Savage Beasts - 16. The System on Trial

Gunnar stood looking out the window of his guest suite within the North American Lycan Council headquarters, gazing at the Canadian Rockies that dominated the horizon to the west of the city.

Mike padded up behind him barefoot and wrapped his arms around his Papa, kissing him on the neck and enjoying the view.

“Who would have thought when we started this adventure that we’d end up getting a free vacation somewhere so beautiful!” Mike said, hugging his Papa tightly.

“Technically, this isn’t a vacation, Cub,” Gunnar replied. “Although you and Sam seem to be acting like it is, based on how late you two were up last night, fucking on the couch!”

“Hey,” Mike said, grinning, “I’m not letting this fantastic suite go to waste. You and Thomas can act like old fuddy-duddies and retire to your rooms at bedtime if you want, but Sam and I deserve a little R&R after that ordeal.”

“You’re young, and we haven’t really taught you two much about the Lycan Council, Cub.” Gunnar said. “This is going to be serious business today. I don’t know all that the Council has planned, but I do know that we’re going to be talking about the way that Bears have been treated over the years. When it comes down to it, over fifty wolves died needlessly because the representatives of the council did not heed my early warnings. I have no love for Beta Justin, but he very well may lose his head over this matter.”

At that moment, a pair of bellowing roars could be heard coming from Thomas and Sam’s bedroom in the suite.

“See Papa,” Mike said. “Even Thomas knows when it’s time to let down his guard and relax just a bit.”

“Okay, Cub,” Gunnar replied. “I promise I’ll take care of you after today’s Council session. Maybe by then I’ll be in a better mood.”

Thomas and Sam’s bedroom door opened, and the two bears staggered out dressed in fluffy white robes with happy smiles on their faces.

“What’s for breakfast?” Thomas asked.

“Room service came by about fifteen minutes ago,” Gunnar replied, “But you seemed to be busy. We saved you some.”

The two black bears happily sat down at the table and began pouring coffee and spooning eggs, bacon, sausage, and pancakes onto their plates. Fortunately, the Lycan Council kitchen staff seemed to know how to properly feed werebear guests.

There was a knock on the door, and Gunnar strode over to answer it.

A timid-looking wolf was standing at the door with a luggage cart holding eight garment bags of clothing and eight shoe boxes.

“Pardon me bears, uh sirs…” the timid wolf began, “Supreme Alpha Taylor has requested that I deliver these clothes to you and to your Canadian friends in the next suite. He has strict rules that all participants in Council business proceedings be dressed properly, and it was understood that you did not have time to pack a suit and tie after your ordeal with the rogue creatures. A Council representative will be along to escort you to the chambers in one hour, so please take this time to prepare yourselves and get dressed.”

He began searching through the tags on the front of the garment bags looking for the four marked with an American flag and pulled them off the cart rack. He strode past Gunnar into the room and hung them in the closet before going back to find the four pairs of shoes similarly marked as belonging to the American bear delegation.

“You’ll find that there should be a suit of clothes and a pair of shoes in the perfect size for each of you in your human forms. I have to do this quite often, and I always get the sizes just right.”

“Well, thank you,” Gunnar replied, “But is it absolutely necessary for us to get this dressed up just to meet with the Council?”

“It is absolutely necessary to get this dressed up to appear before the Supreme Alpha,” the timid wolf replied. “Trust me, sir, you don’t want to do anything to insult him today.”

“Fine, we’ll wear these clothes as requested,” Gunnar said. “But good luck getting the seven-foot Kodiak bear next door to go along with it.”

The timid wolf’s face went pale, and Gunnar grinned and waved goodbye as he shut the door.

They began sorting through the garment bags, determining which one was the right size for each bear when they heard a commotion coming from next door.

“If the Supreme Alpha thinks I’m putting on a fucking monkey suit just to bask in the presence of his holiness, he can take this size fifteen shoe, and shove it right up his fucking…”

At this point, Axel’s voice was muffled and drowned out by those of Joel, Jacob, and Ezekiel, thanking the timid wolf for his generous gift of clothing and sending him out of the room.

The four American bears looked at each other and erupted with laughter.

****

An hour later there was another knock on the door as a Council Beta wolf arrived to escort them to the council chambers. Gunnar opened the door once again, and saw the wolf, along with the four Canadian bears from the next suite, waiting for them in the hallway.

Axel glowered at Gunnar, daring him to make a snide comment as he stood in the hall behind Ezekiel in his suit and tie.

“Gentlemen,” Gunnar said stepping into the hallway followed by the other three bears from his suite. “Axel, you are looking especially handsome today.”

Axel’s eyes narrowed, and he tugged at his tie, loosening it just a bit.

The Beta wolf whisked them quickly through the hallways of the guest wing and into the central hub of the council chambers and offices. He spoke quietly to the guard at the door of the main chamber, and the wolf opened the door for the eight bears.

They walked through into a large auditorium. Most of the room was gallery seating, arranged stadium-style. The front few rows consisted of large wooden desks with four seats to each desk. The Gallery was filled to capacity, and all desks in the front rows were occupied except for two in the middle of the front row.

An usher met the group of eight as they were halfway down the gallery steps.

“Welcome!” the usher whispered to them. “This is an unprecedented day! You are the first werebears ever granted access to the council chambers. Please follow me to your seats.”

He led the four bears to the two desks in the front row of the Gallery.

“Will the four Canadian bears please be seated at the desk on the left, and the American bears please sit at the desk on the right,” the usher instructed.

When they were in their seats, they finally got a good look at the front of the room. The elevated stage held a single long curving desk on a raised dais, behind which sat the Supreme Alpha flanked on either side by the eight other members of the Council.

“I welcome our werebear friends to this special session of the Lycan Council,” Supreme Alpha Taylor said, calling the meeting to order with a bang of his gavel. “We are here today to discuss the events leading to and including the massacre of over fifty members of the Hacker Valley Wolf Pack by the hybrid were-creatures known collectively as ‘dababbi’. In addition, we will be discussing the apparent breakdown in communication that occurred preceding the massacre and how the Council may… adapt… to avoid a similar incident in the future.

“Let us begin,” the Supreme Alpha continued, “I would like to call to the stand the American werebears Thomas and Sam Underwood.”

Thomas and Sam looked over at Gunnar and Mike and stood up from their seats. The usher hurried over and showed them the location of the witness stand to one side of the front of the Gallery. It was a round dais illuminated by spotlights, surrounded by an iron railing. They took their place on the stand and the Supreme Alpha began by having them relate to the Council the circumstances by which they were first made aware of the dababbi threat.

The bears patiently related the story in detail, one helping to fill in the details for the other as they told of their friend Brian’s voicemail message and their late-night drive to the isolated werebear village. They described the carnage that they found, evidence of the monster’s orgy, and the discovery of the security camera footage.

At this point in the testimony, the Supreme Alpha asked them to pause, and a screen was lowered. The segment of the footage in which the eight dababbi were captured on the recording was played back for the council and gallery, and then paused so that the images of the creatures were visible to everyone in the chamber.

When the commotion upon seeing the images of the creatures had died down in the gallery, Supreme Alpha Taylor then asked Thomas and Sam to describe the next actions following this discovery.

They told how they searched the village for any remains and gathered them all together in the hatch underneath the garage and proceeded to cremate them and burn the entire village to the ground so there could be no evidence found by any humans.

“That was a wise decision on your part, and extremely responsible, considering the grief that you must have been feeling at the time,” one of the Councilmembers replied. “How did you then get the rest of the bears assembled here involved in the incident?”

“We felt that the best persons to contact next were our friends Gunnar and Mike Bergan,” Thomas explained, “Due to their relationship with the bear enclave in Atikokan, and their indirect dealings with this Council due to their part in the conflict with the Wisconsin separatist wolf packs.”

“And why did you think that the Atikokan bears and this Council needed to know about the incident?” The councilmember asked.

“Because we needed to sound the alarm on a large scale,” Thomas replied, “Sam and I could reach out to the few bears in our area that we knew, but combatting these things was going to require additional reinforcements that only Atikokan could provide. Also, we weren’t sure if it was only going to be werebears being targeted by the dababbi, and having no contacts with any wolf lycan packs, we needed this Council to spread the word and lend assistance for the defense of the Appalachian area packs.”

“That was a reasonable and justifiable course of action,” the Supreme Alpha stated. “Does anyone on the Council have any additional questions for these two bears before we call our next set of witnesses?”

The councilmembers each shook their heads and the Supreme Alpha thanked Thomas and Sam for their testimony and instructed them to return to their seats.

“Next to the stand,” the Supreme Alpha said, “Gunnar and Mike Bergan.”

Gunnar and Mike stood and walked over to the circular dais to begin their testimony.

They related getting the call from Thomas while they were at work, and determining that they would split the task of spreading the word for efficiency, with Mike calling Atikokan and Gunnar calling the Lycan Council.

Mike relayed the account of his discussion with Grand-Papa Ezekiel first and learning of the history of these creatures and the name ‘dababbi’. Gunnar told how he first had to speak with a receptionist, who then scheduled a video meeting with Beta Justin. Gunnar told how the Beta arrived to the meeting twenty-five minutes late, and then how he became dismissive of Gunnar after finding out he was a bear with no rank or pack. Gunnar admitted to becoming frustrated and yelling at the Beta after being told that Justin would not relay any of the information about the dababbi to the Supreme Alpha or the Council until the next scheduled meeting in two weeks time.

“All video meetings are recorded,” the Supreme Alpha replied at this point. “Allow us to review the recording of this meeting to verify your statements.”

The entire chamber watched the exchange between Gunnar and Beta Justin on the large screen, split in half so that both Gunnar and Justin could be viewed at the same time.

----

Justin: Very well, send me your video evidence, and I will confer with the other Councilmembers’ Betas. If we determine this is a true emergency, then we will present the issue to our Alphas to be addressed at the next scheduled Council meeting.

Gunnar: When is the next scheduled Council meeting?

Justin: Two weeks from yesterday.

Gunnar: You arrogant asshole! Don’t you realize how many more lycans may die in the next two weeks? Of all the pompous, ignorant, self-important wolves, I have to talk to the Supreme Shit…

Justin: Sir, I will not stand for that kind of abusive language. You forget to whom you are speaking. Send me your evidence, and as I said, the Betas will review it to determine if it is worthy of Council intervention. Good day, sir!

----

The council chamber erupted with overlapping noise after viewing the recording, and the Supreme Alpha was forced to bang his gavel several times to bring the room back into order.

“Gunnar,” Supreme Alpha Taylor said, “While I’m not pleased with the language that you used with my… former Beta, I do understand that you were attempting to convey a sense of urgency that was being ignored. And in this case, your predictions were accurate. Many more lycans did die before the matter was finally brought to the Council’s attention.”

“Can you tell us what you did after ending the meeting with Beta Justin?” A councilmember asked.

“Well, I remember swearing a lot,” Gunnar replied, and the Gallery erupted with laughter.

Mike whispered in his Papa’s ear.

“Oh, right,” he said, “I called Alpha Apollo and Beta Susie of the Chicago Area Wolf Pack. I thought that they would have more contacts and would be able to alert the wolf packs in Appalachian areas of the danger.”

Apollo and Susie were called to the witness stand next, and he related the steps he took to alert the packs within the danger zone.

“General Apollo,” a councilmember asked. “You command the Lycan Council’s 1^st Infantry Peacekeeping force. Why did you not immediately mobilize?”

“With all due respect to the Councilman,” Apollo replied, “I do not have the authorization to mobilize without approval from either the Supreme Alpha or the Council at-large. If I had that power, I would have been in the mountains by the next day.”

“Did you attempt to secure authorization?” the councilmember asked.

“Of course, we did,” Susie replied. “But every time we tried to call one of you, one of your Betas answered the phone. It seemed that they had already decided as a group that the issue was a ‘bear problem’ and told us that they would put the issue forth for discussion at the next council meeting in two weeks. I wanted to reach through the phone and wring their skinny little necks.”

“If I may ask the Council,” Apollo said, “When was the first time that any of you heard about the threat of these dababbi creatures.”

“Alpha Nelson is a close friend,” the Supreme Alpha replied, “And he has my personal cell number. The morning after the attack on the Hacker Valley Wolf Pack, he called me directly.”

“I see,” Apollo said, “And it was you, Supreme Alpha who alerted the rest of the Council?”

“That is correct.”

“So,” Apollo continued, “None of your Betas reported to you any of the times that my Beta or myself tried to reach you to alert the Council of this problem?”

The Councilmembers looked around at each other, and each shook their heads. None of their Betas had reported any of the advance warnings.

“Then with all due respect to the entire Council,” Apollo said gravely, “The responsibility for the delay in response to the recent danger falls directly upon all of your Betas. They have forgotten their place and allowed your position within the Council to inflate their own sense of self-importance. Your Betas should be your assistants, not the gatekeepers who are allowed to decide which problems are worthy of Council action and which are not.”

The stage and Gallery erupted with shouting and commotion, all lycans trying to speak over top of one another in reaction to Apollo’s accusations.

Supreme Alpha Taylor banged his gavel over and over until the room finally settled down.

“The purpose of this inquiry was to determine the guilt or innocence of one wolf, my former Beta, Justin. Now, it appears that we have uncovered a larger issue that all the Councilmembers’ Betas have been conspiring behind the scenes for some time to control and manipulate the agenda of this very Council. I call a recess for the day, and hereby order Security to locate and detain the Beta wolves of the entire Council. Meeting adjourned until nine o’clock tomorrow morning.”

The American and Canadian bears gathered together once again and looked around at the commotion taking place in the council chambers.

“The wolf who was our guide from our suites to the council chambers this morning was one of the councilmember’s Betas,” Ezekiel said. “Somehow, I don’t think he will be available to take us back to our rooms.”

“I think we can find our own way back just fine,” Axel said. “Let’s get out of here and get out of these fucking suits. I need to find a bar and have a beer!”

Apollo and Susie walked over to their group standing in the middle of the chaos in the auditorium.

“We’re going out for a few drinks,” Gunnar said to the wolves, “Care to join us?”

“Some other time, Papi Bear,” Susie said. “We just dropped a bomb on the whole proceedings, and we’re going to have to lay low tonight. We don’t have our enforcer with us, so we’ll be under protection of Council Security until all of the accused Betas are rounded up.”

“Are you going to need any help?” Mike said, “We’ll do whatever you need to keep you safe.”

“That’s a noble offer,” Apollo replied, “But we’ll be fine. You guys make yourselves scarce for the evening and have a good time while we do some house cleaning here within the Council HQ. I was speaking with Supreme Alpha Taylor over breakfast, and you bears are going to be an important part of the discussion tomorrow after we settle this business with the Betas.”

“Just as long as we get back to Duluth before the dababbi come out of their huts,” Axel said. “I need to know if I’m going to be their permanent Papa or not.”

****

The bears found a lively bar & grill and arrived just as happy hour was beginning.

“Happy-hour special,” their server said, “Is all-you-can-eat appetizers for ten dollars per person.”

The bears looked around at each other with grins on their faces.

“Sounds like a bargain,” Gunnar replied. “Let’s do the all-you-can-eat apps for eight. Do you have any local beers on draft?”

“We have six local draft beers,” the server said.

“Perfect,” Gunnar replied. “Bring us eight pitchers of the first local beer on the list alphabetically, and each time we’re out, bring us eight more pitchers of the next beer on the list until we’ve tried them all.”

“Gotcha,” the server said. “All-you-can-eat and six pitchers of beer for each of you. We call that the ‘Calgary Grand Tour’. I’ll bring out your first round of apps in just a few.”

The bears consumed their weight in chicken wings, garlic cheese sticks, nachos, buffalo shrimp flatbreads, cheeseburger sliders, and onion rings before finally finishing the last local draft beer on their Calgary Grand Tour. By the time they were full and pleasantly buzzed, the dinnertime rush was over, and the bar was turning into a dance club.

Mike and Sam grabbed Axel by the hands and pulled him out onto the dance floor. He stood completely still in the middle of the floor for a good minute with a frown on his face, glaring at the two cubs, until he finally cracked a smile and began to bust a move. For such a big bear, he was surprisingly light on his feet once he started dancing. The other five bears stared in disbelief watching their gruff friend cut loose, and then they joined in on the dance floor, allowing themselves to truly relax and enjoy themselves for the first time in weeks. Even Ezekiel showed the crowd a dance move or two that he’d been keeping secret for the last millennia.

It was late when the bears called for a couple of cabs to take them back to the Lycan Council’s guest suites, and they were all ready for bed.

Gunnar stripped off his clothes and left them laying in a breadcrumb trail from the bedroom door to his side of the bed.

Mike got undressed and crawled in next to his Papa.

“Ahem,” Mike said, tapping Gunnar on the shoulder.

“Oh, sorry, Cub,” Gunnar mumbled, “Good night. Love you. Kiss kiss.”

“Papa,” Mike said sternly, “This morning, you’ll recall that you promised to ‘take care of me’ after the council sessions today. I’m waiting for you to keep that promise.”

Gunnar rolled over and looked at Mike.

“You’re telling me that after all that food, and beer, and dancing, you’re still horny and ready to go?”

“Oh, you betcha, Papa Bear,” Mike replied, throwing off the covers and exposing his stiff erection standing straight up like a soldier at attention.

Gunnar chuckled and grabbed Mike by the hips.

“Get over here, Cub,” he said just before Mike’s throbbing erection disappeared down his throat.

Gunnar placed one heavy paw on Mike’s chest holding him down on the bed, and with his other paw, gently stroked and massaged his Cub’s balls. He worked his tongue along the underside of the shaft as his head rose and fell, and he made sure to tickle the underside of the cockhead with the tip of his tongue each time he rose before plunging down again until his nose was buried Mike’s thick pubic hair.

“Oh, Papa,” Mike cried, out overcome with the sensations, “Yes! Suck my cock! Oh yes, yes, yes!

Mike grabbed Gunnar by the back of his head and released his load down his Papa’s throat. He let out a grizzly-bellow worthy of his Papa as he came, and after his release, Gunnar turned him on his side and snuggled up to spoon with him.

“How’s that, Cub?” Gunnar asked, “Ready to sleep now?”

“I sure as fuck hope so!” Axel shouted from the next room, pounding on the wall separating their bedrooms. “You two freaks shut up and go to sleep!”