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Richard is a young wolf of eighteen. Like most his age he is attending college. Like most he sleeps in late. Unlike most it is not because he stays out all night drinking. He was out all night hunting and unlike most he did not use guns, bows or snares. Richard is a Therianthrope, a shape shifter. Last night he hunted as a true wolf. Last night for the first time he did not hunt alone. He hunted with an old friend of his, Joe. They took down a deer. Richard grinned at the memory. Not only was the deer so much more satisfying than rabbits but hunting with someone else just made the whole experience so much better.

Like a few Richard moved out of his parent's house but he was living on the hills above the small town in a woodland. He loved the freedom of having acres and acres of his own land. Richard loved the outdoors and especially wild untouched places. Richard was so caught up in memories he barely remembered to get dressed before leaving for college. Richard drove an old jeep around, a Suzuki Samurai. It was old, it was beat up but it worked and it worked well.

The drive to college was a little long but Richard didn't mind. The college was on the edge of town and if he drove around he could stay in the countryside for most of it. He parks as close to the buildings as possible were cameras deter stupid students from pissing about. Richard avoided meeting the eyes of the other students. He was always a solitary guy with a small group of trusted friends. None of them were in his first classes of the day. He just sat in the classrooms occasionally taking notes and waiting for the practical section.

Richard was studying computer programming. He was very good at it. He was finished with the exercises within half an hour. He used to continue with future exercises but after finishing a module in the first two weeks he decided against doing it again. He was glad when lunch finally arrived. He grabbed his bag and was the first out of the room. His plan was to take his lunch outside like he usually did but over the course of the morning the rain had got heavier and heavier.

Richard was standing there cursing his luck when a hand dropped onto his shoulder. Before he could say anything he was dragged into a tight hug and lifted off the ground. "Ah fuck Jack."

The Saint Bernard known as Jack dropped Richard only to pull him around and into another hug. "Someone's happy to see me."

"It's my phone." Richard replied curtly. "How many times?"

"Until you return the hug."

"Not going to happen. Your lunch break?"

"Yeah. Yours?"

"Nope. Got tutorial."

"Shame." Richard made absolutely no attempt to hide the sarcasm. It didn't faze Jack in the slightest.

"I can tell you're devastated." Jack turned to leave. "See you later."

Richard grunted a reply then something occurred to him and he called after Jack. "You seen Joe?"

"Lunch break. Try the canteen." Jack called back.

So Richard went to the canteen. He didn't see Joe so he picked an empty table and sat down. Richard was halfway through his lunch when someone dropped into the seat next to him. Richard looked out of the corner of his eye but didn't move his head. It was a tiger from public services. His name was Dominic and he was an arsehole.

"Gerard there was telling me a couple of rumours about you." Richard continued eating. The name rang a bell but Richard couldn't put his finger on it. "He said you cracked someone's head open with a pipe when they tried to steal your lunch. Then he said you had half the sports teams beat up the friend of someone else who was bothering you."

Richard still carried on eating. Neither rumour was true. At least not quite like Dominic had said.

"Well?" Dominic reached over as if to take something from Richard's food. Richard suddenly slammed his fork into the table next to Dominic's hand. For a brief instant fear showed on his face but he quickly hid it. "You..." Dominic squeaked. "Missed."

"So I did." Richard let go of the fork and picked up a piece of meat. He grinned when Dominic tried to pull out the fork and failed. Richard grabbed the fork and yanked it out of the table. "I'll aim better next time. Now piss off I'm eating."

"You seem to have people scared." Dominic leant up close to Richard. "But you're just a scrawny little wolf aren't you. Just some little shit with stories."

Dominic was leaning very far forward on his chair. Richard put the fork in his lunch box and shut it. With a quick movement he knocked the chair from underneath Dominic. Dominic's muzzle clipped the table on the way down. Richard winced when he heard his jaws snap together. "You should sit properly." Richard stood and grabbed his bag and lunch. Dominic's three friends (Richard silently gulped) walked around Richard hurrying to Dominic's aid.

Richard noticed a certain fox leant against the door to the common room and with a scowl approached him. Richard and Joe stood at the same height and had very similar builds, Richard was slightly slimmer. That made Richard a short and slim wolf. In school that made him a target for bullies. That had mostly dropped off in the last couple of years.

Richard's fur was dark brown and thick, it was a pain in summer. Joe's fur was the usual red, not as thick and smoother. Joe also spent the extra money for branded clothing where Richard bought plainer, cheaper and usually more durable clothes. One place he did take the extra time to look and spent a little extra was boots and hats. At collage he wore a pair of leather cowboy boots and a favourite plain blue cap of his, it has a story behind it.

"Thanks for the help." Richard snapped.

"I'm a lover not a fighter. You seemed to do well enough."

"I pissed him off. Now he's going to retaliate and I'm going to have to go one step further to deter him."

"Me being there wouldn't have helped. He'd just wait until I wasn't around. He was a bitch in high school. He's just lashing out.

Joe led Richard into the common room and to a relatively quiet corner. "Why me?" Richard asked. "What did I do?"

"You were bullied in high school. But unlike him you got through it, you even had half the bullies scared of you. We heard about you in my school."

"You know those stories are exaggerated."

"Yeah I know. You just kicked the chair from under Brad and he hit his head on the way down and the other guy... what was it? The sports teams took pity on you?"

"Something like that. First I heard of it the police wanted to talk to me. Hey you busy this weekend? I thought we could spend the weekend out in the woods. Have a couple days hunting."

"I..." Joe trailed off. He almost looked disgusted.

"You didn't enjoy it?"

"I did... at the time but when I think back on it... it makes me feel sick."

Somebody suddenly dropped into the seat next to Richard. "So what were you two doing last night?" He asked gleefully. It was a Jack Russell named Tom, a known gossip and his girlfriend was twice as bad.

Joe went over that last exchange Richard could have sworn even his fur paled.

"We went hunting last night. Joe gutted some game. It can be a bit overwhelming the first time."

"Oh." Tom actually looked disappointed. "Sounds... nasty."

"You don't have to do it again anyway. You tried it, you didn't like it. I can prepare the food. We'll just have a weekend of shooting and drinking... responsibly of course. Like we normally do."

Joe still hesitated.

"We don't have to hunt anything."

"I'll think about it."

"So you kill things for fun?" Tom asked venomously.

"No I kill things for food. I don't agree with hunting for sport. I think everybody should try the full cycle of food. Hunting, fishing, foraging, even farming."

"I'm a vegetarian."

"My sympathies." Richard replied without a hint of sarcasm.

"Ha Ha."

"It must be horrible to be allergic to meat."

Tom scowled. "I'm not. I just think it's cruel to kill animals so we can have more flavour in our meals."

"But it's ok to kill plants? Plants are alive. Some even have awareness of their surroundings. They have feelings, they can feel pain. Isn't that cruel?"

"I-" Richard stood and cut off Tom.

"Think about it. I'm off to my next class. Talk to you later Joe."

The rest of the day was uneventful. Richard went to classes , he did his work then he drove home. By that time it was starting to get dark. Outside of the town it really showed, there were no lights. Once you got up into the trees there was almost no light at all. That made it very easy to notice the lights following him. Richard stopped the car. His follower stopped as well. Richard reached under his seat and pulled out a large bowie knife. He opened the door and stepped out keeping the bulky knife hidden behind his back. The car turned around and drove off as soon as they noticed Richard.

Richard shut off his lights and waited several minutes. He could see a slight glow at a turn down the road. He walked around to the passenger side and took out a pair of latex gloves, put them on and retrieved a pair of very narrow metal pipes out of the glove box. He climbed over the wall next to the road and crept back to the turn. He peeked over the wall to see a car waiting. Sat in the driver's seat was none other than Dominic.

He looked ready to speed around the corner but it looked like Gerard in the passenger seat was making him wait. Richard moved down to a spot where he was hidden as he climbed over the wall to put the pipes against a tire. That done he crept back to his car, climbed in and drove away.

-

Richard didn't see much of either Joe or Dominic for the rest of the week. The day after Dominic followed Richard he looked very pissed off. Some whisperings about Richard being a bloodthirsty killer of innocent animals popped up. Richard ignored them. By Friday he still hadn't heard from Joe.

They only shared three lunch breaks. On the second Joe was apparently behind in a class doing extra work. That really didn't sound like Joe. On the third day Richard saw Joe in the common room but by the time he'd crossed the canteen to get there Joe was nowhere to be found. Richard tried calling but didn't get an answered but honestly that wasn't all that unusual. Joe was never reliable with his phone.

So Richard prepared himself for a lonely weekend. On the way home Friday night Richard bought whiskey and a ready meal and headed back to a quiet cabin. Richard isn't much of a cook. He BBQs and cooks on campfires. Anything fancier just seems too much trouble most of the time. After eating his meal he turned on the TV, took a pair of boxes from his gun safe and sat down in the living room.

From one box he took an massive Colt Dragoon revolver. He dismantled it and cleaned it. Before putting it back together he took a new cylinder from the other box and rebuilt the gun using that one. The second box was full of homemade bullets. They were based on Thuer cartridges and designed to work in the Thuer conversion ring he just put on the revolver. They had a solid base with a metal skeleton to a ring to hold the .457 calibre bullet. The whole thing was wrapped in paper and used a regular percussion cap as the primer. It was hardly the quickest way to load a gun but it beat pouring the powered and capping every shot every time.

Richard had just finished putting the gun back together when someone knocked on the door. Richard put the gun back in the box before getting up to answer the door.