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"Hey, turn that shit off, will ya?"

Karl MacLeod did his best to wipe grease from the feathers on his hands (where they still grew in, anyway), stepping out of the main garage and towards the back room of Deyarmin's Garage. It was getting late in the day, sunlight replaced by the rather unpleasant overhead lamps where he worked, and he needed a minute away from the exhaust fumes. What he didn't need was what he saw on the television when he came in.

"Aw come on, I got fifty bucks ridin' on this fight!" whined a coworker draped on the office's old couch.

Karl clacked his beak unhappily, but blew out a breath through his nostrils. "Fine, just... fuckin' hell. At least tell me ya bet against that asshole."

Teddy, a younger ferret who'd gotten hired recently, laughed. "You kiddin'? You even seen this guy? Alfie's a fuckin' killer. He's gonna knock that fatass boar's head up into the back row."

The burly griffin dropped on an available chair, grunting. Deyarmin's didn't have an especially swanky break room, but it was decent enough. Two chairs and a couch that had seen better days, a mini-fridge with a "no beer" rule that the owners didn't enforce all that much, and a pretty nice television mounted on the wall. It was a decent spot to unwind now and again, at least when something else was on the screen.

Karl looked up, watching the show for a few minutes. It was better than staying out in the garage. He saw the rat in question, a punk looking guy with a blue mohawk and a nose ring making a big flamboyant show while he went up for his weigh-ins.

"Big boy, ain't he?" the hybrid chuckled darkly.

Teddy nodded rapidly. "Yeah! Like, you ever seen a rat his size? Holy shit I wonder if he's got somethin' else in him."

Karl couldn't really argue that. The rat looked bigger than any he'd ever met. Broad in the shoulders and with one hell of a build.

"Yeah, well, he's probably gettin' injections every day to look like that," the griffin grunted, taking a cheap beer out of the fridge and popping the bottle cap off. "Still don't get why that fuckin' nibbler got a pro contract."

The ferret winced. "Easy, Karl, god damn. Come on, you saw those videos, right? He was killin' everyone! Those knockouts were nasty!"

Much as he wanted to deny it, Karl had seen the videos, and damn they were pretty entertaining. The big rat lived out in some slum in England and showed up online in a couple street fights, all of them being almost uncomfortably one-sided. The fact that those stupid videos led to this punk getting picked up in professional fighting, probably for millions of dollars a year, getting paraded around like a celebrity... it just burned him up.

"Whatever. I hope he gets that fuckin' nose busted."

It wasn't fair. That rat, that fucking rat, being a big star and him stuck in this shithole job working overtime because he needed to fix a door. That was supposed to be him up on that television, grinning and flexing for the cameras.

"MacLeod!"

The eighteen year old griffin spun on his heel, football tucked under his arm. If a beak could be described as having a big grin stretched across it, Karl's certainly did. The team was doing two-a-days for the month leading up to the semester starting, and the star wide receiver was barely breathing heavily even after an hour of drills. Unlike several of his teammates, several of whom bent at the waist, their hands on their knees for support.

"Yeah coach?" he replied, jogging his way to the sidelines.

"You wanna explain just what the fuck you call that?" came a sharp followup question. Coach Burnham wasn't exactly an intimidating presence, a short goat with a voice that was a bit on the high side, but he made up for it with volume and a liberal peppering of curse words in his sentences. Most of the other players tended to flinch when he yelled at them, but not Karl. He just kept looking as cocky as ever, standing at the sidelines and spinning the ball casually between his hands.

"I dunno, pretty sure that was catchin' the ball and gettin' a touchdown."

The goat let out an unhappy bleat, reaching up and tapping Karl on the head with a finger. "Hey. Hello! Earth to MacLeod! Both hands on the ball! Ya got it? You keep doing that one-hand bullshit and you'll drop one when it matters and then what's gonna happen? College scouts are watchin' you, this is your senior year. No fuck ups!"

The griffin laughed, his head hunching down from the rough tapping. He knew Coach Burnham wasn't being mean with it, but those old fingers were like little oak branches sometimes. "Okay, okay! Scout's honor. Game day, both hands. Every time."

Karl's coach squinted at him with those oddly-shaped pupils. "I mean it! All right, get back out there. Hook play, wishbone, go deep, wanna test our boy's arm out a few times."

"Yes, sir!" Karl replied, with a playful salute, before jogging back to the practice huddle.

There were grumblings in the huddle as Karl casually made his way back over, several of the other players muttering amongst themselves while he was still out of earshot.

"Half these plays are just to make him look good," sneered an unhappy maned wolf.

"Coach just wants to get on TV with a hyyyyybrid," added a deep-voiced elk next to him.

"I think he's cool," piped up a rather dim sounding hippo.

The wolf snorted. "Shut up, Earl, that's only cuz he's not taking your position."

Karl couldn't hear exactly what they were saying, but he had plenty of a good idea what the chatter going on in that huddle was. He'd been dealing with it since he started school. That wasn't even an exaggeration. His adoptive father held him back a year before he went into kindergarten, just to make sure his boy had a little extra size on him for sports, and made sure he played every single year. From day one, angry parents didn't want have him on the field. Not just because of him being older and bigger than his classmates, either.

"Those hybrids are unstable!"

"He's gonna jab someone's eye out!"

"He's too strong for how aggressive he's gonna get!"

In truth, Karl loved every bit of it. He soaked it up. Being that menace on the field that had his teammates waffling between resenting him for taking a starting slot and happy to see him striking fear into the other players. He had an eagle's eyes and a horse's legs. Karl MacLeod could read the field from a town over and run from one end zone to the other twice before he even needed to pause for a breath. It was like he was custom built for the game, and that was going to be his ticket to stardom.

Schoolwork always took a back seat to practice, and Karl never had a problem with that. He wasn't the brightest student even in the lower grades, and being allowed to do "extra credit" with the excuse that all of the constant practice sapped his potential study time was just perfect. He didn't want to be stuck in his bedroom hunched over a book, he wanted to be out there running until his lungs burned. School was just a thing that he had to do sometimes.

His adoptive father was a strict one, giving Karl two coaches he had to deal with. Max MacLeod (the "Max" wasn't even short for anything as far as Karl was aware) had inherited his father's enormous corn farm and the supply business that went with it, leaving him with the kind of money that meant his pickup truck was top of the line and the only dirt on the overalls he insisted on wearing got there from when he lost his footing on the way out of his massive homestead. He liked to say he still lived in his great grandfather's house, the one he started that farm with and built with his own hands, he just omitted the millions that went into renovating and expanding it.

Of course, Ol' Max was a dumpy fella, and sports had never been his thing. He liked fried food, beer, and not moving too much to get into that, but always fantasized about being a professional athlete. Hanging out on the beach, perfect body, women hanging off of his muscular arms, the works. Sure, his farm meant he could afford the same lifestyle as all those guys on TV, but it wasn't the same.

That was where little Karl came in.

Max MacLeod worked out all of his own fantasies through his adopted son, turning him into a sports machine. He dumped money into a home gym that was fancier than the school's, and even hired a chef to make sure the griffin's diet was immaculate. Everything in Karl's life was centered around athletics, with no room for error. Come hell or high water, Max's boy was gonna be a hall of famer.

For his part, Karl was more than happy to walk down the path that his father was leading him along. He reveled in it. It didn't matter how much anyone talked shit to him, the boos he heard from the stands on away games. He always walked with his head high, soaking up the hate thrown at him because, no matter how much noise they made, he was winning.

"We need to be careful with him, Mr. MacLeod."

Doctor visits were common. Hybrid physiology was always unpredictable, and that meant keeping a close eye on Karl as he grew to make sure he was still healthy enough to keep up with his sports. He needed supplements for his joints, as well as digestive aids thanks to being part carnivore and part herbivore. Everything had to be closely monitored.

"Yeh, yeh, just tell me if he's good for Friday!"

"He'll be fine, Mr. MacLeod, but if he starts complaining of any abnormal aches or pains, let him rest."

"Right, sure."

Without the benefit of centuries of species specific medical research, treating hybrids tended to be a lot of playing by ear. The way any two species would interact was never consistent from one case to another, provided there were many cases to draw from in the first place. That meant all they had to go on was what they learned about Karl as he grew.

Karl, of course, had his eagle eyes focused on things other than his health, and Max had no interest in playing it safe. He hadn't gotten to where he was in life by being cautious.

"You feel good, don't ya, boy?"

"Ready for Friday, sir!"

An early dent in the griffin's armor happened when he was just getting into high school. He'd had a bit of a temper from his early days, but one scuffle in the cafeteria with an older student left Karl with a bloody beak and a howling raccoon clutching his eye. The doctors were able to save it, which spared Max MacLeod seeing his hopes for his son's future dashed in an instant.

"I understand Karl didn't start it, but that was... an absolutely horrendous response."

"I know, and believe me he'n I are gonna have us a talk about it..."

"Mr. MacLeod, that's not enough. We could have him arrested. He put a student in the hospital. The family has agreed not to press charges, but he's going to be required to go to regular anger management counseling."

"Fuckin'..."

So on top of everything else, every other Saturday Karl met with a therapist. The teenage hybrid wasn't the best at articulating himself, but he did his best, and even grew to like his doctor. She seemed to understand him. It wasn't easy finding someone who knew how to deal with hybrids, but as was always the case, Karl's adoptive father spared no expense when it came to getting his boy what was needed. Even if he didn't totally agree with every method.

"How'd yer session go?" Max asked as Karl climbed into the big pickup. It was a two and a half hour drive, so he usually waited in the parking lot, or got a quick beer during the appointments.

"Pretty good!" Karl replied. "She said I'm getting better at... understanding my genetic predispositions and how to mitigate my impulses," he said, carefully piecing his way through the words.

Max grunted. "Great. Long as she still says you're good to play ball."

Karl nodded. "She did! She also gave me this."

The old hog took the paper Karl held out to him. "What the hell is it?"

"Prescription for mood stabilizers."

Max MacLeod snorted. "You ain't takin' no pills."

"But dad, Dr. Lewis said..."

"Boy, those are gonna turn ya into a got-damn zombie. You ain't gonna be able to play cuz you'll be sittin' around droolin'. Just tell that ol' bird you been takin' 'em and they work great, ya understand? Gotta be sharp on the field!"

"Yes, sir."

Karl didn't like lying to his therapist, but his father convinced him it was the only way to avoid having him too sedated to play ball. After all, if he admitted to her that he wasn't taking his medication, she'd tell the school that he wasn't well enough for sports, and then that would be the whole thing buttoned up. Besides, it wasn't Karl's fault anyway. Damn ringer started the fight, Karl only got in trouble because he was the one who ended it. That was a good thing, right? Better than if he'd been the one left bloody and crying.

It was hard, but the young griffin did manage to keep himself together. Mostly. He had his hot-headed moments, but there were no big incidents again. Being able to work his aggression out on the field helped. When he had "those days," he could always swallow it until practice and then try and run through someone. Then, when he was back at home with ice packs on his legs, he'd be too sore and exhausted to be stressed.

Game day. Opening night of his senior year. Karl MacLeod rarely got nervous, but he was feeling some jitters this time. He knew there were scouts in the stands, checking out prospects. Watching to see how they would do. How he would do.

Karl had to be perfect.

Coach Burnham knew there was a lot riding on the game, not just for their star player, but everyone who was looking at colleges for the next year. He had to do more than just aim to win, he had to make sure everyone had at least some time to shine. Winning would be great, too.

The first half was a grind between two rivals, with neither side able to get much done. The teams pressed each other, but by halftime it was still zero to zero, and the lack of action wasn't looking good for anyone.

"We gotta get on the fuckin' boards, guys!" the goat angrily bleated back in the locker room at his team.

Karl called from the back of the room. "Think Davis's arm is warmed up enough?"

Coach Burhnam looked back at the griffin. "Enough for what?"

"I feel like goin' deep!" he said back.

Third quarter. First play. The team was back on their own ten after barely stopping a touchdown attempt before the half ended. Karl MacLeod wanted to start the second half off with a bang. They stood in the huddle, with the griffin glancing over at his quarterback.

"Like I said, you think you can get it down there?"

Simon Davis, an ape with arms that went down to his knees, snorted back. "Think you can get down there in time?"

Karl clacked his beak, grinning at the corners. "Try me."

The team got in formation. Karl planted one foot at his rear, ready to go.

Simon stood behind the center, a heavy rhino in his first game on the varsity squad. They had a slew of audible calls, but a few fake ones just to throw off anyone who was trying to decipher the system.

"Set!" Simon called.

"Navy beans!" he said, glancing over at Karl.

The griffin grinned.

"Navy beans!" Simon repeated.

"...hike!"

Karl MacLeod shot off like a rocket, making his way around the defensive backs as quickly as he could. He ran harder than he'd ever gone in practice. His legs were burning, every step feeling like he was slamming on steel, but he kept going. Those scouts were out there, they were gonna see just what he was made of. This was his moment.

The defense was in pursuit, but they couldn't keep pace. Karl glanced over his shoulder. The ball was coming. Not as fast as he would have liked, though. Somehow he'd been hoping that ape could have gotten a pass that went all the way to the end zone, because he sure as hell felt like he could make it there. Still, a near seventy-yard bomb, and then just a hop and a skip to glory.

He slowed a touch to make sure he was in position. The ball closed in.

Karl MacLeod reached out, with one hand.

Effortless. A flawless, and flashy catch. The home crowd immediately burst into cheers.

Touchdown.

He'd done it.

"God dammit, MacLeod!" Coach Burnham shouted at Karl as he walked to the sidelines. "What the fuck did I tell you about that showboating?"

"Ah... shit, did you say something about that? I must have forgot! What was it?" the feathered equine, said, trying to look innocent.

"Don't... you know damn well I told... you're goddamn lucky you caught it!"

Karl sat on a bench while the defense team took over, kneading at his thighs. That run had done a number on him. It was a deep ache. He'd be bathing in ice that night, but it was worth it. That play would be on highlight reels for the rest of time, and it'd be his ticket to a full ride to... well, he had no idea what school he wanted to go to, but wherever it was, it was just a quick pause on his way to the pros.

He wasn't done though.

"Coach! Let me in."

The goat grunted, scribbling on his notepad. "In what?"

Karl nodded towards the field. "Let me get in on defense. C'mon, I wanna get at least one good sack today."

Coach Burnham glanced up at the big griffin, then snickered. "Ah, fuck it. Why not, you got your lucky horseshoes on today. Gregory!!" he bellowed out at the field. "Swap with MacLeod!"

As Karl jogged past the grumpy wolf, he gave him a light thump on the chest. "Just a couple plays, I promise."

"Yeah yeah..."

Karl played defense now and again, though it wasn't his specialty. The extra impacts tended to leave him more banged up than running for passes. He liked it, though. There wasn't much that matched the rush of drilling someone into the dirt just when they thought they were going to get a big play. The quarterback on the other team was a rival of his, to boot. A cocky thoroughbred, fullblooded horse, and one who loved taunting him for being a hybrid.

This one was personal.

Karl MacLeod squared off, two long strides back from the line, waiting for the cue. He stared bullets at the other equine, waiting until he looked over, making sure their gazes locked. He wanted that message to come across loud and clear.

"I'm comin' for you," the griffin's eyes silently warned.

The ball snapped, and Karl immediately darted towards his target. He was fast enough to get over the line before anyone else, and sharp enough to see which way the offensive linemen were going to rush so he could get around them. He pivoted, carefully sidestepping and lunging with all the grace of his two genetic halves. Behind them, the thoroughbred saw him coming and tried to step back, tried to get out of the way of the incoming griffin. It was no use. Karl was barreling towards him and there was nothing he could do.

A clatter of pads, a crunch of bodies against bodies.

An ungodly howl of agony.

The referee's whistle sang out as loud as the old frog's lungs could make it. What started out as a chaotic pile of players quickly separated, making a small ring around one of them. Down in the dirt laid one of them, his eyes wide and his mouth hanging open, gasping for air, feeling his head rush and the nerves in his legs firing white agony.

The players cleared, letting him see what was below.

Karl's legs had broken. His right had snapped in half at the femur, folded to his side and nearly beneath him. His left had broken at the shin, his foot turned at a terrible angle. The half-equine stared down at himself, unable to believe those were his limbs, twisted and bent. The rush in his head got worse, making the sky above him spin and the ground sway.

"CALL AN AMBULANCE!!" one of the players cried.

As Karl MacLeod was carried off of the field on a stretcher, the crowd went silent. A faint bit of applause sounded to show their gratitude that he was alive, gratitude that Karl himself was not feeling. The griffin wanted to vomit, to pass out, to do something to make the knives in his legs stop driving in deeper. More than anything, he wanted someone to tell him that this wasn't it. This wasn't the end. It couldn't be.

"Mr. MacLeod... please, I need you to calm down."

"I am fuckin' calm!!"

Karl sat in his hospital bed, silent, his eyes down at his legs. One, wrapped in a cast and brace from his foot all the way up to his hip. The other, only from the knee down. He could still feel the terrible, dull ache within them. The surgery had taken... he had no idea how long. The last thing he remembered was being nearly in tears on the table before the doctor put a mask over his mouth and told him to take deep breaths.

Out in the hallway, his father was having a colorful discussion with his doctor.

"Listen, Mr. MacLeod. We're lucky we didn't have to amputate."

"What the fuck do you mean??"

"Sir, please. You have to understand, Karl's... biology is unusual. Frankly it's amazing this didn't happen before now."

"Doc, you better start talkin'..."

"Okay, okay. You see, Karl isn't just... he's not the top half of an eagle sewn onto the bottom half of a horse. The two species are more intertwined than that. In some ways, it's been a blessing for him. One of the reasons he's such a strong athlete is that he's got oversized lungs in his chest. Unfortunately, it's also a double edged sword..."

None of this was exactly new to Karl. He was aware of a lot of his body's "quirks," so to speak. His sharp vision, his advanced cardiovascular system, how he had to struggle with his diet, the extra muscle in his legs.

"You see, Mr. MacLeod, Karl's musculature is resting atop a skeleton that's not meant to withstand that kind of bulk. His bones are hollow, Mr. MacLeod, and the kind of force they've been subject to has been immense. It's only by virtue of him being as athletic as he is that they didn't give out before now. Ironically, your son's strength managed to hold him together longer than he might have otherwise."

"...Doc, come on. Tell me he can play again."

"Play again? My god, Mr. MacLeod, it'll be a miracle if he can walk normally. He'll need months of rehabilitation. The poor kid's legs are held together with rods and screws and we can't be certain how well that will stay with the constant shear stress that they'll be under while he heals. Karl has a long, and regrettably difficult road ahead of him, and he's going to need all the help he can get just to hope to live a normal life again."

Karl took in a hard breath through his nostrils. A normal life.

What did that even mean?

Karl spent the rest of his senior year of high school a shadow of his old self, drifting through his days. His swagger was gone, that confident gaze evaporated. It took a month before he could even attempt walking with crutches, and the griffin did his best to avoid eye contact with the other students. It wasn't hard. Most of them didn't want to look at him, either. The aura of Karl MacLeod was gone, and beneath it was a teenager who wanted to hide from the world.

Without football as his anchor, he was adrift, with no idea where he would go once he graduated. Academics were never his strong suit, he'd never planned on needing a degree. He'd expected to take some easy major that gave him plenty of space in his schedule for practice and games and then hop up to the pros. A lot of hybrids resented the paths they'd been forced upon, but not Karl MacLeod. He embraced it.

Then it was all gone.

When he graduated, Max told his boy it was time to get a real goddamn job and move out. If he wasn't going to college, he wasn't gonna stay home and be a mooch. One long argument, plus a busted and bloodied snout, later and Karl was in his truck and driving. He didn't have anywhere to go, but he also didn't have anywhere he was supposed to be. For the next few years, he stayed where he could, taking whatever jobs let him use his hands without putting too much strain on his legs, before the fates whisked him to Boston. He'd been looking at playing for the university out that way, and the city sure seemed nice.

Karl MacLeod sat on the old chair in the back of Deyarmin's, watching that big punk rat doing a pre-fight staredown with his opponent. The old boar snorted, and for a moment Karl swore he heard him say, "I shoulda known you would fuck this up."

The griffin grunted, tipping the beer bottle into his beak from the side. "...kick his ass, Alfie," he muttered under his breath.

He glanced at his cell phone to check the time. It was getting late, nearly quitting time. Karl was itching to get the hell out of there and down to the bar with his friends, use some of that money he was getting from the extra hours to help him drown out all those memories of what once was and the thoughts of what might have been. He hoped that jackalope kid would be there again. Hybrids have it tough in this world, and he'd be damned if one got left out in the cold on his watch.