FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

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New to the story? If so, please read the previous parts first! At this point, you REALLY should... ~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~

~~~CHAPTER 12~~~

Thank God... No more fucking 6:30 am alarm...

That was my first rational thought of the day as I wearily rubbed the sleep out of my eyes. I don't remember sleeping so well in a long time, but it's probably because I woke up on such a good note right now. I turned to the left and checked the clock on the wall; it was already 10 am. Not bad, I didn't sleep the entire day away. I then turned to the right, and saw that Kyla was still fast asleep, lying on her side and snoring in a soft, cute way.

Second rational thought of the day: Oh yeah, I had awesome sex with Kyla last night. Life is great again after all! Except, of course, for the impending OGD attack and everything...

Even though it's been more than a year since I've actually had sex, it didn't hamper my ability to please my new love at all. We didn't share as many words as we did bodily fluids, but I felt like I was on top of my game. And on top of Kyla.

Giggity.

All jokes aside, I slowly pulled the sheets off my half of the bed and got out, taking care not to wake the beauty next to me. Not to be sneaky, only because I hate accidentally waking people up. She looks too peaceful to bother right now, so I'll wake her later. All of our clothes were scattered everywhere around the room and my long sword was leaning against the wall, looking rather lonely without the shorter one to hack and slash alongside it. I doubt I'd be able to find any of my metal blocks in the wreckage of the base, but there should be something around here I can use to improvise and make a new short sword. The only thing that made my blocks so special in the first place was that they were purified metal, since I was able to get the paint, dirt, and other contaminants out. The more pure the metal is, the easier it gets for me to work with. In the heat of battle, it counts for a lot. Any other time, not very much.

I found my pants and put them on, then quietly unlocked the door and walked out, closing it behind me. I could really use some coffee, or any drink for that matter, and I'm sure Kyla would like something as well. I'm in a relationship again, so I plan on being as much of a gentleman for her as I can.

Out of all the people and hybrids in the main room I didn't recognize anyone in particular, other than Francis talking with Ross and a tall panther hybrid at a lone table in a corner of the room. Whatever they were talking about, it sounded pretty serious judging from their tones and body language. Kyla's still asleep, so this might be worth looking into.

I walked over. Francis saw me approaching the table, and pulled out the empty seat next to him for me to sit in.

"Good morning, Greg. You sleep well? Rather, you two sleep well?"

I chuckled at that. "Yes, to answer your question, we both slept very well. Best sleep I've had in a long time."

"Because there was no alarm to wake you up, or because of all the sex?" Francis asked with a casual look on his face.

My heart skipped a beat. "Oh. You, uh... heard all that?"

The panther hybrid snickered. "My friend, everyone heard all that. You two really need to work on the volume. But we're all adults here, so all I'm going to do is shake your hand and say good job. I'm Brent, Subject Epsilon Nine, by the way. Leader of Team Epsilon. These guys already told me who you are, so don't worry about that."

I shook his massive hand. "Thanks. And thanks for the compliment, too. I take pride in my ability to---"

"As much as I'd love to hear about how you tapped one of my closest friends" Ross interrupted with, "we really need to get back to what we were previously talking about. It's actually a good thing you're here, Greg, because we're using this time to formulate a plan for when OGD strikes back. As one of the surviving team leaders, you should help out."

"Sounds fair" I said. "What do we have so far?"

Brent cleared his throat and began to explain. "Well, we know that OGD will be here within a day or two. We have all of today to make a plan and fortify what's left of the base around the safehouse, and at least half of tomorrow to prepare everything else. They know we're holed up inside this safehouse, but they don't know that it only has one entrance. As long as we can protect this entrance and keep them from getting inside, we're good."

Francis took over. "I actually had a few ideas for going on the offensive, one of which involves your unique abilities. You know how they say imitation is the sincerest form of flattery?"

"I might have heard that before" I replied.

"Well, I have an idea that'll flatter the hell out of OGD."

~~~

Turns out the only beverage in this safehouse is water, which shouldn't have surprised me at all. With two bottles of it in hand, I went back to the bedroom and quietly opened the door. But my stealth was unnecessary, as Kyla was already awake when I entered. She was walking around with the bed sheets wrapped around her like a cloak, playing with my long sword and admiring its detail and sharpness.

"There you are, stud!" she said sweetly. "I just got up a few minutes ago and noticed you were gone. What's going on out there?"

I handed her one of the waters. She tossed my sword onto the bed and took it, unscrewing the cap and taking a few gulps. Not liking the room temperature of the water, she held the bottom and used her power to freeze some of it. First time in a while I've actually seen her use her abilities.

"At first I just wanted to find us something to drink, but I got something even better accomplished" I said with a smile.

"Do tell" Kyla said while capping her bottle of water and tossing it onto the bed with my sword.

"Me, Francis, Ross, and that panther hybrid Brent started making a plan for when OGD attacks us again. It's a work in progress, and we plan on getting everyone's input later today. By tonight, we should have something ready. Tomorrow we set everything up and wait. We're gonna be ready to defend what little of this place we have left."

That gave Kyla a hopeful smile. "You're right, that is better than quenching my thirst. A good plan will quench my worries instead."

I put my bottle on the ground and walked over to Kyla, pulling her in and tenderly holding her close while looking into her eyes.

"Come on, Kyla. Remember what I said last night? I'm not going to let anything happen to you. As long as I'm here, you're invincible."

She gave me a kiss and rested her head on my chest while running her fingers through the fur on my back. "I'm sorry, Greg. I know I shouldn't worry so much, and I admit, the fear's already starting to fade away. With you, I feel warmth, love and safety, and that's all I need to get through this."

Her touch was like heaven on my front and back. I kissed the top of her head and lightly pulled the bed sheet off her shoulders, causing it to completely fall off and crumple around her feet. I returned her favor by rubbing my hands over her now naked back.

"I've gotta say, I love feeling just how warm you are as well."

Kyla giggled at that. "You know, with you, I'm really able to appreciate these bodies. The infection immunity and superpowers are nice, but this is what I like the best."

I was so fixated on Kyla that I didn't notice Harry standing in the doorway.

"I disagree" he said. "The superpowers are the only thing I need!"

That took us by surprise. Kyla gasped and quickly grabbed the sheet from the floor to cover herself, but Harry just stood and laughed at her reaction. Though he probably wasn't expecting to see us like this, he got a good look nonetheless.

_Stare all you want, she's mine. _

"You couldn't wait until we were decent?" I asked dryly.

"You guys left the door open, not me" Harry countered. "Besides, what am I supposed to do, NOT stare at your beautiful girlfriend?"

Astonishingly, that made Kyla smile and walk over to Harry. "Oh Harrison, I don't know whether to thank you or slap you in the face."

"I welcome either" he replied, grinning from ear to ear. We both knew he'd teleport out of the way if Kyla lashed out at him, which would probably make her fall over and look stupid.

I decided to intervene before she did. "Come on, Harry. You obviously came here for something, so spit it out already."

"Right, right. Sorry. I'm just letting the both of you know that even though we're all very happy for you two, there's still work to be done. Francis just told me he already talked to you about our plans, but he wanted me to remind you that our time is limited. And that's about it."

I turned my attention to Kyla. She shrugged and gestured to Harry. "He's right, Greg. But don't worry, I'll help out you guys as much as I can. At least we can spend the day together that way."

"True" I replied. "I can't think of a better way to build our relationship than creating deadly traps and fortifying the base."

They both chuckled at that. "Get used to the sarcasm, Kyla" Harry said. "It's one of his best qualities, but it gets old REALLY fast."

"ANYWAY" I said loudly to get the floor back, "Give us a few minutes to get ready, and tell the others we'll be there shortly."

"Sure thing, boss" Harry said with his own touch of sarcasm as he walked out of the room. I waited until he was out of earshot. "Don't worry, he grows on you" I said to Kyla.

"I figured as much" she said while walking over to the door and shutting it. She turned back to face me, with that mischievous smile on her face once again. "But you did say we'd be ready in a few minutes. I don't think it'll take that long."

I immediately caught on. "Well, what do you suppose we do with the extra time, my lady?"

She let the sheet drop once again.

"I'll give you a hint."

~~~

The next two days went exactly as we planned; everyone in the safehouse working together to prepare for the upcoming battle by setting traps, building weapons, and creating defenses. First of all, the zombies had to be cleared. Between all of us, that took about five minutes. Next, we had everything ranging from precariously placed explosives to simple pitfall traps with spikes set up. There were about fifty of us in total, and everyone had something unique to bring to the table. We powered through setting up the field, and worked on the safehouse next. Thanks to the abilities of a few selected hybrids, myself included, we transformed our shelter into a full-blown fortress. There were several big doors and walls protecting it to start with, but now there was much, much more. Without a key, it'll be a cold day in hell before someone breaks in.

Kyla opted to remain inside the safehouse just in case anything went wrong. I knew the real reason, but I respected her decision. I was actually very thankful for it, though, because once again, she'll be out of harm's way. We shared one more tender moment with each other before she sealed herself and the humans inside.

As for the rest of us, Francis' grand idea turned out to be having me forge a set of simple armor for our comrades to fight in. Luckily, I had found enough acceptable metal to work with, and in only an hour, everyone had a set of genuine Omega armor. Well, that's what Harry called it. It didn't protect the entire body, but it covered just as much as the OGD armor. Hopefully, it'll be enough.

Okay. I'm all set, Kyla's all set, and everyone else is all set. We were ready.

And sure enough, by the time I got back to the outer area, OGD's second wave had arrived. And it was a LOT bigger than we thought.

~~~

"Greg, behind you!" Francis shouted.

I had already noticed someone charging at me out of the corner of my eye before that warning, but I was thankful for it anyway.

"Roger that! I see him!" I shouted back.

With a fist full of cackling green energy, a helmetless dingo OGD hybrid took a wild swing at my chest, which I deflected with my sword. And by deflected, I mean chopped his fist off before it could even connect with my body. Such a shame their armor doesn't protect their hands. Knocked off balance and howling in pain, he fell to the ground, giving me all the time in the world to stab him in the back, killing him instantly.

That's... What, five now? You disappoint me, OGD...

In the last hour, we had already made a sizeable dent in OGD's army, but we still had quite a fight on our hands. Our traps had already been used up, and only seemed to kill off the weaker invaders. The stronger ones had to be disposed of personally. It's possible that with so many troops, they had less time to train within the last year than we did. But considering all of our disadvantages, we were doing pretty well. However, the day hasn't been won yet...

Everyone was fighting to their fullest. Harry was teleporting around the battlefield rapidly, taking potshots at random OGD's while Ross used his lightning to stun and disorient others. They used their abilities as support, weakening our enemies to make them easier to pick off. On the opposite end of the spectrum, Francis, Evan, and Brent were brutally taking them down one at a time. They had each taken a few hits, but nothing serious. Hopefully it'll stay that way.

As I pulled my sword out of the dingo's body, something flew past my head. I couldn't see exactly what it was, but it felt hot and it was glowing. It wasn't meant to hit me, only to draw my attention. And it totally worked, because after several more of them came at me from different directions and hit ground around me, I realized who was calling me out.

You...

I turned around, and there he was. The mysterious silent hybrid, master of oil and napalm. He looked the same as every other OGD hybrid here, but I knew it was him. There was nobody else it could be.

But rather than engage me head-on, he teleported to the entrance of the base. I quickly scanned the area and found that nobody but me saw him standing there. Everyone else was busy fighting OGD. I was the only one who could stop him.

He ran into the base, forcing me to follow him. I used a speed boost to catch up to my adversary, but noticed that we wasn't running to the safehouse. However, judging from his body language, he seemed to know exactly where he was going. Even if he's going the wrong way, I picked up the pace and chased him into the ruins of our home.

After a whole minute of running through different areas, I recognized where I was now. It's the combat training arena, the same place where me and my teammates competed against Team Delta a few days earlier. Though at this point, it feels like that happened a lifetime ago. The walls had immense chunks blown away from whatever real battle took place in here, and the observation box and numerous panels on the walls had been completely destroyed. The mysterious pyrokinetic stood in the middle of the arena, just waiting for me to make a move. He wasn't going to run anymore. Now I could see that he lured me here for a fight, and a fight is exactly what he'll get. I couldn't possibly imagine why he'd want us to be isolated from everyone else, though. Maybe he wants there to be no interference from any of my or his allies, and wants to take me one-on-one.

Whatever the reason, I flexed my muscles and readied my sword. His hands started to glow red, signaling that he was ready as well. We slowly walked towards each other, both of us determined to slay the other.

"En garde" I said to goad him. He broke into a sprint. I followed suit.

We both leaped up into the air, with me swinging my sword straight down and him catching the blade between his hands. He immediately heated them up in an effort to melt my sword, leaving me without a weapon to fight with. But I could only imagine the look of surprise on his face when my weapon remained perfectly intact. I took advantage of his confusion to kick him hard in the chest, freeing my sword from his grasp and giving me a single clean shot at him as we both fell to the ground. I used it wisely and scored a nice diagonal slash across his chest and left arm, severing several pieces of his armor and drawing blood.

Disoriented, he fell to the ground at a faster rate than me, though teleporting saved him from crashing. He reappeared in his signature cloud of black smoke on the opposite side of the arena, clutching his wound. It didn't look very deep, but it was enough to give him the message.

_Do. NOT. Fuck. With. Greg. Ossland. Because when it comes to messing with my home and the people I care about, it won't end well for you. _

You see, I took a few extra steps yesterday to ensure I'd be ready if I actually ran into this guy. With the leftovers of all the metal I was able to purify from broken pieces of the base, I made my long sword twice as dense and twice as sharp. After some experimentation with Harry's help, I found that my new sword was unable to be melted easily, which makes it the perfect weapon to combat this nemesis of ours. I did the same thing with my body armor after finding this winning formula.

Now, back to the fight:

Despite that brilliant opening move, I wasn't done yet. I tucked in my legs and landed into a roll, careful not to accidentally impale myself with my sword, which would've been an embarrassing way to die. Using the momentum I had just built up, I dashed across the arena to engage my adversary once again. Quick to react, he launched several balls of napalm straight at me, which would've been impossible to dodge at the speed I was going. Once again, I was ready. Fast as lightning, I slashed at the flaming orbs, cleanly cutting them in two and out of my path. They harmlessly hit the ground behind me, sizzling the concrete. Before he could process what had just happened, I scored another diagonal slash across his chest, destroying more of his armor at the cost of not wounding him this time. A few more attacks like this, and he'll have nothing to protect himself from getting cut in half. Because at least without the damn chest plate, that's exactly what would've happened already.

The force of the slash threw him into the wall, but he used his hands to protect himself from the worst of the impact. The front part of his helmet took most of the impact, cracking loudly. I wasn't going to give him any time to recover. I dashed towards him again, except this time I wasn't as lucky. I didn't see him touch the ground to create the large wave of oil that ensnared and threw me back, but I definitely saw the wave itself. Unlike him, I landed on my feet. No crashing into a wall for me.

We both recomposed ourselves, catching our breath and analyzing the fight thus far. He knows that my weapon suddenly has the ability to withstand his fire attacks, and even cut clean through them. I know that he's taken quite a bit of punishment so far, and that I'm slowly but surely cutting through his defenses. He hasn't even actually hit me yet, only countered me.

It doesn't take a genius to see where this battle's going.

~~~

Five minutes in, that hasn't changed. My equipment proved to be this guy's undoing, as I had come this far in our fight without so much as a few scratches. But he, on the other hand, was reaching his limits. I remembered from our previous encounter in the city that his teleportation skill took a lot out of him, and this whole time I've been tricking him into constantly doing just that. With him cornered, I made another leaping slash, betting that he'll zip out of the way and blast me into the corner, since I wouldn't be able to block any attacks from behind. But I had just the perfect counter attack planned. After I swung down and only hit smoke, I took my chances and dashed backwards, hitting the pyrokinetic spot-on. He teleported to just outside of my sword's range, but probably wasn't expecting a straight-up tackle. And it worked; he was momentarily stunned.

This was my chance. I quickly spun around and slashed at him one final time, putting all my energy into that one swing. By an immense stroke of luck on his part, I hit the last remaining part of his chest plate, robbing me of a chance to cut anything vital. By an immense stroke of luck on my part, the force was enough to send him flying once again. This time, he slammed into the opposite wall with enough force to completely shatter the back of his helmet. The resulting cracks quickly traveled to the front which, coupled with the existing cracks, threatened to make the rest of it fall apart with the slightest movement. Much like my fight with his tiger hybrid teammate days ago, this should be the clincher. I've won, and there's no way this guy's escaping from me now.

But a sudden weak moan from the person behind the ruined armor and cracked helmet changed everything.

The moan was female in tone. It was muffled, but definitely not something you'd hear from a guy. This was weird, considering he... or I should say she hasn't made any noise at all yet. During the brief seconds she was lodged in the wall, I began to notice how her physique, without being hindered by most of the armor, confirmed her gender. I don't know how I wasn't able to see it before. Probably because I've been trying not to get hit all this time. Fair enough.

She fell out of the wall and landed on her hands and knees, which made the helmet finally break apart and start to fall off her head. From my perspective, time slowed down significantly with every piece that came loose. I looked down at her and slowly walked over, sword in hand, anxious to finally see the face behind all the silence and napalm. And then kill the crap out of it.

What happened next, however, was the single most shocking moment of my life. Nothing I've ever talked about could hold a candle to this. Not Z-Day, not my tender moments with Kyla, nothing.

It all happened in one fluid motion. As two halves of the helmet fell off on each side of her face, she tilted her head up and looked at me, which made the piece holding her hair in the back fall as well. I immediately saw that she was a leopardess hybrid just like Kyla, only not a snow leopardess; a regular one. But then I noticed the rest of her features and stopped dead in my tracks.

All the pieces came together to paint a horrifying picture:

The red hair...

The green eyes...

And the tiny scar under her right eye...

Wait... This.... doesn't make any sense.... No, this, this doesn't make ANY sense!!!

She slowly regained her footing and stood up, still looking right at me. Her eyes were completely blank, but mine felt like they were slowly being burned.

You... You're.... But you can't be! You literally CAN'T be!!!

I was trembling all over. I couldn't move, and even breathing was becoming difficult. My sword dropped out of my hands and fell onto the floor. The resulting loud, clanging sound snapped me out of it just enough to utter one word.

"CALI?"

She only responded by launching a final burning attack of her own. I was so dumbfounded I barely even felt the impact.

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Oh yes, you read that right.

THIS is the one chapter that I've been waiting to write ever since the beginning, and now it's finally here for all to enjoy. It also marks the halfway point in the story overall, but that's subject to change. This could go to 30 parts, I don't even know yet.

Even though I still have a ways to go before this story is complete, I'd like to thank everyone who read, commented, and supported me enough to even get this far. That goes especially for my three friends Rueger, Ajay, and Alex. Your constant feedback and praise is the one thing I enjoy the most out of this website, and I want you guys to know that. As for my newer friends/subscribers and those surely to come, (one in particular, you already know who you are) the story's only going to get better and better. If you're expecting an awesome ending, then look no further.

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On a final note, happy 2012 to all! If it's going to be our last year on Earth, then let's all go out with a bang!

(DISCLAIMER: I don't actually believe the world's going to end in a year because a piece of stone said so. If you do, then you're just stupid)