FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Journeys of Time 10: The Mezian Plague

This story is copyrighted to SashaWS/ArtisticEastern, containing characters owned by various people used with permission.

Any usage or posting of this story under the claim of being your own is not approved and you will be requested to remove it or face charges.

The days had turned to weeks and the bond between daughter and father had grown and Tenchi had begun to accept Kichiro more and more as the fatherly figure she had missed during her time growing up. Kichiro had felt the wonder of finally having a daughter to take care of and it didn't stop doing manly things, but Kichiro had even taken time to learn to help Tenchi and Peridot to get their hair brushed while they returned the favor.

However, it would be one day when their bond would be tested as a courier knocked on the door to their house, "I am coming." Janch had called out as she rubbed the monster on her head to look decent before opening up the door, shocking the courier of seeing her in only her underwear and with a morning hair looking like a failed attempt by a wyvern to procreate. Gathering his thoughts quickly, the courier reached out an envelope to her, "This is a letter to Queen Tenchi from her howliness Princess Elua of Mez'Vr." Janch looked at the courier and took the envelope before nodding, "I will see to it that it gets delivered. May your journey back be non-problematic."

Janch closed the door and headed straight for Tenchi's bedroom, where the queen was on her side with Peridot curled up close to her. Giving the door a light knock to stir them from their sleep, Janch held out the mail to her, "A fleabag courier came with this." Tenchi knew how much Janch hated the Mezians, but she had learned to also accept that not everyone of them were arrogant jerks. Waking up some more, Tenchi looked at the wax seal of the mail and quickly had it undone before withdrawing the letter from the envelope.

Opening it up, Tenchi began to read, "Dear Queens Tenchi and Peridot of Ri'Co'Va. I am sorry for not staying in contact as I promised, but I have been dealing with some minor issues turned major issue over here in Mez'Vr. As you may or may not be aware of, some of us Mezians are blessed with what is known as the lycanus gene. It is like a mutation that allows us to tap into a more primal power. I noticed during my visit to Ri'Co'Va that you have four in the family of yours with a lycanus gene of their own. You don't know the darker side of this. As much as this is a blessing, it is also a curse. If your mind is not strong enough to withstand the mutation, there is a risk of you losing yourself to the primal power and become completely feral."

Janch looked at Tenchi as she read this, "Wait, you mean those savages can become even stronger? Now I really want to battle one." Tenchi rolled her eyes as she continued to read, "If there is a risk of someone becoming feral, we have exiled them into a desolate part of Mez'Vr to allow them a chance to live as they wish. However, this is where the minor issues has become a major issue. The ferals have grown to a massive amount now and we have been forced to place bounties on their heads as they attack their former fellow kin and has been seen all the way to Pegostra itself. We suspect that they are either trying to eliminate competition for territory or they have some subconscious intelligence driving them to seek vengeance against us for forcing them into exile."

Janch laughed, "Poor wolfies. Cannot handle the pups biting at their ankles." Tenchi looked at Janch with a soul-piercing eye before continuing to read, "Due to this, I hereby request your aid in reducing the population of these savages. It would benefit us and you, as some of them have been sighted near the borders to Dr'Wich as well. We have requested the aid from our other allies, but no one wishes to engage with these monsters. So you are our last hope. Please, accept my request. For our alliance and for the good of all realms. Signed in high regard, Princess Elua of Mez'Vr. P.S. Make sure you burn their corpses. The last we want is the Death Queen getting more forces, because I do not trust her as much as you do." Tenchi looked at Peridot, "I think it is more to burn them so Avril doesn't get her hands on them."

The short moment it took for Tenchi to get dressed was enough time for a second knock being heard on the door as Kichiro entered, "Morning there. What's up here then?" Tenchi just giggled, "Well, it seems like we got a journey to Mez'Vr to make now." Kichiro rubbed his forehead, "Mez'Vr, the lycan realm. What is their problem then?" Tenchi handed him the letter and Kichiro quickly read through it and smiled, "This is not bad. I heard about their genes, but the fact that ferals are involved, we got a good time to spend some more time here. Those wild mutts might be dangerous, but their hides are one of the toughest to pierce. They are almost on the same level of resilience as that divinescale hide. Their meat is also tough, but if boiled it makes for one nutritious meal for wyverns."

Tenchi looked at Kichiro with a face saying "Are you kidding me?" and with the same carefree demeanor, he looked at her, "I won't make Arashi eat any of it." Tenchi still questioned him, but then dropped it as it seemed that Kichiro wasn't joking after all, "Well, either way. I got to go there." Peridot gave Tenchi a kiss on the cheek, "Then go with your dad, Ten-Ten. I still got more training to do." Tenchi gave her wife a soft kiss on the muzzle, "I know, Peri. Still Tarona?" Peridot nodded with a smile, "Yes. I didn't know that a goddess with that much kindness in her heart could exist. I am not saying that you are any less kind compared to..." Tenchi gently booped Peridot's muzzle, "Relax, Peri. I know what you mean." Peridot giggled before both of them heard Kichiro speak, "Well, get something to eat then while I get the wyverns ready for flight."

Tenchi didn't even get to thank him before Kichiro had left and she was forced to get out of bed and head with Peridot into the dining room where Janch sat already and had herself a raw wyvern flank while Hildegaard was tearing the raw meat from the wing of a wyvern and Varani sat calmly and had a sandwich smeared on the inside with a berry jam. Tenchi and Peridot found the mother's and daughter's lack of table manners to be natural for them. Taking a seat, Varani pushed over a roasted wing for them both, "Morning, there is your breakfast."

Tenchi knew very well how much effort Varani put into her cooking and as she bit into the wing, she was already murring in satisfaction from how tasty it was when the juices were flowing and how tender the meat was from the usual time she let it cook before she roasted them. Tenchi murred for a while before Peridot gently touched Tenchi and brought her out of the dream, "Ten-Ten, I know you like Varani's cooking, but you are already done." Tenchi looked down and noticed that in the blissful dream, she had already finished her meal and blushed a bit.

Bowing to Varani, she stood up with a smile, "Thank you for yet another wonderful meal, Varani. Now if you all excuse me, me and dad are heading to Mez'Vr and we will be gone for maybe a day or so. We will be doing some hunting for Princess Elua." All nodded before smiling, "Have a nice trip." Tenchi nodded and ran out to see that Kichiro stood ready with Felflame by his side, while Arashi proudly growled in front of Tenchi's entire armada, dressed in her new armor made from the divinescale hide that Tenchi had told Varani to make into an armor for her as well as Arashi. Smiling proudly, Tenchi walked over to Arashi, who lowered one of her wings to let Tenchi climb on and when Kichiro got onto Felflame's back, it was only a split second before they noticed a trail of flame darting off into the air, making Tenchi just giggle, "What a show off. Okay everyone, to the sky!"

The roars filled the sky when Arashi and the others took to the air and had quickly caught up to Felflame. Kichiro gave a soft laughter, "Not bad. You did catch up to us. Now here is the thing about the feral Mezians. Their senses are far more improved than their domestic kind. They can trace you at a radius of 25 wyverncries." Tenchi looked confused and Kichiro rubbed his head, "Oh yeah, I forgot you are not familiar with our way of measuring here. A wyverncry is the distance measured on average for you to hear the cry of a wyvern. The distance between Evangelion Peak and our home is about two and a half wyvern cry." Tenchi already realized what it meant, "They are able to trace a prey across one-tenth of Ri'Co'Va. No wonder why she sent a letter."

Kichiro nodded before the soft growl came from nearby Tenchi and soon Arashi landed on Lokik's back together with Diamant, Fullera and Grapha while Mare had Rattlewyrm and Rubin land on her. Kichiro knew what would happen and quickly had Felflame land on Mare's back too as both the divinescales soared over the thick forest below and the sound of loud growling and barking could be heard until they reached an open field and Tenchi began to understand even more what Kichiro had meant when she saw ten entire packs running from the dense forest, "There must at least a hundred to two hundred down there."

Kichiro nodded before spreading his wings, "Felflame! Follow along with the others. Tenchi, I know you are the queen, but I advice that you have the wyverns covering four areas. I learned a bit about your black snake wyvern there. Have him land on the ground and let those basilisks out so they can cover the ground. Their scales are dense enough to protect them from any attempts of the ferals to bite down or slash them. Have the divinescales act as safety platforms for the other wyverns. Other than that spread them out so we can hunt down as many as possible. But bring them all to a certain point so we can take them all home."

Tenchi nodded and gave off a couple of soft growls before all wyverns growled and Tenchi nodded to Kichiro before spreading her wings and both leaped from the backs of their wyverns and were gliding down towards the ground as the sounds of the ferals gathering up got closer and when they landed, Tenchi had already pinned down one of the savages and snapped his neck before she caught two ferals by their faces squeezed their muzzles shut to show the decorations on her knuckles. Every knuckle on her cybernetic arms had been modified to hold a reinforced and treated divinescale fang, making both the ferals growl in pain when Tenchi slammed them into the ground and pierced those fangs through their eyes and straight into the brains, tossing them aside.

While Tenchi was enjoying beating every feral attacking her by bare knuckle brawling, Kichiro had drawn out an axe hidden under one of his wings and was spinning around to chop the heads off the attacking ferals, laughing a bit before calling out to Tenchi, "Do not mind the heads, they are not having anything useful there." Kichiro quickly sidestepped as a giant male almost grabbed him, but instead found himself with Kichiro's axe buried into his gut as the metal heated up and soon the lower body hit the ground, followed by the upper body that soon was headless from Kichiro's second swing taking it off.

There was suddenly a loud growl and Kichiro saw that Tenchi was holding back a male that was attempting to bite her head off, but Tenchi just looked at him and grinned, "You sure got bad breath." Kichiro began to chuckle as he noticed their fun had left a lot of corpses in their wake, but Tenchi soon took a better hold of the lower jaw and tore it right off before locking the free arm around the neck of the beast and with a whip-like throw over her shoulder, Tenchi did not only snap the spine off but also ripped the head right off the body and tossed the head aside, "Nothing to lose your head over." Kichiro began to laugh as their wyverns flew down to gather up the corpses and once they had been gathered, Kichiro sat down and began to skin them all, removing the meat and packing it up in a giant sack that laid near the fire.

The hides however got packed and sent with Lokik's and Mare's help back to Ri'Co'Va with the meat too and Tenchi smiled, "That was really thrilling, dad." Kichiro nodded, "It was for sure. Not had that fun since the day I hunted tarkoni at sea. That was the good old times." Tenchi knew very well how big those fishes became after a visit under the sea a few months ago. Curiously, Tenchi looked at Kichiro, "Dad, why didn't you have a wife?"

Kichiro stopped skinning for a moment and looked at Tenchi with a sigh, "Past laws making males not allowed to marry anyone. We were meant to serve and die out." Tenchi regretted that question quickly and tried to change the topic, "So how did you and Felflame meet?" Kichiro smiled, "I am glad you asked. When I was young, I usually stayed near the lavascales and played with them and they took well to me since I was nice to them and when one of them came of age, she laid an egg and offered it to me. When I took it, it hatched and revealed itself to be a mutated lavascale. Everyone around me wanted to take her away from me since a male cannot be a rider, but our bond was unbreakable and as she grew up, I became her rider against the will of everyone else." Felflame laid her head down near Kichiro and felt him pet her, "I never regretted that decision."

Tenchi smiled before she felt herself slowly falling asleep and not before long had she laid back against Arashi while the others laid around her to both warm her and protect her, something that made Kichiro laugh a bit, "You truly have a wonderful group."

As the morning sun peeked over the mountaintop, Tenchi was awoken by a loud howl and quickly got onto her feet just in time for two female ferals to attack her while the male jumped down from the nearby rock and attempted to bite her, but felt the slam as Kichiro had struck him with the side of the axe, "No time for sleeping here!" The wyverns had woken up and taken to the air in the formation from yesterday and Tenchi quickly cracked the skulls on the females and tossed them aside before she noticed a female standing near a tree, growling at them as Kichiro decapitated the male and saw her, quickly running over towards her.

This one seemed a bit off as she was leaping back to avoid Kichiro's swing, like it had a more complex pattern of thinking. Kichiro however didn't like this and growled, "Come on, attack me, you freak!" The female growled and jumped to a tree across from where she was and Kichiro's swing followed, but she avoided it and tore the axe out of his hands and kicked him back, tossing the axe aside before jumping onto his chest, Kichiro looking at her fangs as she growled and Tenchi was about to draw her gun when the beast suddenly growled out, "Do not..." Kichiro's expression went from fear to shock, "Wait... you can talk?" The beast growled at him, "You do not..." Her eyes narrowed before she growled and attempted to slash Kichiro, who quickly grabbed her arms when she howled out, "You bad... bad... bad!"

Tenchi quickly moved over and grabbed the female from behind, "Calm down! We are not going to hurt you. You are not one of them!" The female growled and tried to fight back, "You bad! Bad! Bad!" She howled and Kichiro got to his feet and strapped the axe to his wing before approaching, "Calm down, miss. We are here to hunt the ferals, not you." The female didn't calm down even with the words being said, "You lie! You bad!"

Tenchi sighed before wrapping an arm around the neck of the female and with a simple press, she had made the female go unconscious and put her near the fire. Kichiro didn't however notice until it was too late that a male feral had gotten in close after the female's call and before his eyes he saw the male pinning Tenchi down hard enough to immobilize her before his fangs went straight for the base of her tail, just as two females pinned down Kichiro as well, making him watch as the male bit through and tore off Tenchi's tail, the agonizing scream filling the air, alerting any nearby prey to run, but predators to approach.

Kichiro's eyes narrowed and Tenchi was biting together to escape the pain, but soon she felt the male reaching her wings and her screams were going louder as she felt the powerful hands grabbing and beginning to crush her wings as Kichiro growled, "Stop that." The females were reaching for his wings and held onto them, beginning to slowly crush his bones too, making him growl before the male snapped a bone in Tenchi's wings, making her scream loudly.

The entire surrounding went completely deaf for Kichiro as he could hear his own heart beating and see the pained expression on Tenchi's face. His eyes were beginning to burn before he roared out loud enough to startle the male, "Leave my daughter alone, you freak!" The females tried to hold him down, but Kichiro's wings soon began to drip with molten lava, making them whimper in pain, but it was already too late as when he spread his wings, he also burned the females alive and as their ashes fell onto the ground, Kichiro charged right into the male and tore him away from Tenchi and into a tree.

The intense heat was already showing on the male's body, but Kichiro let him go before striking him in the gut with his knee before slamming the head back into the tree repeatedly, causing the male's skull to shatter before Kichiro tossed him to the ground and stomped the back of his head over and over again, slowly burying the face deeper into the ground before it looked like he was imitating an ostrich, the male was fighting to get loose but Kichiro wasn't going to let him off that easily. With his right arm growing out the traditional claws that the tribes were known for, Kichiro let the magma from his wings direct itself to his claws before he delivered a punch straight into the ass of the male, hearing the growls turning to whimpers of pain and agony as the molten magma poured inside of him and as Kichiro pulled his claws out, he also began to pull out the magma filled intestines and not before long had he pulled the last of it out before the male succumbed to the sweet embrace of death.

Tenchi had seen what Kichiro had done and her eyes didn't even leave him out of sight, either it was from being shocked by how Kichiro had turned around entirely, or the fear that making him angry was not something she wanted to do, "Peridot won't believe this." She whimpered and noticed that Kichiro was coming towards her, but she quickly noticed something, "Dad! Behind you!"

Kichiro spun around just in time to punch back a feral jumping at him as four more ferals joined the fray. Kichiro just looking at all of them staring him down before he held up two fingers while shouting out something clearly to them, "Come and face me, you freakish fleabags!" This triggered the ferals into attacking him and what happened next was making Tenchi not wanna blink a single time.

As the first feral jumped at him, Kichiro struck it in the chest and spun around before delivering a punch that splashed magma all over their face, making the face melt after they collapsed dead and the head ignited from the heat. The second and third attempted to claw at Kichiro's sides, but Kichiro managed to redirect their claws so they jabbed them into the eyes of one another before he jabbed his own claws through their throats, blowing their heads clean off their bodies in a display of bloody mist.

A fourth feral managed to bite onto Kichiro's shoulder, but the teeth quickly broke as the entire shoulder and arm had grown hard as solid stone. Looking at the beast, Kichiro punched it on the head to lower it down before uppercutting the head, skewering the claws from the chin and through the entire head and out the top, ripping the spine out in the process. Tenchi had only seen that in a movie before and now she witnessed it first hand. The fifth one stood alone and growled before Kichiro made the claws disappear and ran towards it, the feral doing the same before their hands collided and Kichiro looked into its eyes and found nothing, but pure primal rage.

With his decision made, Kichiro pushed the feral back hard enough to catch it off guard before he began to rapidly strike with only the claws against it, seeming to not even hurt it before jumping back and snapping his claws, listening to the feral growling in pain before fires erupted from the places he had struck and soon the feral growled out in pain as the eyes erupted with two tiny pillars of fire before it fell onto its back and Kichiro got back to Tenchi and sat down, "Trust me."

Tenchi felt that she didn't have any choice at the matter and nodded when Kichiro blasted fire to burn away all the roots the ferals had gotten Tenchi caught in and sat down before drawing some of the magma from his wings, "Okay, this will hurt, so be ready." Tenchi was ready, but no pain came when Kichiro proceeded with cauterizing most of the stump where the tail had once been. He looked it over and soon grabbed leafs from the nearby trees and as the wyverns landed, he got their help with treating Tenchi's tail with what they had.

Arashi laid down near Tenchi's head, growling in concern for her and felt Tenchi petting her head, "I am okay, girl." Near her tail, Diamant, Fullera, Grapha and Rubin were breathing out on the tail stump, creating a thin layer of stoned scales to protect it while Rubin mostly did it to grow a ruby on the end of it. Lokik and Mare kept a lookout and Rattlewyrm had the basilisks bring the bodies to them.

Once Kichiro was done, he brought Tenchi over to the campfire, noticing that the wyverns had done some hunting of their own when an equally big pile of corpses as yesterday laid there. Their focus was mostly on the odd feral that Tenchi had put to sleep, which suddenly woke up and rubbed her head, "Hurt bad." Soon her eyes met theirs and she growled angrily, "You bad!" Kichiro rolled his eyes, "This is gonna be a long day."

The End.