Wolf warrior, p.3
Wolf Warrior, page 3
“I haven’t had time to even search for them, anyway. I was too focused on getting away from Viper, then I immediately went to find you.”
“You don’t think they all could have been attacked and killed, do you?”
“No.” Joki shook his head vigorously, and Saphera immediately regretted what she’d said. “That’s impossible. Three light alliances vs one other that’s a lot smaller.”
“Three.”
“What?”
“We know there are at least some Darkness members here, the Moon’s Silver has to be around here somewhere, and we know Viper is part of another alliance. That means three dark alliances had to have invaded the Underworld.”
“They still would have been severely outnumbered.”
“But why would they take over Earth first?”
“Look,” Joki’s voice remained soft, but his tone was firm. “Something strange is going on, but while we’re sitting here talking, our allies could be being tortured or Binded, possibly murdered. If we’re going to figure this out, we have to take it one step at a time. The first step is finding our allies. Can you walk?”
“I think so.” Saphera tried to take a step forward, but trying to move her leg made her flinch in pain.
“Use your owl form,” Joki suggested. “It’ll put less pressure on your weak point. Now, let’s get away from here before Viper tracks us down again.”
Chapter Seven: Minor to Major
Joki was right. Saphera was flying with the owl form while Joki took the lead in his permanently activated wolf form. They searched hallway after hallway without finding anyone, but Joki refused to lose hope, so Saphera decided to do the same. She’d found Joki alive, now everyone else had to be somewhere, they just had to keep looking. Without their sensibilities, they had to be on the lookout for Viper or Darkness or Moon’s Silver members, as well.
“Joki, do you think the creatures with dark souls can still sense?” Saphera asked after the fifth empty hallway.
“That’s impossible to tell. Viper didn’t go back after me right away, and she took her time finding you again.”
“Does it have something to do with us being on Earth?”
“We’ve always been able to sense while we were on Earth before. Nothing is making sense right now, Saphera. We have to stay focused on our current task. We can’t waste time wondering about what we can’t know.”
Saphera nodded and flew a little faster, now flying side by side with Joki rather than behind him. Still all hallways were empty, and their lack of sensibilities made their search even harder.
How are we going to find our way out of here? It feels like we’re going in circles. After Joki’s previous demand, Saphera didn’t bother saying this out loud.
The tenth hallway passed, and still no one was to be found, or even heard. Saphera’s heart began to sink. Maybe they had been too late. Maybe Saphera and Joki now really were the only ones left.
Her worries were interrupted by a loud crash, coming from a room two hallways ahead of where the two Wolf Warriors were. They raced toward the sound to find Suralilith, a Darkness member, wielding her whip against a prisoner being pinned against the wall. Surprisingly, Suralilith was holding her herself, but it was the prisoner that most caught Saphera’s attention.
“Jade!”
The Side Warrior was frowning at Suralilith, reaching for her sword, which was thankfully still around her waist. Either no creature in this building had managed to steal it or Suralilith had never thought to. Jade struggled fiercely in Suralilith’s grip, but she couldn’t manage to escape. This was when Joki burst through and slashed Surailith away. The Dragonslayer landed with a hard bang against the far wall in the cramped room.
“Joki! Saphera!” Jade exclaimed, pushing herself away from the wall and towards her captor. Before she could start a flood of questions, Joki interrupted her.
“No time to explain now. We have to get away from here.”
“So, your backup arrived in time.”
Suralilith was standing up again, her whip firmly in her hand.
“More than I can say for your backup,” Jade shot back.
Suralilith sneered, and in a surprisingly confident tone, she retorted, “I don’t need any backup.”
She cracked her whip against the wall before charging forward, but Jade and Joki struck first, slashing together to knock Suralilith back again, but not before she got a lash off of Saphera, causing her to fall to the floor. Suralilith’s whip had struck her stomach, and even one hit caused enough vibrations to cause excruciating pain to course through her weak point.
“What happened to her?” Jade demanded.
“I’ll explain later. Let’s just get past Suralilith.”
“Since when is Suralilith so hard to fight?!” Saphera shouted.
“Oh, your words do cut me deeply.” Suralilith’s whip cut deeper, leaving an open wound across Joki’s muzzle.
Summoning her strength, Saphera launched into the air, countering Suralilith’s attack on her Guidance Follower with a slash across her face, partially cutting one of her eyes.
“Good work, Saphera! Let’s go!”
Jade followed as he ran past the broken open door, but not before checking that Saphera was following. When they were far enough away that Suralilith wouldn’t catch up to them anytime soon, Jade pestered her allies with questions, which Joki answered as best he could, meanwhile Saphera was resting her wounds.
“Suralilith must have been given more power by whatever caused this,” Jade concluded, her arms crossed as she faced her allies.
“We don’t know if one individual creature caused this,” Joki pointed out. “But I do wonder if our enemies have gotten stronger- or if we’ve gotten weaker.”
Saphera started, a couple of her feathers falling to the floor. “Is that why we’ve lost our sensibilities?”
“I hadn’t even noticed,” Jade gasped.
“That’s what I’m wondering,” Joki replied to Saphera’s question. He turned his eyes to the Side Warrior. “Are you alright, Jade? No one here’s hurt you have they?”
“Suralilith was about to when you showed up, but no one’s gotten away with anything, no. Has someone gotten away with something with Saphera?”
“She’s been Binded.”
“Binded? Is that what Viper did?”
“It’s a painful Procedure, and she won’t be too fit to fight for a while, especially if she’s hit directly by a weapon.”
“Joki, I’ve been thinking,” Saphera spoke up. “I don’t think we’ve been weakened. The Binding’s effecting me, but the Throttling didn’t immobilize me as much as it usually does.”
“That explains why you were able to move around to catch up to Viper again.”
“More accurately for her to catch up to me.”
“Shouldn’t we stay in the same place?” Jade suggested. “It might make it easier for our allies to find us.”
“Not when there’s the possibility of them being attacked. We know now they’re all prisoners. Saphera, myself, and now you have confirmed that.”
“We still have to find LesArbola and Costall. It should be easier now that we have fewer creatures to look for.”
“Only if we don’t get interrupted by dark ones.”
Chapter Eight: Continuing the Line
Saphera didn’t even know if Costall could be Binded. She was a Fox Fighter; she didn’t have a weak point. Only Wolf Warriors had them. She could still be Throttled due to immobilization, but Binding likely would have no effect. Even so, the thought of Costall Throttled made her fly in the lead.
And LesArbola… she’s been through enough already. LesArbola was alive with her name as a Wolf Warrior now, but in previous lives she had been a Spider Ancestry member named Ayenko. She was a completely different creature from one life to the next, due to an effect she suffered from called Soul Division, where her soul randomly switched from light to dark every time she was revived. The only positive detail about this effect was that it was impossible for LesArbola’s soul to turn dark while it was light.
“Saphera, slow down!” Jade scolded as her and Joki ran to catch up to the flying great gray owl. “I thought you were hurt?”
Saphera flew a little bit slower, but still continued forward. She had to find Costall. She had to know if she was still alive. I’ve already lost Shadow. I can’t lose Costall, too. If I find out Hailey has her…
She couldn’t finish the thought, because Joki seemed to read her mind. “We’ll find Costall, and LesArbola. Alive. They’re both strong, they can handle themselves.”
“Try telling me that,” Jade retorted. “I would have been killed by Suralilith, of all creatures, if you two hadn’t shown up.”
“The Darkness members must have been empowered…” pondered Joki. “But how? Has enough time passed that Suralilith’s been trained better in combat?”
“That has to be it. Suralilith’s always been competent with that whip, but never enough that she could utilize it in direct combat.”
“We should have finished her off before we escaped,” Saphera growled. “She can’t be that hard to kill now, can she?”
“There was no time for that,” Joki reminded her. “Since she’s become so much stronger, it would have taken time we couldn’t afford to kill her. We need to use that time to find the rest of our allies.”
Saphera knew he was right. Still, a part of her wished she had utilized the owl form better to have gotten rid of Ms. Whisper and Crow, as well as held off Viper before the creature Throttled and Binded her.
Saphera flinched a little. Thinking about the experience had reminded her of the pain. It was still sharp, but slowly getting better. Flying instead of using her feet was helping. Luckily her weak point wasn’t in her arms, legs, or tail.
Or her bottom. That was where Frasian’s weak point was located, and this reminded her of the Wolf Warriors in the Underworld.
Saphera shook her head to clear it. She couldn’t focus on that now. The dark alliances might have started on Earth for whatever reason and every creature in the Wolf Warrior World was still safe. There were still so many questions whirling in her mind, no matter how hard she tried to listen to Joki’s advice and take this situation one step at a time.
There’s just too much going on at once right now. I don’t think I’ve ever been this stressed.
She hadn’t realized she’d been so busy thinking that Joki and Jade were now running ahead of her. Slowing down felt better for her right now, anyway. She’d already lost track of how many hallways they’d run through with no sign of Costall or any other creature. Joki suddenly stopped.
Saphera lighted down next to Jade and followed Joki’s gaze. A wall made of solid wood. There was no door or window in sight.
“It’s a dead end,” Jade whispered.
“That means we’ve explored this whole building,” Joki added.
“Does that mean they’re not here?” Saphera almost didn’t dare speak the words.
“It could.” Joki began backing away. “Or it could mean they’ve been captured by creatures we’ve already met. Let’s backtrack to rooms we’ve already been to. The creatures that captured us may have captured them.”
Saphera’s hope was starting to run low, but she followed behind Joki nonetheless, Jade bringing up the rear. The three Wolf Warriors decided first to return to where Saphera had been held, and Ms. Whisper and Crow were still there- with their knights overlooking someone on the floor. She was covering her face, but Saphera still recognized her instantly.
“Costall!” Through the pain in her weak point, Saphera broke through the window separating her from her daughter, Jade and Joki following close behind. Saphera knocked the knights away from Costall before Ms. Whisper could say a word. Jade and Joki only needed to stand by as Saphera rescued her daughter.
“Looks like I’m teaching your daughter now,” Ms. Whisper taunted after a caw from Crow, beginning to move toward her intruders.
Now Jade and Joki could act, slashing the knights to the floor, Saphera taking the opportunity to escort Costall to the door. She was still in her warrior form, and she looked unharmed. The knights hadn’t touched her, and the Immortal Snakes and laser that had been used on Saphera were nowhere in sight.
Why wouldn’t Ms. Whisper use those on Costall?
Jade and Joki were making their way down the hall, and Saphera took to the air while Costall followed.
Chapter Nine: Complete Exploration
“Mother!” Costall took on her fox form and practically jumped for her mother’s owl form flying above her. “I thought you were dead! I thought everyone was dead!”
“You’re not the only one with those thoughts, Costall.” Saphera smiled down at her, letting her jump high enough to get on her back and bury her body in her feathers. When the young fox jumped down, Joki jumped in before she could ask the millions of questions they all knew were coming.
“Where’s LesArbola?” Costall asked when he’d finished.
“We’re still looking for her,” Jade answered. “But we’ve searched everywhere in this house. Does that mean she’s not in here?”
“We haven’t gone back to all the rooms yet,” Joki pointed out. “We’ll have to find all the dark creatures in here and see if LesArbola’s with any of them.”
“Won’t that be dangerous?” Costall asked.
“We’ll leave before they can catch any of us. Luckily there only seem to be one or two of them working at a time, so we can easily outnumber them.”
“Even if we can’t as easily outmatch them,” Jade muttered to herself.
They returned to where Suralilith and Viper were hiding, but neither had LesArbola in their clutches. This meant LesArbola wasn’t anywhere in the building, so the creatures traveled outside, where the darkness stood out like the brightest light.
“Mother,” Costall asked, “why are you flying instead of using your wolf form?”
“She’s been Binded,” Joki answered. “Her weak point’s in a lot of pain.”
“Will she be able to fight?”
“Tell that to Ms. Whisper’s nights,” Jade broke in.
“I think she’ll be okay as long as she stays in her owl form,” Joki continued.
No creature was really focused on Saphera’s Binding. The landscape before them took up all their attention. To humans, it might have looked like a regular night sky, but not even Wolf Warriors and Fox Fighters had ever seen a night sky this dark. The Darkness Cloud was still nowhere to be seen, and this was what caught Joki’s attention the most.
“We know there are at least two Darkness members here. Why can’t we see their home?”
“Are the others all still in our world?” Jade wondered.
“Possibly.” Saphera’s thoughts suddenly turned as dark as the state of Earth. “Or maybe The Darkness has claimed Earth for itself.”
Jade gasped and Costall sealed her ears, but Joki remained calm. At least, as calm as he had been since seeing Earth in its condition. “Why would they take Earth instead of our world? That’s been their main target since they were founded.”
“It doesn’t explain the other alliances here,” Jade pointed out. “I think they’re all working together.”
“We know they’re not attacking each other,” Joki agreed.
Saphera blinked, and that seemed to be the only thing needed to snap her back into focus. “Guys, we got distracted. LesArbola still needs our help. She wasn’t in the building we just left, so she has to be in one of the others.” She glanced down at another building, this one having the appearance of being made of glass. “I can see Sishana through the windows there. Let’s see if LesArbola’s being held hostage by the dark creatures in there.”
Sishana was a soldier of Sinistar, and it was unknown what powers she had due to her being killed by Sishara every time she had been revived. Now, for the second time, it was Costall she had to fear. The Fox Fighter lashed out with her fangs bared, knocking Sishana to the ground, giving time for her allies to sneak inside the building, Joki in the lead.
They soon found the creature they were looking for, being held down by Sinistar, her bare chest exposed. A scalpel was being raised, ready to begin the Binding of LesArbola’s heart.
Joki was faster. The scalpel was dropped as soon as his jaws locked around Sinistar’s wrist. Jade rushed in to help, and Saphera and Costall lifted LesArbola from the experimental table she had been forced to lay on, covering her skin as she leapt down. Looking around the room, Saphera saw that it was filled with shelves and shelves of Sinistar’s dissection tools.
She must have been given her own room. Each individual member of these dark alliances must have their own base.
Saphera sat by LesArbola while Jade, Joki, and Costall struggled to hold off Sinistar. Saphera knew she had warlock powers as well as her dissection tools to fight with, and both were proving to be more than a match against her three opponents. Costall stood behind Sinistar and the warlock quickly turned around, slashing her muzzle with her scalpel. Joki retaliated by slashing his sword, but was blocked when Sinistar turned around again. Jade tried lashing out with her jaws, but got a warlock blast to her face for her trouble.
“Forget this!” Joki declared. “Let’s just get out of here!”
“Good luck staying away,” Sinistar sneered after her enemies as they fled. “Even if I don’t come after you, my master will.”
Wallenstein. So he’s back now, too.
“Perfect timing,” LesArbola praised when the allies were back outside. “I was about to be Binded.”
“Saphera wasn’t so lucky,” Joki told her.
“Ouch,” LesArbola commented. “Are you okay, Saphera?”
“It still hurts, but the pain’s starting to go away.” Saphera couldn’t help but flinch. She still wasn’t used to who she used to know as Ayenko talking to her so gently.
“Does anyone know what’s going on?” LesArbola continued, turning to Joki but addressing everyone.
