New Zion
Chapter 27: Ears or Tails

Cole looked out over the city, the wind blowing in. Aria stood next to him, holding his arm.

“It’s going to rain soon, Cole,” she whispered. Cole nodded.

“Yeah. You can head back if you want; I have to watch this,” Cole said. Aria held onto his arm tighter than before.

“But won’t it look strange for you to be wandering the town alone?” she asked. “Especially on parade day?” Cole smiled.

“Very true,” he said. “There it is,” he pointed towards the float, which was making its way back to the center of town. The drums were no longer playing, but the rest of the instruments were playing louder to make up for it. Feet clattered on the roof tiles of the building. Cole looked back as Scout joined them. His face was completely covered; the only way to identify him was by his ears and tail.

“You have been here three weeks, and have yet to actually do anything!” he accused. Cole looked back at him.

“They park the float in the same place every week, and every time that I manage to peek through, the drums aren’t there anymore,” Cole explained. Scout scratched his head in frustration.

“I don’t care! What have you actually been doing? You left one night and came back with a miner, and then you leave again and come back with nothing!” Scout said. Cole sighed.

“I thought the less we knew, the better off we were,” Cole said. Scout blinked.

“Uh, right…” He said, but his ear didn’t twitch. Cole narrowed his eyes as Scout turned away. Aria tightened her grip on Coles arm and pulled him down a bit after Scout walked to the other end of the roof.

“That’s not Scout; he smells wrong,” she said. Cole nodded.

“I agree,” he replied. “Hey Scout,” Cole called to him. Scout turned around.

“What is it?” He asked.

“Come here. I think there’s something happening at the float,” he said, pointing. Scouts eyes widened and he came running over. Once he was there, Cole yanked off the face covering and held his blade against the imposter’s neck. He pulled off the ears and tail. “What do you know about us?” Cole asked.

“I only know about the miner and the meetings!” the man stammered. Cole let out a long breath.

“For some reason, I don’t believe you,” Cole said. “Now, you’re going to start telling me the truth, or else my girlfriend here is going to eat you,” the man’s eyes widened.

“W-What?” he sputtered.

“Yeah. She’ll cut off slabs of meat at a time, but she prefers to keep her prey alive while doing so. For some reason, she also likes to eat the meat right in front of the person she’s eating as well,” Cole continued. Aria pulled out a cruel looking knife.

“Uh… We know about the movement, and that the person calling himself Scout is a very important member of it, and that since you arrived, strange things and those information meetings started happening,” he said, looking down. Cole placed his blade at the man’s chin, forcing him to look up.

“Do you know what the leader looks like?” he asked. The man blinked.

“We don’t know which one you are. All we know is that one of the newcomers is responsible,” the man said.

“Hmm… Do you know where we are based?” Cole asked. The man shook his head, but his eyes wouldn’t meet Coles. Cole stabbed the blade into the man’s leg. “I’m sorry dear, but your meal will be a little damaged before it gets to you,” Cole said, looking back at Aria, who gave him a look of disgust in return.

“We know that you’re based in some truck, but we don’t know where it is,” the man said. Cole nodded, satisfied.

“Good, good. Thank you,” he said, pulling the blade out.

“So, you’re going to let me go?” the man asked. Cole shrugged.

“As long as those ears and tail aren’t real,” he said. Aria picked them up and inspected them.

“They’re real,” Aria said. Cole clicked his tongue.

“Damn it! Why’d you have to go and do that?” Cole said. The man’s eyes widened as Cole stabbed his sword into the man’s neck and twisted, taking the head off. He dragged the body to the side of the building where there was an open dumpster and rolled it over the edge. He stood up, putting the head into a bag.

“Let’s go. I think I know what happens to the drums,” he said.

“Did you have to tell him that I’d eat him?” Cole looked up at Aria.

“It worked, didn’t it?” he said.

“But I don’t eat people! Almost no Terra do that. The number of Terra that eat people is the same for the number that your people have, and we shun them,” she said. “This is why my people get a bad reputation…” she said. Cole shook his head.

“Your people get a bad reputation because they are warlike, are unaccepting of anyone who disagrees with them, and although they may accept a diverse range of people, the minority is privileged to the point of idiocy. Oh, and the leadership of the Terra Lands is the reason for all of this, and yet nobody has done anything about it,” Cole said. Aria fell silent. “They’re all too afraid, and bicker amongst themselves, even as they’re oppressed. If they could unite, the problem would be fixed,” Cole said. They got down to street level and began walking back in the direction of their trailer.

“Do you really think that they could be united?” Aria asked. Cole shrugged.

“Why don’t we test that when this is all over,” he said.

“Scout has been captured. We don’t know if he’s still alive, but the bastards cut off his ears and tail and had some guy put them on,” Cole said. Brawler was silent.

“So, now what?” he asked.

“Well, we have to operate on the assumption that he’s told them everything he knows, and we’ll need a new face for the group,” Cole said. Brawler nodded.

“How could you say that? Scout would never betray us!” Brawler said. Cole shook his head.

“It doesn’t matter if he did or not. We need to act on the assumption that he did, otherwise we could make a big mistake. And there’s always a way to make people talk; believe me, I know,” Cole said. Brawler sighed.

“Ok. So long as you’re not disrespecting Scout. He has been working on this for years now,” Brawler said. Cole nodded.

“I meant no disrespect to him. So, who will be the new leader?” he asked.

“I’ll do it,” Brawler said. Cole raised an eyebrow.

“It’ll make you a walking target,” he said. Brawler shrugged.

“That’s fine. We need to show that the Resistance can keep going. We can’t be restrained to being a single person; we have to remain an idea,” he said. Cole smiled.

“Because ideas can’t be killed,” he said. Brawler nodded. “Good. Spread the word that you’re taking over. We’ll see if we can’t speed up the process,” Cole said.

Scout cracked his eyes open. There was nothing but dark shapes around him. He couldn’t hear anything, but he could smell another person in the room, and he saw her in the corner. She slowly came into focus as his eyes adjusted. It was a female wolf Terra. Her mouth moved, but he simply shook his head. The girl started crying and her lips stopped forming words. Scout lowered his head, closing his eyes to keep the tears from falling.

©2017

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