Chapter 168

When Natalie awoke the following morning, she noticed that Sophie had a grin on her face. Seeing she was still asleep, she was glad that she was at least having some good dreams now and then. Lately Natalie's were just weird, and nothing like when she went to the dreamscape. Elephant on a unicycle playing a saxophone kind of weird. She just had no idea how to process them some mornings, so most times she just tried to forget them. As she looked over at her lover, she was saddened to see that the grin was not shared by both of them. This had been a fairly regular trend since Lethbridge, but most nights would bring back memories of the incident in nightmare form to Shannon. It had been a good thing that Sophie was groggy most mornings, otherwise she would have noticed days ago. While hoping that the nightmares would at least become less frequent soon, Nat left the tent after placing a peckish kiss on both of their foreheads.

Coming out, she went to get the update on what happened during the night from the coyotes, as well as check on all of the pups. Over the night they had payed extra attention towards the north, watching the edge of Leduc carefully. Their days in the wilderness have had a clear trend of lacking any spawned monsters, the few they came across due to sizable buildings or those bonded with them. This supported the idea they had that monsters would only show up in areas with a high density of man-made structures in place. It even gave credence to the idea that they only spawned at man-made structures or facilities. But that was just theories they had running. There was no way to test them, after all.

Today, they had actually broken up into couples, but that was due to both Copper and Tin wanting to spend time with their young. And man were those pups getting large. Already they were able to walk around on two legs, albeit quite shakily. That, and they had already started attacking small prey. Though they were field mice, it was still a catch regardless, showing that they had an aptitude for not only hunting down prey, but doing it in the dead of night. When they grew up, they would be a force to be reckoned with for sure, as long as they kept that up. That would just take them probably six or seven more months of them getting used to these forms and their abilities that came with them. Let alone their natural four-legged forms.

This had left Edwin and Lucille in charge of the watch during the night. According to Lucille, they had traded back and forth while continuing to hold to the workout plan, while keeping a steady sightline maintained to the city's edge. Hearing that, Nat was unsure whether to feel happy or not that they had seen not motion at all, in any direction. On the one hand, that meant that they had been safe while they slept. On the other, it probably meant that all of the monsters were more packed together in the middle of the urban area. While that meant getting into the city would be easier, getting through it was likely to be a lot more troubling. Add that in with the fact that it was looking to be a sunny and clear day, it was looking to be a lot more trouble than Calgary was.

While Nat was talking strategy with the two coyotes, Sophie came out of the tent, groggy and rubbing her eyes as she attempted to wake up in the bright morning light. Slowly she stumbled over to where Nat was currently seated, before crawling into her lap. Subconsciously, Nat wrapped her arms around the munchkin while continuing to hatch a plan for the cities that they were needing to go through. Originally, she was planning to skirt around the outskirts and avoid it all together. However, with Sophie starting to get dreams that had the same way of working as hers and Shannon's, she felt that they needed to shift their course. Edmonton had a zoo; which Natalie knew for a fact that it had owls. The downside for them, was that it was located close to the downtown core of the city itself. Thankfully, it was in the corner closest to them, but they would still have to travel inside the city for hours before getting there, let alone getting out. The part that made it all worse, was that unlike Calgary the berms on the side of the roads were far smaller, even to the point of non-existent in some of the main roads. Going through the city unseen like they had before was a dream within a dream.

So, when Shannon finally came out and started working on breakfast, Nat got to work doing some prep work herself. Firstly, she needed to check on Sol and Bryden, and see how their wounds were doing from the last fight they had been in. Thankfully, they were back in business, and ready to kick more monster ass. This fact in itself gave Nat a huge boost in confidence in being able to pull the whole thing off. After all, Bryden was probably one of the most experienced fighters in the group, and Sol wasn't far behind him. It just mattered how well they all proceeded, and if everyone managed to keep an eye out, both for enemies and for one another.

As the entire pack roused and got eating the high energy breakfast of scrambled eggs and bacon that Shannon made, Natalie explained what was going on today. Sophie's eyes got wider as she heard the heavy tones that Natalie used, but it was far different for the canines and gorillas. There was a light in their eyes, and the sleepiness that was first in them was slowly but surely replaced by a fierce determination and drive. After all, the canines had a good idea of what the middle of a city would be like, and the gorillas were right there with them. There was going be a good chance today would get bloody, and they would make sure to spill plenty of theirs first before they let their own fall.

Huge thanks to my Elder Wolves Viktor, Saganatsu, Eeleater, John, Hades, Onean, Neal, Sebastian, Sir Hellington, Adam, 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!

Feel free to join us all on my Discord! https://discord.gg/b8gRkD4