FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"People have been disappearing for weeks now and no one gives a shit! I'm not talking a couple of people either, entire towns along the outskirts of the forest have gone quiet! I need help, if you care, please come to the following co-ordinates... please come armed, I don't want to lose anyone else! - Oxyi." Diego ruffled his hair, his eyes carefully reading through the job description to see if it contained any other details but that was all it said. Having nothing better to do at the moment, a chance to make a difference was opportunity enough to show his face.

He was a Coralith Komodo, a rare, black skinned reptilian species with soft scales and a number of useful traits to any adventurer but Diego was certainly a stand-out even amongst his own kind, with vibrant lilac eyes surrounded with deep black rather than the usual white sclera, swept back locks similarly coloured to his skin, a pair of decent sized curious ears and a rather nasty set of sabre-tooth fangs poking out from his short, powerful snout. A massive metal sword strapped across his back and unusual plated armour however, truly made him a bit of an odd-sort, not that he minded the stares or questions. Decently muscled, perhaps slightly on the leaner side than he'd prefer due to travelling light, he was quite the sight for most regular Nomads, who travelled with nothing more than a set of rations and a handgun.

The ship was about to touch down though, these shuttles acted somewhat like buses but between planets and allowed Nomad's to get about between different solar systems, there was nothing unusual about the landing and the ships ramp descended to reveal the usual affair, cargo waiting to be lifted, passengers anxious to board ect. Although there was a lot more people trying to board than usual for a planet like this, it looked like half the town was trying to leave. There was a stand-out though, a rather serious looking security official who was manning a table off to the side of the new arrivals, waiting for guests. Dressed in decent quality security gear, with a bullet proof vest on, combat trousers, thick boots and a couple of weapons strapped to her hips, normally this wouldn't be odd but she looked like she'd been crying... Diego was the last off the ship as he didn't like to push through with his armour and weapons on and it didn't look like anyone had approached her...

As he got closer, he saw her table had a sign on it which read "Missing Civilian recruitment aid" and he realised this was the place, upon closer inspection once again, the lady sitting at the stand had a name tag that read "Oxyi" on it. She looks like a big-cat cross breed, something similar to a lion and jaguar cross, she was thickly built, muscular and rather tall, with short spiky blonde hair, nothing out of the ordinary for someone who worked a physical job like hers. She was turning to leave, gathering her things and sniffling quietly... trying to contain her emotion in public, when Diego spoke up, startling her a little.

"Oxyi? I saw your ad for help? The missing people?" He spoke softly, placing a hand on the table.

"Oh! Excellent! T-that's good!" She turned and she went through a few different emotions as she very quickly looked Diego up and down. "T-uhm-uh. Yes! Uhm, thats great! I see you're armed! With a giant sword... that's not weird at all... or anything... uhm. Yeah."

Rather than be offended, Diego just laughed, nodding and smiling warmly.

"I can understand the scepticism! Don't worry though, check this out..." He held is hand out, palm flat and produced a series of bright yellow electrical crackles from his fingers, the girl seemed to understand the significance of this immediately.

"Oh! You're a psyonic user! That's really good! You must be confident in your abilities if you're wielding half a lamppost as a weapon! Oh fuck, there might actually be hope on the horizon then!"

"Hopefully!" He smiled again, ceasing the display. "Your advert caught my attention... I don't want to sound like an asshole or anything but it sounded desperate... you didn't even mention any pay..."

"That's because I am desperate and i've not nothing to pay you with." Oxyi looked the man right in the eyes to gauge his reaction, him looking her back. He sensed honesty, she sensed goodness in him.

"That's fine by me, I came because I wanted to help. Just a roof over my head and maybe a snack?"

Oxyi broke into a warm and genuine smile.

"Yeah, we can do that. Help me fix this and you can stay at my place as long as you want. OH-SHIT, UHM, I didn't mean it like that-i-just-meant that-" She scrambled for words as she realised how it sounded.

"Its all good Oxyi, I know what you meant." He laughed heartily, placing his hands on his hips. "Lets get to the bottom of this. You got anyone else helping?"

She shook her head.

"Just me i'm afraid. I meant what I said in the advert. Let me give you a bit of background whilst we head to my HQ. I've been doing light security jobs in the towns around here for the last year or so and my work has been drying up fast, I couldn't figure out why so I decided to check on some of my old clients... they were just gone. The more I looked, the more people were missing, it must have started slow but its speeding up now, entire villages have disappeared, starting with the ones in the mountains towards the north." Diego was carefully paying attention throughout, his ears twitching at keywords. "It all seems to be centred around the forest between us and the mountains though. All the disappearances I've noticed are around the edges of it."

"Shit... how many people do you think have gone missing?" He helped her pack up her table and the followed her lead.

"I... can't say for certain. But based on the most recent population counts of those villages, if she say that 75% of those ghost towns are actually gone, its at least 10,000..."

"10,000?!" Diego exclaimed, stopping in his tracks. "10,000 people have gone missing and you're the only one looking?!"

Oyxi nodded sadly, she was leading Diego a couple of streets away from the landing pad, which was just situated outside of town, she had a small apartment that she was using as a home base, nothing special, looked like any other modern day apartment block in a suburban town, made from decent quality brickwork.

"I don't know what's happening but people are disappearing in the night and fast. Some of the locals around the forest swear they can hear screaming but no one wants to go look. I know families who've lost children and they're just leaving, Diego. They don't even want to go look, they're just packing their bags and running. And I can't say I blame them either, every night that comes... I'm not scaring you off am I?" She turned to face him, key in the door.

"Nah, you're fine. This sounds really serious though, why isn't anyone else coming?"

"I can't get the attention. No one cares about this place and because the locals are just leaving, there aren't enough funds to get a merc force down here. I tried to pay for a merc gang myself but they thought I was making it up and without the towns folk funded it, there was no way I could get the money together. I'd have to sell my place just to get a scout! Nevermind actual squads!" Oxyi lamented, frustrated with how the Nomad's here had reacted.

"This sounds like two bigger job for just two people to take on, I think we'll need some reinforcements, I might have some friends we can call on but for the time being I think that we can run some recon tonight." Diego suggested, rolling his shoulders a little.

"Yeah, that sounds reasonable, I don't think we should get into anything too deep tonight. Ah shit. Phrasing. Sorry."

Oxyi open the door to her apartment and revealed a messy clutter of various different bits of equipment scattered over wooden furnishings, the odd weapon or leftover takeaway distributed evenly throughout the mess.

She beckoned him in and apologise for the mess, navigating her way through what look like discarded maps on the floor. She pulled up a chair for him around the wooden table in the centre of the room sweeping off the leftover takeaways onto the floor and grabbing some maps from a side table.

She managed to sketch out a perimeter showing where the forest was, where it ended and where the villages were, she showed her calculations for the missing population figure she produced earlier, showing if anything she had been conservative in her estimations, prior to today her work had been fruitless, only uncovering additional missing people.

"Diego, can I be honest with you?" She placed her hands flat on the table and closed her eyes, letting her head drift backwards slightly. "I'm scared. I feel like I'm out of my depth. You are the first person whose turned up to help and I feel like you may be the only one who does... I'm just one girl, how am I going to find thousands of missing people? Never-mind stop what's actually happening here!" It was completely understandable to feel that way, Diego was impressed that she wasn't turning heel and run herself.

He reached out with an armoured hand, placing it on top of hers, he nodded understandingly and ruffle the back of his head.

"There's no point focusing on what we can't do, let's focus on what we can do night, we can try and establish what's causing these disappearances, we'll play it safe, gather as much intelligence as we can and see if we can round up some additional help once we know what we're dealing with. I'm sure I can wrangle some mercs to our aid, call in some favours."

She wiped a tear from the corner of her eye and nodded in agreement, clasping his hands tight.

"Thank you, Diego. I feel like you're my guardian angel right now... How about that snack you asked about earlier?" She managed to regain some confidence and produced another warm smile, standing from the chair and coming back with some chocolate snacks for him. The two of them continue to plan a route into the forest later at night, appropriately armed and prepared anything that might happen, time is of the essence, every night the passed by cause more people to disappear, they both knew this had to be dealt with as soon as possible...

Soon enough, the evening was upon them, Oxyi loaded up, strapping a shotgun to her back, carrying plenty of ammo and a shoulder mounted camera to record everything. Diego remained as he arrived, a sword the length of his body strapped to his back and surprisingly sparse armoured sections across his body, showing a cheeky set of abs but otherwise protecting him.

The forest was only a short walk away from the town, the landing pad he arrived on just barely on its outskirts. The air was fresh, with that lovely mid-autumn feel to it, this Nomad planet was one very similar to Earth was which the reason for the settlements in the first place, but had too few natural resource deposits for one of the bigger Corps to get involved, thus, it stayed small scale and well within Nomad control. It had a wonderful star though, similar to our own but with a more purple haze to it, as the sun set, the dense forest ahead was bathed in a beautiful orange glow. Although apprehensive about the situation, it was moments like these that brought him peace.

"We stick together and move slow, stay low and quiet. We're here for information, not for a fight... right?" Oxyi took a deep breath and padded towards the treeline, crossing the last field between them and it.

"Agreed. Cmon Oxyi! We got this!" Diego patted her on the shoulder firmly and pushed forward. The carrier shuttle from earlier had departed and the town was even quieter than before, not a single soul in sight on the streets or on the outskirts of the forest. It was only a few months ago that these logs and fields had kids playing about in the plants and families eating food in the open, but it was deathly quiet now... Diego enjoyed the peace but only when it supposed to be there...

The two skirted the outside of the forest, looking between the thick trees but they couldn't see anything, just the swaying of branches and occasional chirp of a bird, the evening steadily drew to a close and there was just peace as far as the eye could see. As the orange sky rolled back into a darker blue and the stars came out, the forest continued to hide its secrets. They agreed to push into the treeline slowly, both were capable navigators so they weren't worried about getting lost, but Oxyi left some blotches of glow paint along their trail, just in case.

With the last of the daylight now dead, the forests atmosphere changed from a chill summertime scene into something more sinister, but the two held their nerves, quietly negotiating their way through the foliage, but once more, the forest was silent. Minutes turned into hours, they stayed low to avoid any prying eyes, but nothing came their way. It wasn't impossible that whatever was doing this was just in a different part of the forest, as it stretched on for miles into the horizon.

Perhaps foolish, Oxyi began to relax in Diego presence, they had been silently moving around for hours now and there hadn't been so much as a wink in activity, so she decided to call it there, moving back by the trail she's left, about half way back, she decided to stop for a break, sitting on a broken log, she patted the space next to her and Diego shortly sat by her. She took a swig from her canteen and offered it to him, which he was happy to share.

"Thank you for coming out with me, Diego. I never would have come out here by myself... its a shame it looks like we're walking away empty handed but..."

"There's always tomorrow, right?" He said sincerely. "I'm staying with you until we get this sorted out."

"Promise?" Oxyi felt for his hand shyly, the male accepting her slightly smaller digits in his.

"Promise. We'll sort this out together."

"Of all the people to turn up at my stand today, Diego... i'm so glad it was you. I swear someone picked the perfect person and dropped them at my door... I don't know what i've done to deserve you."

"You sure you don't want a guy with a gun instead?" He laughed. "And don't sweat it... I'm here to make the universe a better place. It's only right after the damage I caused."

"Ohhhh... that sounds like a dark and mysterious past!" She took off her scarf and placed it over his head like a hood, giggling cutely. "Look at me, Mr dark and brooding! I must atone!"

He played along, taking the scarf in his hands and posing dramatically.

"I must warn you, Oxyi! I am quite the mysterious stranger!"

"Such intense eyes, Diego! I'm swooning!" They laughed together, Diego gently returning her scarf and sitting back down on the log, but as their laughing died off, something made a noise... they couldn't make it out due to the sound they were making, but there definitely a third person nearby...

They both leapt to attention, Diego drawing his blade and Oxyi pulling her shotgun up and shouldering it, they remained absolutely still, waiting for another noise, it rang out quietly after a few seconds...

It sounded like a groan.

They both slowly approached the noise, Oxyi watching the surroundings and Diego leading the front, several tense seconds went by in silence, the two careful with every step they took. Another groan sounded... Diego suddenly spotted the source of the noise, there was someone standing over by a tree, just a few plants ahead of them. They were difficult to see in the darkness but they were making no attempt to hide themselves, they hadn't actually seen the pair just yet either. He was just standing there awkwardly, shoulders uncomfortably hunched together, head hanging a little too far off to the side. The figure shuffled around, seemingly pawing at the tree next to it and occasionally groaning.

The waited together, taking cover behind a tree and decided what to do.

"I-is he drunk? What's he doing?" Oxyi whispered quietly, the two took turns whispering straight into one another's ears to stay as quiet as possible.

"I don't know... he doesn't seem armed or dangerous... do you think he's hurt?"

"Impossible to say from here... do you want to approach him?" Oxyi fumbled for a flash-light and passed it to him.

"Yeah... If he turns nasty, I think we can handle him. You didn't spot anyone else?"

"Nothin'."

They nodded to each-other and Diego stood, moving away from Oxyi before calling out, as not to give away her position.

"Hey dude... you alright there?" Diego gently sheathed his sword but flicked the flash-light on, revealing the figure in greater detail. Oxyi watched from the darkness of the forest closely, her expression changing sharply as she thought she recognised him, but he was... different...

He was a Vulpine-morph or a foxman, average in weight and build, but completely naked, his fur was a dark grey colour and his eyes were a twisted purple, his monotone complexion did not match Oxyi's memory of him, the only reason she knew it was him at all, was because of a unique piercing he had through one of his ears. He was one of her first clients, had a problem with lumber thieves that she sorted for him...

"That's Yeoman... what's wrong with him?" Oxyi blurted out, standing from her position. As she spoke, Yeoman stumbled towards Diego, his groans becoming more aggressive. "I-is that an erection?!" She yelled, completely taken off guard that the naked fox also had quite the level of the sexual arousal. She was correct though, as the fox stumbled forward, he did indeed have an erection. "Yeoman, i'm gonna need you to stop and back off." She ordered, raising the shotgun.

He didn't listen, instead be sped up, breaking into a slow run at Diego, but the lizard side stepped him and kicked his legs out from under him, causing the fox to collapse to the floor and Oxyi pounced on him instantly, pulling a pair of handcuffs out and securing the fox's flailing limbs as he tried to stand again. He was thrusting towards her with everything in had, despite being secured quite thoroughly, Oxyi's shoulder mounted cam was capturing everything.

"What the hell happened to you, Yeoman? We were a good hard-working guy, why you stumbling around the forest naked? Did someone drug you?" Oxyi quizzed, but the fox continued to attempt to mate with her, fruitlessly. Diego was watching every inch of the forest as she quizzed her captive and became acutely and suddenly aware of the danger they were in.

"We're being watched..." Diego drew his blade again, backing up towards Oxyi. "Holy shit... Oxyi we need to get out of here now."

"W-what do you mean?" She stood and looked around, seeing nothing in the trees. "I was keeping an eye out earlier and there was nothing!"

"Well now there's something because I can feel a million eyes on me right now!"

The fox on the floor twisted violently, like someone was controlling his body, his drunk like flailing suddenly turned into precise movements and he kicked Oxyi right in the knee with everything he had, bruising her badly.

"Ow! Fuck! Yeoman! What did you do that for?!" She yelled, he tried to kick her again but she jumped back, looking up, the darkness of the forest suddenly held hundreds of figures running towards them, pouring out from behind distant trees, all naked and coloured similarly to Yeoman. In every direction she should see, the darkness was advancing on them. "Fuck! FUCK! DIEGO! WE NEED TO MOVE!"

The lizard jumped back, grabbing her by the hand and roaring into the air, ribbons of yellow energy sparking between them as he did so, she suddenly felt lighter and quicker on her feet, they pounded towards the glow paint on the trees, figures stumbling out the darkness as they did so. Able to outpace the crowd gathering behind them, Oxyi shouldered her shotgun as she ran, blasting a couple of shells into figures ahead of them, dropping them dead on the spot. Another attempted to pounce on Diego but he shoulder charged it into a tree, body met wood with a painfully loud crack and the monotone figure ceased moving.

She had no idea if she should be opening fire on these things, especially considering that one of them was a Nomad she knew, but it wasn't a risk either of them were willing to take... They followed the glow paint as fast as they could, taking out the figures that made it close to them when appropriate, Diego using the heft of his blade to cut one of the things directly in half at the waist, but the glow trail suddenly ran out with to end to the forest in sight.

"T-thats impossible! I marked our trail!" Oxyi stammered, quickly loading some shells into her shotgun.

"I know you did! Someone's removed it! Can you navigate a way out?"

"Y-yes. I just need to read the map but I can't do it whilst we're running!"

Diego threw her the flashlight and planted his legs firmly, confidently bringing the blade of his sword to his chest.

"Then i'll buy you time." He uttered firmly, preparing himself for the coming assault. Figures sprinted out of every direction as Oxyi took cover by a fallen tree. The blade was swung left and right, cutting through flesh and bone in massive arcs, heads severed from spines, limbs seperated from bodies. Flesh and corpses hit the ground with dead thuds as Diego swung his mammoth sword, one leapt from the side and was intercepted by the sharpened metal perfectly, only blood hitting Oxyi's boot. It was hard to concentrate but she took a deep breath and steeled herself. Just in time, she finished her route calculations, tapping Diego on the back to get him to follow. The crowd gathering behind them was reaching absurd numbers, a literal wall of hungry faces hounded them, far too many for even Diego's blade to cut through, but with their feet back on the move, they could stay ahead, Diego's warcry giving both him and Oxyi the speed and endurance needed to outpace their pursuers.

After what felt like an eternity, hearts pounding in their chests, they could see the street-lights of the city through the treeline. They were almost there. Oxyi ran ahead, with the forest now clearing, there was nowhere for these things to emerge from, the field between them and the city was completely clear, which meant that Oxyi could focus on protecting Diego, as he'd slowed down a little from having to protect himself with melee attacks, rather than the clean, accurate kills of Oxyi's shotgun, but Diego also made it to the edge of the treeline. There were far too many figures to stop though... this needed an army at least, but with the city in sight, there was a chance for things to work out. Just meters from the forest edge, the walking wall of faces stopped... refusing to move beyond its perimeter.

The pair paused for breath in the middle of the field, confused as to the situation. Before they could converse though, there was a loud clack. The street-lights all shut-off together, bathing the field in darkness. They spun around together, trying to figure out what was going on when something caught their attention, a figure was hurtling through the air at them! It was Yeoman, who impacted the ground with a crunch, his bones not faring well as he impacted with considerable speed. Oxyi fell backwards onto her ass, reaching for her pistol. Diego spun out the way nimbly and felt a presence behind him, it swiped from him but he ducked out the way and pressed his fist against the ground, surging power into it. The figure attempted to swing for him again but he pulled his hand free, doing so caused a surge of concussive force around him and sent several bright orange sparks into the air, lighting the field up and knocking the figure off its feet.

The figure dropped to its knees and Diego instantly readied his blade against its neck, but he stopped. A few meters ahead of him, Oxyi was kicking and screaming, but something had her in its grasp.

A massive creature, easily standing two heads above him and Oxyi, was holding her roughly by the neck and suspended in the air, facing towards him. It was a massive green alien of sorts, he didn't recognise the species but it had a humanoid body, with a nose-less face and rather large toxic looking eyes, with black sclera much like his own. It had several carapace plates over its head and limbs, with beautiful, long, jelly-like dreadlock hair protruding from the back of its head. It stood tall, strong and... busty? It was wearing some kind of armoured corset but it was obviously to Diego that this thing was very well endowed.

The creature he'd managed to subdue was the same species, but this one was purple in colour, it slowly raised its arms in surrender but the green one that was holding Oxyi up was grinning menacingly, seemingly unaware that Diego had the upper-hand just slightly across.

"That was fun, little one! You almost made it back to town! But its over now." It hissed, shaking Oxyi about in a display of strength, it hefted Oxyi's entire weight with a single arm nearly effortlessly. "So why don't you drop the gun and make this easy?"

Oxyi did as she was told, she couldn't get an angle to fire on her aggressor.

"Did you get him Seeth?" The alien looked up and her face dropped upon seeing Diego's blade to her companions neck. "Ugh. Now that's annoying."

"Annoying?! Are you the ones responsible for all the disappearances around her?" Diego yelled, one had firmly on his blade, the other preparing another psyonic weapon.

"You should be more concerned with your safety than mystery solving right now, hero." She scoffed, holding Oxyi out at arms length towards him."I heard you two talking in the forest earlier, you were so cute. I just had to get some of that for me, you know?"

"Shut the fuck up, creature." Diego commanded, ensuring his blade was known to it. "You're friend here wasn't quite up to the challenge in case you didn't realise, so you might wanna stop running your mouth."

"You want to protect her." The one he had at blade-point spoke up. Her voice was a lot calmer than the other ones. "You can still do that." As she spoke, the green one tightened her grip on the back of Oxyi's neck, causing her to yelp in pain and struggle. "Agree to come with us and we'll let your friend go."

He weighed up what to do. He didn't think he could save Oxyi if this thing decided to kill her, even with his psyonics. He could see Oxyi was trying to shake her head, pleading with him not to do it, but he couldn't see another way out. The pressure mounted as Oxyi choked in the air, her kicking was slowing down.

"W-what do you want?!" He yelled, desperately trying to come up with additional solutions.

"You." The purple one spoke again, quietly. "Promise to come with us, no fuss, and we'll let you friend go."

"Oxyi... you get the fuck off this planet, yeah?" He slowly pulled his blade away from the purple ones neck and she slowly stood, keeping her hands in the air. "I promise. You let her go and walk away and I swear, i'll come with you peacefully." This felt like suicide, but he wasn't about to let Oxyi die here.

The second he uttered the words, the green ones grip on Oxyi loosened and she was dropped to the floor with a loud thud. The alien backed off, kicking away Oxyi's guns but otherwise letting her stand.

"Say your goodbye and then run up the field, woman." The creature demanded. "A bargain has been struck. A decent Node for a rather fetching hero Mark..." A sinister grin spreading over her face. But she stuck to her word, allowing Oxyi to approach Diego, she threw her arms around him and hugged him tightly, sobbing into his neck.

"Y-you didn't need to do that... i'm just some Nomad girl... we only met earlier today! I'm a no one..." She cried, the aliens watching both of them intently.

"You don't understand..." He hugged her back, holding her close. "I made you a promise. I can't care how long I've known you for, I said I'd keep you safe... Now go! Before they change their minds. I'll be fine! Just get to safety!" She pulled back, rubbing her fingers over his hair and ears and kissing him gently on the nose, before running with everything she had up the field and towards the darkened city, bawling loudly as she did... Soon enough, Oxyi's crying slowly faded away as she ran, leaving Diego with the two alien creatures in the darkness of the field, as his sparks from earlier reached the ground.

He took a deep breath, filling his lungs with the fresh night air. He got the feeling, it might the last time he'd get to do it...