Nightclaw: Blood Moon Apex

Chapter 6: Fury Of The Beasts

Miles away from the town of Darkveil, a squad of highly illegal poachers had successfully set up a foothold in a grassy clearing and were closely monitoring a family of brown bears located several meters away. Their "stronghold" consisted of three large, covered vehicles—each with their own drivers—all filled to the brim with armed men and advanced technology, as well as a fourth vehicle with a huge rear and nothing but a driver, used for the sole purpose of following the caravan around and storing their kills. Though the poachers stalked the bears, the bears were unaware of the poachers' presence. At least.....not yet.

One of the poachers raised his high-tech binoculars to his eyes and zoomed in. "Typical bear family, boss," he reported. "Two males, one female; father, mother, and cub." The display within the binoculars displayed several other statistics. "Pa and Ma packing about.....900 pounds a piece, cub weighs in at around 250. The parents' fur will fetch us a pretty penny on the black market.....the cub, not so much."

The leader of the poachers, who was currently sucking on a grape-flavored lollipop, wore khaki slacks, brown business shoes, a white, collared, long-sleeved inner shirt, and a beige, long-sleeved coat thrown over it. He also wore a white ranger hat with a purple band around its base and sported a thick mustache and beard, with a pack of cigarettes stashed away in his pocket. "Let's bag 'em," he said in a gruff voice. "I'm sure we'll find something to do with the cub. If nothing else, he'll be good practice for your taxidermy skills." He then finished his lollipop and carelessly flung the stick to the ground, heedless of the poachers' personal trash basket. "Tracker! You're up first."

One of the poachers leaned out of one of the covered vehicles' back doors and used a launcher to carefully fire three tracking devices with very sharp tips that brutally pierced themselves into all three of bears' hides, causing the parents to roar in agitation and begin fleeing for their lives with their child trailing behind.

The boss grinned. "They're on the run. Let's move."

All four covered vehicles promptly gave chase, with several other poachers readying their firearms.

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One of the smugglers, who had spent most of the trip by the boss's side, reached into his pocket and took out a black-and-silver device comparable to an iPhone, albeit somewhat larger. On its screen display was a digital map of the surrounding forest, with three red dots labeling the bears' positions thanks to the tracking devices that they had been shot with prior to the chase.

"Should we start opening fire, sir?" he asked his superior.

But the boss held up his hand. "Not yet. So long as those gadgets remain in their hides, they can't hide from us. We'll hold off for now; perhaps they'll lead us to more of their own."

Sure enough, the three bears ended up running past a different den that wasn't theirs; the three bears from that den were then forced to run away as well to avoid the poachers. As such, there were now a total of six bears on the poachers' radar.

"I'd say that's good enough," the boss decided. "Tracker! Pin our three new guests!"

Again, the same poacher from before leaned out of the back of one of the vehicles and shot three more tracking devices into the hides of the bears who had just been caught up in the chase. Meanwhile, the poacher at the boss's side looked at his gadget's screen again. Sure enough, three more red dots were shortly added in accordance, making a total of six red dots for the six bears in the poachers' headlights.