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  "description": "Book 2, in the Initiation series, following Neil Leslie as he uncovers things about himself, and gets pulled into something larger\n\nWritten by fa!benjaminmahir and fa!Kindar\n\n[url=http://www.postybirb.com]Posted using PostyBirb[/url]",
  "description_bbcode_parsed": "<span style='word-wrap: break-word;'>Book 2, in the Initiation series, following Neil Leslie as he uncovers things about himself, and gets pulled into something larger<br /><br />Written by <a style='border: none;' title='benjaminmahir on Fur Affinity' rel='nofollow' href='https://furaffinity.net/user/benjaminmahir'><img style='border: none; vertical-align: bottom; width: 14px; height: 14px;' width='14' height='14' src='https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/images80/contacttypes/internet-furaffinity.png' /></a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<a title='benjaminmahir on Fur Affinity' rel='nofollow' href='https://furaffinity.net/user/benjaminmahir'>benjaminmahir</a> and <a style='border: none;' title='Kindar on Fur Affinity' rel='nofollow' href='https://furaffinity.net/user/Kindar'><img style='border: none; vertical-align: bottom; width: 14px; height: 14px;' width='14' height='14' src='https://nl1.ib.metapix.net/images80/contacttypes/internet-furaffinity.png' /></a>\n\t\t\t\t\t<a title='Kindar on Fur Affinity' rel='nofollow' href='https://furaffinity.net/user/Kindar'>Kindar</a><br /><br /><a href=\"http://www.postybirb.com\" rel=\"nofollow\">Posted using PostyBirb</a></span>",
  "writing": "Cold invaded the back of the van when the doors opened, making Niel shiver. Men climbed in, grabbed him and Wieland, and pulled them out. Niel tried to fight back, but while he had enough coordination to mostly stand on his own, as soon as he forced one of them to let go, he was tipping forward. Whatever the German shepherd had received hit him harder as he had to be carried through the compound.\nNiel saw so many trees beyond the buildings, he figured they were in the middle of a forest. Hundreds of men trained under supervision in the open spaces, hand to hand, firearms, rifles, knives. All it needed was to be in black and white, and this would be some historical documentary about the Nazis. Only the uniforms weren’t quite right. The color scheme was there, but they lacked the swastikas.\nThe building he and Wieland were brought to was plain concrete. The doors to the room were bars that let him see the low cot with sheets. Those they passed before he was dropped in to one, almost missing the cot, were empty. Wieland was shoved in the room facing him, and the men left.\n“Fedor?” Niel called, pulling himself until he sat on the bed. “Dario?”\nNo one answered.\nHad they been killed?\nNo. They wouldn’t have kidnapped them, dragged them across the ocean, just to kill them when Niel wasn’t watching. The road had been bumpy and sinuous. Their truck was running late, that was all.\nThe door opened, and another wave of cold stole the little heat that had accumulated. A woman dropped a thick jacket in his cell and Wieland.\n“Wait,” Niel called, and she stopped, but didn’t look in his direction, or even up from the floor. He swallowed his plea for help. Even if she was willing to assist him. There was a literal Neo-Nazi army out there. “Wieland can’t put his on. He needs help.”\nShe didn’t react.\nWere women even allowed to think under Nazi rule? Now he was paying for never researching them. He couldn’t even tell if she understood him. Before he could think of anything to say, she left, and he crawled himself to the jacket and back onto the bed.\nBy the time he leaned against the wall again, the door opened. The German shepherd’s shivering was visible in how his short fur stood on end. Fedor and Dario walk by their rooms under guard, but already wearing jackets.\n“Can one of you go put Wieland’s jacket on him?” Niel asked. As they left he asked in German, probably mangling the simple request, by the glare the pug gave him. Or he was insulted that someone not canine knew the language.\n“I’ll be fine,” Wieland said, teeth chattering hard enough to be audible.\nIt was once the shivering stopped that the German shepherd would be in trouble if he couldn’t get warm.\n“Are you two okay?” Niel asked when neither spoke.\nSilence answered him.\nThe door opened again just when he thought enough warmth built up, Wieland wasn’t in danger of freezing. The guard went into the German shepherd’s cell, injected him, then put the jacket on, saying something in quiet German that had Wieland try to spit at him.\nOnce he left, silence fell inside the building.\n* * * * *\nNiel strained to make out the words. The thick walls, along with his high school level German, made what the guards were saying hard to work out. ‘Waste of time’ or maybe, ‘not waste of time’ the tone more than the words implied uncertainty. The chastising tone that answered him supported that.\nA word was used he couldn’t quite work out. Almen, maybe? But the tone made it sound like a title. Someone in charge? Wasn’t Fuhrer the title of whoever led an army? He wished high school had gone more in depth toward military German. Or even touched on it slightly.\nHe strained harder as the voice became softer, then realized the speakers had walked away.\n“Are you hearing anything useful?” he asked Weiland as he stepped the to door of his cell to help keep warm.\n“No. Just talk of missing home, wishing it was warmer, not looking forward to the walk.”\n“What walk?” Dario asked.\n“They didn’t say,” Wieland replied. “Only that as soon as the last one arrives, they have to get on the move.”\n“Last who?” Fedor asked.\n“They didn’t say either.”\n“Other soldiers?” the Pallas suggested.\n“Too many soldiers already,” Dario replied.\n“Guys,” Niel said, as a thought occurred to him. “There’s five Survivor families, right?”\n“Da.”\n“Suzuki,” Dario added.\n“What if that’s who they’re waiting for? They went to the effort of getting one of us from each family, so it makes sense they’d want one of them too, right? Dario, what do you know about the Suzuki?”\n“Kishu, from Japan.”\nNiel had seen a handful of Kishu on the campus. They hadn’t been particularly tall or muscular. “What’s that family’s power?”\n“Precision,” the capybara said after a few seconds.\n“What does that mean?”\n“They never miss,” Wieland said.\n“So, like a marksman?” That was something that could help, if they could get him a gun.\n“I don’t know. I’ve never met one. That’s just what people say about the Suzuki.”\nNiel did a few more circuits of his cell. Until he knew more, it wasn’t like he could come up with anything.\nHe dropped on his cot. Information. If he could just get more information, he was sure he’d get the answer. He couldn’t learn anything about their captors directly, but could he infer something of their intent from the people they’d kidnapped?\n“What makes the Survivors different from the Society?”\n“Different agreement,” Dario answered.\n“It can’t be just that,” Niel said. “There has to be something specific to us, otherwise they’d have grabbed anyone of them. It can’t be our powers, since from what I understand, someone among them will have a version of it, or it can be reproduced through sigils.”\n“Fraze,” the capybara corrected, and Niel even heard the emphasis everyone seemed to use when referring to the magical version of phrases.\n“So why us specifically? And why now?”\n“You,” Fedor said.\nNiel snorted. “I’m not so important I’m the linchpin in some Neo-Nazi plot. I’m just a university student on a football team, who likes history, and guys.”\n“You are Irvine,” Dario said.\n“Leslie,” Niel corrected.\n“You have Irvine blood.” The capybara’s sounded annoyed.\n“I doubt I’m the only one who can trace his family back to him.”\n“But you have family power,” Dario said.\n“So does Jarod. He’s the original, after all. If that was what they were waiting on, they wouldn’t have had to wait on me to arrive on the scene.”\n“No one bothers Jarod,” Dario said. “Jarod untouchable.”\n“Why? And why would Nazis respect anything like someone’s mystique or status within some group they don’t care about?”\n“I.. Do not know. I not told all stories, but I listen. Patriarch tell story to Elder when Elder say they go to Jarod. Not know why,” he added before Niel could ask. “Patriarch tell Jarod speak to Him. Jarod make contract. Jarod is not to be bothered, revered, protected.” He let out a Spanish swear. “Not know last one. Not translate right.”\nNiel had trouble imagining Jarod engendering anything like reverence, but if they believed the story, it might just be the fact he was the orchestrator of their survival that caused it. But it didn’t explain Nazis staying away from the man. Unless he included magic. “What you’re saying is that you think that until I came around, whatever this is couldn’t happen because the Nazis weren’t able to grab Jarod.”\n“No,” Dario replied. “I tell you story I hear.”\nWieland chuckled. “You’re filling in the rest, Niel.”\n“Fine, but can you imagine the level of coincidence needed for this to work? What if I hadn’t… been at the party?” Dario knew about Olavo, but Niel figured it was best to keep his involvement from the others. “And for them to then kidnap two out of four guys I happen to know.”\n“I at university,” Fedor said.\n“But I wasn’t in Minneapolis when they grabbed me, and they took you first because…” the dalmatian. “Fedor, you were with that dalmatian, right?”\n“Da,” the Pallas cat replied hatefully.\n“Holy Fuck. I think I get why he’s pissed at me. I had this dalmatian hit on me like constantly after the party. He kept asking for me to go with him to fuck, but stuff kept getting in the way. What if each of those was an attempt to grab me? And all this kept being postponed just because I wasn’t into the guy enough to want to do him instead of being a responsible adult? Only how would they know about me? I figured finding out we had sex is easy enough. For all I know, the dalmatian was at the party—”\n“Wasn’t,” Fedor said. “Would know him there.”\n“Then a friend of his. That doberman, maybe. But they needed to know to look out for me to have sex with you. How did they do that?”\n“They see you at university,” Fedor said.\n“But I’m just this random raccoon there. I didn’t know I was a Survivor. There are two people who knew I was Jarod’s direct descendant. And Stewart doesn’t know about the Survivors as a group, just that his grandfather was different.”\nBut was Niel right? Grant had said something about helping the Survivors. So that was one group who might have a reason to know about him.\n“Do you guys know about the Practitioners?”\n“Who are they?” Wieland asked after a series of negative.\n“Another faction. They helped the survivors with something. Grant was going to tell me more, but we were attacked by the Chamber—that’s another group—and then I was whisked back home to have copious amounts of sex as a way of dealing with the people I saw die.” He massaged his temple. “I think I’m just running after a pass that was long caught.” He yawned. “I’m seeing things that aren’t there.”\n“Then sleep,” Wieland said. “You’ll think better afterward.”\n“Id rather wake up and find out this was just a bad dream.”\n* * * * *\n“Wake,” Fedor hissed loudly. “Wake.”\n“I’m up, Coach,” Niel replied, hurrying to sit, then wondering why Coach Horgar hadn’t turned the lights on when he’d barged in. \nHe shivered and remembered he wasn’t in his bed, or dorm.\n“Hear what?” Dario asked.\n“Truck,” the Pallas cat answered. “Excitement.”\n“You think it’s the Suzuki?” Wieland asked.\nThe door opened before Niel answered. Someone gave orders to get the prisoners ready to move. Wieland struggled with the two who came into his cell, sending one against the wall hard enough the concrete cracked, and the man didn’t get up. But the other injected him and moved away. He checked the downed man, called for help, and they took him out while Wieland cursed them in ever more slurred German.\nThe leader berated someone. It was too fast for Niel to make out most of it. Something about quantities, tolerances, problems. Whatever it had been about, the result was Niel being pulled out as they carried Wieland, then they tied the German shepherd’s arms around Niel’s a neck, forcing him to carry the shepherd.\nFortunately, Wieland wasn’t particularly heavy.\nThe four of them joined a kishu with his hands tied behind his back and under armed guards. Then they were marching, forming a single line as they left the compound. The flashlight gave only enough light that he made out the narrow trail they were following.\nThis explained the walking. Why couldn’t this have been a paved road and be thrown back in the van while they drove to wherever this went?\nAt least, the coach had trained him to be up really early by now. He could only hope the others would fare as well.\n* * * * *\nNeil grumbled at the sun that rose over the trees to blind him as he dealt with the uneven terrain along the mountainside. Under different circumstances, this was probably an impressive sight, but he preferred it when the long drop was only hinted at by the occasional flashlight beam.\nOne misstep, and all this would be over for him and his passenger.\nBut would it? He didn’t have a form of super-healing, but the others hadn’t been able to tell him what went into ‘never aging’. How horrible would it be to end up at the button of the cliff, broken beyond repair, and not die? Maybe that was why Jarod refused to initiate any of his male descendants.\nStill, if Fedor and Dario were right, without Niel, this whole thing fell apart. Or was seriously delayed. Or was he more important than that? Did he have to be directly related to Jarod for what they needed? Was that why they’d waited for him instead of initiating any other grand and great-grandsons?\nThat meant his sacrifice would be worth it. And even if they could use any of the descendants, it would be a delay that might result in everyone being rescued in the meantime.\nNot everyone, Niel was reminded by Wieland grumbling something incoherent. If he went down, he had no choice but to take the German shepherd with him. He wasn’t even sure if he could commit suicide to save the others, but he knew he couldn’t do it by committing murder.\nMaybe if he and Wieland could talk it over, the German shepherd would be okay with it, but the path was now wide enough they traveled three wide, so there was always some Neo-Nazi within earshot. As much as he wanted to believe they were so prejudiced against anything not German, they wouldn’t understand English. He already knew some of them spoke it. Fuck, at least one of them was American.\nSo he kept on trudging as the sun kept on moving up. When a man approached, holding a syringe, Niel considered shoving him over the edge. The man stopped, barked an order, and two others joined him, guns drawn. Niel needed to learn to be discreet in mentally threatening someone’s life, he decided.\nHe still thought about going through with it. It wasn’t like they could kill him. But he didn’t want to be shot. He doubted Neo-Nazis stuck to the laws governing who has the right to carry a gun that fired bullets.\nAround noon, the terrain flattened, and the trail moved away from the cliff. Not long after that, they entered a cavern. It started out carved my nature, but quickly, Niel saw signs the stone had been worked by tools to enlarge the passageway until even the flashlights’ beams no longer illuminated them.\nNiel whistled as he crested a mound and lights spread along a winding path to reveal a man-made ruin. Here and there, large lights showed men gathered, but Niel and his group weren’t heading for one of those. They followed the path, those light casting only enough they could see where to step, and hint at the buildings on their left and right. When they came to a stop, it was because the path ended at a dais with a pedestal before a massive stone door into the back wall.\nThe door had a stylized wolf’s face on it, which already creeped Niel out, then he noticed the pedestal had five spaces for someone to kneel around it. He made out three of the carving marking the place to kneel: a Pallas cat, a raccoon, and a capybara. He had no trouble imagining the other two.\n“Bad,” Fedor said. “This very bad.”",
  "writing_bbcode_parsed": "<span style='word-wrap: break-word;'>Cold invaded the back of the van when the doors opened, making Niel shiver. Men climbed in, grabbed him and Wieland, and pulled them out. Niel tried to fight back, but while he had enough coordination to mostly stand on his own, as soon as he forced one of them to let go, he was tipping forward. Whatever the German shepherd had received hit him harder as he had to be carried through the compound.<br />Niel saw so many trees beyond the buildings, he figured they were in the middle of a forest. Hundreds of men trained under supervision in the open spaces, hand to hand, firearms, rifles, knives. All it needed was to be in black and white, and this would be some historical documentary about the Nazis. Only the uniforms weren&rsquo;t quite right. The color scheme was there, but they lacked the swastikas.<br />The building he and Wieland were brought to was plain concrete. The doors to the room were bars that let him see the low cot with sheets. Those they passed before he was dropped in to one, almost missing the cot, were empty. Wieland was shoved in the room facing him, and the men left.<br />&ldquo;Fedor?&rdquo; Niel called, pulling himself until he sat on the bed. &ldquo;Dario?&rdquo;<br />No one answered.<br />Had they been killed?<br />No. They wouldn&rsquo;t have kidnapped them, dragged them across the ocean, just to kill them when Niel wasn&rsquo;t watching. The road had been bumpy and sinuous. Their truck was running late, that was all.<br />The door opened, and another wave of cold stole the little heat that had accumulated. A woman dropped a thick jacket in his cell and Wieland.<br />&ldquo;Wait,&rdquo; Niel called, and she stopped, but didn&rsquo;t look in his direction, or even up from the floor. He swallowed his plea for help. Even if she was willing to assist him. There was a literal Neo-Nazi army out there. &ldquo;Wieland can&rsquo;t put his on. He needs help.&rdquo;<br />She didn&rsquo;t react.<br />Were women even allowed to think under Nazi rule? Now he was paying for never researching them. He couldn&rsquo;t even tell if she understood him. Before he could think of anything to say, she left, and he crawled himself to the jacket and back onto the bed.<br />By the time he leaned against the wall again, the door opened. The German shepherd&rsquo;s shivering was visible in how his short fur stood on end. Fedor and Dario walk by their rooms under guard, but already wearing jackets.<br />&ldquo;Can one of you go put Wieland&rsquo;s jacket on him?&rdquo; Niel asked. As they left he asked in German, probably mangling the simple request, by the glare the pug gave him. Or he was insulted that someone not canine knew the language.<br />&ldquo;I&rsquo;ll be fine,&rdquo; Wieland said, teeth chattering hard enough to be audible.<br />It was once the shivering stopped that the German shepherd would be in trouble if he couldn&rsquo;t get warm.<br />&ldquo;Are you two okay?&rdquo; Niel asked when neither spoke.<br />Silence answered him.<br />The door opened again just when he thought enough warmth built up, Wieland wasn&rsquo;t in danger of freezing. The guard went into the German shepherd&rsquo;s cell, injected him, then put the jacket on, saying something in quiet German that had Wieland try to spit at him.<br />Once he left, silence fell inside the building.<br />* * * * *<br />Niel strained to make out the words. The thick walls, along with his high school level German, made what the guards were saying hard to work out. &lsquo;Waste of time&rsquo; or maybe, &lsquo;not waste of time&rsquo; the tone more than the words implied uncertainty. The chastising tone that answered him supported that.<br />A word was used he couldn&rsquo;t quite work out. Almen, maybe? But the tone made it sound like a title. Someone in charge? Wasn&rsquo;t Fuhrer the title of whoever led an army? He wished high school had gone more in depth toward military German. Or even touched on it slightly.<br />He strained harder as the voice became softer, then realized the speakers had walked away.<br />&ldquo;Are you hearing anything useful?&rdquo; he asked Weiland as he stepped the to door of his cell to help keep warm.<br />&ldquo;No. Just talk of missing home, wishing it was warmer, not looking forward to the walk.&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;What walk?&rdquo; Dario asked.<br />&ldquo;They didn&rsquo;t say,&rdquo; Wieland replied. &ldquo;Only that as soon as the last one arrives, they have to get on the move.&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;Last who?&rdquo; Fedor asked.<br />&ldquo;They didn&rsquo;t say either.&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;Other soldiers?&rdquo; the Pallas suggested.<br />&ldquo;Too many soldiers already,&rdquo; Dario replied.<br />&ldquo;Guys,&rdquo; Niel said, as a thought occurred to him. &ldquo;There&rsquo;s five Survivor families, right?&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;Da.&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;Suzuki,&rdquo; Dario added.<br />&ldquo;What if that&rsquo;s who they&rsquo;re waiting for? They went to the effort of getting one of us from each family, so it makes sense they&rsquo;d want one of them too, right? Dario, what do you know about the Suzuki?&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;Kishu, from Japan.&rdquo;<br />Niel had seen a handful of Kishu on the campus. They hadn&rsquo;t been particularly tall or muscular. &ldquo;What&rsquo;s that family&rsquo;s power?&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;Precision,&rdquo; the capybara said after a few seconds.<br />&ldquo;What does that mean?&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;They never miss,&rdquo; Wieland said.<br />&ldquo;So, like a marksman?&rdquo; That was something that could help, if they could get him a gun.<br />&ldquo;I don&rsquo;t know. I&rsquo;ve never met one. That&rsquo;s just what people say about the Suzuki.&rdquo;<br />Niel did a few more circuits of his cell. Until he knew more, it wasn&rsquo;t like he could come up with anything.<br />He dropped on his cot. Information. If he could just get more information, he was sure he&rsquo;d get the answer. He couldn&rsquo;t learn anything about their captors directly, but could he infer something of their intent from the people they&rsquo;d kidnapped?<br />&ldquo;What makes the Survivors different from the Society?&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;Different agreement,&rdquo; Dario answered.<br />&ldquo;It can&rsquo;t be just that,&rdquo; Niel said. &ldquo;There has to be something specific to us, otherwise they&rsquo;d have grabbed anyone of them. It can&rsquo;t be our powers, since from what I understand, someone among them will have a version of it, or it can be reproduced through sigils.&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;Fraze,&rdquo; the capybara corrected, and Niel even heard the emphasis everyone seemed to use when referring to the magical version of phrases.<br />&ldquo;So why us specifically? And why now?&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;You,&rdquo; Fedor said.<br />Niel snorted. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m not so important I&rsquo;m the linchpin in some Neo-Nazi plot. I&rsquo;m just a university student on a football team, who likes history, and guys.&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;You are Irvine,&rdquo; Dario said.<br />&ldquo;Leslie,&rdquo; Niel corrected.<br />&ldquo;You have Irvine blood.&rdquo; The capybara&rsquo;s sounded annoyed.<br />&ldquo;I doubt I&rsquo;m the only one who can trace his family back to him.&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;But you have family power,&rdquo; Dario said.<br />&ldquo;So does Jarod. He&rsquo;s the original, after all. If that was what they were waiting on, they wouldn&rsquo;t have had to wait on me to arrive on the scene.&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;No one bothers Jarod,&rdquo; Dario said. &ldquo;Jarod untouchable.&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;Why? And why would Nazis respect anything like someone&rsquo;s mystique or status within some group they don&rsquo;t care about?&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;I.. Do not know. I not told all stories, but I listen. Patriarch tell story to Elder when Elder say they go to Jarod. Not know why,&rdquo; he added before Niel could ask. &ldquo;Patriarch tell Jarod speak to Him. Jarod make contract. Jarod is not to be bothered, revered, protected.&rdquo; He let out a Spanish swear. &ldquo;Not know last one. Not translate right.&rdquo;<br />Niel had trouble imagining Jarod engendering anything like reverence, but if they believed the story, it might just be the fact he was the orchestrator of their survival that caused it. But it didn&rsquo;t explain Nazis staying away from the man. Unless he included magic. &ldquo;What you&rsquo;re saying is that you think that until I came around, whatever this is couldn&rsquo;t happen because the Nazis weren&rsquo;t able to grab Jarod.&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;No,&rdquo; Dario replied. &ldquo;I tell you story I hear.&rdquo;<br />Wieland chuckled. &ldquo;You&rsquo;re filling in the rest, Niel.&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;Fine, but can you imagine the level of coincidence needed for this to work? What if I hadn&rsquo;t&hellip; been at the party?&rdquo; Dario knew about Olavo, but Niel figured it was best to keep his involvement from the others. &ldquo;And for them to then kidnap two out of four guys I happen to know.&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;I at university,&rdquo; Fedor said.<br />&ldquo;But I wasn&rsquo;t in Minneapolis when they grabbed me, and they took you first because&hellip;&rdquo; the dalmatian. &ldquo;Fedor, you were with that dalmatian, right?&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;Da,&rdquo; the Pallas cat replied hatefully.<br />&ldquo;Holy Fuck. I think I get why he&rsquo;s pissed at me. I had this dalmatian hit on me like constantly after the party. He kept asking for me to go with him to fuck, but stuff kept getting in the way. What if each of those was an attempt to grab me? And all this kept being postponed just because I wasn&rsquo;t into the guy enough to want to do him instead of being a responsible adult? Only how would they know about me? I figured finding out we had sex is easy enough. For all I know, the dalmatian was at the party&mdash;&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;Wasn&rsquo;t,&rdquo; Fedor said. &ldquo;Would know him there.&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;Then a friend of his. That doberman, maybe. But they needed to know to look out for me to have sex with you. How did they do that?&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;They see you at university,&rdquo; Fedor said.<br />&ldquo;But I&rsquo;m just this random raccoon there. I didn&rsquo;t know I was a Survivor. There are two people who knew I was Jarod&rsquo;s direct descendant. And Stewart doesn&rsquo;t know about the Survivors as a group, just that his grandfather was different.&rdquo;<br />But was Niel right? Grant had said something about helping the Survivors. So that was one group who might have a reason to know about him.<br />&ldquo;Do you guys know about the Practitioners?&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;Who are they?&rdquo; Wieland asked after a series of negative.<br />&ldquo;Another faction. They helped the survivors with something. Grant was going to tell me more, but we were attacked by the Chamber&mdash;that&rsquo;s another group&mdash;and then I was whisked back home to have copious amounts of sex as a way of dealing with the people I saw die.&rdquo; He massaged his temple. &ldquo;I think I&rsquo;m just running after a pass that was long caught.&rdquo; He yawned. &ldquo;I&rsquo;m seeing things that aren&rsquo;t there.&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;Then sleep,&rdquo; Wieland said. &ldquo;You&rsquo;ll think better afterward.&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;Id rather wake up and find out this was just a bad dream.&rdquo;<br />* * * * *<br />&ldquo;Wake,&rdquo; Fedor hissed loudly. &ldquo;Wake.&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;I&rsquo;m up, Coach,&rdquo; Niel replied, hurrying to sit, then wondering why Coach Horgar hadn&rsquo;t turned the lights on when he&rsquo;d barged in. <br />He shivered and remembered he wasn&rsquo;t in his bed, or dorm.<br />&ldquo;Hear what?&rdquo; Dario asked.<br />&ldquo;Truck,&rdquo; the Pallas cat answered. &ldquo;Excitement.&rdquo;<br />&ldquo;You think it&rsquo;s the Suzuki?&rdquo; Wieland asked.<br />The door opened before Niel answered. Someone gave orders to get the prisoners ready to move. Wieland struggled with the two who came into his cell, sending one against the wall hard enough the concrete cracked, and the man didn&rsquo;t get up. But the other injected him and moved away. He checked the downed man, called for help, and they took him out while Wieland cursed them in ever more slurred German.<br />The leader berated someone. It was too fast for Niel to make out most of it. Something about quantities, tolerances, problems. Whatever it had been about, the result was Niel being pulled out as they carried Wieland, then they tied the German shepherd&rsquo;s arms around Niel&rsquo;s a neck, forcing him to carry the shepherd.<br />Fortunately, Wieland wasn&rsquo;t particularly heavy.<br />The four of them joined a kishu with his hands tied behind his back and under armed guards. Then they were marching, forming a single line as they left the compound. The flashlight gave only enough light that he made out the narrow trail they were following.<br />This explained the walking. Why couldn&rsquo;t this have been a paved road and be thrown back in the van while they drove to wherever this went?<br />At least, the coach had trained him to be up really early by now. He could only hope the others would fare as well.<br />* * * * *<br />Neil grumbled at the sun that rose over the trees to blind him as he dealt with the uneven terrain along the mountainside. Under different circumstances, this was probably an impressive sight, but he preferred it when the long drop was only hinted at by the occasional flashlight beam.<br />One misstep, and all this would be over for him and his passenger.<br />But would it? He didn&rsquo;t have a form of super-healing, but the others hadn&rsquo;t been able to tell him what went into &lsquo;never aging&rsquo;. How horrible would it be to end up at the button of the cliff, broken beyond repair, and not die? Maybe that was why Jarod refused to initiate any of his male descendants.<br />Still, if Fedor and Dario were right, without Niel, this whole thing fell apart. Or was seriously delayed. Or was he more important than that? Did he have to be directly related to Jarod for what they needed? Was that why they&rsquo;d waited for him instead of initiating any other grand and great-grandsons?<br />That meant his sacrifice would be worth it. And even if they could use any of the descendants, it would be a delay that might result in everyone being rescued in the meantime.<br />Not everyone, Niel was reminded by Wieland grumbling something incoherent. If he went down, he had no choice but to take the German shepherd with him. He wasn&rsquo;t even sure if he could commit suicide to save the others, but he knew he couldn&rsquo;t do it by committing murder.<br />Maybe if he and Wieland could talk it over, the German shepherd would be okay with it, but the path was now wide enough they traveled three wide, so there was always some Neo-Nazi within earshot. As much as he wanted to believe they were so prejudiced against anything not German, they wouldn&rsquo;t understand English. He already knew some of them spoke it. Fuck, at least one of them was American.<br />So he kept on trudging as the sun kept on moving up. When a man approached, holding a syringe, Niel considered shoving him over the edge. The man stopped, barked an order, and two others joined him, guns drawn. Niel needed to learn to be discreet in mentally threatening someone&rsquo;s life, he decided.<br />He still thought about going through with it. It wasn&rsquo;t like they could kill him. But he didn&rsquo;t want to be shot. He doubted Neo-Nazis stuck to the laws governing who has the right to carry a gun that fired bullets.<br />Around noon, the terrain flattened, and the trail moved away from the cliff. Not long after that, they entered a cavern. It started out carved my nature, but quickly, Niel saw signs the stone had been worked by tools to enlarge the passageway until even the flashlights&rsquo; beams no longer illuminated them.<br />Niel whistled as he crested a mound and lights spread along a winding path to reveal a man-made ruin. Here and there, large lights showed men gathered, but Niel and his group weren&rsquo;t heading for one of those. They followed the path, those light casting only enough they could see where to step, and hint at the buildings on their left and right. When they came to a stop, it was because the path ended at a dais with a pedestal before a massive stone door into the back wall.<br />The door had a stylized wolf&rsquo;s face on it, which already creeped Niel out, then he noticed the pedestal had five spaces for someone to kneel around it. He made out three of the carving marking the place to kneel: a Pallas cat, a raccoon, and a capybara. He had no trouble imagining the other two.<br />&ldquo;Bad,&rdquo; Fedor said. &ldquo;This very bad.&rdquo;</span>",
  "pools_count": 0,
  "title": "Hope in Coincidences, CH 26(Proper Chapter)",
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