FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

I had planned on uploading this earlier, but life got in the way, so here it is now. The conclusion to Team Timbria's excursion into the middle of nowhere, with 6 or 7,000 words of pretty much straight action. Also for those of you playing along at home, yes, these chapters DO have some significance later in the story, so I may not be going on as much of a plot tangent as it appears. Or maybe I'll screw it up so it looks that bad anyway. If I do, let me know! Thank you. I'll let the narrator handle it from here.

Chapter 5: Subterranean Homesick Blues

We rejoin our hero, our most likely favorite character, and our wizard (sadly, Harry Wood still has no magical powers, preventing the "you're a wizard, Harry" cheap reference that I just thought of) about to enter The Devil's Chamber Pot along with Lightfoot and Leafley, and Sorcerer Weekly's Wolf of the Month anxiously asking the latter two, much as he did with Petra, if the "bugs" they were about to encounter were spiders. "Richard, I don't know what the fuck they are," Lightfoot told him impatiently, "I can tell you they have eight legs and lots of other fuckin' nonsense comin' out the top. Nothin' like you've ever seen before though. It's easier to just kill 'em and not think about what they call themselves among friends. Believe me, the first part's hard enough." Almost as soon as Lightfoot finished that sentence, the males overlooked the lip that led into the Chamber Pot, and from under their helmets they stared in a mix of shock and disgust. The place was a close to circular valley, with smaller hills making up the walls to their left all the way to a slim opening directly across from them. To their right was a massive, rocky hill, the fabled Houshmar, and in the middle was flat, dusty ground pockmarked with holes that led straight into the earth. The rest of the site was disturbing. Bodies in various states of breakage, dismemberment and decay were strewn across the ground, with trails of blood leading to and into some of the holes. Equipment stuck out of many places in the dirt, bloodstained and un-reclaimed by any successive soldiers. It was burning hot, and the entire valley smelled of death. But other than that, I heard it was a great family vacation spot. "Like I said," Lightfoot continued, stern defiance etched on his face, "Don't think too hard. Just kill these fuckers."

For the purposes of the wolves, Lightfoot was right; there was no need for them to know what the bugs were called. However, you, reader, are not a wolf, so you get some juicy backstory. If you are actually a wolf, sorry, but you get the backstory anyway, and contact me because I call dibs on those interview rights. Anyway, the bugs we're dealing with here are a race called the Khreegh, which had actually only just moved into the area recently, likely going back to that "family vacation spot" comment earlier. Much like your friend that got way too excited for the release of "Titanfall" and is probably still getting way too excited over the "Battlefront" reboot, the Khreegh were a semi-intelligent species, sentient enough to form a cohesive colony, communicate, and create enough of a hierarchy to create a wolf-meat buffet of disassembly-line-efficiency, but not really developed enough to the point where you could discuss politics or philosophy over fine wine and cheese with them. From an appearance standpoint, the average Khreegh was about six feet tall, four feet wide, and eight feet long, with a chitinous carapace covering most of its body, which consisted of one body segment, unlike the two possessed by typical earth arachnids and was supported by, as Lightfoot mentioned, eight jagged, jointed legs. Khreegh did not have a designated "head", but they did possess four bright green unblinking eyes that provided contrast to the black sheen of their shells, and were located over a set of guillotine-esque mandibles, which in turn had a jointed, spear-like limb on either side of it. Their last weapon, and major distinguishing feature (if the rest didn't make them recognizable enough) was a tail-like appendage that stretched over the body towards the "face", and had a conical nozzle at the end that sprayed corrosive fluid, likely some form of repurposed digestive acid. They actually had colonies in many places along the barren, untamed eastern desert of Senkhar, but thankfully for our intrepid adventurers, the Houshmar colony was a relatively isolated group. If you learned anything from that pseudo-biological jumble, it should be that the Khreegh are vicious, territorial, not prone to negotiation, and more than anything, they are just ugly motherfuckers. Seriously, they make the rachni look goddamn cute and cuddly by comparison.

The fifteen males descended into the depression in silence, squishing gingerly through the gore in the beginning of their search to find a way to get rid of the pests for good. Before they could get very far, one of the pests in question found them instead, popping out of a nearby hole with a high-pitched screech, causing Richard to jump so high that the spirit of Icarus had to tell him to calm down. Displaying an opposite reaction, Lightfoot, unbelievably different from the last time Seth had seen him, evidently decided that he did not want to live forever (alright, alright, no more of those references. They're just so easy) and charged the thing, demonstrating his honed skills of extermination by slicing off one of the Khreegh's pedipalps and stabbing one of its eyes in quick succession. While the creature was stunned, Andrew jammed his sword through the top of its "head", apparently the preferred method of execution. The Khreegh failed to make a sound as it collapsed in an ugly heap on the ground. "I thought you said they were hard to kill," Seth said sarcastically, walking up to Andrew with his swords drawn. "They're harder in groups," Lightfoot replied with a shrug, wiping the brownish-green body fluids of the Khreegh off of his sword, "But I'll tell ya what: you kill the next one."

"Th-there are a lot more on the way," Jenkins stammered out, "I can make out 'swarm' with an intense mood of anger, and... and maybe something like 'meatbags'? I think that's us." "Oh, they're going to swarm us? Bold prediction, Jenkins, that's never happened before," Fenn Miller said with a colossal eye roll, "could you give us something helpful?" Jenkins pointed out three successive holes and announced, "Four there, three there, and a full dozen coming towards that one in the middle." The hole to the left of the group erupted with more shrieking as two Khreegh popped out of it at the same time, though one didn't make it very long after that. Alistair, having been in a crouching position ready to pounce, boldly leapt onto its back, using a joint in its carapace as a paw hold, and with his free paw jammed a dagger into the crevice before tearing it along the break. The tiny fox then rolled off the creature's body, slashing the underside of its tail in the process and causing the noxious fluid it contained to spill through the Khreegh's armor and kill it from the inside. As the kit regained his footing after his, well, pretty fucking impressive display, he felt three arrows in quick succession whiz by him, lodging themselves in the second Khreegh's eyes and one right down its throat, causing it to collapse just as quickly as Alistair's did, but with much less flair. Jenkins stood staring at the two armored foxes slack-jawed, and the younger one casually informed him, "What? I told you I believed you." As they readied to fight the second pair, Cyrus asked his protégé how he knew cutting the tail would accomplish that, and Alistair responded, "Well, Johnny told me that their tails contained some kind of acid, and the rest... well, I didn't know. I just went with it." "That was powerfully moronic," Cyrus sighed, then chuckled, "Brilliant work. More of that and this will be over before supper. You're becoming more like me every day, kit. Couldn't be prouder." "My crotch is probably less disgusting," the kid replied, prompting Cyrus to add, "There you go, you're even picking up my wit."

While some of the wolves were still feeling a little self-conscious over the size of their balls after observing the casual badassery demonstrated by the foxes, Harry Wood had proceeded to win a point back for the lupine race as he cleaved a Khreegh in two with a monstrous overhead strike, because of course he did. You know this guy by now. The hulking beast of a wolf then managed to single-pawedly flip a bug onto its back using the flat side of his sword, and archer Irwin Youngblood polished off the thing with two clinically-placed arrows to its underbelly, I guess kind of like the fantastical monster equivalent of scoring on an empty net. Or something. I'm not sure how well that analogy's working. Anyway, Harry nodded at the younger wolf for the assist and prepared to face the third Khreegh appearing out of their hole, his sword at the ready by his side. Suddenly, however, Harry's streak was interrupted by a flurry of sword flourishes, Seth Black's twin blades spinning, lopping off both of the bug's frontal appendages, slashing two of its eyes, and jamming into the already wounded sockets, giving one last vicious twist before their owner yanked them out again. "Show off," the bigger wolf laughed, momentarily catching his breath while leaning on the hilt of his blade, "Ya ditch Richard though?" Seth tilted his head towards the third hole, which Jenkins had predicted to project many, many undesirable beings, and when Harry turned to look in that direction, he saw Lightfoot staring blankly at Richard spraying a cascade of fire down the aperture, screaming a delightful chorus of "FUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOUFUCKYOU". This tactic, which I have to say probably would have been the one I would have gone with out of the viable options we've seen so far, seemed to have been working rather effectively, as Jenkins, who had helped Alistair and Cyrus finish two more Khreegh along with some useful finishing from Wynton Highbranch, stated that he thought they were retreating further into the caves below ground.

"I think that's the first time we've ever had a patrol of the basin without casualties," Lightfoot muttered, "Where'd you learn to do all that?" "Natural talent," Alistair shrugged nonchalantly, prompting Harry to add with a hearty laugh, "An' some hefty balls." "Yeah, that's what I meant," the kit mentioned. "Regardless, we have to get rid of the rest of these things somehow," Cyrus said, bringing the conversation back on track, "but I don't necessarily see a front door, and the holes might be alright for entering, but exiting could be a problem." "Really," Seth concurred, kneeling by one of the bugholes, "Big, round, and gaping, easy to enter, and full of nasty stuff on the inside that makes you want to leave right away... Good lord, Andrew, how did so many copies of your sister's nethers end up in Senkhar?" While Lightfoot was silently fuming somewhere off-screen (yeah, I know, there's no actual screen, just go with it), Leafley explained that there was in fact an option to get them inside. Apparently Houshmar wasn't just there to look pretty/ominous/actually kind of ugly, like a zit on Marvel's The Thing's ass, but it actually served as an entryway into the cave system underground. One patrol had investigated it, but their expedition went south faster than the refugees fleeing New York in The Day after Tomorrow, and they evacuated what was left of the unit as quickly as they could. So, Leafley stated with the confidence of knowing what the shiny furs had just accomplished and the knowledge that there was no other feasible choice that the current group could handle entering through the closest thing the cave system had to a welcome mat.

As the group walked warily towards Leafley's cave opening, Alistair asked Lightfoot and Leafley about the Khreegh's tails, and why they didn't fire constantly. Andrew, still giving Seth the cold shoulder after his jab against Vanessa, but willing to speak to the others, answered, "They don't use the tail very often. I think it drains them physically, and it can also be harmful to themselves, as you showed just a few minutes ago." Since you have the added benefit of reading this many dimensions away from Timbria, you get confirmation that this was indeed not incorrect. The fluid in a Khreegh's tail is usually used to soften and break down food before consumption, kind of like an external portion of a digestive system. Because the acid can be, as Alistair demonstrated, rather hazardous to a Khreegh's health, they like to do the acid bit in a safe environment. For those keeping track at home, yes I am saying that for the Khreegh, acid is a controlled substance. Occasionally, however, the acid tail is used as something of a heavy weapon, but its power comes at the cost of both the aforementioned danger as well as a long period of "charging" the shot, making the attack something similar to a Spartan laser or solar beam; if it works, you're in business; if not, you're wide open, and wide open in this case means that a bug is likely not making it to Khreeghsgiving dinner that year. On the flip side, if you're a poor gray-furred sap who gets hit by an acid shot, your best bet is that it only got on an extremity and you can survive the amputation. If you get hit with that junk in a vital area, you're nineteen different ways of fucked. Similar to an average Tuesday night for Vanessa. OOOOH GOT EEM. Heh, yeah that's enough of that, she's not that bad. But you know you're an easy target when the goddamn narrator is burning you.

Anyway, the first few minutes inside the cave were, essentially, not bad at all. Aside from an errant attack by one moronic Khreegh, which was quickly dispatched by a couple of the benchwarmers (Maroon and Matewick if you're keeping a scoresheet at home), the group didn't really encounter much of a threat. The darkness was a little unsettling, but some lit torches courtesy of Richard "FLAME ON" Forster as well as light from the numerous bugholes helped illuminate the caverns. "We haven't seen anything in ages," lanky family guy Michael Briarcliff pointed out, "maybe they all just left?" Now, if you've ever seen a horror or sci-fi movie, or well, anything in a moderately suspenseful environment, you know that these are famous last words. Fortunately for Briarcliff they weren't his last words. Unfortunately, the wolves and the two token foxes were nowhere near out of the woods yet. "Nay, they all went back to one area, I think," Jenkins said worriedly, "right down that passageway." The hallway was ominous, but no one could sense anything immediately threatening. "Well," Cyrus suggested dryly, "No one ever said all this business would be clean, easy, or fun. Shall we, lads?"

The group advanced, with Seth, Harry, Richard, and Lightfoot leading the way, and Alistair, Cyrus, Leafley, and Jenkins watching their six, until they came across a blockage in the tunnel. Seth and Andrew assisted Harry in pushing the thing out of the way, and once the large stone was moved, Richard launched an arcing fireball up and across the seemingly cavernous space they had just entered. The fire connected with the "ceiling", and some rock fell away from it, shining bright light over the indeed massive space. The newfound brightness revealed a massive thing, probably fifteen feet tall by forty or fifty feet long, which looked like an expanded Khreegh with the chitin near its rear replaced by some sort of gelatinous substance, which extended into its tail, which the males at the front had just watch sickeningly spurt out an egg of some kind. The pedipalps at the front of the creature were not the spear-like appendages of the typical Khreegh, but more tube-like and loosely jointed. Overall, the thing looked like someone had taken the Khreegh and added another four parts of nightmare fuel to result in, you guessed it, the Khreegh Colony Queen. [Dun dun DUNNNNN]

Of course, if it was just the queen in the chamber, the whole thing would've been easy, right? I mean, fifteen guys against one giant death monster? Yeah, they could handle it. But it wasn't that easy, because first off, nothing's ever that easy, and second, there looked to be a couple hundred Khreegh surrounding their collective baby mama. Which was very unpleasant, and if you don't understand why, I'd ask you to reread the past few pages and get back to me. The rest of the group looked over the sloped leading down into the apparently blade-like jaws of doom, and Alistair asked quietly, "Jenkins, can you hear anything they're saying now?" Jenkins audibly gulped, and replied, "All I can make out is some kind of call for 'death'." "Well at least none of us had any desire to get home anyway," Cyrus threw out sarcastically before notching an arrow onto his bow, "On your orders, Seth." As the Khreegh began shuffling towards the canines in their own disgusting way, Seth spoke, "Males, there's a chance that none of us make it out of this alive, and I think each and every one of us understands that. But if we stand together and fight for the males beside us and all those longing for our return, I know that we can all live to tell our children and grandchildren about our heroic deeds today. These things may think they have us frightened, but they are wrong. It is we who will frighten them. Now, all of ye, charge! Show them a true wolf's fury!"

The scene quickly dissolved from its previous state of tension and mutual anxiety into a chaotic mess of steel and organic weaponry, with bodily spray of both red and green slowly beginning to accumulate on the floor of the cavern. Long gone were the finesse-filled executions of the above-ground battle; the males of The Legion dispatched the Khreegh in whatever means was the quickest. Richard cut down swaths of the bugs with a spread of sweeping fire as Cyrus and Seth worked in tandem, the fox stunning enemies with precise arrow shots and the wolf finishing them off with devastating sword strikes. Alistair and Harry used similar buddy tactics, with the kit jumping in and distracting Khreeghs with quick jabs and dodges while the massive wolf came in from the side and just fucking wrecked them. I had no other way to put that respectful to the body count he was racking up, comparable to Richard's barbecue, only done with just his broadsword and luscious biceps. He would have made Cloud Strife run away pissing his pants at the sight of brute strength and wielding overly large weapons to sushi-chef efficiency. As it stood, however, the spectacle of the armored males decimating their fearsome opposition proved sufficiently inspirational to the grunts, who worked in sets of four, with the exception of the pair of Lightfoot and Leafley, and who chipped away at the numbers of Khreegh, sticking together and watching each other's backs just like Seth had instructed. Over the clanging racket of combat, Jenkins called out positions of throngs of Khreegh that he thought groups should fight next. Of course, this was done in between bouts of deflecting and stabbing, at which the shy, traumatized wolf was getting increasingly confident with. Sylvan Matewick had also become an incredible asset, having accessed some sort of telekinetic magic that had activated since they found themselves in the fight. He proceeded to throw Khreeghs into each other and control severed pedipalps with the kind of precision that only the massive amounts of adrenaline pumping through his system could provide to pierce the carapaces of more enemies.

As time went on, the soldiers continued to wipe the floor clean with Khreeghs, until the last forty or fifty pulled back to regroup, allowing both sides to take a minute and catch their breath. Of course, this was actually much more beneficial for the Khreegh, as the survivors hadn't all been in the thick of the fighting, whereas the canines were all exhausted, cut, and bloody. Even the males from The Legion had all suffered breaks and cracks in their armor from the perpetual strain and stress, and blood marked various patches of their flexible plate mail from the wounds they had sustained. So far, everyone was alive by some sort of miracle, but Seth knew it would take more than just a miracle to keep them standing for much longer, as the fatigue of battle was starting to reach even him. Someone asked Jenkins what the mood was among the bugs, and he informed them, "Panic, desperation". Then Seth, seeking to inspire his troops, took a deep breath, spun his swords once in his paws, and let out a Seth Black Roar (trademark pending) before adopting a battle stance. Before he could lead another heroic charge, however, the Khreegh demonstrated at least some knowledge of tactics by having some of the warriors from the front line make an opening, revealing a set behind them primed to fire their acid tails. Apparently Seth had missed the "desperation" part of Jenkins' analysis and thought that the battle was all but won. Hoo boy was he wrong.

Luckily for Seth, Sylvan Matewick took a personal initiative, running up in front of the group and using his movement magic to bring down a cascade of rocks from the roof of the cavern, striking the readied Khreeghs just as they were about to fire. Unfortunately, one still got a shot off as a particularly large stone crushed its front, sending a splotch of caustic fluid onto Briarcliff's leg. As the scrawny wolf began yelling in agony, Richard called Harry over to help him, uh, "fix it", which I'll get to in a second. The reenergized clamor of yelling and gnashing also prevented a now charging Matewick from hearing the warnings of his comrades of a wayward rock that was still falling from the ceiling. By the time the magically adept wolf looked up to see it approaching, it was far too close for him to react, and the chunk of earth hit him square in the top of the torso, forcing him to the ground and crushing his sternum, collarbone, and everything under them. The tired force now struggled to get back into the fight with the sudden casualties. Though the wolves in particular were used to seeing a lot of death, even taking a couple comrades out of the fight meant more hard work for the survivors.

Just behind the battle, Briarcliff screamed louder following a hasty amputation via Harry's sword, cutting off the wolf's leg just below the knee, where the effects of the acid hadn't yet reached. The cry turned definitively blood-curdling when Richard formed a flame and held it up to the new stump to cauterize the area. Note that this was, indeed, the forefront of on-site battlefield medicine at the time. Hell, if there wasn't a mage involved, Briarcliff probably would've been straight up dead, so this seems like a much better option. Noticing the now crippled soldier behind him, Seth made the impromptu command, "Fox, Youngblood! You two grab Briarcliff and get him out of the mayhem and cover us with arrow fire! Forster, Wood, front and center!" Cyrus didn't take the idea well, and shouted back as he fired another arrow into a Khreegh, "To hell with that, Seth! I'm not leaving you down here!" "Not a suggestion," the dual-wielding wolf growled, "It's an order! Take Youngblood and Briarcliff and get your tails to the edge of the pit!" The fox clenched his bow until it almost broke, then yanked the wolf archer by the back of his armor and yelled, "You heard the male, kit! You're with me, let's go!" Youngblood reluctantly left his position with Whitewillow and Jenkins and followed Cyrus, grabbing Briarcliff as the fox laid down some Medieval covering fire.

Fatigue continued to plague the group, with grim consequences, as even Jenkins' detection skills were waning, and he failed to notice a Khreegh lunge at Sherwood Whitewillow. The Downwater wolf managed to bring his shield to bear against the initial attack, but the battered wood splintered and gave way, sending a pointy pedipalp through his wrist and preventing him from going anywhere. The other appendage struck quickly, slicing deeply through the wolf's throat before Jenkins could scramble over and kill the bug. Youngblood watched from the distance as his friend was cut down, and Cyrus physically shook him to bring him back into the battle, yelling that mourning was for later. Elsewhere, as the Khreegh were down to about twenty strong, Wynton Highbranch was holding his own with a bug one-on-one, but exhaustion got to him, and he tripped over a Khreegh corpse and fell onto his back. As a consequence, the bug wasted no time in silencing the logger-turned-soldier with a quick stab through the head. Richard continued burning through the remaining bugs until he at last ran out of magic power and collapsed to his knees, with Harry grabbing him and throwing him out of the way of an oncoming bug just in time to probably save his life, then stabbing into the creature with just enough power to end its life. Before anyone could notice what it was doing, one of the Khreegh warriors had powered up an acid shot, and successfully got it off, sending the fluid with remarkable accuracy right into Saul Maroon's face. Though Leafley killed the drained bug immediately afterwards, the poor bastard Maroon never had a chance. He probably died before he knew what hit him.

A few seconds later, it appeared that all of the Khreegh had been eliminated with the exception of the queen, and the seven bedraggled soldiers who remained in the midst of the carnage dragged themselves in front of her. Just as Lightfoot began opening his mouth to yell something, Jenkins suddenly announced that there was still one left, though he couldn't tell where it was. A piercing shriek erupted from just behind Lightfoot, and as the one-eyed wolf turned around he heard that disheartening, sickening squelch of pedipalp shooting through torso. Andrew Lightfoot looked on in abject horror as directly in front of him, a wounded Khreegh held Stuart Leafley slightly airborne, the wolf impaled on the spiky appendage. Leafley had seen the Khreegh coming for Lightfoot, and jumped in the way a split second before it got to him. With his last ounce of willpower, Leafley uttered, "fuck you," and jammed his sword into the top of the Khreegh, sealing its fate, and then pulled himself off the spear. As Lightfoot dropped to the ground and held his trusted companion in his last, gasping moments, Seth barked at Jenkins, asking if there were any more left. The now very distraught wolf confirmed that only the queen remained, as Richard pulled his helmet off and staggered to his feet to join the rest of the group. Cyrus carried the still-conscious Briarcliff to the rest of the group, and Youngblood collected the dogtags off of the slain, spending a little more time near the body of Whitewillow.

Cyrus muttered to Seth, "Never make me do that again," as Richard stumbled and put an arm over Seth's shoulders for support. Lightfoot rose from the ground, Leafley's soul apparently leaving his body as his twitching and sputtering ceased. Andrew began walking slowly towards the queen, a series of tears streaming down his remaining eye, as Jenkins began relaying that she was begging for her life, promising to never come near Houshmar or that side of Senkhar again. "No," Andrew said softly, then roared, "NO! Too many fucking wolves have died here. Stuart Leafley died here. I've lost too many friends and comrades because of you, and I won't lose another single goddamn male." Jenkins collapsed to his knees and held his head, the sensory input from the queen apparently overloading his mind, "She's pleading! She says she'll do anything! God make it stop!" Lightfoot stepped right up to the huge beast and told her to come down to his level. She obeyed, and Andrew said briefly, "I haven't changed my mind. Like Stuart said. Fuck you." The wolf then drove his sword through the top of the queen's carapace and twisted it, ending her life as she went out with an ear-splitting shriek.

John Jenkins fell onto all fours and vomited profusely, the release of the pressure on his mind causing an intense pang of nausea as Lightfoot pulled the sword back out of the queen and cleaned the innards off it, just as he had done with the first bug outside. "Seth," he called out, wiping tears from his face with his blood-matted fur, "There's some stuff behind the queen. You should come look at this." Seth nodded to the others, and the remaining soldiers followed him (the duty of hauling Briarcliff had since been passed to Harry). What they saw appeared to be a collection of all the valuables taken from Khreegh victims over the years, with some kind of shining blue amulet catching everyone's attention. Richard walked painfully over to it and picked it up, saying he could sense an intense magic aura around it but had no idea what it was. Seth, Cyrus, Andrew, and some of the others discerned that they could feel something about it as well, but curiously Jenkins said he felt absolutely nothing different when he touched it. Odd. But that certainly won't come back with any importance, will it?

Inspecting the rest of the pile, Cyrus picked out a shiny gold ring and tossed it at Alistair, telling him to impress some ladies with it before surreptitiously (or so he thought) grabbing a gold and ruby necklace and sliding it into his quiver. The fox mentioned to Seth that he should probably hang onto the amulet, and not tell Noblefur or any other higher-up about it, as it might be better off in their possession than the government's. As it turned out, Cyrus was rather prescient about that whole situation, but talking any more about that would be getting too far ahead of myself. Back in the present, at least in story-time, Andrew suggested to Seth that if The Legion was quite ready, they should leave the place for good. Seth glanced around the corpse-saturated cavern and agreed, stating that he'd be more than happy to leave Houshmar behind.

*****

"They were being attacked by what?"

Galahad Noblefur was still trying to wrap his head around everything that had happened to his most prized unit with the now pseudo-legendary "doomed detachments of Houshmar". "You heard us right," Seth reiterated, he and his team finally out of their armor and nursing their comparatively minor injuries in more comfortable close, "some sort of bugs. Like a spider, scorpion, and I don't know, a dragon or something combined, like something from a nightmare. They were hideous and just as dangerous as they were ugly. But we wiped them out." Noblefur looked over the struggling males, who had dragged themselves back to Kishath that night carrying the extra burden of Michael Briarcliff, whom they demanded be sent home. (This was thankfully later accepted) Richard was sitting with his back against a wall, barely staving off sleep; Harry was leaning against one, appearing to be doing much of the same, while Alistair sat next to Richard and stared blankly off into space and Seth and Cyrus stood wearily in front of Noblefur giving their report.

The older, grizzled fox continued, "And why did you feel the need to bring a unit of regular army wolves with you?" Cyrus stepped in and answered this question, "I opposed the idea at first too. I thought it was going to be a waste of life. But, after the fight that we had in that final chamber, I think that Lightfoot's suggestion was sound. We might've not been able to return and tell you about it if the other wolves hadn't come." Noblefur rested his paws on his desk and asked, "How many casualties." "Five dead and one crippled," Seth relayed grimly, "I should also note that John Jenkins has some kind of special communication abilities." Noblefur looked Seth in the eye and asked how exactly that helped him, to which the wolf replied that he wasn't sure, he just thought that Noblefur would've liked to know. "In any case," the general summarized, "all the bugs are gone?" "Yes, as far as we know," Seth confirmed. "Excellent work once again, males. I'll see to it that Bloodcoat gets investigated for his... questionable tactics in holding the siege of a worthless insect-filled mount of dirt," Noblefur practically spat out, his disdain for the other general apparently palpable, "I'll have you take a couple days off and rejoin us when we invade Golemsh. Not sure how much use your team will be in its current state." Seth nodded in affirmation and turned to walk away, but Cyrus stayed back, the fire of the aftermath of a thousand Taco Bell burritos blazing in his eyes, as he asked tersely, "Bloodcoat was behind this?" Noblefur nodded quizzically as Seth placed a paw on Cyrus' shoulder, and the fox said, shaking in anger, "I'll make that bastard pay. Mark my words, I will."

The five males left the command building and started the nearly eternal walk across the street to the "comfort house", though it wouldn't seem nearly as long as Harry's walk that night. "I'm, ah, gon' walk down to the slums. If ye need me tomorrow, I'll be with Petra," the beast informed the others groggily. Seth looked up at the other wolf with a skeptical expression, "You sure that's a good idea? You look dead on yer feet." Harry nodded, leading Seth to shrug his shoulders and accept his decision and prompting Cyrus to call to him as he walked away, "Oi! Be sure to tell me how coyote tastes one of these days!" Harry flipped Cyrus a one-finger salute from behind his back, and Richard and Seth gave him cutting glances, causing him to say innocently, "What? I'm curious."

A minute or so later, the remaining four entered the tavern, and Richard immediately got to acquiring a room. Alistair snapped into reality for a brief moment of lucidity to ask Cyrus whether he had asked Noblefur if they could adopt "The Legion" as an official moniker, and the older fox said that it had slipped his mind and that he'd mention it later. Alistair let out an "aww" as Richard came back with the knowledge of an available room and offered the younger fox a place to stay with him and Seth, as had been typical lately, which he quickly and graciously accepted, fading back into his almost catatonic state. Seth turned to follow the fox and wolf, but Cyrus stopped him to tell him, "I'm sorry about some of what I said at the cavern. It's not that I mean to question your orders or anything, it's just that... well... you're my best friend, Seth. I know it's probably not mutual, with you only being here so you can go back to your wife, but I just wanted to say that. Alistair may be like a little brother to me, but I trust you, with my life essentially, and that's more than I've been able to tell anyone before. Maybe when this is all over you'll let me grab an ale with you down in the villages?" Seth was somewhat taken aback by the emotion coming from Cyrus, but he recovered with "Sure thing. Friends. No bigger fuck you to Timbria than a wolf and fox drinking together right?" The two soldiers smiled at each other before locking their paws and coming together for a quick bro-hug. "So," Seth added, still wearily smiling, "since you trust me, mind telling me your business with Bloodcoat?" Cyrus shook his head and informed him, "That's not my trust to give," before turning towards the stairs and bidding the wolf a good night. Seth crossed his arms, shook his head, and then made his way to the room he was sharing with Richard and Alistair.

On his way to the staircase, Cyrus made a gesture to a bartender he knew, pointing upwards towards the second floor. The fox barkeep gave him a nod and a thumbs-up, and Cyrus gave a slight smile as he ascended the stairs. A second or two later, he knocked on a door on the second floor, and after some hurried rustling that he could hear on the other side, the door opened, revealing a yawning, curvy female wolf wearing a semi-transparent white nightgown that didn't do much for hiding anything. She rubbed her eyes and asked who the hell was banging on her door late at night, to which the fox replied, "Only your knight in shining armor, beautiful." Susan's eyes shot open at the voice of her favorite client, and she grabbed Cyrus by his collar and pulled him into the room, slamming the door shut behind him and throwing her arms around his neck before pulling him into a deep kiss. "Welcome back, foxy," the wolf whispered before kissing him on the cheek, "come to claim your wolfess again?" Cyrus took her head in his paws and shook his head, "Not in that sense, tonight, I'm afraid. I'm dead on my feet." Susan made an exaggerated pouty face as she slid a strap of her nightgown off her shoulder, giving the fox a better view of one of her most visible assets, tempting him, "You're sure there's nothing else I can do for my little vulpine deviant? You're already paying me."

"Positive," he said, breaking up his dialogue with another quick smooch, "Are you this eager with all your clients?" The wolf laughed heavily, "Ha! I haven't had to take a client in weeks with what you've_been paying me." "Well, you've still had to take me." "Hmph. 'Client' implies just business, though. _You, on the other paw, Cyrus, you're just for fun. You just happen to hand me gold sometimes," the wolf beamed. "Ah, that's what I like to hear," the fox grinned exhaustedly, "Speaking of giving you things, I got you something from my last job." Susan raised an eyebrow, and Cyrus pulled out the necklace he had recovered from the Khreegh colony and clasped it around the prostitute's neck. Susan gingerly touched the jewelry with a paw as she exclaimed, "God, Cyrus! Th-this is priceless! W-why...?" The fox took a deep breath to collect himself and began, "I... have a confession of sorts. I think I-"

The wolf pressed a finger to his lips and, with an almost tearful expression, shook her head and mouthed the words "please don't" before removing her finger and tenderly touching her lips to his again. After a couple solid minutes of holding each other still near the door, the pair found themselves huddled together under the wolf's covers, a solitary tear running down Cyrus' face as he fell asleep in the arms of his wolfess, whom he knew deep down would never truly be his.