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Fifth of the Savage stories. Soft vore, mild feral sex, a bit of blood and zombies, and a tiny bit of drug use.

*****

Savage: The beginning

By Strega

He was the size of a rather large tiger when they decanted him from the tube, but you wouldn't mistake him for an adult. Huge paws, oversized head, too-large, bright blue eyes, and a wobbly, clumsy walk: you could see that he was a cub, albeit a four hundred pound one.

He blinked uncertainly at the two men in blue jumpsuits, and one of them pointed at a grill set in the floor. "Stand on that now," the man said firmly.

It took the tiger a moment to process the words, and though he could not have told you how he understood them, he did. Without argument he stood on the grill as a hot, chemically scented spray washed the amniotic goo from his pelt. Water followed, then a blast of air, and when he was mostly dry a door slid open. "Go in there," the man said.

That was when he met the others. There were two of them; a black-furred female and a larger male with yellow fur and jagged lightning-bolt stripes. Both were as damp and clumsy as he was.

There was also a floor-to-ceiling mirror all along one wall, and for the first time he saw himself. His shape he knew, roughly; like the other two he was a four-legged cat somewhat larger than the men he'd met. His fur was dark orange, fading to white underneath, and darker stripes ran more or less vertically along his pelt. A more complicated pattern of stripes surrounded his eyed and striped his cheeks. As he considered his lengthy tail, the stripes on it moved.

The mirror flickered and then wasn't a mirror any more. A man stood there now, dressed in blue and metallic gold, with an eye-hurting purple cloak. He was bald save for a complex helmet-like apparatus.

"Welcome to life," he said. "I am the Professor, your creator. You will call me Master. You will serve me, and in return you will continue to live and enjoy such pleasures as life brings. I name you now."

He pointed at the cat with lightning bolt stripes. "You are Sparks." He pointed at the all-black female. "You are Shadow." He pointed a third time. "You are Shifter. Now sit."

The words seemed to bypass Shifter's ears and communicate themselves directly to his muscles. He sat. So did the others.

"Each of you is the product of a dozen experiments. Each of you has a power or powers that I have given. How useful you will be to me will depend on how well the powers manifest in you and how well you use them. You are not the first servants I have made. If you fail to please me, I will move on and create others still. In that event it will be a waste of resources to keep you alive."

A door opened, and a man in a less elaborate blue and gold outfit entered. The Professor spoke from the mirror. "This is Franz. Obey him as you would me." The mirror became, once again, just a mirror.

"Come," Franz said, and they followed him into a larger room. The walls were largely glass, with men and women in blue and occasionally blue-and-gold outfits operating controls or simply watching them through the glass. He had a vague understanding that the equipment was used to study him and the others, though as with his command of language he could not have said how he knew.

"Sparks," Franz said, and Sparks said "Sir?" That was when Shifter realized that he too could talk.

"Sparks, stand on the silver grid." The yellow tiger obeyed. An instant later a fat bolt of electricity snapped from the ceiling. It came down on Sparks' back, but instead of being fried on the spot, his fur glowed brighter and arcs of electricity crawled over his pelt.

"Good," Franz said over the crackle of electricity. "Later we will see if you can generate your own current. Stay there until the charge grounds itself on the grid. Now, Shadow...." A metal plate extruded itself from the floor, forming a barrier in front of the black-furred cat.

"Walk through the wall."

Shadow hesitated, her whiskers flicking uncertainly, before stepping forward. The metal plate might as well have been air. When she was past it she looked over her shoulder. The plate, undamaged, was still there.

"Good, good. Later we will see if you can carry objects with you as you pass through matter."

"Shifter, your power is to change your shape. Take on a human form for us."

Shifter had no idea how to do that, but an order was an order. Focusing on Franz, he visualized himself as a man, rather than a tiger. There was a moment of dizziness, and then pain.

Terrible pain in his joints and muscles. He yowled as he changed, his long torso becoming shorter, broader, mass flowing to his lengthening legs, muscle to his arms and shoulders. Through tearing eyes he saw the others, the cats, Franz and the men behind glass watch. Though it seemed to take forever, he could see from their movements that it was a minute, perhaps two. Finally it was over.

Slowly, awkwardly, he climbed to his feet. Two feet now, not four, and he swayed unsteadily. His balance was ruined, not that it had been good before, and only the counterbalance of his swaying tail kept him upright.

Tail? His hands were massive, manlike, but padded on the palms and fingers, furry on the backs. Orange and white and black fur still covered him. Instead of being a four-hundred-pound tiger, he was a four hundred pound man-tiger, thick of body and limbs and only a few inches over six feet tall. The pain was gone, and he felt stronger in some ways, weaker in others. The two-legged stance would take getting used to. He also felt curiously naked, exposed, his belly and groin no longer beneath him but thrust out for all to see.

"Um...well," Franz said, and made a note on his clipboard. "That's a start. We will try for more later." He made another note. "Actually, there is one more test we can do tonight. Are you hungry, Shifter?"

He was. Suddenly he was ravenous, though he had not been before the change. "Yes. Very hungry." It was the first time he heard his own voice, deep and growly.

Franz waved his pen and a door opened. Another blue-suited minion pushed in a plastic cage with a steel grille door. He rolled it over to Shifter, giving the tiger-man a nervous look as he got close, then left the cage and backed away. Without being told he found the catch and opened it.

Inside was an animal, skinny and yellow-furred, cowering at the back. Once again Shifter knew things: It was a dog, a mongrel, probably a stray. By dog standards it was reasonably large, perhaps fifty pounds.

"Eat it."

Hunger warred with reluctance, and the latter might have won. But he'd been told to obey Franz, and he dragged the dog out. His lips drew back as he prepared to rip out its throat--

"No," Franz said, and he stopped. "Swallow it whole. Your ability to change shape should extend to stretching your body to accommodate large prey."

Shifter hesitated, then "Swallow it," Franz said again, and he found himself yawning. His hands rose, and a canine yelp was choked off as he stuffed the yellow dog into his jaws. Its head slid into his gullet with ease, and he tossed his head back several times. Each jerk of his muzzle engulfed more of the squirming dog, until only a tail and a pair of weakly kicking hindpaws hung out. Shifter stretched out his muzzle and swallowed, and the dog was gone.

He licked his lips as it slid heavily downward. He found he quite liked the taste of dog. The poor thing was still struggling, but his gulp carried it down, and in moments his gut bulged out as it arrived at his stomach. He stroked his belly wonderingly as the struggles weakened, then stopped. Already his guts churned as he began to digest his meal. After a moment he noticed the leather leash hanging out of the corner of his mouth. He sucked it up like a noodle, then burped.

"That was much better," Franz said, and made a new note on his clipboard. "You may work out after all."

*****

Over the next few months they trained, and learned, and grew. Awkwardly large paws soon matched their growing bodies, and cublike heads no longer bobbed on too-thin necks. Sparks was up to seven hundred pounds, powerfully muscular and fast. Shadow stopped growing at five hundred, Bengal tiger-sized, but seemed to be more lithe and agile by the day.

Shifter alone did not stop growing. Three months after they were born he weighed a thousand pounds and was twelve feet long from nose to tail-tip. He still grew, eating everything that was offered. The more he ate the more he grew, and their handlers joked that he would soon eat them out of house and home.

Shadow's power developed; she could walk through walls with a harness and surveillance equipment strapped to her back, or even with a minion clinging tightly to her back. It was imperative that they clung close; a woman once lost her grip on Shadow's harness, and only a foot protruding from the wall told the minions where to dig to find her body. So thoroughly fused was she with the stone that they could not separate the two. Shadow could also pick things up in mid-phase, and used this trick to breathe if her muzzle was exposed to air.

Sparks, within a month, was generating powerful electrical currents. A white blaze on his forehead was his primary discharge point, and he could throw a deadly arc of lightning to any conductive object within fifty feet. A halo of sparks cast in all directions from his frizzed-out fur would stun any uninsulated human within twenty. He was soon outfitted with a close-fitting suit of armor that contained flat banks of capacitors, increasing his combat endurance while providing protection.

Shifter merely grew. His man-form was powerful and allowed him to use weapons, but was slow and clumsy compared to his lithe tiger-shape. He simply could not become more humanoid, no matter how he tried. He failed even to change his paws to hands when in tiger form. His other accomplishment was his "tiger-otter" form, long of body with short legs, long tapered tail, and ears and nostrils he could close at will. Since he was an excellent swimmer in his normal form, it was merely of passing interest to his trainers.

It would not be fair to say that he was a failure, though. His shape-changing powers had unexpected applications. Both of his fellow cats healed unnaturally fast, but Shifter grew back like a weed. He instinctively moved flesh around to replace injuries, and closed off bleeding wounds. Each time he went into the training room, first to face minions with spears, then robots of increasing size and power, they injured him less. Eventually the doctors examining him realized that he was constructing armor in his pelt and muscles, growing bundles of flexible, yet almost unbreakable fibers. His bones strengthened to metal hardness, and extraordinarily tough bony scales developed just beneath his hide. A spray of bullets was now just an irritation, unless they were unusually potent or hit in an unfortunate spot.

Three months after his birth the Professor saw him again. Again Shifter was ushered into the mirrored room, and again the Master in his blue and gold appeared in the glass.

"You were a failure," the Professor said without preamble. "You did not meet expectations. I was going to have you dissected, to see if we could determine what went wrong with your shape changing. But," the Professor rubbed his chin, "I think I have use for you after all. Your new goals are simple."

"One. You are a fighter. Your fellow cats have powers, you have strength. You will continue to learn to fight. If you continue to grow, that is well. Bigger is stronger."

"Two. You like to eat. One of your original purposes was as a body disposal, and I still have bodies I need to dispose. Here is one now."

A door slid open, and a blue-clad minion was thrust into the room. Her arms were bound behind her back, and her face was bruised. Shifter recognized her; she had been among his handlers almost from the first.

"She is a spy," the Professor said, and the woman shook her head. "She has been providing information to my enemies. She will serve me better as a few more pounds of tiger muscle and bone than she does now. Swallow her, Shifter."

"I'm not--" the woman said, but again the Master's words overrode any thoughts he might have on the matter. She threw herself to the side as he leapt forward, but he turned smoothly and pulled her in with a paw. Her desperate protest was cut off as his mouth closed.

Shifter had learned almost from the start that his mighty, crushing jaws could just as easily gape wide. They unlatched from each other at the back, stretching wide on elastic tendons, and he swallowed her head and shoulders in one gulp. He trapped her rump against the wall and pushed his head forward, letting her body slide into his saliva-slick throat. Increasing the lubricating qualities of his drool had been a trick he learned early on. Now it clung to prey like fine oil, nearly frictionless yet coating them in layers, letting them glide easily down his gullet to where the acids waited.

A muffled scream came from his neck as he tossed his head, gathering her feet into his jaws. One last gulp and she was gone, a hundred and twenty pounds of meat down the chute of a tiger eight times as heavy. Shifter's belly drooped as his helplessly kicking meal settled in his stomach, and he contentedly belched up the air that had gone down with her. Any nagging regret was offset by the fact that he simply had no choice.

"That is good," said the Professor, with the first smile Shifter had seen from him. "Now, a new order. From now on, when you need to relieve yourself you will do so in the new pit that is even now being installed in your room. We will strain your leavings and see how thoroughly you digest your meals. And there will be more meals. I have many enemies. There are many spies."

"Also, your name is now Savage. Earn it."

*****

The months went by. Savage grew by half again, Shadow stayed at her svelte five hundred pounds, and Sparks put on perhaps fifty more before reaching what seemed his full adult size.

Shadow's training taught to her to phase instinctively when attacked, until in their sparring matches Savage could touch her only if she was exhausted or if she allowed it. She could phase through a battle robot and emerge on the far side with a critical gear in her jaws. He did not like to think what would happen if she ever attacked him in anger.

Sparks' powers too reached a zenith. The latest-generation armor he wore focused and directed his electricity from one of several discharge points. Fire, too, was in his arsenal, as superheated air around the lightning bolts ignited anything it touched. Savage found his fur burned away and his tough flesh blistered in their matches, and while he could overpower the now smaller cat, he always came away with seared paws and a coppery taste in his mouth.

Savage, lacking flamboyant powers, mastered the ones he had. One day, watching the stripes move as they always did on his tail, he thought to try to move the rest of his fur-colors. Not only did they move, but he found he could change his color as well. At first he took on simple camouflage patterns, but then a keeper suggested he try to continuously match the color of the walls. Soon Savage was practicing something called Active Camouflage. It was not perfect, as he still cast a shadow and stood out as closer than the background, but under certain conditions it approached invisibility.

He learned another new trick. Impressed by his ability to digest whole humans, the keepers fed him one thing after another to test the limits of his digestive system. The woman killed while riding Shadow was brought out of cold storage, or rather the blocks cut out of the wall were, and one by one he gulped them down. The spies and rebellious minions he increasingly fed on always dissolved easily; this stone-woman was more of a challenge. His belly hung heavy for a day before the last bit digested away. Curious, the keepers began feeding him pieces of machinery, garbage, rocks, and anything they had lying around.

After a week of that he grew sickly and feeble, and they realized that while his powerful stomach juices could dissolve practically anything, not everything nourished him. Flesh and bone and organs, or vegetable matter failing that, were still needed. He could not simply eat dirt and survive. And he needed to eat a lot. Besides the calories needed for normal activities, his active camouflage was a drain on his resources, though a slight one. Healing burned a phenomenal amount of energy, as did his rare shape-changing.

In the midst of so many orders to "swallow this", he grew irritated. The machinery still went down, almost 'accidentally' accompanied by a keeper, but he stubbornly decided not to digest it. A day later his belly still hung heavy, and a day after that the veterinarians had him in the X-ray lab. The block of machinery was entirely intact. Thus he learned that he could, at will, turn off his stomach acids.

This led to an order to swallow a keeper in drysuit and rebreather gear, accompanied by painstaking instructions not to digest the man. An hour later, he followed another order to regurgitate him. As the mucus-covered man slipped and slid around the lab, the technicians speculated what they could have Savage swallow and carry around intact. He had to show his fangs and muse about his growing hunger to turn the subject away from 'tiger suicide bomber.'

Six months after he was born, he learned rather to his surprise that certain of his organs that he thought merely ornamental were in fact functional.

It was during a sparring match with Shadow. These were increasingly lengthy, as he swiped with his massive paws and flung any available objects to force her to keep dodging and phasing. Only by wearing her out could he finally get his paws around her, and she won four matches out of five by tricking him in close and phasing through him. Aware that she could hurt him badly, at least, if she succeeded in doing so, he always conceded the match if she managed it.

But today something was different. She did not phase as often, but moved in a sideways-scuttling manner that kept him running after her. Nor did he try to smash her with his paws or catch her with his claws; something about her smell compelled him to pursue. A stylized almost-dance developed as he nipped at her nape and tried to trap her between his forepaws, only to have her burst free. Then, finally, he caught her between his paws, bit into her scruff, and climbed on top. Not knowing what he did, not even aware that he was aroused, he arched up over the much smaller cat and penetrated her. Just as shocked, she yowled and phased away before he was fully mounted.

They blinked at each other from fifteen feet away, and looked up at the observation windows. The keepers looked down, talking among themselves. He tilted his head, confused, and Shadow, less so, grinned. Then she turned away and crouched down, and this time when he climbed on top she did not phase. What happened then took less than a minute, but its brevity did not make it less pleasurable. Almost immediately afterward they did it again, and then again. Each time they finished she would turn and claw at him, and the keepers would laugh behind their armored glass.

When their immediate needs were satisfied he asked if she would move into his quarters, but she refused. She and Sparks, it seemed, had matured a bit sooner than he. They had been lovers for a month now. In retrospect, he should have realized why they stank of each others' scent.

"But," she explained, "There is room for two males in my life. Especially if one casts sparks and the second is large and strong."

*****

Soon after that the attacks began. The Professor's lair was Savages' whole world, and he knew of the Master's enemies only in the form of the men and women who slid down his throat. What he ate were mere agents. Only now did he meet real enemies.

The one attacking the Master's lair was known as the Necromancer. Not even the Professor knew how his powers worked, he heard, but somehow he animated the dead. The first warning was alarms in the south wing of the complex. By the time Savage and the other cats were alerted, men and women were screaming as packs of what could only be described as zombies tore them apart.

When the armored gate that locked their quarters away from the rest of the complex flew open they were waiting, Sparks generating sizzling arcs of electricity, Shadow phasing in and out nervously and Savage already salivating in anticipation of a good feed.

Franz was on the other side of the gate. "The Necromancer is attacking. If it walks and it is dead, kill it again - even if it used to be someone you knew. I have shut down the fields that keep you from walking through the complex walls, Shadow. Go and kill!"

Savage led the way. He weighed nearly a ton now, and his tough hide made him the ideal point-cat. Shadow phased in and out of the walls, and Sparks, lacking his armor since it was not kept in his quarters, hung back and waited for targets. A few battle robots and security minions followed the three cats.

He was first around the corner and first to meet the walking dead. The corridor was full of them, most shambling along with arms raised, some crawling, legs missing or shattered. All were bloody, some partially devoured by other zombies before they animated, yet still moving. Savage smashed one flat with his heavy paw and decapitated another with a snap of his jaws, gulping down the head as a snack. A third he disemboweled with a swipe of his claws, but that did not even slow it down. The one crushed by his paw crawled forward weakly, and the headless one shambled forward blindly, clawing for a victim. He had rushed in too far, and the zombies were incredibly strong and durable. Dozens of dead hands clawed at his fur, and his legs began to buckle under their pull.

Then Shadow was there, flicking in and out of tangibility, and where her jaws touched zombies were suddenly missing limbs. A huge bolt of electricity scorched Savage's other side, passing through a dozen undead. Some burst into flame, and though the rest did not fall, their seared muscles were slow to respond. The battle-bots and security troops picked off one zombie after another with explosive rounds. Given a moment of respite, Savage realized that immobilizing the dead was the best way to beat them. Shadow was already picking the very pelvic bones and spines out of her prey, and Savage crushed the nearest ones beneath his iron-hard paws. The headless zombie wandered up against his chest and he swallowed it almost reflexively, feeling its stuggle all the way down his throat and into his belly. It might not need air, but it was merely flesh and bone, and thus grist for his mill. Given time it would digest like anyone else.

The first rush of undead was beaten back with the loss of two security guards, one of whom Savage swallowed whole as he - it - lurched back to its feet. Sparks had gotten in too close in his effort to help Savage and was badly scratched up and limping. Shadow was unhurt but tired, and Savages' injuries were healing, his regeneration fueled by a belly full of undead meat. The two zombies still struggled as they were consumed by his gastric juices.

"I need a moment," he said, and Sparks was there again, firing off another bolt that stunned the closest zombies. Without his capacitor-filled armor his combat endurance was short, but with the help of the remaining guards, robots and Shadow, it gave Savage time for a painful transformation.

With a roar he stood up on his hindpaws, his flesh and bone warping. Before he was fully in man-tiger form he reached out, clumsy half-transformed paws ripping a metal post out of the concrete. Two thousand pounds of tiger-man, ten feet tall and six feet across the shoulders, stepped forward with an improvised maul. Zombies simply shattered as the heavy pole, driven by his full strength, ripped through them. The ones that slipped past were few enough that his tiring fellow cats and the remaining guards could handle them. Then, as they reached the first cross corridor, the tide turned in their favor for good. Additional guards from the east wing moved in from the flank.

An hour later the three cats were in the medical wing. Shadow had not a scratch, but gnawed lazily on one of the fresher corpses to replenish her strength. Sparks, lacking Savages' rapid regeneration, was bandaged and sore even as two minions measured him for new armor. Savage himself was curled up, belching occasionally as he slept off a massive meal of zombie.

By the time the next attack came he'd had two more big meals of less-fresh zombie and had added a hundred pounds to his frame. He was still growing, and such heavy meals increased the pace of his growth. And by the time of the next attack, they were ready.

When next they fought the zombies, Sparks' armor sported a layer of metal mesh to fend off zombie claws and fangs. Shadow wore a light protective suit herself, and her helmet had razor-sharp cheek blades that could slice a zombie's limbs off if she phased just right - and she always phased just right. The guards were rearmed and reenforced, and the battle-bot forces doubled.

As for Savage, the Professor suggested an enormous battle-axe, but he had a better idea. He went into battle in half-armor, his foreparts in patched-together steel plates, and his helmet was built around a huge shovel-shaped blade. By just sweeping his head back and forth he sliced zombies into pieces too small to be worrisome. The parts that still moved he crushed beneath armored paws or snapped up and swallowed.

That battle went well, and the next one. Savage was almost sorry when the attacks stopped. He had never eaten so well; in a week he had consumed over thirty zombies and gained another two hundred pounds. For the first time, a layer of fat padded his powerful frame.

They never heard why the attacks ended. The Professor simply came on the PA system one day and told them there would be no more.

In the aftermath of the bloody zombie battles the three cats moved in to Savages' quarters, and an intervening wall was taken out to add Sparks' room to the already large enclosure. Shadow's room was kept intact in case one of them wanted privacy. The excitement of the fights left them seeking diversions, and for a few days they fell into a three-way sexual relationship that occupied almost all of their spare time. Sometimes Shadow was sandwiched between the two males, sometimes she let them take turns, and sometimes rough tongues were used in play by both genders. Sparks and Savage even experimented with each other, first with tongues and then in other ways. The three slept curled up together atop mattresses scavenged from the quarters of minions killed in the attacks.

But the good times were not to last.

*****

A month after the zombie attack, the cats ate the last spy the Professor was to provide. The other two cats too, now, helped dispose of bodies. Sometimes there would be enough that some spies would slip screaming down Savage's gullet still - his private count was approaching a hundred, not including zombies - and other times he would crack and swallow bones as the other two fastidiously picked flesh off the traitors.

In the middle of their meal the Master appeared on the wall of their quarters, and each ducked his or her head respectfully. Savage burped and coughed out a shoe, lowering his head further in apology. The Professor did not seem to notice.

"It is time to put you to work as I have always intended," he said. "It is time for you to see the surface."

"Surface?", Sparks said, tilting his ears forward inquisitively. They had heard about such a place, but not seen it.

The Professor flicked a finger, and a diagram of the complex appeared in the wall next to him. In orange, vertical shafts were highlighted. "Elevators," Shadow said, and the professor nodded.

"We are not allowed in that wing," Sparks said, and the Master waved a hand dismissively.

"You are now. At the top of the shaft is an old warehouse - a storage building. That will be your base as you collect certain things for me from the city. Each of you will have tasks, and you will largely operate alone. Shadow, you will have the greatest number of tasks. Savage, you will guard the warehouse. Sparks, I have specific tasks in mind for your talents. You will leave for the surface in an hour. Collect your equipment at the armory."

The cats smiled as the Master's image faded. At last they had earned his trust! At last, they could repay him for all he had provided.

Three days later Savage stood in an alley, flank pressed against the wall and perfectly matching the colors of the background. Lurking in the shadows, he watched two humans on the far side of the main street. One was making a purchase from the other, and their furtive attempts at secrecy told him they feared being discovered. Soon the one hurried off down the street and the second stuffed bills down into a pocket.

Savage was very hungry. A drop of drool hung from his lip as he eyed the man, wondering if he was a valid target. He did not know enough about the surface yet, though. Its bewildering landscape and endless collection of smells and sounds still puzzled him. He simply did not know who was 'good' and who was 'evil' - who he might dispatch to his belly without guilt.

He shook his head and turned away, resuming his patrol. A circuit of the neighborhood around the warehouse, staying in the shadows save at night, when he could venture a little ways into the main streets. The sun was almost down, but it was too soon to make his way up the concrete ramp to the roof. The view from there was the best, but he could not risk it in such bright light.

He froze as he was about to turn a corner. Ahead was a familiar sniffing and patter of paws. The stray dog, approaching from upwind, did not scent him and by the time it perceived the blurry wrongness in the air around the corner it was too late. There was a snap of jaws and a hurried gulp, and Savage continued on his way.

It was time to check in with the others. He padded carefully around the sleeping man in the alley, wrinkling his nose at the stench of unwashed flesh, urine and alcohol, turned one more corner, and gripped a door handle in his teeth. He hoisted it open, hooked a paw beneath, then slid his head under and held it up with his back as he entered. A last flip of a paw caught the door as its springs let it back down, ensuring it closed silently.

The electric smell told him Sparks was back from his mission, and he spied two minions unbuckling the cat's urban-camouflaged armor. Shadow was there too, just depositing a mouth-sized piece of machinery on a table. "Savage!"

She padded over and rubbed cheeks, and he heard her belly rumble. "I have a catch," Savage said, and retched up the dog. Slimy but undigested, it had suffocated in his gut. There was perhaps enough meat there for Shadow and Sparks, if they ate lightly. It would have been a mere snack for Savage, who outweighed the two of them twice over.

"Was there nothing for you?", she asked, and Savage smiled.

"I am still learning to hunt here. I am still fat of zombies, and soon I will hunt better. Do not worry." But his stomach rumbled too, and she looked concerned.

Then the screen on the wall lit, and they all ducked their heads respectfully. "Report," the Professor said.

"Shadow and I retrieved the device," Sparks said. "As you anticipated, the vault was guarded by a field she could not phase through, and I shocked it into submission so she could enter."

"Good. You have done well. There are only a few more things I need. Your next task is --"

"Pardon me, Master," Savage said. The others were silent. It was unheard-of to interrupt.

"What is it, Savage?"

"Sir, food is becoming an issue. There are only so many stray dogs, and I do not know which humans are deserving of becoming prey. If you could provide --"

"When you patrol, are there not sickly or sleeping humans to be found? On the surface they call them 'homeless'. No one will notice them disappearing, so give them a home in your bellies."

Savage thought of the old man sleeping in the alley. Did he really deserve to wake up sliding down a tiger's gullet? "Sir?"

"Enough. The food issue is solved. Be tidy as usual, though, so no one suspects what is happening. The Master waved the subject away, and the map on the screen changed. "Now, at this address you will find..."

*****

Soon the two left, and Savage went in patrol. He came to the old man sleeping in his stinking clothes, paused, and thought. Though his mouth filled with drool - humans smelled good when you had eaten as many as he had - he couldn't bring himself to do it. The Master had not given him a direct order, and he had never eaten a human who didn't deserve it. Or so he had thought.

It was dark enough that he could risk the roof, and he went up the concrete ramps to get to his vantage point. The roof creaked alarmingly if he went more than a few feet from the outer wall, so he stretched out along it with just his eyes and camouflaged forehead exposed. In this dim light it was safe enough, and from here he could see two whole sides of the warehouse.

The Master's order bothered him. Surely it was wrong to issue blanket permission to eat pretty much anyone he met. He saw a dozen 'homeless' people a night. Some were obviously mentally ill, others were drunk, some disabled in other ways. A few seemed merely down on their luck. If he gulped down the next one he met, could he be sure the person was 'bad'? If it was an innocent, what did that make him?

It raised uncomfortable questions. The Master was strict, but fair. How much did Savage and the other cats really know about him, though? They had never met him in person, never seen what he did outside the projects their keepers engaged in. Was it possible that the Professor's enemies were in the right to oppose him? Not all of them, the Necromancer seemed evil enough. But if some of the Professor's adversaries were 'good', then what about the spies they had working for them?

If you are what you eat, it was fair to say that Savage was a good quarter spy. He had eagerly devoured every one he'd been offered, rarely with even a twinge of guilt. And the Master had indirectly threatened his life once...no, twice, now that he thought about it, simply for not being quite what he planned.

Savage decided he needed to know more about the Professor. Who would he ask, though?

He dozed a bit, moving along the edge of the roof periodically to keep an eye on all sides of the building. From his high vantage point he could see the occasional person in the alleys. The narrow byways attracted the dregs of society, and besides the homeless he saw women - and men - who seemed to sell sexual favors, and others who sold what must be forbidden materials, as had the one in the street earlier.

Then his ears perked up. One of the clandestine meetings in the alley went sour, and instead of money being exchanged for one of those little bags, a knife came out. What followed was not a fight, it was a slaughter. The seller stabbed his customer again and again, even after she fell, until he was covered in blood.

It happened too fast and too far away for Savage to intervene, but the man panicked when he saw his victim dying at his feet. He dropped the knife and ran right up the alley toward the warehouse. Savage was famished, and here was a human he could safely qualify as 'bad'. He was over the low roof wall in an instant.

The running man tried to stop when the huge blurry figure dropped down with a thump, but he was at a full sprint and slammed into Savage's concrete-colored breastfur. He bounced off the tiger's muscular chest to sprawl on the asphalt, blinking up at the now harder to see stationary cat. All he could make out was a blurred outline that seemed closer than the rest of the background. Then a vast fanged maw gaped, and the man opened his mouth to scream.

Savage did not let him. Secrecy was essential, and he stuffed the man in with his forepaws. Any sound he made was muffled by the great salivating tongue and slick gullet he slid over. The tiger was hungry and did not dawdle. With a few tosses of his muzzle he got the murderer pointed head-first down his throat, then he closed his mouth firmly around still-kicking feet. One gulp and it was over.

Savage was much cheered by his meal, and made his way back up the ramps to the roof with tail flicking happily. Here was a human who genuinely deserved a trip through a tiger's digestive tract. The customer had been no threat to the seller, and so Savages' belly no longer rumbled. Now it gurgled as it processed a reasonably filling meal.

Fifteen minutes later Savage was no longer so happy. He was panting, heart racing, his vision distorted, and his paws twitched uncontrollably. A strange euphoria possessed him, and he found it hard to lie still. This had never happened before in all his meals. Twice he almost retched up his half-digested prey, but gradually the discomfort passed. His regenerative powers overcame whatever toxin had gone down with the man, and other than a few foul-tasting belches he was over the worst of it inside an hour.

In the future, he told himself, he would sniff over his meals to ensure they were not carrying anything unpleasant. Presumably his problems were caused by whatever the man sold in the little bags.

That led him to think about the man's victim. Half a block away in the alley was a woman in a pool of blood. Savage had seen enough of the local police to know an some outcry would ensue when she was found, and she was uncomfortably close to the warehouse. There was a slightly distasteful solution to the situation which had the benefit of solving another current problem. Savage went back down the ramps and made his way to the body, licking up the drops of blood the killer had left in his escape.

When he reached the stiffening corpse he rolled her out of the pool of blood and painstakingly licked it up. Then he sniffed around the area for more of the poison, and for other leavings. Other than the knife, which he dropped into her purse, he found none. He picked the body up crossways in his jaws and carried her back to the warehouse, where he left it on the same grating where he'd coughed up the dog. Shadow and Sparks would eat better tonight than they had earlier.

*****

He was at his post, hours later, when they returned. They did not return alone. Something flitted from rooftop to rooftop as the two big cats, one night-black and one in mottled camouflage, made their way through the alley to the warehouse. Savage's head snapped around when he saw it, and whatever it was saw him too, for it dropped down between two buildings before he got a good look. Savage leaped down into the alley to meet his friends.

"Something is following you," he had time to say, and then it was there. It was a man in slick black featureless clothing, lacking seams or even eyeholes. His arms tapered to tentacles, which he used to swing from building to building. Their adhesive nature was proved when he shot one out and snatched away the package strapped to Shadow's back. For once she was not fast enough to phase away.

"Whoa, what have we here?" he mocked, and flipped the package back up into his hand. He was standing sideways, feet on the side of the building, either stuck there or somehow bending gravity. "Stealing is naughty, kitties."

"This is none of your business!" Sparks snarled, and followed it with a bolt of lightning. It cracked like a gunshot in the alley and Savage winced at the sound, but it accomplished nothing. Almost too fast to follow the glistening man leapt across to the other alley wall, then bouncing right back as Sparks fired another bolt.

"No more lightning!", Savage hissed, and reared up to swipe at the man. Again the black-clad man was just too fast, leaping out from between his paws and twisting away from an instinctive snap of his jaws. The alley got crowded as Sparks came leaping up, the black man dodging him as well.

"Name's Symbiote," he said as he landed once more on a wall. He was standing on the scorch-mark from Sparks' first bolt, and as Sparks came leaping up he whipped out a tentacle and smashed the big cat to the asphalt. It was clear that he was much stronger than was reasonable.

He was also overconfident, and he'd lost track of Shadow. Savage saw her tail-tip poke from the wall, and as it disappeared he readied himself. When she reappeared from the wall beneath Symbiote and the tentacled man leapt instantly away, he jumped right into Savage's paws. Powerful tentacles wrapped around the big cat's forelegs, but he came down on Symbiote with all of his weight. The black costume cushioned the blow, and Savage picked him up and slammed him to the asphalt again. The tentacles went limp.

"Kill him," Sparks hissed, and Shadow reappeared from the wall, the package in her teeth.

"No", said Savage. "He is not an enemy. He doesn't know who we are, he just thinks we are thieves."

"What will we do then," said Shadow, dropping the package to speak. "If we let him go he will attack us again, or bring others."

"Let your stomach decide if he is an enemy," said Sparks. "That is what you do."

Savage growled, and Sparks replied with the same, and Shadow had to push between them. "Turn him over to the Master. He will decide."

So that is what they did. They never saw Symbiote again.

The missions got worse. Shadow was assigned to kill a city official, and Sparks to bring down a helicopter with his lightning. Shadow came back with bloody fur around her mouth, and then she and Sparks ran into a small group of super-powered human vigilantes and had to abort a mission. They moved to a new base.

At the new safe house in an abandoned industrial area Savage had to patrol the rooftops rather than the alleys. After falling through two roofs he decided that only a carefully planned route would work. Leaping without planning didn't work for a 2,500-pound tiger.

One night he returned to the safe-house with two dogs he'd spent the whole evening stalking to find that his fellow cats didn't need the food. They wouldn't say what, or who they had eaten, they just thanked him and said they were not hungry.

He went back out on patrol. He hadn't mated with Shadow since they'd come to the surface, and he didn't really want to. He was increasingly sure he was on the wrong side.

"Hi there, handsome."

His head snapped around. He'd been lying on a roof, paying less attention than he should to his surroundings, when the voice spoke up behind him. The woman sitting on the rusty air conditioner was dressed in a tight leopard print outfit that showed flesh at strategic points. Her mask had points above the eyes and molded-in cat ears.

"You're a vigilante," he rumbled. "You crept up on me well." He let his active camouflage fade as her hand stroked his tail.

"I heard you," she said, still petting his tail, which was thick as her thigh. "I was down in the alleys and I kept hearing the roofs creak. I figured there was someone heavy up here and so I came up and waited until you passed by again. I still barely spotted you. That cloak of yours is really spiffy."

"I just mimic the background. It doesn't work well in the daylight, but at night it works pretty well. I'm Savage, by the way."

"Jaguaress."

It was surprisingly relaxing to talk to her. No arguments, no expectations, no duty. Just...talking. He smiled. "I think your spot pattern is wrong." He knew now that he'd been fed information in his tube, but the extent of what he knew surprised him occasionally.

"Let me know when you find a source for jaguar-print spandex. You sure are a big cat, Savage. Are you a good cat or a bad cat?"

It hadn't escaped him that she was just a little too far away to reach if he spun around, or that she never quite relaxed.

"I don't think I know any more," he rumbled.

*****

They watched the attack from a distance. Jaguaress' vigilante friends had been looking for the Professor since he escaped from prison a year ago. He was considered such a threat that heroes from all over the Midwest came to help. The warehouse went down in a cloud of dust, and a lightning bolt came up to strike one of the hovering fliers.

Jaguaress rubbed his ears as he sighed. "My brother, sort of. I hope he survives. He is very stubborn."

There were no more lightning bolts. Dust continued to rise as vigilantes blasted their way into the elevator shafts.

"You should go," he rumbled. "They will need all the help they can get when they get into the complex. The Ma...the Professor increased the number of troops and robots greatly after the zombie attacks."

"Won't you come along, big cat?"

"I can't. When he speaks, I have to obey. He would turn me against you."

She leapt to the next roof, and the next, farther and faster than a human should be able. He thought she would look better with a tail streaming behind, not to mention with real fur rather than spandex. He waited until she was well out of sight and then he spoke again.

"I appreciate you not killing her, my sister. But I thought you would be fighting at the base."

"You always were stupid," Shadow said as she appeared from the wall. "You should have come to us, not just decided."

"Sparks would never have agreed. He would have told the Master." He did not move as she padded forward. Half-expecting an attack, but too guilty to strike first, he let her come in close. Instead of attacking, she rubbed her cheek against his own.

"We could have left," she said. "Just the two of us."

"I wasn't sure--"

"TRAITORS!" thundered the Professor. They both jumped; a projection of the Master hovered over the roof, resplendent in his blue and gold and indigo.

"Even now they force their way in. I was not ready, not yet! Another few weeks--but it is too soon."

"It is all you deserve, 'Master'," Savage said. "Did you think we would follow you once we heard the truth?"

"I expected you to obey me! They are coming for me now, and I will be imprisoned again. But you will not enjoy freedom while I rot." He pointed a finger dramatically.

"Die."

He laughed as he faded away, but Savage barely heard it. In his chest something seized up, and he fell on his side as awful pain shot down his limbs. He struggled to move, even to breathe, but the Professor knew him too well. The attack, whatever it was, bypassed his healing power. With each breath he died a little more.

Beside him Shadow lay, paws twitching. Her intangibility offered no defense either, and her healing ability was a fraction of his own. Blood dripped from her mouth and nose. But she too was stubborn. First one paw, then another slid beneath her. With a terrible effort she rose to her feet, lurching against Savage as she lost her balance. She nipped his ear, and then stepped inside him.

Shadow had been inside his body many times. With her phasing power came a limited ability to perceive the structure of solid objects. Inside Sparks she had noticed the long banks of cells on his flanks that generated and stored his charge, but Savage had no such unusual features. She had thought it strange, then, to find small nodules scattered throughout his body that served no apparent purpose. Sparks had similar ones. She had never touched them before, for fear that removing them might do more harm than good, but now she moved from one to the next and incised them from his body with her teeth.

The wounds weakened him, but as each implant was removed, a fraction of his healing ability returned. At the same time, Shadow's strength failed bit by bit. She could not remove her own implants, even if she could be sure she knew where they were. She left bloody, intangible footprints through Savage's body. What would happen to them she could not say.

When she bit away the last implant, at the base of his tail, she stumbled and fell. She could feel Savage struggle to breathe, stronger now, but still gravely wounded. And to recover, Savage always needed food.

Shadow crawled weakly from his hips, forward. It was not a long journey. Carefully she fit herself into the bigger cat's stomach, pulling her intangible tail in so it would not merge with his flesh. With the last of her strength she pushed the folds of flesh as she returned to tangibility, making sure no part of her intersected with his flesh. She was entirely inside his belly now.

"You always were stupid, lover," she said, and then she died.

When he woke, he knew what had happened. Drops of blood, a few at first, and then bloody footprints led to his side and stopped. He tasted his mate, his sister, his lover on his breath. The sun was rising, and a column of smoke rose where the warehouse had once been. The fighting continued.

Strength returned as his body absorbed hers. Retching his mate up now would not save her. She had sacrificed herself to save him - or perhaps, dying herself, had at least helped him live. He would have done the same for her, or for Sparks, had their situations been reversed.

He dropped from the roof, landed awkwardly, and padded down the alley. A few people saw him; he did not trouble with his camouflage. He did not care if they saw him, now. When he reached the river he looked upstream and down. Upstream seemed better. There was a scent of animals riding the water. There was prey upstream.

For the first time in weeks he changed, his body lengthening, his limbs shortening. A homeless man blinked as a huge tiger-striped otter slipped into the water. Then there was just a muzzle and the Vs of ripples as he swam strongly upstream.

It was a big city. He would leave his home behind, his memories behind, and find part of it that needed a guardian. Somewhere he would find a place where a giant tiger-sometimes-other-things would fit in. And he would eat no one, unless they really deserved it.

Perhaps he would meet other vigilantes, heroes. He hoped he would like them. He hoped he would meet Jaguaress again, even if she lacked proper fur and a tail.

And one day, if he was very lucky, he would meet the Professor again to explain how he missed his sister. Face to face they'd meet, for the first and last time.