Lucas nodded. "Lucas Fiaerfoxe. Elemental Druid in Training." he spat, trying to come out with a fancy intro. He still didn't trust him. But he guessed he could at least try. "This is Rico." he said as he thumbed at Rico.

"I guess its ncie to meet you...Daryk." he placed a fake smile on his face.

The fox nodded toward the newcomer, still sitting on the ground.

"Daryk is it?" Riku asked. She tried to muster up any shock but she couldn't. She didn't find him all that threatening and she pulled out two blasters from her belt and pointed them at him.

Rico sighed, "Why am I always right."

Daryk slowly and calmly put his paws up in the air. "I have done nothing to you miss so please don't point those things at me." he said softly. "I really don't want any trouble, but if you wish to start it i'll have no choice but to finish it..."

"I'm not really in the mood to trust you. Why don't you put down your weapon and I'll put down mine? If you so much as make a move toward me, I'll blow your hide into the tree with bullets."

James noticed Breech wobbling on her feet, and decided that he needed to do something before she fell flat on her face. He reached over and scooped bother her and Dinah into his arms. Not a terribly difficult feat for a cyborg like him.

"You need to be resting..."

Rico raised an eyebrow, "No you won't. He's too close to the kid. Haven't you heard the legend?"

"Legend? Do I look like I give a darn about your silly legends? Besides it's just that, a legend and I don't care if he's too close to the kid. I'm accurate enough," She said.

The wolf chuckled deeply. "Funny you say such things... You have your weapon drawn on me and you say i have mine drawn towards you. Yet my weapons are still holstered. I guess they were right when they said humans were paranoid creatures."

Lucas narrowed his eyes as his hand's clenched. "No violence today." he sneered as the two turned only to see Riku's guns being grabbed by vines sprout from the ground and then carried back into the earth of the ground. "Does druid mean anything to you dolts?" he shook his head.

He glanced at Rico not taking his eyes off the two, "Legend?"

Rico smirked, "Now come along, you know it Luke. You can't harm an innocent in the Great Forest. The Warden Wolf won't allow it. If she had fired, she'd have missed. A druid would know just how powerful nature's magic is."

The wolf let his hands fall back to his sides. "Human females... so unpredicable... almost like a she wolf. Now no more of that alright can we call a truce?"

The fox smirked, "Long as I don't have to stand up."

The cub had frozen at the sight of the guns, weapon focus taking over, his shaking paw clamped firmly on the stone that hung around his kneck. Yet all the suden shocks that day had somewhat weekend his normaly solid resolve and he was now far too afraid to tug it free, brake the week knot that held the ends of its string together, everything was becoming ludicrusly scary. However, the second the vines grabbed the strangers guns, the kit was off like a bullet, scrambling over the tree roots and headed straight for knothole, tears streaming down his face. All that he could think of was getting back to his room and hiding under his warm, safe blankets. This was why he profered solitued, he hated being with people and there were so few places he had found that no one ever went. Now one of them was ruined. He'd never be able to sit there peacefuly again without recalling the strangers, those guns. The kit scewed his eyes shut to try and clear the tears from his vistion, his foot promptly catching on a root. Sprawling across the ground,the kit gagged on the dirt he'd nearly swallowed in the fall and wimpered slighly. However, at the sound of aproching footsteps and talking he emediatly clammed up, just in time to see a fox that he recognised from the FFHQ and feline walking down the newish path to knothole, a kitten tailing them, trotting to keep up. The last thing the cub wanted was even more attention, so he pulled himself up and back into the protection of the bushes. He'd let them go past, hoping that the strangers that had invaided his spot so hadn't followed him any firther, and then he'd be able to walk the rest of the way back to knothole unimpeeded by gun cocking mainiac overlanders, giant foxes and preditors with teath the size of his leg...

Craigs ears twitched at the sound of something hitting the ground rather roughly. He looked up the path they were following and managed to catch sight of a figure ducking in behind the bush. He lifted his nose up into the air slightly and sniffed it. Nothing. He thought for a moment. It probably down wind from us. Craig then looked up at the Fox, and the two felines. All three were too focused on one another and the new child to even notice the person up ahead. That was when the kitten made a silent break from the group.

After moving off the path it didnt take too long to track down what ever it was that took cover into the bush. Craig made sure to me more cautious as to where he stepped, not wanted to make any noise and alert the mystery person as to his presents, much like a predator on the prowl for its prey. The kitten peered through a few cracks between the leaves and spotted a rather frail looking young fox cub. He recognized him as one of the children in Knothole, hed always seem to wander here into the forest. Craig would see him from high up in the trees.

Craig pushed through the bushes causing the leaves to rustle. The noise caused the cub to quickly spin around, eyes wide as if expecting something horrible to happen. Instead he saw Craig sitting there smiling at him. The kitten figured that would be far more appropriate first impression then to simply pounce him

Dispite his obvious shaking, the cubs breathing remained hard and constraind, keeping his nerves under controle. The kitten smiled at the cowering cub, the kit still leaning away from the feline as though expecting an attack. But as Craig watched, his smile dimmed slighly. Something was wrong with the kits eyes. One moment they had been their normal aqua colour, staring in shock at the kitten's sudden aperance, then the cub blinked and everything changed. The pupils were obsured slilghtly by what looked to be a thin film over the eye, except it was moving, like a couded stormy sky the dark blues and incriments of grey passed across the pupils and iras, a sure sign, though few would know it, of hostility.
Then, all at once the kit seemed to realax, the film vanishing in a blink... for a moment, neither spoke. Then, in a shear act of bravery on his behalf, the cub moved forward, very slowly, untill he sat on his knees at equal eye level with the kitten..
"You can't talk, can you?"
It wasn't an insult, or a belitteling, far from it. The cub's words, while not the most ept or tactful, were a statment of fact and totlay inocent intreegue, his ignorance to worldly problems showing as clearly as his dimmed-crystal eyes that now gazed upon the kitten with dull fasination.
"Or is it 'done wana' rather then 'can't', NO!" He yelped sudenly, clamping his paws over his eyes "Done do that Astral! You know people done like it!"

Craig was worried slightly, the fur on the back of his neck had stood up when the cubs eyes went all funky on him. The smile again appeared on his face when he saw the young fox return to normal, or what he presumed to be normal. He spoke and Craig responded to him by giving a simple nod. When Astral suddenly shouted out loud and covered his eyes with his paws, only further confused the kitten. Craig tilted his head to the side and leaned forward slightly. What was going on? He wondered. The kitten then poked his nose lightly, he really had didnt know why but it seemed like a good perfectly good idea at the time.

The kit jumped back a little, taking his hands from his eyes and gently giving his nose a comforting rub, looking at the kitten in grave confustion "Mrr.. wha'da'ya do that for?" he said, sounding a little scorned with his face twisted into a sort of tired pout "...leave me alone"

"Nice going Mister Fluffy, you managed to scare one kid away." He looked over at the cub still cowering behind the wolf. As oddlooking as the fox was, there was a something calming about him. It was like there was something in his eyes that forced away panic and fear.

ooc; how many cubs are there in the main group? I know ast just ran off but I wasn't aware there was another cub 'cowering beind the wolf'. Do you meen Serori's charactor? becase I though he was still cuddeling the jacket near a tree? Mrr too confuzuld.

"Truce huh?" Riku said. She still was sore that her weapons were just taken away from her but she didn't feel like beating up the perp either. She folded her arms. "I guess a truce until I get my weapons back," She said.

The cub watched in awe as Lucas seemed to control the vine plants that stole the weapons away from the human. That it seemed was the same thing that drove the other cub to far and he took off running. He vaguely recalled his mother mentioning a few villages that had mobians that could do what this teen fox just did.

The kitten mirly seemed confused as to why the kit was so easily upset. Astral reatreated a little firther into the bushes, reaching for his rune to find some comfort... The kit let out a gasp, looking down at his empty chest fur franticly, then began scrabbling around the genral area, despiratly serching for something.
"Oh no no no no no nooo.." He whimpered, looking distraught "where is it?"
The kit pushed passed the kitten, serching the ground where he'd fallen, tears quickly building in his eyes "Oh GAAWD nooo Where's it gone! I can't have lost it, oh gods please say I haven't lost it."
He stood up, panting and looking ever more distraught. The kit looked back down the path he'd ran down to escape the strangers and, though he had a grate deal to fear from them, he also had far more to fear if he didn't get the Rune Stone back quickly. Without anther word to the kitten, he dashed back the way he came, stopping at every point he thought a branch might have caught him.
The kit didn't know wether the mute kitten had followed him or not, his mind hell bent on other more important things.
"AH!" He cryed at last, spotting the necklace hanging from a branch, almost on the edge of the claring from which he'd started. The kit practicaly lept at the talisman, grabbing so energicly that the brach it was caught on bent back with it, sending the tiny stone hurtaling into the air. The kit bottem jaw dropped, watching helplessly as his pressious talisman landed right at the feet of the strangers, bouncing to a stop in front of the large fox and the other cub.
"nuuu..." he whimpered quietly, reaching out pertheticly from the bushes, but too afraid to brake beyond them to retreave the talisman, he was sure they'd probably steal it.

Rico blinked and picked it up, happen to be distracted from the whelling of violence. It was an odd little amulet, and something felt strange about it. The fox blinked and turned it over in his paws, then looked around for where it had come from.

Lucas looked at the Talisman as which Rico had picked up, with a raised eyebrow he looked at it and nodded. "I've seen those at....home...before." he said, the word home seemed to be a troubling word to the 15 year old one-tailed kitsune. "But what does this one do, there are various talismans I have seen that have different uses." he thought as he looked to Rico.

"I wonder who it belongs to."

The kit let out a low wimper, reaching firther forward in mortifyed horror as the tall fox picked up his talisman and began examining it. Now leening so far forward that he was practiclay laying on the ground, the kit knew he had to get the talisman back, and quickly. Already he could feel it, that cold sensation encroaching on him as the echos of a thousand deaths that haunted the seemingly tranquill forest decended upon him. True, he had to be within ten feet of something undead to get a sevear reaction, but out here, in the wilds of the wood, there wasn't a single tree that didn't conseal some dark memory in its shadow and even if there wasn't a true spector for miles around, the voices could still be heard, whispering words of earthly woe, of bloody times long since passed.
"nuuu" the kit whispered franticly, his feet seemingly frozen to the spot with the fear of the croud ahead of him "give it back.. give it baacckkk"

Craig quickly darted after the kit, wondering what was going on. He was certainly acting unnerved about something, but what could it be? When the kitten finally caught up to astral he was laying down on the ground, yelling. Craig ran to his side and knelt down beside him, placing a hand on his shoulder.

Give it back Give it back!

It was then Craigs attention turned to the group ahead of him. Three foxs, 1 of witch oddly tall for a mobian and the teen he had seen earlier, but the third was new and with them a human, and a wolf. What could they have of his? Craig wondered to himself as he stood up, no doubt noticed by everyone ahead.

"Huh?" The fox watched the small commotion as first one cub, then the other returned. He smirked and rolled unto his side, slowly getting up and elbowing Lucas and walking over to the two. He knelt down pulled the fallen cub up gently. "Take it you lost this. May wanna be more careful next time." He said gently putting the necklace around his head and smiling. "You don't need to be afraid, I may not be mobian but that doesn't mean I haven't lived here for a long time."

"You can say that again.", said James with a chuckle as he stepped towards the group, Breech and Dinah still in his arms. The baby was sleeping, and from the looks of things, so was Breech.

"Sorry about leaving like that. Something came up..."

Daryk looked over at the new comers. Especially down at the female. He could have sworn that he had seen her somewhere before but he couldn't put his claw on it.
-------------------------

The cub seemed to be moving himself further away from the group. He wanted to find his mother and he wanted to find her now. He couldn't wait any longer and he didn't want to stay around these weird people.

Rico didn't look up, instead speaking to Lucas while still making sure the cub he was helping wasn't injured, "Luke, if you're feeling up to it would ya make sure Fluffy didn't scare the other kid too bad?" Then muttered, "Kids could get killed here, who's responsible for all these cubs out here? Dammit." more to himself than anyone although it was possible Astral could have heard him.

The moment the talisman was around his neck, the cub clasped it with both paws, obviously more then a little pleased to have it back. There was a slight blueish glow from between his fingers as the talisamn's ward reasurted itself, chasing away the growing shadows from the corners of the childs vission and shattering the distant whispering voices. The kit took a few moments to calm his paniced breathing before looking up at the large fox timidly, his eyes still with a few fategued tears in them "Thankyou, sir."
From this close up, as Rico checked the cub for injuries, it was quite clear that this child had a good many other probems other then just being a runt. His fur was unkempt, lacking the sheen most children of his age had in their coats, a sign of malnurishment or constant stress. There was a definate paleness about him even beneath his fur, as though he'd been avoiding sunlight most his life. His muscles all apeared under developed, warn away by lack of excersise and he was clearly insomniatic from his greneraly tired apearance. But it was the kits eyes that stured him the most. They were dull, near lifeless and devoid of happyness, the geam on their edges serving as a posible reminder of how they once must have shone with childhood inocence.
At the fox's mumblings, the kit took a slight step back so that he was nearly level with the kitten, ears back a little, clearly still intimidated by the fox's huge size..
"I-I bedder be getting back..."

Breech shifted in James' arms slightly.

Behind James, Burn smiled abruptly, "We're trying to get back to Knothole," she said, "My cousin might need hospital help after giving birth in the forest."

Riku turned to look at the other hoverbike rider and the female furry with him. She wasn't all that eager to be surrounded by all these furries but she also didn't have much of a choice with a destroyed hoverbike. "I need passage back to my city. Anyone know where I could find some transportation?"

"Why don't you walk there... you got legs." Daryk commented. It was obvious that he wasn't to fond of humans. Especially this Riku character.

Lucas nodded. "Yeah, 'lander - go walk." he spat. The Great War of course was one of the main reasons in the past to effect the two species' racism of each other.

The red fox then turned for the other kit, who had he remembered holding on to a jacket. "Where'd he go?" he thought as he began looking for him.

She glared at him and folded her arms. "Why don't you shut up, smart aleck. Be lucky I got my guns taken away or else I'd riddle your body with bullets," She said.

The cub was now a few yards away hiding behind a tree trying to get the courage to take off. But he was afraid of being seen by them.

----------------------------------

"and she said i was threatening her... and here she is wanting to riddle my body with bits of metal..."

Riku glared at Lucas then at Daryk (Hope I spelled his name right) and growled. "Last I checked, I helped you, so can I get my guns back?" She asked. She glanced at Daryk. "And you better shut up before I get really ticked off."

"You woke me up, from over-exaustion. Big deal." Lucas snarled back at Riku as he walked, and peeked around a tree.

"Oh there you are." he said with relief.

"Thought you'd gone and gone out by yourself, its too dangerous I'd think." Lucas smiled.

Daryk crossed his arms. "Oh and what are you going to do, nag me to death?" he glared right back at her.

-----------------------------

The cub jumped and fell over a tree root. "Ahh!" he yelped. He then scrambled to his feet. "I don't care i'm not afraid of anything out there!"

"I used to be just like you." he thought. "Though then I was deaf." Luke chuckled at the thought as he knelt down. "I know, but you never know whats out there. My name as I've said is Lucas, whats yours?" he asked extending a hand.

"Ungrateful welp," Riku said under her breath. She turned to Daryk and glared at him. She reached into her belt and pulled out a small dagger before flicking it at him.

Rico's face looked etched with concern, "Back, to where? You look like you haven't eaten or slept in days, kiddo. Where are your parents?"

"...I do?" An edge of confustion joined the dimming look of fear on the kit's face "mrr, I just lost track of time thats all. I'm going back to knothole... an' I don't have any pearents." the kits voice trailed off, as though he hadn't ment to disclose this fact.

Rico sighed, he'd this so many times but never had gotten over it. Everytime he saw or met another like this kid it hurt inside. "Maybe you should tag along with us, I figure I'm heading to Knothole anyway. Least that way you got someone taking care of ya. You okay to walk and everything?"

A small, shy smirk appered on the kits features, so hollow a smile had never been seen. An obvious ruse, but not one that was ment to scear or threaten, because it was simply the best he could muster "Considering I've been walking around for a good.." The kit checked the hole in canopy again, looking at the suns position "Hmmmm..fffive maybe six hours and I can still run away from stuff, I'd say I'll be fine till we get to knothole... though I done wana know what Sally's gona say when I get back. It was just gettin' dark when I came out here.."

Rico raised an eyebrow, "Sally, huh." He shook off the serious expression that came from the name, "Why'd ya leave Knothole? Get lost going for a walk er somethin'?"

"No," The cub replyed simply "I just come out here to my quiet spots, usualy when I can't sleep or if I just wana think... this was one of them, but I've got others."