FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

A long, thick arrow propels in a lateral spin from out of the shielded barrel of Straw's crossbow and a burst of air from the nock-end of the shaft brushed the dim forest with a small, but furious echo. It flew as straight as it was fast, disappearing into the forest and the bushes with only the small, glowing ring wrapped around the nock-end of the arrow to show its flight. No sooner than it disappeared into the bushes, a small growl-yelp could be heard from within, followed by a few noisy thuds and rustling leaves. The smell of blood began to spill from where Straw shot at.

Certain that Straw had gotten his quarry, he gripped the skeletal portion of the crossbow's stock and lightly pushed the barrel upwards, deftly turning his weapon up and to his back, upside-down and the barrel pointing behind him. He dropped himself to the ground and crawled on three legs, still gripping the weapon with one hand.

He went towards the bush, his limbs locomoting with feline precision and gently pushing down towards the leafy, grassy ground with each step. With the bush being too thick for him to simply move through or jump over without notice, he skirted around its edges, until he saw the twitching, somewhat dim form of a wolf-like creature, not unlike him. It was smaller in size and proportion than his taller and more slender form, but it was also wider and thicker, with bulbous, stubby paws and a tail that's been bent and partially bitten off from the tip- likely from its packmates, not Straw's own doing. Its upper spinal column was thoroughly pulverized by what Straw recognized as the arrow he shot earlier, having lodged itself deep in a large and messy cavity just below the back of its skull. Its entire body twitched for a short while, before it went into a state of complete silence. This wolf was probably trying to hide from Straw, with how it moved, and how the arrow stuck itself. It would've eluded him if it wasn't one of the closer Ferals that Straw chose to quietly pursue. On his knees, Straw turned the creature's lifeless body around, revealing the creature's face- round, wide and with a muzzle as stubby as its paws.

Odd, thought Straw. He could see from its expression and its small, almost beady eyes that it wasn't afraid or stressed- slightly confident, even. Now that he thought about it... none of these ferals were running around in circles, or jumping right at him, like they usually do.

While Straw continued to ponder, there was a sudden knock on a tree from behind, made by something small, but solid. He quickly shot up and spun his upper body, swiftly readying his weapon again to aim from the rear.

Silence.

Distraction, he thought, looking side to side. He slowly lowered his posture, narrowing his eyes and twitching his ears back and forth, up and down. There was snapping and rustling.

There's more than one, he thought, and close. The sounds aren't shifting places, but he could hear them coming from all around him. They must be baiting him into a trap if they're waiting this long.

For humans, facing many ferals at the same time could potentially spell their doom, especially in their lonesome. For someone like Straw, however, it was quickly becoming an opportunity to draw them all out. All he needs to do now is to see if he was right. Maintaining his low posture, Straw briskly prowled to the direction of the noise before slowing down. He could make out a tree with a mark on the side of its trunk. Anytime now, he thought.

He heard a sharp snap. It was from behind. Just as he snapped his eyes and ears to the side, he heard more snapping, louder and more like a trot, before it stopped to a sudden change of air that he felt from his ears and his mane.

In a split second, as he turned and coiled his upper body, he shoots one of his long and slender feet up to the rear, making an audible, sickening crunch. He felt the sensation of many thorns swiping and prodding into the padding that covered the pawpad of his foot.

He turned his head to see that his foot had landed on a mottled grey humanoid Feral wolf-creature with mange-like lacerations around its eyes and a long, scraggly mane that covered its head and torso, leaving its scrawny hind legs exposed. It had its fangs and claws bared to bite and wrangle its prey with a pounce, but Straw's foot had thoroughly pulverized its lower jaw into many pieces, crushing the windpipe and shattering both collarbones. The force of Straw's foot and the Feral's leap caused its upper spine connecting the neck to violently retract into a coiled mess, the Feral immediately going limp as its arms and legs jolted forward from the shock of the impact.

As the scraggly grey Feral was about to crumple to the ground, Straw heard another noise to his side. Planting his errant, blood-soaked foot firmly to the ground, he pulled his weapon to the side of his waist and pushing the foregrip to aim upwards, shooting a burst of two at another larger Feral that leapt higher than the last. The first arrow struck the top of one of its ribs, deviating its trajectory upwards and digging into one of its lungs, while the second went through the gap between its ribs, digging more of the same lung and boring through part of its heart, blood spitting from its exit wound.

Straw then pushed his weapon to the side and tucked the cheek rest to his chest, coiling his bloodied foot to his upper body and shot a front kick to the Feral's ribs that was unfortunately timed, as the Feral was of greater weight and thus quicker with its force of leap. His toes bent up and down when it struck the ribs, two of them having been gashed from one of the arrows stuck in the Feral's chest, but it nevertheless pushed the arrow further in, causing even more blood to gush out from the now-enlarged exit wound. Its ribs shatter from the sheer force of the kick, multiplied by its own weight from its leap, as the shock of it pushed it back a good foot or two before crumpling to the ground.

A third noise came from behind Straw, stopping short and becoming a frantic set of noises. Immediately realizing the hesitation of whatever was behind him, he scratched the ground with the toes of his other foot, throwing various bits of earth to his rear as his foot pulled upwards and causing a yelping noise. Having a rough idea of where the yelp came from, he furiously spun the in-step of his bloodied foot, hitting a third Feral's front paw and cheek, dislocating its wrist and smashing the cheekbone altogether. It collapsed to the side and attempted to scamper, but with a roar, Straw stepped in and shot his foot down in a stomp that violently broke its neck. He turned around to aim his weapon upon hearing noises from all over his sides and his front, but failed to notice in time that the noises were becoming fainter and more distant. They were all fleeing from him, save for the mottled grey and stomped Ferals, quivering from their wounds. "Darn it!" he hissed, scampering after the rest with a slight limp.

Though his bloodied foot was far from crippled, Straw felt that he was being outpaced, even on two legs, because of the wounds on his toes that was still regenerating. Shouldn't be a problem, he thought. He's always been one to admit that he's not the fastest runner, two-leg or four-leg, but he had his senses and his experience with long-arms to compensate, his ivory Karambit and his large throwing needles strapped to his person in case his preferred weapon of choice couldn't immediately help his situation.

While running, his nose began to twitch. He could smell them just ahead. But... something wasn't quite right.

Before he could determine the oddity, a dark-pelted Feral wearing what looked like the tattered remains of a faded green dress appeared from the corner of Straw's eye, in the middle of swinging a paw coming to his direction. He stopped to duck under its trajectory, wincing as he felt a sharp, burning pain coming from one of his ears- chunks of it having been swiped away by the Feral, and deftly produced his Karambit from one thigh. Pushing his forearm upwards against the Feral's forearm, he then dug the Karambit's point into the arm from the bottom and ran the blade, cutting through flesh in a long and deep incision, before tearing through the arteries underneath its armpit.

He pulls the Karambit back for another cut, tearing through the upper neck and most of one side of the jaw. Finally, he propped the Feral against the top of his weapon, and with one more push of the Karambit-hand, the blade tears through the Feral's neck. Chunks of its windpipe flew and barely dangled from its skin, and the spine violently snaps from the force of the blade, one or two of its columns dropping towards the ground like pebbles. Making sure the Feral won't get back up, he coils his other foot and roared, stomping the side of the Feral's head somewhat flat.

He quickly raised his weapon, his other forearm propping the foregrip, and frantically scanned the clearing around him.

Nothing. Only the a slight breeze caressing the bounties of nature. Hiding again, he thought. Alright. He can just smoke them out with his nose.

He inhaled slowly and deeply, loosening the focus in his eyes ever so slightly. Trails of scents slowly emanated from the ground. Then the bushes. Then the trees.

His eyes widened.

Though the scents were faint, they were numerous in number. Too numerous, in fact. What could've been distinct sets of four small scents connected to one larger was instead almost an overcast of musk and viscera. He turned and turned to see if it was just the one spot that was in his immediate line of sight, but it had completely surrounded him.

Knock.

Spinning toward the direction of the noise, he barely noticed a blur from the corner of his eye. He whips his Karambit away from the foregrip of his weapon to his side, flicking it laterally with his thumb wrapped around the ring loop of its handle and his index finger curled inwards to stop the blade from spinning all the way to jab at his wrist. Hearing a yelp as he felt the blade hit something fleshy, he turns slightly more to the side and coiled his other foot inwards to a lateral push-kick. He was sure that he felt his foot hit something, but it wasn't quite as hard as he would've expected.

Feeling the air cutting at the rear of his mane and the wound on his ear, he gripped the strap of his weapon with his Karambit-hand, shooting the elbow of his weapon-arm diagonally upward, smashing the lower eyesocket of the Feral behind him.

While it stumbled back, he held his weapon by the foregrip with his Karambit-hand and shot his open hand at the Feral, managing to grab it by the mane on its chest. He pulls the Feral towards him, snapping his long maw open and twisting his head to the side to clamp on the Feral's exposed throat like a vice. The Feral attempted to grab Straw by the cheek with one paw while swinging his other paw towards his head, but with a growl and a grunt, he jerked and quickly twisted his head back to the opposite side, snapping and crushing the neck of the Feral before the paw could land at anything. He loosens his jaw to throw the limp Feral to the ground, leaving it to twitch violently before being reduced to a state of quivering.

Just as he readied his weapon to aim again, there was nothing to be seen or heard- just the trails of musk and viscera that slowly enveloped his surroundings. After a short silence, he slowly loosened his posture, flummoxed.

What? Again?

He strained and loosened his eyes back and forth. He loathed to admit it, but the smell was not only making it difficult for him to sniff out the Ferals, but it was also becoming a bit of a distraction as he tussled between his sense of smell, his sight, and his hearing, the former frequently creeping over the latter two with each whiff of musk and viscera. Worse still, the Ferals are biding their time to come out instead of jumping out all at once, what noise they make only when one more comes into a scuffle with him. Straw scoffed. The fact that they led him into a rather sophisticated trap of sorts was one peculiarity, but he can't help but feel like something far worse was crawling at the back of his mind...

Fine, he thought. If they're not going to come out when he wants to, then he knew just what might.

Memories flashed in his mind, of a time when he was once a human staring at Death's door. A soldier of gray and red, crawling through a field riddled with the mangled corpses of his brothers in arms, and some of yellow and blue; covered in dirt, mud, and the flesh of what precious little remained of their limbs. He himself remembered not being able to feel one or both of his legs nor much of anything from his fingers, as the world around him turned white. He remembered wanting so desperately to disappear from the nightmarish painting, refusing to become just another flower to be so callously trampled by what was behind him. He remembered seeing an enormous, almost-demonic figure with glowing eyes, cast almost completely in shadow by the sunlight behind it, slowly walking towards him. Though the reality was different, that exact moment nevertheless had him absolutely convinced that he was going to die.

And that was enough for Bartholomew Strawberry.

His breath slowly grew unsteady until he could only ventilate from his mouth, the chattering of his fangs making his eyes lose focus as he struggled to keep his sight straight. His arms and legs felt heavier by the bone, weaker by the joints; the aim of his weapon becoming untrue and the confidence in his legs bleeding out from him. His Karambit slips away from his grip after a attempting to sheath it back, helplessly falling to the ground.

Pairs of glowing eyes looked on from beyond the foliage. They saw the tall, russet werewolf frantically swiveling his weapon side to side, slowly backing away towards his rear. They were hesitant, at first; traces of their former humanity that they've either lost or thrown away made them unsure of what to make of his display, whether it was genuine or otherwise. Then they smelled something from him.

It was faint traces of his sweat.

Some of them continued to hesitate, perhaps moreso at this sudden change, but others began to growl, the hunter before them becoming prey through what they recognized as fear. For the skewed few, it even made him smell rather... delicious.

Blurry shapes burst out from the bushes, jumping almost in unison at Straw. Wide-eyed in surprise, he attempted to level his weapon, but instead raised his weapon even higher upwards after seeing so many of them in view. He felt his body jump backwards as one of the Ferals clamped onto his foregrip-arm like a vice, flailing his weapon-arm outwards at a second Feral and hitting the side of its face, his weapon spinning away from his hand towards the earth.

He finally falls to his side after four more Ferals collide with him. Gritting his teeth, he flailed his bitten arm side to side in an effort to force the Feral to let go, the Ferals further away from him snapping at his vainly kicking feet. Covering his face with his other arm, he turns towards the ground still kicking his feet at the Ferals, now surrounding him and attempting to bite at him almost all at once.

While some persistently held on to various bits of Straw, others became impatient as they could only snap and swipe their paws at him. Barking and growling in frustration, they begin to snap at their own, one or two letting go to return the hostility in kind. Straw could feel canine teeth leaving his bitten arm.

Now, he thought!!

Both arms free and his entire body mostly facing the ground, he quickly pulled a long, dark rubbery object up towards his face before producing a red tubular canister from his bosom, then quickly rolled his back against the ground. With one hand gripping the bottom of a gas-mask strapped to his face, he held the red canister up with his other hand to the surprised gaze of nearly half the Ferals surrounding him, flicking the canister's safety cap away with his thumb and pressing the red button on top.

The canister explodes in a scattering of reddish-orange mist and bits of what remained of the red tube. Straw winced as he felt a bundle of gust pry his hand open, the fragments of the tube having cut or shredded his palm, pawpad and fingers. The Ferals jolted in surprise at the sudden noise, failing to realize that the mist had come to their eyes, noses, tongues, and pelts. Immediately, they all began convulsing; sneezing, coughing, yowling, or some mix of all of them. Some caressed their faces with their paws in an attempt to wipe the mist away from their eyes and nose, while others frantically shook their bodies to get the mist out of their fur, barely managing to do so.

Straw kicks a few of the Ferals away from him and immediately scampered to escape from the crowd, spotting his Karambit on the ground and making space by pushing between two Ferals as he picked it up. He bolts around on all fours to the direction of his dropped weapon, swiftly picking it up with his bloodied hand. He makes for a nearby tree, digging into the trunk to climb upwards until he stopped near the top of the tree to stand on branches just thick enough to hold his entire weight, being well out of view from any Ferals still able to see thanks to the massive tree trunk.

Securing the strap of his weapon around his chest, he winced as he opened the lacerations on his palm using his Karambit. With his hand bleeding even more, he flails his bloodied hand back and forth, practically throwing the blood from his wounded hand to the leaves, branches, and occasionally the trunks of the trees surrounding the Ferals. Satisfied, he wraps the bloodied hand with a cloth produced from a pouch on his waist, binding his palm and his last three fingers tight enough so as to stop the bleeding, and sheaths his Karambit.

Straw leant back against the tree trunk, taking deep, long breaths until his heartbeat became steady. He turns his attention to his weapon, delicately inspecting it. It was unlike any crossbow a human has ever made, let alone be made from materials many of them would be familiar with. Instead of elliptical, webbed metal, polymer, and plastics, much of Straw's weapon was made with some form of bone, flesh and sinew- processed and shaped to less resemble a weapon and more a split broad-headed obsidian beast with a menacing, hollowed horn. Its belly was large and ovoid, one end having spine-like rails ending in a plug for a socket just below the barrel, the other end thinning into a femur-like extension resembling a full handle with a large hole for a thumb to weave through and grip into. Its stock was long and rectangular, the bottom slightly concaved for even the slightest bit of additional aiming comfort when mounting it on top of a vertical obstacle. Much of it was hollowed to allow separate storage of fluid units that, through manual or automated circulation, can allow the weapon to repair itself from most common of damages, and maintain its air supply. Aside from the dirt, blood and the slightly warped and scratched tube socket, it looked perfectly functional. Either that, or what fractures its bones suffered when it hit the ground had already repaired itself by the time he picked it up.

Safe for now, he thought, closing his eyes momentarily before opening them again.

He let out a quiet chuckle upon reflecting the memory that had him sweating in fear. True, he had been slowly marching on Death's throes back then, and for a brief moment he saw what he thought was a demon with glowing eyes. What a turn, then, for that 'demon' to suddenly shrink itself into a such a meek and human posture, what one would've expected from a parent anxious to see the health of their child after an accident- itself hardly befitting a Hellspawn, and then for it to trip on a rock and fall flat on its jaw. He could've sworn that that sudden change of scenery just about extinguished the pain in all of his wounds and not his life. And to say nothing of what that 'demon' actually looked like up close, too. He shook his head, still smiling. Reminiscing about one of his lovers will have to wait.

He turned and leant his shoulder on the tree trunk, gingerly holding the grip of his weapon with his wounded hand and aiming the sights down below. He could still see the Ferals not having moved much from where he detonated the canister.

One Feral wiped enough of the mist to be able to barely open its eyes, scanning its surroundings in spite of how blurry everything was. It didn't take long for it to recognize that their prey was nowhere to be seen. Hearing the noise of rustling leaves above, it shot its head upwards and attempted to inhale, hoping to search for the prey through smell, but it soon realized that doing so had caused the mist to enter even deeper into its nasal passages, causing it to sneeze and shake its head violently, with barking and coughing mixed in-between.

Suddenly, a loud noise in a rhythm of two can be heard from somewhere in the tree-tops, immediately followed by a pair of arrows mercilessly boring through the crown of a larger Feral's skull. The second arrow collided against the nock of the first in a slight angle, enough for it to bend slightly and violently rotate, making a larger, messier cut in both the entry and exit wounds. It immediately went limp, collapsing into a twitching heap.

The Ferals began to frantically bark and yelp at each other, as if to see who else among them still remained, only to get skewered in the neck or the head for each one that was about to bark in response. They had already lost four more when they scampered to hide in the bushes, some beginning to fear for their own lives.

Well, darn it, thought Straw, scoffing as he slightly lowered his weapon. Even with his sight, it would take too long for him to pick them off one by one while they're still hiding in the bushes, unless he brought a pair of thermal goggles with him. His eyes trailed to the pouches on his torso and waist. He wondered if he could force them out with something else that he brought along with the red canister he'd just detonated.

Let's give it a shot, then.

He loosens the straps to his gasmask and pulls it down to his neck, turning to leave it resting on his back and proceeded to pull his weapon's strap to his mouth, biting it several times until his weapon was straightened and stable. Satisfied, he planted the stock to his shoulder, slightly resting his cheek above.

With his other shoulder resting on the tree trunk, he guides his fingers of his free hand to a longer and larger pouch on his waist, flicking the cover open to produce a small, but thick green object with a metal point on one end and three fins of matching colour on the other; a dart. He pressed the button on the middle of the fin-end of the object with his thumbclaw and threw the dart with the flick of his wrist, arcing downward into a bush some few feet apart from him.

BANG!!

A yip could be heard close from where the dart exploded, leaves shifting and rustling to one direction. Immediately, Straw jerked his weapon slightly and pulled the trigger, loosing two long and thick arrows further away from the noise. Just as he roughly calculated, the two arrows each found their mark on a Feral; one perforating the top of the forehead, the other boring through the rear crown of the skull before lodging itself deep into the top of the neck. It tripped mid-stride, crashing through the ground from its momentum into a crumpled, half-broken heap.

The other Ferals struggled to remain silent. Some were too frightened to move, let alone utter another noise, whilst others were quickly becoming more and more agitated through their fear and their confusion of their prey's actions.

Eventually, three more shot up to their legs, all poised to throw stones and broken branches in Straw's vague direction. Seeing imminent danger, his eyes dart to the side and spots another tree just thick enough to support his weight. He coiled his body inwards and with a grunt, leapt a good six to seven feet across, straightening his tail to help him steer in the air and barely avoiding all but one thrown projectile that had left a mark on the side of one of his legs. Wincing in pain but undeterred, the claws of his feet dug into the trunk of the tree, right before his long and slender fingers from his free hand wrapped around it further up. He leant to the side to rotate along the trunk using his momentum and wrapped his legs around it to help him stop, before deftly drawing his weapon from behind the tree trunk and loosing three pairs of arrows at the three standing Ferals. All of them found their mark, collapsing two as the arrows bore through their heads and necks. One was slightly more fortunate, as it only had one arrow perforate its collarbone, while the other tore through the flesh on one of its shoulderblades- not quite enough to fell it.

Immediately awash with fear, the Feral stumbled and fell to the ground on all fours, frantically looking for another object it could immediately pick up and throw at its prey, while four of them yowled in complete panic and attempted to scamper to Straw's direction, somehow hoping that he would loose more of his arrows prematurely or that he would've already run out of ammunition. Straw leapt again, this time towards a tree opposite the one he was on while in a forward somersault. While his head was facing the ground during the rotation, he steadied his weapon to eye-level and loosing even more pairs of arrows once the errant Ferals were in sight. Three of them immediately collapsed and tumbled into broken heaps, while another tripped and fell as one of its paws were perforated and left dangling by the skin of its ankles, violently dragging the side of its face along the dirt.

Like the last time, his free hand dug and gripped the tree trunk, using his momentum to help him spin and stopping with his feet wrapped around as soon as the two Ferals came to his view. He jolted slightly towards the tree when he saw the nearest Feral turning to ready another throw with a rock it had found while frantically searching, but it failed to notice that it had sharply inhaled bits of the reddish-orange mist in reflex of the throwing motion, causing it to cough and frantically shake its head side to side.

With both of them vulnerable, Straw was quick to aim his weapon at the further Feral, disoriented from the fall, but still scampering at a somewhat significant pace.

Click! Click!

Straw's eyes darted down in surprise as he realized that his weapon had run out of ammunition. He thought for a brief moment whether he could take them both without his weapon, but despite having his gasmask, he wasn't willing to risk fumbling with it to jump down and use the nearest Feral as a springboard to somehow catch the further one, what with the relatively quick pace it was escaping in. Throwing another dart might also have it take a turn and throw off his aim, not to mention that it's aready gone far enough for a throw to become questionable.

He scoffed. He has no choice but to reload with another magazine.

He tightened his legs around the tree trunk before leaning his upper body away, wedging his weapon between his stomach and the tree, and deftly removed the long and ovoid magazine. He pulls a carabiner from his shoulder, hooking the empty magazine and leaving it dangling from his back. Glancing up to the Ferals and back down to his weapon, he pulls a similar-looking object out of a split-topped pouch from his back, carefully gliding it into the weapon's top-facing magazine well with a 'click'.

No sooner after twisting and sliding the charging bolt, he clasped both his feet against the tree trunk. With one hand, he rotated the weapon between his torso and the tree to aim at the nearest Feral, just having cleared enough of the mist to have picked up a large stone. Before it could look up to meet Straw's eyes, two pairs of arrows had already perforated the crown of the Feral's skull and bored through several upper columns of its spine, causing it go limp and crumple to the ground. Locking his gaze at the further Feral, he leapt from tree to tree- once, twice, thrice. He near-broke the fourth tree trunk, jumping much higher up in the air. As he rotated his entire body forward, he finally loosens his jaws from the strap of his weapon and held the foregrip with his free hand, leveling his weapon along with his back in an instant. He shot three pairs of arrows, timed just before the Feral was in his sights, and tucked the weapon to his stomach as he kept rotating forward. All of the arrows pulverized flesh and shattered bone around the lower back and pelvis, with enough force to practically pin the Feral to the ground as its entire lower half sunk to the ground like rocks, dragging the rest of its body along the ground.

Having done a full rotation, Straw lifted his weapon up to his head as he coiled his legs even further in. As his feet met with the paralyzed Feral, he bellowed as the force of his drop and his entire weight shot his feet to the ground, violently pulverizing the Feral's neck and rear half of its head into nothing more than coarse, fleshy paste. Stepping away from the lifeless remains, Straw quickly rested his weapon's stock by his shoulder, turning and scanning his surroundings.

Inhale. Exhale. Ears rotating, listening intently, while his eyes focused.

After a while, he was convinced; There's no one else but him. He inhaled deeply, and exhaled. He'd best call his pals.

He reached for the radio strapped to his shoulder and turned it around to his face. At a glance, it seemed to be a black brick that was rather large, even for a radio meant to fit the hands of someone of Straw's size, but it had multiple, if unorthodox functions: It had a sizable screen, a basic QWERTY keypad with minutely protruding keys sitting snugly between each other, a robust scrolling dial with a secondary lateral dial on one corner, a miniaturized morse code keyer with a protective cover flap on another corner, and a 'cover' that doubled as a secondary speaker. Its designer clearly intended this device to have more than one way of communication, perhaps at some cost of the initial function of the radio.

He switches the radio's screen on, turning and twisting the dials until he reached a screen with an empty text box. He pushes a button that brought up a menu, filled with various pre-made sentences in separate boxes, and began pressing on the keypad with the claws on his thumbs.

***

'Straw: came in contact with more ferals, about a dozen or more of them w/ some kind of olfactory trap. all clear.'

***

Before pressing a button to send his message, he sees an exclamation mark on a letter at the upper corner of the screen. It must've been there some time before he was about to send. There were numerous messages coming from different people, a few from himself prior.

***

_'White: Gwynek & i got the van away from the area, covered it up. we got our guns & loaded as much as we can carry. heading to the hotel now.'

'Peace Lily: sweeping the trees further away from the hotel'

'Tiger: sweeping outside of hotel'

'Peace Lily: CONTACT'

'White: how many'

'Peace Lily: cant confirm; bagged some, others ran'

'Tiger: contact, confirmed 6, maybe more'_

'Straw: contact, cant confirm; theyre pty spread out'

'Tiger: confirmed 17'

'Peace Lily: confirmed 9, somethings not right'

'White: 'explain, Peace Lily'

'Peace Lily: big numbers, but theyre mostly running or hiding, smaller than avg'

'Gwynek: are you sure theyre not hiding from you?'

'Tiger: no, theyre avoiding me as well, i can still smell more of them from where i am. all confirmed runts'

'Straw: think theyre trying to stall us?'

'Gwynek: plausible. whatev theyre holding us for, its got to be bad for us, especially w/ the civs in the bus'

'Straw: confirmed surv!'

'White: infection?'

'Straw: injuries near fatal, he asked for my blood'

'White: never enough test subjects <3'

'Straw: surv is in the hotel, im heading out'

***

That was the last message he sent.

***

_'Peace Lily: they wont stop running!!!'

'Gwynek: dont run off too far'

'Tiger: Peace Lily is right, somethings wrong'

'White: explain, Tiger'

'Tiger: most confirmed kills are runts, theyre moving slowly & away from the hotel'

'White: tread lightly, could be a trap'

'Peace Lily: THEY SPRUNG SPIKE TRAPS ON ME'_

'White: status report Peace Lily'

'Peace Lily: still operational, but those spikes did me in a fair bit, almost took one to the head'

'White: any more of them?'

'Peace Lily: i smell more of them somewhere, but i have a bad feeling about this'

'White: Peace Lily, converge on our pos outside the hotel'

'Tiger: some ferals are confirmed armed with weapons'

'Gwynek: ???'

'Tiger: spears, clubs, rocks'

'Peace Lily: WHAT??'

'White: did any one of them recognize you and knew you were coming?'

'Tiger: none of us recognized each other, but their methods & actions are definitely familiar'

***

Straw raised an eyebrow. All of what he's reading sounded an awful lot similar to his own encounter, and these Ferals are acting rather organized for simple werewolves gone savage. He was similarly curious about Cheng and Claire's last remark. Straw was no stranger to the Tiger's talent for composure and his preference to discreetly prey on the unwary, just as he was equally familiar with Claire's intelligence in spite of her slightly unnerving antics, but he couldn't help but feel that they're implying something that only they know.

Actually... now that he thought about it, they both seemed rather anxious on the way here. He initially wrote it off as newcomer's nerves, since both of them had joined their respective organizations relatively recently. Now he's more certain that they were anticipating something, as if they know these particular Ferals somehow. It'd at least explain their relationship with each other, and why they were so willing to volunteer for this simple extermination mission, in spite of their own prior experience.

With nothing much else to do, he began walking back towards the hotel, reading the messages as he went along.

***

_'Gwynek: theres no one in the hotel'

'Peace Lily: did the ferals get inside??'

'White: no, theres no trace of remains or any building damage'

'Gwynek: noise coming from one of the rooms, likely the surv Straw mentioned'

'White: circling the hotel'_

***

Straw slowly frowned. He didn't like where this was going.

Another message came not long after.

***

'Gwynek: confirmed footprints, all of them from out the front door, leads to a forest path'

***

Straw stopped in his tracks. It took him a good few seconds before he came to a realization: The Ferals they've encountered led them away from the humans, kept them occupied with crude but effective traps, kept themselves hidden instead of constantly engaging...

... and the humans who might have gone outside out of their own volition.

He felt his blood turn to ice. Immediately, he began running frantically on two legs, strapping his radio back to his shoulder and pressing a large rectangular button on its side.

"This is Straw!! Can anyone hear me?!" he yelled, panting.

"Peace Lily, loud and clear!!" yelled a husky, somewhat deep feminine American voice, similarly panting. Sounds of rapid, heavy footsteps can be heard from the radio. "I'm on my way back to the hotel! Where are you right now?!"

"Way away from th' hotel as you, darlin'!!" said Straw, huffing and shifting his body around to avoid leaves and branches. "So ya figured it out too, didja?!"

"I was hoping to get a second or third opinion out of you!"

Straw ran his tongue along his teeth as he kept running. "They tried to get th' jump on me like with ya'll else, traps an' weapons! And it's just like y'all said; buncha hairy twigs hidin' in bushes!"

"FUCK!!" the voice bellowed, followed by a loud, crackling 'thump' before the rapid footsteps immediately returned. "They were diverting us after all!!"

"They definitely tried ta pull th' wool over our eyes, but I dun think either bunch of us took the civvies walkin' out into account!"

"I'm getting close! You better step it up, pops!"

"This is White! Tiger just went ahead of our position to look for the civilians!" intoned another feminine voice, British this time. "Peace Lily, ready your saddle, I need you on mount! We didn't bring everything with us, so you and Straw better pick wisely!"

"On it!!"

With Straw's long legs propelling him into long distances with each step, it wasn't long before he was able to see three figures, partially visible from what bedroom lights were left on.

Two of them were a man and woman wearing similar dark padded suits undernearth a similarly padded jacket with a short hooded shoulder-cape, full-face helmets vaguely resembling somewhat large flat-tipped hats with wide brims and a noticeable front dip, and an emblem of a blue and gold inverted pentagram vaguely resembling a dragon's head on the middle of the 'hatband'; two of the bottom sides were separated, the top sides crooked to resemble a pair of horns, and two slits in the middle that resembled triangular eyes. Both were carrying long firearms slung to each shoulder; four dark-colored shotguns that bore similarity to the old Winchester trench gun from the Great War. Unlike the real historical trench gun that wore their age on its sleeves, the 'trench guns' the man and woman carried looked like as if it couldn't have been a few years old, and it had a multitude of features their grandfathers did not- picatinny rails that extended from the top edge of the receiver to the middle of its barrel, a charging lever built into the ejection port cover, reflex sights, and a very large tube with a sliding lock pumphandle in place of the more familiar tube and wooden pump. Straw recognized 'White' on the woman's chestplate, and 'Gwynek' on the man's.

The other figure was an enormous humanoid canine on all fours, much like Straw. While not as tall as Straw on its feet, it was nonetheless much wider than him, with a body built like an armor-plated truck, long arms as thick as large tree trunks, and thick legs connected to an unmistakably feminine waist. Its obsidian mane was much more impressive than Straw's, almost entirely spread out save for the mane on its head, tied back with a rolled bandanna to show its strong, almost ursine face and golden eyes. 'Peace Lily' was written on one of her spaulders.

Though he couldn't quite make out every word they were saying, their body language was making it clear that they're in just as much of a hurry as he was. 'Gwynek' hailed Straw, waving his hand high in the air, while 'White' jumped onto 'Peace Lily's' somewhat voluminous waist.

"Let's go!" whispered 'White', buckling its upper body forward and patting 'Peace Lily's' shoulder and sped off along a trail with footprints leading to a nearby forest.

"You should take a drink before you go," said 'Gwynek' in a deeper, gravely French voice, pointing his canteen at Straw's own. Straw nodded in reply, taking a swig. It may not be the hottest night in this summer time, but it's definitely rather warm, especially for a werewolf with a significant pelt and mane. He'd definitely do well to maintain his water intake. He slings his weapon around his shoulder and fastened the strap, tucking it on his back.

"Here", said 'Gwynek', having unslung one of the 'trench guns' from his shoulder and extending it to Straw. Taking it off his hands, Straw inspected the weapon, turning off the safety and lightly pulling the charging handle to see if it was ready to fire. Satisfied, they both began to run along the same path that 'White' and 'Peace Lily' took. He could see the scent trails barely wafting from the footprints, and looked up to see that there were scent trails emanating from the trees adjoining the path, extending to the distance.

Straw's expression grew tense. However many of these Ferals were left had managed to lead his entire team away from the human civilians. He may never know what came over them when they decided to go outside this late at night, but he was dead certain that they were all walking right into the heart of a hunter's ambush.

He can forget about making Cheng and Claire talk for now; they all should've asked for more hands and guns.