Sky said and motioned for Silver to follow him. Silver nodded and the two set off back down the corridor.
"I'm surprised actually, I sort of expected her to send you guys away." Sky said, now sounding much more relaxed. Silver gave no response and kept walking all the way to the end of the corridor, through an archway into a more open space. There 8 other people all sitting around space, eating a meal.
"She's right through there." Sky said, pointing at a door across the space.
"Thank you Sky." Silver said, walking past the other members of his group who shot odd glances at him, visibly nervous because of his presence. He shrugged them off and knocked on the door.
"It's open." A female voice called from the other side. Silver opened the door, stepping inside what appeared to be an office of sorts. From the door, Silver saw a makeshift bed in the corner with a couple bags set nearby. A person was standing, facing a broken window overlooking Crisis City. They stood there in silence for several minutes.
"Hello?" Silver finally said, unsure of what this person was waiting for. The person finally turned around stunning Silver in place. Standing before him, like a ghost, was Blaze. Silver scanned up and down the person before him, unable to believe it was her, it couldn't be. She stood there in silence, her amber eyes burning a hole in his mind. She didn't wear the dress that he was used to. Instead, she wore the cloths of a common survivor. Faded t-shit and a ripped pair of pants. She wore a cloak, presumably to shield herself from the dust. She looked older, though still the same relative age to Silver. Her hair was done up either, but instead kept in a bun.
"Blaze?" Silver said, still in disbelief. Her eyebrows raised, but she initially gave no response. They stood there for another moment, just staring at each other in awkward silence. Finally breaking the silence, Blaze opened her mouth to speak.
"How do you know my name?" The woman said in reply.