Seeking Strays

Stories

### Chapter 1: Chapter 1 Barghest

Author’s Note: I feel the need to point out the Grimdark tag! I like happy endings, but the journey there won’t necessarily be happy. There’s fluff too, though. Everyone likes fluffy things, don’t they?

If you’re still reading this, thank you! Secondly, here’s your content warning. Know what you’re reading! Cussing and gore, of course. Sensitive content though too. Our MC is a bit… rough? The world’s definitely rougher. I’ll add a content warning on a couple more chapters too.

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Chapter 1

A hummer drove over cracked and broken asphalt. Its headlights shot forward, barely piercing into the dense fog that smothered absolutely everything outside of the walled cities. Just in front of us, a cargo truck rumbled down the road.

”How far are we?” One of the guys in the back of the hummer asked. His voice was tight, and full of tension. It was already the thirty-seventh time he asked since we set off from Hades base camp.

I blinked, and my tail twitched around in my lap… did I doze off there for a second? So sleepy. The whispers started back up again. Hard to sleep with them, though they’d been particularly creative lately. It was fine, though. It’d get better once we got back to the city. Once I got some medicine.

”H-hey, did you hear—“

The driver slammed the steering wheel, and jerked back toward the chatterbox. ”Fuck! Yes, I heard you. Now shut the fuck up before I shut you the fuck up.”

My ears shot upright, and thoughts of sleep instantly vanished. A low growl built up in my chest, though vanished just before it could become audible. He startled me for a moment, there.

Despite his savage growl, the man didn’t look threatening in the slightest. He was a rabbit Apex, and they suffered from an unfortunate lack of intimidating bones. The floppy ears dangling above his head definitely didn’t do anything to help that fact, nor did the way his nose twitched when he got pissed off. It was kinda cute, actually.

”Focus up.” I finally spoke up. My helmet modulated my voice, giving it a deep raspy quality that rumbled through the off-roader. I’d rather not die in a blazing car crash. Especially not out here.

The driver tensed, and focused back on the cargo truck in front of us. His hands tightened on the steering wheel. “Sorry, sir.”

I shook my head, and pulled out my phone. No reception, ‘course. The Mire had a way of blocking even the best technology from working. It was fine. I downloaded dozens of maps before we set off from the city a week ago. I pulled one up, and found a picture of a particular banner marking the last leg toward Silverport.

With a picture in mind, my psionic ability, Seek, activated. A connection slowly formed and pointed me toward the distant object. Even without a GPS system, I was never truly lost as long as I knew the nearby landmarks. The confusion effects of the Mire couldn’t negate that.

I waited a few moments, and then felt for the connection once more. Based on it, I triangulated the approximate distance. “We’re thirty minutes from Silverport’s furthest outpost.”

Almost there… hopefully my little sis wouldn’t be too mad at me for being away for so long. A week without a word from me was just way too long… not that I had a choice in the first place. I never did, really.

Maybe she’d forgive me for being gone so long? She was in her rebellious years, so it was hard to predict how Sylvie would act. My stomach twisted into knots at the thought of her giving me the silent treatment again.

“Thank you, sir.” The guy in the back settled down slightly, and let go of his rifle. His knuckles were still white from how hard he’d been gripping it.

“Mmm.” I dropped my phone in my lap, and focused back out the window. Well, I couldn’t go back to sleep now—

My ears twitched toward something in the distance, and the fur along my fluffy wolf tail stood on end. I listened intently toward the distance, but couldn’t quite pick up what’d triggered my instincts. None of the humans seemed to notice. It made it all the more alarming that only the driver seemed to.

My ears twitched forward. Like the driver, I was also an Apex. Unlike him, I was of the Silver Wolf Totem. “You hear that too?”

”Not sure what it was,” the driver muttered back.

I listened intently toward the direction. It wasn’t a noise as much as it was a lack of noise, almost? I pulled a walkie-talkie from the dash, and turned it on. A golden glow lit up the receiver, and a perfectly round halo of light sparked to life around the device. “Captain Reymos.”

A moment later, the device crackled and a choppy voice came back. “Copy.”

”Something’s up ahead of us.” My ears twitched unhappily. Underneath my helmet, they didn’t have much room to wiggle around. “Can’t tell what. Potential calamity?”

”... fog’s clearing up ahead. Standby.” A honk sounded from just ahead of us, and the cargo truck slowly rumbled to a stop. The rest of the convoy followed a moment afterward.

I sat up straight, and picked up my rifle from where it’d been tossed into the floorboard of the hummer. I flicked a switch, and the power pack hummed to life. Soft golden light lit up the vi-rifle’s receiver.

“A-a clearing in the Mire?” The same nervous man from before leaned forward to get a better look out the front windshield. “Th-that shouldn’t be possible, right? We aren’t close enough to—“

”Enough.” I easily pushed the man back into his seat, and shot him a glare. The facemask of my helmet blocked it, but he seemed to get the point and went dead silent. It was already hard enough to figure out what was going on without him getting in the way.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

“Could be a new outpost.” The driver casually propped his hands up onto the steering wheel. “They’re always expanding.”

”That’s what I was thinking,” I muttered, and sat back. We’d know when Captain Reymos radioed back. No point in wasting energy thinking about it.

“Could be an anomaly, too, right?” A new voice chimed up from the back. The only other woman in the car pushed up her glasses, and shrugged when I looked back at her. “Just saying, sir.”

”… you’re not wrong.” The chances of running into one of those while following an official route were next to zero. Although, now that I thought that, the chances probably just jumped up to near a hundred percent, didn’t they? Life did so love to screw me over.

”Barghest.” Captain Reymos’ voice crackled through the walkie-talkie after we waited for several minutes in the stillness of the fog. “Take your squad forward, and check it out.”

I shifted in my seat uncomfortably. ”Just us?”

“Affirmative. Simple scouting only.” The line crackled for several seconds like he was talking to someone else, and still held the button down. “APC’s sensors indicate weird wind flows somewhere ahead. Guards up.”

”Copy.” I tossed the walkie-talkie onto the dash, and glanced in the rearview mirror of the vehicle. Three sets of eyes stared back at me. “Well, you heard the Captain.”

”Fuck.” The driver hit the gearshift, and pulled off the road into the patchy blue grass growing along the ground. The ride instantly turned much more bumpy. “Why’d it have to be us?”

Because who else would it be? I got why they’d use me as bait, but the rest of you must’ve seriously messed up somewhere along the line to go down with me—No, happy thoughts, Reyna. Right, maybe this was an opportunity disguised as misfortune? Things could always turn around.

Our hummer drove alongside the rest of the convoy up toward the front. Their lights spilled over each other, making the fog particularly bright. By the time we neared the front, the Mire had indeed thinned quite heavily.

The driver slowed just at the front of the convoy. Soon, the convoy faded entirely behind the fog, and only a pinprick of light indicated their presence behind us. We were truly on our own now.

The hair along the back of my neck rose. My ears bolted upright, and the fur on them strained as if trying to flee. An overwhelmingly strong premonition of death washed over me as if I was strapped to the front of a semi moments before being rammed into oncoming traffic.

Wolves had incredibly strong self-preservation instincts, and that was doubly true for Apex’s of the Silver Wolf Totem. The death premonition faded into incredible eeriness that made cold sweat drip down my back. It was akin to being watched by dozens of massive eyes.

”I don’t like this,” the last of the squad, a gunner with belts of ammunition crossing his chest, grumbled. “Feels off.”

”You’re telling me.” The driver’s bunny ears twitched around erratically. Usually, the sight would draw a smile from me. It barely did anything to help with my mounting wariness. “It’s too fucking quiet.”

“Might be a good thing.” Beyond the sound of our vehicle, the Mire was almost perfectly silent. The cracked asphalt continued to disappear underneath while we rolled forward. “Slow down.”

”Roger.” The hummer instantly pulled to a crawl. A moment later, we pulled through a slightly thicker veil of fog, and entered a clearing. Visibility shot through the roof.

The moment we passed through the fog wall, our scenery abruptly changed. The road just below us reverted to a pristine condition, and the grass all around changed from the tainted blue shade of the Mire to dark green and luscious grass.

In front of us sat a security checkpoint. Fences covered in barbed wire ran along the road, and disappeared out beyond the fog. Soldiers in clean combat uniforms patrolled the top of the checkpoint. For all intents and purposes, it looked like a new military outpost had been set up while we were away.

Only, the entire thing was wrong . For a moment, I couldn’t quite place my finger on it. It looked right, but it was just missing something—

“There’s no radiance.” Gunner’s voice came out as a low whisper. In the absence of sound around us, it sounded like a bomb went off in my ears.

My tail twitched, and the tip curled to lightly trace my arm in a soothing manner. He was right. For an outpost to stand against the Mire, it needed some kind of radiance to protect it. Here, there was nothing. It was a small change that made the entire checkpoint feel monstrous.

As if a spell had been broken, noise entered the world once more. Low chatter came from the checkpoint. No matter how my ears twisted and turned to hear the voices, they remained just out of focus and distant.

The feeling of being watched intensified by hundreds of times to an unbearable point. All at once, it faded. In its place, a comfortable warmth filled the cabin. Fire erupted in the air just in front of me, causing me to flinch back and raise my rifle. The flames twisted into a set of rules midair.

| Only answer one question.

The more you know ———-, the more ———- knows you.

Don’t let ———- know you.

Never tell ———- your name.

Only speak when spoken to.

Only tell the truth.

If you answer a question, ———- will answer a question.

Be careful what you ask for.

Comply with all orders that don’t force you to speak. |

The squad all around me flinched similarly, though the fire didn’t blaze in front of them like it did for me. At least, from what I could see. Each of their eyes glazed up though like they were reading something I couldn’t quite see.

The nervous man twisted in his seat. ”Wha—mmph!”

The second he spoke, Gunner slapped his meaty hand over his mouth and forced him to be quiet. He lifted a finger to his lips. A moment later, as if answering our unasked question, he lifted five fingers.

Speak when spoken to… right. The rules were given to us for a reason. Only tell the truth? Was this some kind of entity that punished speaking lies? If you answer a question, ———- will answer a question. Did that mean I could get an honest answer for any question I dared to ask?

This could be an extremely important chance for me to escape their grasp. I scanned the area with much more scrutiny than the first time. We must’ve entered an anomalous Overlap. That much was clear by the floating fire rules. I’d heard about things like this, though it was my first time actually running into it.

If stories were to be trusted, then the flaming list of rules would get us out of here alive as long as we listened. Heh… just my luck that the first time I left the city, I ended up running into something like this.

The fire in the air rapidly dissipated, and the warmth faded. The driver grabbed the gearshift, and threw it in reverse—

“Please cross through the checkpoint.” A gentle voice called to us from just ahead. It crackled slightly, like it’d come across a radio. “We hope to get you through in a timely manner.”

The driver froze, and unwillingly pushed the vehicle back into gear. He glanced back at us, as if giving one last chance for someone to take a chance and run back into the Mire. None of us moved an inch. The last rule had been clear. We were to comply with all orders given.

I wasn’t sure what would happen if we broke the rules. Until I understood what was going on, I’d follow the blazing orders. If there was one thing I was good at, it was following orders. I wouldn’t be nicknamed the dog of the Hades Syndicate otherwise… I dropped a hand onto my tail, and brushed the fur lightly.

With the last chance gone, the driver pressed on the gas pedal. The car slowly pulled forward toward the unsettling checkpoint.

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AN:… I did it again. Whoopsie? This wasn’t quite ready for launch. Um… I’ll upload a bunch of chapters here, I guess. Might as well launch now. Not like I have much of a choice anymore.

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### Chapter 2: Chapter 2 Barghest2

The moment we rolled into the checkpoint, two things became abundantly clear. The chances of getting out of this were incredibly low. The checkpoint, as I guess could’ve been expected, was set up in such a way that there wasn’t any other way through.

The second was even worse. The people I thought had been manning the walls? They weren’t people—not in the truest sense. At first, I thought I just saw it wrong. When I refocused, the hair along my neck shot up sharply.

Below the helmets and armored uniforms, pure white alabaster skin shone through. As if noticing my gaze, one of the soldiers turned to face me. It didn’t have any facial features. Its entire head was just a faceless mask of white skin following the rough shape of a human head like some kind of messed up mannequin.

I mentally pulled up the image of the banner I’d used earlier and activated Seek. An intense bout of vertigo washed through me to the point I couldn’t tell if down was left, or if right was left. My tail coiled around my waist, and I cut off the psionic ability before it could make me puke.

”Please stop.” The voice came again. My ears twitched as if to find the source, but the radio-like noise came from all around us like the air itself spoke.

The driver side-eyed me, and I nodded. As long as nobody forgot the rules the blazing script had laid out for us, there was a good chance we might just get out of this one alive. Anomalies that used rules were bound to said rules. Hopefully.

Of course, that was assuming surviving the Overlap was even possible. I dunno about the others with me, but I was only ever trained in how to deal with calamities and people. Surviving anomalies and Overlaps hadn’t even been on the docket during my education.

One of the faceless soldiers walked up to the side of the driver’s window and tapped on it. The nervous man in the back’s hand twitched down to his rifle. “Mmph!”

”…” I shook my head, and fully dropped my own weapon. We weren’t going to get out of this by fighting. Not even considering the fact that we had no idea what we were dealing with, there were several heavy gun emplacements set up around the checkpoint. The moment we tried to fight our way through, our vehicle would be torn to shreds.

”Please roll down the window, and honestly fill out the form.” The voice came again. It was closer this time, like it came from inside the car itself.