ROTWOTA: Book 2 - The Falling City of Anthros

The Plan

Soon enough, June and her siblings left their parents and friends in the room. But shortly afterwards, the kids were approached by an older anthro eagle soldier. "You kids best be heading to sleep. We'll give you about 8 more minutes, then you'll be able to find your room down the hall from here on your right." He said. While everyone else groaned, June groaned in annoyance the most as she thought back to the lights out part of the short prison routine.

After the eagle soldier left, the kids began to make most of their remaining awake time. June also began wanting to yell her siblings about what they'd be able to do in the future of these past few years. "We could maybe, learn how to drive the engines in a few years. We could provide medical assistance, we could..." "Ok we get it June, that's enough." Said Jake.

"Yeah, I feel like I need an adventure break after this and can't do much more for a while." Groaned Julie. Soon enough, the tired kids began going to bed early, but June was still awake and she felt like she couldn't go to sleep, so she decided to wander around the other direction some more. She eventually found Emmett and Willow standing with some rather unfamiliar faces nearby. The first two were young girl rabbits, and the third was another girl, this time an anthro raccoon.

Emmett and one of the rabbits noticed June and waved her down. "Hey, June come over here!" Said Emmett. "Yeah. What's up?" Asked June. "Well, we don't have long, so we figure that we'd just pass this message along to you." Said Willow as she handed a small envelope to June. "And don't open it yet, do it at night. So no one sees you." Said the raccoon girl. June was about to ask why, when another anthro soldier, this time a brown bear came over to them. "It's late. You best be heading to bed soon." He said.

"Aw come on, none of us are even tired." Complained Rebecca. "Too bad, and you missy should be down there with your brothers and sisters." Said the brown bear as he turned towards the young husky. "It's actually brother and sister and then me." Said June. "Whatever, now get going." He said. And soon enough, June walked back to her room and got into one of the two bunk beds with Jayden on top and her on the bottom. But as the lights went off prompting everyone to go to sleep, June just couldn't, as she was so intrigued about the letter she was given to by Willow. And since that it was now dark and no one could see her that well aside from Jake who was already fast asleep, she decided to open it up.

The letter itself wasn't easy to make out due to there being basically no light in the camp at the moment. But June was able to get a good sense of what it said based on what she could make out.

"At 3 Am, head down to the basement of this building and you should meet Mr. Avery there. He says he has something very important to share with all of us. He says there's going to be a big battle tomorrow that we can help fight in without putting ourselves into too much harm." -Willow

What the letter said was already interesting, and now that she had to go to a secret meeting super early, she was really intrigued. She quickly looked over at the clock which read 9:42 PM. I can surely get up at 3 AM, she thought to herself. How hard could it be?

And when she fell asleep, she could only wonder what this meeting about this big battle was all about.

~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

"Hey sleepy head, wake up." Someone said as they whispered into June's ear. June groggily sat up from her bed, being careful not to wake the others in the room. She looked over to see the two rabbits from earlier, whose names were Isabella and Rebecca. "You were supposed to be down there an hour ago!" Said Isabella. "What are you doing?" Asked Rebecca.

Startled by the two and their response, she looked over to the clock and saw that it now read 4:10 AM, over an hour when the meeting was supposed to begin. "Oh shoot, we gotta get down there!" Said June. Quickly and quietly, the three moved around and eventually found themselves inside of a secret room at the bottom of the small building. There, sitting among the corners of the room. was everyone that June and her friends had met over the last week, excluding Kyle, Lexi, Peter, and Cleo, was already there waiting for her and in groups. And in the back of the room was the cheetah scientist that June could only assume to be Avery.

"Ah, you must be the June that they were talking about. I must say I'm a fan." He said as he bowed down in her honor. "Well, thanks. That's really nice of you." June said, appalled at his tone. "Now, I figure you don't know about the most recent things that have arisen. And I suppose that none of the engines you caught wind from." He said. "Wait? What happened?" Asked June.

"Let's just cut to the chase here. Three of our diesels have gone missing. They are Diesel 10, Splatter, and Dodge. And I believe you know them." Avery said. "Wait what? Did the humans get them?" Asked June. "Probably, we also got a taunting broadcast that you likely don't know about that says something about coming for a fight with them also saying that they have the three diesels and a blue tank engine in their hands. And one of which, you escaped from the same exact base with." Explained Avery. June then remembered the encounter she, Johnny Cuba, Kyle, and Austin all had and escaped from. But in the process, they left Cameron and 1478 for dead.

"You mean? They're alive?!" Asked June. "Very likely. But we don't she much time, so in about two hours, our army will launch an attack, which includes Cuba and 3 other diesels. 1477 won't be joining us as he and 2 other shunters are needed at Logan Bartley's place." Said Avery. "What for?" Asked June. "We're not sure. But that's enough introduction. You'll be sent away after this mission and you'll be paired with a few others who have other set up jobs for the mission." Avery said. He then handed her a letter to give to her siblings before directing her over to another corner of the room with Tony and Emmett already there.

Tony handed her a letter, saying we didn't have much left to read it here. But according to what Avery had already gone over in their part of the plan before June got there, they were meant to be the team sent in to search the laboratory to steal a special chemical that the humans had created. The reason behind this wasn't said to hear other than it would be devastating to anthros as a whole if they got it out of there. And while it looked like this made them vulnerable, there would be other teams of soldiers whose main and only jobs were to distract and do damage to the human army as the rest would conduct their jobs.

That was all June could get from the two before she was sent back to prepare for the mission. And as she walked back, she began thinking about the plan, and in her mind, it was perfect, the main group of soldiers would attract every main threat away giving them the chance to get in, she wasn't sure what the jobs of everyone else would be, and especially of her siblings.

Shortly after she got back to her bedroom after the small meeting. She got into bed, but began to hear creaking coming from above her and beside her. By then, Jayden had jumped down and Jake and Julie followed suite, cornering their sister. "Did you really think we were that stupid?" Asked Jake. "Yeah, we heard you shut that door on your way out." Asked Jayden. Julie then went straight up to her sister. "Listen, we know you've seen something the rest of us haven't. And if you tell us, we can make it through this, all of us will, please, just tell us." Julie pleaded.

June was unsure about telling the three of them about the plan that her friends and a small division of the army had come up with. But now that she knew they were willing to help her, she began to tell them the plan, and she also whipped out the other letter that Avery had personally given her and gave the paper over to the three of them to read.