Hey guys it's AuthorSkills here and I am happy to say that I am back.

I have had so much happening in my life that I never got back to the story and when I finally got back to it the backlight of my computer died so luckily I got the smart idea to hook it up to my T.V. so now I can see what I am doing so I can make a new chapter. I am now happy to say welcome to the wonderful chapter 9.

Chapter 9

Jack looked around the area so far everything was going great. They had not been followed by any guards and had put plenty of distance between them and the village. The only factor there was that to get to trace's house it meant a small trek through Keidran territory. The only real problem is that the Keidran may think that their group was not friendly and may want to capture them and make them slaves. So as was said before everything was going well Nara was teaching Jackson more human so that he could speak with others and Eric had not caused any problems which helped considering if he did Jack would rip his head off. They had been traveling for quite awhile that day so they decided that it was the best time to stop and set up camp before it got dark and two hard to set up the campsite.

Jack turned to everyone and said, "Alright everyone we will stop here for the night, make sure you get some good sleep because it is going to be a long day tomorrow I want to try and push us through here as fast as we can manage." Everyone nodded their heads and started getting to work on setting up their respective tents. Flora looked to Jackson and said, "You will be sleeping with me and Jack tonight." Jackson smiled happy that he would not be alone at night like he had before he had run into the group. He could still remember not getting any sleep due to the sounds that the forest made at night. Jack got his tent set up first so after he had checked in on everyone he headed out of the clearing that they had found and scouted out the surrounding area. Jack looked for a while and saw nothing of interest around the clearing so he gathered up some firewood and started to head back to where the clearing was. All the while Jack new that something was watching him from cover trying to spy on Jack without being seen, Jack smiled knowing that his training allowed him to not be spied on so easy he could tell easily that the person was in the dense bushes to his left. Two things gave the person away, one being that the person was breathing hard Jack stopped for a second to act like picking up a stick and listen to said person in the bushes breathing. Second was the fact that the person in questions tail was sticking up from behind the bush, it was obvious that whoever was stalking him was very new to it and was still making rookie mistakes.

Jack acted as if to just walk away he heard the person not move from its spot. Jack made up a plan in his mind and acted upon it. He walked for a while then turned and started sneaking around so that he flanked the person that was trying to stalk him. After just a minute he came up slowly behind a younger looking tiger that had a spear lying beside him. It was obvious that he must be a scout from one of the nearby tiger villages. Jack got up lose to the tiger and said, "BOO!" The tiger jumped as Jack hit him in the back of his head making the tiger loose consciousness. Jacked leaned over picked him up and then grabbed his firewood and started heading back towards the clearing.

As Jack entered the clearing all eyes instantly turned to him and widened when they saw Jack carrying the limp body of a tiger over his shoulders, Jack cleared his throat, "Now before anyone flips out I caught this sneaky guy trying to spy on me unlucky for him he made some mistakes and I snuck up behind him and knocked him out." Everyone looked at Jack funny then refocused their attention on the tiger. The tiger started to groan so Jack took him to a nearby tree and grabbed some rope. In just a minute the tiger was tied to the tree unable to move. Moments later the tiger woke up and took in its surroundings. The tigers face turned into one of anger when he saw Jack the tiger then yelled, "You won't get away with this before to long the rest of my group will show up and take you down." Jack just smiled at his threat and said, "Well I was going to ask were the group was and when they were going to show up and take you back but it seems that you have already answered my question." The tiger grew even angrier realizing that it had screwed up again. It then screamed, "You can't get away with this my group will tear you into shreds." Jack just smiled and said, "I would love to see them try." He then hit the tiger again knocking it out.

Jack had a few ideas on how this tigers group would attack and the one he went with was a night attack. Jack told everyone to just go to sleep as normal but Jack was going to sit back in a large bush and wait for the tigers to show themselves. When it started to get dark Jack told everyone to go to bed and get a good night's sleep. Jack himself went over to the bush threw on his night vision goggles and laid prone in the bush waiting for the group of tigers to make a move.

It was a little over an hour when the tigers showed up, in total there was five of them not including the one tied to a tree. They released the one on the tree who was still knocked out from Jack's hit. The tigers started to step towards the tents. Jack would have just left them alone had they just ran off leaving the rest of his group alone but they had made a mistake. They started to walk closer and Jack made the decision that they got too close he then yelled, "Take one more step and your buddy up front gets it." The tiger in the front just smiled thinking that it was a joke trying to get them to run away. The tigers did not realize that when Jack said something he was not joking. The front tiger smiled in Jack's direction and slowly showing off that he was taking another step started to take another step. The second that the lead tigers foot hit the ground Jack pulled the trigger. The loud pop of a shot being slightly lowered in volume was heard and a hole formed in the lead tigers head slowly starting to leak blood. The lead tiger dropped to the ground just five seconds after the shot was fired. The other tigers looked in fear as their leader dropped to the ground dead with only the sound of a loud muffled pop. They looked around in fear trying to see were the shot came from but nothing was visible, Jack then said, "I told you not to take another step now see what you did, now I suggest the rest of you run because the next person that steps towards any of those tents is going to have a bad time." The tigers all turned around and started to run for it, one tripping over the other as they frantically tried to get away from the thing that killed their leader faster than they could blink.

Jack walked over to Trace's tent and poked his head in. Flora was snuggled up next to Trace and Trace had his arm around Flora. Jack smiled and decided against waking up Trace to take over shift so that Jack could get some sleep. Jack walked over to were the remnants of their fire sat smoldering and took a seat on a log that he had found for them to sleep on. Jack just sat thinking about all the things that had happened to him in the short period of time that he had been here and how was the future going to go for him. All he could do about the future was wait and hope that his future was going to be a good one and not one that he would hate for the rest of his life.