Chapter 113

Walking into the enclosure, Nat was greeted by the view of a group of wargs. They all turned to look at her, as the door made a noise, and immediately became hostile. Their hackles rose and their teeth became bared, ready to strike. It was at this point that Maia and Kali jumped out of the Soulscape, while the male canines came out around her sides. Now the sides were seven against four, but it was more even than anything. The other side were all larger and stronger than most of the group, leaving Sol to be the only one that was an even match. Due to this, neither side made a move forwards or back, waiting to see what the other would do. All of the canine's present felt that if they made the first move, they would lose. This continued for a few minutes with growls back and forth, before the eyes of one of the wargs went wide. It made a confused sounding whine, while at the same time losing all traces of hostility. Looking down at Kali, who was right beside her, she gestured for a translation.

'All they said was 'Natalie?' while being confused.' Kali responded, seemingly unsure on how to take it. This warg apparently knew her, but how? She had never interacted with a warg before. While the other wargs still maintained a high level of vigilance, they dropped their hostilities after the confused whine came out. Getting her pack to stand down, Nat took a step forward. Seeing her movements, the confused one took mirrored her actions. Step after step, the distance between the two closed to nothing. Carefully, the warg sniffed Natalie, before barking loudly and nuzzling up against her. She was surprised by the wargs actions, but not so much as the fact that the other three wargs started coming up to her. As the first one nuzzled against her, she felt a patch of fur missing from the body of the large canine. Looking down, she ran her hand along what seemed to be a scar mark, that had a vague familiarity. As the memory of the scar came back to her.

Many years ago, during her internship, there was this one wolf pup that came into the zoo injured. He had been found injured and on his own, having fallen from a cliff. By the amount of blood he lost and the size of the injury, it was a miracle that they were able to save him. It was a gash that ran along most of his body, and caused severe trauma to his spine. It took a lot of time and energy, but he had a long and invasive surgery to try and give the pup a chance at a normal life. While Natalie had only been one of the attendants at the time, not being trained enough to operate, the pup took to her in an instant. Most of her time interning was helping to rehabilitate this one wolf pup and get him capable of moving once more. By the time Natalie was finishing her internship, the pup had already started to be able to walk short distances normally, and it was expected that within a few years he would be able to run again. Due to how well he withstood all of the surgeries and pain from his injury, they had all named him Trooper. He was the little pup who would not give up after all.

"Trooper, is that you?" Natalie asked, eyes wide with shock. Not only had the little pup she helped treat grown up, but he was now larger than her. But when she had seen him last, he had just been a normal wolf. Before she could think too far on this, Trooper's eyes lit up, and he jumped at Natalie as he always used too. Because of his new-found size, he ended up tackling her to the ground. Once she was down, he started licking her face over and over. Thankfully, she landed on grass, and only briefly managed to have the air knocked out of her. It took a solid few seconds of warg tongue and fur covering her mouth before she could finally voice out the words, "Trooper, get off of me!"

As soon as the giant canine moved off of her, she stood back up, only to have the other start sniffing her intently. Slowly they all started nuzzling up against her in unison. She had not been here for that long while interning, so she was surprised that so many of the canines seemed to recognize her. As the four wargs nuzzled up against her, she slowly started picking out telltale signs of which warg was which. Tank still had the scar over his eye, showing where he had been clawed by another wolf in a fight for dominance. Lady still had the same set of spots along her flank, shaped lightly into a heart shape in a couple spots. And finally, there was Sierra, who had the most unique colouring of all of them, since she had been an albino as a wolf. The white fur and pink eyes set her apart from all others. They had all just been pups when she was an intern, and seemed to enjoy her presence the whole time. Seeing them as wargs threw her through a loop or two.

As she went through the new information, knowing now that wargs did not manifest during the event, but were instead mutated wolves kept Natalie distracted. Trooper went out and left the other three to reconnect with their former keeper. When he came back, nine normal grey wolves were following him. Apparently the wargs had a sort of ruler status here. One by one, they all bonded willingly with Natalie, leaving her standing there still surprised by everything. It took a few minutes until she finally came back down to earth, and by then Shannon had come out and stood beside her. After storing what they could from this enclosure, it was finally time to leave the zoo, and by extension Calgary. As they walked down towards the hole in the fence, Nat filled in Shannon on what she had just learned. After she was done, neither spoke another word until they were safely out of the zoo, trying to wrap their heads around even more madness.

Huge thanks to my Elder Wolves Selvaria, Viktor, Saganatsu, Eeleater, Lachlan, Adam, John, Nicholas, Jacob, Onean, Hades, Krimson, Jake, Neal, Sebastian, Ethan, Sir Hellington, and Kevin for supporting me and my writing! Remember that I keep Patreon ten chapters ahead at all times. Our next goal on Patreon will be getting up to 50 patrons, which I will then spend more time each month writing some side stories and shorts that show other perspectives throughout my stories!

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