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Chapter 22

I let myself study hard for my courses, and it helped to put me at ease. I didn't let my mother know what was going on, this was a chapter that I wouldn't want her to write. I did my research and read through court trials and documentations, and eventually found strings that lead me to a decent cache of information. News about when one of the gang members was getting out of his sentence.

It was at the end of Spring Quarter when I headed down to the Federal Work Camp in Ellensburg. This place was once a college town, but didn't was overtaken by much better schools like Western Washington, Washington State and University of Washington. The education of the school was on par with high schools. Nothing good came out of Ellensburg.

This place was a shithole. There was a small diner that people gathered, and I was in luck, because the rat that had survived that night was sitting in the diner part discussing something with two well dressed apes. Seeing him, it felt like years had gone by since that fateful night. The apes discreetly passed an envelope to him beneath the table and concluded their conversation. I saw all this, because I just looked like some kid, not even quite out of high school. As good of a disguise as any.

When the two apes left, I watched as he pulled out money and a letter I couldn't see from where I sat. It made me miss Rusty, though he didn't believe himself to be useful, he was blind to the fact that he did have something special. It had been a while since I thought about Rusty, and I still woke up yearning for his touch. Wishing that his snores would lull me back to sleep. It felt so long ago since he had held me in his arms.

I stirred from my memories when the rat left and paid the cashier. I followed the rat to the sleazy motel where he was going to stay, perhaps for the night. Those that didn't leave right away might spend the night. Of course, some run the risk of staying here indefinitely as a place like this could easily become your death trap. Too easy to live in a vortex of nothingness and low expectations.

I stood watch through the evening, if I felt tired, I'd simply jump off the second story and gain a boost to my energy keeping me awake, and ever watchful. The stake out was more or less a waste of time. He didn't wake up until around noon. He took what little personal effects he had with him and headed toward the only bus stop out of town. I took my advantage of speed and beat him there. My mother didn't do very many investigative stories. She had told me a long time ago, that it can mean suicide if you're caught. She never mentioned if any of her colleagues never came back.

It didn't seem to make much difference to me. In fact, perhaps I was becoming a little reckless, but I silenced the thought as soon as he approached. I looked as though I had been awake all night.

"Hey kid," he asked in a raspy voice, "mind if I sit here?"

"Um, yea, ugh, sure." I said slowly.

I sat off a little to the side so that he could sit down on the single bench at the stop. I noticed he wasn't much older than his mid-twenties. His nose had been broken a few times, and I couldn't help but wonder if one of those times had been me. He gave me a toothy smile, and slid his almost scaly tail over the bench and sat down.

"Been here long?" He asked.

"Yea, been here all night, the folks kicked me out."

"I know what that's like," he seemed to feel a connection start to build. I had lucked out; we discussed what it was like to have an abusive father and a mother that loved him anyway. He asked me where I was going, and I let him know that I wanted to be anywhere but here. He offered to give me a helping hand to get me on my footpaws.

* * *

His name was Howard. He had a troubled life that I could only halfway empathize with. Though besieged with a troubled life, he was quite an optimist. The gang was his home, and it was going to take a while before I would come across the information that I needed. I had moved into a small apartment with him in Tukwila, hoping that there will be a lead on the whereabouts.

For a week Howard showed me the ropes, doing small jobs for his superiors. I let on enough about myself that he felt comfortable with me. Except my name, I gave him Corey's name--they wouldn't trace it back to someone in a coma. It was still going to take a while before I will have earned enough trust to let me further into their operations. It wasn't much more than drug trafficking and protection services. After two weeks they trusted me enough to go with Howard on a shakedown of a store in Auburn, it was a mom and pop operation and they just needed to collect money. I never knew it could go so very wrong.

Howard and I were in the car driving one of the ape friends he had. That's when the operation became a bust. The ape went flying through a window. Howard seemed to be very on edge as he pulled down a mask and grabbed his sidearm.

"I fucking hate supers," he said as he got out of the car. I drew on my own ski mask as I got out of the car. He went over to the ape, who was lying in a pool of his own blood. "Shi--" was the last words I would ever hear out of Howard's mouth. He collapsed to the ground, convulsing as blood started to spill out of his body. His twitching stopped and his body relaxed, yet the agony was permanently etched into his face. I still couldn't get over standing in front of death, the images of the ocelot flashed before my eyes.

I looked inside the store, and I saw an elderly goat fearfully hiding in the corner, horror written upon his face.

Somebody was behind me.

I turned around. There was something that I would have never thought I'd ever see. A crimson red wolf. Yet, there were a lot of things different about him. It wasn't that his fur was red, but it was red with blood. It seemed to be constantly dripping. He was staring at me.

"Crimson Wolf?" I stuttered out.

He tilted his head. His eyes were bloodshot as well. I could see something familiar in his eyes, yet I didn't recognize it as my father. There was something very different about this guy.

"My powers don't work on you?" Was all he could say. I could hear sirens approaching from the distance. The crimson wolf levitated and flew away. Leaving me standing there, two dead bodies, and a gang vehicle.

* * *

I was hiding back in Howard's apartment. I ran. I couldn't afford to be caught by cops, but now my credit with the gang was going to go to pieces. I called my mother and to try to let her know everything that was happening. I had to leave her a voicemail. I told her about what had happened. I was trying to infiltrate a gang to see where the chain goes, and the Crimson Wolf showed up.

One of the underbosses showed up, letting himself in through the door. He had one other underling with him. He was called Capo Gerald Hardi. He was a solidly built tiger. He grilled me as far as what happened, omitting the part where I was spared because his powers didn't work on me. Instead, I surmised that he wanted me to live in order to tell someone what happened.

"Hrm," he grunted, "I remember the Crimson Wolf, he was quite the hero when I was a beat cop. He never killed unless he needed to."

"H-He said something to Howard," I added ad lib.

"What did he say?"

"I didn't hear everything because I started running," I lied, "Something about a family of otters."

The lion thought about it, then he thought aloud, "I think he might have been the super that saved the little otter kid all those months ago."

"W-What happened to him?" I tested out the waters.

"Someone ordered a hit on them. We didn't want anyone to know that they can cross us. You were there weren't you?" He asked the ferret at the door.

"Yea, boss," the ferret answered back. He slightly nervous, as though the Crimson Wolf could come down upon us at any given moment.

I didn't have enough information at this point, I took another gamble, "Who else was there?"

He looked me in the eye, "Who the fuck wants to know?" he growled. That was a failed attempt. Not taking his eyes off of me, he asked whether or not anyone had done a background check on me.

"No, boss," the ferret replied, "That Howard was keeping him on a need to know basis."

Gerald spoke to me again, "You're awfully nosey, ain't you pup? It's funny that you'd be asking stuff that the Crimson Wolf wants to know. Then two of my guys get off and you somehow live?"

My cover was blowing down like a house of leaves. I would have to do something about it.

Yet the decision to kill the issue came quickly, and it wasn't mine. Gerald drew his gun on me, and quickly the ferret fixed his aim on me.

I put my hands up instinctively.

"This cell has been compromised, no need for you to stay alive." He pulled the trigger.

The bullet hit me chest, causing me to stumble backward. It ripped through my heart as I heard it stop. Was I going to die? I looked at my paws, blood drawn from the wound. Time seemed to slow down. There was a lash of energy as my body quickly consumed the kinetic energy, my regeneration quickly catching up. My heartbeat resumed and I stood up straight.

"It's a super!" the tiger cried out, "Get the fuck out of here!"

The ferret raced toward the door, but I grabbed the broken down lazy boy and hurled it at the ferret. It knocked him solidly to the floor with a thick wet crack.

Something metal struck me in the side of the temple, nearly crushing in my skull. My balance waivered. I steadied myself against the wall. The energy rushing back to mend my wound while it prepared me for his second strike. I ducked out of the way of a metallic blur. It swept past me and tore through the dry-wall.

I made some clearance between Gerald and myself. His arms were a heavy onyx color, they looked like metal.

"They say to kill someone with regeneration, you just have to make it so they can't reconstitute themselves," he smiled, "I'm up for the challenge."

* * *

The apartment was small, and I wasn't very good at close quarter fighting. Last time I did it, I exploded. I dodged out of most of his punches. He seemed to position himself like a boxer. For having metal arms, he was quick.

"You don't think I can do this all day?" He had positioned himself so that I had no access to the front door. There was always the window, but I needed information out of the ferret.

He lunged at me, and drove a fist into the wall. I narrowly escaped. He still wasn't faster than me. He spun quickly from where he was and clothes lined me against the opposite wall. It winded me for a second, but I regained my composure fast enough to maneuver under another punch. His knee came up and caught me along the chin sending me to the ground. His knee felt fleshy though, perhaps it was just his arms that were only metal.

He went to stomp on me, but I rolled away in the nick of time. I didn't burn much more of the speed as to not tip him off. I readied myself in a position similar to his.

"Ah, the pup thinks he can play this game too. Let's see your super strength!"

He opened up for a split second to challenge me. I mustered all my strength and I drove it home right to his chest. Something was wrong. I made contact with more metal. Though it echoed deep around the room, he was solid metal. He shifted back quickly into his normal form, leaving just his arms metal.

"Pretty powerful punch kid," he took advantage of my awe and struck me across the muzzle. I fell to the floor like he just swatted a fly. I could feel the surge of energy that it gave me. I wasn't at my most powerful, yet, but I easily had the upper hand. He had no way to know what each of his hits were doing. Pretty soon he would.

"You're holding back kid."

I went in, with several quick strikes, all of them impacting metal. All of them adding to my stores of energy. He brushed me aside again and I went through one of the walls. I felt more energy surge in my body. Luckily, there were no inhabitants in this apartment. Though I was going to have to end this before I overloaded.

I charged him again, and he grabbed me by my neck. He started to squeeze and I could feel it crushing down past the muscles that had grown during our fight. I reached up to his face just as it became solid metal again. He smiled through his metallic face. I tried to smile back, and wasn't sure what came out. I was starting to lose consciousness. Perhaps I couldn't create oxygen through regeneration. I wasn't sure if I could asphyxiate, weren't those just toxins produced by lack of oxygen? I didn't want to stick around to find out. He couldn't possibly be invulnerable all over. I drove my digits into his eye sockets and drew out both metallic eye balls.

Quickly they turned back to flesh and blood. Screaming in a very alien growl, he let go of my neck and dropped to the ground, my crushed windpipe regenerating, not fast enough for me to keep from coughing and gagging and vomiting just a little.

I regained most of my neck and I crept away from the blind metal golem, picking up an unconscious ferret along the way. I could hear him screaming himself hoarse while I was blocks away.

* * *

The ferret finally woke up. We were on the roof the apartment building down the street. It seemed like a convenient place to have a one on one conversation. He swore when he found himself tied to a chair that was front row to a delicate balance between the roof and a six story drop.

"All I want to know is who else was with you that night you killed the family of otters," I told him calmly.

"Fuck you, you little punk bitch."

I leaned the chair a little bit over the edge to give him a better view of what lay below.

"Fuck!" He tried to get a grip of the ground, but his footpaws swung over the edge of the building.

"It's just you and me up here, so, nobody will have to know that you told me." I pulled the seat back onto solid rooftop and spun it around so that he could see me, "Tell me what I want to know."

"I ain't gonna tell you nothin'!" He spit on me.

I easily picked up his chair by the back and a leg and brought it up over my head and walked over to the edge.

"F-Fuck!"

I gave the chair two pumps as though I were going to chuck him off if it. As I wound up a little farther with the last one, he screamed, "I'll tell you, just put me down!"

I dropped him on his face. He was crying, "I'll fucking tell you."

"What were their names?"

He gave me the names of the three people who were there, and the one who ordered the hit. Apparently two pounds of designer drugs went missing under the kid's watch, and suspected that they still had it after their interrogation failed. It was all he knew.

I carried him in his chair and jumped off the edge and landed safely on the ground. I thought he wet himself at the start of the jump. The shock of the landing gave me more than enough energy to travel home with ease. I had decided I would leave him here and have the cops come pick him up. He made the decision much more difficult.

"Do you think we won't find you?" Suddenly his strength came back, or at least the impression that he had ground to stand on. "We won't stop by destroying you. We will make you watch as we kill your whole family."

He spit on the ground, but it didn't go very far.

"We'll make your mom beg to spare your lives just like that otter bitch."

I pictured Lester's mother crying and pleading to spare them. That they would somehow pay for whatever was lost or come to some mutual agreement. Just before they shot her.

I felt an anger rise from the pit of my stomach, and it consumed me.

The voice that wanted to spare his life and let him serve his time in prison fell silent. He wasn't like Howard who was stuck in this life because he had nothing else. This one was perverted, if I didn't stop him, he would continue to do bad things. He wanted to kill people; therefore I was obligated to protect people from him and those like him. I picked up the chair by the back legs, and lifted the chair high above my head. I quickly brought it down onto the pavement. I wasn't even sure he screamed as he became one with the asphalt.

His body lay crumpled when his brain stopped sending feedback along his nerves. The splattering sound echoed in my ears as I went home.

Chapter 23

Home never felt so good. I took a long bath that I had yet to take in what felt like forever. Mother left a note saying that she was slightly worried about me having not come home in a while and hopes that I am doing well. She was off to Japan to get an interview with five Mech Pilots who were also super powered.

I had a list of the people behind the murder of the Hoffman family. One was dead. I had killed him in a fit of rage. Yet, I couldn't play the game of justice with him. He won't stop what he's doing. The process of rehabilitation was flawed. These people went back out onto the street, and they were worse than before. It was just a dance with the revolving door of a justice system.

Why doesn't anyone do something about it? Though I had put away several of the gang members, they had still come to do more harm to people. I could not let these people continue to do what they do. Was I just assigning myself to judge, jury, and executioner? No, of course not. Each one is going to depend on the situation of course. Howard after all, did not deserve to die. He was just trying to get by in a tough world.

Then again, neither did the firebug. Yet, there was no way for me to know.

Why couldn't this be any easier?

I heard a knock downstairs, it was slow, but something was familiar about it. It was late, who could possibly be here this late?

I put a towel around myself and went downstairs to answer the door. There was a tall handsome wolf-lion hybrid, whose eyes lit up when I answered. Corey.

* * *

Corey smiled, and asked very nicely if I could pay for the taxi that it took to get back here. I went to the rainy day fund and pulled out enough to pay the taxi. He left really quickly.

"What do you think that look was for? Was he that rude on the way over?" I asked.

We came to the conclusion that the rude glare wasn't because I was dressed in just a towel, but because we didn't give him a tip for the long excursion out from Seattle.

We sat in my room for quiet sometime, we were silent. Corey didn't know what to say, and I didn't know what to ask. I found some leftover meatloaf that my mother had made. He ate it, and it helped give him energy to talk.

He told me that he didn't remember much. He remembered that there was a drunk driver in an old white 4runner that had run them off the road. He woke up to alarms blaring and people evacuating him from the hospital. He wasn't sure if it was the haze of waking up, but he said there were cobwebs everywhere.

I had nearly forgotten about Spiderfox. Everything seemed to have happened so quickly. Nobody even knew that Rusty and I had been there. That fateful trip that separated Rusty and me. Corey could sense there was something wrong, and he asked. I let him know that Rusty broke up with me. He didn't even know that Rusty and I had been dating, and I had to go further back to explain all the trials of high school life that I went through, and relive the pain of losing two people very close to me.

He didn't even seem to flinch when I told him that Rusty and I were together.

He told me that when he woke up, he was left to find that both his mother and grandfather were both dead. His house was taken by the bank, and he had nowhere else to turn. Truly he had nothing more to lose. He wasn't even out of high school. He cried, and it seemed he was faced with nothing but uncertainty and a wall of insurmountable odds. The state wanted to take Corey and put him in a foster home. My mother was listed as his godmother, so he came here.

"Of course you can stay here, I would love to have you here, it would be like all the old times like when we had sleep over's and--"

He leaned into me and gave me a kiss. I was painfully aware of the fact that I was wearing just a towel, and the tent it was pitching was easy to hide, nor was it going away.

* * *

Corey was indeed a virgin. It wasn't well coordinated as the other times with Rusty. He pulled aside the towel and found my erect maleness charged with anticipation. He slowly jacked my cock, watching it as though it might cum at any moment. I decided he would need my help in learning these things and rolled him over onto his back and slowly undressed him.

He was paralyzed with his lack of experience, letting me take over for him. I ran my paws through the fur on his chest, his mane had grown extensively, and now that he taken care of it a bit, it looked a lot more full. I slowly massaged his body, working my way down toward his awaiting prick. It wasn't nearly as big as Rusty's, but it was certainly bigger than the last time I had seen it.

It stole his breath when I wrapped my maw down along his cock. It didn't take him long before he unloaded his salty semen into my mouth. He laid there quietly soaking in his afterglow. I kissed him, traces of his spunk still in my mouth as he sucked it off my tongue. We continued to kiss and stroked each other until he came a second time on belly and my own cock, the DNA batter a perfect lubricant that helped shoot my wad up to my right shoulder and all across my chest.

We continued to cuddle for some time. Stroking each other lightly, feeling each others bodies.

"Are you hungry?" I asked, remembering that I had yet to eat.

"Have any pop-tarts?"

* * *

Summer approached. I had set forth to discover the whereabouts of the remaining people who had murdered Lester and his family. It was a lot harder doing this alone. I couldn't ask my mother for her help, because she was felt it was important that I learn how to do it without her assistance, and that I need to find contacts I could trust. I also didn't want her to know, for the pure fact that this was vengeance, and I don't think she would have been too proud to find out what lengths I had gone to.

I had inferred through several sources that the Crimson Wolf hadn't killed in the past. That notion also seemed to help dissuade the idea that the Crimson Wolf and my father have come back. Not entirely, it always stood to reason that if you were to completely regenerate that perhaps you might not be the same person that you once were.

After all, I couldn't feel a change in myself.

Corey and I sat in the kitchen pondering to ourselves. He was looking through the newspapers, looking for work.

"We could get you your GED," I proposed out loud.

"It doesn't help me in there here and now," he admitted. "I need to find work. They said I had some time before I would be getting the first medical bill."

He frowned. I thought that I had to grow up fast, but here Corey was, and the hardships that had befallen him. Mine didn't even compare. Having a metal tiger wring my neck was starting to sound more appealing than medical bills and collection agencies. Corey's family didn't have much, so most of his inheritance was debt. For now he had taken shelter under our house. I had sent an email to my mother about it, and she said it was perfectly okay and to make sure that I keep an eye on him. Just in case he gets any suicidal tendencies.

As I watched him looking through classified ads, he didn't seem suicidal. Yet, my brush with the notion of killing myself was a lie to myself, because I don't think I can simply cut myself and bleed out or jump off a cliff.

"Hey, how about we take a quick break," I suggested.

Corey argued at first, but quickly submitted, wanting to escape from reality for a little while. We sat on the couches and read some of the comic books that he had missed. He laid his head down upon my lap as he read. I took to casually running my paws through his mane. I would remember the nights like this fondly.

Corey picked up The Death of the Wolf From Mars. I had yet read past the second one and they were almost ready to come out with the final chapter of the arc. We read it together, and talked about how strange it was that in the thirty-years of The Wolf From Mars, his brother never once showed up. We blamed it on Deus Ex Machina. The two joined forces to take down the God Eaters.

We knew predictably, The Wolf From Mars' brother would turn on him.

"How did the real Crimson Wolf die?" Corey asked me. He set the comic on his bare chest and looked up at me from my lap.

"It wasn't from God Eaters, those are fictional. I don't know, they never said."

"Nobody ever claimed responsibility? I mean, a hero like him goes down, and someone's going to want to take credit."

Several villains did try to take credit for it, but their stories were unbelievable, especially when Crimson Wolf beat them time and time again. Perhaps who ever did it didn't want to kill him? We spent some time pondering the mystery before we decided to find out who was more ticklish. He won.

* * *

Corey had found a part-time job working for a movie theatre in Issaquah. It didn't pay much, but it helped him take his mind off things, and every Wednesday, we'd sit alone in the theatre previewing new movies. He held my hand. He would tell me how much he appreciated what I had been doing for him. Corey admitted that he wished we spent more time together, but his mother wanted to keep him closer to her. He was her only reminder of his father.

He also found out that our mothers had a falling out several years ago, they remained cordial to each other and kept their animosities away from us. We couldn't figure out why.

Corey worked through most of the afternoon and into the evening, and while he did that, I took the time to research the names that were given to me. I found most of them through Facebook. They kept people up to date about their whereabouts, clubs and parties that took place around the Seattle Metro area. I found a picture of our group from homecoming; it was surprisingly easy to pretend that I was Lars' girlfriend on Facebook. Though, I probably wouldn't have minded it in the real world either.

The pay off was substantial.

I was able to find them all, save for the one who ordered the hit. He seemed to keep his profile hidden from the internet. Over the span of a week, I met all of Lester's murderers. Each resulted in the same confrontation, a bloodied body in the back of a bar or alley. There was only one on the list that I couldn't find. Yet, I managed to find him through the cell phones of the recently deceased murderers.

* * *

Friday afternoon, I discovered the last of the people responsible for the death of Lester and his family. He had a loft in downtown Seattle.

Corey was getting dressed and ready for work. I helped him fix his clip-on bow-tie to make sure it was on straight. He gave me a kiss. "Thanks so much for everything," he said to me. I knew he meant more than just the sex, or the late night conversations about how he's going to find a way to strike it rich and pay off the debt left to him. Or how he was going to make everything better, and how we would spend the rest of our lives together.

"I think I might be getting a promotion," he said wistfully.

"That was quick."

"I'm a quick study." He grinned.

"You sure are." I groped his butt a little.

Sex was still a bit awkward; he kept slipping out or spending a little too long trying to get it in. Though, it was still quite enjoyable. We learned a lot together, about each other's bodies, I had remembered that he was cut, but that didn't seem to be the case. He, like me, had a sheathe. He admitted that there wasn't much of it there, but after he woke up, it's like it had grown back. We seemed to quickly get over the awkward things. Even the whole part where I was his younger god-brother.

Chapter 24

I arrived into Seattle at dusk. I would stake out the place before I went in, though the other killers didn't have any abilities, this one easily could have. My confrontation with the Gerald could have ended much differently had I known his power. The person lived alone from what his mail box seemed to say. Mr. Lucious Howell.

He had the floor to himself, so there was no way I could get to it by elevator. I did find a way in, through a window, and scaling the walls by the back alley. He only lived on the sixteenth floor. There was no floor thirteen, so it was more like the fifteenth floor.

It was a very nice place, quite spacious. I wandered around, looking for anything that might suggest he had powers in wait for me. Nothing. There was a collection of guns, most of them fairly modern and well kept. The bullets must have been kept elsewhere. Though, I could position myself so he wouldn't have access to them, I made a mental note of where everything was.

The elevator came up to the floor, but I couldn't see it from where I was. I heard a voice but with more than two sets of footpaws.

"We are looking to combat super power with super power," he told whoever it was he was with. "I know I'm next on the list, this guy is going around killing people who are part of my cell. I'm the last that's left. If you do this, you'll be on my payroll, and you'll never have to worry about any financial burdens ever again."

They stepped into view, a well-dressed pit-bull walked alongside the Crimson Wolf.

* * *

I stepped out into their view.

"Good afternoon, Mr. Lucious Howell." I still had the last hoodie and mask that Rusty had left me.

"Shit, that's him!" The guy ran back out through the door.

As I made way to intercept him the Crimson Wolf stepped in front of me. He did some motion with his hands, was it for show? Nothing happened. "You again?" He hadn't recognized me with this disguise on. His voice was still the same deep hollowed voice as before.

"Yea, that's me, you imposter."

"What do you know?"

"I know that the real Crimson Wolf wouldn't be a hired gun for gang bangers."

"Yea, well the Crimson Wolf lived in easier times." Two blades formed from the blood, one in each hand. "These days, nobody can afford to be an idealist!" He swung at me. I caught it with my hand, absorbing the impact of the strike. I gave him a hard kick to the chest that sent him stumbling backward. It didn't cut too deeply, but I had more than enough energy to regenerate.

Or at least I thought I did. As we accessed our first exchange of blows, I realized that my hand was bleeding, and it wasn't regenerating. He looked like he was having difficulty breathing as well. "The real Crimson Wolf also has regeneration."

He looked down an inspected a fractured floating rib sticking out of his bloodied fur. I could see him fighting off the pain in his face. There was something definitely wrong with this fight, perhaps there was more going on than what I could see. Perhaps the same reason I couldn't regenerate was the same reason he couldn't. Yet, this pondering a strategy was wasting my time. Every second, Lucious was getting further and further away from me.

"You're in my way," I said to the fake Crimson Wolf.

"You're not going anywhere."

He threw both of the blood swords at me, controlling them as they sped toward me. My speed gave me an advantage as I moved quickly in between them and grabbed them by the handles. They resisted against my movement, trying to wildly slash at me. I held firm with my strength. A few smaller daggers were flying in my direction. This wasn't good, there was no telling what would happen if they pierced me and I wasn't capable of regenerating from it.

I drew strength and used the two blades to strike down the daggers. All of it turned to blood as they made contact and splashed down upon the ground. I caught a glimpse of something moving quickly in the corner of my eye, a whip made of blood. I did a back flip just barely out of the way. I found myself next to a nice Italian leather sofa. The whip came at me and I used the sofa to block. It easily tore it into halves. I took one of the halves and flung it at the Crimson Wolf. I followed with haste in its wake as he smashed it down with his blood whip. I landed a solid punch in his chest as it forced him up against a wall.

I charged in with a follow up strike, but at the last second I pulled away. The blood that coated his fur formed a solid armor of spikes. The spikes exploded into little shards that nicked and cut at all my exposed parts like my paws. I was close enough to him that I grabbed him by the neck and flung him down onto his back. I could tell that it winded him as he gasped for air, one of his lungs probably not doing so well from the first impact.

He had drawn blood on my muzzle and handpaws, but moreover I was tired. My powers were not as effective and I couldn't figure out why. He was out of the way though. I turned to the door to hunt down Howell. As I raced to the door I felt a sharp stabbing pain in my shoulder. I turned to pull out one of the blood knives as it melted into a pool of blood.

The Crimson Wolf was still standing, and he looked a lot weaker than me. The place was bloodied; the pools of blood seemed to vibrate. This didn't look good. The blood reconstituted themselves into blades, hovering solemnly in the air. They slowly turned so that the sharp ends faced me.

I dove throw the entrance of the loft and slammed the door behind me. The door splintered into pieces the blood now splattered against the opposite wall in the hallway. The Crimson Wolf was coming after me. He hobbled as quick as he could. I turned to run down the hallway in the general direction of Howell. As the blood red wolf passed the doorway, I turned and body slammed him.

* * *

He didn't move at first, and then it was a painful aching movement as he tried to lift himself up. The crimson of his fur started to run, leaving a golden fur underneath. I couldn't help but feel sorry. He collapsed and rolled onto his back. The fur seemed to lose shape as well. He wasn't a wolf at all.

He was using his blood form to take the shape of a wolf. Howell would be long gone by now, and I walked up to Crimson Wolf imposter. He was having difficulties breathing. His form still held slightly, but was quickly diminishing. I knelt beside him, he didn't look like was any danger.

He reached out and took my paw, he coughed something out. "Clayton Hart."

He knew who I was? How could he possibly know who my identity was.

With his other paw he produced a set of dog tags. I picked them up, they were still bloodied, on them, they read, Valentine M Hart. I had never seen these in my entire life, yet here they were. These were my father's tags from when he was in the war. How could he have possibly had them?

He exhaled his last breath, his blood crumbled in its wake. Corey?

* * *

I was kneeling beside the shattered and bloodstained body of my best friend and god-brother.

This was some kind of cruel joke. Corey was at work at the theatre. A trick by some shapeshifter. I fought the tears of seeing him like this, but I found my phone and dialed in his number. It rang twice. I felt a wave of relief. The relief died faster than it had come. I heard the ringtone of the phone I had bought him in order to keep in touch.

I collapsed upon his fallen body. I held it close to me. The warmth of his blood slowly cooling as the sensation of the world started to dim to a nothingness. How was I to know? How was I supposed to know that this was the promotion he was talking about? Why? Why couldn't he have just chosen to work at a movie theatre? Why did he have to be the Crimson Wolf?

What had I done? Why did it have to be Corey? Why tonight? Why did it have to end like this?

My questions went unanswered; the only sounds left were the echoes of my sobs, hoarse from my crying.

Chapter 25

Mother and I were the only ones to attend his funeral. No one knew what to say, I didn't have words for his eulogy. I was sad that now he was gone, the memories of our childhood seemed to be so far away. It was at my hands that he died. What for? I spent seventy hours hunting down Lucious Howell, and he paid. He paid with every body part I could get my paws on and tear from his body. It wouldn't bring Lester or Corey back.

Was I left to live this life cold and alone?

Mother tried to comfort me, how was I to know? That was it, I couldn't have known. This wasn't the first time that my lack of knowledge killed someone. I didn't want it on my paws anymore.

Rusty was right to quit; now I know what he saw his future as. This wasn't the life for me. People died, and for what? So that the world could feel some sort of justice? Dust in the wind. That's what we all were, nothing more, nothing less.

* * *

Fall Quarter was about to start, and I waited in line for registration. I wore the tags that Corey had given me as a reminder of the pain and misery that my powers brought upon me. No justice had been served.

"Clayton!" A familiar voice called out, "Hey, over here!"

I turned around, "Lars?"

The Rottweiler pushed his way through the line, his obvious lack of care for other people waiting in line annoying them as he passed by them. I suppose I didn't care if I associated with him. I extended my paw, which he looked at, he wrapped his arms around me and give me a hug, picking me up a little off the ground before setting me back down on my footpaws. Lars had beefed up in the months that I was gone. He was quite a husky Rottweiler.

"How are you?" He gave me another hug, "I'm so sorry to hear what happened to Lester, it was tragic."

"I'm doing okay, I've seen better days," The wounds had healed, physically and for the most part mentally. My mother told me that mourning can only do so much, and it was true, the world did move on, and I had already spent the rest of my summer sulking. The death of Howell didn't seem lessen my misery, though he was the cause of my loss.

"So what classes are you signing up for?" He glanced at my schedule, "Jeez, you can't get enough math, can you?"

We laughed, "How about you?"

"They have a really good RN program here. Perhaps I can find a really sexy nurse."

"You broke it off with what's her name?"

"Well, we just weren't very compatible, outside of the sex."

I smiled and nodded, acutely aware that nobody else in the line was speaking at all, and they were paying a lot of attention to our conversation. This was getting very awkward as they weren't happy that Lars just cut them in the line.

"How's Rusty?"

I must have given him a strange look, because he frowned. "It's been a while since I've talked to him," I admitted.

"So, you're free on the market then?"

"What's that supposed to mean?"

"Well, after you guys left," he looked a little anxious to skip to the end, but wanted to tell the story properly, "We wanted to make a point of equality at the school. So Dennis and I, we quit the team. It didn't draw too much attention, so we figured we might have to be a little more drastic. So, well, Dennis and I pretended to be in a relationship.

"So come prom night, stuff gets out of paw, and we end up in the sack together."

"That's heartwarming, Lars. Really it is." I felt eyes upon us from all directions.

"Well, Dennis moved off to Utah with his fiancée, who will never find out about it, and last few guys I dated, just sort of see me as this dumb jock, and that I was, sort of hoping I'd find someone who might like me for more than a piece of ass?" He gave me a little shrug.

"So what are you trying to say?"

"Well, I don't know, maybe we could go get some coffee after registration?"

* * *

We sat down over coffee and had a conversation about how life had changed for Lars since everyone thought he was a pole smoker. He said he found it funny because at first he wasn't one, but learned that it wasn't so bad. He had to admit that guys with antlers were great at oral, at the least it was very fun.

By the end of registration, we had a similar schedule. We had a biology class together and a Film as Literature class as well.

We talked well into the evening. The coffee house just off campus was shutting down. I had all but forgotten any of the problems that happened since the beginning of this year when he kissed me. It seemed to make the whole world okay. This was a going to be a much better year, I had a feeling in my gut that told me so. The dawn of a new era even.

Though I would remember the next six years fondly, I would learn that there's no such thing as a happy ending, just an unfinished story. For the tale of a super hero, isn't always the most glamorous, nor happy. Mine will continue to be a grim and bloody path, with patches of good times to cling to.

Chapter 26

It was exactly six years since Corey had died. Mother and I visited his grave. Every time about this time of year, I had dreams, of my father and me on the Space Needle, as I sat upon the edge, Corey would join me as we watched the city from above.

"Did they ever find dad's body?"

"No."

"Think he's still out there?"

"No."

"I hear they sometimes come back."

"Clayton, your father is dead. It's been almost ten years. Nobody's heard from him." She sighed with a silent resolve, "Corey was the only one who had anything that resembled your father's powers."

"Why do you think that is?"

"Abilities come in all forms and isn't specific to anyone person."

"But why is it that Corey had similar powers to Dad?" It had bothered me every time this year, "Why wouldn't it be his son that had some abilities like his? Hawkcat Two is the son Hawkcat."

"We talk about this every year Clayton."

"And I know you hide something from me every year."

"I-" she had no idea that I knew that I could sense it, and it grew stronger every year. Nor did I share with her my dreams of my father with me and Corey. I had suspicions, but none of it confirmed.

We watched the tombstone in silence as the Seattle haze turned into a fine mist.

"He's your half-brother," she said solemnly. "Vicky and I agreed it would be best not to tell either one of you. We both loved him dearly, and we were best friends at the time. Your father had slept with her during a brief period when your father lost his memories, and she wanted to keep Corey to remind herself of the love that she had."

"Did Corey know? This is why he grew up without a father?"

"Think back Clayton. This is how you and Corey became best friends, until your father died; you two were inseparable because of your father. Everywhere he'd take you, Corey would go too. He was still the father figure in Corey's life.

"As for whether or not Corey knew," she sighed, "He might have known if he was going through Vicky's belongings, or perhaps his grandfather told him. I couldn't say."

"Did you know he was the Crimson Wolf?"

"I had my suspicions when you talked about what had happened in the hospital. It seemed very convenient that Corey was in the same hospital. Albeit, he was in a coma."

I frowned.

"There was no way I could have known that you two would have been fighting each other. Last time I heard of any super powered brothers fighting, their abilities canceled each other out."

We waited for each other to say something more. The rain starting to come down in the cemetery. I had seen the article of brothers, both who had powers, and they seemed to negate each other. It had triggered my initial suspicions of what had transpired.

Corey was more than just a god-brother.

* * *

Mother dropped me off at my apartment. The car ride had been very silent. Before I closed the door, we exchange 'I love you's.

Lars was on the couch watching some television, still wearing his scrubs.

"Hey," he said as I walked in through the door.

"Yea, you just get back?"

"Yup, had a double shift at the Evergreen," he yawned as he flipped the channel.

We had just moved in a month ago, there were boxes scattered about. I had moved the couch in at the beginning, and Lars slept on that mostly, with the boob tube still on. We had a futon in the bedroom, but Lars had trouble sleeping on that. I sat down next to him on the couch. He gave my paw a squeeze.

"Tired?" I asked.

"Kind of," he flipped a few more channels, "You working today?"

"Naw," I said, "Took the day off." I had found some work after college, mostly stocking at the Costco by our apartment, it wasn't the best, but who could really hope for the best. Two years ago, after I finished Running Start, the market still was in the hands of the employers. Mother offered me help me for a while if I wanted to still live at home, but had made the decision to live out on my own.

"Hundreds of channels and not a damn thing to watch."

"We could pop in a movie or something."

The large Rottweiler pulled himself out of the couch and wandered over to the packing box closest to the television. I watched him sift through the box looking for something. Lars had steadily put on weight, he ate quite a bit more with his job, and though he did quite a bit of running around, it wasn't nearly as strenuous as when he had done football. He mostly said it was his metabolism. While he wasn't looking, I leaned back and put my footpaws up, taking up the whole couch to myself.

He had put something into the DVD player, and slowly walked back. He frowned slightly, but sat down on top of my stomach. He leaned back with a stretch and a yawn, resting all his weight upon me. Over the years, I had been able to disguise my powers better and better, the pool in which my body drew energy was a lot easier to manage. I had a better control over how I appeared when it absorbed energy. I decided against letting Lars know, I had hung up the gig, and he preferred to be the stronger manlier one. More importantly the dominant one.

Though, as he slowly began to rub the bulge in my slacks, I remembered how much he enjoyed giving head, and how good he was at it. He worked my pants down to expose my junk, leisurely stroking me to my full length. I enjoyed attention as the movie finally made it past the disclaimers, and porn began to play. The pit bull with a nearly impossibly large cock was jacking himself off slowly in the shower. I watched as I could feel Lars reposition himself over me, he was very quick and out of his scrubs. His hot dick sliding across my face until I let it slide into my maw. I could feel his warm humid breath on my prick as he wrapped his mouth around it and took it down to the root.

I could see the pit bull working his manhood out of the corner of my eye, as though he were the one watching us as we swallowed each other's fleshy members.

It wasn't long before Lars pulled my seed forth from depths of my balls. He swallowed it all, and proceeded to lick it clean. I was overly sensitive as he continued to work his tongue along the stiff ridge under my head. He pulled back with a loud smack, and repositioned himself so that he knelt over my face and fed his cock into my mouth.

He began to pump my muzzle with his hard on until he loosened the floodgates at the base of his dick, unloading his usually large wad into my mouth, it seeped out on the corners as he pulled out and squirted a few more shots onto my muzzle.

* * *

Lars and I laid by each other side by side for quite some time. We had taken a quick nap when there was a knocking at our apartment door.

"You expecting anyone?" I asked Lars.

"Oh, yea, a couple of people from work were going to come over for some beers."

"You could've let me know that," I flipped off the television that still had porn going on it. I had to wash off my muzzle and face, "I'll let you answer that."

I went over to the small room that was sold to us as a bathroom. I managed to splash off the bits of DNA that were left on the short hairs of my muzzle and quickly dried it back off.

"Clay?" Lars called back to me, "Do you know anyone by the name of Kenneth?"

"Kenneth?" I said to myself, trying to think back on all my co-workers who I only shared a professional life with. No, I knew nobody by the name of Kenneth. I looked at myself in the mirror and found it to be mostly acceptable. I went back to the front door where Lars was reading something.

Kenneth was around five foot seven, he had a swimmer's build. He was a lion-cougar mix aged about fifteen years. His eyes found mine, and something looked very familiar about him.

Lars pulled me into the kitchen while Kenneth sat on the couch.

"He had this note with him," he handed me the note, "I think he's a crazy person."

I looked at the note. It said that he comes from future, that he came back into the past to find Clayton and to make sure that he becomes a super hero once again.

"He thinks you're a super hero," Lars whispered as though Kenneth might hear him.