FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Time: 18:25pm.

Year: 2245, January 12th.

Location: New Vega Under-Highway.

Elle and I slowly began to circle around the Feral Fox in opposite directions, quickly, yet carefully and gently, drawing one leg over the other as we navigated along the broken pipes and chains that littered the floor whilst keeping our eyes fixated on the Feral, now brandishing his claws; in all my life, I had never come across such wild eyes, staring me down for a short moment until the Feral averted his gaze to Elle, and back to me. As the Feral rotated his head slowly, his gaze on neither me nor Elle, I slowly began to raise the length of broken pipe I was wielding in both paws, and nodded to Elle as she swung the length of chain wrapped around her right arm.

Elle took two long strides forwards as the Feral now had his gaze fixed on her, whilst I took one slightly shorter stride forwards and waited for the right moment to strike; In one swift movement, Elle managed to uncoil some more length of the chain and swung it high above her head, and by her second stride, she managed to bring the chain down from her left side and struck the Feral across the right-side of his jaw, sending a small amount of thick blood from his mouth - the same colour as his now-ruffled fur - and onto the ground just in front of my feet as I suddenly jumped forwards, arcing my pipe from my bottom-right and striking the Feral across the left-side of his jaw, hearing a satisfying crack as it broke completely.

However, this wasn't even enough to stagger his body; his head was the only thing that moved even slightly, his muzzle distended and bleeding as he spat out more of his thick blood and managed a grin, beginning to spread his legs out slowly, his claws scratching through the concrete until suddenly stopping. He now began to raise his arms up to head-level (that is, if he was standing up straight) as Elle and I took two calm steps back; I could already see Elle plant one foot underneath one of the pipes littering the floor whilst she started swinging her chain over her head again; I copied her movement and prepared to kick a pipe towards the Feral whilst I gripped another length of pipe in my paws tightly...however, Elle and I both knew this wouldn't be enough.

"I...need...a...fucking...distraction." I mouthed those exact words to Elle as the Feral drew his gaze away from me and came close to finally attacking us; I could tell that she had understood me as she swiftly pulled her right leg forwards and forced the left one up, kicking the pipe up at the Feral and temporarily stunning him.

I quickly reacted and reached down to my left leg, feeling out for a small beacon I'd strapped to my leg, just in case the rescue got out of hand; it barely took me two seconds to run one paw down my leg and press the beacon firmly, hearing a click, telling me that it was now active. By this time, the Feral had already reacted and dropped his right claw to the ground, only to bring it up to swipe at Elle, barely catching the length of chain on his claws and dragging Elle's body along with it, almost throwing her half a dozen metres before landing on a small pile of pipes and chains.

"Just so you know..." Elle began to grunt, picking herself up as the Feral turned towards me, my foot still planted underneath the pipe; "...this plan seems to be going rather well...all things considered."

I quickly kicked my left foot forwards, catapulting the pipe towards the Feral and taking a quick jump back as he managed to tear the pipe to pieces with one swipe of his left claw; the Feral now had all his attention on me as he lowered down onto all four limbs, preparing to launch himself at me as I backed up another few steps, picking up another length of broken pipe along the way and wielding one in each arm, bracing them both underneath my arms and intending to spear the Feral with the broken ends when he got close.

"Come on..." I grunted through my gritted teeth, aiming both lengths of pipe down at the Feral's kneecaps as he raised his left claw, intending to rip me apart in one (not so clean) swipe. "Come on, I want you to do it, come on, launch yourself at me..."

In one clean movement, the Feral and I had managed to swap places. The Feral launched his body with all his force, arcing his left claw in the air whilst the other three were completely spread out to full length, his body-length spanning over four metres; I reacted almost immediately by keeping my body as low as possible, dragging both pipes behind me as I managed to duck underneath the Feral's claws (and the Feral himself) and brought both lengths up to tear alongside his legs, with barely enough time to look back to see the Feral crash into the wall behind me, flailing around and sending blood around the area before getting back up.

Elle and I were almost in complete shock as the Feral managed to get back up, completely unfazed by the punishment we had dealt to him; even his wounds stopped bleeding, now being replaced by a thick black substance, as if his blood had coagulated in only moments. This was followed by a loud snapping noise as we saw the Feral's jaw relocating and reforming back into place; he let out a low-pitched noise - a mixture of laughter and growling - as Elle and I prepared to face him again, raising our makeshift weapons quickly before circling him again at a much faster pace than before, yet still able to traverse past the pipes and chains still littering the floor.

"How much more time do we need?" Elle asked, not taking her eyes off the Feral as he prepared to attack again; "I don't think we'll be able to last five more minutes against this...this is a guy, right?"

"Don't worry, I have a backup plan." I managed to mouth to Elle, indicating with my head the exit behind her that lead back onto the Highway. "When it happens, we run; we don't stop for anything. Look out for a red van."

I wasn't exactly sure if Elle understood the last part of what I said; however, she managed to get all the rest. I kicked a small pile of broken pipes to one side, drawing the Feral's attention my way so Elle had the opportunity to back towards the exit; the Feral quickly reacted and launched himself at me, now arcing both claws to make sure he didn't miss me this time; however, I was already prepared for this, and managed to take one stride forwards, stabbing the Feral in his gut whilst ducking underneath his claws, providing the perfect opportunity to throw him over my body and swiftly catch up with Elle leaving both my pipes impaled in the Feral.

I managed to catch up to Elle in moments, though we didn't stop for one-another; judging by the sounds made behind us, the Feral was already back up and chasing after us, rapidly gaining speed. The only way we were able to avoid him was by turning any corner we could find, sprinting down the empty road for our lives and intending to get out into the streets, hoping that the beacon strapped to my leg would finally get the attention I wanted.

Elle and I had just turned another corner, by which time the Feral was barely within arm's reach, his claws cutting along the concrete wall behind us in an attempt to kill both in one go; fortunately, I had just managed to hear the sound of screeching tyres over the scraping noise behind me, motivating me to run harder and faster, my lungs and legs now on fire. Fortunately, Elle and I both noticed a van speeding our way, the same red van I had hoped the beacon would attract; we both suddenly jumped to the side, letting the Feral shoot past us as he launched forwards into the path of the van.

It was all over in barely a minute; the van had impacted with the Feral, breaking all the windows of the vehicle and severely denting the front as it not only managed to stop the Feral, but also launched him back almost a dozen metres and into one of the concrete pillars holding up the Highway above us. The van had screeched to a halt barely a few metres from the Feral, now scraping his claws against the concrete floor in anger in an attempt to get up; his attempt was successful in a matter of seconds as the Feral managed to click his bones back into place.

Elle kept her eyes focused on the Feral as I quickly regained focus and sprinted over to the van, watching as a Black-Wolf stepped out wielding a large rifle that he could barely hold in both paws; he tossed me a smaller, more compact rifle that he had slung over one of his shoulders.

"Shoot him, shoot him!" Lawrence yelled at me as he and I raised our weapons at the Feral, who was already preparing to launch himself at us. I wasted no time and immediately pulled the trigger of my rifle as soon as the Feral was in my sights.

The combined strength of our weapons had only half the force of the Van, though that didn't stop us from staggering him; it took about ten seconds of non-stop fire to finally take out the Feral, who must have taken dozens of bullets all over his body before finally dropping dead and still on the ground. After what seemed like forever in my mind, I finally turned to Lawrence and nodded, proceeding to get in the Van as I turned back to beckon Elle into the Van.

"Elle, get in!" I called to her, watching her stunned face as she turned to face the Feral corpse, then to the Van, then back to me.

"What the hell just happened?!" Elle yelled, her eyes now wide open as she gazed at me; "who the hell is that? Why the hell didn't you tell me what was going to happen? How the hell are we going to get away in that van?

"Elle! Shut the hell up!" I yelled back at her, now halfway into the back of the Van as I tossed my rifle inside; "I'll explain it all at some point where we're not getting shot at or hunted by some bloody Ferals! Now get the hell in this Van!"

Elle wasted no time and immediately set off towards the van as I began to hear the wailing of sirens overhead; I managed to slam the doors shut just as police cars were in view.

"I know a route that'll take us straight back to the club; very discreet." Lawrence called back to us as we braced ourselves against the walls of the vehicle, feeling a sudden quake surge through the vehicle as it started up, choking and sputtering for the first few seconds. "I'd rather not be caught on one of those shitty car chase shows, if at all possible."

We all shared an uncomfortable silence as the van picked up speed; the only audible noises were the occasional chokes the van let out, drowning out the noise of the sirens for a brief second, as well as the heavy breathing coming from me and Elle as we regained focus and tried to properly make sense of what had happened since the whole 'accident' involving an Enforcer-Van and a Truck.

"...I never did ask; how did you find me?" Elle finally spoke, catching me off guard for a few seconds before I managed a reply.

"Information is one of our specialties." I replied with a smirk on my face; "that and it's pretty hard to miss a news report about 'the capture of one of the most dangerous criminals alive'."

"Please don't tell me they said that." Elle forced a laugh, looking up at the roof of the van and continuing; "it was only a few dozen thefts, less than five-hundred hacking attempts into Public and Government databases - barely two-hundred of which were successful - and a couple thousand black-mailings to people who deserved it; I could have done a lot more over the past sixty or so years."

"If you did you'd probably be dead by now." I remarked, my grin now showing off the top right row of my teeth, resembling a devilish smile.

"So we're going back to your place?" Elle asked, bringing her head down and facing me with an 'all-business' look in her eyes as her smile quickly faded. "Please tell me there's going to be a drink waiting for me when I arrive; these New Vega types don't like feeding me much."

"At least you didn't take a royal arse-kicking when you got turned in." I remarked, flexing my shoulders and beginning to feel a dull pain sink into my body; judging by the silence we shared for the next few seconds, we had nothing else to say to each other at the moment. With any luck we'd have more to discuss once we got back to the club.

It was barely a minute before I finally remembered something important I was supposed to ask her as soon as I saw her.

"...so what happened to that ship of yours?" I asked, now catching her off guard as she took a few seconds to process the question; "You called it The Cradle, didn't you?"

"Oh, that..." Elle replied, as if she were put in an awkward situation; "It may or may not have been blown up by me or Blood Clan whilst I was kind of planting a few dozen explosives in my home before making my more-or-less discreet escape routine."

"And here I thought things were going to be boring with you around." I said sarcastically just before the van made a sudden sharp turn, causing me to detach from my side of the van and slam front-first into the other side, right next to Elle.

Of course, I thought; things_never_ got boring with Elle around.