FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Blade Tail sits on the ground with his eyes closed and his ears open. To any unobservant person it might look like he's asleep on the job. Hid head is dipped down, furthering the effect. But he's still paying full attention. His sciuridan tail wasn't visible above the ground. He had it dipped into the ground, feeling the motion of the very earth around him. There was simply no reason to keep his eyes open or his head up. Though he very easily could have just played things easy today it simply wasn't his way so even if someone were to complain that he's not playing as active a role as he should it doesn't change the fact that this is his last mission. He had served his entire year long conscription. He still has a few days left before he's officially free, but this is the last time he's to go out on a mission as a conscript. After that, he'll be free to do whatever he wanted. Well, to some extent. He's long since lost the ability to even release anymore so he's fully stuck in the form of a six-foot-tall squirrel. But that doesn't bother him all that much, he's gotten used to his new form. But he knows that the general public wouldn't be all that keen to letting a magically inclined giant squirrel just walk around amongst them. Meaning his only true options are to just keep serving for these missions or try his luck on the other side of the portal.

Blade Tail feels someone approaching him and raises up his head and stares off in the direction of the newcomer. None of his papers are responding in any way so there is that consolation. It was an idea he had gotten from that fight between that fox girl and their prince. She had mentioned something about the intent to kill transferring power. Meaning that magic could react to intent. And so after that little fight Blade Tail went to look through his spell book for the first time in months. And it took a while but he was able to find a spell that could be written onto Spell Paper. He has a perimeter established around him with these little papers that will vibrate a little bit when there's the intent to kill. So the fact this person isn't triggering them means either they don't know he's here or not here to try and kill him. And considering they're walking directly to him, he'd bet on the latter.

The person steps out and they are definitely reminiscent of some sort of dog, folded over ears and everything. But didn't exactly look like any breed he could think of. They were also extremely fit, coming apparently in a fashion far different than people in that world usually are. He has a simple tank top and some non-restrictive pants. Far too much flesh for their usual liking and looked far more like someone out for an evening jog than anything.

"Oh, good, you are here," they say as they wave to him. Blade Tail stands up, his head tilted to the side slightly as he tries to figure this person out. "I was hoping to be able to find you. They said it was your last mission, which means this was my last chance to be able to check you out for myself."

"Well, here I am," Blade Tail waves his arms wide in a sort of mock bow. "So I'm assuming you're interested in a fight?"

"Of course," the dog person says, beginning to do some warmup stretches. "I run a sparring gym over on my side and I've always wondered just how I'd fare going up against the legendary Blade Tail."

"I appreciate the compliment," he says, tilting his head slightly as if bowing an invisible hat. "So then how would you like to do this? Magic or no?"

"I kind of want to stay amongst the living," the dog says, still going about some stretches.

"No magic it is," he grins.

Blade Tail begins bouncing up and down a bit, letting his tail rise up all the way out of the ground in an act of good faith. And then after the dog does a final little quick bow, they both adopt a sort of fighting stance. And this allows Blade Tail to really start to get a good feel for how this other fighter is. By the way he holds himself, Blade Tail is certain the dog has had some form of formal training, which is rare. Most that choose to fight him without magic just want to go on raw strength or speed. But as the dog does not seem to be the one interested in starting, the squirrel pushes forward himself. Blade Tail has developed a rather particular way of fighting, taking full advantage of the fact he has a big, thick appendage behind him. As such he relies quite a bit in using his tail to chain attacks and keep an opponent off-center. But the dog is actually quite skilled and seems just as capable of defending against the onslaught, even with fewer appendages available.

And as the fight goes on, Blade Tail is forced more and more to admit the fact that not only is he having the most fun in a fight in a long time, but that the dog is genuinely better than he is. At least when it comes to fighting without magic. And just as he's really getting into the fight and enjoying himself to the utmost he can feel through the ground one of his papers starting to vibrate. He raises up one hand to put a pause into the fight. The dog taking a second to do so but does step back a few steps to give the squirrel some room. Blade Tail closes his eyes and dips his tail into the ground and can feel the new individual making their way towards him. They are armed with some form of magically enhanced weapon. He can't tell from the ground, but the air around the target is a lot hotter than normal. With a sigh, Blade Tail speaks up. "Well, guess I have to go do my job. I'll be right back. Don't go anywhere."

And with that Blade Tail slips downward, letting his whole body submerge into the ground below him. And with barely a few seconds passed he appears right behind the individual that had been sneaking up on him with apparently what looks to be a flame enhanced rifle or something. At any rate, they have the mark of one of the criminals rather than a volunteer and so with little thought on the matter he puts his namesake to use and before they've even noticed that he's now behind them he reshapes his large sciuridan tail into that of a very thin and narrow blade and stabs it through the back of the intruder. He was being gracious and chose for the time being not to pick a target that would be fatal right away. So they would have the option of surrendering, though as an inmate it likely wouldn't mean much. Or they can just try again and he'll finish the job.

"You should know better than to interrupt someone when they're enjoying a good fight," he complains as he withdraws his tail. If they don't know any healing magic they'll also likely end up dying from blood loss fairly soon. Blade Tail shakes his tail a bit to remove the blood before turning it back to normal before going back into the ground to return to the location of the dog.

"Sorry about that. Business and all."

"I understand. Anyway, are you ready?"

"Always."

He goes back to fighting with the dog, enjoying his time to the fullest and thankfully without any more interruptions. But after a few more minutes, as much fun as he's having in this regard to this fight in that he can't simply play it out to its logical conclusion. The dog is definitely better, but Blade Tail can still give as good as he's getting. If he were to take this to its logical conclusion of a duel from their world it'd be a very close match and a debate on who would last longer than the other. He's also starting to get a feel for how the dog is fighting and likely would be able to counter it more easily eventually. But the situation is that in this particular case, in being in the middle of a mission he simply has to be the one to admit defeat. He would love to be able to let this go until he's had his answer on who would ultimately win but he simply cannot. The expectations of the two are not the same. If the dog were to lose and have nothing left then the dog simply takes it easy the rest of the night. He's a volunteer. He can surrender and no harm would befall him and he could take it easy. But for the squirrel. He still has a job to perform. If another person like that one he took care of were to come and try to kill him and he's allowed himself to get too weak to fulfil his duty, then he could easily die and the criminal allowed to go free.

As such, he jumps back out of the dog's range and raises up one arm. "As much fun as it would be otherwise I'm going to have to yield," Blade Tail says, sitting back down onto the ground and dipping his tail back into the earth. "Can't afford to simply enjoy myself to the fullest. Don't have a Duel's race tonight, unfortunately. Have to leave some things available for the rest of the night, you dig?"

"Yeah, I suppose," the dog shrugs and then sits down as well. "It was fun while it lasted at any rate."

A moment later a small creature starts walking around the corner carrying a small cooler on its back. He walks right up to Blade Tail and sets the cooler onto the ground. The squirrel grins at it and presses his hand into the creature's head as he pours some of his own magic into the creature. It isn't very big, looking almost like a prepubescent child made of thick rocks.

"Thank you, Jarvis," he says while opening the cooler and pulling out a bottle of water and opening it up. "Did you want anything? Don't have much of a collection, but they tend to get very testy when I tried suggesting they let me bring the more fun drinks with me on missions."

"Water should be fine," the dog says. Blade Tail reaches in and grabs another bottle of water and tosses it over. "So I have to wonder, why do you always call your golems Jarvis?"

"Because it's always just the one. Most people will simply unsummon their golem and then make a brand new one each time. I've actually done some research on this and have even talked with some of the imps we have as well as some people from this side as well. There really is no requirement to unsummon a stone golem. They don't really need to consume anything but some of your magic to sustain themselves. Keeping it alive requires feeding it some of your magic each and every day. It's really a matter of luck when it comes to keeping a golem alive, though. The longer a golem lives, the more intelligent and independent it becomes. A freshly summoned golem will obey your commands but little else. Jarvis was one of the first spells I ever cast, just to see if I could. So he's had almost a full years-worth of work put into him. So, he's practically his own personality. And this personality is based partly on how I treat him and partly from some bleed over from when I'm feeding him."

"I think I have heard about that before. Of older golems having wills of their own and can turn on their masters or refuse orders."

"That's because their owners don't treat their golems right. Like I said, the personality of the golem depends on how you treat them. Like I got permission a month or two back when my team was doing an exhibition match to go to one of your major libraries and talk to the people there about golems. The golems in that library have been around for years without any problems. Granted they're made of much softer stones than Jarvis so that they can handle the books without damaging them but they're pretty much treated as just a librarian. They've had years of being treated the same as any employee so they behave like an employee. Most golems that go bad are treated poorly. Seen as just something to tank damage or block attacks. There is no respect for them and eventually that creates resentment and they turn. Which is why battle golems are usually just made fresh. But I don't use Jarvis to take attacks for me or to fight my battles. I use him to scout the area, to get things I might be unable to, like carrying around a cooler or moving a boulder or rescuing someone that's fallen in battle. I did actually use him to protect a few people during that special. I can even pour some more magic into him to make him much bigger and beefier. I treat him as a respected servant and friend and so he may not be overly friendly with me, but he's not likely to turn on me or anyone else. Haven't figured out how to make him talk, yet. That wasn't in the spell book and the librarians weren't the ones that did it for those. Who knows, might be something to figure out once my year's up."

"About that," the dog shrugs, looking down at something on his wrist, possibly to see what time it is. "what are your plans for when you get let go? You going to stay on as a freelance?"

"Nah," Blade Tail says. "I owe these people nothing. I mean, yeah, if something major goes down I'll back them up. But just killing criminals is boring for me. There's no challenge. No Fun and the number of people like you who just want a fight for the sake of fighting is rare on these missions. Most of the time everyone just avoids my area or I kill them in a few seconds. I know there's no place for me on this side of the portal. Thinking it might be interesting to try my hand at your arena matches. Work my way up the ranks enough in that and then make a living for myself fighting people who actually make me put in the effort."

"Well if you decide that you are going to go onto our side of the portal feel free to come check me out. I'd love for a more conclusive fight with you in the future since we can't really find out who would really win here."

"Sure thing. I'd love that as well."

The dog reaches into a pocket and pulls out a card before flipping it at Blade Tail. "You can usually find me here. I actually run a fighting gym. I would love it if you showed up for a class or two, perhaps show our students a thing or two while you're at it. One cannot become a master of anything if they aren't willing to learn from any source."

"Don't you know it," Blade Tail says. "Anyway, thanks again for the fight."