Chapter 116: Social Norms.
Pemistra Gloryfang looked around at the incredible interspecies medley that was assembled in the cave that was serving as the alliance FOB in the Blood Plains.
It truly was an amazing sight to behold and it truly resonated with her and her rather odd pack given their nature.
While these days interspecies packs were becoming far more the norm than say fifty years ago, her pack was definitely what most Serpentinus packs and indeed Raptorian prides would consider outside of the bounds of the societal norm.
All of them had met on the battlefield where they had fought alongside one another in a glorious showing of what both the good and brave Raptorian women as well as the best of the Serpentinus could do when they fought side by side for the glory of the Great Tree.
But nothing could have prepared them for what these bugs were capable of, or the lengths they would go to in order to achieve their ends.
Both her own pack and their best friends the Littleclaw pride had taken losses on the field and they had lost beloved sisters that had left gaping holes in their groups that simply could not be healed or filled.
Losing a packmate was like losing a part of yourself, like an internal organ or a limb.
Once it was gone it was always gone no matter what you did to try and fix it.
But in a strange twist of fate, both her own pack and the Littleclaw pride had been fighting side by side and lost their sisters on the same day in the same battle.
This had caused something strange to happen, it was like their shared grief somehow untied them into one unified and unstoppable force.
Side by side and together they had turned that shared grief into raw anger, both her remaining pack sisters and now their Littleclaw pride allies had charged together as one unified whole right towards the enemy position that had so callously cut down their beloved sisters.
Together they had stormed that fortification and had cleared it out, not stopping until every single bug they could find within its walls lay dead, not dying, dead.
After the fight was done their allies in Clan Mason had offered their very genuine and heartfelt sympathy for their losses and had even offered to help carry their fallen sisters from the battlefield.
But they would hear none of it, these were their sisters and it was their burden to carry them home, but somehow it just felt normal and indeed right to allow the members of the Littleclaw pride to help them while they too also assisted the Littleclaw pride.
Together they had carried their fallen pride and pack sisters from the field of battle all the way back to the FOB where their bodies were handed off to the Battle Angels of Clan Mason who interred them in some of their special stasis coffins for transfer home.
Both pack and pride watched together as their beloved sisters were carried into a room where they were placed under an honour guard that was made up of every Clan regiment as well as its new allies, it was at this moment that both of them understood that if there was anyone who could understand both their grief and their loss it was Clan Mason.
To them every Clan member's life was sacred and if you fell in service to the Clan then the Clan avenged you, no questions and no debate.
They were duty and honour bound to one another just like any good Pack or Pride was.
In that moment they understood them a lot better and they also understood each other much better as well.
She couldn't actually even remember who had made the suggestion to merge her pack and the Littleclaw pride together into one unified whole, or even if the suggestion was actually ever spoken aloud in words at all, to be honest.
But it just seemed to be both the norm and comfortable for them all to be together, united in their grief, their loss and their thirst for justice for their fallen sisters as well as something else that she simply could not put her finger on.
But there it was the birth of a new whole under the sight of the Great Tree, a Serpentinus pack and a Raptorian pride merging together as one into one unified whole.
Somehow it just felt right and soon enough it felt like they'd known their new little Raptorian packmates their entire lives.
They achieved a harmonious unity just like any good pack or indeed pride would, they worked, ate, showered and slept together as a whole.
They were one now and they all knew that this was not just a battlefield thing, this was a lifetime thing.
One surprisingly fond new memory that Pemistra had was of them all sitting around a small campfire in the desert, hidden in the gully formed between two mighty dunes and protected by the vehicles all around them.
Together as they ate they began to share stories and memories of their fallen sisters, much laughter and even a few tears were shed that night but this only served to truly forge their fractured hearts into one newer and stronger one.
Also on that night, they all learned something else that all of them had in common, their mutual attraction to humans.
This had come about from Gizka who was one of their new Raptorian packmates.
The little red and yellow-scaled female had been sharing a story of how Cotal who was one of their fallen sisters had reacted the first time she'd seen humans during the war for Raptoria.
They had all been at home desperately watching Pride Life Today News for any word on what was happening on the surface of their beloved home and suddenly boom!
There he was on their screen, one of the most beautiful creatures they had ever seen in their lives.
It was of course Hunter Smoke or the Guardian of Males as he was collectively known to the Raptorian people for his selfless act of protecting innocent males and male children from the vicious intentions of a vile mimic in one of their cities.
The way Gizka told the story it was as if Cotal's very feathers had simply exploded off her body at the mere sight of him and she had been so drawn to him that she had actually wound up bumping her snout on the TV screen before she'd snapped back into reality and remembered it was just a picture.
Ever since that moment, the whole pride had been fascinated by these oddly beautiful alien creatures.
So imagine their shock when they found out that they came in such a wide variety of shapes, sizes and flavours!
That's when they got an even bigger shock and this one rocked them to their very core so much so that they'd wound up having to go and see the High Priestess pride about.
They found out that not only were they attracted to human males, but also human females as well.
This had confused the life out of them because never in their lives had they looked at another female the way they were looking at those born of humanity.
But thanks to the guidance of the very understanding High Priestess Pride they had come to understand that love comes in so many different shapes and sizes that it is basically a law unto itself.
That meant that only deities like the Great Tree herself could truly understand it, let alone even attempt to predict it.
According to her new little packmates the High Preistess Pride who according to them were Ghost Slitherers like those of their own homeworld that Clan Mason had trained and then returned to them had simply told them that there was nothing wrong with them or their desires.
This resonated with Pemistra and her pack sisters on a very deep level as they too had quite an unnerving experience upon their first meeting with humanity.
At first, they had actually been unable to tell their genders apart given that female Serpentinus were larger than their males by a good margin this was something they had taken for granted.
So when they had first seen a picture of a human male they assumed that they were female due to the size alone, but it had shocked them to realise that each and every member of the pack had looked at them with the same desire-filled eyes.
This had unsettled them even more so when they saw an actual picture of a human female and had their mistake explained to them but what made it worse was that they'd found that picture attractive too!
But now hearing these words from their new little packmates actually went a long way to quell their confused hearts.
Every good Serpentinus knew these days that words said by a Ghost Slitherer were words that could very well come directly from the Great Tree herself due to their connection to her mighty roots.
This gave them a very distinct weight that needed to be at the very least respected.
So to hear these soothing words coming from the Raptorians Ghost Slitherers was quite a relief to both her and her pack sisters as she knew it was a fear that they had all worried over.
Homosexual packs were surprisingly not common for the Serpentinus, which given the species' gender demographic being heavily weighted in the favour of females was something of a surprise.
Truth be told the same was true of the Raptorians and their population was even more weighted in the females favour.
You would have thought that such demographics would create such pairings due to the longing need and deep yearning for love but surprisingly not.
Now these did not mean that they did not exist because of course they did and in all honesty, these pairings were actually celebrated by the other females of their species because they took out a number of potential competitors for the scarce males.
On the flip side of the coin, however, both species did despair over male-on-male homosexuality and to both species shame there were points in their distant pasts where such pairings were outright banned.
Though thankfully much more modern minds accepted that you simply cannot control who you fall in love with nor is it anyone else's business in truth.
So when their new little Raptorian pack mates had confided this obviously deep secret in their new Serpentinus sisters it marked a milestone in their relationship as a pack and so she and her sisters had confessed their own feelings to them.
This newfound trust and closeness between them had brought the newly forged interspecies pack closer and forged them even stronger than before.
Together they not only promised that they would avenge their fallen sisters together by killing a bug for every single beautiful scale on their fallen sister's bodies, but also by snagging themselves a trophy of Clan Mason's to take home with them when this war was done.
Either male or female they didn't care, they had even discussed the possibility even being so lucky and blessed by the Great Tree that by her mighty fortunes they managed to snag one of each.
This ambitious plan had sent the whole pack into fits of giggles as they each bounced stories of what their fallen sisters would have made of such a thing off one another and shared imagined reactions.
But now that they had been assigned to the Viper team to help with the liberating of the being that the Velons called Mycelia or the Allmother and that they'd realised that the team had a rather sizeable population of humans of both sexes, well it didn't seem all that far fetched anymore.
"You know rushing humans like that won't work," a very sing-songy voice chirped from somewhere off to their right.
By the time Pemistra had turned her large head and flicked her tongue to smell the air the Raptorian members of the pack were already moving while all chirping the same word, "Male."
No sooner had she turned and looked down than she saw a small male Raptorian with what appeared to be some kind of hover cart that was laden with snacks of different types and he had what appeared to be a massive tea urn strapped to his back.
"I appreciate the enthusiasm ladies I truly do but if you want to piss off my mate and pride-of-one then you are going about it the right way," the little male Raptorian chirped without even missing a beat.
"You have a pride!?" Kista who was one of her Raptorian packmates exclaimed in disbelief.
Pemistra kinda got the disbelief in her voice as old habits and even attitudes were hard to shake even in this new modern world and the thought of a male being at the forefront of a battle group really did rattle all of them.
It had been hard on them all since joining the alliance but meeting Clan Mason and seeing that there was so much more to the universe and just so many new ideas as well as ideals had been a wrenching experience.
There were so many Raptorians and indeed Serpentinus who still believed that a male's place was in the home raising children and caring for their pride or pack.
Definitely not out here on the front lines of a fucking warzone.
But the little male Raptorian was not a member of the Star Stalkers, he was Clan Mason and his armour showed him to be one of their Saviours which meant that this little guy could be anything from an engineer to a kick-ass sniper, it was hard to tell unless you knew what all of the patches were, but the one that they definitely did know was that shield that he wore proudly upon his chest.
That shield symbolised the Saviours and what they stood for, they were the shield behind which all innocents big and small were guarded by the Clan.
It was not an easy thing to obtain as like any icon in the Clan Mason military it had to be earned, it was not yours by right.
You had to prove yourself to the Clan to be granted the honour of wearing one of their symbols and having spoken to some of their Saviours who lived in the embassy back on her homeworld Pemistra knew they were not people with which to fuck.
Though this was the first time she had ever seen a male Raptorian Saviour though she had heard on the grapevine that there were quite a few of them serving in the Clan Mason military in various roles.
"Yeah he does, you have a problem with that?" another voice said and this one sounded a lot less happy than the little male Raptorian.
They all turned to see a rather tall female Velon dressed in Spectre armour standing there with her hands on her hips glaring at them and it was rather obvious that she was what he meant when he'd said pride-of-one.
Kista looked like she wanted to argue but upon glancing between the pair she decided it would probably be best to hold her tongue and simply shook her little head.
"Our apologiessss, we are sssstill not used to ssssseeing malessss of our own two sssspecies out here on the front linesssss of a battle zone, it can be rather jarring," Pemistra said quickly in order to defuse the tension.
The tall Velon female glanced between them all and nodded, seeming to take the apology at face value before she strode into the middle of the group to stand proudly at her little male's side.
"You really ought to learn not to misjudge them or their capabilities, Lucious here is probably one of the best combat hackers you will ever meet," she said proudly.
"I studied under the Guardian of Males himself, he taught me that no matter the challenge there is always a way through, you simply have to believe in yourself and never stop searching. He also taught me how to see patterns where others see only chaos and confusion," the little male Raptorian called Lucious chirped happily and proudly.
"Umm pleassse forgive our impudence in ssssurrounding you SSSSaviour Lucioussss, it was mere inssstinct I hope you underssstand, but what were you ssssaying about humanssss before thissss little missssunderssstanding?" Pemistra asked lowering her head to get a better look at the little male.
"Ahh yes, forgive my presumption but I kinda have an incline given your reactions to both Markus and the commander that you may very well have something of an attraction to humans, am I wrong in saying that?" he said turning to look up at her.
Pemistra glanced around at the other members of her pack and they all seemed rather surprised by how easily the little male had read their intentions.
"You are not," Pemistra said a little begrudgingly as she tried to hide the embarrassment in her voice at being so easily outted by a complete stranger.
Lucious nodded approvingly and then patted his mate's long slender thigh through her armour favouring her with a rather delightful smile before stepping forward.
"Well then you are among the right group for that kind of thing, though you may wish to umm tone it down somewhat," he said.
"What do you mean?" Pemistra said trying her hardest not to smell the little male with her tongue.
"Well Clan Mason are among the most permissive and accepting people you are ever likely to ever meet in your lifetimes and yes I have heard of the popularity of a good many of their males among our own pride both out here and back on the homeworld and given that I am in an interspecies relationship myself I can definitely see the appeal," Lucious said once again smiling up at his mate who gave him a very knowing smile as she focused her pointed ears on him.
"SSSSo what advice can you give with regardssss towardssss humansss?" Pemistra asked in a low voice as if she were trying to discuss state secrets with him and Lucious chuckled obviously seeing the embarrassment of the large Anaconda genus female in discussing such matters with an outsider to her pack.
"Simple really, don't rush them, from my experience among them humans don't react well to pushy and think about this, they live, breathe, eat, sleep, train and exist with species like the Yautja and the Xenomorphs not to mention the Beledon, so if they are not intimidated by them they sure as hell aren't going to be intimidated by you," Lucious said.
"Our intention was not to intimidate! Merely to focus their attention on us!" Kistra exclaimed defensively.
"I know that but they don't. See it from their perspective, I'm a Raptorian, you are a Raptorian, and we both know how our social interactions work, if you were to see me out in public on the homeworld I would most likely have either my pride with me, a child with me, or now in modern days a member of another species with me, all of which would mark me as what exactly?" Lucious asked turning to face his kinswoman.
"A prided male," she conceded lowering her head obviously somewhat shamed at her outburst and now being schooled by a male.
"Exactly, that would be a clear indicator for none of you to approach me as you would trigger the defensive instincts of my pride or my mate and we all know what happens if you harass a male with his children in public, you'll have so many guard prides up your tail hole that you'll think you fucking well paid for a good night out and you'll want to start collecting communicator numbers for a second date," Lucious said causing his pridemate to bark out a laugh before covering her snout to chuckle behind it at her male's surprisingly blue sense of humour.
"SSSSO what ssshould we do?" Pemistra asked in a soft voice and Lucious turned his attentions back to her.
"Simple, get to know them, if you like a human try talking to them, get to know them, see if you even click with them on an emotional level, there is far more to this than just looks you know. Granted yes there does have to be an attraction between both parties I get that, but there is not going to be much of a pack or pride life for you if you guys have nothing to talk about, so get to know them as friends first and then when they are comfortable with you then you can maybe see if there is the possibility of something more," Lucious said.
The very concept of taking things slow seemed as alien to Pemistra and her pack as the humans themselves were and Lucious instantly picked up on the confusion in their eyes.
"Humans have a one-to-one ratio, there are not more females than males or visa versa, so you don't have to worry so much about another pride or pack swooping in and snatching your favourite human away from you, if anything the human themselves won't allow it as they can be pretty territorial as I'm sure you'll find out soon enough, they very much like to spend their time in the company of those that they like and especially in the presence of those that they are attracted to, for solitary creatures they sure have an oddly social streak," Lucious said.
Pemistra actually felt like she and her pack should be taking fucking notes, this little Raptorian was a gold mine of human-loving wisdom.
"Oh and one little word to the wise here, don't for the love of the Great Tree ever try surrounding a human if you even remotely think that they belong to a Yautja otherwise you may well find out first-hand if you like the tast of your own tail or not when they decide to use you as a living hoop for something, human territorialness is fuck all compared to that of the Yautja, there's a reason one of the first things any of the females of both of our species are told when coming into contact with the Clan is for the love of the Great Tree don't try anything with the Grand Patriarch if you are lucky enough to meet him," Lucious said.
Pemistra actually did remember being told that during one of the briefings with her fellow Royal Sword packs, she remembered Queen Ciri and the rest of the Royal pack slithering up onto the stage to address them about decorum and etiquette that she expected from her soldiers.
The one point that had stood out among the countless other rules the Royal Serpentinus leader had laid out was to stay the fuck away from the Grand Patriarch of Clan Mason unless you wish to be used as a living staple gun by his overprotective wife.
"But how can we even tell if a human is unprided or not?" Kistra whined looking somewhat longingly over at one of the groups of humans that had traveled there with them.
"Yeah I agree it can be hard to tell with all of the Clan species to be honest because unless they are with their mate it can be pretty unobvious, but you can always just ask them but try to be subtle about it and not just march your tail up to the first human you see and bark do you have a pride at them, they are gonna think you got into the firewine supply again and start edging away from you, just maybe ask them something subtle like do you miss your mate being all the way out here, that should give you your answer," Lucious said with a slight shrug.
Pemistra scratched her scaly chin as she thought about this before nodding in agreement.
From all of her current albeit limited observations of the humans they did seem to be a species that seemed to thrive on subtlety, so maybe a much more hands-off approach would be the key to victory here.
Suddenly there was a call from the command area of the cave and everyone turned to see what was going on.
"Looks like they are handing out the duty assignments so we'd better fall in," Lucious said gesturing for them to follow him.
The pack followed the little Raptorian male and his mate to join the group gathering around the command table as the Commanders were handing out jobs.
"Alright people listen up, I'm sure you all know our role here is to free Mycelia, our guide here is going to be Feris who is a Hand of Mycelia, she will be leading our path through this place, the route she lays out will be scouted by a joined team of our War Angels and the sniper team of the RAMs as well as one of our own Seekers of Truth, following closely behind them will be a joined team of the Sisters of War and the remaining two RAMs, it will be their job to assess the hazards of the route and to figure out how to allow our mechanised units to get through without damaging the terrain. The engineers will mark out the path for our vehicles to take and construct any necessary components like bridges on-site, they will be guarded in their work by the Sisters of War. Next up will be our rapid deployment team which will provide heavy fire support for either our scout team or engineering team, this will be made up of both Alpha and Beta prides because of the unmatched manoeuvrability of their mechs in this environment. Once the path is at least a quarter complete we will start rolling the vehicles out, the close support teams will be made up of the Knights of Beledonia as well as our new heavy weapons support team Anvil squad, alright people I'm sure I don't have to explain the stakes here, the people of Velona are counting on us to free their Allmother from whatever evil Clan Ruara and their fucking pet insects have placed upon her, with her back in the fight we can finally get a full handle on the planet wide situation as a whole, so gear up and let's get to it people," the Commander said.
No sooner had she finished speaking than the whole place became a hive of activity with everyone running around to get themselves ready for the task ahead.
Suddenly a voice spoke up from behind them and the whole pack turned to look.
"Hey I guess we'll be working with your guys from now on, nice to meet ya, I'm Corporal Alissa Jones and this is Corporal Ian Drake," a distinctly sounding human voice said.
As Pemistra turned to look at the speaker she had to very nearly bite down hard on her tongue to prevent it from flicking out towards the two armoured humans that stood before them both wearing the deep rich blue armour of the Saviours.
As if on cue both of them tapped the release buttons below their chins to retract their helmets so they could greet the pack properly and no sooner had they done so than Pemistra could practically feel the Raptorians in her pack vibrating as they fought their urges to surround the two newcomers.
Corporal Alissa Jones was a black-skinned female with a very beautiful smile and very bright eyes, she also seemed to have her hair cut into a short set of dreadlocks that spiked up off her head.
Corporal Ian Drake on the other hand was a white-skinned human male who seemed to be younger than her by a few years, possibly fresh out of their Saviour training school.
He was tall with freckles dotting his face as well as a shock of flame-red hair that was messy thanks to having been inside his helmet.
His bright green eyes sparkled as he smiled up at Pemistra and then glanced around at the rest of the pack.
Off to her right Pemistra could feel her pack sister Livvia who was a cobra genus fighting to keep her hood from flaring up and revealing her interest in the pair.
"Greetingssss my name is Pemissstra Gloryfang and I lead the SSSSisssters of War pack," she said offering a hand in the human gesture of greeting.
One after the other both of the two humans took her hand and shook it and then turned to do the same to all the others of the pack who had now lost their battle with their instincts and had closed in to surround the pair, though thankfully they had not began pawing at them.
Pemistra knew she had to keep her sisters focused here otherwise this might descend into a bit of a problem.
"Thossssse are intressssting devicessss you have on your backssss, what are they?" Pemistra asked pointing to the odd backpack-like devices the pair wore.
"Oh, these? They're the latest generation of engineering prosthetics, they were developed by our Science hive in order to give combat engineers like us more versatility in the field, they are hooked directly into our central nervous systems just like a normal prosthetic would be, so we can control them and even feel with them just like if they were a normal arm," Alissa said.
As she spoke four large mechanical arms unfurled themselves from the packs and extended outwards to create an impressive figure that actually caused the pack to pack up a little to give her some space, before crowding back in to get a closer look.
The arms themselves were multisegmented and it also appeared that the 'hands' could be swapped out to host different tools which all seemed to be housed in ports on the sides of the large packs.
"Wow, I bet with those things you'd be as effective as a whole pride of engineers!" Opina who was definitely the tech nerd of the pack said.
She was also the smallest of the pack standing just over three feet tall but her personality more than made up for her size. If it went beep, whirr or click Opina would be inside it trying to figure out why if you let her.
Ian laughed and nodded.
"Yup that's the hope, they can do anything from welding to digging even climbing and carrying heavy loads, they had to create a whole new frame system in our armour to allow us to support them without tearing them off our backs if we tried to pick up something heavy, so these packs do not come off the armour before you ask, its all fully integrated and given that these sets have neural shunts built into them so that they can interface without nervous systems its like flesh and machine become one," he said.
Opina reached out and touched one of the arms that had extended out of Ian's back while he was speaking to the pack and instantly the arm turned and manoeuvred around as if it was looking at her.
"Yeah before you ask it has cameras in it and yes I can see you," he said with a laugh.
"Aww that kinda takes the fun out of it," Opina said with a mock pout but that didn't stop her from reaching up to touch the arm.
"Can you feel her touching you?" Pemistra asked and Ian nodded.
"The arms have a form of artificial nerves which are similar to the type we use in our prosthetics, so they are as responsive and sensitive as our flesh and blood organic ones, though they can't feel pain which is a bonus," Ian said.
"I'll bloody say, the number of times I got mine stuck in a door during training wasn't even bloody funny," Alissa said with a laugh.
"Yeah and the tuning process so that they don't follow every intrusive thought and only recognise direct commands is a bit galling, I so very nearly pulled that cute Xeno's mechanic's tail I don't know how many times when she was tuning the damn things," Ian said and Alissa barked a laugh.
"Yeah I remember that, you were like one of those bloody cat clocks just watching it swishing back and forth before your face and I could see the arms creeping up and hands opening just before you bloody caught them," she said with a snort-laugh.
"Hey at least I didn't slap the Yautja doctor's ass, I thought she was going to punch you through a wall," Ian said making Alissa blush and then laugh.
"Yeah and she wasn't bloody only one, I got the Raptorian orderly as well," she admitted in a nervous voice.
Now it was Ian's turn to bark out a laugh before turning to look at his colleague.
"You mean Kastra that male Raptorian that used to skip around the science hive singing all the time?" he asked and she nodded with a distinctly guilty look on her face.
"Yeah he was bringing in some parts on one of the hover carts and he dropped one near me while I was in the tuning rig, he bent over to pick it up and his tail kinda just flicked up a little and before I knew it one of my arms had shot out and smacked his ass," she said causing Ian to break down in a fit of laughter.
"How did he take that?" he asked.
"At first I thought all of his feathers were gonna pop off and he was going to murder me with those bloody claws of his, but after I managed to finish apologising very profusely he just laughed and said he understood, apparently he'd been briefed that we didn't have full control over the arms just yet and they may just act on our instincts without out our permission so to be careful when doing things near us, he said he took it as a compliment," she said.
"Wow you dodged a bullet there, that could have got messy if he'd gone running to the Saviour MPs," Ian said and she nodded.
"Yeah that would have been a really fucking awkward conversation but fortunately they managed to fine-tune the things and now they work just the real things," Alissa said with a distinct note of relief in her voice.
"So if you go smacking a Raptorian ass now it's on purpose then?" Opina said making Ian belt out a laugh, it was obvious that he thought that Pemistra's little Raptorian pack sister was joking but Pemistra knew that she was deadly serious.
"Yeah I guess so, so probably best keep those tails down eh girls?" Alissa said with a blush as she tried to use humour to hide her embarrassment.
"I'll definitely keep that in mind," Opina said flashing the pair of humans a toothy grin that showed off her sharp little teeth.
"Alright, I guess we'd probably best go and gear up, I get the feeling we won't be hanging around long before they deploy us, so we'll want to be ready to roll at a moment's notice," Ian said looking over towards the makeshift armoury that had been set up and was now staffed by some Beledon from the Anvil squad who were dishing out weapons while also seemingly suggesting some modifications the users may wish to consider.
So with their two new human packmates in place right at the centre of the pack where they belonged the whole group began to make their way over towards the quartermasters and Pemistra really couldn't help smiling at their twist of fortune, one could even say their two newest members had really put a spring in her slither, this was going to be a very interesting deployment, to say the least.