FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 1: Ink

San Francisco, November 2012.

Kyran stands at the center of a modern art gallery in the heart of a slumbering city, convinced he's all alone.

The onyx-colored panther glares into the void of a solid black canvas, his amber eyes growing weary as he fades into the inky mystery of the artwork. He pushes thin, golden wire frames up to his tired eyes and steps closer, his whiskers hovering over the rough painted surface, mimicking the brush that once brought this mystifying opus to life.

"What does it all even mean?" Kyran asks himself, finally able to examine the painting on the monolith-like wall without a chattering crowd breaking his concentration.

He takes a step back to reexamine from afar, tilting his head slightly, when he's startled by a deep voice resonating behind him.

"It means you're a huge nerd," Phoenix says, stepping into the spacious gallery.

A brawny lion with a flowing sunflower mane, Phoenix laughs to himself before standing beside his adoptive brother, squinting at the painting while idly swaying his thin, paint-brush like tail. Nearly a foot taller and twice as wide, Phoenix's leather jacket, worn jeans and wild mane contrast with Kyran's perfectly tailored suit and sleek black hair.

"What are you doing here!?" Kyran asks, trying to keep his voice from echoing through the skylight ceiling towering far above them. Phoenix looks down at him with docile, honey-colored eyes and grins, baring sharp and well maintained teeth.

"We're stopping a pack of art thieves, aren't we?" Phoenix asks, looking around as if verifying that all the paintings are where they should be.

Kyran pulls at the sleeves of his pristine shirt, fidgeting with heavy silver cufflinks before picking at bits of dust on his glimmering coat of velvety midnight fur.

"Yes, but what I mean is, what are you doing here? You should be keeping post to alert the night-guard when the art thieves arrive, or have you forgotten the plan already? That's right, you were late and missed that part! We're not here to make a mess," Kyran says, his low, fast-paced whisper rising to a sharp growl.

The lion places a heavy paw on Kyran's shoulder, beaming an overconfident smile.

"Relax. I let the guard know he can take the night off; we'll handle this. Trust me, they won't break into this museum tonight, they're probably total amateurs!"

"They've stolen millions," Kyran reminds him.

"So? We'll scare them away and show them what it means to mess with The Zenith. Besides, if they do show up, you can always blend into that painting you've been talking to all night."

Kyran scoffs, pushing Phoenix's large arm off him.

"Let's go find the others."

As Kyran leads Phoenix through the maze-like halls of the gallery, he peers into the puzzling worlds formed from ink and idea until the lion shatters his concentration.

"Why don't we call the mission off, go out and enjoy what's left of the night. We've been here for hours, and no one's shown up," Phoenix says, yawning while deciphering the time through a cracked watch-face.

"Be quiet! Do you want them to hear us?" Kyran asks, leaning in so closely their whiskers touch.

"There's no one here except for us!" Phoenix shouts to the floors above them, his hands raised to further test Kyran's patience as they board a freight elevator.

Somewhere below, in the cluttered loading dock of the museum, they meet the three other members of The Zenith. Together, they compose a team of five reluctant heroes with astounding adaptations.

The leader of the group, a commanding wolf with a coat of storm-gray fur named Zephyr, nods at them through dog-tired eyes that don't match the kindness in his smile. He fidgets with the frayed sleeve of his scarlet plaid shirt, listening intensely to the sounds of the city beyond the walls.

"No sign of them up front?" He asks Kyran, his low voice traveling far into the warehouse-like room.

"Not one," the panther reports, taking off his glasses to rub his tired eyes.

At the opposite end of the room, the smallest member of the team, a rabbit with vivid cerulean fur, gazes at the newly arrived paintings while swaying back and forth on the tall heels of bright pink shoes, leaving slivers of bright glitter on the floor. Indigo has always been an enigma to the others, from their refusal to confine themselves to a single gender identity to their chaotic sense of fashion.

As the others settle atop crates, the rabbit rubs their long, slender legs, wondering why they chose to wear their longest sweater with their shortest shorts on such a cold night.

"How much can this junk even be worth?" Indigo wonders to themselves in a soft voice while winking at Phoenix through heavy painted eyelashes.

"These items are priceless," Kyran immediately responds, annoyed as he takes his usual place to Zephyr's right.

A soothing purr echoes through the room from a crate above them.

"Maybe to someone like you, or Dad, but who else is going to care if this stuff goes missing?" Kyran's twin sister says. A stunning panther with radiant pink fur, Kamala gracefully leaps to land soundlessly beside them. While Kyran is dressed in layers of black and gold, Kamala is dressed in shades of uniform light blue broken by patches of sleek pink fur.

"The dead guys who made these paintings sure won't," Phoenix responds to her as she adjusts her short skirt.

"This exhibition is by a currently living artist, it's a modern art museum," Kyran counters, rolling his eyes.

"We could've been out there on a more important mission. Maybe next time you can convince Dad to take us off guard duty, Zephyr," Kamala says, chipping away at the clear coat on her sharp, glossy claws.

"You know as well as I do that's not up for me to determine. We go where he sends us," Zephyr says firmly, tired of having to force them to come on missions.

"Just a thought," Kamala says as she brushes her shoulder length, two-toned hair aside to keep it from her dazzling eyes.

"They say you can tell what an artist was feeling by looking deeply into their paintings," Indigo says, mimicking the way Kyran adjusts his glasses when observing something up close.

"Most of them must've felt nauseous then," Phoenix says, filling the loading dock with laughter.

"Enough," Zephyr growls, casting an immediate silence over them.

"Some of the paintings are good. The ones with the flowers especially," Zephyr says in an effort to ease the almost visible tension lingering in the fluorescent lighting of the dock. "But the ones back home are nicer."

Later that same night, Indigo sighs and leans against Phoenix's sturdy bicep, their tall ears tickling the base of the lion's chin. They scroll through their phone absentmindedly until the crunch of disrupted asphalt and the roar of a dying engine sound from the alley outside.

"Showtime," Phoenix says as booming footsteps stop before the loading dock doors.

"Let's get this over with," Kamala says, cracking her knuckles and stretching her toned figure, tired of the constant hum of the neon lights.

The team waits in anticipation for several moments, the buzzing of a broken lamp the only sound as everything in the alley fades back to silence.

"How long does it take to pick a few locks anyway?" Indigo asks, breaking the silence. "It's like--

Zephyr's sharp, pointed ears jolt as his keen senses pick up a shrill ringing from the other side of the metal doors.

"They're not picking the locks!" He yells over Indigo before the air ignites around them.

A muffled explosion resonates in their ears. Fragments of the concrete walls crash into the crates around them, shaking the ground violently like an earthquake. When The Zenith's rainbow spectrum of eyes dart open, Kamala is standing before them, her arms outstretched, the unwavering gaze of concentration on her face.

A dazzling light paints their surroundings pink. The panther's fingertips hover over a crystalline barrier she's shaped with the powerful energy within her, shielding them from the blast. If she remains focused, it's impenetrable.

Indigo glances at the jeweled barrier from behind Phoenix's bulky body.

"Maybe this stuff is worth something if they're willing to destroy half the city for it," they say serenely, unamused by the danger they find themselves in.

The team hastily forms a circle beside Kamala. A dozen wolves, bears, and tigers, draped entirely in black, surround them with their weapons drawn.

Zephyr commands Kamala to step down. Holding in her objections through a bitten lip, she obeys, causing the crystalline structure to recede as if time were turned backward. Immediately, their senses are overwhelmed as the fumes from burning metal mix with the cold night air rushing in through a fractured wall.

Silver smoke burns their eyes as crates catch fire. The wolves howl contradictory commands as some break from the pack to climb the stairwell to the gallery.

Kyran stands on the tips of his sleek dress shoes to whisper into Zephyr's pointed ear.

"They're disorganized."

"Which makes them dangerous," Zephyr warns. At his other side, Indigo struggles to concentrate as the room is filled with voices spoken and unspoken.

One of the wolves aims his weapon dangerously close to the blue rabbits' stubby, twitching nose. Zephyr stands before his adoptive sibling, staring down the barrel of a gun with a stoic expression.

"There's nothing in here worth losing your lives over. Do you really want to do this?" He asks calmly, his ruby eyes meeting the wolves' silken black ones, searching for any signs of hesitation.

Zephyr steps closer to a colossal tiger. The entire room shifts as the rest of his pack steps closer. Sensing danger, Zephyr nods to the shadow at his right.

In an instant, a veil of pitch-black smoke fills every inch of the loading dock. In the commotion, some of the wolves shoot their weapons aimlessly, their bullets only finding the concrete wall opposite them.

When the smoke clears, there's nothing left except a wall riddled with deep holes.

Then, a being born from smoke suddenly materializes from the hellish haze. Kyran grips the tiger's sturdy shoulders to instantly tear them both through the air and into a space far away from the loading dock.

They're both transported to the gallery's large atrium. Kyran lands softly while the tiger crashes against the cold marble floor. He rises and roars, swiping at him with his razor-like claws. The tiger slashes at smoke and air, but never at the panther's midnight-black coat of fur.

Here. There. Gone.

The black panther materializes and vanishes in an instant, everywhere and nowhere all at once.

Kyran rematerializes above him and grips his powerful arms, twisting them behind his back and binding them together with cable tie before vanishing without a sound, leaving only a storm of onyx clouds lingering ominously in the air.

***

Kyran is nearly ambushed by a large grizzly when he returns to the gallery housing the black painting, but Phoenix pins him against the wall with his incredible strength before he manages to reach the panther. The lion raises a clenched fist, prepared to use his adaptation against the bear when Kyran teleports beside him in an instant, his oxford shoes squeaking loudly as he stops his momentum.

"Not in here," He warns, looking only at the solid black painting on the second level above them.

"Come on, just once?" The lion pleads.

"Phoenix!"

"I've been so bored, the least you can do--

The bear shoves Phoenix off him with unexpected strength, knocking him to the cold ground. Kyran leaps between Phoenix and the bear but is struck in the shoulder by the grizzly's heavy paw as he hammers downward with all his strength in a failed attempt to strike the lion's head.

Kyran teleports and reappears on the bear's massive back, his arms wrapped tightly around the grizzly's bushy neck despite the searing pain running down his arm. The bear buries his claws into Kyran's blazer, throwing the panther off him, but he stumbles when Phoenix tackles him around the waist, rendering him unconscious as he wrestles him to the ground.

"Are you okay?" Phoenix asks as Kyran rubs his burning shoulder. He tries to inspect it, but the black panther slaps his hand away.

"I'm fine," Kyran says.

Phoenix sighs, letting go of his tense shoulders.

"If you say so."

The dark, putrid smoke from the fire raging in the loading dock sears the inside of their keen noses as they catch their breaths.

"Do you smell that?" Phoenix asks.

"So much for not making a mess," Kyran says, teleporting to another floor above without the lion.

"I guess I'll take the stairs then!" Phoenix calls out to the ceiling above as Zephyr and Kamala race into the gallery, two of the thieves draped over Zephyr's broad shoulders. While not as large as Phoenix, the commanding wolf displays extraordinary strength due to his unusual adaptation. He places them down gently beside the grizzly in the center of the gallery as loud sirens spill into the room through shattered windows.

"I hope he wasn't too much trouble," Zephyr says, glaring at the bear who stirs awake as he stretches.

"Him? It was too easy," Phoenix lies, grinning with false confidence as he pulls at the sleeves of his black leather jacket.

Kyran reappears with the large tiger he disarmed earlier, setting him down beside the bear as they growl at one another, blaming each other for their failures.

"Who do you work for?" Kyran asks calmly, crouching down to meet the tiger's orange eyes. He spits onto the panthers' face, howling with laughter. Kyran spits at the slobber on his lip before reaching into his blazer for an embroidered napkin.

"Ky, you have to work on your delivery. You need to be much more menacing," Phoenix says, squatting beside the tiger with powerful legs.

"Listen here punk, who do you--

The tiger bumps his heavy skull into Phoenix's, launching him to the ground as the grizzly hollers with laughter.

"At least you helped them reconcile," Kamala says, helping the lion rise as he presses his sleeve against his bleeding nose.

The wide doors to the inner-workings of the museum swing open, and the remaining thieves follow Indigo into the gallery with blank expressions on their faces, their eyes swimming with purple stars as they sit at their command on the floor, arms extended outward to be tied.

"That should be all of them," the rabbit says without looking up from their cellphone.

"That's cheating! You used your mind control thing. I'd like to see you take all five at once," Phoenix says, wincing as he presses his already soaked sleeve deeper.

"I bet you'd love to see that," Indigo says, laughing alongside Kamala as Phoenix glares at them with a familiar look of confusion across his handsome face.

Dozens of detectives storm the gallery, surrounding them with weapons drawn. The chief detective, a middle-aged hyena with short ashen hair, swears at the sight of them as she marches over glass and debris with sharp black heels.

"I should've known the five of you would be here. The mess you made was a dead giveaway," Venus Kane says through pursed lips, shaking her head as she measures the scale of the destruction around her.

"It's going to take a month to clean this shit up."

"Then your officers better get to it, seeing as we already did your job for you," Phoenix says, his voice nasal.

Kane laughs to herself and nods at the thieves on the floor.

"Yes, you all did an excellent job," she says through gritted teeth, unable to contain her disdain for the team of five before her.

"Thank you!" Phoenix responds, swelling his chest and glancing at his teammates.

"You did an excellent job destroying the cities art museum for ten petty thieves," she counts, looking up at Phoenix, "and I assume that's your doing?" she asks, nodding at the fire raging uncontrolled in the rear of the gallery.

"Actually, that was the thieves this time," Kyran says, shielding his sensitive nose from the smoke, "I'm just as surprised as you are."

Kane's muzzle curls into a menacing grin, forcing her to bare her pointed incisors.

"Well, congratulations. For once you didn't allow the dumbest one of you to light the match. Yet here we are, having the same conversation we always have, and the building is still on fire. Now, give me a good reason why I shouldn't take you all in for this and the countless other crimes you've committed in my city."

"You could, but I'd like to see you try," Kamala says, stepping forward.

"Maybe someone should one day," Kane says with an unsympathetic stare in her dull eyes. Her heels echo in the empty gallery as she walks away. She then contemplates and turns around, meeting Kamala's sapphire eyes directly.

"I'll let you in on a little secret. Your adoptive father no longer holds influence over the brilliant minds in the Bay Area. I've heard he's barely clinging onto the organization he once promised would take us into the future, where the likes of you are commonplace. Well, we have excellent minds on our side too, and they're getting very close to figuring out how to stop your little superpowers from manifesting for long enough to bring you to justice. But that doesn't matter now does it? We aren't allowed to touch you," she says, resentment in her voice.

Kane places her hands on Kamala's face, her jaw clenched shut as she senses the energy flowing beneath her lustrous pink coat of velvety fur.

"The moment those in charge are as finished with you as I am, I'll personally see to it that you all end up behind bars, and I'm going to be there when they load you into that van right there," she promises, beaming for the first time genuinely. "There's a lot of really angry girls down at the prison who'd love to rough up that pretty face of yours, and I'd like to see them try."

Kane turns to Zephyr, her tensions easing somewhat at the sight of him. He's far from having her respect, but of all of them, she can at least tolerate the timid timber wolf, and pity him for bearing the responsibility of leading such an unruly team.

"Did you at least get them all this time?" She asks as she adjusts the collar of the wolf's shirt.

Zephyr nods.

"You can speak, can't you?" Kane asks after barking commands at her detectives.

"Yes, ma'am. This is all of them."

"Good, then your work here is done. Not that anyone ever asked for it," Kane says before she's interrupted by an ear splitting roar.

The massive tiger breaks free from his restraints, charging at Kane to fire a concealed weapon.

Kamala counters his attack by extending her arms to launch a fuchsia-colored beam of energy. While she's successful in disarming the tiger, she fails to redirect the blast in time, causing it to strike against the walls of the upper floor of the gallery, incinerating every painting it comes into contact with.

Phoenix catches Indigo in one arm and Kane in the other as they're knocked backward by the force of the blast. Fragments of cracked wall fall onto them as Kane pushes him away, regaining her own footing in the storm of rubble and raining glass.

The remains of the enigmatic painting that occupied Kyran's mind all night settle like black snow atop his head. The dejected panther shakes the ashes off himself and teleports away to the rooftop of the gallery to scream his frustration into the dull noise of the city.

Kamala glares at Kane, the fire reflected in her black eyes as she swipes away the embers peppering her greying hair.

"Sorry for saving your life," Kamala says, stepping back as the tiger is apprehended.

"Get the hell out of my sight," she says, shoving the rose panther with her shoulders as she marches to greet the gathering press.

***

"Why does Kane always have to find the creepiest way to get her point across," Kamala later says as they step out into the night through a shattered window. "I don't understand what her issue with us even is."

As the team walks under barricades of yellow tape, several spectators take pictures of the four of them, muttering excitedly to one another as they catch a glimpse of the illusive group of super-powered anomalies.

"It's her boss. Kane hates him, and they've been arguing lately," Indigo explains."I read it off her the moment she showed up."

"If your adaptation is so keen today, then how did you miss the tigers intentions?" Kyran demands as he teleports beside them through the cloud of black smoke lingering still in the air before dissipating.

"I guess I just didn't notice him. He must've not been my type," Indigo says, adjusting their long periwinkle sweater.

"You can read minds," Phoenix reminds them, "and he was so too your type, big, buff and stupid."

"I'm not arguing with you that there probably wasn't much going on inside his head," the blue rabbit replies, examining themselves in a compact mirror. "But he was well-built though," they tell Kamala, snapping the mirror shut.

"Well, the way Kane has been talking, you two could be cellmates soon," Kamala says.

"She should've taken you in for killing Kyran's painting," Phoenix says, pushing Kyran lightly, nearly causing him to trip with his brute strength.

"Very funny," Kyran says, pushing the lion back, unable to move him an inch, "that piece was worth millions, and none of you seem particularly bothered by that!"

"You're wrong, it does bother me that something like that could be worth millions," Indigo says.

"Relax. I'm sure I can find you a nice canvas you can poke a hole in later," Phoenix suggests.

Zephyr gives them a disapproving look over his shoulder, causing the laughter to escape along the chill breeze sweeping past them as they march in a line down a narrow sidewalk.

When they reach a busy crosswalk, each member of the team announces the plans they had brewing in the back of their minds, some more eager than others to leap from one excitement to the next.

"There's got to be an open bar around here somewhere," Phoenix says, scratching his stomach.

"Are you coming with me, Kamala?" He asks as he walks away from the towering glass skyscrapers and toward the golden lights at the base of the hilly city.

"Are you paying this time?" She asks, adjusting her wavy hair in Indigo's mirror, "or did you leave your wallet and pants on the floor of someone's apartment again?"

"I lost that money, wallet and pants weeks ago, but it was worth it. Don't worry, I have plenty on me if I end up short on cash, and if you get me drunk enough, I might pay for it!"

"You'll pay for it alright. I'm in," Kamala says, shrugging at the others as she runs to catch up to Phoenix, her tail swaying as she walks.

Indigo places the mirror into the back pocket of their jean shorts before glancing into the eyes of their older siblings.

"Well, the kind of bars I go to are that way," they say, revealing large front teeth when they smile awkwardly at them.

"Bars? You're not even twenty-one yet," Kyran reminds them.

"What are you going to do, tell Dad?" they tease, waving as they stroll down a different sidewalk to a part of the city that glows against the dark bay.

"Don't wait up for me!"

Only the cool night air says anything before Zephyr speaks up after clearing his throat.

"I still have some gardening to do," he says, turning back toward the parking garage where they landed their aircraft. Kyran shadows silently behind him up the steep sidewalk.

"I'm going to go to bed," he says.

"Was that painting really worth millions?"

"Who cares. It's gone."

"I was just asking."

Zephyr changes the topic, finding something different to say to defuse the situation.

"Do you think Kane figured out how to stop our adaptations?"

"She's lying. Indigo would tell us if she wasn't," Kyran says assuredly, as if discarding the idea to save space for more thought.

"Oh," Zephyr says silently, hoping Kyran wouldn't catch it, but nothing escapes him.

"You sound disappointed."

"Maybe I am. Do you ever imagine where we'd be if we weren't born the way we are?"

"Made the way we are," Kyran corrects him. "Truthfully, no. But I can imagine you would."

"You don't know what it's like to have a voice in your head telling you to hurt yourself."

"You're right, I don't," Kyran lies as he teleports them to the roof of the parking structure. There, camouflaged against the black night is a large and powerful jet christened the Cepheus by Thaddeus Axton.

The panther pilots the jet as soon as they board, flipping switches to illuminate the dark cockpit with color. He lifts them noiselessly off the rooftop. Once they're safe under the cover of clouds, he turns his seat to face Zephyr.

"If they found a way, to make us ordinary, would you take it?"

Zephyr thinks, clicking his restraints in place as he glances out a small window to the dark bay below.

"What even is ordinary, Kyran? Truthfully, I'd be too afraid to," Zephyr confesses, "because there's no way of knowing which me is the real me. But if I were given the choice, I would."

"I'd never take it. I know exactly where I'd be without my adaptation," Kyran says, facing toward the dark sky.

The flight back is silent. As the Cepheus soars above the midnight clouds, they lose themselves in thoughts about what life would be like if they weren't born with enigmatic power.

Zephyr envisions a tranquil life and enjoys the idea.

Kyran envisions the same but rejects the idea.

They're both oblivious to how soon their worlds will end.

They're three years away from the end of everything.