Chapter Three; A young Mob proves Itself and Sundance's Surprise

January changed to February and so far things had been going smoothly at the Isikaras. Sundance was proving to be another good leader, following in her legendary mother's footsteps.

Indus proved to be a very good dominant male. He was always on first watch and was keen-eyed. With Saignee and Fritz's help, they constantly scent marked the Isikaras land, wanting to make sure no other group touched this precious land.

But all meerkat groups had rivals and for the Isikaras, their position at the edge of the research area meant that they shared borders with Wild meerkats.

Wild Meerkats were merely meerkats who didn't have mob names and their dominant pair wasn't tracked with a collar, their lives pretty much went unnoticed unlike the research meerkats.

The Isikaras never encountered their neighbors, but would have to. Sundance would have to prove herself in battle, a wise meerkat always choses her battles carefully.

Their first battle was against their next door neighbors, a wild group lead by a scarred female, compare to the Isikaras five, this group had eight, but surprisily the Isikaras ended up surprising their rivals and doing a move where Sundance and Izzy attacked the dominant female, and Indus and Saignee the dominant male, the Isikaras won their first victory.

But there would be more battles.

But the Isikaras are now focus on other matters. With the midday heat, the little group had retired to the shade to rest off their morning feast. Izzy, Fritz, and Saignee were dozing that they never knew that Sundance and Indus had snuck away and then returned unnoticed. Not one of the three noticed and the group could just lay and relax.

But Sundance couldn't relax, while Indus took duty she sat and was thinking with her paws folded over her dark belly, soon she would need to make some hard choices that would decide the Isikaras future and she planned to.

The group had proved lucky, after their run in with their neighbors there had been no further trouble, except for the occasional predator alarm. Food was plentiful and the group was flourishing on the plentiful supply.

But Sundance was nervious, when she didn't have her head in the dirt digging for her lunch, she was often looking towards the borderline, their territory was small but big enough for a small group, in time they could focus on expanding it.

But Sundance wasn't thinking of expanding her range, she was focused on defending something else.

So in late February it came as a shock when Sundance lead the Isikaras at a full out wardance charge towards the border, just briefly past it, the neighbors were foraging on their patch, the attack was so quick and suddenly that the Isikaras pretty much had the upper hand and when the group fled, they won.

But Sundance didn't let them scent mark the winnings, if picking up her intentions, Indus went and hip-slammed the two males and then both dominant led the victorious group back to their own territory.

Enjoying the spoils with a feast, the other Isikaras were curious to why Sundance would lead a attack but not claim the land they had apparently won, then they soon knew, Sundance was thinking about the Isikaras in the form of her unborn pups.