FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

After three hours of FTL flight, they finally reached Terra's moon colony, Luna-1. As always, the colony was crowded by both Terran and Lunarean (people who were born in Luna-1), and airspace was tight. The Zeta station disaster was all in the space news, which was not surprising since it involved intergalactic casualties, and everyone was frantic. In the half hour they were waiting, all broadcast stations were either the news update or talk shows, both science-related or debate. Some even broadcast conspiracy rant.

They were then contacted by the space traffic control. A voice came out of the radio, asking for their ID and request for land. Capisa gave them the identity and request to land in Vitania's Space Shuttle port. Unfortunately, though, due to the air and space traffics, the shuttle port was full and they prioritized commercial lines first, thus forcing the group to wait. Capisa considered telling the control that the ship was carrying a royal member of an alien race, but Let told him not to tell them that.

"This is merely an unofficial trip," said Let. "There are those who need more priority than us."

After hearing that, Capisa just sighed. "Let's just hope Rose is not so impatient," he said. "But we still need to tell her that we are late."

As the Aquros tried to connect to an open subspace channel, Dairyu felt something like a sudden pain inside his head, like the sensation of getting a shot, but it was inside his head. The pain was noticeable by Let when he saw the Orient cringed.

"Something's wrong, Dairyu?"

"Ah, it's nothing. It's just a small headache. I got this every...what the hell?"

"What happened?"

"This isn't right. I am not even using drugs. The whole ship just...become the first Azure."

Let scanned everything else. It was the new restored interior of the new Azure, and nothing was strange. But as he wanted to assure Dairyu that nothing happened, a sudden pain came to his head and after he blinked, the vision he got made him gasp. He was also seeing the small interior of the first Azure, but unlike the previous ship's familiar one, this one was like a brand-new small cruiser just came out from the shipyard. It fascinated Let on how the previous Azure looked like in its prime.

"I hope this is not a holodeck joke you pulled two days after we left Alain, Dairyu."

"Capisa, did you turn on the holodeck system?"

"What are you talking about? There's no holodeck system in this ship."

But then Capisa also got the small headache and saw the same thing as both of them did, and he could see the interior, too. The three of them were lost in words when they saw their old ship's interior in its former glory. But what made it even more confusing and scary at the same time was Dairyu's vision of a black draconian in a Warrior's outfit standing by the control panel. He was also seen by Capisa and Let, so they drew their weapons, thinking he was a teleporter intruder, but Dairyu's disbelief made them stop.

"Seiryu?" he said. Let turned to him in surprise, but when he wanted to see the black Orient again, it vanished, along with the old Azure.

"D-did you guys see that?"

"So that was Seiryu? I thought he look all mostly draconian, not a mammalian hybrid!"

"He belongs to a different elemental type, so he looks like a cross between a dragon and a deer. But more importantly, are we seeing ghosts just now?"

Just then the space traffic control gave them permission to land. In the light of the confusion, Capisa didn't immediately answer, but fortunately they got the opening and they started getting inside Terra's atmosphere. Upon seeing Vitania's biggest city, Caldwell, Dairyu realized how long had he been out of Terra, and seeing the buildings again made him wonder about what the Terran people would think of him now that he returned home after 50 years in exile.

He didn't need long until he found the reaction when the Azure landed. Just as the bird-like destroyer cruiser landed on the tarmac and reached a hangar, Dairyu noticed that the ground crews who weren't operating were staring at the ship in awe. Even after it stopped, many of them were waiting for the occupants to come out. The three of them weren't sure about their actions after seeing Dairyu and friends, until they saw Amhyr and Rose greeting them, which somewhat calmed them down.

As they went down from the ship, Rose approached Dairyu and said, "Come on, you're late."

"Sorry, the space traffic was..."

"Yes, I've got the land version of it many times already. Where's Atho?"

"He's working in A5. The disaster made him full of things to do, or so what Al said to me."

"Then he can join later. We'll talk in the car."

The five of them got into a hover car that was the standard mode of transportation in Terra's 24th written century, in which Rose quickly set navigation to their home. The five of them then sat in circle around the small table in front of them.

"Capisa, whatever your people's research on that station, I can understand what they are trying to accomplish, and I don't blame you only because you're an As'karan agent with no science-related controversy. Let, if I were you I would just tell them that a Kaf'rak is coming so we can do this earlier, then Dairyu..."

Rose slapped the Orient in the face, but due to his thinner and weak stature the Orient was thrown aside to Amhyr, who didn't change a lot. Just then both of them realized how thin Dairyu was.

"Bloody hell...you look like you haven't eaten for a week! I'm so sorry I slapped you. I should've known it under your cloak."

"It's fine...I'm the one supposed to be sorry. I..."

"We all know who the real heroes that day," said Amhyr. "But you left us without saying goodbye we thought you wanted to kill yourself."

"Dude, I am not that low, okay? I just don't feel like I deserve a hero's welcome when my comrades were killed instead of me. But...can we return to the problem at hand?"

Rose nodded and started saying 'tea' when a set of tea and five cups, complete with sugar cubes, came out from the table. She then poured to one cup, took a sip, and said, "Let's get to it, alright? First of all, this will be something over your heads, but I...knew that Zeta station has disintegrated some minutes before the news came. I quickly called you, Capisa, because of this matter. I was guided by a white wolf spirit."

There was a silence.

"Apparently, the same spirit was terrorizing my dreams and turning it into a nightmare," said Amhyr, followed by an awkward, prolonged silence, with each of them glancing at each other, trying to see who was surprised.

After a while, Rose said, "Don't tell me...something happened to you, too?"

"It's not an apparition of some kind. If it's Leviathan, I would understand, but we are seeing the interior of the previous Azure. Dairyu and Let thought it was a holodeck joke, but then...we saw Seiryu..."

"Seiryu? As if the one Dairyu said to be..."

"It's the same Seiryu. I knew it. He was a water elemental type Orient, so no mistaking it."

Rose didn't know what to say anymore. If her friends saw things more than a guardian spirit, then it wasn't a simple ghost sighting. Somehow everything started after the Zeta station disaster, and truth be told, she couldn't determine the cause since it wasn't her field of study. Knowing that their discussion was getting nowhere, she turned on the in-car TV to the news, but the news coverage was surprising to everyone in that car.

"This just in. A massive ghost sighting phenomena are being reported all around the world by a whole group of people. Until this point, there is no explanation of what happened from government officials. Leaders all around the world urged people not to panic and asking the magical departments to take notice of the problem."

After the news returned to the live coverage of the station salvaging operation, Amhyr said, "I don't like this. It may not look threatening, but sudden ghost sightings around the world could mean an impending invasion."

"Or it may really be a magical problem, or science problem. Damn it, why does every problem always come when we feel the safest?"

"There's nothing we can really do, isn't it?" said Let with a sigh. "Might as well take a holiday in this planet and wait on the update of current problem."

But their holiday wasn't as relaxing as they thought. The massive outbreak of 'ghosts' started to make them uneasy despite of trying to make them off as people. The only one that didn't care was Dairyu, who was busy looking around Caldwell and its brickhouse covering the street. No one seemed to know him in his thinned-out state, so he could pass off as a normal Neo-Warrior having a shore leave if he didn't show them his antler horns. It was increasingly apparent that the ghosts started to become more and more frequent, and their out-of-date fashion choice couldn't make people shrug it off as a costume. What's more disturbing was the fact that more of the alien races showed with traditional or old outfits, and some even tried to talk to them before vanishing.

Still, despite of enjoying himself, Seiryu's 'ghost' always came to Dairyu's vision like a plastered sticker in front of a monitor. Unlike some other ghosts, who were trying to make contact, Seiryu's was just standing there, staring at Dairyu, before vanishing from the crowd or something moving past, never disappearing like a hologram like how the rest of the visions. The news official tried to rebuff the phenomena as a hologram joke, which was what Let thought before Capisa told him of no holodeck in the ship.

Despite of trying to stay anonymous, though, they were slowly being surrounded by Terrans who recognized their appearances. They even recognized Dairyu even though he was different when the conflict happened, and some even tried to ask him for a selfie (which, by any accounts, were an unfamiliar culture to Scyllas and Aqura), which he politely refused, though he agreed for giving an autograph or appeasing children with his wind manipulation abilities, something he didn't realize was relaxing. Seeing young draconians loving his works despite of his infamy many years ago was somehow...refreshing.

Amhyr noticed the pedestrians' reactions when they were watching the group. He then approached Dairyu and said, "The six of us are somewhat war heroes and celebrities. Not sure why we are famous, but I kind of liking it, if not for some crank calls and email spams. Can't believe we still have advanced virus in the 24th century!"

"So what do you do after retiring from the Federation?"

"Well, aside from finishing some paperwork here and there, I am mostly a househusband, taking care of my two little dragons. I sometimes make holo games for fun and for my kids. Can't let that programming doctorate to waste, right?"

Dairyu seemed surprised. "Little dragons? Just asking, but what do they look like? You know, because Rose?"

"You might have guessed it already. They are half-dragon half-wolf hybrid, and they look cool and unique. They can't tap into their lycanthropy heritage anymore, but they can breathe fire and still have a wolf heightened senses. The best thing of being a hybrid, huh?"

"Don't they get alienated for appearing like that?"

"No, of course not. There are so many different hybrid races these days people gave up labeling others, not to mention Terra being open to alien races make those conservationists cower in defeat."

Reaching Rose and Amhyr's home, they were greeted by two almost identical half-breeds of a draconian and a Lycan, which all of the group immediately identified them as the couple's children. Both looked more of a wolf than a draconian, but their scales, horns, tail, and limbs made them half of Amhyr's genes.

Both helped the group accommodate themselves in the couple's living room before they returned to their fun. Rose prepared them tea and biscuits, and some other things for Let and Capisa, then settled down on her chair.

"Now, let's don't talk about ghosts. Too morbid, I'd say. Tell us our own travels, eh, Dairyu? Oh, by the way, I've met your kin when we were visiting Aitsuki last year. Nice fellow, they are, if not too nice."

"Oh, Orients are nice peace-loving fellow. You just rubbed on me, so you perceive so. Yes, I tried not to be the same Orient like I was 15 years ago, so I exiled myself, thinking it was the best decision...after the old group were all but wiped out. Well, after that, nothing's unusual. I'm just sitting by the street, watching aliens and Terrans pass by me, giving me rations, then I go to sleep. I sometimes work as a scuttle so I can pay the rent they give me for keeping Azure in one of their hangars. But I still operate as a freelance bounty hunter until for two years. Well, I miss you guys, and it's increasingly harder for me to keep up with the auto-updating systems, so I retire from bounty hunting. If you ask me if I can fly the destroyer again, I'll be honest, I won't be able to with the new system you installed, Let."

Dairyu then stayed silent for a moment, then he wanted to continue after sipping his tea. But after he finished, he saw Seiryu's apparition again, and said, "Sometimes, the ghosts of the past can't let you forget them, however painful it is."

But then, suddenly, the whole room was surprised, even stayed silent, when the 'ghost' of Seiryu talked.

"Goddamn it, Dairyu, don't be a melodramatic jerk and listen to me! All of you, listen to me! Yes, I am talking to you and I'm a ghost, so what's surprising? This dimension is in danger, and you're gonna stop it! Shit, I'm fading again!"

As the apparition faded, Seiryu said, "Dairyu, the sun will sleep when the darkness wakes." This caused Dairyu to gasp and stood up. He quickly ran towards the door and opened it. Now, not only he saw there was a sun eclipse going on, but some of the ghosts had started to communicate with the people on the street before vanishing. Then there was the same white wolf Amhyr and Rose kept seeing in their lives.

"Rose, what is going...oh."

"Rosalinda Van Helsing...," said the wolf to her. "The balance is broken, and there be wolves." It then vanished.

"Shit, Seiryu was trying to warn me about this! I can't believe that prophecy is not a joke."

"What did he mean by 'the sun will sleep when the darkness wakes'?" asked Capisa.

"It's an old prophecy which many misinterpreted as the cycle of the day. My sensei told me that it's an eclipse that would never happen outside of scientific calculation, which is today. What does he mean by dimension? Rose, what did that wolf mean?"

"No...It can't be that, right?" She turned around to her friends and said, "Guys, you do know that I'm researching the Lycan virus' effect on humans, right?"

"I read your journal, Rose, but it can't be right," said Amhyr.

"As fantastical as I wrote it, it's all based on my findings. There be wolves...what she meant was the activation of dormant Lycanthropy gene resided in 25 percent of human population! The Praxis wave is amplified by the concentration of the UV reflected by the moon during nighttime, but in an eclipse, because the sun was burning the moon and casting a shadow to us, the wave was amplified five time more...and if not treated, the dormant virus would activate the gene and caused some humans to become werewolves!"

"What's the problem with that?" asked Dairyu.

"Lycans are under constant fire because the virus was slowly changing people into Lycans. We may be able to contain rampaging werewolves, but we can't prevent the widespread panic of humans slowly becoming extinct, replaced by wolves. There will be anarchy."

"So we are facing the end of the world, huh? So much for coming back to civilization."

The five of them couldn't do anything as the sun started to be blocked by the moon. In under five minutes, the sun was completely blocked, creating a dark night time situation where the lights all around them automatically turned on, creating a lively, full-of-light Caldwell. Unlike normal eclipse, though, it didn't start to move away from the supposed one-minute full eclipse, and it stayed there, as if time stopped for the cycle of the moon.

It was only time before the world would descent into chaos, and a new threat emerged, one that was more dangerous that what the galaxy, or possible the universe, would ever thought of.