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A Thursday Writing Prompt Story, Multi-Part.

I wrote this for Thursday Writing Prompt on FurAffinity. (https://www.furaffinity.net/user/thursdayprompt/) If you're curious.

This one is going to be Mature, cause yeah. Death and violence and stuff.

Jynx Haylex is a smuggler in the galaxy who has perhaps taken the wrong job.

Any critiques are greatly appreciated. Thanks, everyone!

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A smuggler's job is a simple one. Transport without questions. If someone pays you to take a crate from one planet to another, you don't ask why. You just take it. If another pays you the credits to take a bound and gagged individual to another corner of the galaxy, again you don't ask questions. Even if said individual has the unique markings, ears, and muzzle patterns of a particular princess everyone is searching for at that time.

However, sometimes questions are good. Like why do a bunch of university scum rats need to smuggle a biological weapon from a laboratory? How do they expect to escape? What are their plans when they get to where they're going? These types of questions could have led Jynx Haylex away from the terror that he was now pressed with, stalking behind a wolven with white fur in a blue security uniform, who was raising his pistol at the very ones who paid him to smuggle them down here in the first place.

He crept up, slow. Raising his paws in a double fist. The guard held the pistol up and reached upward to tap where the earpiece was clipped on his ear. Slowly. Silently. One step. Then another. And just as the pistol clicked in the guard's paw, he struck.

THWACK!

He struck hard on the guard's neck, sending him stumbling forward for a moment. Jynx grabbed him in a headlock and wrenched him backward sharp and hard. The guard's neck broke with a satisfying SNAP. The guard lay still on the ground behind him. No one in his group of employers even noticed anything was wrong.

Pristine solid white walls ran the entire length of the massive building. White floors, white ceiling. It felt to Jynx almost as if he was walking inside the light itself. Must be the point, he thought bitterly, bet it encourages more efficient thinking or something. The voices down the corridor caught his attention. It was night now on the planet. But a white corridor had the habit of catching all light and reflecting it, illuminating everything with the barest of light sources. He folded his ears in disgust as the group kept walking and talking, as if they were on a college campus somewhere, and not breaking into a laboratory intent on making bioweapons.

"I still don't know why though," one voice pleaded. Jynx could see Jortan's face and muzzle as he spoke. The Vulp was easygoing as a rule. Their people emphasized talking over action. In fact, it's said that in their past before space travel one army almost starved to death while the two leaders sat down and discussed their problems first, a process that was supposed to be a single meeting, and ended up taking nearly eleven months. Both armies were less than an arm's length away, and neither side even bothered to raise a sword against the other during the entire time they were there. Jortan Congro had black ears, paws, and feet, with a black-tipped tail. Red fur everywhere else save for the cream belly patch that ran up his short muzzle.

"Because, they need physical living proof." another voice said, this one belonging to Haylen Falendra. "A video won't do. And like I keep telling you Jortan, sometimes talking doesn't help." Haylen had a shorter muzzle and rounded ears. Her tail was the length of one of her arms. Her body was longer. A serious look was always upon her face as if she'd seen the horrors of the universe. But Jynx still noted that she didn't have the thousand-yard stare of one who actually had seen those horrors and managed to live to tell about them.

"I still say talking can do more than you give it credit for Haylen," Jortan grumbled. He folded his ears down as he looked towards the white floor, unable to look their defacto leader in the face. She shook her head and turned her attention back to the hallway, her tail tip twitching in annoyance.

Jynx rolled his eyes and cocked the weapon he held in his paws. A standard issue blaster, used by most security guards. Strong enough to burn through flesh, but on those walls, it made just a black mark, one that was easy for a bot to wash off. Why it wasn't even hot enough to melt through the protective glass on the windows. Perfect for when you care to protect your building and the items inside but don't care so much about your employees holding them.

Jynx stood at one intersection corner, watching as the group made their way past. Two others in the back weren't speaking. They tried keeping their heads on a swivel, nervous tensions heightening their hearing, and their eyesight. But they completely missed Jynx's small, grey-furred frame as he walked up behind them. "Perhaps talking isn't always the best thing?"

The entire group jumped at once, gasping. Several cried out, Haylen however, was the only one who brought her paws up in a defensive posture, preparing to attack whoever had come upon them. "Jynx," She growled. "What do you think you're doing? Where did you get that gun?"

He threw a thumb over his shoulder towards the white-furred body lying on the floor. "He gave it to me."

"Woa! He dead," Jortan asked, his lip curled up in disgust as his triangular black ears tipped backward. He took a tentative step towards the body. Then another.

"No, he's just asleep. And will be for a long, long time," Jynx grumbled rolling his eyes.

Haylen stomped forward, glaring at Jynx, "I said no killing."

"And I said this ain't a pleasure cruise. If you want to get out of here, alive, you'll wise up, shut up, grab what you came for and get out. Before I have to kill more guards." His hackles rose as Haylen stepped in front of him, raising her thin body over Jynx's.

"If you want to get paid, no more death. No more killing." She growled.

"Then shut up," Jynx said, "and hurry up so I don't have to."

She lowered herself, grumbling a bit. Jortan tried to say something, but Haylen shushed him quickly, her tail flicking more. If she flicked her tail any harder it would have been wagging. "He's right. No more talking till we're back on board. She shot Jynx a look that said their conversation wasn't over. Jynx rolled his eyes and followed as the group kept moving forward, keeping an eye out.

They went by about a dozen different doors. None of the rooms within the facility had any windows towards the hallway. Too many liabilities if they did. Each one is a lab. Each one is a scientist of some kind or another either creating a cure for a debilitating disease, another creating a much worse version of it. Disaster and recovery all being built within an unassuming glass box on the corner of an unassuming small planet on the edge of the shared universe. I wonder if any of these fiefdoms know their weapons are being built down the hall from each other. Jynx thought. They came to a stop in front of an unassuming door. "The cage we want is in the back," Haylen whispered. "We got to be quick about this. And quiet."

Haylen waved a temp pass over the door. Nothing. She waved it again, this time pressing it directly against the door itself. A soft BING BONG echoed down the hall. Then the door opened with the barest of a whisper sliding sideways into the wall. The room inside was large and lit up as the group walked inside. A gleaming white table sat in front of the door that ran nearly the length of the room. Behind it was a smaller white table that sat against a far wall next to a silver crate that had labels on it: "Caution! Test Animal!

Extremely Dangerous! DO NOT APPROACH!"

On the table next to the crate was a locked cabinet with glass doors. Inside the cabinet were several vials, each one containing a disease far worse than the last. Tinocluiosis, a disease more commonly called "Rippers", was among the safer inside.

"Rippers" disease slowly crystallized half the lung tissue in the victim, literally giving them the feeling of their lungs being ripped apart. Advanced cases would "spring leaks" in the lung tissue and the victim suffocates in their own blood, their lungs having the appearance of being ripped open in places.

Haylen stepped forward and grabbed the top of the crate.

A creature inside growled a low rumble that shook everyone there to their bones. Haylen, Jortan, and even the twin Equids Bee and Cee stopped what they were doing, their ears twisting towards the crate and the creature. Jynx began searching, looking high and low, digging into cupboards along the wall and pulling open drawers until he pulled a pistol-like object from a drawer in the far corner and held it above his head in triumph for a moment. Stepping towards the crate he cocked the pistol briefly, checking to make sure it was loaded then stuck the barrel in the crate and pulled the trigger. A high-pitched sound, almost like a whistle expended from the weapon. The creature whined briefly, then snarled, almost sleepily. A few moments later soft snores came from inside the large crate.

"Where did that come from," Haylen asked.

"If they have such a dangerous creature," Jynx whispered, "then they have a way to subdue it. Can't have your test subjects chewing your scientists' arms off, now, can you?"

They approached the door with the crate, then came to a stop. "Cee, Bee," Haylen whispered. "Do your thing."

The twins went to work, pulling every marking and sticker off the crate they could, gently scraping off labels and tracking devices, and replacing those labels with things marked for cleaning bots. Jynx rolled his eyes but said nothing.

A cleaning bot is a small circular device about as wide as a foot and coming up about thirty centimeters or so. It sweeps and mops in one pass and is lightweight enough that it can be used when properly equipped to scale walls and even the sides of smaller buildings. They're shipped generally in small boxes, though. No one in their right mind would look at an animal crate and ever think of "cleaning bots", but still, Cee and Bee continued with the subterfuge. "I know it looks ridiculous," whispered Haylen. "But All of those stickers have trackers on them. This crate leaves the room, they go off. Our stickers will interfere with theirs, making the computer only see cleaning bots moving through the labs."

"If this works," Jynx grumbled, "It'll be a miracle."

"Well," Haylen whispered as Cee and Bee completed their inspection, "Start praying now."

The twin equids stood up tall as they finished, their twin ears twisting forward in an obvious sense of pride. Their long heads and tawny coats glistened in the light from their efforts. Their ears looked almost tube-like to Jynx. I'll never get used to equids, he thought then looked down at the crate. "We ready to go?"

"Yeah," Haylen whispered back. They slowly began to push the crate through the door. The hallway was silent. Everyone held their breath as the crate pressed through the opening. The creature inside slumbered, snoring softly. As the edge of the crate pressed through the door, Alarms began to shriek. The wheels on the crate locked tight. Haylen and Jortan thumped into the back of it as it stopped all forward motion.

The door to the lab slammed shut on top of the crate, barely holding it open. And the creature inside growled low again.

"Oh shit!" Haylen shouted, "Run!"