The shade of the forest was a relief to Colin, though for what reason, he stil couldn't guess. Maybe it was the smell of the wood and the trees. Maybe it was the quietness of the forest itself.
Just crossing the fence made the difference. Colin's tension started to fade, the fears he held began to ease. It was slow, but being in the forest had a calming effect on Colin.
The soft whine came again, directly ahead. Colin made his way through the grass quietly and found the source of the sounds in a hollow at the root of a broad tree.
A small, green wolf cub.
"Yip." Shiro said, going over to it and sniffing it cautiously. "Yip?"
"Aurf." The wolf cub replied. She looked at Shiro and whined again.
Shiro shook his head sadly.
"What happened?" Colin asked.
Fireheart examined the wolf cub and snorted. She turned away. Raiki looked at it curiously, mewed once, sniffed once, and shook her head. "Mew."
"Yip!" Shiro protested. He sniffed the green wolf cub again. "Yip…"
Colin saw the wolf cub's leg. It seemed injured. "I'll have to carry it."
"Riao." Fireheart snapped.
"Mew!" Raiki protested.
"What?" Colin blinked. "Is it dangerous to move her?"
"Yip!" Shiro shook his head. He nudged Colin's leg. "Yip!"
The green wolf cub whined again.
"Pick her up and bring her to the Comrade Home?" Colin asked Shiro.
"Yip!" Shiro agreed firmly.
"Riao!" Fireheart protested.
"Why not?" Colin asked.
"Riao." Fireheart turned away.
At last, Colin began to understand the problem.
Fireheart and Raiki were cats. The wolf cub was sort of a dog. They didn't like the cub.
Shiro, being a wolfcat, seemed to be concerned for both.
Colin approached and picked up the wolf cub carefully. He put one hand under her forearms, and other on the right side of her tail to avoid the injured left leg.
"I didn't say I was bonding the cub, guys." Colin said. "I'm just taking her to the Home for treatment."
"Mew." Raiki sniffed.
Oh. That's right. The moment he touched a Wild, it could either run away, or stay with him. If it ran, all its injuries would be healed and it might attack.
If it stayed, that means it was willing to bond with him as a Comrade. It would expect him to bond it.
Even if it meant remaining injured and healing slowly.
This cub was obviously staying.
"Uhoh." Colin winced.
"Gaak!" a rude voice said overhead. "GAAK!"
Colin looked up in time to see a black bird as big as himself swooping down on them.
Shiro blasted it with a Hypersonic Bolt. "Yip!"
"Mew." Raiki turned away sharply. "Mew."
"Yip!" Shiro protested and fired off another Hypersonic Bolt.
The black bird dodged, and Colin watched as it wheeled around for another attack.
This one had a different face. It wasn't one of the regal shadow birds that followed him on the road. This one had a look of greed on it, a straight beak, and wide, hungry eyes. "Gaak!"
"A crow." Colin growled. "Probably here to attack a wounded animal."
Here to eat the wolf cub, basically. "Raiki! Sonic Barrage! Fireheart! Double Lynx Claw on the Crow!"
Raiki and Fireheart hesitated.
"Hurry up!" Colin barked. "If it's in this Forest, it must be tough! We'll need everything we can muster to beat it!"
"Riao." Fireheart said slowly.
Colin didn't need to be a genius to understand why she hesitated. {We can always feed the cub to the crow and the bird'll just leave us alone.}
"We can't leave a baby to die like this!" Colin protested.
"Mew?" Raiki paused.
{Why not? This sort of thing happens in the wild all the time.}
"I just Tamed the cub!" Colin said, exasperated. "I have to take care of it now, at least until we get to the Home! Maybe we can sell it or something!"
{Sell it…?} Colin could see Fireheart and Raiki thinking it over.
"YIP!" Shiro protested, and bit Colin's trousers. He growled.
"I don't know! Maybe! We'll talk about it later! Let's beat this crow first!" Colin said. "I don't want to die because we were too busy arguing to…"
White light.
***
Colin found himself staring at the firepit in the clearing of Forest Village.
{I just died… again.}
"I hate this…" he said, feeling sick to his stomach.
"Yip…" Shiro growled at Raiki and Fireheart.
"Riao!" Fireheart glared back.
"Mew…" Raiki complained.
"Aurf." The wolf cub said, nestling deeper into Colin's hands.
"This is the second time I've died tonight!" Colin shook his head, and immediately regretted it when the dizziness hit him. "First a monkey, then a crow. Whatever next?"
"Gaak!" the big crow cried out triumphantly, flapping its wings as it flew over the village. It seemed to be mocking them. "Gaak, gaak!"
Colin wanted to throw a stone at it… except that getting up from where he sat would be a really bad idea, seeing how sick he felt right now.
Was it because it was the second time tonight? This felt worse than the first time.
"Aurf." The wolf cub whined again.
"Sorry… can you wait a few minutes? If I try to walk around now, I'll probably trip and drop you." Colin said.
"Aurf." The cub said and settled down as if to sleep.
His watch beeped.
***
"Colin!" Katrin was panting.
"How did it go?!" Colin asked, sickness forgotten for a moment.
"We killed them!" Katrin gasped. "All of them! Everybody just blasted away and when the smoke cleared, they were gone. We checked the Town Square and found most of the yellow badges there, but Rita and the Green Men were not… Colin, I'm sorry. We didn't know what to expect."
"Rita…" Colin said, feeling incredibly weak all of a sudden. He started coughing. "Kat, you need to be careful too… they might come after you next…"
"I don't think so. If they try it, if they're ever seen anywhere around here again, I think everyone's going to attack them."
"Maybe." Colin said, feeling lightheaded. "I hope so. But just in case… be careful, okay?"
Katrin snorted. "I'm not the one who sounds like he just died, Colin. What happened?"
"I saved a wounded wolf cub, and Fireheart and Raiki didn't like it, and while we were arguing, a Wild killed me."
Katrin actually barked a laugh at that. "You're the one who needs to be more careful, not me."
"Both of us. All of us." Colin grunted. "Fanny says those Green Men are probably not from this world."
"Green Men not from this world? You mean, they're aliens?" Katrin gasped.
"I mean… this Dreamworld. Nakama World." Colin said, flatly.
"Sorry, Colin. It was a joke." Katrin laughed softly. "A little thing about green men and aliens."
"Well, maybe I'll laugh later. Right now, Rita's just been taken and I don't want us to be next. Or anyone else."
"Not even Jonah, Alicia or Larry?" Katrin prodded.
Colin paused.
Katrin laughed at that. "See?"
"Well… no. Not even them." Colin said. "There's something weird and scary about those men, Kat."
"I know, Colin. We killed them, remember?" Katrin pointed out. "Just… don't let them control your dreams."
"Huh?" Colin blinked. "What do you mean?"
"I mean don't be so afraid of them that you can't do anything else." Katrin said. "If you're doing everything you do because of them, then you're letting them control you. Don't let that happen."
Colin didn't say anything.
"Edward thinks they're soldiers." Katrin added next.
"Soldiers?" Colin blinked.
"Soldiers wear green and carry guns, right?" Katrin said. "But what kind of soldiers and from where?"
"We have to find out." Colin agreed.
"I'm going to have a long talk with the Justice Knights about this. We're having a meeting tonight." Katrin said slowly. "Wish me luck, Colin, because I might need it."
"Good luck, Katrin." Colin said.
"Thanks." Katrin replied, and cut the link.
***
Colin rested for twenty minutes before walking slowly to the Comrade Home.
"Hello there… what have we here?" a blonde lady in the red uniform of Chief Breeder greeted him.
"Injured cub." Colin held it out to her.
"Follow me." She told him, and carried the cub away.
They went to a room with a lot of machines and instruments. The Chief Breeder of Forest Village Comrade Home busied herself with a few machines, wrapped a no-pain band around the cub's leg, cleaned the wound, stuck medication and nano-paste on it, and used a handheld console to program the nanobots to form a solid cast over it.
"There. All done." She said, unstrapping the no-pain band from the cub's leg. "Test it and walk about a bit."
The cub got up and took a few careful steps then bounded up and down, chased its own tail and sat back down happily. "Aurf!"
"What's her name?" the Chief Breeder asked Colin.
"Um… she's not bonded." Colin said. "I just found her."
"Aurf!" the cub jumped up at Colin, licking his face.
"She definitely likes you." The Chief Breeder laughed.
Colin snuck a glance at Fireheart and Raiki.
The two cats were quite deliberately not looking at him.
The Chief Breeder noticed it too. "Give them some time. Comrades don't always get along well at first. Some of them might even get along well at first and then fight later. Others don't get along well at first, but become great friends in the end. It happens all the time. Don't let it upset you."
"They become great friends in the end…?" Colin repeated, looking at the cats again. "I wonder."
"Sometimes." The Chief Breeder shrugged. "Anyway, what's your name?"
"Colin." He offered his hand.
"I'm Florence." She shook it. "Nice to meet you. Well, Colin, are you going to bond this Sonic Wolf or not?"
"Sonic Wolf…?" Colin blinked. "This is a Sonic Wolf cub?!"
"Obviously." Florence glanced over it. "Green wolf, found in the Forest of Legends? What else could it be?"
"Uh… right." Colin paused. "Is it common for wolf cubs like her to be left injured somewhere near the Village?"
Florence shrugged. "It's the first time I've heard of it, but anything's possible. Who knows?"
Colin frowned. Something seemed odd about finding that cub so easily.
"Yip." Shiro tugged at Colin. He laid his ears flat down against his head as if pleading.
"Okay, okay, I'll bond her." Colin sighed.
"Yip!" Shiro wagged his tail.
Florence gave him a suspicious look. "That white wolfcat can't mate her. She's a sonic wolf, not a wolfcat."
"Yip." Shiro nodded.
"He knows." Colin explained to Florence. "But he wants a friend all the same."
More to the point, Colin realized, he wanted a wolf friend. He already had cat friends, after all… but there was another side of him, another half of him that was wolf. Shiro wanted a wolf friend.
It hit him then. Colin suddenly understood. Every time he took the Ferry, or even back at the farm, Shiro kept looking into the water. Colin thought he was hungry, looking for fish, or water Wilds for more Comrades, but now he realized he had been wrong.
Shiro hadn't been looking at anything under the water. He was looking at what he saw on the water. He had been looking at his own reflection.
Shiro wanted a friend that looked like him, the half he saw in the water. He wanted a wolf friend.
{But if THAT's the case…}
"Florence…?" Colin frowned. "Where can I find wolfcats?"
Shiro might have cat friends and wolf friends, but neither would ever really be like him.
"Yip?!" Shiro stared at Colin, eyes wide.
"Wolfcats aren't easy to find." Florence said. "Most of them are bred by the most skilled Breeders. You might find a few gray ones up in Cloud Mountain, or some yellow ones in the Great Desert. I've heard rumors of blue ones around Skylake. Those are hard places to reach."
"How strong are the Wilds there, compared to the Forest of Legends?" Colin asked.
"Stronger." Florence said. "Definitely stronger."
Colin shook his head. It would be a long time before he could try to Tame another wolfcat.
"How did you get yours, anyway?" Florence asked. "It's the first time I've seen a white wolfcat. Is he a snow-type?"
"Snow?" Colin blinked.
"The gray ones are mountain-types. The yellow ones are desert-types. The blue ones are probably water-types. I'm guessing white means he's a snow-type, from the Eternal Winter Continent, far to the south."
"He was given to me by a Breeder." Colin explained. "I don't know where he's from or who his parents were."
"A Breeder…?" Florence blinked. "What kind of Breeder gives out wolfcat cubs?!"
"She said she gave him to me to help me find my way." Colin shrugged uneasily. "I don't really know much about her, but she's really helpful."
"Really…" Florence frowned doubtfully. "Not many Breeders could breed wolfcats. She must be a white-coat."
"She did wear a white lab coat, yes." Colin said. "I can't even see her badge because of it."
"We never can." Florence agreed. "You know, we have a white-coat Breeder here also. I think he's the teacher of the other white-coats or something. His name is Jijin."
"I know." Colin said. "I came here to find him, actually."
Florence sighed at that. "Almost everyone who comes here for the first time says that. Those who don't are those who come here on missions."
"It's not surprising. He is the guy who gives out the fifth map piece." Colin said.
"Yes, but that doesn't make it any easier. Just once, I'd like someone to come here for no other reason than to explore or bond a new Comrade or something."
Florence, Colin realized, had hoped he was the one.
"Well, why don't I just bond a new Comrade first?" Colin suggested. "I might have forgotten about Jijin altogether, if you hadn't brought it up."
"You're just saying that to cheer me up." Florence accused.
"Maybe. But we can always pretend otherwise."
Florence laughed.
***
Florence was whistling and the cub was wagging her tail non-stop when Colin and his newest Comrade put their feet down on the black plate to register.
"There. Now, what's her name?" Florence asked.
"She's a Sonic Wolf, right? Why don't we call her Sonia?" Colin suggested. He turned to the cub. "What do you think? Is Sonia a good name?"
"Aurf!" Sonia said.
"Yip." Shiro prodded her, and said slowly. "Yip."
Sonia frowned, looked at Shiro and said, "Yaurf?"
"Yip."
"Yirf…?"
"Yip."
"Yirf!"
"Yip!"
Sonia whined.
"You can't be serious…" Colin stared. "Are you trying to teach her to bark like you?"
"Yip!" Shiro said happily.
Sonia sighed.
Shiro prodded her. "Yip?"
"Yirf." Sonia whined.
"Save it for later, Shiro." Colin suggested, seeing both Fireheart and Raiki looking rather edgy. "Let's go see Professor Jijin."