Hello again, I've a few things to say to the commenters in the reviews- just to clear a few things up.
Zillafan: While sentient animals and the like are a bit in the realm of fantasy, having straight up LOTR invade isn't really (IE: At all) what I had in mind-maybe a different story for a different time.
AK74FU2: Er… Sorry if I made you change your mind on the direction of your story? I don't know whether I should feel bad or good about that, honestly.
Guest (Y U NO SIGN IN): Introductions will be made, won't spoil how though :)
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Violet and her companions booked it back to the meeting group, who seemed like they were just finishing packing up to leave. All of them came back out of breath, catching the attention of everyone. Violet walked up to her boss, and explained the situation to him.
"A hidden door? Ryan isn't stupid, he wouldn't just go exploring when he knows we're going to leave soon." The horse sighed, "However… I can delay the schedule by an hour more if need be. I don't plan on leaving him lost here either if avoidable." Violets eyes lightened up, so they were going to save him after all? "But! We aren't going to be the ones rescuing. We're archeologists, not spelunkers or a rescue team. I'll call one in, they should be able to fly in within a few hours. Given the information you've told me, that tunnel would be the first place I'll tell them to explore." The horse motioned to a few of his subordinates to follow him.
"A-But, wait! He might not have hours!" Violet ran in front of the horse, "what if he's bleeding out or hit his head on something in the tunnel? Or is lost and waiting hours more will make it even worse?"
"Violet, I'm going to make one thing absolutely, crystal clear. This jungle is completely unmapped, unexplored, and full of unknown dangers. I'm not going to risk four lives of mammals who aren't even trained to go on a rescue mission to maybe rescue one life, and that's that. Got it?" he said in a stern tone. Violets ears flattened, giving him a glare of disapproval. Deep down though, she knew he was right. That tunnel could be full of traps, or rotted out wood boards from an old staircase somewhere down the line. All she could do was hop on the trucks that were due to arrive in a few minutes and hope they found her friend, hopefully alive.
Drip… Drip. She felt a soft liquid fall on her a few times, looking up. Dark clouds were rapidly forming, another thunderstorm. On cue, though, the trucks arrived saving her from getting drenched. As soon as the doors were closed, a sheet of rain started to fall, not a moment too soon. Looking out the back window as the jungle town started to get smaller and smaller, soon covered by the jungle itself, she couldn't help but worry he was in grave danger. That feeling she got when she was alone in that cellar the first time. She couldn't shake it no matter how hard she tried. The feeling of something watching you, like some monster lurking in the shadows. She felt a shiver up her spine at the memory, and started tapping her paw on the door's arm rest. "Please be okay, Ryan." She whispered.
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"When should he be waking up?"
"Could've been five minutes ago, just give a bit"
"I don't see why we're keeping him alive, we can still test with a dead specimen. We already got that from the blood samples and fair follicle anyway. We should've gotten rid of him by now, what's the president thinking keeping that thing here anyway? If he somehow got out, we're all screwed! Also, showing him our history? What's the point? He's not going to be alive much longer anyway"
"Maybe to get some sort of satisfaction? Who knows, once he sees the things their kind did, he might break? She's been acting strange ever since he got him, though"
"Yeah, just a bit. Anyway, those things have about as much empathy as a rock. I'm just waiting for him to try and attack or escape, finally be able to shoot the thing."
"Stop being paranoid, he doesn't even know how he got in here, let alone how to escape. Doubt he's stupid enough to attack any of us anyway"
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"He still should be strapped to the chair"
Ryan was awake, but about ten minutes ago. He kept playing possum, since when he woke he heard voices. Listening to the conversation outside the door was… unsettling to say the least. He couldn't understand a portion of what they were saying when he first woke up, but his senses have since cleared. He heard a click, following the swoosh of air passing by with the door opening. One of his captors came over, probably to see if he was even alive at this point. Ryan knew faking sleep wouldn't work any longer, so decided to "just" wake up.
"Ugh, you guys need cushions on these things, back is killing me" He stretched his arms with a mocking tone. Wait, they were being serious about that last sentence? He wasn't bound? How had he not noticed ten minutes ago? Ryan thought about it for a second, probably being strapped for an entire two days, he just got used to the feeling.
"These chairs aren't meant to be comfortable, quite the opposite." The same female from before approached from behind, an assistant of some sort dragging a fairly large television behind on a cart. The assistant left, closing the door behind with an audible click, signaling that it was locked. "You wanted answers for how we act? For why we think of you the way we do?" her tone was still spiteful, but just a bit less this time around.
"It'd be nice. You wouldn't happen to have any popcorn around would you? I'm a bit hungry after not eating or drinking for two entire days" Ryan smirked, if he was going to die in here, he'd make sure it was on his terms. His terms being, annoying the living hell out of them.
"I really could not care less about what you want or need. Don't try to joke around us, either. I don't find anything you say funny nor will I ever." She took a remote that was set by the T.V. and turned it on, scrolling through the different input options, settling on DVD. "Now shut up and watch, and you'll understand why we're going to put you back where you belong" she walked to the edge of the room.
"And like I said, I belong on-" he was cut off "I said I don't care, now shut up and watch or I'll have you sent to the lab immediately instead of later." That shut him up. So he really was going to die being some experiment? This just keeps getting better and better…
"Just one question, it's been in the back of my mind. Promise it isn't anything bad."
"What." She put a sharpness on the T, obviously getting annoyed.
"What are you mammals anyway?" Ryan asked. She didn't respond, choosing to ignore him instead.
The female flipped through a few options and started the DVD. A few seconds of black, then another figure appeared. This seemed like the male of their species, judging by how drastically different it looked to the one beside him.
"Hello. If you are watching this, it means the worst has come to pass. You are one of the last underground cities constructed in the wake of the crisis. In the information center are thousands of books, computers, and information on all of our technologies we could put in there, top secret or not. It's unfortunate it's come to this, but it's too late to regret it now. As it stands, you must act as if you are the last humans on Earth. Perhaps, with enough time or luck, you can take what's ours back." A series of explosions could be heard, another voice spoke.
"Sir, we're running out of time."
"I know, I know. One last thing. Do not trust any animals, specifically mammals. They are deceiving, and will kill you the first chance they get. Assume all have been infected, and kill any that could expose you. We've already cured the aquatic life and insects, so there is no need to worry about them. However, we didn't have enough time to develop a cure for most of the mammal kingdom. Now, we're out of time, and out of hope. Hopefully you, the future of our species, can-" this time, a door being broken down was heard.
"Sir, we're out of time, we need to move now!" the video ended a few seconds later. The "female human" as he now knew, took the DVD out, and set it on the desk by the T.V. Silence enveloped the room, until the female spoke up.
"Do you get it now? You're a product of an experiment that went horribly wrong. Because of that, more than seven billion people died in the span of two years. We have a right to hate you, for what your kind has done. We have a right to just kill you, whether you present a threat at the moment or not. Your kind tried to kill all of us off. Now that we have the upper hand, it's time to return the favor." She had her arms crossed, staring daggers at Ryan.
"… Are you stupid?" he said in the most monotonous voice he had ever.
"Excuse me?" she was shocked at his audacity to say something like that, just after being shown how horrible his kind was.
"I asked you if you're stupid" he shook his head a second later, continuing "So let me get this straight. We used to be savage, you had some sort of experiment, or whatever. It goes wrong, infects everything-which is weird considering the DNA differences… Anyway, now, thousands of years later you still think we're responsible for what our ancestors ancestors did?!" he raised his voice, did this species really believe that mammal kind was still responsible for what happened back then? "Whatever we were like back then, we are nothing like that now." He finished.
"You are a threat and a plague on this world! Who cares if it happened twenty five thousand years ago? You're still the same animals, the same failed experiment. If you had the chance, you would try to kill me, just like he said!" she pointed to the T.V.
"Did I try to kill you when I woke up? What about right now? I'm untied, I could kill you in a matter of seconds." He signaled he was not bound anymore.
"Oh? Try getting up, I'm sure you'll have a great time." She pointed to the bottom of the chair. Ryan peered over, trying to look. "If you so much as lift a centimeter off the chair, prongs will shoot out of the holes under your legs, giving you quite the shock until your hearts stops beating. I'm completely safe, you really think we're so careless? You're dumber than I thought" she scoffed. Ryan felt anger building up in him, they really did not know when to let go of the past, did they?
"Look. Like you said, twenty five THOUSAND years! We aren't some monsters waiting for you to slip up, we aren't trying to kill you!" He slammed his paws on the arm rests. "I can guarantee you, if you went up to the surface, to one of our cities, nothing would happen to you. Sure, you'd get weird looks, but why wouldn't you? No one knows you humans even exist! You've been hiding underground, obviously brainwashing generation after generation of kits to hate us, just like you do. Let me ask you this, before you send me off to my death by experimentation. Aside from your hatred and distain of us, and our species being different, what's so different about us individually? You can't really believe that we're responsible for something that happened that freaking long ago."
"Oh? I can't?" she walked over to him, standing about two feet away. "If it wasn't for your kind deciding you should own the world, we could have made so many advancements. We could be settling new planets, extend lifetimes into the hundreds as a minimum, discover an unlimited source of electricity and power. But no, you animals for whatever reason, decided you were better than us. Now we've been forced to live underground, do you think we enjoy this? Do you think we enjoy having up until now, thought you beasts were still hunting us, trying to wipe us out once and for all? Do you think we enjoy eating literally the same thing over and over again?" She was rambling, and Ryan tired of it quickly.
"And I told you not even three minutes ago that if you go up there, nothing will happen!" he interrupted. "I've told you at least three times now. We are not the same as back then, so give us a chance before you decide to go to war with the entire world! Do you think you even have a chance against us even if you did?"
"You copied our technology, and didn't even do a very good job at many parts of it. Especially your military technology. Do you think we aren't prepared for this?" she had a small smirk, and gave a small huff of a laugh. "We've been focusing on rebuilding ourselves, sure. But we haven't neglected rebuilding our military might. Just because you have millions of animals to throw at us, does not mean you'll win."
"And what if you somehow take over the world again? Will you just kill all of us, just like you say we are trying to do?"
"It's different in our case" she responded.
"HOW?! You're doing the same thing! For all intents and purposes, you lost a war, badly. But that doesn't give you the right to try and get revenge when the ones responsible have been dead for millennia! How can you humans hold a grudge like this for so long? Just let it go!" that earned him a hard slap across the face from her.
"Let the past go? The past is all we have!" she was now yelling. Ryan felt like he was talking to a wall. She seriously thinks that nothing has changed since that video was recorded. In a way though, he felt a bit of pity and sorrow for her, and probably the rest of the humans living down here. Living in constant fear that at any moment, a sworn enemy will swoop in and kill you? No wonder they're paranoid.
"Exactly, the past. We are not living in the past. We are living in the present. The past is over, no one alive then is alive now. I'm going to sound like a broken record, but none of us want to hurt you, we don't even know that you exist." He strained his words as much as possible, trying to get through her paranoia. "I get it, to you I'm a monster that wants to kill you all. I'm just deceiving you until I get the perfect moment to strike. You live in fear that this just might be your last day. You've prepared for it, sure, but you still live in fear of that thought." He finished. The female was silent, either at a loss for words at how he actually understood, or just preparing another strike. Ryan figured it was the latter. He thought for a bit, and continued "Are we all good? No, not by a long shot. Just recently we put a mayor in prison for a conspiracy against the populous." Just pry a bit further… "I know that to you, I'll never deserve any trust, but I'm going to ask you to trust me anyway. Go up there, take a look for yourself. Don't take my word for it that we aren't all bad. I'm sure you can disguise yourself, so just go into a city and just walk around." He finished. The human was giving him a dumbfounded look, as if he just said the single dumbest thing she had ever heard. She rubbed her temples before speaking.
"My god… you really are an idiot. We. Cannot. Trust. You. What part of that do you not understand? I'm not going to risk everything we have for an if scenario. You will be tested upon, thereafter discarded. Got it?"
"Okay, I am NOT going to be some project for you guys." He nearly stood up from his chair, but remembered the shock-death that would ensue if he did.
"You don't have a choice, shouldn't have been snooping around so close to an entrance." She waved him off. "Besides, we'll sedate you. Mostly to make it easier for us, but a side effect is that you won't feel any pain." She started to walk towards the door, and was only a few feet away.
"I'm going to die if I stay here, I have to at least try." He thought. Now or never, he figured. He shot up from the chair, the prongs shot out, but instead of getting up the normal way, he used his arms to propel himself upwards, making the chair lean forward, which in turn made the prongs miss completely. The chair and he collapsed, making the female turn around. He darted up, making a mad dash towards her, which in turn, made her frantically try to hit the switch to dive under the door. Luck wasn't on her side, as he grabbed her arm just as she was about to hit the switch. Commotion could be heard outside, they obviously were watching them and were on alert. Ryan saw a button with the words "Emergency lock" and smashed it with his free paw. Three bars shot out in front of the door, securing it from opening. The female managed to break free of his grip, and leapt back a few feet. Ryan didn't notice until now, probably because he was stuck in a chair for the better part of two days, but she was surprisingly shorter than him by a good half foot. Taking her down would be a lot easier with his height advantage.
"Crafty" she said, "I'll give you animals that" she quickly lifted the side of her shirt, revealing a pistol in a small holster. "But you really can't think I would come in here unprotected" she took a stance, pointing the firearm at him. Ryan felt a shiver in his spine, there's no way he could dodge a bullet, and knowing this species and their apparent "advanced military technology" as she put it, he might as well expect the bullet to fly itself at him if he somehow managed to dodge the initial firing. Knowing that against even a regular firearm, fighting with bare paws wasn't a good option, talking was all he could do.
"Look, just put the gun away, I don't want to fight you" he put his arms up in surrender. "I'm telling you, none of us do. But I get that words and anecdotes aren't going to convince you, fine. But, I know for a fact I had my phone on me when you dragged me down here. Take a look inside at the pictures, we don't live in the wild or whatever you might think. We're civilized, hell, the phone alone proves that!"
"I never said you lived in the wild. We know you live in cities, suburbs, burrows even for some of you lot, we have spies for that. However, they never came in any form of contact with you, our thinking of you still applies. Any trust placed in you will surely be taken advantage of, and will cause our deaths. That video and countless documentation of the aftermath of our fall proves that."
"That "proof" is twenty five thousand years old! Things change! Is nothing going to get through that thick head of yours?!" he yelled. "Heck, I'd probably have a better time convincing a brick wall than you."
"Personal jabs aren't going to earn you any favors here. Quite the opposite, in fact." She cocked the hammer, making Ryan mentally kick himself. He could have jumped her before she cocked it. "Now, turn around and get on your knees, this ends now" she narrowed her eyes at him.
"You can't be serious" a bullet whizzed past his head, "Alright, you're serious!" he turned around.
"I said, on your knees" she fired another shot at him, missing his leg by a hair.
"Hah, if I'm going to die, I'm going to do it standing. Might as well keep a little bit of my pride, right?" he laughed slightly. He heard her take a few steps toward him, poking the back of his head with the end of her pistol.
"No, pride is for those who earned it, not those who grew up from those who stole it. Now, get on your damn knees." She was clearly at a level between fuming and pissed at his obvious laughter in the face of death.
"Alright, they did it in the movies. Can't be that hard, right?" Ryan thought. "Make sure you don't hit the good looking side, I want my funeral picture to be the best it can" he said aloud. He felt the gun lift off for a split second, but then the sound of a shot went off, another bullet went past his head. The ringing in his ears hurt like hell. He got the message, and slowly started to kneel, still feeling the end of the barrel against his head. He finally got down to both knees, before the female spoke.
"For someone who makes such bad jokes in with a gun pointed at him, you really would think-" he spun around, causing her to fire at him, but only managed to piece his right ear. He yelped in pain, but kept his momentum, driving himself into her. In the next moment, he threw her down on the floor, jumping on top of her. He saw the look of desperation in her eyes, true fear. She really thought he was going to kill her outright. But as soon as his thought was finished, she replaced the fear with what almost looked like surrender, but with a bit of sass. "That I would have a plan up my sleeve? Yeah, you spoke a bit too late" he knocked the gun away from her far across the room. No way for her to run to it in time if she managed to get out of his grip.
"You kill me, and those guards will do things many times worse than originally planned." He pressed one of his claws to her neck, he figured a vulnerable spot. A few seconds later banging on the door was heard, obviously trying to break in.
"I'm going to die anyway, aren't I? Might as well take you with me then, right?"
"Then get it over with" okay, THAT surprised him. She was going to give up so easily? More banging was heard, but no visible progress on the door was found when he turned around. "Well?!" she was now staring daggers at him. Ryan sighed, and withdrew his claw and stood up. She remained on the ground, only lifting her head and giving him a confused look. "You… aren't going to kill me?"
"No, I wasn't planning on it. We "savage beasts" have a lot more value for life than you seem to. So no, I'm not going to kill you. That door doesn't seem to be wanting to give out anytime soon either." He glanced at the door again, the banging continued. After a few more slams, it stopped. He heard a series of small plops on the door. "That can't be good" he heard a small beep start. Explosives, they were planning on blowing out the door. The female spoke up, but for once it wasn't directed at him.
"Lieutenant, stop the breach." She stood up, and turned to look at Ryan. He raised an eyebrow at her before she continued "You had a choice to kill me, but you didn't. Consider this repayment for not slicing my neck open, but if I ever see you or any of your kind again, you will be shot on sight" she hit the emergency button again, the bars retracting. The door opened, with three males bursting in. Two escorted the female out, while the other tackled Ryan in the span of one second. He brought a knife out, ready to stab him. "Lieutenant! I said stop!" she shouted.
"He was going to kill you!" he didn't turn to her, still committing full focus to Ryan in case he tried anything. "We can't trust him either. He needs to be eliminated."
"He had a choice, and chose to spare me."
"He probably figured he would get a favor from you for doing so. Why can't you see that?"
"Do I get a say in any of this?" the lieutenant pressed the knife against his neck just a bit harder.
"Shut it, mongrel. The male spat.
"Lieutenant, last warning, let him up." She spoke. The lieutenant stayed there with the knife pressed against Ryan neck, but gave a small growl and threw the knife into the wall instead and stood up and turned towards her.
"What has gotten into you?! He's the enemy! The same thing responsible for our current situation! He'll kill us if he has a chance!"
"You might be right, he could have figured that not killing me could in turn force me to spare his own. However, he is our first contact in over twenty five thousand years. All our guides say they'll kill as many as possible before getting killed themselves, yet he decides not to kill me." She sighed, and turned to Ryan. "You say that your kind don't want to fight us, or even know of us. I can't take your word on either of those statements." She stopped to think. "But, you chose not to kill me, when in your mind it was probably justified to do so. For that, I'm otherwise forced to do the same to you" she signaled to the two guards to bring him up to his feet. "Well, Ryan? You said I should give you blind faith, so, in exchange for… not murdering me, I'll spare you. Also, never speak of our existence to anyone. If I catch wind that you did, I will have you tortured until you die. It will not be slow, either, it will be months before I allow you to die, am I understood?"
"Uh… Y-yeah, sure. J-Just…" he shook his head. "Just hold on a second, you're seriously just going to…. Let me go?"
"I can revert my decision at any time if you prefer that instead" she crossed her arms.
Rumble. The lights spazzed, the ground shaking. "What in blazes-!" an explosion was heard soon after. An alarm started blaring. A voice over an intercom started talking.
"Alert, alert! Breach in sector two! Unknown intruders breaching sector two!" it repeated itself. The four humans turned towards Ryan. He held his arms up and spoke.
"I swear I have no idea what's going on, I don't think I really did for the most part of being down here, in fact." He said. Gunfire was heard a few halls down, commotion following it. The female pointed at one of her guards. "Get that mutt out of here, then report back to the barracks!" the guard nodded, and grabbed Ryan by the arm and ran. They didn't make it far, however, as Ryan heard zips fly past him and his escort. They dove into a small indented section of the hallway for cover. Ryan turned to look back, the female and the two males were gone. The ground started to shake again, another explosion was heard soon after. Footsteps from where the gunfire came from was heard, and Ryan's escort drew a pistol from his holster. He peeked around before instantly ducking back behind the wall again, more bullets flew past a nanosecond later.
"Fucking Polts" Ryan heard him say. Curious, Ryan took a peek over, but then scrambling behind the wall again as more bullets wizzed past.
"Question" Ryan said. His escort looked at him. "Why are those humans firing at you, who are also human? I thought you guys were trying to kill us? Not each other?" Ryan pointed in their direction, then at his escort.
"Different civilization." Was all he said. "We can't stay here, follow me." He dove from his hiding spot, shooting blindly in the direction of the opposition to force them to take cover. They ran to the opposite side of the hall, going through a door into a small room.
"Great, instead of being in a hallway with no cover, we're in a confined space for them to just take their time." Ryan looked around, no other doors in sight.
"You must not be very perceptive" he pointed to a ventilation grate, "In you go"
"The thing is bolted to the wall, and I don't see-" he didn't get to finish the sentence, his escort shot the bolts off, the grate falling to the ground with a loud clang. "Well, that solves that problem" the door started to get pounded on, they were almost out of time. Ryan climbed in, his escort following suit. The male propped up the grate as best he could in a few seconds to buy some time, but it wouldn't take long for the intruders to realize what they'd done. They started crawling through the ventilation shaft, when the male spoke up
"We'll take two left turns, then one right. There will be another grate, so let me through first" he said. A small explosion could be heard from the room they were in, multiple footsteps following. Ryan couldn't understand what they were saying, but it sounded confused if he had to guess. They reached their destination, and his escort shot out four more bolts, the grate fell with another loud clang, and hopped out. Ryan followed shortly after, though when he looked up, he could say he didn't like the fact that there were at least twenty assault rifles pointed at him.
"Calm down, he's with me" he heard his escort say through the crowd of people. Ryan could see the hesitation as they slowly lowered their arms, but they couldn't disobey their apparent commander. They kept a close eye on him as he walked past, and Ryan caught up with the closest thing he could call an ally.
"So… I'm guessing I'm not going home any time soon?" Ryan chimed. His escort looked at him, giving an eye roll, and turned back to walk to where he originally was. Ryan pushed through the small crowd, and saw his "favorite" captor talking with one of her men. She saw him out of the corner of her eye, and stopped talking to whoever it was she was talking to. She looked to his escort, "Why isn't he out of here? In fact, why did you even bring him here?" she walked up to him, Ryan could almost say it looked cute that she had to almost turn her head 90 degrees to look at his face.
"He won't try anything with those guns pointed at him, not unless he's stupid enough to try." He looked at Ryan, then back at her, "Besides, once we open the bay doors and fly out of here, he can walk back."
"That all depends if we can even get to the hangar. They brought an entire platoon here. This is just a temporary outpost with limited defenses, we don't have the capability to fight them off. Our communications are all cut off, and they took control of the command center almost instantly. It's only a matter of time before they figure out where we are."
"So, is this going to be our last stand, then?" He asked.
"Please, I've gotten us out of worse" she turned to the blockaded doors at the other end of the barracks. "We just need to divert them far away from the hangar, to the other side of the facility. It would take them at least five minutes to run all the way back to the hangars with all the stairs and corridors they'll have to go through."
"They're not stupid, they'll leave large groups throughout the place to keep watch." He stopped, probably thinking of their best strategy in his mind "There's about one thousand of them, and twenty five of us. What could we possibly do with those odds stacked against us?"
"We have an animal" she turned to Ryan, as did half of the group of humans. Ryan pointed to himself, then shoved his arms out in front of himself, shaking his paws. "Woah, woah. Look, I'm not a military type of guy. I mean, yeah, I was a cop for a few years, but I don't think-"
"I'll take the liberty of absolving you of that duty, all you have to do is listen. You wanted to earn my trust? This is how you'll do it." Footsteps could be heard on the floor below, "Not like you have much a choice in the matter, anyway"
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Well, I revised a good portion of this chapter, rewrote a good tenth of it when reading it and it just not making sense in my head. But all in all, I think this one turned out well. Hope I'm at least improving, at the least. Also, now that I think of it, some of you may be confused at how I introduce characters. By that, I mean not describing them at the moment they are introduced, IE: "X" appeared, having blah blah blah eyes, and yadda yadda yadda fur. Every time I read that, I get sent a bit off, if that makes any sense. So for further reference, I'll subtly tell the features of the characters. If you paid attention, I did this in the first chapter, so expect more of that, basically.
Anywho, until next time, later.