Druidification

As they walked across the train bridge, Scout once again took point position. This was not in case they ran into humans on the way, but purely because he had the smallest stature of the canines currently involved. Behind him walked Natalie and Shannon, who were flanked by Bryden and Sol, with Shadow bringing up the rear. There was one train that was about a dozen cars long stopped across the bridge, which the pack used to cover their southern sightlines. Until they were spotted, they would try and get as far as they could before being spotted. Hopefully it would allow them to go all of the way quietly, but none of them had high expectations. In the gaps between the train cars, they were already seeing monsters milling about on the neighbouring streets. Carefully, they all followed the lead of Scout as he moved car to car, making checks on their surroundings before every move. As they reached the end of that train, the tracks split off into a dozen different runs, some with trains on them and some without. However, due to someone managing where they all stopped, there was a two-hundred-meter gap between the end of this train and the start of the next one. Looking left towards where Ogden Road ran, there was the milling of hobgoblins, with a few orcs. Using the Soulscape now would be like setting off a flare to tell them where they are. They had nothing to cover them, and a flat and open stretch to run.

First Scout ran across the open track of land. The rest of the group alternated between watching him run and observing the monsters that were the same if not less distance away from them. A grueling fifteen seconds later had Scout stopping and taking a position behind the closest car on that side. Thankfully none of the monsters seemed to notice him running. Bryden followed him right after. He made it in even less time, 12 seconds going by the Mississippi's. Then Shannon's turn was up. While Nat was nervous, she agreed that this was a good check. If Shannon was not able to make it undetected, the best option was to have her ride or be carried by Sol across, making sure that everyone was together. When there seemed to be a lull in the number of monsters that were visible, Shannon took off. She did not care on if she was seen or heard, just to make it over as fast as possible. When she finally got behind the car that the two canines were sitting behind, Nat managed to count out twenty-one seconds. Seeing her partner make it over fairly effortlessly, she braced herself, and started running.

It was all a lie. What about this was done effortlessly? She did not even count the seconds and just pushed her legs forward as fast as they could. When she got over to the other side, she collapsed onto the ground, wheezing for breath. Maybe she was a lot more out of shape than she thought. That was when Shannon walked over to her and whispered in her ear, "Twenty-nine seconds. We are definitely going to work on that time later." Natalie barely held in her groan. Now she had a time metric on how much more in shape Shannon was compared to her. And this meant that was a measurable amount of pain to close that gap. She was both glad and remorseful that her wife had taken it upon herself to train her up. After all, it would be until Shannon was happy with her progress, not herself. She didn't feel like complaining or trying to back out though. Their survival counted on it, especially if this was anything to go on.

While Nat tried to gain her breath on the ground, Sol and shadow took their turns crossing. Thankfully, the whole pack got across without any issue. Once they had all gotten their breath, they started moving alongside the trains. There were not any more gaps nearly as large as that first one, but that one was probably so all of the tracks were able to merge onto the bridge. There were around two dozen sets of tracks, and at least three of them had some sort of carriages sitting on top of them. This made it easy for them to move. Shannon even noticed a fitness equipment seller on the way, but was sad that she was not able to stop. She apparently had a giant wish list of gear she wanted to pick up, and that led a chill down Nat's spine. However, unrelated to that chill, Natalie could not shake this feeling of unease that she felt as they walked alongside the derelict hunks of metal.

It was as if they were walking around a sleeping bear and its cubs. One step out of line or the smallest noise, and everything would go wrong in a heartbeat. Natalie put it aside for the moment, thinking that she was being paranoid. Together the six of them headed down the tracks, car to car, without any issues. Overall, this was going a lot smoother than they had hoped, but they were glad to take it. They were almost up to 12th Street, and this was where their guard had slipped. As they walked past a warehouse on the right, they heard a grunt of surprise. They all turned their heads in unison to the right. Standing there was a hobgoblin, pointing at them with its mouth hanging wide open. Almost immediately Natalie lifted up her bow, pulled back an arrow, and let it fly straight into the goblin. Sadly, this was not a fatal shot, and landed in the creature's stomach. It collapsed back, holding onto its stomach. As it fell to the ground, it let out an awful shriek of pain. Which was soon mirrored by hundreds of shrieks around them. All around them, box cars started flying open as Natalie's gut feeling earlier was proven true. Goblins flowed out of the box cars, and started running towards the pack of wolves. Nat took one look at the growing mob of creatures, before yelling, "Run!" and bolting it towards the street as fast as possible.

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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