Trinity: I'm back. Sorry for such a late update. Went out of town.
Shadow: And couldn't find a computer?
Trintiy: Not a single one. (sigh) Forgive me?
Jake: I don't see why they shouldn't. You're still pretty prompt compared to some other authors...
Trintiy: How true...Anyways, go back to the desert, guys! You have a show to do!
Tails: Heat...I hate heat...
I own nothing! Isn't that a big surprise?
Chapter 12 – Reunion with the Pack
The cruel sun hung high in the midday sky, torching those forced to walk underneath it. Shadow trotted through the heat of the desert, staring straight ahead into the mirages dancing on the sand in the distance. Yellow Gas swirled around his ankles and parted for his falling feet. Tails walked directly behind him with his chin buried in his chest and eyes closed. The suns rays fell on top of his head and he groaned a little, urging himself on, despite the heat.
Jake walked behind the two, reminiscing.
It has been two weeks since the three were driven out of Flora City by Harold. Jake and Shadow had to restrain Tails from ripping his throat out. Annabel ran up to the weasel and beat him with her tiny fist, begging him to change his mind. The gun shot that echoed down the street shocked them into silence. He ignored everyone else and told them to leave again.
Jake didn't fight it and left without another word. He had actually been looking for an excuse to leave. He told Shadow and Tails that if staying in the city would bring them nothing but danger, then he would gladly leave. It was obvious the Desert Pirates need his leadership anyways.
Shadow, on the other hand, had to drag the fox boy down the street and forced him to march out of the town. Annabel ran screaming and begging after them. Jake let her follow him to the edge of the city, where he showed her where he buried their parents. But a layer of Yellow Gas covered their graves and Jake refused to let her come with them.
"It's too dangerous for a little girl," Jake said sternly.
Harold, who was following them with his riffle over his shoulder, took the girl gently by her hand. Jake and Harold stared at each other for awhile before Jake turned his back on his home for a second time and left Flora City. Harold watched them walk away, and only when they were nothing more than dots on the horizon did he lead the wailing girl away.
However, Jake was starting to feel the consequences. It was a lot easier to leave the town years ago, when he thought everyone was dead. Now, all he could think about was the tear stained face of his crying sister. Now, she truly is alone. She knows I'm alive, but she will never see me again. Jake watched his feet rise and fall gloomily. Am I allowed no happiness?
Jake's head snapped up immediately as they passed a lone rock that was oddly cylinder in shape. He recognized the landmark and jogged to take a place next to Shadow. The dark hedgehog, wrapped in his traveling cloak again, came out of his trance and glanced over to Jake. Jake gave him a look and Shadow let him take the lead. He knew his way around this part of the desert after all.
Tails, now in the rear, lifted his head as well and looked around curiously. There was a certain spark of life that accompanied a city that he knew all to well. He could smell a waft of smoke in the air, and he could hear, or perhaps feel, the laughter of children. The line picked up the pace, desperate to get out of the sun. Soon the three were standing at the edge of a giant ravine and Tails jaw dropped.
In the middle of the ravine, there was a plateau that rose higher than the bottom of the valley. On the highland was a huge town whose walls stood at the very edge of the plateau. The Yellow Gas streamed over the side of the cliff like a waterfall, disappearing into the deep, dark valley far below. A little to their left was a stone arch that had been reinforced with metal beams. The three quickly went over the bridge, thankful for the possible rest from the terrible sun. They soon stood in the tall, arched entryway to the plateau city.
"Welcome to Callor," Jake murmured to the other two, grinning at the awed look on the kit's face.
Callor was huge. Only a year old, it rose from the ashes of the defeated and destroyed Callor Military Base. Because if was such a perfect spot- easy to defend, free from Yellow Gas, and an optimal trading post- the city grew and expanded at an explosive rate. From the arch under which the group stood under, a wide road lead straight to and all the way around the marketplace at the center of the city. The marketplace, which could be seen from the entry, was a bustling place filled with men and women trading, shouting deals to each other and trying to keep their children out of mischief.
Jake led Shadow and Tails toward the market place, staying close to the shadows of the large and neatly spaced houses. He abruptly turned down a side road, veering off toward the outskirts of the city. Perplexed, Shadow and Tails followed him. The small road became rough, bumpy, then little more than a well traveled dirt path. The houses were crowded together here, unkempt and moldy. There was no laughter here, just shady figures that walked past them quickly, skirting the other side of the narrow road.
"Where are you taking us?" Shadow asked quietly, eyeing an unusual old man who sat in a creaking rocking chair on his front porch. He had a pipe in his mouth that had burnt out awhile ago, and for some reason had a hood pulled over his head so you couldn't see him in the shady ally.
Jake shushed Shadow and quickened his pace. The old man's face followed them as they hurried down the street, his chair creaking eerily. Jake lead Shadow and Tails around a corner, down a twisting, buckling lane, up some stairs, over a low wall, and stopped infront of a pair of buildings standing so close together they almost touched. The one on the right was a three story building, and according to the signs next to the door, was a hospital on the first floor, with several offices from rent of the second and third floors. On the left was a series of connected stores, each two floors.
Jake looked up and down the lane, then up at the windows of the businesses. With no one in sight, Jake squeezed into the space between the buildings. Tails, glancing around at Shadow, followed quickly. The black hedgehog trailed them, after one final check up and down the street. Shuffling between the buildings until they reached the back, they came to a building almost touching the hospital and offices. Hidden in the tiny space between the three buildings was a staircase heading down underneath them.
The three climbed their way down underneath the unkempt buildings and deep into the plateau itself. The stairs leveled out into a carved tunnel. The light that shone down from the staircase lit only a small area of the tunnel, leaving the rest so dark that even Shadow's eyes had a hard time adjusting to the gloom. Tails peered uneasily down the tunnel, which extended both directions from base of the stairs.
"Are we gonna walk down there without any light?" Tails asked.
"Just wait," Jake said calmly. He sat on the stairs and rested his forehead on his folded hands.
They did wait. Tails had just stared pacing up and down the pool of light when Shadow caught movement out of the corner of his eye. Down the tunnel to his left came a figure, walking down the stone passageway. He stopped just out of Jake's and Tails range of sight. Shadow alerted his comrades to the figures presence, staring pointedly at the person's outline. The figure chuckled and a faint click echoed down the tunnel.
"Why does everyone have guns?" Tails muttered darkly.
"Identify yourselves," demanded a female voice.
"Lillian, it's me," Jake said softly. The women gasped.
"…Jake?"
"Yeah," The rat raised his head and turned his face toward the woman, the light from above illuminated his face. She gasped again.
"I thought…no, you're dead!"
"Nice to see you too," Jake said dryly. He rose to his feet and Shadow saw the silhouette jerk its gun toward him.
"Don't you move! It's a trick…it's gotta be…"
"Well now," Jake said in dark amusement, "you're not going to shoot me are you? If you kill me and I really do turn out to be Jake, you'll be in deep shit for killing your leader. What are you going to do? I know the way in, so you can't just let us walk away."
"You're Jake alright," the woman said in voice that suggested she was grinning. "I'll bring you in just in case. March! And don't try anything funny."
Shadow, Tails and Jake filed pasted the gunwoman, and she followed on their heels. They stumbled down the dark tunnel, stopping in front of a very big, very heavy, wooden door. The woman Jake called Lillian knocked twice not on the door, but on a hallow area in the stone wall. A series of clinks and clicks and the large door swung into a large, circular room with a dome ceiling. It was lit only by a few flickering torches on the walls and a candle chandelier swinging above them.
"I brought our 'visitors,'" Lillian said. She stepped into the light spilling out of the door way, and Shadow and Tails saw their capture at last. She was a pure white cat with slanted green eyes. She wore something like a cloth tunic over a loose fitting pair of pants and a nice pair of boots. The thick leather belt around her waist supported two gun holsters and a strap of leather wrapped around her thigh held a sheathed dagger.
"One of our 'visitors' looks rather familiar."
Shadow looked around room, surveying their current hosts. The one who spoke was a lizard who leaned against the wall with his arms crossed over his chest, and seemed to be the oldest in the room. Many calves, pups, kits, and cubs sat scattered through the room. A pair of bat twins, both boys, hung from the chandelier, looking down at the three guests. They all wore worn cloth clothing, loose fitting and comfortable, and all had the tattoo of Jake's scar across their faces. Only the oldest –the lizard, the cat, and a bull sitting in a chair- seemed to recognize Jake.
"I though you were dead," the broad-chest bull huffed, glaring at Jake through one open eye. He looked like he just woke up from a nap.
"You all really don't have a lot of faith in me, do you?" Jake said dully. He strolled into the room and stood just under the chandelier. The young ones started to stir and whispered to themselves. Jake simply frowned, looking around the room.
"Faith? How did you think we'd react after you disappear, then just stroll right in here after a year?" the lizard commented sleepily. He heaved a sigh and lifted his head to fully regard Jake. "Anyways, welcome back, boss."
"Welcome back? Welcome back!" Lillian screeched. "After being gone for a year?"
"I'm just saying hi, gees. Calm down Lillian. It's not like I bowed to him and proclaimed him my eternal master."
"You don't expect us to start taking orders from him anymore after what happened, do you? After all the hardship we had to endure on our own in his absences!" The cat whirled on Jake, the rat matching her stare unflinchingly. "You just stroll right in here like nothing's new. Do you really intend to take power back from the Five?"
"Well, I didn't think it would be that easy, but I will bring order back into this group. I don't like what I saw in town," Jake's eyes drifted to the youngsters crowded into the room. "We're drifting apart."
"That's what happened when kids grow up. They grow distant from their friends and split apart," The bull said. He stretched his hands to the ceiling and stood to his full height of 6 feet 6 inches. "But you're one to talk. Where were you?"
"Flora," Jake said simply. Shadow and Tails, who had been ignored thus far, shifted slightly. They weren't sure their part of this story should be told.
"Flora? Flora City? What for?" the lizard asked. They had his full attention now, and even the cat was listening, though she pretended not to.
"There were survivors, Jet. Annabel…she's alive."
"Your sister? In that case, I understand why you left, but why didn't you stay with her?"
"I'm a trouble maker, no matter where I am. Circumstances drove me and my friends out of Flora City."
The lizard looked Tails, then Shadow, up and down. His eyes lingered on Shadow for a moment, before he looked back to Jake. Lillian and the bull eyed Shadow a bit as well. The youngsters, genuinely confused, didn't understand what those looks meant.
"Your friends don't look like they'd belong here," The bull said. "Why did you bring them?"
"I might have been presumed dead for a year, but my poster is still up in town. I couldn't risk leading them anywhere but here."
"And what kind of trouble did they get you into that drove you apart from your sister?"
"They didn't do anything. Bubba showed up."
"That coward is still alive?" Lillian hissed angrily.
"Not anymore."
Shadow: Gasp! The truth!
Tails: We said...nothing...the whole time.
Shadow: (shrug) We'll talk a lot next time.
Trinity: How do you know?
Shadow: We're going to talk our way into the Desert Pirates trusting us.
Trinity: ...damn...
Jake: Don't forget, you have to explain the Five.
Trinity: Hush!
Annabel: (holding a VOTE FOR TCNK sign) Tee hee!
