[Teal]

As I'm not sure if I've posted this here yet - I couldn't find it, if I have - here is the start of my Uprising... Hm. I should have the second chapter finished soonish, anyway... *fingers crossed*

*cries 'cause she's a gabbit again*

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Prologue

Zek had his nose to the boardroom door, as usual; being small, his pack-mates had coerced/bullied him into snooping for them some time ago, and so far he’d not been caught. Although sometimes he wondered why they’d insisted, as most days it was deadly dull and he had to tank up on caffeine an hour in advance so he’d not fall asleep halfway through. The board meeting had started off calm, but now it was getting noisy; Upper Management was pissed off at something. Zek pressed his snout to the crack in the door and listened…
“I’m tellin’ yer,” One Glukkon yelled, over the row. “We have to stop ‘em before they get the chance to ruin anythin’ else!”
There was a chorus of agreement from the others.
“Yeah, but how? The forest’s a pretty damn large place, y’know.”
There were some angry mutterings.
“Well, it’s simple,” one of the high executives said. The sea of faces turned to look at him. “We’re goin’ in there,” he snarled, softly. “An’ I don’t care if we need an army and have to cut down every tree, but we’re goin’ in there. And we’re going to wipe them out. That’s what we’re going to do.”
Zek drew back from the door with a sense of unease. Wipe them out? There was only one group he knew of, aside from the infamous Abe, that could get Management so hot under the collar… The Guardian Pack was pretty well known among the sligs posted here, especially after two of them had killed Lenk, one of the biggest tyrants in barracks. Zek fled down the corridor; he had to tell someone…!

Unfortunately for him, Zek was the one that got “elected” to go and look for the Guardians, to tell them the news. And he ran almost all the way, not wanting to be caught out after dark; for a small, unarmed slig, even small, solitary paramites were a terrifying thought…
But, well… once he’d found the trail, it was easy enough to follow. He loped along with his head low to the ground; he could discern four scents – three slig and a mudokon – so this was likely the right way. The path wasn’t particularly recent, so he was lucky it hadn’t rained, or it would have been obliterated.
But… was that voices he could hear…? Yes, voices – a lot of them, as well. So he was getting closer – he pushed himself faster-
Something lunged out of the bushes and floored him with a smart kick in the ribs. Zek peeled himself out of the leaf-litter, and looked up to find Skan standing over him, his spear levelled at his throat, looking threatening.
“Don’t hurt me,” Zek wheezed, holding his hands up to illustrate he was unarmed, struggling to get his breath back. “I’ve got news.”
“News?” Skan lowered the spear, frowning faintly. It must be important, to have sent someone all this way to tell them… “Well… go on, then.”
“Promise yer won’ skewer me…?”
Skan bit back a scathing comment; instead he just nodded, mutely.
The youngster nodded. “Well… I overheard some glukks talkin’ yesterday mornin’… they’re goin’ ter kill yer all!”
“What?” Drek asked, loping up. “Kill us…? Who is...?”
“They said,” Zek tried to totter back to his feet, but failed dismally, sitting back down in the leaf litter with a whump. “That they were tired of yer meddlin’ an’ ruinin’ everythin’. An’ then they said they were goin’ ter come out here an’ wipe yer out.”
Skan and Drek exchanged looks.
“That sounds serious,” Drek said, softly.
Skan nodded. “We’d better get together, an’ discuss our options. If we’ve got any, of course. C’mon, you,” he hauled Zek to his feet. “Yer seem ter know what’s goin’ on…”
Zek tottered after the two Guardians, and wondered what in Odd’s name he’d managed to get involved in…

[ May 22, 2001: Message edited by: Teal ]