FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

It is with fond amusement I recall the time that I was actually requested to lead the party of Hunted before my third Central New Year. Silverine must have been laughing at me behind his back, as he instructed my friendly Hell fire and his cousin that I was to take command of the entire show, especially as I had been so determined not to be in a leader position after my temporary spell as Chief Scout.

The entire Hunted was there prompt on the hour of six in the morning on Saturday, and we were shown the graphics of the planet we were to visit. Naught was known about the planet, save for an atmospheric reading, which proved it could comfortably support most life. We would stay for as long as possible, taking into account my part time job, but if necessary I would hand over to Draco and Devlin.

Thus we teleported. I am yet to do what curiousity has compelled me to do several times, and to open my eyes while travelling, but I am led to believe the results are not good for the subject in question. Thus we landed.

We were standing in a tropical, leafy glade. Tall bright trees surrounded us.

"Haven't we been here before?" I asked aloud.

"I know, this looks suspiciously like the place Kodey got mauled." Blake replied. Of course we all knew better than that, and Landon and Ryan began setting up laptops, as Landon planted a scanner and set a continual stream of info into the system.

"Fairly usual to support life, slight differences in atmosphere but nothing radical. Gravity slightly lighter than normal, and temperature reasonably warm. Humidity is high, so deoderant might be in order.Do the transformers sweat?" the fox grinned as he found a new question to tease me with.

"Yes. Any life forms nearby?"

"Apparently we're on a small hill, which on all sides descends rapidly. On one side appears to be a cluster of many creatures, arranged in a circle, but no more than that, and they're a good eight hundred metres away.

"Right, continue checks.Who's volunteering to look at the natives?" I asked.

"I am." Draco raised a hand, Dev followed. Blake volunteered, which meant Salbar did, and Landon.Billy, Takori, Javid, Ryan, Time and Simba would set up camp. Divide and learn. The six of us headed East towards the group, Draco had his scanner out, and was keeping one eye on it, the other on the track we were making.

After ten minutes, we came to the end of the hill. Landon wasn't kidding when he said it dipped sharply. The entire side of the hill was scree, loose gravel. We began to slowly go down it, attempting to keep balance, and we were stopped by Draco a third of the way down.

"Wait, they're all moving away from us.They know we're here."

"Really?" Devlin came over cautiously. I followed suit, gently treading. All of the dots on the scanner were beginning to move.

"They must be scared of us, or at least scared of things nearby." I said, thinking.

Then a stone gave way under our feet.I was thrown off balance down hill, causing a mini avalanche. I was pulled over, but my quick reactions got kept me upright as I was suddenly sprinting down the hill. Devlin landed hard, but dug his claws into the rock, he didn't move. Draco flailed wildly, but kept his balance, Blake took to the air in time, but both Salbar and Landon were knocked down.

I meanwhile had a very different problem. I was now charging down a steep hill at an alarming rate of knots, with no way of slowing down. To do so would mean being flung forward, and that would hurt. I changed into my bionic form, and then ran out of slope. The forest reappeared suddenly at the bottom, and I went headlong into the undergrowth. I caught my foot on a vine, lurched forward, hit the ground hard before skidding into a tree.

I spent about five seconds lying in surprise, before leaves rained down on me. Things were bruised, but not broken, and I got to my feet gingerly, looking at my legs.

"I'm alright, Draco, a large amount of undergrowth broke my fa...Oh bugger."

I looked up as I was speaking, and the tail of the sentence died unsaid.

There were about two dozen creatures there. A blend of male and female, they looked like a blend of elf and canine. They had pointed ears on the top of their heads, and small claws on the end of their hands and feet. One or two had small tails. But this wasn't the really worrying thing.

They all were coloured in special ways. Several were brightish yellow, like that of the sun, one or two were a handsome red, blue, green and on. Oh, and one final thing, they were all looking at me in a state of complete and utter terror, which is never a good thing. Devlin chose this moment to speak in my headset.

"What is there to oh bugger about?"

I set the interlink function on my glasses, just as they attacked.

"Oh." Devlin said, and he was running down the hill.

They seemed to hate me, I had NO idea why. I went down under the weight of two of the yellow ones, and as they hit me, I felt jolts of electricity crackle across my frame, these two had electrical charge in them.They had no effect on my armour plating, but gave me a tingly feeling.Their claws scraped hard against my ribs, and while I tried to roll, they had me firmly pinned.

They soon realised they weren't getting past my armour, instead both of them sat on me, holding my arms pinned, scowling at me.

"A little help here?" I called into the forest. There was some heavy running, and Devlin came crashing through the undergrowth, coming to a halt at the surrounding ring of creatures around me.

One of the electrical ones on me spoke. She looked at Devlin with respect, if anything.

"We caught this human trying to attack us, no cause for alarm." Devlin was confused, just as Blake landed on the other end of the clearing, Draco snagged on a root and came to a halt on the ground beside his Hell Fire cousin, and both Salbar and Landon came to a halt expertly next to the other two.

"There's a problem here, that's our human." Devlin said smoothly.

"Was he trying to escape?" the electrical creature asked politely, getting up to speak to Devlin, leaving a green male to take her place.

"No, he just tripped and fell down the hill. Why did you attack him?"

"We thought he was here to capture us.What is his purpose?"

"WAIT."I announced,"Are there other humans who do this?"

The electrical creature took no heed of my question.Draco got to his feet.

"That human is one of the explorers from our own home planet, please release him."

"So he is not of this planet?" one of the red males asked.

"No." Draco shook his head,"And to ask his question, are there humans that try and capture you?"

"Yes, and make us fight one another, using our powers." the electrical creature replied.

Dev nodded to himself."I see, could you let him off the ground?"

The two on me got off, and I struggled to my feet, brushing down the rips on my shirt.

"This shirt was almost old, I go through a lot of them in this job."

"That's why some of us don't wear shirts." Draco smiled, looking at the rents in my clothing.

"That's your choice.Me on the other hand, I am not one to expose my chest to the world."

"We don't mind seeing it, why should the rest of the world be any different?" Landon smiled.

"Enough." I said, raising a hand,"As temporary leader of this party, I must apologise for intruding on your time.My name is Alduin." I went over to the electrical female, and extended my hand. She shook it, tentatively.

"I am Sreesanth." she replied.We introduced the lot of us, and they did the same in return. We all sat down in the glade, and one that was a pure white sat in the centre of the clearing, closing her eyes and concentrating.

"Let me guess." Blake asked."She can detect the presence of people."

"Indeed." a darker blue one named Lucas said." She has no name, we only call her the Detector, but she has no problem with it."

Landon was already attracting some severe attention from Sreesanth and Tantala, who was Sreesanth's sister.He was more like them, and as he lay against a tree, they were seductively close to him, rubbing his body with gentle strokes.

I had removed all my weapons, and was sitting to one side, speaking to the gang still up on the hill and giving them a commentary on what happened. They in turn had their scanner and tech going, and there was nothing to report. Ryan signed off, saying they would recontact in an hour unless specified.

Everyone was having a good time. Landon and the two electric creatures were very slowly shifting from talking to making out, and Draco was already gently probing Lucas' ass, which the creature was clearly enjoying. Devlin was engaged in conversation with one of the dark red males, who was playing with a small fireball he seemed to conjure with the same sort of skill Orion had. Salbar and Blake were together talking with a bottle green and a rock coloured creature, but the two creatures soon realised that trying to have it off with Salbar with Blake nearby was, unlikely.

I smiled. Salbar and Blake, not surprising.They were officially the cute couple of Central at the moment, and there was not one creature who didn't think it was a good match, except those who thought Blake should be for them.It was like Valmeero, there were at least eight females on Central who would kill to go out with him, the total handsome wolf/dragon hybrid he was. The way his chest muscles looked, every time he leaned against a pillar with his arms folded like he normally did, I wanted to jump him.

While dreaming of Valmeero, and the various cool characters of Central, (Dev, Blake,Val and almost anyone else you cared to name), I closed my eyes, and took a quick power nap. The afternoon sun hung heavy in the sky, and my camera glasses recorded as I slept. I woke out of my dream, with little having changed.True, NOW Salbar and Blake were having it off, and positions had changed with the dragon who was having it off, but we seemed to have all the time in the world.

I sung a few songs quietly to myself, my companions were doing the majority of the work, finding out about the place. We had indeed found out about the dominant race, the humans as I would call them, and they apparently had a city nearby.They enjoyed watching these creatures using their powers on each other, or watching them fight in vain to escape, much like the harpies did with me and my companions on their planet (no one had gone back there, although I had raised a suggestion to revisit them for my own curiosity).

It was the callous way they did it, just captured them, and pitted them selves against one another. According to Sreesanth, two humans stood in circular glass walls, so they could command the creatures to use certain talents, and if they didn't, they would recieve a stinging shock.I resolved to pay one of my own 'friendly' visits to this town, preferably with a loaded Eryx.I did a quick recount of my gear to pass the time.

Apart from food, water and clothing, I had a few interesting things. Rocket launcher, twelve shells, C.E.O pistol, with Central Belt. .303 rifle, despite Ryan's comments, I had kept with my antique, and fifty normal rounds. In a special bag, I had other equipment. Zac kept his portable assault tower with him, and he wasn't here, but I had the two special rocket pods that Central had designed to work with the Raptor, and, wait a second...

I pulled out the item.It was about fifty centimetres long, and looked like a bomb. It was red, and had a lurid green radioactive sign on it.I knew exactly what it was, it was Covington's prototype nuclear bomb.What the (*&^ was that doing in there?I held it up in query.

"Who snuck Covington's nuke into my bag?" I asked aloud.

Draco looked over my direction.

"That would be Javid, Covington wanted you to use it, and asked Javid if he could sneak it into your kit."

"I'm supposed to use it on what?" I asked incredulously."I know what a nuke does."

"Ahh, but the solinium nuke works in a very special way." Ryan said in my ear,"Solinium-3 has a half life of about half a minute, it's considered a very effective weapon against small buildings on his planet, because after half an hour all the solinium has lost it's potency. Of course, it's destructive power is like that of the standard nuke, in scale, so we should have a nice big mushroom cloud when you use it."

"So it doesn't infect to the North star, and all your grandchildren?"

"Nope, anyone struck by it but not killed feels terrible for some time, but only through the radioactivity until it dies. Very few people survive a nuke like that though, because it's very localised." the tiger replied. I shrugged, putting the nuclear explosive back in my bag. It wouldn't detonate until it was released from my Raptor form, now it was just dead weight.

We spent another few hours talking and making love, but then Ryan spoke in confusion.

"Alduin, we're getting multiple life forms coming up on your position.Confirm with Landon's software?"

I turned to the fox."Landon, what's your scanner saying?"

He looked at his laptop."There's about twenty five little dots in a line coming this way.They're only five hundred metres away."

"What are they doing?" Sreesanth said urgently.

"Circling..., oh dear." Landon's face turned to horror."Let's get out of here!"

Everyone jumped to his feet, just as the Detector shrieked.

"There's humans nearby!" she shouted, getting to her feet.

"The cavalry's here." I muttered, changing into my Raptor form. Then there were hurried shouts from around the clearing.

"This is a warning, anyone moves in there, we will shoot you."

"Dev." I hissed. The hell fire dragon turned and looked at me, crouching down.

"What are your intentions?"

"You guys teleport out, I'll allow myself to get captured with this lot, there's no way they can escape."

"We could all teleport..." he began.

"No we couldn't.The moment they heard the first bang, it's all gunfire.All of them have to lie down, while you guys go back to our hill.Take my weapons, I am going to stay here, and they'll take me wherever this lot are going."

Devlin picked up the rocket launcher and the rifle, slightly worried at my insistence to not have them.Under a hurried command, all of the canines lay down on the ground, hands on the back of their heads, waiting for the firing to begin, and my comrades teleported. The less these humans knew about my friends, the better.

True to form, there was a loud bang, and there was the sound of several machine guns, bullets zinging across the turf.No one was hit, but the sound was very loud. I so wanted to use my own cannons back at them, see how they liked it, but I needed to find the core of this rotten apple. So the Raptor stayed dormant, it's engine dull, as everyone remained in the prone position.

The outskirts of the clearing sprouted men. They looked like perfectly usual human beings, except all of them were heavily armed, and wearing full body armour.None of them were looking nice either. The dog like creatures were ordered to stand up, all having several barrels pointed at them. There were about twenty five men, slightly more than the creatures, and soon all of them were in one collected group.

Finally someone looked over my way, and with rifle aimed, he came over to me.

"What on Earth (literal translation) is this?" he said, looking at my gleaming panelling.Another came over, and critically observed me.

"Demons, what is this thing?"

They had no idea, I hadn't shown them my powers of what they would call Polymorph. They kept silent.

"I asked a question!" the man shouted at them.

"We don't know,it wasn't there earlier." Sreesanth stuttered. The man huffed in disinterest.

"Well, it looks interesting, can someone carry it?" the first man shouldered his gun, and tried to lift me up by the wings.

"Jeeeezz!"he exhaled as he heaved, using considerable effort. He managed to carry the Raptor, but a second man was detailed to carry one side.

"Not as strong as a dragon, I can lift Raptor up without help." Devlin said in my communicator. I smiled, not that anyone could tell, maintaining radio silence.

The men formed a circle around the canine creatures, I still had no name for them, and all of them were frogmarched in a certain direction.I was lifted off at the rear, the one carrying my nose had his rifle one handed, and the one at the back had tied a rope between my main wings and my tail wings. I bobbed uncertainly at the back for about ten minutes, and the entire forest just vanished.

Humans invariably tend to leave a scar on the landscape, which is why this particular human, me, prefers elven company.This was a town in the middle of a forest, all the trees were gone, and the ground was hard, like clay.Many buildings ran to the left and the right, and a small river ran through the centre of the town. Many townships had a tendency to be built on or near rivers, Draco's town, my own, Dul'Ihanri, etc.

Everything was made out of wood, and I scowled to myself. Elves, anyday. We were a great tourist attraction, everyone ran to look at these new creatures. As they did, the two men carrying me tripped. A rough stone brought the guy in front down, and I landed hard on my wheels. One missile ignited, and erupted from my body. It sped on it's own rocket, guided by itself, but because it was a part of me, I could navigate it like a TV missile.

The rocket curved away, and gracefully arced over a couple of stunned watchers into an upstairs window of a very ragged building. There was half a second pause, and then the entire room exploded outwards.Wood splinters went everywhere and the explosion sent people diving for the ground.

"That wasn't me."I hissed into my headset as everyone reacted to the explosion.

"The pain set off the missile, it's happened to me too." Simba replied. Nothing was said.

"Bloody hell." the leader whistled, looking at me in appreciation."If you hit it hard enough, it fires one of those." He stepped deftly aside as a piece of bed landed beside him. There wasn't much of the room left, and instead there was a door to a new balcony, and blackened walls.

"Where shall we put it?" one man asked.

"Same place this lot are going." the leader replied.

We were led towards a very long building, and went one by one downstairs to a low roofed cellar. It was mostly bare, but about the same width as the building as viewed from outside. We entered from the middle, at at either end, almost, was two single person elevators.

"O.K., very simple, people." the leader smiled."This is your quarters, you will be fed and provisioned with water.The toilet is opposite.The first battle starts in two hours, and it's very simple. You will do as required, and we won't hurt you. If the speaker requests electric, then electric must go to the appropriate door. The unconscious will be lowered back down the same way. You fail, we will be forced to use our weapons. Good bye."

What a complete smegging bastard.I hate people like him, and with good reasons. He smiled as his men left, and then he turned his back and walked out. Sreesanth looked ready to hit with an electric bolt. The door slammed, and I heard the sound of many locks shifting back and forth.

"Now what?" Lucas asked.

"We fight one another, or die." Sreesanth slumped down on the floor defeated.

"So what is our purpose in doing so?" one called Anasta queried.

"For their enjoyment." Sreesanth didn't look up.

"I'm sorry!" I changed, looking furious," they make you battle one another, like this, just for fun?"

Everyone turned in shock.Sreesanth managed to explain that she had made references in the forest, and then asked me the question they all wanted to ask.

"How did you get here?"

"I have powers of changing my form into something else. This form is called Raptor, and it can be quite dangerous. So we're in the arena, are we?"

"Underneath it, I suppose." Lucas shrugged.

"Oh good." I smiled, opening my bag and checking the prototypes I was carrying. The ion rocket engines had already been tested with high and low results, Draco's planet was a definite low, but they were still not actually perfect, and once or twice one of them had died naturally on me. But at very high level, I had hit Mach four point five, a speed only approached by unmanned vehicles and the X-15A/2, which didn't count as an aircraft, more a flying fuel tank.

So everyone sat around, and I changed back to my Raptor form, in case guards came down with food. This was not to be.As the minutes ticked away, I was in constant communication with Devlin. The best plan was to teleport everyone out during the battle, while I caused carnage above surface.Of course someone might have to teleport those currently fighting, but that's what Devlin and Draco enjoyed.

The tension in the room was one of fear of the unknown. I spoke in my aircraft form.

"We need these goons to think everything's going to plan, so one, maybe two might have to get knocked out. I don't like the idea of letting one of you get hurt, but we need to make it look like this is normal.After I go up, my friends will teleport here, and then take you back to our camp."

"Why are you helping us, sticking your neck out like this?" Sreesanth asked me.

"I help those in a plight. I am not having these idiots, however much they look like me, get away with evil minded fights."

Silence fell again. I put down a scanner in the corner, and Landon teleported in.

"Alduin, Simba's given me some medical supplies, so anyone injured can be healed. Just try not to cause havoc among us."

"By the time I'm finished with them, there won't be any problems."

"You dropping that nuke?"

"Not without good cause. I am against mindless slaughter, but if they do something despicable, or even more than normal, I will."

I meant it.Javid knew the distance required to be safe from the blast, and were about a mile from the arena, standing on the top of a tree. Or rather, Salbar was standing, Javid was developing a slight vertigo, and was holding on tightly. Trust Salbar to pick a tree that tall. Landon sat beside me as I tested my engines, making all the running parts run without actually igniting the engine. Everything was in order.

The noise outside was fairly muffled by the doors and planks covering the basement, but we could hear and furthermore get confirmation from the scanner that the arena was packing up pretty quickly. This event was popular.Simba reckoned about eight hundred people were filing in the rows. The scanner X-ray function could be manipulated so people knew on what vertical scale they were on, so we could tell for exmaple that there was currently a pair sitting on a plank about eight metres above us.

Landon had done some measuring, and came up with the bad news.

"I'm sorry, Alduin, the trapdoor's too narrow for your Raptor."

"You know my other form, is it wide enough for that?"

"Only if you stood with your legs in the inward triangle underneath yourself."

I knew what he meant. I could make myself somewhat less wide by angling my legs back under my carapace and standing as tall as I could.

"And before you go ballistic on the crowd..." Draco said,"I would point out I'm sitting in the front row, disguised of course."

"I don't suppose you're going to tell me what the field looks like."

"Rocky, but on either side are small flat plains.Behind each trapdoor is a completely sealed glass chamber, obviously where the human who controls you will be." Draco replied, surveying the rocks.

Not five minutes later, a cheer went up, and a voice spoke.

"Welcome, ladies and gentlemen, to today's battle.One one side, we have Jason Keynes, on the other, Alan Harnett, both twenty two years of age. It is first to three, and Jason is to pick first."

"Grass." a sneering young man said through his speaker, and one of the green creatures stood up, like he was heading for the gallows. He stood on the platform, and rose, just as the hole in the roof opened up.

After a few seconds of pause, a soft but no less nasty voice said "fire."

The dark red male, Pyra, walked over to the other trapdoor, and the cheering got louder. I had no wish to see the battle, in fact Draco did us all a favour and shut down all instruments he was carrying, except the one recording the battle, so if we had to explain ourselves to anyone, we would have proof why we did it, or more why I would do it.

The battle seemed surprisingly quiet, although no one could keep out the cheering voices, and the cries of anguish as the one they were supporting took a nasty knock. About five minutes later, after a brief period of lull, the green creature came down on his platform, unconscious but smoking slightly. Landon grabbed him underneath the shoulder and hauled him off just as Jason said "Water."

"I'm going to kill him." I said to myself, just as Lucas walked over."That might be some consolation."Landon was applying burn ointment to Will.His name was actually the tree, willow, but everyone called him Will, because he liked it.

Will came round, holding himself in pain, as fighting continued upstairs. I almost had foresight who would win,but Landon knew too, he was underneath Pyra's column before he appeared unconscious.Landon went healing Pyra as Alan said "Electric."

Sreesanth stood.

"Will the person who goes next kill me." she said haughtily, and walked past everyone defiantly.Before she got to the platform, I spoke.

"I'm next, Sreesanth, just keep down when I go berserk." she looked at me in my raptor form, and then vanished upwards. I taxied next to the opposite platform. Pyra rose giddily, and sat down next to Will. Landon stood in the middle, awaiting the next casualty of this heartless display.

We waited for about five minutes, and then Lucas descended, crackling with electrical power, and completely out cold. Landon ignored the voltages he recieved as he pulled the blue creature off. Jason paused, and then spoke.

"Earth."

"That's me." I smiled evilly. "Let the real game begin."