Bygone Adventures: Episode 1 "Wild Side"

Caught

At the Black Arms Den

      Shadow anxiously paced the floor as he waited for the hunting party to return. This was his first time missing out on a hunt, and he couldn't shake the nagging suspicion that something bad was going to happen soon. The members of the pack who remained lazily lounged about the den, although some of them were becoming slightly annoyed with their alpha's paranoid behavior. Redwing rolled his eyes from his perch above the others as Shadow turned around to pace in the other direction for the twenty-seventh time. The Black Hawk had been counting out of sheer boredom. 

    Shadow, he trilled, they left you here so you could rest, not level your peak. 

      I can't exactly help it, the hedgehog snapped back, Something isn't right. Why is the doctor snooping around now? What's driven him here? There are too many unanswered questions for me to rest. 

   The only one asking these questions is you, Redwing yawned, You're over-thinking things, as usual. You better get some sleep before they return. 

                       I'm not tired.

    You're aura says otherwise, Alpha, a third voice joined in as Moonstreak trotted up to the smaller male. Her parental instincts for Shadow had kicked in not long after her mate and the others had left. She gently nudged him towards his normal sleeping spot and huffed at the others to quiet down. Shadow himself was beyond annoyed at how much they coddled him, and he inwardly complained about being considerably smaller than the others when Moonstreak more or less forced him to lie down and curled around him carefully. 

    "This really isn't necessary," he growled out verbally, wishing above anything else that he could be running with the hunting party.

    Out in the jungle, the remaining Black Arms split up and stalked through and above the foliage for any source of food they could bring back to the den, although, many were concerned for their young Alpha as well. Most of them had never gone out of the cave without Shadow close by, except for the older males, which were few, and they began to doubt their true skills with no one to unite them. 

    Don't worry. Accomplish your task quickly, and we can return home, Fireclaw's words echoed telepathically to the younger predators. They each gave a thought or sound of agreement before continuing on with the hunt. 

    Three younger hunters, a female Black Volt and two male Black Warriors, trekked along an unseen path, keeping close to each other as they followed a tempting scent. Their prey was very close, and all of them were itching with the anticipation to ambush a possible kill. However, just as one of the males skulked slowly into a clearing, an unnatural sound snapped in their ears. The unfortunate Warrior quickly looked back at his two companions in confusion before a large metal cage with glowing red bars suddenly locked him inside itself. He instinctively tried to hit one of the bars, only to roar in pain as it burned his clawed hand. A strange, almost twisted laugh reached their ears as an obese vehicle with an equally large driver hovered above them. The caged predator tore his eyes away from the odd character inside the flying metal ball and glared purposefully at the other two. 

    Go find Alpha Shadow! These weird glowing things hurt too touch for me to escape, he instructed. The other Black Warrior nodded and took off back in the direction of the den, but the Black Volt stayed. 

    I will follow behind you, so I can tell him where you are, she explained, and the captured male agreed before he felt a strange energy lifting his small imprisonment off the ground, a very new sensation he did not like.