FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"I hate the Saurian jungles!" Bella muttered for the umpteenth time as she hacked through another vine that had ensnared her. I kept my eyes ahead of me and stifled a laugh while I looked around for any trace of life in the walls of greenery all around us.

"This is going to be a lot harder than Fox led on."

Earlier that day

---

"Welcome to planet Sauria." Fox said as he stepped out of his Arwing. I nimbly followed him and landed with a thud on my feet as I stared at the lush scenery ahead of me. What made me gape, though, were the dinosaurs walking around and grazing on grass as if they were giant cows. I tore my gaze from them and turned to Fox and was about to ask what we were supposed to be doing here when Bella and her buggy were beamed down onto the planet using the Great Fox's matter transporter. I ignored the bright light and turned back in time to see a giant, topaz scaled triceratops running towards us with a bright smile on his face. He tackled Fox to the ground and started licking his face like a dog while Fox tried to push him off. I didn't know what to make of it, but I wisely stayed out of the way, unless I wanted a tongue bath too. The triceratops got off of him after a minute and looked at me with a curious look while Fox got up off of the ground and introduced me to him. He gave me a translator and I fit it in my ear so I could understand what I was hearing.

"...she's kinda pretty, Fox. You sure she's not your girlfriend, cause you're not with Krystal and well-"

"What... no, no. Hazel and I are just good friends and I'm helping her out with a problem of hers. That's all." Fox quickly cut in, a slight blush showing through his fur at the thought, as if he were hiding something. I giggled and stared at the beautiful landscape around us, taking in the different sights and smells with relish. Tricky looked at me and smiled widely while Fox tried to salvage the conversation by asking what had been going on since he'd last been here, but Tricky wasn't paying any attention to him.

"Hazel, how long have you known Fox for?" He asked, walking past him and staring at me intently. After that, I had to answer a few hundred questions about myself. By the time I was finished, I was feeling exhausted, but did a good job of not showing it. Bella wasn't faring so well, though. Tricky had moved onto her and frequently asked her if she was Krystal, which made me laugh to myself before something occurred to me.

"I just realized something. If we have Arwings that can fly us to the Krazoa temple, why were you planning on letting us make a long trek just to find it?" I questioned Fox while he was fishing something out from inside the cockpit.

"Because... I wasn't thinking at the time and it would be a good use of Bella's buggy, that's why." Fox replied as he climbed back down to the ground, holding a pair of binoculars in one paw and a collapsible P-90 that fired anesthetic rounds in the other. "I'm also coming with, so there isn't anything that could go wrong."

Present

I stumbled through the undergrowth noisily, crashing through bushes while low-lying branches poked at my head and unseen thorns cut through my sleeves. I heard Bella swearing behind me and Fox stumbling with her while he cut down errant bushes in his way. I sat down on a felled tree to catch my breath and glared seethingly in Fox's direction. "'So there isn't anything that could go wrong.'" I mocked him loudly as he sat down next to me.

"How was I supposed to know that Bella's buggy would get caught in quicksand, huh? Besides, we're making good time, so hopefully we'll be near the Red Eye temple by sundown and then we can get a ride on a warp stone to the Krazoa palace." Fox huffed defensively as he drank from a canteen he'd brought with him. I laughed sarcastically and grabbed the canteen from him before taking a couple of gulps of my own. I put the cap back on it and chucked it back at him before dragging an electrified claw over any exposed body parts, making any hitchhiking bugs drop dead out of my fur. Bella tripped on a root and fell face first infront of us, scrabbling up off the ground while batting at her clothes to get bugs and twigs out from underneath her shirt.

"I hate this place!" She yelled furiously as she shrugged off her backpack and sat down on the dirt. I had to admit, after the initial beauty this place had shown me, I was getting pretty fed up with the stifling humidity and the constant tint of green that the canopy of leaves made overhead. I swatted a mosquito away from my face and shoved Fox lightly on the shoulder, catching him off balance and making fall backwards off the log.

"Oops, sorry Fox. Guess this jungle heat makes me a little crazy. But that probably wouldn't have happened if we were just to fly to the palace instead of walk there, now would it?" I asked innocently as I helped him onto his feet.

"Okay fine, I messed up, happy? Could we just drop it and move on?" Fox asked irritatedly as he shouldered his pack and trudged on ahead of me, soon getting swallowed by the foliage around us. I quickly went after him and heard Bella muttering intelligibly about her hatred for the planet as she stumbled after me.

"Oh come on, Fox, I was only kidding. Don't be such a baby about it." I replied as I caught up with him, smiling disarmingly so he'd stop fuming. He turned to look at me for a second and looked back ahead as with his scowl deepening each step he took. I might have pushed him a little far. I thought guiltily as we walked in relative silence, our boots making crunching noises as they crushed leaves and other things underfoot. I chewed lightly on my bottom lip nervously and tried to think of a way to apologize to him that would make up for how I'd been acting lately, but was coming up short. I'm a terrible friend. He took me in and gave me a place to stay while I deal with this and this is how I repay him?

Seems that way. The sarcastic side of me stated quietly. I glowered awkwardly at the ground and struggled to keep up with the burning pace Fox was blazing through the forest. I chanced a look back and saw Bella more than a few feet behind us, her eyes burning with anger while she hurried after us. I looked back infront of me and ran headlong into a low-lying branch that was jutting out just at neck level. I felt the ground fall out from underneath me and I went sprawling onto my back, dragging down a couple of breaths through my temporarily restricted throat before rolling onto my stomach and pushing myself onto my feet. The motion made me dizzy and I swayed on my feet while my vision steadied and my paw was clutching my neck to pick out any splinters the branch may have left. I heard a loud hiss from my left and turned to find myself starring into the bronze eyes of an angry snake, his head swaying slightly while its forked tongue flicked out repeatedly, smelling the air around me to see if I tasted good. Before I could even bring my paws up to stop it, the snake struck out at me and sank its fangs into my neck, the serrated teeth injecting me with a quick acting venom that paralyzed my limbs so as to keep me from fighting back. I stumbled backwards for a few feet, my paw desperately trying to pull the snake from off of me and fell down through a clump of bushes, only to fall out into empty space. I turned my head slightly to see the tops of trees much farther down than I had ever hoped that they would be and screamed as me and the enormous python plummeted to our deaths. I saw both Bella and Fox stick there heads out to watch me fall and I thought I heard Fox cry out my name, but the wind whipping past my face snatched away any noise that I could've heard. The python let go of my neck and I watched as it was flown away by a massive pterodactyl, much to my amusement and also terror. I sent a few charges through my body to chase out the venom in my blood stream and twisted to see that the ground was closer than it had been but was still a ways away from killing me.

Okay, I'm falling to my death at probably more than thirty feet per second and I really don't want to end up as a splatter on the Saurian landscape. What should I do now? I thought as I pulled my arms out of the straps of my backpack and gripped it in my paw before angling my body so that it was parallel to the cliff side. I looked back at the ground and saw that it was getting a lot closer by the minute and I needed to do something fast to keep from dying. The sun glinted off my infected arm and I got an idea that would probably end up killing me if it didn't work. Oh well, what do I have to lose? I thought with a mental shrug as I brought my arm up with my fingers curled into claws and counted off a hundred seconds in my head before digging my claws into the hard rock wall, sending shards of sharp granite flying into the air above me while my claws left channels in the rock as I tried to slow my descent. The wind was still whipping past my face, but it wasn't stinging my eyes as it had been a few seconds ago and I could start to hear again, not that there was anything to hear other than the sound of my own racing heartbeat and the sound of rock crumbling above me. I let go for a few seconds and went at the wall again, slowing down my descent even more the second time and reducing the amount of debris I was creating. By the fourth time I had used this method of slowing down, I was level with the trees and could hear clearly again, so I let go of the cliff side for one more try and dug my claws in so I came to a halt a few feet off of the forest floor. I dropped those last few feet and landed with a thud as I dropped my bag onto the ground and panted heavily from exerting so much effort into saving myself, my fingers on my right paw red hot from the friction the drop had given me. I sat down hard and let my paw cool off while I looked up at the furrows that my fingers had left, beads of sweat dripping into my eyes when I shook my head in disbelief at the feat I just pulled off. I threw my fist up in the air and grinned ear to ear with adrenaline still coursing through my veins like a potent drug.

I am awesome. I thought smugly as I pulled my backpack over to my side and started rummaging through it for anything useful. I pulled a few rations out from the bottom and put them on the ground before reaching back in and pulling out a wrist-mounted computer with a small screen and a power button on the side. I strapped it onto my right wrist and went back to rummaging until I had everything in the bag out infront of me own the ground. There were five ration packets, a pistol that shot small electrical pulses that amplified the emotions of any given target, a couple of bottles of water and a hooded camouflage jacket incase it rained. I stuffed everything but the pistol and a bottle of water back into the backpack and took a long drink from it as I looked around at the unfamiliar surroundings I had been placed in. I stuck the pistol into the waistband of my jeans so that it lay against the small of my back and drained the rest of my water bottle before getting back on my feet and shouldering my pack as I walked off through a clump of bushes, trying to keep my current situation off my mind. I turned on the computer and continued my trek as it booted up, making me a little bit edgy as the small whirs could attract something with very developed hearing.

"Welcome to the O.C.C.P.U. How may I be of assistance to you?" A mechanical voice droned out of the computer on my wrist. I looked down to see a white wolf covered in red markings and a flaming shield on its back sitting on its haunches in the middle of a grassy field. I stopped underneath the eaves of a tree and sat down against the trunk while I fiddled with the screen a little. I touched the wolf's nose and it barked happily as a menu screen popped up. I groaned at the thought of reading manuals and selected the icon with a speaker on it that led to another menu with weapons as the icons and pressed the one with a weird sword that looked like it had ten edges and was brought back to the home menu, but the scenery was different. The sky had changed to night with stars dotting the horizon while the moon stood in all its glory in the middle of the screen, hovering above a calm meadow and throwing everything in a pale glow. Sitting in the forefront of the scene was a black furred fox with what looked to be silver markings on its sides and flank while nine-tails splayed out from behind it. On it's shoulder, I could make out the handle of the sword I had seen for picking this particular avatar.

"Why'd you wake me up, huh? I was having a nice nap in the back when you had to come along and press my icon. So what do you want?" The fox asked irritably as it glared up at me from off the screen. I glared back at it and looked around to see if anything had heard the small computer before looking back at it with a calm look in my eyes. I probed around for the mute button and shut the volume off before continuing on my way through the forest, humming slightly to myself to keep my steps in time.

The sun was setting by the time I reached a cave I could use for sleep purposes and I quickly looked around for fuel for a fire before doing anything else. I piled the bunch of dead twigs, branches and leaves in a well-hidden nook towards the back of the cave and waited for night to fall before lighting it with a spark from my paw. I pulled the jacket out of the bag and used it as a blanket while I ate a ration slowly, trying to make the meager meal last as long as I could. The fox on my computer hadn't been much help, but it did find me this cave and map me out a course that would take me to the Red Eye temple. Right now, it was taking a nap on the grass with its sword gleaming in the moonlight. I could hear its quiet snores and muted the computer so I could try and get some sleep before I had to keep going in the morning. I smothered the flames with some mud I found in the back of the cave and lay down against the cave wall, letting the sounds of the planet outside put me to sleep.

"Do yous thinks she is good eats?"

"I don't know, but she looks good to me." A couple of growling voices conversed over me as I blearily opened my eyes. Everything was smudgy, but I could sort of make out two distinct blobs of orangeish color. The voices stopped when I rubbed my eyes so I could see straight and I heard two sets of feet retreating to the entrance of the cave as I yawned. I stiffly sat up and stretched until my shoulder cracked and looked around to see that whoever the two who were talking about me where cautiously walking back over to me, their wooden staves upraised in a flawed defensive stance while they shuffled over to me. They looked like giant lizards wearing torso body armor, but their sickle like claws and hungry eyes kept me from making fun of them. I slowly brought my paws up to show that I wouldn't be a threat to them and interlocked my fingers behind my head as I got up onto my feet, my pistol still tucked behind my back. The lizards warily looked me over but lingered mostly on my breasts, staring at them as if they hadn't ever seen anything like them before. I rolled my eyes and brought my paws to my sides before pulling out the pistol, hitting them both between the eyes with shots that had them out cold before they could even blink. I gathered up my stuff and followed their footsteps out of the cave and into the jungle, the impressions their weight made on the soil easy enough to track.

It took me most of the morning to find where they came from, but it didn't make me any happier that I had. I had walked over two miles through mud and bugs and swamps just to find a wall?! I thought angrily as I punched the giant wall out of frustration, sending a small fissure up from where I had hit. I took a step to my left and heard a rustle from the bushes, closely followed by the loud explosion of a dart rifle. I felt the dart hit me just above the elbow of my left arm and fell to the ground instantly, the tranquilizer knocking me out before I had a chance to react.

I felt frigid water splash over my face and I was alert instantly, my eyes darting around to take in everything before I tore it all to shreds. There were a lot of loud noises around me, but the most pressing concern to me was the loud, high-pitched whine sounding in my ears. The sound made my teeth rattle in my mouth and I tried to find the source of the noise, but the pain it was giving me made it hard to concentrate. I struggled to bring my paws up to my ears to block out the noise, but they were currently tied behind my back by a set of handcuffs each and each set were cuffed to the chair I was sitting on, so I couldn't move them more than an inch. I looked around the dark tent to find out more about my surroundings when the whine suddenly stopped, only to be replaced by an annoying tapping. I turned my head in the direction of the sound and spotted a person sitting in a chair next to a table covered in my gear. He was wearing the camouflage jacket I had been using as a blanket and a pair of running shorts on while his hair stood up in spikes that were colored in an assortment of colors. I took it from the look on his face that he was obviously happy with his find and I glared at him through narrow slits as the whine came back in full force next to my head, making me grind my teeth in agony.

"Hurts, doesn't it, freak?" A voice said from behind me as I struggled against the bonds so I could kill whoever was doing this to me. The whine stopped as suddenly as it started and a new, reptilian face interrupted my view. He had the same crimson colored eyes I had and a deep green color to his scales while his teeth were bared in a snarl, showing his razor sharp teeth that were discolored yellow from either smoking or bad hygiene, I couldn't tell. The reptile opened his mouth to say something, but I beat him to the punch with a swift kick to his groin and a head butt to his skull that gave me a splitting headache the moment I connected with his head. He toppled over onto his back and clutched his crotch while he rolled on the ground; tears of pain streaming down his cheeks while he swore at me angrily. I spit on his face and looked over at the human to see that he was laughing.

"Well, at least what Michael told us wasn't wrong; you are a fighter and a scrappy one at that. I might grow to like you in the time we're here." He said as he picked up my pistol and looked it over, twisting it around as he found the catch and popped out the ammo clip to look it over as well before putting both back onto the table. I looked back down at the groaning reptile and stomped down on his crotch again, making him pass out while I hoped he broke a few of his fingers as well.

"Guess that'll teach him to restrain the legs as well as the arms." I muttered angrily as I slumped back into my chair, getting my breathing under control while I watched the human out of the corner of my eye. He was sitting there with his arms crossed over his chest and the hood of my jacket up, but he was still watching me. Probably to make sure I don't make a break for it. I thought bitterly.

"Actually, that isn't a hundred percent true." He said brightly, much to my surprise. "I'm staying because I haven't had decent company except for you in over two years. It gets annoying having to talk to the same people over and over again. And yes, I did just read your thoughts, sorry." He apologized with a grin. At first, I thought he was joking, so I didn't give him the benefit of the doubt, but I wanted to see if he could actually pull it off.

"Okay then, if you can read my mind, what is my full name?" I asked with an incredulous look on my face while I thought about making fun of him. He sighed and pulled his hood back to look at me clearly and ran a hand through his spiky hair as his lips were pulled in a tight line of concentration.

"Your full name is Hazel Naomi Eros, though you sometimes go by the nickname of Hazey and you are twenty-four years old. How'd I do?" He asked smugly as he re-crossed his arms. My jaw dropped before I could contain myself and stared at him as if he were insane. "I get that reaction a lot, so gape away my furry friend." He said nonchalantly. I closed my mouth and started reciting complex physics equations in my head while I tried to make a flame in my paw. The man looked at me as if I were amusing him and started tapping out a drum beat on the table top next to him, making me think harder about the equations and the theory of interdimensional travel I had heard from a professor at my university so I could mask the fact that I was burning the cuffs to mush.

"So, you know my name but how about telling me yours? Common courtesy you know." I said while I melted through the first cuff. He looked up from his hands to look at me and shook his head.

"I would've let you out if you just asked, Hazel. And as for my name, it's Felix." He said as he heard the clink of the handcuff as it slid down to the ground. I blushed at my stupidity and clenched my paw into a fist to get the blood flowing again.

"Okay fine, Felix. Could you please unlock these handcuffs from around my wrists? I would really appreciate it if you did." I asked through my teeth while I gave the passed out reptile a savage kick in the side from where I was sitting. Felix chuckled and snapped his fingers, making the remaining handcuff disintegrate around my wrist. I stretched my arms above my head and got up out of the chair when something tripped me back onto the floor. I hit the ground with a thud and saw the reptile's angry face a mere inches from mine, his terrible breath washing over me and making me want to gag.

"In case you were wondering, my name's Dante and I really don't like being kicked. I hope you like being tortured, vixen, cause there's gonna be a lot of it in your future." He said with a deep grin on his face that made some primal part of me want to run away from him, but instead I just grinned up at him endearingly and let my paw rest against his side.

"I hope you like surprises, Dante, cause I do." I said sweetly as I sent a massive shock throughout his body, launching him up into the air and crashing into the chair he'd kept me tied up in. I jumped to my feet and was about to make a bolt for the tent's entrance flap when I heard a click. I turned to see Felix holding a massive pistol in his hand and a smile on his face, as if daring me to try and make a run for it. Great... I'm not going anywhere anytime soon. I thought, knowing that he'd put a round through my head before I could even think of escaping. I saw Dante get up slowly out of the corner of my eye, a paw to his head while he glared at me with murder in his eyes and his lips curled back over his teeth in a demonic sort of smile. I turned my full attention to Dante, ignoring the pressing matter of a gun toting Felix for the moment, and let a bolt of electricity arc into the ground next to me as I clenched my paw into a fist. He leaned slightly forward, his weight transferred to the tips of his feet while a familiar shine caught my eye. Through a tear in his shirt from where the chair had gouged him, I saw a patch of the same infected material that covered my arm. This made my confidence drop a few notches because I knew that when you get infected with this thing, extreme stress brings out the worst in you. He launched himself at me and I nearly ducked away from him when he caught my leg with his claws, stopping me in my tracks while sending pain shooting through my leg. I twisted around and gave him a kick to the chest, but it barely fazed him and he chuckled darkly at the attempt. He picked me up with one arm and sent me flying through a tent wall and out into the open clearing that the tent had been put up in. I quickly pounced onto my feet and barely blocked the roundhouse that he'd aimed at my head. I pushed his leg back and caught him off guard with a solid jab to the chin. He stumbled back a few steps and spit out some blood before coming at me again, his claws flashing past my face as I dodged quickly to avoid his blows. I aimed a quick shot at his throat and got caught by the arm as he shoved roughly down onto my elbow, making it snap like a twig under the pressure. I swore loudly as pain started shooting up and down my arm, but he punched me in the stomach hard enough to send the breath whooshing out of my lungs. I tried to gasp down a breath or two as I sank to my knees, but he lashed out with a steel-toed boot and caught me between the ribs. I coughed painfully when I heard one of the bones snap, but Dante just laughed and pushed me down onto the ground with his boot on my back.

"How does it feel to be underneath my boot and groveling like a dog, Hazel? I bet the dirt tastes good, huh?" He goaded contemptuously as he ground his heel into the base of my neck. He lifted his boot off of my back before stomping down onto my broken arm, making me whimper at the sound of another snap. "You know there's an easy way out of this, vixen," he said conversationally as he leveled his boot against my left shoulder so he could dislocate it as well. "All you have to do is beg me to stop and call me master. Then maybe we could find a nice use for that mouth of yours. What do ya say?"

As soon as he had uttered the word master, memories of the fury and indignation I had felt under the influence of Alexander's control had come rushing back to me and a veil of crimson washed over my eyes as the bones in my arm started knitting themselves back together. A black aura started creeping its way up my infected arm and soon engulfed my entire body while strength began flooding through my every pore, fueled by my rage and my want to survive. My fur started to bristle against the contact of his boot and I disappeared from underneath him and reappeared behind him, my body now totally controlled by the influence of the powers in my body. A low growl erupted from my throat and continued until it became a full blown snarl while energy hissed underneath my claws like a nest of eager vipers, all waiting to be unleashed on the unsuspecting idiot who dared anger me. Dante turned around with a surprised look in his eyes before I slammed my fist into his chest, making a loud snap as he went flying. I warped above him and forced my foot into his stomach before sending him crashing into the ground. I landed on the outer edge of the crater the impact had created and was about to continue pummeling him when he started chuckling. He crawled out of the hole I had sent him into and laughed victoriously as he jumped to his feet, ripping off his shirt in the process. The infection had spread across his chest entirely and now covered both his arms while making his claws serrated and as sharp as knives.

"My, aren't we the interesting woman. Seems things have gotten a lot more exciting." He said with a grin as he leapt towards me faster than the human eye could follow. For me, on the other hand, he looked as if he were moving in slow motion. I ducked his slashing claws and kicked out with my knee as he flew over me, knocking the wind out of him and causing him to come crashing down onto the ground. I let a dark flame bloom into existence in the middle of my palm and was about to light him on fire when someone grabbed me by the neck from behind and threw down into the crater with enough force to make me gasp. I rolled to my feet and opened my mouth to snarl at the one who had interrupted my vengeance when a massive shock of electricity went through my body, sending me down onto the ground and writhing in agony as wave after wave of pain rolled through my body. I panted as the pain subsided to a dull throbbing behind my right eye, but I found that I couldn't move from the submissive pose I was in now, my head bowed and on my paws and knees.

"I won't have you fighting as long as you are under my leadership, Dante." A distantly familiar voice reprimanded angrily.

"But Dawn, I was just defending myself-"

"I don't care if you were defending yourself! What kind of example is that setting if we fight with those we are paid to collect? Do you know what Michael would do to you if you ended up killing his niece, huh? The parasite he's got burrowed into you should be proof enough. And even if you didn't have it inside of you, I would've killed you myself. Now," she said as she stepped into the crater and towered over me, her shadow blacking out some of the space infront of me. The next time she spoke, though, her voice was a lot softer and much more kind. "It's been a while, Hazel. Can't believe that we've had to meet under these circumstances, but fate is fickle." My eyes went wide when she said my name and I had to whisper the name aloud to make myself believe it. "Maxi..."

The immense amount of power my body had coursing through it extinguished itself and I dropped onto the soft dirt as the aura sunk back into my body, exhaustion weighing my arms and legs down while I tried to wrap my brain around the situation I was in. She tilted my chin up with her finger and flashed me a dazzling smile that sent shivers down my spine. Her hair was cut a little differently so as to act like a frame for her feline face and it was dyed a deep shade of burgundy while her dark chocolate eyes gazed warmly down at me. Her fur was still the same charcoal gray it had always been, but a pair of black cargo pants and a white tank top mostly covered it up. I tried to lift my head from off of the ground to see her a little better, but my body was still tingling from the numbing shock I'd just had to endure and it wouldn't respond right. I did have enough strength to roll over and stare intently at her face, but there was darkness starting to creep into my vision on the edges and I was feeling kind of tired.

"Oh, sorry about that, Hazey. Didn't think the shock was strong enough to put you down for this long. You should probably lie down for a while, seeing as your arms and legs'll probably feel like jelly for the next few hours." She said sheepishly as scooped me up in her arms. I curled into a ball and wrapped my arms around her neck while my head rested against her shoulder.

"Seems things haven't changed since I saw you last, Maxi." I joked weakly before I nodded off with a quiet giggle.

If any of you want to ask why I added a P-90 into the story, don't. I was running out of ideas and playing MGS4 at the time, so add two and two together and you get the anesthetic P-90. Maxi is mine, Dante is mine, and Felix is mine. Same drill as before. And if you get the reference of the O.C.C.P.U, consider yourself smart. Chapter 11 should be up soon and I'm open to suggestions for a mercenary team name. All ideas are welcome and I will consider them fairly. Till next time.