FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Tank Girl looked around, surveying the town that used to be so flourishing. She saw the bakery at the far end of the street, illuminated from the inside by glowing fire. The deli just beside it was pouring greyish black smoke out of the doorway before the heat from inside caused the windows to explode and a rolling tongue of orange sprang out. The jail, the town hall, even the water tower suffered the same. Every square inch of the town seemed to be drenched in fire and black smoke. Nine hours ago, this town was bustling with life and splendor; it never even knew what hit it.

She wanted to scream; in hate, in frustration, in sadness. She wanted to scream because it was something other than just standing around looking at the nightmarish scenery.

Everyone was gone. Her friends had been gunned down, and Booga couldn't handle any more of it. He had run out on her, getting lost in the desert.

She was the only one now. The last thing that stood between destruction and survival, and she just couldn't take it anymore. She didn't want any of this. She wanted money, guns, a new pack of smokes, some fresh underwear, and Booga with his pants down. She didn't want a good town in flames. She turned around, wiping her eyes as smoke wafted into her face.

The bitch was standing there, her sand-colored coat bathed red with blood. Her red, too-long-to-be-a-pixie-cut hair blew in the wind like a small diabolical curtain, lightly covering her black sunglasses. The moist lips, dyed to a black cherry color, turned up into a pretentious, snarling grin, making her seem like she was born from the Clint Eastwood strand for World War III. She looked sort of like Milla Jovovich, but there was just something off about her look, like her whole appearance was a mask for something much more sinister.

Nope, the town never knew what hit it.

There was no warning; Tank Girl didn't want to give the bitch a chance to bite back. She pulled her gun from out of its holster at her hip and began firing, sending round after round of lead at the woman in the street. The gun exploded in her head, each sound turning into a bombshell of noise. She didn't know how many times she pulled the trigger or when it started clicking away emptily in protest, but she knew one thing, even though it pained her to realize it; she hadn't even grazed the woman in the street.

The woman started walking toward her, pulling her own pistol out from under her coat. It was big, about 20 percent bigger than Tank Girl's; she knew that if she were shot by it, she'd be kissing that part of her body goodbye.

Tank Girl popped a fresh clip into her handgun and dodged behind a burning building just as the loud explosion of the enemy's gun filled the air and a large plume of sand erupted beside her a split-second later. Another explosion, and the corner of the building burst like a fiery grape.

Tank Girl ran, skirting the flaming structure while keeping low. Nobody had the upper hand here--unless you counted the size of choice weaponry. It was just a simple stand-off now, and she had to get her head in the damn game if she was going to survive. She jogged, gasping for a smoke, telling herself that she'd lived through worse situations before.

She rounded the corner, and the black mouth of a large automatic pistol reared up to meet her.

Every muscle froze in her body, her breath seemingly locked up tightly inside her throat. She looked at the gun to its owner, glancing into the face of the animal-like woman. The redhead motioned downward with the gun, silently telling her to drop her pistol. Slowly, Tank Girl bent downward with one hand raised lightly in the air while she let go of her gun, growling in her throat as she did it. She clenched her fists vainly, knowing that she was powerless to do anything. From somewhere close, the sound of an engine backfiring burst through the static crackling of wood.

"Took you a while to figure it out, didn't it?" the redhead said, her lips peeled back into a condescending smile. "When somebody realizes that they shouldn't fuck with something, they usually don't fuck around. But you...you just could NOT stop fucking, could you!? You had to dig deeper and deeper into this until you found the root of the problem, and look what happened! Look around you! This is all your fault!"

The woman circled Tank Girl slowly, sweeping out her hand at the same time--just then they noticed the sound of a vehicle swiftly approaching. As the redhead's extended hand reached a little merchandise stand, the wheeled cart exploded as a decrepit truck, its dark olive green paintjob chipped away by age and rust, smashed through it like a freight train, its lone driver screaming maniacally over the din of the burning town.

Tank Girl recognized that scream, and she recognized the long, silly face behind the windshield. It was Booga.

The kangaroo drove the truck forward at a strong ramming speed, intent on plowing it right into red-haired offender. In five seconds, he'd be crashing through the enemy and the building behind her; if she didn't move in four, he'd be going right through her as well. It was just a jump to the left...

She jumped, and time seemed to slip down into a slowness that made it seem as though the world were filled with a viscous gelatin. Tank Girl could see every miniscule grain of sand, and some embers slowly trailing through the air in front of her, torn off of one of the buildings. The air blew through her hair (completely shaved on one side, the other half long and dirty blonde) and into her eyes as she struck the ground with her hands outstretched. Moments went by, but it felt like minutes to her. She felt a powerful rush of air against her back and head; sand flew up into her nose and mouth, which she promptly began to chew.

Then time sped up again, catching up to what it should have been in true reality. Booga had jumped out of the vehicle just as he crashed it into the villain and the building, landing almost perfectly next to her. He was picking himself up when Tank Girl, noticing that he was holding a bruised shoulder, threw an arm around the tall kangaroo and dragged him up onto his feet. They looked at each other for a moment, and then kissed.

Suddenly Tank Girl pushed the kangaroo away and gave him a strong right jab directly to his bruised shoulder. He leapt back, wincing and shouting.

"AAUGH! What the hell was that for?"

"That's for runnin', ya bastard!"

They looked at each other again, their eyes saying the same thing to each other: "I'm sorry." Tank Girl grabbed Booga and pulled him into a meager bear-hug, which he accepted and hugged back. They threw their hands around each other and started walking out of town, avoiding the burning structures. Booga led her to another vehicle that wasn't as damaged as all the others in the street, though it definitely looked a lot older, with corroded rust holes and an open roof. Luckily, the keys were still in the ignition. Tank Girl jumped into the passenger seat, landing with a loud whumph against the cushion.

"Man..." Tank Girl mumbled. "Today's been a real fuckarow, you know?"

Booga sniffed and smiled in agreement. He turned the key in the ignition and the car sprang to life, albeit in a choking, wheezing manner. It had certainly seen better days, but Tank Girl didn't care. As long as it got them the hell out of this place and into a nice hot tub, she didn't care if the paintjob was piss yellow and the seats smelt like vomit.

As Booga popped the clutch out of PARK, a shrill, unnatural scream tore through the air. It was like glass being broken and then broken again, like a thousand bits of chalk scraping against a whiteboard. It was a hundred times worse than Styrofoam being rubbed against Styrofoam. Tank Girl and Booga turned their heads to where the sound came from--Booga jerked his head so hard that she could hear the little crik sound it made--and saw one of the buildings burst outward. A mass of blood rained down in the street, seeping into the sand to make a horrible red sludge. Tank Girl saw something long and dark erupt out from the flaming roof, and another and another until the whole roof was destroyed and in its place...monsters.

It was the only thing she could call them; monsters straight out of a child's nightmares, maybe even a nightmare itself, broken right out into reality. At least a dozen shadow-like tentacles writhed from the top of the crumbling structure, each one ending in a head with eyes that glowed yellow and jaws that snapped open and shut hungrily. They growled, rattled, and some even screamed angrily at each other.

"Booga..." Tank Girl mumbled.

"Yeah, I see it," Booga whispered. It didn't help her, though; she didn't really want someone to tell her that they could also see it, because it was substantiation to the fact that it was real.

The fiery building finally collapsed under the weight of what was left of the roof, and all the blackened wood and charred remnants fell all around one spot on the ground. That spot was inhabited by the redheaded woman, who stood with barely a scratch on her naked body. Black tattoos circled her waist, arms, and thighs, and the shadowy tentacles seemed to dissolve into darkness just behind the woman.

Tank Girl looked at her eyes, and all she saw was black.

"Move yer ass, Booga!" Tank Girl screamed. The kangaroo snapped to and kicked the gas pedal, but all the car did was rev its engine. Tank Girl threw the clutch down to DRIVE and slammed her fist down on Booga's knee, throwing the car forward. They were greeted by a steady gust of air as the old car sped up into fifty...seventy...ninety miles an hour. Tank Girl leaned back in her seat, letting the wind flow through her hair, rubbing against her face. With the feeling of security and the touch of the sun, she unknowingly slipped into light sleep. She didn't know she was dozing until Booga shook her shoulder lightly.

"Uh, TG? We got a bit of a problem here..."

She saw him glancing into the rear-view mirror, so she turned her head and watched in horror as the she-creature flitted through the air. The tentacles had melted into each other on either side of the woman's body, forming a pair of grotesquely misshapen wings. She looked like some bastardized and morbidized harpy.

"Tell me there's guns in this thing..." Tank Girl muttered, more to herself than to her boyfriend as she thumbed for the glove-box. She found the release catch and pressed it, finding a pair of hand grenades, a chocolate bar, and a copy of Shower Sheila Monthly. She grabbed the magazine and showed it to Booga, raising an inquiring eyebrow.

"I swear that's not mine," he said. Tank Girl tossed the magazine in the back and grabbed the grenades, wondering how they were going to do anything against the thing that shrieked and howled behind them.

Tank Girl searched the rest of the vehicle for any sort of firearm. Even a slingshot would've made her feel better, but there was nothing in the front or the backseat. She sat on her knees in the back of the car, watching the nude monstrosity flying swiftly toward them.

She made up her mind; doing nothing only increased their chances of dying. Even if she missed, it would give the impression that they had some power. She pulled the pin on one of the hand grenades, waited a few seconds, and gave it her best toss. She aimed right for the face.

The result was pretty much what she expected; the creature ducked under the projectile--another snake-like tentacle erupted from the creature's back and consumed the grenade--and continued to give chase as though nothing had happened. There wasn't even an explosion.

"Booga! Where the fuck are we going!?"

"It's a place I know, we'll be alright there! We can stock up on some rifles and have at the sucker!"

Great, nice thinking, just hurry the hell up, Tank Girl thought but didn't say. She turned her head back to the creature, but she didn't see anything. It was gone, vanished.

Suddenly Booga gave a surprised shout; she turned around just as a monstrous wing made tipped in jagged teeth wedged itself under the car and flipped it into the air, hurtling it for a fair distance. Tank Girl's last thoughts before the blacked out was the hellish laughter of the monster and her own words "Oh shit..."

When she woke up, all she knew was that she was on her back, staring up at the blue sky, her legs raised up, still on the floor of the car. Her neck hurt like hell, and her arms felt like they were being bitten by thousands of fire ants. A shrill laughter cut through her skull like a surgeon's scalpel, making her want to scream. She put all the strength she could muster into turning over and standing up--pain flared up in her back, but she ignored this--trying to see what was going on. She looked up over the car and saw the creature--now clothed in her sandy bloodstained coat, her human mask back on--standing over Booga. She raised her boot and slowly let it fall between the kangaroo's legs, eliciting a sharp gasp and a strangled, pained moan from him. The bitch was smiling the wickedest smile you've ever seen, and it made Tank Girl sick.

It made her mad, too.

She scrambled quietly over the car, searching for the last grenade they had. She found it hidden beneath the Shower Sheila magazine, its metal cap glinting dully in the sunlight. She grabbed it, pulled the pin, and ran forward. She knew that the next few seconds of her life would mean either jumping into tub filled with hot water with Booga or being blown to tiny, fleshy little bits. She was sure and precise in her movements, and she was confident she could pull this off.

The redhead turned to meet her, her mouth hanging open, revealing small but razor-sharp teeth like a piranha. Tank Girl jammed the grenade into the creature's mouth and kicked her hard in the stomach, sending her down to the desert ground. She grabbed Booga's hand, hoisted him up, and together they ran as fast as they could. Booga had a slight, awkward limp as he got up, but when he got going, he was all feet.

A few seconds later, a muffled explosion echoed through the desert. They turned and saw a large crimson stain on the dusty ground, a reddish smoke filling the sky while being carried south on the wind. Booga and Tank Girl, on walking back to the car, saw that the whole front of it had imploded on impact with the ground, with barely any chance of getting it out. They glanced at each other, stretched their legs for a long trek, and began walking. They didn't know where they were going, but they were going together, and that was all that mattered to Tank Girl.

Booga flicked his ears, shooing away a bunch of flies that were attracted to his scalp. He coughed, cracked his knuckles, and spoke.

"Well...what is there to say, really?"

Tank Girl, shoving her hand into Booga's pants-pocket and fishing out a used cigarette, popped it in her mouth and grinned.

"No one crushes by boyfriend's balls 'cept me!"