FSE

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Chapter1:

Smack! Was all I heard as the hard concrete floor collided with my head, my world went spinning; I tried to focus on the one who had attacked me but by the time my sight returned all I could see was the vacant sterile hall way of my college. Dingy and ugly brown paint smeared along all of the lockers.

I stood up and begun to brush myself off and collect my dropped books and papers, growling to myself as my head throbbed. I guess I should have figured the bastard wouldn't have the guts to stick around and show himself, it's not like this thing hadn't happened before after all everyone hated gays and of course I had to be stupid enough to open my big muzzle and come out.

I remember that week like it was yesterday. I am writing this not so much as an admission of guilt but more trying to understand myself; I've killed, I've done drugs, I've had a lot of sex and I've done almost every illegal activity I can think of. You'll understand why as you read...

It all started as I stumbled to my third class of the day, my head still throbbing; of course I was twenty minutes late so I opened the door as quietly as possible hoping not to be discovered but instantly the entire class all pivoted around and the teacher's stone cold glare focused on me. "Ahem, Mr. Hunt so nice of you to join us again; I nearly lost the pool on you. Please take your seat I will speak with you after class."

I sighed and nodded silently skulking to my desk and sat there. The hour or so passed so slowly just the teacher drowning on about the importance of labour costs versus productivity and other boring restaurant workings, then I felt a soft paw on my shoulder, I gently turned my soft grey furred muzzle to the side to see my best friend ever smiling at me and leaned in gently. "I take it you had another little run in?" I nodded back at her caring feminine fox face, lined in deep black fur and white chin fur, with the ever so subtle brown undertones.

The class was soon dismissed and I was about to make a stealthy escape along side of Tanya but the stern brown teacher suit wearing polar bear bellowed out my name. I froze dead in my tracks as the rest of the class filed out. Tanya looked back at me briefly. "I'll meet you out at the oak tree."

I smiled at her then took a deep breath turning to see the teacher, much taller and burlier than I ever could be in my lathe hundred and thirty pound dark charcoal grey fur over laid silvery front vulpine body. I step forward to the head of the lecture hall where Mr. Crown stood. "Yes sir?"

"That makes six in a row; I'm beginning to think my lectures are boring you." The snow white polar bear said to me.

I shook my head slightly. "No sir, I actually really enjoy your class; it's just..." I knew he knew what had happened but I couldn't bring myself to explain.

"Well Zen you really need to make a better effort to be on time, you are one of the most promising students I've ever seen. If it's the other students are making things difficult for you..." he said softly looking at the paw shaped gay pride patch I had sown to the arm of my black backpack, "...then I really think you should do something about it."

"Like what Mr. Crown, even if I did bring it up as a problem do you really think anything would change?" I said a little harsher to him than I had intended.

The bear recoiled a little bit from my out burst and cleared his throat. "I merely meant that if you make yourself a target then people will take advantage of that."

I nodded softly to him, and adjusted the red baseball cap I had on backwards atop my head. "I understand Mr. Crown, I won't be late again; I promise you."

"Good, don't be afraid to talk to me about anything Zen, I am here to help you." The polar bear said to me before returning to his desk to begin rounding up his lesson notes.

I smiled slightly and walked out of the lecture hall adjusting my backpack and knife kit, putting my black furred paw around the pride patch and wade through the crowds of other teenaged furs cramming to get at their lockers. Once on the outside of the building I stopped on the staircase looking out into the crystal clear blue sky, it was gorgeous today almost a waste to be cooped up in that old red bricked building of a college. I looked around for a moment only to see my blue jean and white t-shirt wearing female fox friend leaning against the largest tree on the school grounds as she thumbed through her text book.

She had been my friend since we were really young; our parents had been school mates as well. Tanya always had a way of knowing how to make me feel better; she gave me the biggest and brightest smile she ever could. "So how did that feel?" Her soft refined Scottish accented voice said.

"Think I'd rather have taken another hit to the head." I joked back at her.

"You know you should really watch your tail a little more, one time they aren't going to stop with just one hit." She said as we walked towards the parking lot where our cars were.

"Yeah I know...sorry my dad isn't a martial arts superstar like yours is." I sighed and adjusted my brown suede jacket on my shoulders.

"Hey if you want me to get him to kick the shit out of anyone just let me know alright." She laughed.

"I'll keep that in mind..." I slightly chuckled before opening the driver side door of her red convertible sports car.

Tanya climbed in and pulled her long triangular sunglasses over her ice blue eyes and started up the engine of the car. "I meant that, or at least I could get my dad to show you a few moves...think about it."

"I will Tanya, thanks for being there for me. How about we go out tonight, Fly?"

"Sure, I'll be done my homework by nine, give me a call." Tanya replied as I softly shut the door and she begun to reverse out of her parking space.

I watched her drive away and sighed to myself turning away to see my navy blue jeep truck and begin walking towards it, when suddenly someone from behind me shoved me and I slammed into the passenger side door of my truck. I turned to see three wolves standing there all of them not looking to happy.

"Hey fag, how's your head?" the leader of them said, his name was Gregory a brute of a wolf maybe had forty pounds of me, captain of the space ball team.

"I've had better days Gregory, why don't you go find a stick to play with." I hissed back at him.

"It's too bad, you used to be out best receiver but now the only thing you can receive is a cock up your tail hole." He growled back at me and stepped closer.

"Dude seriously am I worth this, I already quit the team because of you." I said to him as he raised his fist and I clenched my eyes bracing for the pain but all I heard was a loud grunt. As I slowly open my eyes I see Mr. Crown bearing down upon the brown wolf having him pinned against the hood of another car.

"Listen to me right now, I'm going to make myself perfectly clear. If one patch of fur gets harmed on Zen's head I'm personally going to make it my mission that you will be pumping gas for the rest of your lives!" The angry polar bear yelled out and picked up the helpless wolf of his foot paws and tossed him to the ground.

The three wolves scrambled away like the chicken shits they were. Mr. Crown adjusts his badly tailored suit and looked directly at me with an expression I'd never seen on him before; complete anger and disgust.

"Uhm...thanks..." were the only words I could muster as I gawked at the cowardly fleeing wolves.

"I will not stand for any student making this school a hostile environment...now on your way Mr. Hunt." He simply said to me before walking back towards the school.

I inhaled deeply and pressed the open button on the mansion of a house that my parents owned. All decked out in white ivory and marble, guess it really did pay to be in computers; I silently climbed the curved red carpeted staircase to the second floor and was very careful to not make any noise before I got to my room but it was too late.

"Zen!" my mother bellowed from the master bed room. I faked a smile to her faded brown and grey furred face. She stepped out into the hallway still in her satin black bathrobe and holding her mid afternoon glass of straight vodka. "I thought I told you, you were grounded and you are a half hour late!"

"Sorry mother...had some problems at school." I quietly responded trying not to egg her on.

"They still pounding the shit out of you eh; well that's what you get for being a faggot; if you were just like your father." She growled out at me.

"Yes mother..." I simply replied opening the door to my room and shutting it behind myself. I threw my school bag in the corner of the room and collapsed down into the large leather office chair in front of the multiple holographic displayed computer system my dad had bought me for my last birthday. I scrolled thru all of my received emails aimlessly starring into the masses of spam when I pulled up an email, an advertisement about a rave party going on the Lion home world in celebration of the twenty-third anniversary of the great balancing war. Now had I gotten an email like this a year before this I never would have given it a second though before deleting it but I guess I was growing more and more rebellious and quite enjoyed raves at that point; so I saved the message and closed the screen opening up a project for Mr. Crown's advanced food cost management class.

I must have stared at the blank displays for more than an hour, I used to like this restaurant stuff so much but all I could think of was going out to the club. I watched the golden yellow sun set thru the dark blinds of my room until night had set in and I hadn't written one word about the project. It was about eight o'clock, now and I knew Tanya said to call around nine but I couldn't wait to just get out of the oxymoronic mansion that was suffocating me, so I rushed into my bathroom and stripped off my school clothes and hopped into the shower. Within fifteen minutes I was in my skin tight black vinyl pants and a mesh muscle shirt; making no effort to be quiet I leave my room carrying my leather jacket in my paw, I walked right past my dad as he entered the front door, still in his black designer business suit and silver attaché case.

"Where are you going so late?" He said in a not too polite tone.

"Out...it's Friday night." I responded with an equal tone.

"To one of those clubs...well just be careful son." He said to me which kind of made me stop in my tracks, he'd never said anything encouraging to me after I told him I was gay, maybe he was just getting used to it, so I simply turned to him with a smile and nodded then walked out to my jeep.

I parked my jeep in the lot and made sure the doors were locked and the security system was armed; being in the downtown core I didn't want to take chances. Walking up into the party district I was doused in loud trance and techno music being pumped out into the open air as the hundreds if not thousands of gay furs all clamoured the bars and clubs. Finding what I was looking for I stepped up to the large black steel riveted doorway with the bright purple neon sign above it that read 'Fly' my favourite gay dance club, I'd been going there almost every weekend for the past four months since I had come out. I'm not sure if it was just because of my expensive fake ID or because of the way I looked but I never had any problems with the bouncers and was promptly let in.

The inside was a flurry of sensory overload, pounding trance music, bright strobe and spot lights flying every which way and at least five hundred furs all bouncing, dancing and drinking throughout the four levels of the club. Instantly, having barely gotten my first drink at the bar I felt a strong paw grabbing my ass; but when I turned expecting a big over weight troll of a male; I saw the black dress pant and red halter top wearing body of Tanya. "Hey sexy what's your sign?" she yelled out over the music.

I laughed and gave her a hug before taking a big chug off of my beer. "What are you doing here?"

"I know you better than you know yourself remember." She laughed out and sipped at her own mixed drink. "So, whose mark are you tonight?"

I shook my head with a chuckle as we moved along the upper floor, looking right down on the large black painted dance floor. "I've only been here for ten minutes Tanya."

"Yeah so, the last time you were in the back room with that Otter before I even got back with the drinks." She jabbed me in the ribs playfully.

"True..." I took a few moments to look about making sure there was no security hanging around before I reached into my jacket pocket to pull out four small green pills and offered a couple to Tanya. We both swallowed them quickly and head down to the dance floor, moving around to the music.

As the night moved on the effects of the pills started to take effect on us, my mind seemed to slow a bit, I was fully conscious but the lights became very pronounced and the music just became even more melodic and pulse pounding than before. That's when I noticed him; a dark black furred Germen Sheppard with a deep chest nut brown neck and chest patch running down into his pants, his body was so rigid and muscular. I looked to Tanya giving her a wink before I moved away to the Sheppard and grinned at him.

I ran my paws down his perfectly defined chest and stomach, the drugs I had taken letting every bit of inhibition just drain away as he took my paw off his chest and lead me to the back of the club through a set of chains draped from the ceiling leading into the even darker back rooms of the building where you could fuck and suck to your hearts content. It couldn't have been more than ten minutes before I had his eight inch canine dick crammed up my tail hole, his paws grasping my hips and large black tipped bushy tail as his hips work away behind me; I gasped and moaned for more and more until he finished and dumped his seed into my body and as quickly as it started it was over.

I wasn't surprised that it happened like that, hell I didn't want to date the guy; it took me a few moments to regain control over my body and moved back out on the dance floor with a stupid grin on my muzzle looking at Tanya. The night went on just like that, I must have made ten trips into the back room before both Tanya and I left the club stumbling down the street watching all the bars close up shop. We stopped briefly to catch our breaths, it only took a moment but that moment changed my life for ever. A steel pipe had come swinging down onto my back crashing across my ribs and making me crumple into a pile on the wet concrete. I growled and looked up to see Gregory and his posse all standing over me, one of them grabbing Tanya in a tight bear hug.

I wince in pain as the pipe crashed down on me again flattening me right to the pavement. "This is what fags like you get!" he howled out.

Tanya yelped and swung her leg back managing to nail the wolf that was holding her right in the crotch and tries to rush at Gregory only to have some sort of pistol shoved in her face. "Greg stop this, you don't know what your doing!"

I tried to force myself up but the pipe had shattered five of my ribs and I could barely breathe; all I remember hearing was the blood curdling scream and the bang as Greg fired his gun.

The sounds of police sirens soon filled my ears as the wolves all disappeared down an alley leaving me trying to call out Tanya's name but all I could do was grasp her lifeless paw.

My eyes slowly opened to the sight of bleak white drop ceiling tile and florescent lighting, the sterile sanitized smell of a hospital flooded my nose. I began looking about to see a mere light blue curtain blocking my view to knowing truly where I was, bandages lined my chest and head.

At first I thought it might have been a bad dream, so many images flashed thru my mind. I was about to tear my way out of the hospital bed when one of the doctors opened the current, holding a clip board in his paw. "Glad to see you're awake..." he quietly said.

"What the fuck happened?" I let out in a low growl.

He seemed to be very uneasy and pulled up a chair next to the bed. "What do you remember?"

"I don't know, it's all a haze, we left a club then..." it suddenly hit me that it wasn't a dream I quickly tried to get out of the bed but my ribs were still broken so I yowled out in pain and collapsed backwards. "Tanya, where is she?! I want to see her!!" I cried out.

"Zen...you're friend...she...she didn't make it..."

My jaw must have dropped ten feet, my entire body seemed to convulse and go limp; I felt sick. "No it can't be; I don't believe you..."

"I'm sorry...your parents are here when you are ready to see them..." the doctor said before standing up and walking away to leave me on my own again.

My parents came in a few minutes later, my dad hanging back with a worried mournful look on his muzzle, while my mother just looked pissed off, probably so drunk she could barely stand. "Didn't I tell you something like this would happen?!" my mother started. I stared at the ceiling barely even acknowledging their presence. "Why did you have to go to that sick club...I hope you got enough cock in you to get you past what you've done."

I finally looked down at my mom with a sneer on my muzzle. "Fuck off..." I said to her making my mother recoil, I had never stood up to her in all the years she had been trash talking me.

"What did you say to me?"

"I said fuck off mother, I don't need to hear your drunken ramblings anymore. Get the hell out of here!" I screamed out at her making her turn around.

"Don't fucking bother coming home, I never want to see your muzzle again" She said storming off, leaving only my dad there whom placed a plastic credit card into my paw.

"We still love you Zen; don't ever forget that, your mother just needs time to cool off." He said to me with a fatherly tone.

"I won't be coming home again...but thanks dad..." I said to him before he started to walk away taking a second to look back his expression very, very sad.

Two weeks later I was finally healed enough to leave the hospital, I had just my clubbing clothes I'd worn that night, my jeep and the credit card my dad had given me. I don't know why but I couldn't help but go to the school I knew it was in session, I pulled up into the parking lot and instantly spotted Gregory's sleek pride and joy of a high end sports car, I pulled out my old space ball bat and with several hard wild swipes I smashed each of the windows and lights. Panting and sweating I dumped the bat in the passenger seat and sat right in the driver's seat, just waiting; an hour maybe more passed when school ended and the students piled out then I saw him. The brown wolf and his three friends walking into the parking lot, then they saw the brutalized car and began to run towards me; a mass of the other students who also saw come rushing forward to gawk at the scene. Just as they got up to the car I thrust open the door hauling out the bat with me, the chrome steal shinning in the sunlight.

"What the fuck did you do!?" he yowled out charging right up to me, not taking anymore shit and knowing this guy killed my best friend I wasted no time swinging the bat out and smoking him right across the muzzle, instantly shattering it and spraying his crimson blood all over the pavement and onto my mesh muscle shirt. Gregory writhed out in agony on the asphalt his friends rushed at me, one of them taking a clean swing across the side of my head, collapsing me to the ground but I was so pissed off at that point the pain was nothing, I jammed the end of the bat right up into the groin of the one who'd hit me and in turn swiped it across the knee cap of the other, knocking him flying to the car, his throat connecting with the edge of the open door, I guess he died instantly. I stood up and with all my strength ploughed the flat edge of the bat across the back of the whining wolf cradling his maleness also killing him.

I didn't even wait around to kill Gregory, I'd be back for him later; I took off to my still running jeep and roared out of the parking lot before anyone could say anything. Next thing I knew I fell out of my jeep in a dank alley way, my chest heaving and my breath ragged; I couldn't believe it I'd just killed two furs and permanently injured another. I looked down at my blood spattered shirt and tore it away.

I had just killed for the first time...

Chapter 2:

Staying in a run down motel on the edge of the city, I barely even left the musky scent filled room; staring at the water warped ceiling, listening to the loud traffic from the highway that was practically right out the front door of the place.

After hours of my mind hitting me again and again with the images of Tanya's chest being torn open by the bullet and her blood begin spilt on the street, I got up and yowled out painfully smashing my fists into the wall, denting it. I walked out to my jeep and looked down at the centre computer console and searched through the news reports about the school and Tanya's funeral, finding out it was later in the day.

I quickly rushed out to a department store buying myself a very expensive suit, much like my dad liked to wear to work. I had to stop for a little bit, inside the lush green park like area covered in head stones marking the grave sites, then I saw the large precession just a few meters away; finally building up the courage I put on the amber lenses of my wrap around sunglasses and opened the door walking right towards the group of at least a hundred furs; friends, family and school mates of Tanya.

I stayed to the back, knowing that probably the police were looking for me; covering myself with the trunk of a large tree just listening to the sobbing and mournful cries of everyone.

Once the funeral was over and the people started to leave I showed myself and step right thru the crowd, getting a mix of confused, angry and sad expressions; I walked right past Tanya's mother, father and sister and knelt down next to her plot letting a single tear roll down my cheek before I tossed in a single rose flower on top of the casket.

I stood up slowly, my knees feeling weak and looked to Tanya's family. I wanted to say so much to them, wanted somehow to make it up to them but there wasn't anything I could have done to replace Tanya so I just walked past them only to have my shoulder grabbed by Tanya's well built red furred father, I turned and saw his powerful paw raised up ready to land his skilled blow on my muzzle. I stood there for the longest sixty seconds of my life not offering any resistance, I deserved it but he never followed thru only to drop his fist and wrap his paws around me giving me what must have been a fatherly hug, I wouldn't know.

As the day fell to dusk I sat in Tanya's house, still in my all black suit, as her father passed me a glass of some sort of vulpine scotch. "I don't blame you for her death Zen..." he quietly said sipping at his own glass.

I look down at the floor, unable to meet him eye to eye. "But I took her to the club, if it hadn't been for me then...then..."

"Zen, look at me..." he said forcing me to lift my head, "...you didn't pull the trigger; there was nothing you could have done. Although what you did at the school doesn't help matters."

"I know Mr. Grey, I don't know what I was thinking...I had to get those bastards...they were all there." I blurted out.

The red fox sighed and put his glass down on the black wood coffee table and cupped his paws in front of his face. "The police are coming for you. You have to leave here, I can see a lot of promise in you, but a lot of rage and confusion; don't let it eat away at you."

I'm not entirely sure why he told me all of this or even why he helped me, but after a long conversation he personally drove me to the space port. "Thank you Mr. Grey, maybe I will come back some day."

"I would like that, I've always liked you as a person Zen; be safe..."

I managed to grab a ticket for a liner heading out to some far flung port on the edge of lion space. The accommodations were crammed almost seemed like we were cattle, I was in the cabin with five other furs who didn't look like the friendliest bunch in the world; I was sure two of them were two hits away from overdosing and one other looked like he was going to rip my head off if I said anything.

I just kept to myself over the four days of travel barely leaving my bunk when the fur who I thought was going to kill me for the suit I was wearing stepped over to my bunk. "Hey kid, looking a little over dressed for a cruise like this..." he said to me in a deep raspy voice, I looked over to him; eyeing his seedy cougar face covered in a pelt of deep chestnut brown fur.

"What's it to you?" I responded quickly.

"Nothing at all, heading to Lion35 are you?"

"Yes..." I said; trying to figure out what this feline was getting at.

"It's a dangerous place; being dressed like that; just asking for trouble. If you need any help then just look for the Claws." He said before turning about and lying down on his bunk.

"Fuck..." I thought to myself and continued to stare at the ceiling; barely a week away from home and already some guy is trying to get me to join his gang.

Once finally on the station, I realized exactly what the cougar was talking about; it was all a mix of thousands of leather, rave, and gang styled clothing. I couldn't believe how much illegal stuff was going on, mercenaries and hired killers walked out with without fear of being arrested, the ravers popping pills right in plain sight. I really was out of place here so I made my way quickly to a clothing store and got myself something a little more the station, a pair of black baggy cargo pants with navy blue accents, it wasn't cold in there so I forwent a shirt just going bare chest, hell I was on the space ball team for so long and worked out quite frequently why shouldn't I show off my well built chest and topped it all with a thigh length black leather trench coat.

I looked at the bank account my dad had left for me and cursed my need for high style as I was running out of cash fast. The only things I was good at was fine dining cooking, space ball and clubbing...not exactly the best job attributes, especially in a place like this. That's when I saw the ad badly glued to one of the station's walls, it was asking for any male dancers interested in working long hours in one of the bars there.

It barely took five minutes into the interview before the lanky satin suited sunglass wearing lion with a long greasy black mane tightly tied behind his head looked at me, with my open trench coat and grinned at me. "Take off your jacket..."

I looked at him curiously and stood up from the rickety folding chair I was sitting in and slid my jacket off, tensing my upper body muscles. "How's this?"

"You're perfect; you start tomorrow night, ten pm." He said to me and stood up to shake my paw.

Surprisingly it wasn't difficult, hell I loved clubs a lot, and this one was amazing; not quite a gay club but had its share. I spent most of the time behind the bar slinging drinks to the patrons, I got my share as well, the occasional drunken female or even the rarer male would buy me a couple shots. It was taxing though, I was working almost every night until seven or eight in the morning and would always crash in my motel room drunk and flying off of the chemical drugs I'd consumed just to get through the night.

Three weeks into the job, I was well liked and very comfortable in the place. It was a Saturday night so we were packed to the brim; I had gotten into the mode of putting on a show, flipping the bottles around with expert precision. I moved to the end of the bar to get to a customer and lean forward to hear what his order was over the loud dance music; he was middle aged, a tiger, covered in bright orange fur with the traditional black stripes; he leaned in closer with a weird smirk on his muzzle. "Hey how's it going tonight, I'll take a gin and tonic please."

I simply nodded to him and whip the bottle of gin up in the air catching it behind my back as I poured the tonic water into the glass and add the alcohol. "Here ya go, that's six fifty."

He handed me the money. "Listen, do you ever do private gigs?" the tiger said closer to my ear, making me lean back and eye him oddly. "I'm looking for a bartender for a private party...I can pay you a thousand credits for it."

My muzzle dropped hearing how much cash this guy was willing to pay. "Leave your card...I'll get back to you." I stammer out as I was being pulled away to serve some others, then I feel the tiger's paw slipping into my back pocket, placing a business card there.

I had the next few days off, I sat in my hotel room idly flipping the television channels quite enjoying not having the deafening music all around me. I had really grown into the life of the station and knew most of my way around. After a small lunch I'd ordered in I was washing dishes and spotted the card the tiger had given me last night, I passed it nervously around in my paw very tempted but also weary of what this guy actually wanted me to do.

"Whelp, you never know until you try..." I said to myself and punched the number into the com system, waiting a few moments before the image of the middle aged tiger appears on the monitor. "Hi, I don't know if you remember but we spoke last night about a private party."

He looked at me for a second then nodded with a smile. "Of course; glad you decided to take me up on it, you'd be perfect for it."

I put up my paws and smirk. "Hold on just a sec, I haven't agreed yet; what exactly is this party all about and what am I supposed to do?"

"I need someone who can work from nine pm until around two am and does not mind showing off their body." The tiger explained.

"So this is some kind of sex party?" I says quite bluntly as I shook my head.

"No, no...I will have several female waiters there; I just like things to be balanced for my guests. You will not be required to perform anything other than mix drinks." He said to me putting a lot of emphasis on the 'required' part.

"Alright...you have yourself a bartender, just upload me the time and the place." I replied quite readily.

I slept quite heavily the next two days, occasionally going out for my jogs; after all I had to keep my image in peek condition. Then as the sun set onto the station leaving it in complete darkness the main station lights came on, I had an uneasy feeling about this job but I forced myself on pulling up the loose khaki pants over my lower body and putting on the shiny black button up shirt over my torso making sure the sleeves were tightly rolled up. I gave myself one final look in the bathroom mirror making sure my hard gelled head fur was in the correct place before I headed out to the tiger's private space liner.

I walked down the docking collar already hearing the loud top forty, pop and dance music being played. I pressed the intercom button and was promptly let in; this ship was impressive, I'd never seen anything as elaborately decorated in my life, three decks worth of the ship was an open glass window looking out against the hazy orange and purple gas cloud that hung in the extremely far distance.

The tiger came up to me as his security guy showed me where the stocked to the limits bar was. "Thanks for coming, I take it you found the dock alright?"

I nodded slowly, beginning to familiarize myself with the locations of the glasses and the different alcohols. The tiger whom introduced himself as Ryan also introduced me to the wait staff, five extremely attractive females and one male.

"The guests will be arriving shortly, if you would Zen...open your shirt up" Ryan told me, so without hesitation I did so.

No later than a half hour passed before what had to be a hundred high class business furs begin showing up and I was put to work, winging bottles of beer and alcohol all over the place putting on the best show of my life; surprisingly I didn't drop as single one.

The night drilled on almost non stop, these guys could really drink. I stopped briefly taking a long haul off of my cigarette before cracking the cap off of a bottle of beer and passing it to one of the servers. I put the finished cigarette out in the ashtray as Ryan came up to me, obviously getting quite hammered and gave me a wide smile. "Great job tonight Zen, you're well worth the money" he stammered out, his eyes roamed along my exposed chest.

"Thanks, just making sure you get a bang for your buck." I replied as I passed another couple bottles to one of the servers.

"Listen...you look a little run down, maybe you need a little pick me up?" He said sliding a little baggy of this slightly glowing blue jelly.

I picked the baggy up and looked at it. "What is it??"

"It's called D seed, its amazing stuff." I shrugged and tore the tip off of the baggy and squeezed the jelly over my tongue, almost instantly being hit with a wall of euphoria and a warm sensation filling each nerve in my body. I stumbled back, not expecting it to take effect so quickly. As I experienced the drug more and more, the more and more I started to like it; it wasn't something where I felt out of control on it just made everything so much more significant, made my paws move faster than I thought possible.

As the party died off leaving only a couple furs still around, I was enjoying a drink with the servers when Ryan found me again and ran his paw down my spine making me shiver. I looked back at him, the D seed still having full effect on me even though I had taken it like four hours ago. It's all still kind of a blur but he leaned over and begun whispering something into my ear, whatever it was must have been good because the next thing I knew I was in his large bed room, naked on his bed as he ran his tongue down along my chest. "Do you like how this feels?"

I moaned and nodded, panting slightly.

"I can give you this feeling all the time if you want..." he whispered out.

The drug was so powerful and so good I cried out for more as his rough tongue passed over my rigid throbbing fox hood. Ryan climbed up over me as his muzzle moved over my throat. It happened in a split second I felt a sharp painful sting as his large teeth sank into my throat, I gasped and struggled under him but his massive weight sank down, keeping me pinned as I felt the flow of blood from my jugular. I thought I was going to die but some how I just felt this weird energy penetrating my entire body, like a new life essence filling me.

I laid in Ryan's bed all night long, my chest panting heavily. I rolled over and looked around, I felt nauseous, seeing Ryan over an office desk reading something. Slowly I stood up and stumbled over to him, "What the hell did you do to me??" I groaned out.

"Simple I gave you the gift of eternal life, you belong to me now." He responded with a dark evil tone.

I growled and tried to move towards the door, but my legs were like Jell-O and I tumbled to the floor. "Bullshit! No body owns me!"

The tiger knelt down next to my side and rubbed his paw along my muzzle. "Don't fight it Zen, you will like it eventually."

I growled and thrust my body upwards, and shove my paws into Ryan's exposed chest and knock him clear flying into the far wall of the bedroom. I climbed to my feet looking at the unconscious tiger then to my paws not knowing how I did that. My mind was a wash of sickening feelings as I rushed around and got my clothes rushing out off the tiger's ship.

I woke up in my bed the next morning drenched in a cold sweat, panting hard. I thought it might have been a dream but as I slowly padded to the bathroom and looked at myself in the mirror, my jaw dropped as I saw the two puncture marks over my jugular.

"Fucking prick!!" I growled out smashing my fists into the glass mirror.

The day wore on, I paced around my motel room looking at all my things; I couldn't help shake this urge at the back of my head. I was hungry but nothing I ate or drank seemed to satisfy it. I looked at the clock and realized I had to be at work in like twenty minutes so I had to rush around but I was moving so fast I made it to the club with five minutes to spare. My night was amazing, I never once felt tired or run down, I was flinging drinks all over the place with more flare and accuracy than I'd ever had.

I made my way to the owner's office at the end of the night, the main lights of the club coming on as the clean up crews got to work. I looked at the badly dressed lion with his slick tight pony tail, working with his banking books. "Hey Deck, you got my cheque ready?" I say to him with a cheerful tone.

"I heard you took an outside job last night..." he quietly said to me not even looking up.

"Yeah so, it was my day off"

"I don't appreciate my employees going behind my back like that you know." The lion said to me looking up, trying to give me a dominant glare.

"Fuck off Deck, you don't own me, I can do whatever I wish." I fired right back at him; he'd always tried to keep his foot over everyone who worked for him.

"I made you Zen, if I hadn't taken your Twinkie ass off the streets you'd be in the gutter right now selling your tight ass to any ragged ass troll who wanted a piece." He hissed.

I balled up my fist and snarled at him, leaping clear over the desk and knocked him and his chair flat to the floor, pinning him there with my claws digging into his skinny neck. "Now you listen to me you piece of shit, no body talks to me like that ever!" I yowled out as he tried to struggle under my grasp but some how I managed to keep him pinned even though he must have had a good fifty pounds on me.

"You're fired!" he gasped out. "And I'm calling the police!"

"How can you call the police if your windpipe has been crushed?" I smirked at him as I tense my grip followed by the blood curdling sound of his larynx snapping and his body went limp as his life drained from his body.

I gasped and tore myself away from Deck's corpse and cover my muzzle to stop myself from screaming about what I had just done and scramble out of the office and the club.

I staggered around the station, collapsing along side of one of the service alley almost vomiting, I couldn't believe what I had done but what I could believe more was the fact I wanted to do it again or should I say I needed to do it again.

Night after night I rolled out along the streets, finding something to satisfy my overwhelming urges; at first it was the homeless and the people who'd overdosed on whatever drug they'd enjoyed and viciously murdered them, leaving their corpses bruised broken, and their blood splattered along the steel floor plating.

I was standing over my latest victim, some female chipmunk prostitute, her arms covered in the scars of needle injections and suicide attempts, her vinyl halter top, low cut jean shorts and red hooker boots covered barely any of her body, I began to walk away after whipping the blood away from my claws when something smashed across my muzzle sending me flipping right over myself to the ground. I shook my head and looked up saw this massive brown furred jackal standing over me dressed in all black with a leather trench coat hanging along his lathe yet still very large frame; his slender muzzle and piercing amber eyes glared at me as he pressed his sliver coloured pike against my throat.

"Demon scum..." he hissed at me as I slowly climbed to my foot paws and balled up my fists.

"Just get the fuck out of here, this doesn't concern you." I snapped back barely even unnerved by the weapon held against me; I'd gotten used to the fact whatever Ryan had done to me had given me these amazing abilities; I was twice as fast as I used to be and nearly three times as strong.

"I'm making it my concern...you haven't fully changed yet, there's still a chance." The jackal said to me, but not being interested in hearing anything this bitch had to say I lashed out my claws towards his chest trying to slice him in two. I'd never encountered anything like this before, sure I've had victims that had fought back but with my speed and strength they never stood a chance but this jackal spun his entire body around narrowly avoiding my strikes and pivoted to the side sending his hard combat boot right into my chest taking me clean off my feet and crushing my body into the street.

"What the fuck are you?" I snarled out as I climb to my feet again trying to kill him but he was too fast and too skilled for me, easily batting away my uneducated blows and simply side stepped right into me jamming his shoulder against my chin and swiping my legs out from under me with his pike. Before I could even turn over I felt the pointed end of the silver staff poking at the back of my neck.

"JSTF, and I'm sorry but I must..." he said as he pulled his pike up for a final blow but it never fell as a black figure rams into the jackal into the wall.

I gathered my senses and stood up quickly seeing Ryan there huddled over the unconscious jackal, then I spotted the silver pike lying on the ground so I quickly picked it up and held it defensively out in front of me. "Ryan, what the hell is going on??"

The big tiger looked back at me with a grin, licking some of the jackal's blood away from his claws. "Simple Zen, I couldn't let this piece of shit hunter take my prize protégé. Now, do you want the honours or shall I finish him off?"

I stood there with my jaw wide open, my need for killing was still there and I was tempted to plunge the steel rod into the jackal's chest but I hesitated and turned away. "N-n-n-no, I don't want to."

"Yes you do Zen, I've watched you the last couple days; you can't get enough of it. How many so far...ten, fifteen?" Ryan said standing up and running his paw along my neck right over the scars left from his bite.

"I've lost count already...I don't want to kill anymore." I replied almost in tears.

"Too bad, you made this choice, let me show you how to really get the most out of it. You have only done half of it, you've killed but have you taken their souls yet?" Ryan asked me looking back at the jackal.

"Taken their souls? What are you talking about?!"

"Watch..." he grinned at me and turned to the lifeless corpse of the chipmunk I'd killed a couple minutes ago and put his paw over her bloody torso, my eyes went wide as some how her body began to glow and an green pulses of energy whipped around both Ryan and her, then in a flash of green light her body convulsed as the pulses raced into Ryan's palm making him gasp in what seemed like pure ecstasy. I felt it, all of it, something of the chipmunk leaving her body, like something violently being torn from her; her scream echoed in the back of my head. The orange and black tiger smiled up to the ceiling for a moment then looked at me. "With every soul you take, you grow stronger, faster; more powerful. Soon not even a piece of crap like him will be able to stand against you."

I looked at the Jackal, somehow I could feel his life essence inside of him, pulsing like a bright star in his chest; I could feel his heart beating, his blood coursing through his veins. "This is bullshit..." I said out loud. "I'm not going to kill him."

"Just do it Zen, you can feel it, you want it more than anything else in your life." The tiger said hoisting the jackal up by the throat with ease, holding him right in front of me.

The jackal's eyes open slightly; trying to struggle out of Ryan's grasp but could do nothing. I stared for what seemed like an eternity, his eyes blankly looked at me. "Don't do it, you won't be able to come back."

"Shut up!" I yowled out and gave him a quick jab to the sternum.

He coughed and gasped as the air was harshly expelled from his lungs. "Others will come for you; they'll finish the both of you off!"

I sighed and put my paw against his chest, feeling his heart beat. I didn't even do anything or know how but the same green glowing light burst from his chest surrounding my arm as it begun to sink inside of me. I felt this overwhelming power enveloping my entire body, I just let it flow into me, it felt so good more than any drug I'd ever done before in my life. I kept on pushing, more and more of his life energy pouring into me as the jackal whimpered out in pain and agony and soon after it was over; I fell backwards against the floor panting heavily, staring at the jackal's now limp body as Ryan tossed him away like a rag doll.

"There, you can feel it now...feel's pretty damn good doesn't it?" He said, kneeling next to me.

"Yeah it does...I want more." I replied, tensing my muscles feeling like a million bucks.

"Don't worry my apprentice; there will be plenty more where that came from..."

Chapter 3

Staying right by Ryan's side, he and I moved around from station to station; killing who and when ever we wanted. I'd really gotten adjusted to this, the thrill of the hunt and the prize of someone's life essence filled every part of my mind. I'd become quite good at it too, choosing to toy with my victims before I laid the final blow.

I stalked through the packed techno club, my purple translucent square sunglasses covered my sharp ice blue eyes; I moved with impunity thru the crowds, the light grey trench coat flowed behind me. I knew my prey, I had been tracking him all night; he was a gorgeous jet black wolf, with silver strands running through his fur, his body was just to die for. He was standing along one of the bars in the club, merely wearing a pair of fur tight blue jeans, plainly showing off his muscular upper body; he had an amazing mane of stone grey fur hanging along his shoulders. I moved up beside him at the bar ordering two beers and passed one to him.

"Good party huh?" I say to him as I took a drag off my cigarette.

He smiled at me and nodded as he picked up his beer. "Yeah it's awesome, thanks for the drink."

"No worries; just thought a nice looking male like yourself deserved it. My name is Zen." I said to him with a grin, putting my paw out, which he shook.

"Sam. So come here often?" he said obviously, glancing over my shirtless upper body.

"Actually, I just got here; was kind of looking for some fun." I gave him a little bit of a smile and a wink.

He chuckled at me and nodded, "Well there's a private party going on at my loft later on, maybe you could show up and get acquainted with some people here.

"I think I'd like that..." I grinned as he gave me his card with his address on it and walked away into the crowd.

I leaned against the side of the service elevator as it ascended into the warehouse looking building; my sharp vulpine ears heard the pounding of heavy fast paced trance music coming from the next floor up. I lifted the gate to the elevator seeing the flashing strobe lights lighting the large open space, twenty or so furs of every species littered the place, hammering back shots of strong alcohol, sniffing lines of some sort of powdered drug and even better, half of them were almost completely naked in various stages of having sex all over the place.

I looked around and saw Sam leaning against one of the support pillars of his loft as some cute small lion male knelt in front of him giving him what looked like to be one hell of a blow job. I moved over to the wolf with a grin. "Nice place." I said to him as he opened his eyes.

"Glad to see you could make it...make yourself at home." He replied to me petting the lion's mane urging him to continue nursing at his ragging hard on.

The party pounded on into the night; I did as Sam suggested and made myself at home, quickly taking five shots right in a row and leaned over the glass coffee table inhaling the powdered drugs left out, making my head spin and twitch with the flood of euphoria. I lounged out on the leather couch as a big muscle bound horse with a patch work of beige and brown fur knelt down between my legs and begun undoing my pants and instantly begun lapping at my thick vulpine sheath and ball sac. I rested my head back on the couch and moaned as this stallion was quite amazing at that and it didn't take long before I burst in his muzzle, giving him several hard squirts of my seed along his tongue.

I stumbled towards Sam's bed as he was pounding away at the young lion he'd been fancying all night. I knelt down, placing my still rigid cock in front of the lion's face which he quickly swallowed to the hilt, being pounded from both ends he moaned and panting heavily; I leaned forward kissing Sam on the muzzle my paw grasping the scruff of his neck hard. "Wicked party Sam, but I didn't come here for the sex." His ears pointed hard towards me as he gives me a confused look. "I'm here to take your souls..." I grin at him before pulling my cock from the lion's mouth sending my second load of spunk all over the lion's face and reach down with one clean swing I snapped the young fur's neck. Looking at the terrified wolf in front of me, he couldn't do anything because he had already tied with the lion and was helpless as I grabbed him by the throat, digging my claws into the flesh, drawing his blood out. I looked out over the other furs as they screamed and scrambled for the exit but I'd learned to use my powers quite well and with only my mind forced the loft door crashing shut and locked it.

Sam could do nothing, being tied with the corpse of the lion, he watched as I systematically ripped every fur there to shreds, spraying their blood onto the floor and furniture. Once it was over I stalked over to Sam just as his knot reseeded enough he could pull out and he tried to get away tripping over his night stand, whimpering loudly.

"Don't worry sexy, this won't hurt...much." I chuckled and stood over him, slamming my open palm across his spine, hearing the satisfying crack as his spine and ribs splinter, giving me an even more satisfying howl of intense pain from Sam's bloody muzzle. I knelt down next to him and kissed him gently on the side of the muzzle as I began to drain his life essence from his body, soon condensing inside of me I threw my head to the ceiling and yowled out feeling his strength coursing thru my own body.

I took one final look in the loft seeing the carnage I had done, I shook my head as a tear rolled down my cheek. I hadn't felt like this since I first took the jackal's soul months ago, what had I done?

Walking into the main lobby of Ryan's ship I stood looking out over the empty void of space behind the green planet below the ship. "What's wrong Zen...?" Ryan asked padding up behind me holding a glass of lupine scotch.

"I...I...don't know. I made a kill tonight, but something is different." I quietly replied to my mentor.

"Like?"

"I felt sorry for my marks, I think I want to stop this now..." I replied looking back at him.

"You can't, there is no going back. This is what you are now, accept it." Ryan said to me.

"I'm not, I'm done killing; I won't do it anymore. I'm going to leave you now..."

Ryan put his paws on my shoulders and sighed. "I'm sorry I can't let you go, you are mine."

"Please...I don't have the stomach for this anymore, just let me go."

"You won't last five minutes out there without me...you aren't going anywhere." He said a bit firmer, I could sense in him that he was growing annoyed.

I brushed his paws off my shoulders and turned to him. "Listen, here, I'm going whether you like it or not!"

He stared at me for thirty seconds or so "I cannot allow one of my own to leave me."

"You never told me the full story about who that jackal was or even what you are, but I did some research, he was a government agent; part of the Joint Supernatural Task Force, and you turned me into some sort of demon. I'm not going to be like this any more I'm leaving." I said to Ryan walking right past him only to have him grab me by the shoulders and force me up against one of the marble pillars holding up the room, his large forearm pressed against my neck.

"They won't hesitate to kill you if they see you, you're only chance is to stay with me!" He hissed into my ear.

I braced my boot against the pillar and grunted as I thrust backwards knocking Ryan off of me. I turned and growled. "I'm making my own chances now...oh and I found out something else...I know how to kill you now." I said to him pulling out a silver pointed steak much like the pike the jackal had brandished when he tried to kill me.

Ryan bared his teeth and climbed to his feet, rushing at me lashing out his claws; I had become much faster than the tiger in the last few months, dodging and twisting out of the way of the razor sharp claws. I spun in behind myself and swung out the silver steak jamming it right through Ryan's rib cage, he yelped in pain and stumbled away his crimson blood pouring out of the wound I'd given him. He collapsed to his knees; the blood seemed too vaporized around the steak followed by his flesh. "You little ingrate, I hope they find and kill you." The tiger's body dissolved into a cloud of dust that settles onto the ground his well tailored suit the only thing left of him.

I stood there and stared as his remains, panting softly, what had I done; what was I supposed to do now...

I stood in front of Ryan's computer, dialling the number for the JSTF main switch board getting some vulpine receptionist. "Task Force reception, how can I help you today?"

I made sure to stand off centre from the camera so they couldn't see me. "Yeah, I need help, I've been bitten by a demon...I don't know what to do, please help." I whimpered out slightly.

"Okay sir, just remain calm, where are you?" she urgently said to me.

"I'm in orbit of the vulpine home world in a ship, registry number zero nine alpha zeta six."

"We're dispatching a team right now, just remain calm..." She replied to me as I closed the channel.

No more than a half hour later I let a small shuttle craft dock with the ship and three combat armour dressed furs rushed into the main room where I sat holding the silver steak sitting across from the pile of dust that was Ryan. They all pointed their assault rifles at me, I stood up slowly.

"How long ago were you bitten?" one of them asked me quickly.

"Four months ago..." I replied as the three stared at me, expecting me to have just been bitten and definitely not expecting me to have killed the demon.

"On the ground now, do it slowly!" they growled out at me, all of them encircling me never lowering their weapons.

They soon paw cuff me and escorted me to their shuttle then to the JSTF holding area on the vulpine home world, where I was placed in a pure white tiled cell, only one way out through a light translucent blue energy barrier. I simply sat there, crying softly to myself when I looked up seeing a female light brown furred weasel stood before me on the other side of the energy field dressed in black jeans and a white t-shirt, in her paw held a dark grey computer pad, over her shoulder was a holstered large chrome plated handgun.

"Four months huh?" She started right at me.

"Yeah Ryan bit me after a party I was bar tending for..." I replied softly.

"How many furs have you killed?"

I looked up at her, the tears streaming down my cheeks. "I lost count after twenty..."

"How is it that you killed this Ryan...and wilfully turned yourself in?" She inquired; I saw on his muzzle that she was confused.

"I don't know...I don't want to be a killer, I hate what I have become." I blurted out.

I watched her as she drew her side arm and then punched in a code on the keypad controlling the energy field, it deactivated; she stepped inside the cell and stood no more than a foot from me.

I looked at her somewhat worried. "Aren't you afraid that I'll kill you?"

"Not really...our medical scans we've taken of you show that some how your body is resisting the demon virus; some how you're able to fight the virus from fully taking over your body and mind." She said sitting next to me.

"How, I'm nothing special, I'm just a reject from my home, lost, I'm just a kid." I exclaimed to her.

"We would like to find out...if you will let us. What is your name?" her tone went from being that of hatred and disgust to somewhat soft and concerned.

"Z-Z-Zen...Zen Hunt..." I forced out. "Please help me..."

"Alright Zen...you'll have to stay here, until we are sure about you..."

"I don't want to be some one's science experiment..." I growled a bit; the demon urges someone surfaced making her jolt a bit.

"You won't be, I assure you, you will not be harmed..." The weasel female said to me before standing up and leaving me alone.

They left me in the cell for what seemed an eternity; I paced around the six foot by six foot space. I couldn't get passed my urges, it was like with drawling from a powerful drug; I had the cold shakes, sweat poured from my brow. I growled fiercely and slammed my fists into the white tiles cracking them, then turned to see the weasel there with two heavily armed guards standing at her side.

"Feeling the need are we?" She said coldly.

"Yeah..." I whispered in response.

"Come with us, slowly." She ordered as the blue force field deactivated and the guards stepped in, placing me in paw cuffs again.

I fought with my urges to just rip the cuffs off and slaughter them right there as they escorted me down plain grey concrete walled hallways into a hi-tech medical facility. They had me lie across a cold steel table as the doctors passed a variety of scanners over me. That went on for over an hour before the weasel and one of the doctors came to me, five armed guards kept careful watch on all the exits as two more stood right next to my table their paws flexing over large mean looking shotguns.

"You are quite remarkable Mr. Hunt..." the doctor began.

"Thanks I like to be unique." I replied in an annoyed tone, sitting up on the table only in my boxer shorts.

"Your genetic make up has traces of demon DNA littered all over the place they seem to have been there since birth. Which is probably why the demon virus is having such a difficult time changing you, you're body is just used to it." The tabby cat doctor continues, my attention drawn to the weasel female leaning against one of the other examination tables.

"So I'm immune to it, why do I have the strength and urges of one of these things?" I replied completely confused.

"Well when you were bitten by your sire, it sent all that dormant genetic material into life and well to be honest since you've never dealt with what it is to be this type of demon you couldn't control it." The doctor continued.

"Well mostly, we tracked your movements over the last six months...you've been a busy boy, wanted for murder on your home planet, plus on Lion 35 and a dozen others. You have quite the rap sheet." The weasel finally spoke up.

"I know...I know..." I sighed loudly. "Well now what, are you going to turn me in?"

The doctor looks to the female then to the floor. "No, of course not conventional police wouldn't know how to handle you; we however do know and are willing to cut you a deal."

I looked up at her with a curious grimace. "What deal?"

"With your abilities and because pretty much no one knows who you are; you would be perfect to be a hunter. Work for us and we will wipe your record clean and give you a chance to have a real life." The weasel told me.

"I'm no covert spy or whatever...I barely know how to fight."

"We will train you, show you the techniques required to get to the bottom of the demon hordes. You think Ryan was the master? His sire will be looking for you and he won't be happy when he finds you."

I sat silently for a couple minutes. What choice did I have, if I didn't agree they'd kill me anyway just because of what I was and even if I did escape I'm wanted for multiple murders on at least four worlds. I looked back of up at the weasel and nodded. "What choice do I have...really?"

I spent two months buried in the depths of the JSTF holding building, I was put to endless training exercises both physical and mental ones; shown every type of demon that I would be expected to face and every way to kill them. I was also shown how to keep my thirst in check, it wasn't easy at first but through deep meditation sessions with their best martial arts instructors I didn't feel it as much.

Still they didn't trust me one bit, always had at least two guards at my side everywhere I went ready to slit my throat if I made one wrong move. After my basics were done I was carted away to the Lupine home world under heavy guard and pitted against even harder training, they pushed my small muscular body past its limits and then some.

I found myself crashing against the hard stone floor, letting out a deep painful growl as I felt a trickle of blood leaving my nose. I looked up to see the brute of a wolf standing over me, I pushed up on my paws trying to get to my feet but he swept them out from under me. He had been tooling me for the last ten minutes we'd been sparring and I'd just about had enough, just as he was about to land another hard punch to my kidneys I grabbed his wrist and twisted it painfully to the side; climbing to my feet finally I held his wrist and delivered a hard punch to his ribs and moved his arm down along my side pinning him helplessly bent over, I sent my knee up into his stomach and spun around launching my boot into his muzzle knocking him clean unconscious.

Panting and tired I stood away from him and took a hard clearing breath as I saw the fight master standing there applauding slightly. "Well done Zen, you're learning some control. Now we can move on to the next part...weapons."

The old wolf took me into a long room, lined with racks of various melee weapons, staffs, swords, knives, axes, everything and anything. "It has been the tradition of hunters to have their own unique style of fighting and of course weapon."

I looked up and down the arsenal, running my paw along some of the hilts, focusing in on a slim silver hilted broad sword, its hilt etched with the ying yang symbol. "Ah you fancy the human's Tai Chi Gin, it's an elegant weapon. Difficult to master, it requires the complete unison of mind, body and spirit. Are you sure?" the master explained to me in a soft but very stern and knowledgeable tone.

I grasped the sword and hoisted it off the wooden brackets; the blade was feather light and very flexible while the hilt was quite a bit heavier about one and a half paws long, the blade was etched in a fiery line pattern tainted in a faded ruby red colour. I held the sword out in front of me and grinned. "This one definitely..."

It didn't take long for me to become quite proficient with my chosen weapon; it was very similar to using a space ball bat, requiring extreme amounts of flexibility, accuracy and speed to use it properly. I moved my body left and right, spinning at fantastic speed and twisting my body narrowly avoiding the slashing pointed tip of the wolf's spear as it tried to jab me. I twisted my agile body around the body of the wolf, wrapping my arm around the spear and whipping my sword right through the hard steel pole and jabbing my elbow into his ribs, knocking him to the floor.

This time I wasn't the one being tooled, I easily fended off each attacker, coming one after another each more and more dangerous. By the end of it, I was sweating and panting heavily as my biceps tensed holding the heavy broad sword of the final challenger barely an inch from my forehead; the only thing keeping him at bay was the thin blade of my Gin. I growled and bared my teeth, digging deep into my centre I exploded sending my demon energy surging out tossing the helpless wolf flying four feet away. I stepped over him placing the tip of my sword against his chin. "Do you yield?"

He nodded quickly, panting hard and wincing in pain. So I smiled and swung my sword behind my back, helping my sparring partner to his feet; looking to the master getting a simple humble nod of approval.

Now I guess I had proved myself over the six months of training I was free to move where I chose without being watched too closely. I walked into the office of female weasel that had first brought me into this world, I had not seen her once since I had started training; she was sitting across from me thumbing through some field reports. "You've been working hard, I see." She said looking at my muscle shirt and black pant wearing form, my body covered in my charcoal grey fur coat with a lighter stone grey chin, chest, stomach and groin fur patch.

I nod slightly and sit in the chair across from her glass desktop.

"Well I've heard from your instructors over the last six months and to be honest I'm not impressed..."

My jaw must have dropped right thru to the next level; I mean how the hell could she say this? I did every test, every exercise and I did them with everything I had. "What do you mean?"

"Just look at this performance evaluation..." the weasel femme tossed my file into my lap and stood up, walking around my chair. "...your combat training is sub-par, barely passed any of the demon knowledge testing; I have half a mind to throw you right back in the hole I found you in."

My breath became heavy as I looked at the floor, my paws tensing to the arms the chair. I just felt the urges of my demon infection surging back into my mind as the weasel drilled me with everything I'd failed at.

"You were right when you said you were just a kid and no fighter..." She said to me, putting her muzzle right in front of my face and by that time the rage had built up so far in my mind I snarled out and lashed out, thrusting my the weasel up into the air and brought her crashing down upon her desk top.

"What more do you want from me?!" I yelled out, the fur on the back of my neck standing practically on end. "I did everything you wanted, everything! I let your people beat the hell out of me for six fucking months and now you come and tell me it isn't good enough?!"

The weasel looked up at me obviously in pain, my biceps tensed as I was about to crush her skull in but I just thought that I wasn't a cold blooded killer anymore; I wasn't going to take another innocent life. I tossed my body away from her, tripping backwards over the chair I was sitting in and hit the floor hard. I looked up at the florescent lights in the ceiling, seeing the weasel come to stand over me, slightly rubbing her back. "I'm so...sorry, I tried...I tried so hard." I whimpered out.

"Congratulations, you passed the final test..." She forced out, still a little winded from the hard slam into her desktop.

My eyes focused in on her, I was completely confused. "What do you mean? I nearly killed you."

"But you didn't, as I said I've been watching you intently and I had to be sure that we could help you. We have never attempted something like this before..." She said to me helping me back to my feet.

"So...I'm an agent now? Or...?" I quietly said, not able to meet my eyes with hers.

"No, unfortunately, there are some in the higher rankings who do not believe you are worth the time or effort yet...so for now, you are free. Be aware however I will know where you are at all times." The weasel explained to me.

"But how will you contact me, I don't even know your name." I responded.

"It's for the best you don't, we need to maintain deniability; I will be in contact."

Chapter 4

After the run in with the female weasel I was set free upon the lion home world, the very capitol of the Interstellar Fur Alliance and the sight of the final battle between the demon hordes and our soldiers and also the climactic battle between Caster Delawise and the legendary wolves Kitt Alistair and Alec Drominaz. I was walking down the bright hot sun lit street, probably along the very street where these people once walked. It was a little overwhelming, I'd never seen a city so huge or populated, the main city stretched for nine hundred miles in every direction and build more than three kilometres into the sky in some parts and housed more than three hundred million intelligent life forms. Trust me it was a sight to behold and especially this week because it was the 25th anniversary of the great balancing, it had become the place to be to party.

I'd live in the metropolis for about three months, I was twenty years old now, two years after I'd witnessed the brutal murder of my best friend Tanya and begun my real life. I sighed inhaling the dried savannah air mixed with the pollution of the city, my work bag slung over my back as I rounded the stair case into the restaurant I had gotten a job as sous chef. Since it was the eve of the anniversary it was rocking busy, after all we were one of the top ten restaurants in this sector; called Equinox we specialized in extremely expensive fine dinning food items brought in from every corner of existence we could find. I quickly changed into my black button up chef uniform and tied my shoulder blade length hair into a tight pony tail and entered the fray, instantly starting the rush, the chef a portly short Doberman with the signature black and brown fur pattern he went on yelling out orders as I assume my position over the large black flaming grill and broiler, flinging on slabs of meat and seafood on the slatted surface cooking them with precision.

I was at home here, swinging my arms out over the blazing heat, sweating my balls off, trying to keep up with the blur of yells and slamming of pots, pans and dishes. Five hours straight our kitchen of eight very well trained and motivated cooks battled against the onslaught of guest wanting their meals; it was finally starting to die down around ten pm, the chef patted me on the shoulder and smiled at me, giving me the nod to say he was going to be heading home, so I did what I always had done, assumed his position while one of the others took up the grill, I began calling the orders and arranging the elaborate plates. One by one each of the cooks is relieved from their station, the clean up crew starting to break down the decimated line; finally at eleven I was relieved, so I crept off of the line into the back alley way, glad to finally get a breath of fresh air, I quickly lit up my smoke, taking the first satisfying haul I felt a paw rest on my shoulder.

"Hey dude, nice job on the grill tonight." The rough sounding voice said to me. I turned with a smile seeing the dark chestnut brown wolf, about the same height as me, dressed in a white chef jacket and the standard checker pants, his apron covered in smears of the various sauces that he'd been slinging over the sauté stove he manned, he was the master of that section.

"Thank Marcus; you too, although you seemed to get a bit weeded." I joked back at him with a smile, knowing that anyone would have got a bit screwed after the business we went thru tonight.

"Nah man, not my fault you didn't call those salmons." He fired right back at me without even a flinch.

We finished our cigarettes and went back inside to finish up the last of the orders. He and I had grown close while I worked there, at first I thought he didn't like me because he'd been working there for over a year and then I just showed up and smoked the sous chef position but he turned out to be an awesome guy and incredibly good looking. Finally we got out of there, it was about twenty after midnight, neither of us had to work the next day or the one after so we went with some of the servers and cooks to our usual hangout, a nice late night lounge; we all laughed and told the horror stories of the night as we progressively got drunker and drunker.

"Hey Marcus, want to hit up the anniversary rave tomorrow night in the valley?" I said to him as he sipped at his blood red coloured cocktail.

"Yeah right, like we're going to get in there, you like have to buy you tickets around the time the war happened!" He blurted out. I reached into my leather jacket pocket and pulled out two laminated cards that reacted with the black lights permeating the lounge, they read 'admit one to the 24th Valley Great Balancing'. I grinned at the wolf as his jaw dropped with a gasp. "How the hell did you get your paws on those?!"

"I have my ways, so is that a yes or a no?" I asked in although I know it was the most rhetorical questions I could ever ask.

I pulled up in my sleek midnight blue two door sports car, the ground lit in an eerie purple neon light I had wired into the undercarriage of it; I rolled down the almost black tinted windows with my hi-powered sound system pounding out thru the street. I watched as Marcus raced out of the front door of his apartment building. I couldn't help but arc my eyebrow seeing him dressed in fur tight black leather pants and a semi see thru white t-shirt that was cut off up above his six packed abs and to my surprise right on the front of it was a big rainbow coloured paw. "Holy shit" I thought to myself, I'd had a feeling about him but this was as plain as the sun, Marcus the hot wolf was gay.

Marcus climbed into the passenger seat of my car and smiled at me. "Ready to go?" he said pulling on a pair of shinny chrome rimmed sunglasses with blue lenses.

"Uh...uh...yeah, sure" I stammered out, turning down the music a bit.

"What?" The wolf responded and looked at me curiously.

"Dude, are you...gay?" I said quite bluntly, not quite sure how to approach this.

"Yeah Zen, is there a problem with that; I thought you knew."

I stared at him for quite awhile I guess because he had to give me a playful shove on the shoulder. "Are you cool? me being this way...I can go change my clothes if you want, I understand, it's not the most popular thing but I could help but advertise, I mean the amount of guys who are going to be at this thing."

I burst out laughing, startling Marcus a bit in his seat. "Funny, I had the same idea." I finally said to him with a smirk.

"You mean; you are...as well?" he forced out laughing a bit with me.

"I knew there was a reason we got along so much, we love cock." I chuckled.

"This is going to be a better night than I thought." Marcus grinned at me.

"I agree." With that out of the way I put the car in gear and Marcus slammed the door shut and cranked the ribcage rattling trance music and roared down the busy city street out into the bleak savannah, we drove for nearly an hour before coming to the ridge of a cliff. Marcus and I stepped out of the car for a brief moment to gaze upon our goal, in the middle of the valley floor which was over a kilometre wide fenced off area; what once was a military air field, now housed the site for the larges party in this part of the galaxy, a million furs crammed the grounds, each of the large hangars housing a different type of electronic music as the main runway was lit up with blazing pyres of fire and lasers beaming into the night sky, the bass echoed off the tall cliff faces,

Wasting no more time above the action, Marcus and I quickly got to the gate, flashing out VIP IDs and were let inside the deluge of hi energy partying. We danced and drank for hours, the intensity of the party never stopped keeping the masses of furs gyrating around; he and I getting a great spot right in front of the main stage, watching the buck DJ bouncing along as he rotated the silvery discs playing the music. I watched my wolf intently I just couldn't stop staring at his sweat soaked body moving around, his clothing sticking to his nicely toned body, he wasn't like a guy who is completely cut but he had a good build; he looked at me with a smile and probably by accident or maybe on purpose he moved passed me and brushed his paw against my groin.

I inhaled softly and followed him to one of the bars and ordered a couple drinks; Marcus turned to me and threw back his shot of brown liquid before tracing his claw up my chest, letting his eyes roam up my black baggy pants and up my tight red vest that I left open. He leaned forward towards me, I was sure that he was going to kiss me but as his muzzle got to and inch from my own; my cell phone began to ring. I grumbled under my breath and pulled it out of my pocket and blinked as I saw the number; suddenly my breath deepened as the high pitched ring tone pulsed again and again.

"I thought they forgot about me" I said out loud getting a weird look from Marcus.

"What is it Zen?" He said to me as I flip open the silver phone and put it up to my ear.

"Hunter 57...?" The familiar female voice said to me.

I turned away from Marcus and leaned against the bar. "Yes?"

"Bet you thought we forgot about our deal, I have your first assignment. In the drum and bass hangar of the rave, there is a demon. Take him out..." The female voice said to me, instantly I knew it was the weasel.

"How I don't have any weapons."

"Go to the bar tender on your left, tell him you need a demon blood, he'll give you the equipment. Your target is being uploaded to your phone now; reply to this number when it's done." The voice quickly hangs up; leaving me staring at the bulldog bartender I was supposed to go to, panting slightly as Marcus shakes my shoulder a bit.

"Dude what's wrong?" He asks me being very concerned.

"I...I...I..." I couldn't tell him what was going on, my mind raced with what I was going to say. "...uh can you wait for me over near the hip hop hangar? I'm going to go see if I can score us some ecstasy." I stammered out uneasily, knowing the hip hop hangar was well away from the drum and bass one. Marcus nodded slowly, not really believing me and moved away thru the crowd. I made sure he couldn't see me and padded in front of the bartender looking at him and asked him for the drink, he nodded to me and lifts a small briefcase out onto the bar; he then promptly left to attend his customers.

I sighed and lifted the case off the bar and made my way into the washrooms locking myself into a stall and opening the case, closing my eyes as I saw a pair of chrome plated handguns with two magazines of glowing green bullets. Taking several moments to collect myself I took the weapons out and slapped in the ammunition and clicked the hammers back concealing them in my baggy pants. I stalked thru the party to the door way of the dark near black hangar with red lights giving an eerie feel to it; I felt the extremely heavy and repetitive drum beats hitting my skull. I flipped my phone open and saw the image of a long ratty haired puma there; putting the phone back I started pacing around the hangar of leather lounge couches and a crowd of furs break dancing to the screeching music. My eyes darted left and right constantly until they locked in on the cat, dressed in army cammo pants and a white t-shirt I watched him mingling with some female furs seeing them all generally hanging off of him. Something in my gut just told me he was a demon and was only out to kill his pick; I tracked him for ten or so minutes when he sat down along one of the couches with two very attractive minks. That's when I decided to make my move, walking right in front of him.

"What the fuck do you want?" He hissed instantly at me because I was interrupting his fun.

I looked at both of the females and knelt down to one knee. "Ladies, leave now, we have some business to discuss." The trio laughed out loud at me, so I upped the ante and pulled out one of the large pistols, resting it loosely in one paw between my legs. "I said get the fuck out of here." I growled sending the females screaming away. "Now...I'm here to take your scummy demon ass out before you kill someone."

The Puma smirked at me and leaned down, his muzzle right next to my ear. "Get out of here kid, you couldn't possibly stand against me, now run along with your tail between your legs like a good fox."

"We can either do this the easy way or the fun way" was all I said before slamming my shoulder up into his chin, crashing against the back of the couch and over; I quickly followed leaping over the couch and bringing my gun down on him but he snarled and swung his paw out knocking my pistol away. He came at me with a fast spinning kick, giving me only a fraction of a second to duck out of the way and return with my open paw thrusting up into his sternum.

The puma staggered for a second before rushing at me again and spinning down to one knee and trying to trip my legs out from under me, but with my quick reflexes I vaulted into the air cart wheeling over the attempt landing hard down and lashing my own leg out. We were both so evenly matched a lot of the crowd must have thought this was a choreographed dance because we ended up with a circle of furs around us cheering and clapping for more. I growled as I batted his strong leg away with my forearm and finally landed a blow, my shoe colliding with his chest and knocking him into the circle.

I was quick to my feet and darted off as the Puma pushed and shoved his way out of the hangar, trying to get away. I followed him right to the edge of the party grounds, with its ten foot tall chain link fence which he leapt into the air and grabbed nearly clearing seven feet of it. I skidded to a halt as he fell to the other side and begun to run off into the dessert, lowering myself to my knee I pulled my pistol up and took aim; I had to take a few seconds to force myself to pull the trigger but I finally did with a hard thundering bang that thankfully was covered up by the trance music in the background. The green glowing bullet flew with the air at incredible speeds and before the puma got ten meters from the fence the bullet struck right thru his spine, spraying a purple thick liquid over the sand, his body bursting into flames as he roared out.

I knelt there with my gun held out for one of the longest minutes of my life; I'd fired guns hundreds of times in training but never actually shot someone. My arm shook as a flash of laser light burst into the sky followed by fireworks signalling its five minutes to the true anniversary I pulled the ammunition clip out of the gun and tossed it over the fence and the gun in another direction, quickly moving away from the scene before I was discovered.

Just as the music came to a climatic apex, thundering explosions went off in the air, lighting everything up as if it were day time; I found Marcus leaning against a steel support beam for one of the laser towers having a drag off of a cigarette. I must have looked like total hell, my vest dirty from falling over the hangar floor, my muzzle bleeding slightly. "Fuck Zen, are you alright?!" Marcus burst out, rushing towards me.

"Yeah...I'm okay...just had a run in with some prick whom was a little too tweaked out" I lied right to his face, rubbing my nose slightly with my forearm.

"Well at least you're okay...c'mon, let's get another drink and a rag for your nose." He said very worried.

I managed to forget a little bit what I had done, as Marcus and I sat in the chill out room on the couches there, just simply talking. He was a really interesting guy, very well educated in both cooking as well as computers; Marcus ran his own internet marketing company when he wasn't in the kitchen. The more we talked the more we found what we had in common. Dawn soon broke over the canyon walls and the crowds of people began to dwindle off as the DJs wrapped up their sets, the two of us walked out of the main gates and headed towards my car, realizing I still had to report in; so as we entered the car I opened my phone and punched in the number only getting a computerized series of beeps and tones.

"What exactly were you doing tonight? You weren't going after drugs I know that Zen." Marcus quickly confronted me.

I simply sighed and looked down at the steering wheel. "I can't tell you Marcus, I'm you just have to let this drop this one time..." Marcus nodded and looked out over the hood of the car as I drove out and back towards the city. The ride was dead silent, neither of us saying one word to another until I pulled up in front of his apartment building.

Marcus climbed out with a groan. "Zen...I'm sorry for prying I didn't mean to. I really do like you; maybe you'd like to come up for a night cap..." He looked up into the bright morning sun, rubbing his eyes "well maybe breakfast now."

As good as it sounded and simply shook my head and looked at him. "Maybe next time Marcus, see you on Monday?"

The brown wolf nodded back with a smile. "You got it."

I softly closed the door behind me as I entered my darkened apartment and tossed my keys onto the counters of the kitchen. I padded thru the space, it wasn't bad, but not huge and moderately furnished, I made my way right into the bathroom and stripped off my musty sweat soaked clothes and tossed them onto the floor and drenched myself under a hot shower, the images of me pulling the trigger and then the flames engulfing that puma demon raced thru my head. After my shower I dried myself off and walked right out of the bathroom completely naked as I should have been the only one there but to my surprised sitting on the couch was the weasel female from the JSTF, with her paws folded in front of her face.

"Catch you at a bad time?" She said to me as I grunted and didn't even stop to cover up, going to the kitchen and pouring a big glass of water for myself.

"What do you want? I did your little deed." I replied.

"And you did it well, no witnesses and no causalities. Not bad for your first run, congratulations you proved yourself and we can continue our relationship." She said back to me in a smug tone, standing up and moving towards the door.

"Hey wait a minute!" I yelled out rushing to the door. "I'm not going to be your errand boy here; I did your job, now I'm done. I just want to live my life."

The weasel female chuckled and patted me on the shoulder. "You thought that you'd only have to do one job for us? You're in it now Zen, you'd better get used to it...I'll contact you when we need you next." She said and moved right past me like I wasn't even there. I turned away from the door and yowled and cursed myself for getting into this mess.

I slept away most of Sunday, having been completely drained from the events of last night and I probably would have slept longer but my alarm was whining at me to get up so I dragged my ratty ass out of the warm comfortable bed and got dressed having to be at the restaurant in a half hour to count the inventory with the Chef.

The Doberman and I stood in the near freezing cold fridge measuring the weights of every food item in there and writing them down. "How was the party Zen, I saw it on the news, looked like a fucking huge bash." The chef asked me as he read the number on the scale loaded with a container of sauce.

"Enh it was alright Carl, just like any other party only seven times bigger." I shrugged and noted down the number on the scale.

"Alright, damn you got ripped off then huh, you practically booked that night off as soon as you started working for me." He laughed and rubbed his wrist. Carl, wasn't a bad guy; on the line he was as hard as an army drill sergeant and a lot of people couldn't handle working under him but out of the kitchen he was just one of those middle aged guys you could tell had done his share of partying in his day and understood what it was like, he was always willing to hear out your problems and try and fix them.

"Okay, it was one of the most amazing things I'd ever seen in my life. Marcus and I had a blast" I replied finally, giving him a semi fake smile.

Carl nodded and chuckled. "Well you two sure seem to be getting along really good. And I know he really likes you."

I stammered for a second, getting his tone, he knew about both of us being gay. "Uh, you know about us?"

"Duh, he doesn't hide it at all, and well it's my job to know everything about the guys who work on my line. And to answer your next question, I don't care...as long as you show up for your shifts and give it everything you have then what you do outside of work is your own business."

"Thanks Carl, I appreciate it." I gratefully replied to him. The rest of the night went as usual, we finished up rather quickly and inputted all the data into the computers retiring to the bar of the restaurant having our traditional snifter of one of the premium feline brandy's we had in stock; Carl insisted on ending each week with his sous chef with a celebratory fine drink to usher in a new better week.

The first three days of the week were slow in comparison to the weekends, Equinox only running with half the staff we would on the busy nights; most of it consisting of prep work. I was ramming the steel brush over the grill to clear off the carbon left from the previous items cooked as Marcus worked the pivot station, setting up the towering plate of green vegetables and slices of perfectly cooked meat then ladling over the sauces.

"Zen, want to go and get something to eat after we're done here?" He finally spoke up as he put down the piece of paper with the order into the window to be picked up.

"Sure, where did you have in mind? Zarkie's?" I said back to him.

We arrived at the quite bar and grill, it was around nine, and on Wednesday's it wasn't busy at all so we quickly were seated and ordered from the waitress.

"So, you all recovered from the party?" I asked him, sipping at my pint of amber coloured beer.

"Barely..." he laughed "...it was an awesome rave, thanks a lot for inviting me."

I nodded with a smile. "Not a problem, I couldn't think of anyone else I'd rather go with."

"I've been thinking about that and well...it's been a while since I've done this but..." I cocked my head slightly to the side giving him an odd look as he tried to speak. "...would you like to go out sometime?"

I laughed and shrugged looking around the restaurant. "I thought we were out."

I saw him blush and grow a little nervous. "No, I meant like on a date..." he whispered.

That blew me away, I couldn't believe it; I'd never had a guy actually ask me to go on a date with him and made even better was the fact I was totally attracted to him. "Hell yeah Marcus, I'd love to!" I said probably a bit more enthusiastically that I should have.

The nervous brown wolf laughed and breathed a heavy sigh of relief. "Okay...great! Well, we're both off next Tuesday...we could go see a movie, shoot some billiards, have some dinner."

"Totally, sounds awesome; can't wait." I said.

The week passed super slowly, each day passing just added to the anticipation of it. I'd been ogling this wolf for months and now he asked me out on a date, my first date. The weekend crept by, being incredibly slow do to the amount of parties done over the anniversary, nothing out of the ordinary though. Carl and I counted our inventory and had our brandy, and then it started all over again on Monday. I woke up early on Tuesday morning having gotten and incredible night sleep and not working late last night, I walked out onto the balcony to have my first cigarette of the day and a cup of coffee, the air just seemed to be so much crisper today. I went about my daily routine, I went to the gym and worked out, got my laundry done for the next week The evening fell upon the city, leaving it in a warm comforting glow of orange and reds when I heard a knock at the door; I quickly opened it to see the brown furred form of Marcus standing there in a nice blue button up shirt and black jeans, I myself wore a long sleeve black shirt and light beige khaki pants. "Hi there Marcus" I greeted him and showed him into my place.

"Nice apartment Zen, very you" He said with a smile looking about, seeing my Gin sword resting on the coffee table in its stand. "I didn't know you were into swords."

I blushed and shrugged handing him a mixed drink. "It was a gift from a friend."

Marcus gingerly picks it up off the stand and looks over the elaborate hilt engraving "You any good with it?"

"Nah, haven't really taken any classes. You look amazing today." I answered, trying to quickly change the topic.

"Thanks, so do you. I've got us reservations up at the Lookout café for seven." He said putting the sword back onto the stand.

"Nice score, I've heard that place is really good."

We sat in the completely glass dome atop one of the five hundred store spires in the capitol city, the view was incredible, being one of the tallest building's in the city we could see everything. There were only three or four buildings taller than this one; the one that caught my attention was the pyramid shaped capital building that housed the very centre of the Alliance government, its shimmering silver and gold sides reflecting the dying sunlight, it simply looked so powerful and majestic. Marcus and I ate our meals shooting the shit about work and new recipes we should punk from this place when he stops to wipe his muzzle on his napkin.

"I think I've bored you enough with my life and I know next to nothing about you, tell me a story." He smiles at me.

I looked down at my plate and cleared my throat. "Well, not much to me really, I left home two years ago, bounced from station to station bartending, what have you. Now I'm eating here with you." I explained hoping to satisfy him but the look on his muzzle told me it wasn't.

"Come on, there's got to be more than that. Who was your high school sweetheart, did you play and sports, what was your mom and dad like?" Marcus said quite directly and he was joking but I just looked at him very seriously.

"I didn't really date back then, I was a star receiver on the space ball team before I came out and was forced off of it; my dad was out of the house ninety percent of the time on business trips so I never saw him and my mom was a completely abusive alcoholic." I flat out told him, practically knocking him off his chair.

"Oh...Zen...I'm sorry...please forgive me, I shouldn't have asked; I knew there was a reason you didn't talk about it." The wolf quickly replied trying to apologize.

I nodded and leaned back in my chair. "It's okay, no way you could have known."

Following that event we paid out bill and Marcus drove me back to my apartment, he was the total gentle fur and showed me up to my door, I opened it and looked back at him. "Thanks it was a lot of fun tonight; definitely look forward to doing it again."

"Me too, at least we don't have to worry about exchanging phone numbers, we see each other like six days a week." He chuckled.

"Yeah no kidding" I don't know what came over me but just looking at him I fell towards him, wrapping my arms around his waist and kissed him right on the muzzle. We must have kissed for a solid minute and a half before we broke a part panting and licking our lips. "I always wanted to do that." I smirked at him.

"Glad you did...well I'll see you on the weekend I guess." Marcus said with the same kind of smirk.

"Definitely...have a good night." I said watching his slim tail sway over his nicely shaped butt and then went inside closing the door behind me.

I smiled to myself and leaned against the closed door then looked over to the counter where I saw a small computer disc lying atop a black duffle bag. Suddenly my happy feelings drained out thru my feet, my paw shook as I reached over for the disc and took it with the case to the coffee table and put the disc into the reader. On my TV I saw the image of the weasel femme.

"Greetings 57, I didn't want to disturb you with your date so I outlined the operation on this disc. So here it is...in the case you will find data on Yuna Cortez, she is a notorious trafficker of bio weapons, namely ones that have come out of the hell universe. Our information tells us that her current operation is exporting an extremely infectious disease; she will be travelling by limousine convoy to acquire this substance. Your objectives are to intercept this convoy and track it to the seller, where you will apprehend Yuna and the seller and contain the disease. Be aware that Yuna does not travel lightly and surely the seller will not be either, exercise extreme caution. Inside the duffle bag you will find the necessary equipment and weapons. Good luck." The video image slowly died off, and left me grumbling to myself whether to just throw everything off the balcony but then they'd probably hunt me down and kill me so I opened up the duffle bag seeing the standard set of pistols and a pair of submachine guns.

After spending and hour memorizing the files on the disc I got out of my khakis and put on a pair of black cargo pants, throwing my grey wide flowing trench coat over my body to cover up the submachine guns hanging off my shoulders and the thigh holsters with the pistols and set out into the late night. I sat in my sports car for twenty minutes cursing myself for doing this but quickly had to dump those feelings as I saw the black tinted window long limos pass by me, three of them. I hung back a few car lengths, following them turn for turn making sure not to be spotted when they turned in to a darkened warehouse building the roll door slamming shut right afterwards.

I waited for another five minutes before getting out of my car and quickly making it to the side of the warehouse to one of the side access doors. I reached into my pocket and pulled out a radio head set and put them into my stiff sensitive vulpine ears. "Hunter 57, have made contact with the exchange point."

"Confirmed 57, we have you on satellite recon, tracking twelve heat signatures inside the building." The mono toned voice said in response.

"Got it, making entry" I quickly picked the lock and silently made my way inside along the narrow hallway to the edge of the main room, seeing the three limos already surrounded with assault rifle armed bodyguards and one cube van with it's own team of bodyguards. I knelt down at the corner and observed as the slim vixen spoke to a grubby looking badger, my attention was so focused I barely noticed the guard coming up behind me cocking his gun at the back of my head. I froze for a second as he pulled me up to my feet and pushed me out into the middle of the warehouse where I instantly had a multitude of high powered weapons pointed at me.

"I found this, sneaking around the perimeter." The guard said to the vixen.

The vixen growled at me, while the guys from the cube van all grew very nervous. "I thought you said this was a safe place!" The badger barked.

The vixen stepped over to me, looking me over and quickly stripped my weapons from me. "Who the fuck are you?!"

"I was told this was a good tourist spot, sorry I must have had my directions mixed up." I blurted out, not even fazed by the weapons.

"Yeah really mixed up...kill him." The vixen said turning back to the badger "Look do we have a deal or not?!"

"Excuse me, but you're making a huge mistake." I said as the bodyguards forced me down to my knees. I closed my eyes for a brief second as I heard the rifle safety being taken off and I reacted in a split second shifting to the side and grabbing the barrel of the rifle and thrusting my leg out into the gut of the guard. I spun up to my feet stripping the rifle from his paws and kicked him hard right in the square of the back flinging him into one of the limo doors.

I had to act quickly, firing off a series of rapid shots to get the body guards to dive for cover behind the cube van having to smash the butt of the rifle into the muzzle of one of them spraying his blood over the hood of the truck. I hoisted my agile body on top of the truck, laying down several more bursts of automatic fire before the ammo clip ran out and I had to toss it to the side. Spotting my dropped weapons on the ground I sprinted to the edge of the truck and vaulted my body off of it in a perfect graceful gymnastic move I landed on one knee putting my paws right over the two submachine guns and quickly laid waste to the remaining guards. I stood up and disengaged the empty magazines from the guns and turned only to have the vixen's paw come crashing against my chest, the force of the blow knocking me flying into the side of the limo, denting it and shattering the window.

I remember shaking my head and looking up at the vixen, not knowing how the hell she, with her size could hit like that but my question was quickly answered when I saw her balled up fists followed by a deep evil growl as her body grew to almost three times her size, thick plates of scaled armour shooting from her sides and shoulders turning her from a fox to something that looked like a dark brooding monster; her paws elongated with huge razor sharp claws and her head contorted and burst open showing a long ugly snout looking like some sort of lizard. I stared in horror as it rushed at me, moving my body as quick to the side as I could the beast slammed into the limo and flipped it right over onto its roof. My body rolled over right in paws reach of my pistols which I quickly whipped up and began firing; each bullet having little effect, pinging off the thick armour hide of this thing. The demon again swiped its arm across my body, causing me to lift off my feet and fly right into the side panelling of the cube van.

I growled and yelped in pain, activating my radio. "57 to command, I'm in deep shit; I have a class nine brute demon here, requesting backup." I managed to get out before the cube van itself was lifted up by the demon, I watched in horror as the thing hoisted the two ton truck over its head ready to smash it down onto me. Having little time to come up with a good plan I climbed to my feet and dove thru the demon's legs as the truck came thundering down to the concrete floor and bounced a couple times.

"57 this is command, backup on route, class nine's have weak points on the back of the neck, shoot there." The voice said to me as I raced left to right dodging the powerful swings from the claws.

"Great..." I panted out loud, spotting a set of chains used to hoist cargo off of trucks that was connected to the second level of the warehouse. I rushed towards them dipping down momentarily to grab one of the bodyguard's assault rifles, the beast right behind me. Barely reaching the chains I let loose a string of bullets cutting the support chain and sending the rest rocketing towards the ceiling, I leapt and barely grabbed one of them; unfortunately I only made it half way up before the ten foot tall demon wrapped it's claws around my waist and began squeezing, it tore me away from the chain and slammed me into the concrete, baring it's weight down on me, it's slimy drool dripping all over me and the floor.

"You should be dead now; no hunter has stood up against me." The thing roared out at me, somewhat resembling a deeper angrier version of the vixen's voice.

I wiggled and struggled in the powerful grip, the tension beginning to crush my ribs making me yowl out in pain. I had to get out of this or I was going to die, I remembered from my training how I used my demon energy hold up inside of me and bared my teeth, my body began to glow a feint green as some how my arms began to part the demons hand. At that point I just lost it, I don't even quite remember how, I must have blacked out because the next thing I knew on pure reflex I had grabbed the demon's wrist in both paws and shifted my weight some how flipping it down on it's stomach and grabbed one of the claws in my bare paw ripping it clear off with a spray of crimson red blood and an echoing roar of intense pain. I stood above the beast and with its very claw I drove it down thru its neck and out the other side, skewering it right to the concrete floor. A second past before I came to my senses, staring at the demon under me, when the roll doors blasted off their hinges and my backup arrived; a team of JSTF tactical operatives, all of them stopping dead in their tracks seeing me standing over the slain creature.

I barely even looked up at them, just slowly limped past the team. "It's all yours boys, I'm going home."

In my apartment I simply crashed onto my bed, whimpering in pain; my entire body throbbed, my head was bleeding from being tossed around like a rag doll. I stumbled into the bathroom, and even though I'd just gone thru what seemed like a war and it should take weeks to recover I felt going away in minutes, I even watched as the gash on my forehead just disappear like nothing had even happened. "What the fuck is happening to me..." I growled to myself in the mirror.

Chapter 5

My legs pushed me as hard as they could, my stone grey trench coat flagging out behind my body like a cape, my target just a few meters in front of me crashing thru pillars of solid concrete as it tried to get away along the close nit roof tops of the capitol city, we bounded between the gaps at any moment or wrong step would send either of us falling over a kilometre to the ground. My vulpine eyes locked onto the quadruped creature, its shiny jet black body with amber glowing eyes, silver spines protruding out along its shoulder blades and the long whip like tail tipped with a mean almost sword looking bone.

I yelped as I had a split second to force my body into the air to clear a three meter gap between buildings, unfortunately I miss calculated and end up slamming into the ledge barely getting a grip with my strong upper body. I looked up only to see the black demon snarling, I saw the row upon row of sharp teeth bearing down on me.

"Poor little foxy, all stuck." It's soft almost child voice said right into my mind, these demons were very intelligent and very telepathic, thriving off of energies produced in the minds of sentient beings.

Struggling not to fall I braced my combat boots against the steel side of the building and growled up at the creature. "Have you ever flown before?" I grinned before I swung my body up unlatching the large hooked chrome knife that I had mounted on a launcher attached to my wrist; I plunged the blade into the demon's neck making it let out a thunderous howl of pain and using my braced foot paws I pulled backwards taking the demon and myself hurtling down.

The buildings rushed passed both of us, the beast trying to kill me on the way down slashing its claws frantically. I looked as the ground was quickly coming up so I used the demon as a spring board launching myself back up a few meters and flipping around using one paw to fire a grappling hook through the side of one of the buildings and the other whipping my side arm down at it taking a single shot sending a fast highly explosive round right into the demon's skull a second later before it slammed into the ground the bullet burst sending shards of bone and brain matter splattering everywhere then the thing slammed into the ground putting a half meter deep crater into the concrete of the street.

The rope finally became taught just barely in time, jerking me to a violent stop three stories up. I breathed a heavy sigh of relief as I waited to see if the thing was going to move then holstered my gun and began to climb up my safety line to a balcony and watch as a crowd of spectators gather around the slain demon's entrails and blood as it seeping out of its body.

I'd been running for two solid months, barely getting any sleep; between working almost six days a week at Equinox and getting mission after mission from the JSTF. I could have probably handle it except I was also trying to go deeper into my relationship with Marcus but every time we try and go out I get a call that some evil force was on the move. I was probably annoying the hell out of him.

I dragged my exhausted ass into work the next morning, I was so tired I didn't even go thru the trouble I normally do my hair was messy and tossed all over the place, just wearing a pair of jeans and a t shirt I had lying on the floor. I placed my backpack on the shelf taking a deep breath 'thank god it's only Tuesday' I said quietly to myself seeing Carl the Doberman chef stepping up beside me.

"Zen, you look like shit dude..." he blatantly said to me.

"Thanks; didn't sleep well last night." I responded back thru a yawn.

"Look, you've been getting worse and worse. Is there a problem? Maybe I can help..." Carl said. I stopped and looked at him, knowing I couldn't say anything about what was really going on. "Okay, we have that new kid starting tonight why don't you take the next two days off, we'll cover your shifts."

I put my paws up and shook my head. "I can't let you do that, you need me here." I responded.

"Zen, you're useless to me right now; it looks like you're ready to pass out right now. I need you ready to go for Friday; we have the closed dinner party for a bunch of the ambassadors from the Alliance. Now stop arguing with me and get the fuck to bed." The Doberman ordered.

I stood up at mock attention stance and smiled. "Yes Chef!!"

Getting home roughly a half hour after talking with Carl I hung my chef uniform up in my closet and stripped down out of my dirty clothes and plopped myself down on the couch turning on some pointless TV show and it couldn't have been five minutes before I had passed out in a beautiful sleep. It was probably six hours I laid out on my comfortable couch when I heard the door chime going off, so I picked my body up cracking my neck gently only dressed in my boxer shorts I opened the door to see the brown furred wolf Marcus standing there holding a six pack of beer and a pizza in his paws. "Hey you; heard Carl threw you out of the kitchen for a couple days." He said with a chuckle.

I ran my paw thru my hair to try and make it presentable as I ushered Marcus inside. He quickly put the pizza on the counter as I shut the door and turned instantly having his muzzle pressed against my own kissing me passionately. Our bodies ground against each other for the longest time until he released me, his tongue running along his lips. "Mm that's the Zen I remember. Shall we?"

We sat on the couch just chatting and watching movies, enjoying each others company, he had his arm draped over my shoulder. I looked up at him and gave him a gentle kiss on the cheek his paw starting to pet and gently run his claws through my chest fur. "So what do you want to tonight?" Marcus asks giving me a bit of a wink.

"Well, I dunno we could go out somewhere; but I have to go shower first." I responded in a slight seductive tone, climbing off the couch and padding towards the bathroom, wagging my bushy grey furred tail behind me. I bent over for just a moment as I slid down the cotton boxers from my waist and felt a gentle paw sliding up the back of my thigh. "Oh hello there"

"What a view heh, I don't get how you look like that. I mean there's not an ounce of fat on you anywhere." Marcus complimented me, making the inside of my ears turn red as I blushed.

"I just work out a lot." I stood up straight and stepped into the shower, turning on the hot water letting it drench my trim body, accentuating my hard muscle toned body. I smiled as I watched Marcus begin to peel off his clothes and quickly join me, both of us again locking muzzle together, this time his paws didn't stick to my back; feeling them cupping my rump. Before I knew it I was pressed against the shower wall with Marcus on his knees, his skilled canine tongue bathing my rigid fox member making me moan out loud.

My knees quivered as I felt the build up in my loins so I quickly stopped Marcus and pulled him to his foot paws and licked his muzzle and turned him around and grinding my throbbing cock along his tail base; my muzzle nipping and kissing the back of Marcus' neck "Ready sweet heart?" My pretty brown wolf simply nodded, bracing his paws against the shower wall and let out a deep guttural growl as I moved my hips forward, sliding my pre slicked cock inside of his tail hole. Our bodies seemed to become one, my demon senses allowed me to feel his lust and his rapid heart beat as I bucked hard against him nearly pulling my eight inches of fox cock from his tight passage and slid back in. I reached my paw around to find his own steel erection bouncing around and began to slide my paw back and forth over it until the pleasure of our rutting boiled over and I yowled out sending my pent up seed flooding into Marcus' body and in turn sending him over the edge making his cock burst and spray his watery lupine seed all over the shower wall.

We stayed under the spray of warm water for a while, kissing and washing each other eventually stepping out and drying off. "Damn, I needed that so badly." I said with a big contented smile.

"Me too hon. me too" He responded.

It took us an hour to get out of the apartment, we couldn't keep our paws off each other but we finally met up with the other guys from the restaurant at our usual lounge hangout and quickly got ourselves some drinks. It felt good to just be off for awhile and relaxing with my friends as the night drew later and later our group began to dwindle and soon we both got up to leave and paid our tab. Walking down the darkened street to my car, it all seemed like a bad TV rerun; we were joking and having a great time when in the back of my head I felt a surge of evil energy extremely close then we saw them six leather clad scruffy looking furs standing in our path. I instantly felt their demon energies coursing thru them.

"So you're the famous Hunter 57, we've been looking for you." The lead one said I stared his bulky gryphon typed body down.

"I'm not looking for trouble, just walk away now." I said with a very dark tone.

Marcus started to back away from the group, trying to tug me with him. "Zen; let's just walk away c'mon."

I briefly looked back at my wolf boyfriend. "When I say, just run okay. I'll handle these fuckers." I whipped my head back to the group as one of the rushes at me and cracked me across the muzzle, knocking me into a lamp post. "Run now!" I belted at Marcus but it was already too late they had Marcus held tightly and the group leader holding up a black metal handgun. All that I saw was the night Tanya was killed, I let out a viscous snarl and picked up a broken hubcap that was lying at the side of the road and spun my body around whipping the disc at lightning speed crashing it right into the gun and knocking it away as it went off.

I pushed off my foot paws whipping my body into the air and taking the leader and the two demons whom held my boy friend out with three gracefully kicks and came down in a hard mean fighting stance, the fur on the back of my neck standing on end and my teeth bared I was so pissed off. "Just stay back Marcus." I said as I caught the wrist of one of the demons and twisted his body around wrapping my other arm around his neck and snapping it. I wasted thru five of the demons without even breaking a sweat until it came down to only the leader and me pacing around the darkened street until he swung his leg back and vaulted towards me and with one fluid moment and slid to the side letting his fist pass right by my head and with one smooth powerful punch I slammed my open paw up into his chest, surely shattering at least four of his ribs.

As the gryphon collapsed over gasping for air, I stepped over his back and swept my boot across the back of his head flipping him over to face me. Baring down over the beaten fur growling and flashing the sharp rows of my teeth, slowly I felt his life essence draining into my paw, I hadn't taken a soul in a year especially one of a demon but I was so angry I wanted total revenge; the green life energy sank deep inside of me causing me to let out a pleasurable yowl.

The gryphon slumped back on the ground with one final sigh of breath, I stared down at him with a blood thirsty satisfied grin then I remember I must have looked up at Marcus who was standing to the side absolutely terrified at what he saw. I stepped over to him and had to shake him ever so slightly, he yelped and threw my paws off his body.

"What the fuck are you?!" he snarled out taking a few steps away from me.

The realization of what I had just showed him hit me like a ton of bricks. "Marcus, I-I-I'm sorry...just let me explain..."

"Fuck that Zen, I just watched you slaughter those guys and then what ever the hell you did to that one. Just stay away from me okay!" Marcus said to me, beginning to walk away.

My body froze, watching this wolf that I really like and probably loved just walk away and round the corner just as two black vans screeched to a halt behind me and several JSTF troops fan out over the battle scene. "Hunter 57, are you alright?" The sergeant and leader of the team said to me.

I looked briefly at him then back to where Marcus had turned the corner of the block "Uh yeah...no problem."

My next day off past slowly, I simply sat in my apartment dreading the next day when I would have to show up at work and he would be there; I wasn't sure if Marcus would tell everyone what he'd seen or what, but more than that I felt really bad for bringing him into all of this and I couldn't shake the feeling I needed to take another soul. It was like I'd never gone thru all the JSTF training, my thirst was returning, I tensed my paws and gawked in horror as they glowed with feint red energy.

I slowly snuck into the change room of Equinox slipping into my pressed black chef uniform and made my way out to the line seeing Marcus already there preparing his section for the large party we were hosting tonight.

"Hi...Marcus..." I softly said, coming up behind him.

"Hello Zen..." he responded.

"Look, I'm sorry you saw what you saw, I've been trying to tell you about what I am for a long time; I could never bring myself to do it."

The brown wolf turned to me slowly with a shrug. "Doesn't really matter now does it? After we're done with the party, you and I need to sit down, you talk I listen alright."

I simply nodded a reply and was about to say something else but Carl came onto the line bringing us all in for the pre shift meeting. I worked at the best of my abilities but with everything that had happened I just couldn't focused, eventually forcing Carl to turn to me as I rush to cook several steaks I had missed. "Zen, go down to pantry, help them out; Marcus you're on the grill..." The Doberman said in a harsh frantic tone, and well I couldn't blame him I would have done the same thing so I nodded and sighed handing my tongs to the brown wolf as he stepped up, without saying a word business resumed and I lowered my ears and tucked my tail between my legs moving down to the salad and appetizer section.

After it was all over I hurried to close off my section and quickly got changed almost making it out without anyone noticing me but as I was about to open the change room door Carl barged in not looking to happy. "I know what you're going to say..." I quietly said before he could even open his muzzle.

"Alright Zen, enlighten me; what am I going to say about my second in command screwing up as bad as you did tonight?" He huffed out locking the change room door to make sure we weren't disturbed.

"You're disappointed, pissed off, and confused. All I have to say to that is, I don't think I'll be able to work here anymore. I'm putting in my two weeks."

"Bullshit you are, I want an answer to what the hell is going thru your mind and what the fuck is going on between you and Marcus." The Doberman growls not letting me out of the building without an explanation.

"Look Chef, you know damn well that we cooks are cut and dry straight up people; I have some..." I sneered a bit having to say it this way "demons, which I can't escape and I think it would be best for the team and the restaurant if I leave. If you want to know everything just ask Marcus, I'm sure he's dying to tell everyone." I said in a deep tone, slinging my backpack over my shoulder and walking past Carl and left the Equinox for the last time or so I thought.

Five months of being on the lion home world came crashing down on me in a five minute lack of control. I had to move on, forget everything and everyone I'd grown close to, that is how I was trained and hell after what I went through the last two years I'd been growing accustom to it. I spent the entire night packing up my minimal possessions and marked them to be put in storage and slung my duffle back over my shoulder attached to it was my Gin sword, opening the door I took one last look at my home and turned away nearly knocking Marcus over as he was about to ring the door bell. "Heard you quit..." he simply said to me.

"Yeah well it seemed like the best thing to do." I responded distantly, trying not to make eye contact.

"Who are you Zen just what the hell do you want?" Marcus said to me, but not in an angry tone just completely confused.

"You wouldn't believe me if I told you, it's for the best that I just go. I don't want to end up hurting anyone again."

"Try me...I thought we trusted each other, you can tell me anything." The brown wolf pushed making me slump my shoulders and whimper slightly.

"You know how after the great balancing the rift between our universe and hell was never fully sealed and about the joint supernatural taskforce that specializes in protecting us from the creatures from that universe?" I started only getting an even more confused look from Marcus but I knew he had to know about these things. "After I was forced to leave my home, I was found by the taskforce and trained to be one of their hunters."

"So you work for the government as a hired killer as well as the sous chef of the Equinox?!" Marcus exclaimed not believing me at first but my dead serious expression must have told him differently.

"Pretty much Marcus, those guys who attacked us last week was actually a type of demon known as grunts, furs turned into demons by more powerful ones for the pure sake of perpetuating the disease."

"Why didn't you just tell me this in the first place?"

I shrugged my shoulders and sighed "Because I couldn't, for one the operations I do are highly classified and for another I didn't want to get you involved, these demons don't screw around they will kill anyone who gets in their way just to get at me or the taskforce. That is the reason I'm leaving, I can't put you in the middle of it, and I love you too much."

Marcus tried to respond but didn't have the words and quickly wrapped his arms around me. "I don't care what you do. I just want to be with you. Please don't leave."

I patted the back of his head and kissed him on the cheek before without saying another word moved away towards the elevator, leaving everything I cared about in that hallway.

Chapter 6

I never thought in all my years I'd ever go back but before I knew it I was standing on the foot steps of my old college, the typical gorgeous crystal blue sky, warm spring time air and a soft breeze blowing thru the oak trees along the grounds of the red bricked building. Hundreds of students walked right on past me as if I were invisible carrying on about their days, I watched for several moments letting the two tails of my grey trench coat sway around in the wind; occasionally I picked up glances and emotions from the older students who knew who I was. I padded right in thru the main doors of the school, and came to an all too familiar door. Inside I saw the class wrapping up for the day and the big polar bear, Mr. Crown at the head whom spotted me in the door way instantly giving me an expression of both being happy to see me and very concerned at the same time. I walked right thru the class up to Mr. Crown's desk and shook his large strong paw.

"Zen, you're back...how in the universe is this possible?" he exclaimed quickly.

I smiled a bit and shrugged "Luck I guess; had to eventually come back." I replied very confidently, it probably surprised him a lot due to the fact in the years I was in the school I was always really shy and wasn't sure of myself.

"Fair enough but when you left...I mean the police were all over us trying to figure out where you had gone but you disappeared. Where did you go?" He quickly asked me.

"All over the place, Vulcape, the lupine home world, the alliance capitol, out to the rim. And don't worry about consorting with a criminal; that has all been taken care of." I assured my old teacher only making him more interested in what I had been doing. "Actually I really came back to see Tanya's parents but they moved and aren't listed on any of the registries."

Mr Crown sighed and looked away packing up some of his class notes "Well after the funeral it was difficult for them, everyone knows who pulled the trigger but it couldn't be proved, they moved to the northern province just to get away from all the media and shit."

I nodded to him and leaned one leg over his desk, putting my muzzle close to the polar bear's ear. "Speaking of that piece of shit, where is Gregory?" I whispered to him with a bit of a growl.

"No one knows really, the police were all over him too, he was expelled from school and pretty much was completely outcast from the town." Mr. Crown explained, whispering back to me.

I nodded and stood back up. "Well I should be going I have to find Tanya's parents, I'll stop back in before I leave the planet." We both shook hands and I left the school getting into the deep crimson red pickup truck I had rented and took off towards the hardest part of my journey here, brining me to the arched drive way to the mansion I grew up it, dark red wood pillars stood off set to the door and covered in over lush green shrubbery. I was surprised to see a 'for sale' sign posted at the main gate and in one of the large bay windows just a bit away from the door way. I pressed the door bell and waited, my heart pounded in my chest as the door opened to see my dad standing there in his leisure ripped jeans and white t shirt, he probably was doing some repairs to the house. We stood there facing each other; I was dressed to the nines, looking at the light red furred body of my dad thru my dark gold rimmed sunglasses. "Dad..."

"Zen...oh my gods" He yipped out and gripped me into a tight loving hug.

I hugged him back letting two years of stress of not seeing my parents pour out, I nearly started to cry. "I'm sorry I left!"

He quickly brought me into the house and we sat in the kitchen for the longest time, I dodged endless questions about where I'd been and what I was doing, I told him just the bare minimal information. Soon I felt myself looking around at the updated kitchen and into the back yard which easily could have doubled for a par four of a golf course, my senses searched around the house for my mother but I could detect anything not even a feint energy pattern. "Where's mom?" I finally brought myself to ask, and to this day I wish I hadn't. I saw my dad shrink back and a tear roll down his muzzle he was fighting back some immense feeling.

"Zen...you're mother" He struggled to find the words but every time he tried to speak he choked up until he finally just forced it out. "After you left she fell into a deeper depression, she hated herself for pushing you away like she did. I found her last year...on the bathroom floor. The doctors tell me she over dosed..."

Even though I knew he was speaking, the words I heard seemed to come from all around me echoing in some large cave, bouncing their voices from side to side. My chest tightened and I felt like I was going to faint, I bared my teeth and tensed up my fist all my rage focusing on the one who started this entire thing.

I buried the thoughts for the time being, just wanting to be there for my dad, we spent the entire day helping my dad with his chores and cleaning up the house readying it to be sold in the next month. I sat in my old office chair in my room, looking at how I used to be, my medals for track and space ball still on my shelves my computer exactly where I left it the only difference I had my duffle bag open, my two chrome plated hand guns dismantled on the bed and my Gin sword laying across my pillows. I was brushing off the firing mechanism on of the pistols as I heard a knock at the door and rushed to throw the blanket over the weapons as my dad popped his head in. "I'm just heading off to bed, see you in the morning?"

"Definitely, I'll say good bye before heading off to find Tanya's parents." I responded nervously, hoping he didn't see the guns. Thankfully he didn't and I heard his foot steps heading to his room. I rapidly uncovered my work and pieced my weapons back together and pivoted the office chair around the large three panelled computer starting up the local internet service and slipped on the microphone head set into my slim vulpine ears. "Computer, access police information net, clearance H57-JSTF001" I ordered softly into the microphone that hung close to my muzzle, quickly the JSTF security codes got me inside every file on every criminal on this planet. "Search for Gregory Cloudracer and display all contacts and last known where a bout's." It didn't take long for me to have a list of every place the wolf who murdered my best friend hung out and all of the surveillance tapes to learn all about him.

Silently I left the mansion and headed into the darkened night into the big city, poverty and over population plagued the down town core and this was where Gregory would be found. I spent a couple hours asking questions, showing Gregory's picture to random furs, getting most of the information from drug dealers and gang members, leading me to a shit hole of a restaurant, looked like a burnt out diner that catered to the drug induced meal craving populous. I sauntered right into the place, seeing the less than horrible accommodations, dirty tables, oil and smoke stained ceilings and the staff didn't look too much better. Stepping up to one of the wait staff, some grungy old mink female who looked like she had been working in this place for years puffed away on a cigarette, she eyed me very cautiously and not surprisingly considering I had my sword strapped on the outside of my jacket and one of my pistols plainly holstered to my thigh. I pulled out the picture of Gregory "I think you know him."

She hacked and coughed for a second before looking closely at the picture "And so what if I do?"

"I want to see him now!" I ordered tapping my paw the hammer on my pistol making her raise and eyebrow and lean over to the service window where stacks of dirty plate with disgusting food sat, seeing into the kitchen and there he was the bulky grey muscled wolf who ruined my life stood over the grill flipping burgers and chicken breasts in a messy white t-shirt and apron. It only too a split second for him to look at me and recognise who I was then bolt towards the back door, I took chase in an instant tearing through the kitchen door shoving several dishwashers and cooks a side. He nearly made it out the back door into the alley but I caught him, grabbing him by the collar of his shirt I shoved him thru the door with a fierce snarl taking the flimsy steel right off its hinges.

Gregory yelped and whimpered rolling around in the muddy water in the trash covered alley attempting to get to his feet. I fell on him picking him up by the scruff of his neck and with ease lifting him off his foot paws and forced him against the concrete wall of the diner. "You remember me I see."

"Fuck, Zen, let me go...please I'm sorry, I fucked up." He pled out loud to me.

I bared my teeth and tensed my claws into his flesh drawing my handgun and putting it against the base of his skull. "You damn right you fucked up, you ruined my life and what's more, you killed my best friend now I'm back to splatter your worthless brains all over this alley!"

"Oh please don't, killing me won't bring her back. I fucked up my life by doing it; I lost everything, my friends, my family, my life." Gregory sobbed uncontrollably.

"You made your choice, now it's time for retribution." I pulled the hammer back on my handgun, feeling my demon urges in full swing, I didn't even want to but my instincts and body just began sucking Gregory's soul right into my body. I growled and let go, making him tumble in a heap on the alley floor moaning in pain from feeling his very life essence being ripped from him.

I dropped my head down panting and huffing, looking at my paws, what was I doing? I vowed never to take a soul, then I took the one of the demon who attacked Marcus and there I was about to take Gregory's. I dropped my gun with a loud clang on the concrete ground; just then the wolf slammed me with a hard running tackle into the opposite wall.

"I don't know what they fuck you have become but it's your fault all of this happened, if you weren't a fagot I wouldn't have had to shoot that bitch. I was going to be the best chef in this galaxy but because of you I'm working in this shit hole and I'm going to beat the living hell out of you." Gregory growled at me swinging his fist across my muzzle sending a spurt of my blood spraying across the wall.

I sneered back at him, and raked my forearm down across his elbow joint forcing his hard grip on me to loosen and pulling his entire body forward which I simply just side stepped letting him slam muzzle first into the wall. He whipped back at me swinging his claws out at my face, each one being batted away, I spun a full three hundred and sixty degrees under his swiping paw and as he was about to bring the other down on me I reached for my sword and pulled it out a couple inches letting his wrist collide with the razor edged blade and slicing into the flesh. The wolf howled in throbbing pain as the wound was free flowing with his blood as he cuddled it close to his body. I stood up straight letting the sword fall back into the sheath. "You know what Gregory, I've come to a realization; you aren't worth my time. It seems you did a pretty good job yourself of dying, inch by inch, day by day in this place you die a little more until there will be nothing left."

The wolf looked down at the deep gash on his forearm, the blood quickly coating his white t-shirt. Then stupidly leaned down with his good paw, picked up a piece of steel piping that was thrown there and rushed at me, I quickly responded whipping my sword out deflecting his unschooled clumsy attacks, now looking back I didn't intend on killing him but he forced me to, my sword pushed the pipe against Gregory's body the sharp edge of the blade stabbing into his midsection and all I had to do was step forward leaving a three quarter meter long slash along his body which spilled his blood all over the asphalt. Gregory winced and gasps falling to his knees as I stood behind him not looking back with my sword out stretched from the follow through of the slash; I heard him collapse over and I felt in my head his life draining away. I took a slight glance back and smirked "How does it feel Greg? At least you will die in mere seconds. Tanya survived for hours of agonising surgery trying to repair the damage the bullet from your gun caused, her internal organs one by one shutting down. I am not as cruel as you may think so I am going to finish you off right here right now for her and for me..." I said before turning around and without a second thought slashed the edged of the sword thru the soft flesh of the wolf's neck severing his skull right from his shoulders letting it roll several feet away. Taking a deep satisfied breath I flicked the blood off of my sword and returned it to it's sheath and retrieved my dropped pistol walking calmly back to my truck.

The crisp morning air filled the small northern town, barely having five hundred thousand furs living in it mostly it was a residential community for the furs who worked in the large city a half an hour drive away. I parked my truck in the driveway of a modest white walled ranch styled house, it looked and felt very warm and peaceful. I adjusted my knee length black suit jacket on my shoulders and stepped up to the main door giving a few gentle knocks to it and waited soon being met by a light blue summer dress wearing deep crimson red fox female; at first it took a moment for her to recognise me then all of a sudden her muzzle started streaming with tears as she wrapped her paws around my neck hugging me like I were her own lost pup.

I sat across from Mrs. Rylan in their soft billowy living room set sipping at some tea. "I'm sorry about your mother Zen, I really am it was so sad to hear of her passing."

I nodded slowly "Thank you Mrs. Rylan and I apologise for not calling, it's just been a hard two years."

The female fox whom I grew up with, practically calling her my own mother smiled softly, patting me on the shoulder "I understand why you left and the things you did, I just wish you had thought about what Tanya would have wanted before you went to the school that day."

I looked down between my legs seeing my sword decapitating Gregory in that disgusting alley last night I had never considered it that way. Tanya never would have wanted me to kill anyone for her. Tears started streaming down the sides of my muzzle, Mrs Rylan was right there holding my tightly both of us sobbing madly. I sharply stood up wiping away my tears "I'm sorry I have to go, I shouldn't have come back." I rushed for the door whipping it open only to be met by the well built frame of Tanya's father he stared at me for brief second before smiling at me.

"You're leaving so soon?" he said in a low cool tone and stepped inside closing the door behind him. "Looking good Zen, nice suit" I didn't know what to say, I had expected a lot more emotion from him but I guess with his years of martial arts training he was able to keep himself cool. He sat me down back with his wife and himself and I just let the two years pour out of me, the parties, the jobs, the bite that turned me into what I am, the JSTF, the Equinox, Marcus right up to Gregory last night. Tanya's mother gasped in horror of what I had become and rushes into the kitchen while her father with his ice cold demeanour sat with one leg folded the other and his paws poised before his muzzle. "I always said you had potential Zen, but I never thought you would let yourself be run by your emotions."

"I didn't know what to do, it just happened I couldn't control it, I still can't even with everything the JSTF tried to do but all they wanted was a weapon." I explained softly.

"What are you going to do now?" Tanya's father asked me.

"I don't know I've been running for so long from everything I can't seem to stop people from dying all around me." I stammered out at the fox as he finally made a move kneeling down in front of me looking me dead in the eyes.

"Then stop running Zen, yes you have a shitty hand dealt to you but it's up to you to make the best of it or change it. Now, it's getting late; you can have the guest room for the night you look like hell." He said to me in a comforting fatherly tone.

I stood in front of the window all night long watching the calm cloudless sky twinkle with the distant stars and the three moons hang over head, I waited just long enough to make sure everyone else in the house was asleep before making my stealthy exit and climbed into my truck and just started driving, I barely even noticed my cell phone ringing in my pocket but I eventually answered it.

"57, is this a good time?" the familiar weasel femme voice said to me.

"Actually no it's not, mind calling back sometime next century?" I responded with a deep huff of sarcasm.

"I do actually I don't appreciate one of my operatives up and disappearing on me, where are you?"

"Aww, your JSTF hounds can't find me. Well this is exciting, I want something from you. I want all the medical files you're people did on me, plus the entire workup on the class of demon that bit me." I practically commanded the weasel.

"It won't take me long to find your tail, why do you want those files?"

"Because I'm tired of the cravings, tired because if I loose my control for even one instant I will take some innocent person's soul and it's my theory that Ryan was a parasite vampire demon, since I killed him and didn't change back then that must mean there's the main demon out there that still thrives off of my energy. I'm going to find this thing and kill it to get my life back." I growled into my phone.

"You can't, we traced your line and the demon that started this strain comes from a universe which is locked, we can't get to it or we would have already. And since you were born with the strain imbedded inside of you there's no guarantee it would cure you, just come into HQ and we'll discuss this."

I chuckled at her attempt to trick me into revealing my location. "How about this then, I'm doing it for my own personal vengeance and you can right it off to your superiors as a pre-emptive strike against future infestations."

Being met by a long pause, I'd figured I had struck an interesting proposal for her. "Alright you got yourself an operation, I will get you the data you need but will need to deliver it in person since this is highly classified information and I don't want to risk a leak."

"Fine, meet me at a club called Fly it's on my home planet tomorrow night at eleven." I quickly said and hung up the phone, spinning the wheel of the truck hard and tearing off back towards the centre city.

The club was exactly how I remembered it; Saturday night was rammed to the walls with gay furs partying, so many memories of coming here getting high and drunk and fucking my brains out until dawn. Although this time it was different I wasn't the prey tonight, I was in a complete predatorily mode several extremely attractive larger males passed by me making comments about wanting to bone me but each one was shot down harshly. Dressed in a glistening red button up dress shirt left un-tucked from my black slacks

I looked along the upper balcony floor, seeing the hundreds of furs thru the Plexiglas floor and steel rimmed railing, the green and blue lasers shot thru the smoky high energy atmosphere. Sipping at my glass of lupine scotch I looked at my watch seeing that the weasel was late, I turned to look at the DJ booth and finally saw her wading thru the crowd. The chestnut brown furred weasel female, dressed in a white t-shirt, blue jeans and a black leather bomber jacket over her torso; she walked right up to me and handed me two clear plastic octagonal computer discs and simply walked up to the bar and ordered herself a drink oddly enough being the exact same thing I was drinking.

"That should get you started..." she finally said taking the first sip of her drink "...our data is sketchy at best because of the simple fact no one has gone into that universe before that we know of."

I nodded and placed the discs in my pocket and leaned my back up against the bar "I'm not officially part of the agency am I?" I bluntly said making the weasel sigh and lower her muzzle.

"No you're not, only I and the head of the taskforce know that you exist. If it were publicly known that a demon half-breed was working for us it would cause confusion and a lot more trouble for both of us."

"Ah, I figured as much considering the way I was trained and the way I operate, no other hunter seems to get this much leeway. I leave tomorrow night for the Assembly home world there's a really good chance I won't ever be coming back would be nice to at least get your name." I looked at her as she had already come to the same conclusion about my chances.

"Debra...Debra Jade. And to be fair, I wasn't doing the things I did to you because I don't like you or don't care. I care about all of my operatives, but had to keep you at a distance from everything to make you most effective I'm just sorry you had to give up your stable life on the Lion home world."

I nodded and put my glass down on the bar top giving the weasel a little bit of a smile. "Well Debra Jade, nice to finally really meet you. Hopefully I will speak to you again soon."

She smiled back and as I was walking away she called out my name and tossed me a set of car keys. "That should help keep you safe...good luck Zen."

I took the keys and went out into the back parking lot, flicking the locator seeing the lights blinking at the back of a large black sedan, I grinned and opened the back tail gate seeing two duffle bags, and upon opening them I saw thousands of credits in one and the other brisling with weapons, guns, knives, explosives and the best thing of all was an ID card with my picture on it making carrying all of this legal. I smiled and hoisted the cases out of the sedan and carried them back to my truck.

It was a good thing that my dad was a work-a-holic and by the time I got back to the house he was long gone to the office so I could move with out fear of being noticed and placed the data discs into my computer's reader scanning over the endless pages of medical gibberish about myself and dodgy reports about the high demons, apparently only two hunters have ever encountered one of them both hunters never returned but at least it gave me some leads to go on and wasting no time I booked myself a flight to the Assembly home world.

Chapter 7

I hated having to leave so abruptly and without saying good bye in person but my dad would have wanted to know too much and I couldn't bring myself to tell him about what I was going to do so I left a long video message he must have gotten by now. I watched out the window port of the space liner seeing the near entirely metal planet of the Assembly capitol, one big city covered the surface with thousands of space craft cluttering the orbit and the atmosphere.

Finding myself a reasonably decent hotel room I set out on my mission following the path of the two slain hunters before me, taking me into the seedy underbelly of the planet. I walked right in to a rundown shop specializing in alien artefacts and mystical nick-knacks, I mean the shit was everywhere just tossed around the cramped room with no apparent sign of order or inventory. I saw the shop keep huddled over the glass countertop inspecting some recently acquired merchandise, he looked like a chameleon his cone shaped eyes darting back and forth each independent of each other his green oily skin twitched as he detected changes in the air.

I walked right up to him causing him to stand up straight. "Hello patron, how can I be of service today?" he asked in raspy broken English.

"Hi, I was wondering if you could help me find something."

"Of course, what is it that you are searching for?"

I looked over some of the elaborate dangling chains made of some kind of precious metal and hmm'd "I'm looking for a key, to a locked universe. I want to find a Thane demon."

He knew exactly what I was talking about by the expression he gave, the dropped jaw and his skin grew a dark brown colour, I could sense in him he was terrified of even the name. "You are looking for trouble there my young friend, why may I ask are you searching for one of them."

I tapped my claws across the glass counter top and reached into my pocket sliding a bill fold of a thousand Assembly credits to him. "Just answer the question please."

The chameleon looked at the money and then back up to me. "It will cost you a thousand credits."

I tilted my head a bit "I just gave you a thousand credits."

"You gave my a thousand credits to make me consider answering the question, but if you want that kind of trouble you must be willing to pay a lot."

I growled and pulled out the next thousand, the chameleon let out a contented hiss as he takes the money in his slimy three long fingered hand "You will have to travel to a place on the edge of the Assembly's control it is a place of mystery and magical powers, you will not find him he will find you. He goes by the name of Sakai and if you thought my price was high, his will be higher."

I shook my head and leaded closer to the lizard, growing a bit annoyed "Just give me the planet name and universe number."

"Ichto in universe thirty six I offer my hopes and prayers that you find what you are looking for and a safe journey to you." I nodded and turned away from the shop owner, leaving the store and heading back to my hotel room.

Once again I found myself on a space liner, this time a bit bigger with at least my own cabin; since it was going to be at least a week of travel to get to a space station that could send a ship into that universe. I moved my arms thru the air practicing the fighting techniques I had been taught and my body ached and burned as I stressed each muscle to their max, sweat dripped down along my bare toned chest and stomach.

On the station I found myself surrounded by the rich upper class peoples of this universe, this station was a major port for pleasure cruises and private star ships, made me feel really out of place considering I'd spent most of the last three weeks dealing with the scum of existence. I was walking along the well lit open promenade of the station the huge domed roof made of armoured glass showing the beautiful back drop of a distant nebulae going super nova, the red green and blue gasses made a gorgeous picture. I happened to look over at a couple teenaged kids talking to a leather trench coat wearing gryphon fur and I instantly knew he was a demon and trying to lure these kids to him so I padded right over and stared the gryphon down baring my teeth. "You shouldn't pray upon the weak and defenceless so much, not very sporting."

"Get bent, this is none of your business." The gryphon hissed at me as I startled the kids making them run off.

"I'll make it my business if I see you're ass around here again, I know what you are and I have a clip of fifteen high velocity energy rounds calibrated to your demon physiology. It would such a shame for me to empty it into you and watch you tear apart from the inside out. Am I making myself perfectly clear?" I whispered into his wolf looking ear getting a panicked look on his muzzle. "I'll take that as a yes, now get lost." I snarled sending him cowering away.

I took a deep breath leaning against the steel wall about how close I was to having to kill that guy and forced myself onwards into the travel bureaux sitting down in front of one of the sale agents. "So, Mr. Hunt you said you wanted to book passage on a private liner to universe thirty six, is that correct?"

"Yeah, there's a problem with that?" I said adjusting my suit jacket over my body as I sat in the chair across from the agent.

"Not at all, it's a very popular place for the hard core partying clientele I was more concerned about it only being a one way trip. Living there isn't really recommended, the indigenous population there is more than happy to have tourists there but to get a habitation permit is difficult."

I shrugged my shoulders "That's not a problem I already have a permit waiting for me when I get to Ichto."

"Ichto!?" The travel agent exclaimed "Mr. Hunt I don't believe you understand that planet, it isn't safe for anyone to go to, I highly recommend one of the other planets in their core, they have this wonderful tropical..."

I quickly interrupted the pitch of the salesman "I want to book travel to Ichto, now I'm willing to pay top dollar to get there. Can you arrange that or do I have to go to your competition?"

"No, no, that will not be necessary I was merely trying to suggest a more hospitable planet for you. I can book you a flight immediately, there is a liner going past there tomorrow night if you want."

I smiled and folded my paws in my lap "Excellent, I'll take it."

It looked like a mix between a monolithic medieval city mixed with looming modern high-rises, ancient dark grey brick castles put side by side with towers of glass and steel. The sky was a constant brooding calamity of pitch black storm clouds, what light did get thru them gave the entire planet an eerie evil looking jade tinge. I could feel from the moment I stepped on to this world, the old powerful energies penetrating the air and I could tell this was not the place to walk around without a weapon so I constantly had my sword strapped to my back and one of the large triangular shaped barrel hand cannons holstered to my leg. A heavy down pour fell onto to the gloomy city as I asked around for this Sakai but every person I asked had about as much information about him that I did. It was very odd, in all of the Assembly furs where not a prominent race but this place seemed to be primarily populated with them, every species that was in my home universe and then some. I was in the middle of questioning a pair of female collies when someone tapped me on the shoulder as I turned I was confronted by a child sized mouse fur, he wore tight black leather pants and a blue velvet vest over his pure white fur coat.

"You look for Sakai don't you?" He said in a deep rough male voice.

I had to look twice at this mouse that was barely half my height and nodded. "You know where he is?"

"If I were you I would stop looking, you don't want to find him." He replied.

"Listen, I know full well what I want. So if you can't help me please leave me alone." I growled, already annoyed with the hours of time wasted.

"He does not like uninvited guests..." The mouse said looking behind me, I gasped as I felt a shift in violent energy and spun my body around narrowly dodging a large obsidian coloured knife that came flying thru the air. As my mind focused I saw a group of four furs three wolves lead by a male deer that looked like a professional wrestler with his massive tree trunk like arms, bare chest in the rain across his large chest was a golden chain linked thru both of his nipples.

I spun my body around to face them keeping my paws ready to grab my pistol and sword, staring the four furs down. "I don't want to kill you all I just want to find Sakai."

"You will have to get thru us first." The buck uttered and snapped his fingers, sending the three wolves rushing at me. I darted backwards as their claws whipped thru the air, shifting my body back and forth I brought my boot up to connect with the thigh of one of the wolves collapsing him to the concrete and drew my pistol and put it against the temple of the wolf and without remorse pulled the trigger blasting his skull all over the grimy dark grey stone street. I was about to continue firing at the others but by the time I moved my arm one of the other wolves had kicked my weapon away, I never had to move so fast in a fight these wolves were insanely powerful. One tripped my legs out from under me taking me to the street as the other brought his fist down towards my muzzle but I managed to flip my body backwards only to have the buck swipe his forearm across the back of my head. I stumbled forward not even seeing the boot come crashing across my face, with a sharp throbbing pain I fell backwards and passed out.

Before my vision returned I felt my knees scrapping along a hard steel floor, I could tell my nose was dripping blood probably from the hard kick I got to the muzzle. I shook my head at first only seeing a blurry mass of colour then as I focused seeing a smooth jade metal panelling along the floor, the walls were an ancient dark grey almost black brick work and the ceiling being held up by large pillars of the same stone. "Where are you taking me?" I coughed out.

"You wanted to see Sakai, well he wants to see you too" A dark looming voice chuckled at me. As I was dragged down several long steps, suddenly my ears and vision being bathed in the hard pulse pounding sounds of a club. I saw hundreds of furs all dressed in leather, vinyl bondage clothing. I struggled against the two wolves carrying me as they hoisted me to my feet standing me right in the centre of the club, I looked around at all the furs chained up and performing the extreme forms of bondage. I looked down and realized my jacket and shirt were taken from me, leaving my bare chest open for everyone to see, and my paws shackled to the floor right in the middle of it all, standing slightly higher on a pedestal.

I started to panic a bit, pulling at the chains but they were too strong for me to break then a hush fell over the crowd and everyone looked up to the large balcony at the had of the room, a slim yet still amazingly well built jackal stood there with his shiny ebony fur coat, wearing a simply pair of beige cargo pants. I stared up at his piercing amber eyes; his ears were so sharp and attuned to the surroundings as he called for silence with a single paw. "Who is this? A hunter no less" he grinned. "What is your name?"

I growled and pulled at my bonds but again with no avail.

"We found him poking around in the city Sakai. We do not know who he is." The large framed buck said making my ears go rigid as I heard the name Sakai.

"He is a demon hunter of the famed joint supernatural taskforce I'm surprised he did not kill you all." The jackal chuckled.

"You are Sakai?" I barked out at him getting only a simple nod. "I have no issue with you; it is not my mission to have anything to do with you. I simply am looking for a Thane demon."

The entire club seemed to laugh at me in unison. "A Thane, my, my, you are ambitious. Why, may I ask are you looking for one of them?"

I looked amongst the crowds of furs and aliens trying to formulate some way out but there were just too many, my paws pulled at the restraints but again to no avail. "One of his disciples turned me and I want my revenge."

Sakai cocked his head to the side and let a sly grin come across his muzzle as he raised a glass of some thick red alcoholic substance. "Bring him to me."

I was pushed and prodded thru the club almost as a spectacle; I felt the entire place was a mix of curiosity and blood hatred. Finally being led up a winding stone staircase I came in front of this beautifully build jackal as he sat stretched out over a black leather couch, on either side of him was his harem consisting of scantily clad male and female furs, the male deer shoves down on my shoulder forcing me to my knees right in front of Sakai as he looks me over. "A fine specimen to your race my friend, the JSTF really know how to make their hunters look good. Are you surprised that I know of your little agency even being all the way out here?"

I shrugged and glared back at the deer. "Not at all actually, from what I've learned about you, you are quite powerful and knowledgeable and plus I managed to find the files on the two other hunters who also came looking for the Thane demons."

"Brains too, well you should know already that where the Thane's come from cannot be reached with any ID jump drives."

"Yeah, that's why I am here or I wouldn't even have bothered. Can you help me?"

"I do have the ability, but you must be willing to give me something in return." I listened intently trying to read this furs emotions or get some sense of what kind of shit I was in but some how he was able to block all my attempts so I had no other choice but to nod. "Good, first..." He grinned and snapped his paw fingers and the restraints around my wrists released. "...kill him." Sakai said looking stone coldly at the stunned male deer and without even flinching I shifted my entire weight back thrusting my elbow right into his rock hard stomach toppling the deer over in a heap.

I rose to my feet and stood over him as he writhed around in pain slowly edging his way to his own feet whipping out a long curved silver coloured knife, I yipped and dodged backwards, grabbing his wrist as he followed thru and bent his arm backwards and with a satisfying snap I ripped it out a joint and almost before he could let out the scream of pain I had his knife running along his throat allowing his deep red blood to spill out over my forearm and to the floor. I looked at the lifeless fur at my feet then up to Sakai "Satisfied?"

The jackal smiled and nodded waving his paw again as two stocky bouncer looking furs quickly came up and dragged the buck's corpse away. "Very, he was no use to me. In fact I'm pretty sure he was going to try and kill me tomorrow so you did me a huge favour. You're skill is quite impressive for someone so young, how many souls have you taken?"

I dropped the bloody knife across the glass coffee table that Sakai sat behind knocking a few of the drinks over. "Too many to count..."

"Come now you are a Thane disciple now, a Machai demon. You thrive on your victims I'm willing to bet you can see each and every one of them." Sakai said making me shake quite heavily.

"Twenty six people...I'm no Machai, I have killed a hundred of them at least in the last year. I did you're little task, can you get me into the Thane universe or what?" I growled tensing my fists a bit.

"You really don't know what you are, do you? I guess we all start out blind but I won't ruin the surprise for you. To answer your question, I require a few more tasks of you and you've already proven yourself a willing assassin." The jackal laughed and gestured for one of his male concubines to stand and step towards me a small coyote whom wore nothing but a loin cloth around his waist, his eyes looked so empty and submissive. "Len here will take you to a room I will summon you when I require your services."

I followed the beige and grey furred coyote along several winding hallways each turn we took seemed to get us further into a never ending maze. "How long have you been here?" I asked quietly, trying to map the layout of the place.

"For many years, Master Sakai is very kind to us, most of the time." He said very softly as he faced a large black wood door lined with cast iron steel and opened it. "Please stay here until the master calls for you, I would not make him mad." Len told me his eyes never meeting mine. I simply nodded and walked inside the archaic stone room with a large four poster bed and fire place along the fair wall surrounded by two large open windows showing exactly how far up I actually was. I looked around the room finding my shirt jacket and all my weapons laid out on the bed, I figured that either I was free to leave when ever I wanted or Sakai knew that no matter how hard I tried I could never get out. So with that thought in mind I collapsed onto the soft bed and lit of a cigarette staring at the ceiling.

An hour or so pasted with me just watching out of the windows as raging thunder storm surged throughout the city and then the door opened, followed in by Len and Sakai. "I trust the accommodations are to your liking?"

I smirked "Well it would be better with a holo-projector and a Jacuzzi but who am I to complain."

"Fair enough Zen, I have a task for you, it would seem that Gerald the deer you killed wasn't alone in his pursuit to murder me and I want the heads of his counterparts brought to me."

I cocked my head to the side at the fact he knew my name but I shouldn't have been surprised by anything like that. "I don't want to kill any innocent people."

"But you killed Gerald without a second thought, how do you explain that?" Sakai asked me.

"He attacked me first and besides he was a prick." I chuckled.

"All matters of perception in this game. These furs you will be going after aren't saints you should know, they are apart of another demon sect which wants my power and think by killing me they can take it. Think of this as an extension of the jobs you do for the JSTF."

I nodded and lifted my pistols off the bed and put them into their holsters on my thigh and the other behind my back. "Fine, where do I find them?"

"Len here will show you the way if you can't bring back their heads then the amulets they wear around their necks will suffice."

I adjusted my trench coat on my shoulders slipping my sword down into the scabbard along my back. "Okay, but you should get the kid some clothes it's rather bad out and I don't want to draw attention by having a half naked fur following me around."

"It will be done, go now." Sakai commanded.

Len again was leading me now in a pair of fur tight black leather pants and a mesh tank top like the ones I used to wear to clubs he had a black vinyl jacket over his upper body and his eyes shrouded by black as night sun glasses. The rain beat down along the rickety ancient looking over hangs from the buildings as we darted along the streets eventually coming up to a wide catwalk between a gothic styled castle and a jade green glass high rise building, on the opposite side was an arch way looking like the entrance to a very exclusive bar, two tuxedo wearing Doberman dogs for bouncers stood ominously at either side of the doorway.

I stopped for a moment and leaned against a spire in the centre of the catwalk watching as several patrons entered the place my mind locking on to their specific energy types and I drew both of my pistols and pulled the ammunition clips from them adjusting the frequency of the energy rounds. "Okay listen Len, stay here, I'll be back in a minute or two." I said to the coyote as I reloaded my pistols and turned starting to walk towards the bouncers.

I got to about two feet of them as they saw my sword and pistol strapped to my thigh. "Excuse me, but do you have a reservation" One of the growled at me.

"Yeah I do actually, table for one, under the name of Count Fuck Off the third." I smirked as both of the lunged at me, without even blinking twice I pulled the pistol from my back and launched a single blue coloured bullet thru the face of one of the dogs making him burst into a cloud of ash and sparks the other I spun around and with my free paw drew my sword and swung it clean thru his neck getting a similar dust explosion. I briefly looked back at Len before opening the large red velvet door and went inside getting bathed in something I didn't expect to see here, it was gorgeous, all lavishly decorated in bright whites yellows and beige, the bar white marble with all the glasses lined up in the most professional manor possible, even the servers were immaculate. The clientele all stared at me being dressed the way I was, was completely out of place with their fine dinning wear and suits and me in my cargo pants and trench coat. I paced along each of the tables looking for my objectives until I say them in a round booth sitting at the back of the restaurant. Five of them all in very expensive designer suits and all wearing red glowing pendants around their necks, they laughed and joked amongst themselves. I waltzed right over to them, instantly grabbing their attention, one of them stood up sharply starting to draw a weapon but I quickly slid up to him delivering three hard jabs to his ribs and one right of his jaw and forced him back into his seat. "Gentle furs please no need to start this off on the wrong paw. Relax, drink and be merry." I grinned and sat down in a free seat.

"What do you want?" A bright red furred fox snarled at me.

I shrugged and picked up one of their drinks and took a sip of it all the while my other paw never leaving my thigh holster. "You have all been very bad boys, your cohort Gerald tried to kill a friend of mine and I heard something awful. You guys are behind it, tell me it isn't so?"

The table all tenses up and I could see that they were trying to edge their paws towards their weapons. "You killed Gerald? That means Sakai is still alive. You do not know what you are dealing with boy."

Taking a couple more sips of the bitter sweet alcohol I smiled. "Wrong I don't think you are aware of what you are dealing with, my name is Zen Hunt I am hunter 57 of the JSTF and I'm sure you all know what that is. Now we can do this the easy way or the fun way."

I waited and reacted in a fraction of a second seeing one of them reach his paw into his jacket and tossed the glass right against the forehead of the fox and shifted my leg firing off several bullets into the fur that was sitting to my left. It sent the rest of them into a flurry of action, I pushed off the table flipping my chair backwards and as I rolled to my knees and spun around drawing my pistols with pure action movie flare I began firing as the three remaining furs dive for cover and return fire forcing me to pivot in behind a pillar of solid oak bullets taking huge shards of the wood away as I disengaged the empty ammo clips and replaced them with new ones.

As I was about to throw myself back at them I saw the main doors of the bar fling open and in pour twenty zombie looking furs, with matted dirty fur and their flesh being eaten away. "Shit..." I growled and whipped my pistols forward unloading bullet after bullet into them. I quickly realized I wasn't going to make it out of their like that I rushed up the side of one of the booths and corkscrewed my body thru the air firing my guns in both directions keeping my targets at bay and wasting five zombies. As I landed I put my empty guns back in their holsters and whipped my sword from its sheath and stood up aggressively holding the shimmering blade to my side and waited as three zombie's rushed me only to be cut down by three graceful slashes then without even turning I pointed my sword beside me stopping the escape route of the red fox that I nailed with the glass. "Don't go anywhere sweetheart I'll be with you in a second." I snickered and twisted towards him smashing the hilt of my sword against the side of his head.

It didn't take me long to lay each of the zombies out in piles of hacked limbs and pools of black blood, leaving the final two furs there, the fox that was still unconscious and a feline that I was standing in front of with my sword pointed right at him. "Care to take your chances? You are dead either way, so either my sword or your gun, take your pick." I watched as he trembled, his paw shook then snapped up under his chin as he blew the top of his own head off.

I sighed and returned the sword to his sheath and looked down at the fox picking him up by the collar and dragged him out of the obliterated restaurant, leaving fifty credits on the bar, after all it was the least I could do.

Sakai's club all gasped as I returned with Len and shoving along the fox, taking him right up to where Sakai was sitting. "I believe you lost this..." I said.

The jackal grinned and tipped his martini glass at me "I believe I did thank you Zen, the rest of them I assume were taken care of?"

I growled a bit and rubbed my neck where one of the zombie's grabbed me "Yeah them and twenty or so zombie's you didn't tell me they had."

Sakai chuckled and shrugged "I figured you could handle whatever they had. I was right."

"Great thanks for the vote of confidence, is that it or am I supposed to work for you doing your dirty work for the rest of my life before you show me how to get to the Thane's?"

"I don't think you are ready for what you are getting yourself into. I will help you if you want."

I couldn't put my finger on it at the time, just something in his voice "What are you talking about?"

"Zen, I sent you on a death mission, just like I did the two hunters before you. A test, that's what that bar was all about I can see into your heart and it's hanging by a thread. You think Ryan chose you just because you happened to have a nice ass, he chose you because you have inside you the very essence of the Thane's. I'll assume the JSTF didn't tell you that."

I staggered a bit and my jaw dropped "Fuck off I was bitten just like any other Machai."

"True but you've seen yourself change, with every soul you've taken every battle you've been in. You can't stand there and tell me that other hunters have your kill numbers in such short periods of time. You can feel it deep down inside, you are being drawn to the Thane's and I for one do not want to see another come into maturity, they are bad for business." Sakai explained, but his voice just seemed like a distant echo in my head, he couldn't be right I'm doing this because I chose to not because I'm being controlled.

"Just send me to them now!" I snarled out making the jackal recoil as my voice took on a deep hard tone as if something just snapped in me.

"As you wish Hunter 57...just mind what I've said and remember why you are here." Sakai warned before lifting his paw to the blank brick wall behind me some how the brick it self began to warp and melt changing into a crystal clear mirror on the club. "Step thru if you truly want and I pray for your sake that we never meet again, because I will not be so welcoming next time."

"Neither will I" I huffed and turned stepping towards the mirror, I studied it for a moment the entire club seemed to go dark like a veil had fallen behind me. I reached my paw out and touched it, a sensation of freezing cold liquid surged thru my body as my paw pulled back the mirror seemed to follow like a strand of gel which then pulsated and sucked me right inside. I fell, into a black void, I couldn't tell how fast I was going or even where I was just the air rushing through my fur then I blacked out.

Chapter 8

My eyes shot open like a bullet a searing hot pain coursed thru my chest as I convulsed and yowled out. I raced to my feet backing up against a stone wall seeing I was a mere foot from falling into what looked like an endless chasm, I darted my head left and right seeing infinite fields of jagged rock peeks of mountains the sky was a rolling mess of black storm clouds.

I edged my way along the slim ledge coming to the entrance of a cave where I panted and slumped down trying to figure out what had happened or where I was at least I still had my weapons though, but only having one ammo clip for each of my pistols left didn't leave me feeling that comfortable. I looked over the landscape trying to spot any signs of civilization until a small light from the base of one of the mountains caught my eye, but then quickly realized it was probably five hundred meters below me and it was almost a sheer straight drop made me wish I had actually gone on all those rock climbing trips with Tanya when she was alive.

Slowly I lowered myself between the deep crevasses, the wind blowing my trench coat in all directions so I peeled it off and let it fly away into the abyss, leaving me with only my bulky armoured vest over my upper body the bitter wind cutting thru my fur as I continued down. It took over an hour of careful climbing to reach an out cropping of rocks which would lead me towards the light which I could see flickering just beyond the next pass. I stalked quietly along the rock peering into a small clearing I saw a bond fire lit with a rickety tent set up just near it and a green cloaked figure kneeling between them idly poking the fire with a stick.

I made my way behind the figure and slipped down into the clearing and stepped to the figure. "Stop!" it bellowed out in a distinctly aggressive tone, the figure stood and spun around holding a serrated edged broad sword with a sleek yet elaborate golden hilt. "Who are you?"

"Whoa there, I mean no harm my name is Zen Hunt and I seem to be lost I saw your fire from the mountain there." I exclaimed quickly taking a step back.

"You climbed down the devil's peek? Where do you come from?" He said removing the hood of his cloak showing me a middle-aged lion head with a silky flowing mane of chestnut brown fur his left eye was patched and a long red scar ran over it.

"I come from universe 781..."

"Oh you come in search of the Thane's, you are a professional demon hunter are you not?" He said immediately, cutting me off mid-sentence.

"Uh yes...do you know where the Thane's are?" I asked him.

"They normally dwell to the south of here about a day's walk, why do you want to find them?" The lion asked putting his sword back into the sheath and turned back to his fire.

"I want to right a wrong that was done to me. They are the source of what I have become." I said, looking at the lion curiously, something just wasn't on the level about him. I mean I couldn't sense anything almost like he wasn't even there.

"You must be ready to die then, the Thane's have existed for hundreds of centuries and every being that has tried to destroy them has ended up serving them. What makes you different?"

I moved forward, not quite sure how to answer the question. "I don't know I just know I have to."

"Well my young warrior, I will take you to the Thane's if you wish." The lion whispered.

"Thank you...I guess." I stammered out as he offered a seat next to his fire.

The next morning, or what I guessed was morning it seemed like the weather or the light never changed. The Lion and I set out quickly his pace was almost incredible his large frame easily navigated the maze of rocks as I stumbled trying to keep up. "What is your name?" I panted out.

"I am known as Blaze, I have lived here for many centuries." He responded not even the slightest bit out of breath.

"How can you live here, I mean this place it doesn't seem like much of a garden spot to me?"

"Because once I was like you, turned into a demon and thought that by challenging the Thane's it would end my suffering." He bluntly said making me stop dead in my tracks, my paw gripping around the hilt of my sword.

"Wait, you're a Machai demon as well?" I said slightly afraid.

"Not exactly, how does it feel to meet your very first Thane demon?" he turned to me with a blood thirty grin on his face then seemed to disappear into thin air.

I gasped and drew my sword and one of my pistols, looking back and forth, the very rock seemed to close in on me. I panted and huffed trying to get out of the labyrinth but it was no use he had led me right into a trap and with the next boulder I came around there he was swinging his sword out which I barely ducked under before it smashed into the rock and shattered it like it were plywood.

I growled and thrust my gun forward emptying the entire magazine at the lion but each bullet just bounced off his body and clanged against the ground. I had to drop my gun as he rushed forward and swung his blade out again narrowly being blocked by my own. I bared my teeth as he pushed down against my sword and without even breaking a sweat he forced my blade to cut into my shoulder flesh and spun around planting his foot paw into my chest sending my flailing into a rock face. I collapsed down to one knee wincing in pain seeing the blood dribbling down my chest, my sword dropped just a few feet in front of me.

"Very interesting young one, you aren't like the others." Blaze said stalking towards me his sword held loosely to his side.

"I've been getting that a lot these days" I inhaled sharply and dove for my sword and rolled in behind Blaze thrusting my Chinese gin backwards piercing it straight thru the lion's back and out his chest. I growled as I leapt away pulling the sword along with me and where a blow like that should have taken anything down I turned to see Blaze idly brushing his chest.

"You should have red up about us a little more no mortal weapon can harm us." He chuckled evilly and darted forward as I pushed my sword out again stabbing him square thru the heart getting only a patronizing laugh as he gripped the blade of my sword and easily broke it in half and without lifting a finger unleashed an energy attack which sent me reeling to the ground with a hard thud. The lion pulled the other half of my sword from his chest and leapt down on me plunging the cold steel right into my stomach. My yelp and scream of pain echoed for miles. "Hurts don't it?" He mocked me, twisting the blade around. "You aren't going to die yet though I want you to know true suffering, sleep now. My eyes clouded over washed in the agony of my blood flowing out of my wounds and the steel lodged in my belly.

I awoke again, feeling as if on the very edge of death as I looked around I saw billowing fires around me, my arms strung out above me chained to the stone ceiling, on all sides where bars of jagged rusting steel the smell of blood, death and decay flooded my nostrils making me gag which in turn made me yowl in pain as I saw the half of my sword blade still hanging out of my stomach. I tried to pull at the chains but was barely able to move, my clothes had all be stripped away I hung naked in this cage of rotting metal.

I phased in and out of consciousness for several hours before I heard the creaking of the cage door open and saw them, the lion Blaze, a wolf and some sort of lizard or dinosaur looking creature; each of them where about the same height and all were huge masses of muscle. I panted and tried to ignore the pain and attempted to focus in on them but it looked like I was in a tunnel the walls of it pitch black. "He does have our essences Blaze, you weren't lying." The dinosaur hissed.

"Of course I wasn't lying, we've waited for centuries for one of the seeds to return and finally this one shows up although I was expecting something a bit better." Blaze laughed.

"WH-what do you want from me?" I whispered out weakly.

"We want you to help us out of this hellish prison." Blaze said stepping closer to me and gripped the sword piece and pulled it from my body tossing it to the side, I coughed as the blood tickled down my muzzle and spilled out of my stomach it felt like my entire body was leaking out of the hole from the inside out.

"F-fff-fuck you, I won't..."

"Oh yes you will, because my pet you simply don't have a choice just except it now and save yourself a lot of hassle and agony." Blaze said in a fake comforting tone.

I tried to respond but again the pain over took me and I passed out.

The smell of sulphur jarred me awake again, I groaned as I limply hung there knowing I had to do something I inhaled deeply. I had to use my demon powers, I'd learned to control them somewhat just as when I fought the female fox in the warehouse and healed myself I forced my weaning strength and slowly my body began to repair itself. As I felt the open wounds seal I looked up to see Blaze standing before me again with a cup of water which he offered to me, stupidly I took a sip only to find it tasted like something had died in it and spat it out onto the concrete floor.

"Well you can't say I didn't try. I see that you have control of some of your powers I didn't expect the sword wound to heal so quickly." He grinned and swiped his paw across my muzzle hard, slashing his claws into my flesh digging three deep gashes across my cheek. "Have you reconsidered to do this the easy way, or what is that that you are fond of saying to your pray..." He said as I felt his mind pressing into my own painfully pulling my memories out. "...ah that's it...or the fun way?"

I sneered defiantly at the lion quickly burying my thoughts of Marcus and the Equinox in the deepest part of my head I could. "Go to hell you fuck!"

"Been there and done that...I'd much prefer to see your world it's hard to believe that you are the one to find us. I've seen your memories and well you really don't look like much."

I panted and looked up at Blaze with an odd look "What...what do you mean?"

"You think Daniel and Sarah were your natural parents? They adopted you when you were a child we seeded your birth mother right in this very cage. It's too bad she died while giving birth to you was a good demon slut and from the looks of you, you are as well." His words just battered my head, but I couldn't deny the fact I knew he wasn't lying. I never did really fit in with my parents but these fucks creating me. I growled and lashed my body forward tugging at the chains trying to attack the lion but only to be met with a fierce head butt which sends me stumbling away. "I guess we are going to have to do this the fun way." Blaze grinned before grabbing the scruff of my neck digging his razor like claws into my skin and delivers a hard knee to my chest cracking two of my ribs instantly. "I'm sure Killien will want first crack at you. He'll be down in a little bit, enjoy."

I hung there helplessly going over it again and again in my head, hearing Blaze tell me my parents were who I thought they were and that my mother was a demon. I huffed and tore at the chains trying to pull them from the ceiling but only causing the rough metal to cut into my wrists. Then from behind I felt a paw grab my hair and thrust my head back to look straight up to the ceiling, I saw out of the corner of my eyes the big dark grey wolf standing there with an evil grin on his muzzle showing me the rows of sharp teeth.

"Well now my little foxy, Blaze tells me you aren't going to make this easy on yourself. Doesn't matter to me at all actually, I always enjoy this part. He also told me he informed you about your parents, I loved fucking your mother, he just yelped out for more." He grinned only to have my spit spatter across his muzzle as I launched it from my blood soaked lips.

"Fuck off, don't know if you noticed but I'm a fox, you couldn't have done it" I snarled back.

The wolf growled and shoved his fist into my kidneys making me gasp out for air as it was forcefully expelled from my lungs. "There used to be four of us before he got stupid and tried to escape from here, the Fates made short work of him. He's the one who got the honour. Now brace yourself, this isn't going to be a sensual thing." The wolf laughed as I saw out of the corner of my eye his shirt fall to the floor and I heard his belt hit the floor.

My eyes were ripped open as I felt the biggest cock I'd ever had in me ram right to the hilt. Without and warning or lube he started bucking madly at my tail hole, his claws ravaging my sides, it felt like a tree trunk crammed inside of me as he used my body as his bitch, shaking my wrists against chains cutting deeper, I let out several howls of agony. He hammered me for ten solid minutes before ripping from my body. I felt the canine pre cum dripping down the back of my thighs probably mixed with a fair amount of blood as well. I panted and moaned, my head slumped down then felt his paw lifting my head, my vision was blurry but I saw the eleven inch canine cock dangling there almost as thick as my wrist and the knot even bigger. Killien laughed as he began to stroke himself off soon exploding showering me with the think ropes of canine seed coving my chest stomach and legs the pungent musky scent which I was no stranger to filled the entire room.

As he finished up, and put his pants back on he patted my head and smeared some of his jizz across my muzzle. "Don't worry foxy, you'll get used to it" he cackled and walked away.

Time seemed to cease having any meaning as I was repeatedly beaten and raped. I hated myself for saying it but after awhile I got used to Killien and sort of liked it, his cock filled me more than anything else I've felt before. He had un chained my paws and had me pinned on all fours on the concrete floor his hips blurring against my ass his cock throbbed and pulsated inside of me and I moans in lust for it then suddenly he stopped and pulled from me, I looked back and my stomach felt like it fell thru the floor as I saw Rangoth the dinosaur standing at the cage door his pants already down around his ankles as he nursed a cock which I didn't even know could exist it had to be at least fourteen inches long covered in a slick black skin and had bumps and ridges all over it but at the tip was a sharp point. "There you are spending a lot of time with the slut aren't ya?" He hissed and smirks.

Killien grinned back and swatted my ass hard making me wince the previous two huge load of wolf cum leaking out of my torn tail hole. "He likes it, want to take a turn?"

The lizard grinned and stalked towards me, the last thing I felt was his leathery claws raking down my back, thankfully I passed out before it ended.

After the ordeal, Rangoth and Killien left me crumpled in a pile of dirty blood soaked, cum covered fur, panting and whimpering I just wanted to die right there. My entire body felt like it was on fire I just couldn't hold on any more there was no way out, then I felt a paw touch my shoulder I screamed and tried to shift away seeing Blaze there with a confident smile on his face. "Well have you had enough of the fun way?"

I whimper and shake uncontrollably. "Yyy-yyyy-yes, please I'll do anything."

"Good, you see that wasn't so hard, now lets get you cleaned up." Blaze said picking me up by the arm.

I must have slept for days; I was in such a daze, all I could see was them raping me savagely torturing me I awoke several times screaming but each time I did it became not so much of fear but that of anger and rage. I sat up in the soft satin bed looking at my bandaged wrists, as I flexed my paws I could feel this immense energy surging with in me I couldn't understand it I felt like I could take out a battleship with my bare paws.

I stumbled out of bed in the night, the castle which Blaze and the others lived was darkened I only had on a loose pair of pants over my scarred body as I moved like a hungry predator coming up to the room where Rangoth laid and like a ghost I slipped inside seeing on his table a long curved axe like weapon, it's dark grey metal etched with a long forgotten language. I picked it up in my paws and stepped over to where the dinosaur slept ad stood there as several cracks of thunder echoed thru the halls. I waited until for whatever reason he woke up startled to find me there with his weapons and hisses loudly at me. "What the fuck are you doing bitch, get the hell out of here before I give you really something to whimper about."

I didn't even give him the dignity of a word, simply swung the axe in a high arc above my head letting the sharp blade crash down across his neck tearing his long snout muzzle and head from his shoulders sending a fountain of blood spraying all over me. I might have cared about being covered in blood before but after they put me thru I couldn't care less. I let out a satisfied growl as I dropped the axe and extended my paw over his corpse and inhales deeply as a powerful green burst of light exploded throughout the entire building my body trembled with power as I absorbed his soul. I sank down to my knees panting hard my body still faintly glowing with a green haze as the door burst open, there was Killien with a long katana like sword made of a similar metal to Rangoth's axe. The wolf saw the headless corpse of the dinosaur and snarls. "What did you do, that's impossible!"

"Doesn't look so impossible to me, come get some." I whispered in an evil tone standing up as Killien rushed at me slashing his sword thru the air which I easily ducked under and followed up with a vicious side kick to his ribs that sent the helpless wolf crashing right thru the solid brick wall into the hallway. I followed him out of the hole, stalking up on him as he struggled to get to his feet. "Do you like that Killien?"

He gasped and swung his sword straight up at me, I countered by simply stepping to the side. As he got to his feet he ran at me bringing his blade right down towards my head, my paws moved so fast I don't even know how I did it but I caught it and before he even realized what had happened I pivoted around, putting my back against his side and had his weapon flipped out of his paws and into the air. "You're soul is mine!" I yelled out as I caught the handle of the flying blade and spun it around running the full length of it right thru his rib cage. I pulled the sword from his body making him collapse to his knees and with the same lack of feeling as I had for Rangoth I sliced the wolf's head from his body and howled in ecstasy as I quickly absorbed his life essence. My body lifted right off of the floor as the power hit me like a tidal wave, I convulsed sending a concussion bubble rocketing thru the hall causing the entire outer wall of the hallway explode, sending the tons of concrete soaring into the air.

I collapsed to my knees my muscle budging and contorting as I tried to regain control, still holding Killien's sword in my paws. I briefly looked up to see Blaze standing a few meters in front of me his arms crossed over his broad chest and a satisfied smile on his muzzle.

"Feel better now?" He said.

I climbed to my feet dropping the sword at my feet. "Aren't you afraid you're next?" I confidently growled.

"Please, I knew you could over power those two. Now with the weaklings out of the way you and I can fulfil our destinies." Blaze said putting his paw on my shoulder which I quickly responded with a defiant hiss and hit him full force in the chest with my open palm, knocking him to his knees.

"I don't think so I'm going to finish what I came here for."

Blaze simply laughed out loud and stood back up. "You fool, just by coming here you've already showed me the way out and since I am the last true Thane alive I will sweep over your pathetic existence and turn every one into my disciple. I gave you the chance to rule at my side but since you seem to enjoy pain, enjoy the rest of your fucking existence here!" The lion roared and swept his paw across my muzzle and with one hard boot to the chest he sent my body flying into the chasm bouncing down along the sharp rocks. I slammed against the cliff several times before launching my paw out and narrowly took hold of a dead tree, looking up at the hundred or so meters I'd fallen to the castle above missing half its outside wall.

I raced up the cliff as fast as I could, I couldn't believe at the ease I could move with the souls of Killien and Rangoth I had the strengths of a Thane demon. I made my way back into the castle and scoured for anything that could get me out of there. I found endless texts one ancient races and demons that the Thane's had slaughtered but nothing told me how to use their powers.

All I could think about was Marcus, it seemed like an eternity since I saw him last and when I did it wasn't the best of times. I collapsed down in one of the library's weeping to myself, I couldn't do anything then I heard a distant voice. It seemed to call from one of the hallways I shakily stood and started to follow it. As I round the corner back to the open side of the castle I had blasted away I saw this white robed figure, its body seemed to emanate this soft white glow, all I could sense from it was a deep calm serenity. "Who are you?" I whispered.

"You are running out of time Zen..." it finally said.

"I'm trapped I don't know how to get out of here and it's my fault, Blaze is going to kill thousands of people and I let him out." I sighed and whipped away a tear.

"You cannot change what you have done but you can try and stop it from getting worse. I know it's hard, trust me I've been there. If you truly want out, I can get you out but you have to give up your hatred for yourself." The figure said its voice was some how familiar I know I'd heard it some where but couldn't put my finger on it but that really didn't matter at that point.

"Okay, I will just help me please." I pleaded with this creature.

"Alright but you'll have to hurry, there isn't much time. Oh and by the way, tell Marcus you love him for fucks sakes, it doesn't matter what happens love will get you thru everything. I wouldn't be here now is I didn't believe in the one I love."

I nodded and the figure raised its arm and suddenly like a bad dream my body shook as I shot up in the seat of a transport. I looked around to the fur sitting beside me. "Where am I?" I whispered to her.

A slightly large stocky grizzly bear female, dressed in a business suit, looked at me puzzled. "Uh you're on the shuttle to the lion home world..."

"Have I been on this ship the entire time?" I asked.

"Yeah, don't you remember, I had to ask you to step out of your seat to let me in. it was only like twenty minutes ago. Are you alright?"

I nodded and rubbed my eyes. "I'm fine, thanks."

Chapter 9

It was as if there was a new light on the city, I made my way out of the space port suspended just above the cloud line of the tall city. The crisp golden morning light glittered off the glass skyscrapers, the condensation from the night settling into a mist that hung between the buildings.

Moving thru the city and the clusters of furs and aliens heading off for another days work, it was like the crowds moved around me; normally you'd get bounced around by people rushing here and there but I moved without anyone touching me, like I wasn't even there. Eventually I stopped and looked at the dark red oak door way and gold accented door way the sign above in glittering silver letters spelling out 'Equinox'. I looked at my watch, it was about one in the afternoon so the lunch rush was just at it's peek so I made my way inside and took a seat along the black and grey wood of the bar smiling to myself as I saw the packed house the servers and bartenders rushing around attending to the guests.

I waited for a couple moments before the bartender came over to me, he was a big beautiful lion, perfectly styled golden fur with a mane of darker blonde head fur. He saw me and instantly rushed over with a big smile. "Holy shit Zen! You're back in town it's great to see ya!" he said happily.

I smiled back and him shaking his paw "Thanks Daniel, how're things?" I asked knowing full well how good business was.

"Fuck, crazy as ever..." he glanced over at a couple coming up to the wood and looked back at me. "...hang on I'll be back."

We chatted in between his mixing of the fine alcohols and other drinks, my self having a couple tumblers of the very feline brandy Carl and I used to share after we'd completed the inventory. After the lunch rush died he sat on the edge of the bar "I'd assume you're looking for Marcus huh?" I just nodded in response seeing that his expression went a bit distant. "Sorry Zen but Marcus stopped working here about six months ago, no one has heard from him since."

I gasped giving Daniel a confused look not even realizing how long I was gone for. "Six months? How long have I been gone?"

The lion looked at me "Eight months dude, how could you not know?"

"I...I..." I couldn't tell him anything about what had happened, I just stood up and put some credits on the bar to pay for my drinks. "...is Carl in the back?" The lion merely nodded as I walked away towards the kitchen.

I softly pushed open the door and stood off to the side watching as the four person lunch line restocked their sections and cleaned up, I watched the stocky Doberman scrubbing down his large plating table hidden just behind the lines of heat lamps he soon looked up and just stared at me not expecting to ever see me again.

We stepped into the mangers office, Carl sitting down in his chair studying me specifically eyeing the three claws marks along my cheek and muzzle. "Where have you been Zen?" he finally said to me.

"Around Carl, where is Marcus?" I asked getting right to the point.

"We don't know, kind of expected him to be with you, hell he quit two months after you did and disappeared just like you did."

"I see, well I need to find him really soon. Anything you could give me would help a lot. He is in danger."

Carl cocked his head to the side and sighed "Okay Zen, I'll tell you what I know but first you need to tell me what the hell is going on."

"Do you really want to know Carl?" I said getting only the chef's stern, impress me look.

"Fair enough, as I worked here I was also doubling as a hit man for the Joint Supernatural Taskforce. For months I was working without sleep coming here sometimes instantly after annihilating some form of demon, the reason I was chosen for the taskforce was because two years ago or rather three now I was bitten by a vampire and became one of them but my DNA already contained the virus which causes vampirism. I left here to find the creator of my particular strain and found out that I have the exact same DNA of the original carriers and if I don't find Marcus the first demon of this type will kill him and everyone else in this universe." I panted a bit after saying all of that in almost one breath just leaving Carl stunned in his chair.

"Well...I guess that explains that now doesn't it..." he chuckled. "Marcus called me a couple weeks ago just to let me know he was alright, he didn't say where he was but I did get the number off the caller ID." The Doberman said handing me a piece of paper.

I looked at the paper and nodded "Thanks Carl, I'm sorry for not being able to tell you any of this."

"It's okay, I guess. Just watch yourself and go and save Marcus alright."

I found myself in front of Marcus' apartment door, I could sense that no one was inside and hadn't been for along time so I effortlessly picked the lock and moved inside seeing the barren space, everything had been cleared out a layer of dust sat on the counter tops. I sighed and was about to leave when the video phone began to ring, normally I wouldn't answer another person's phone but something just made me press the open channel button. The monitor flashed filled with static but the voice came thru crystal clear. "Hunter 57?" I stood silently just out of the camera's view not responding at all. "I'll assume it's you, no one else would come here. I know where you have gone and I know what you are looking for, meet me at the corner of Alistair and Longmore on level 451 in sector 3 in an hour there is much to discuss." The voice and the image quickly ended.

My instincts told me not to go but I had to find out what had happened while I was gone so I stood at the street corner hanging four hundred stories in the air as the evening traffic whizzed by, jeans and t-shirt with a high cut leather jacket covered my body as my eyes hidden behind gold rimmed sunglasses. I waited, who ever this was, was late by over a half an hour but eventually I saw a business suit wearing squirrel stepping towards me wearing black sunglasses. "Sorry for my lateness 57 you know how things can get."

"No I don't actually, but why don't you just get straight to the point." I growled slightly, already being annoyed.

"Fair enough, since you left things in the taskforce has changed, certain command positions have changed and well to be perfectly honest your employment with the JSTF is now well known to the advisory board." The squirrel began to explain.

"What happened to Debra?" I asked urgently.

"She is still in the same position as when you left but her influence has been cut, due to the aid she was giving you."

"And who exactly are you?"

"Special Intelligence attaché to High Priestess Lauren Florenas who also is the commander of the JSTF I am here to bring you to her, she is quite interested in seeing you."

I turned to walk away but the squirrel grabbed my arm, which I turned and growled fiercely at him making him jolt back. "Okay, number one, don't fucking touch me ever again and number two I don't have to go anywhere with you."

The squirrel nods and sighs "Yes I am aware of your abilities 57, but you should be aware that if you do not come with me the six snipers that have their sights trained on you right now will execute you, after all you are still a demon."

My senses flared out instantly locking onto the six furs that he was talking about. "Looks like you've got your bases covered, lead on..."

We travelled by military gunship, for three days to the Lupine home world, it was almost like when I was being trained they had me under heavy guard at every turn. I was escorted into the capitol of the Lupine Empire this colossal hexagon shaped structure each side more than a kilometre long constructed out of a blood red stone indigenous to this planet. I had heard legends about this place, the site where Tarn Earthwalker fought Kitt Alistair and ascended for the first time and near destroyed the planet.

Being led thru the halls and seeing all the wolves around me made me feel really small as the wolf genetics generally made them a lot bigger than us foxes. Eventually I was chaperoned into a long temple like room, the walls made of a light grey stone and red carpet along the floor columns of fire lit the space making a pathway to the head of the room where a long conference table sat. I saw only one person there, a white robed female wolf, the hood hung along her shoulders, she was older probably around forty years old her blonde hair had faded slightly just by looking at her jade eyes you could tell she was extremely experienced and powerful. "Bring him here" She commanded to the two soldiers escorting me as they pushed me forward towards the table, which I stood at attention in front of. "You have caused quite the stir in the taskforce you know."

I cocked my head to the side "I'm not quite sure what you mean ma'am."

"Well it's not all your fault, you didn't exactly volunteer to join our agency but the fact of the matter for a year and a half you have been in the employ of the JSTF and being a demon this makes a few of my people nervous. I have assured them that those feelings are unwarranted, was I mistaken?" she said offering me a seat which I took graciously and she waved off the soldiers.

"No you aren't, although I do not understand why exactly I am here or what this has to do with Debra or Marcus."

"Well as for attaché Jade she has been reassigned to a less field orientated position, as punishment for going above the advisory board's judgment. And you're friend Marcus he is safe for the moment." The wolf said, looking at me, all my senses going off to her internal power knowing that if she wanted to she would have no problem ripping me in half.

"But wait, Debra told me that you and she were the only ones who knew about me. Why is it that she is the one being punished and you are sitting here?" I exclaimed.

"Simple, she did it to save you and myself. While I am the commander of the taskforce it really is just a front for a larger movement, there is still a war going on and we cannot allow bureaucracy get in the way of that."

I nodded slightly, understanding her view point. "Alright, I get that. Now where is Marcus and why are you interested in him?"

The female wolf leaned back in her chair studying me closely "After you left for Ichto he came to the taskforce looking for you. They brought him in for questioning after your existence was made known to the advisory board, he was quite intent on finding you and applied to become a hunter like yourself we are currently training him which is part of the reason why I wanted you here."

The wolf led me thru the complex to a large observation room, with a large glass bay window over looking one of the holographic rooms showing a long dark city street. I stepped up to the glass looking down as I saw him, the brown furred wolf whom I fell in love with. He dove behind a broken down car body as several bullets riddled the side of it.

"He is a quick study; reflexes, strength and intelligence are well above our requirements for hunters." The female said to me as I watched Marcus lift his body up on top of the car and swung his leg out colliding with the muzzle of some holographic demon and placed two rounds into his forehead.

"Can I see him?" I asked quickly, wanting to bust thru the glass and leap down to him right there.

"Not yet Zen, it would be best if he didn't know you were back. You still have to explain where you went and why you have come back changed."

My jaw dropped as I turned sharply, I knew this wolf was powerful but I thought I had buried all of that so it could not be sensed but some how she knew. "Okay, I'll tell you but can we go somewhere more private?"

The two of us sat in one of the meditation rooms in the capitol building, it was eerily silent almost unnerving didn't help that the older wolf just starred at me waiting for me to start talking.

I took one more look around making sure no one was listening "Here it is, I left as you probably know to find the demon that started the virus that infected me, a Thane demon to be more specific but what I found there wasn't great. I was captured, beaten and raped until I agreed to help them. What I found there was the first Thane, he called himself Blaze, they told me that centuries ago they had been imprisoned in that universe and had seeded certain furs in the hopes that one day the connection would be strong enough to bring them back. I managed to kill two of them by this Blaze escaped and is now somewhere in this universe. Somehow when I killed the two Thanes their power transferred to me and it changed me, I can feel it in my soul their terrible abilities trying to get out but I don't know how to control them."

The priestess nodded just listening to what I had to say and took a moment to consider everything "I see we suspected something had been unleashed into our universe, I felt it as did the president but were unclear on what exactly it was. Also in the last three months the numbers of Machai demons has almost doubled which would follow with a Thane being released, he's feeding."

"I'm so sorry I didn't want to let him out. I wasn't strong enough to kill him." I exclaimed.

"You can't change your mistakes Zen, but you can hope to stop them before they get too out of paw."

I was taken a back by what she said it was almost the same as the glowing being that had saved me from the Thane prison.

"What is it Zen?" She inquired curiously.

"Nothing, what do you think I should do?" I asked, just some how knowing that if anyone this wolf would be the person to help me.

"Well this Blaze will be coming after you eventually when he is ready, until then you will not be able to find him. All you can do is be ready to face him when the time comes. We here will try and find his location and everything we can about this Thane."

I nodded "Thanks, I know this isn't exactly what you wanted to hear. Can I see Marcus now?"

The wolf nodded and lead me to the door way of the holographic training room and ordered the guards to let me pass I stalked thru the desolate street of the make believe room, my ears attuned to the sounds of gun fire from the next block over. I watched for several moments as Marcus blasted thru several of the demon opponents the last getting up close and easily tossing his body against a brick wall that was the moment I chose to step up and tap the hologram on the shoulder making it turn just in time to see my fist come crashing against it's nose and send flailing away.

I stood there with a smirk on my muzzle as Marcus climbed to his feet "You know I could have..." he finally looked up and saw me, his jaw quivering. "Zen" I nodded to him instantly he threw himself at me his paw slicing thru the air towards my chest which I easily knocked away. "You son of a bitch, do you have any idea how worried I was?!" He growled and continued to try and hit me eventually just collapsing against me panting hard.

"I'm sorry Marcus, I'm so sorry..." were the only words I could utter as I wrapped my paws around him tightly hugging him.

After Marcus had been debriefed on his performance in the exercised he led me to his room in the capitol building and sat in his chair looking pissed off at me "Alright Zen lay it all out for me." I sighed and explained the entire thing to him, leaving out the parts where I was tortured and nearly killed by the Thanes, those memories were just too painful. His expression slowly changed from being pissed off at me to just being glad I was alive and hugged me tightly.

"I'm sorry I couldn't tell you this before, can you forgive me?" I blurted out almost in tears.

"Of course you dumb fox I was just so worried about you I had to do something." He replied.

I stepped back from him, looking his body over seeing what the months of gruelling training had done to him, he looked so much more confident and aggressive, I guess the same way I did when I was finishing my training, and it was the way of the hunters to develop as certain predatory stance. "At least you have been keeping busy, I had no idea you had it in you."

"When I was a pup, my parents tried to get me into the Hung-gar training but at the time I just didn't understand or like it. I still don't but it was the best way to find out about you."

"Ah, how long before you get your final test?" I asked.

"Not sure exactly can't be long now though." He said stepping closer to me rubbing his paw down my chest down along my stomach and stopped right over my groin. Normally I wouldn't have mind but as he touched me that way I jolted and pushed his paw away the flashed of the wolf and dinosaur rapping me racing thru my mind. Marcus recoiled a bit and whimpered. "I'm sorry, I just thought..."

"No, it's my fault I just need some time before we get to that..." I sighed "I shouldn't keep you from getting your rest, you have a big day ahead of you and I have a lot of work to do getting back into the swing of things."

"Alright, I'll see you soon though right?"

As Marcus trained tirelessly I spent most of my time on the Lupine home world locked away in one of the libraries surrounded with stacks of ancient dusty texts and powerful archive computers. My eyes strained as I watched the computers decrypting the old languages into something I could read. "...the army of one hundred rode fiercely against the fallen angel each one being struck down like mere beasts and like a plague he collapsed on the world laying waste to everything and every fur that stood against him became him." With every passage translated I realized the shit we were going to face.

"Any luck with your search Zen?" Lauren the female wolf said to me padded gracefully towards me.

"If you call finding out that these things are near unstoppable luck then yes, yes I have." I sighed and cracked my neck. "Question for you, what's with everyone calling you priestess? I thought you were a General or something."

The wolf smirked and shrugged "That's a long story..."

"I'm not going anywhere. " I pushed.

"Along time ago, just after the battle with Gabriel I went out in search of ways to combat the demon forces that plagued us and still do at the time we had no idea how to kill them and their numbers were growing strong. I travelled deep into the unknown universes in search for a group of religious warriors who had once defended our realm against the demons in one of the great balancing wars. When I found them I was trained how to fight and how to use my power, they made me one of their priestess' and I brought back their ways and used them as a base for the JSTF." She explained.

"Maybe they can help us against Blaze..." I asked only getting a mournful sigh as she looked away.

"Their help was not without consequence, teaching me meant they came out of hiding and were destroyed by several very powerful demons. I am the last person in existence with their knowledge, hence why I am much of the time hidden in the background."

I nodded and opened up another of the books looking thru it "I'm sorry I didn't know it was just an idea."

"It is okay, we need all the ideas we can get." I blinked as I scanned thru the text and yip in excitement making Lauren jump back a bit. "What have you found?"

"Possibly a weapon that can kill a Thane demon while I was in the prison universe I got a glimpse of the weapons the Thane's carried, they had all these weird engravings on them a language I had never seen before." I quickly showed the female wolf the book. "This is the same type of language...if I can find out where it came from I might be able to go to that planet and either find the material their weapons were made of or find an already constructed one."

"Interesting plan, I have seen this language as well...although I don't know how it could be connected to this."

I looked at Lauren curiously "Connected to what? What is this language?"

"It's a very ancient version of the Cloudrunner dialect."

"You mean this is Lupine?!"

She tilted her head to the side "Yes, way before we had interstellar travel technology, hell even before electricity almost fifty thousand years ago around the birth time of the Hung-gar order."

"Can you read this?" I quickly asked.

"Yes I can, it speaks of a great war, probably a balancing. Something about a mountain of fire where heaven and earth meet, seven weapons were forged but five were stolen by the gods because we were not worthy of the power." Lauren says.

"Only five that means there might be two more still on this planet, is there anything that says where this mountain of fire is?" I urgently questioned.

"No, but there's only a couple places that would match the description and you'd think that with the satellite technology we have something like this would be known to us and as far as I know there are no volcano's like that still around."

I sighed and slumped in the chair "Can you get me access to the geological network? I'd like to take a look."

"Of course, it will be yours but before you do that you should know that Marcus is being sent out on his first live hunt."

My ears went rigid as I looked hard at Lauren "Already?!"

"Yes we believe he is ready. A brood of Grannoks have been tracked to a small village to the east he is being tasked with eliminating the threat, he should be returning soon."

"What?!" I yipped "He's already left?"

Lauren nodded and sighed "I would have told you but you would have wanted to go along and he has to do this one his own."

I rushed to the hangar as a sleek olive green military transport craft touched down and the rear door creek open followed by the brown furred wolf stepping out, dressed in all black combat armour. "Marcus, are you alright?!" I exclaimed running up to him seeing his nose bleeding a bit and his hair all messed up.

"Yeah Zen, why wouldn't I be? Damn those things pack a punch" he laughed.

I shook my head and hugged him tightly "Dumb ass" I chuckled.

At least with Marcus now a full hunter I could relax a little bit, again burying myself in the depths of satellite reconnaissance images of every mountain on this planet and geological surveys of extinct volcano's but nothing seemed to match up to the story found in the text. I closed my eyes for a split second then groaned feeling two strong familiar paws slowly massaging my shoulders, I looked up to see Marcus over me looking at the mess of papers on the desk "Anything yet Zen?"

"Not even close, there's no mountain on this planet that even comes close to being what was described."

"Well there's your problem Zen, you've got the translation wrong" Marcus said pointing to a line in the text. "That doesn't say heaven and earth...its hell and earth."

I jolted out of my chair my jaw dropping "What how do you know?"

"I'm a Cloudrunner, my grandmother used to tell me bed time stories and she was an archaeologist fluent in the forgotten languages. She showed me a few things...you're not looking for a mountain you're looking for a cave."

My fingers ran across the keyboard scouring the same records I'd been staring at for hours but with the new translation it took mere moments, a wide grin crossed my muzzle as I printed out the data and rushed out of the library with Marcus in tow.

The words spilled out of my muzzle in a haze of excitement and confidence as I explained to the high priestess wolf. "I found it, with Marcus' help. It's in the Northern Province a recently discovered underground volcanic cave network. Apparently during the survey the team uncovered an ancient temple it had the same engraving as I the Cloudrunner language."

Lauren rubbed her chin, listening quickly to understand what I was saying "Okay Zen, what happened to the survey, I thought that something of this nature would be common knowledge by now."

I flipped to the next page of the data showing a military operation report. "Well they sent an archaeological analysis crew but they were never heard from, from the dates on this ops report they've only been missing for two weeks." Lauren nodded and stood up from her seat and walked over to the window, his expression lost in thought. "What is it?"

"I'm not sure, although if you focus you can probably feel it as well something odd about this report and that location. Something dark, but it is trying to stay hidden from us." Lauren whispers her tone very worried and concerned. "I know you're going to go there whether I authorize it or not, so I insist you allow one of the special strike teams to go with you. They are more than capable to keep up with you and deal with anything you may encounter."

"Agreed, how long before they arrive?" I quickly responded.

"Two days, I'll have, team nine here and ready to go."

Chapter 10

The sweat dripped from my brow as I forced myself to bend, my feet suspended from a bar connected to the ceiling. My stomach muscles ached and burned as I sat completely up, I was completely focused on completing the exercise when my body fell back to its upside down position until I opened my eyes and saw Marcus standing at the doorway to the gym. "Enjoying the show?"

"Actually yeah I am, at least I know now how you stayed in such good shape." Marcus laughed.

"Thanks." I replied and grunted as I lifted my body again. "So what's up?"

"Nothing just thought since we have a little time on our paws maybe we could go out tonight; dinner, a movie, maybe a club?" Marcus asked.

"Sure, just let me finish up here." I replied to him.

Together we sat in a small pub on the outskirts of the capitol city the lighting was very dim but very homely surrounded by wolves. The food was decent but nothing special, although I'd really just been surviving off of fast food and military rations for the last couple months so any real food was good, it was also an odd feeling from the room I realize that still not many non wolves who don't work for the alliance come to the lupine home world especially foxes they are considered by many wolves to be a lesser species something about being good hunters. I buried those thoughts and just focused on Marcus sitting across from me telling me about his experiences through the JSTF while I was away then his tone deepened as I saw his eyes lock in on the three claw scars along my cheek.

"I don't want to pry Zen, but how did you get those? I thought your demon energies allowed you to pretty much heal all your wounds." He finally uttered.

I looked away from him briefly and shuddered slightly my chest heaved with each heavy breath as I felt Blaze's claws swiping along my face. "Marcus...while I was away..." I panted slightly my voice became weak and quiet "...I found them, they captured me and Blaze gave me this as a reminder...it's hard for me to talk about, I'm sorry."

Marcus cupped his paws over mine on the table and nodded softly "Its okay Zen, I won't push. When you are ready, you'll tell me."

I simply nodded not being able to meet him eye to eye.

We spent the next day and a bit just hanging out with each other, the only sites I'd seen from the Lupine Home world was from the windows of the JSTF training building so it was nice to see it. We were just driving around the downtown core in Marcus' convertible hover car when both our cell phones began to go off, instantly we both looked at each other knowing before either of us even answered what it meant and sped back towards the Lupine citadel.

Both of us marched out into the modern black steel walled briefing room with stainless steel conference table and chairs, at the head of it was Lauren and some special forces solider standing there, he looked very young about our age but you could tell he'd seen his share of battle.

"Hunter Marcus and Zen, this is captain Aiden Florenas of strike team nine they are the best operators we have. Get your gear and weapons from the equipment locker and report for dust off." Lauren ordered as the dark auburn furred wolf dressed in black tactical armour shakes my paw.

"So you're the Machai whose been working for us?" Aiden says as we clamour around sliding fresh magazines of ammunition into our weapons.

"I've been working for the JSTF yes, but I am not Machai thank you very much." I responded, expecting a little bit of issues especially with the way they were trained to deal with demons with extreme prejudice.

"Then what exactly are you and why has the priestess pulled us off a six month operation for this little tour of the planet?" Aiden said a bit harshly pulling back the cocking hammer on his assault rifle.

I merely gave him a grin as I placed my pistols in their holsters and put my red lens tactical glasses over my eyes. "I'm something a lot more dangerous, just try and keep up alright."

Within three hours the large black armoured military transport was whipping along the icy tundra of the northern section of the planet. I sat at the end of the bench with the ten soldiers and Marcus. The loading of ramp of the transport crashed against the snowy ground as the winds whipped along the tall half kilometre tall frozen cliff face, we piled out quickly the soldiers racing to the empty shacks left by the archaeology team.

I shivered and shook from the minus forty degree weather as we searched each of the buildings seeing all the wolves barely even phased by the cold, must have been nice to have such thick fur coats. The collection of thinly insulated wooden buildings were absolutely barren, most of the computer equipment was still turned on, recording from the twenty or so roving flying drones taking images and samples from the rock from the cave seven hundred meters below the surface.

"There's no sign of anyone here, no bodies. It's like every fur just disappeared" One of the soldiers reported to be as I gazed thru the video feeds.

"At least the video recorders are still active, can you try and roll the tapes back and see if it shows anything about what happened to the team?" I asked the computer specialist of the team as he quickly pulled up the chair and began to type along the keyboards.

"Shouldn't be too difficult, the team stopped transmitting about sixteen days ago so I'll just..." In mid sentence every single monitor began to flicker, my eyes widened as I grabbed the racoon and tore him out of his seat the entire bank of computer exploding into a cascade of sparks.

"Are you alright?" I asked quickly, helping the raccoon to his feet getting a gasping nod. "What the fuck happened?"

"I don't know it's possible that with all the ice on the power lines it over loaded the generator. The system was running in standby for so long when I brought the computers back it could have just sent a surge thru the lines." The raccoon said brushing his combat vest off.

"I guess there's something else here. It doesn't want us to know what happened..." I whispered making the raccoon look at me oddly.

The twelve of us stood before a rickety looking platform that was suspended by a high tenser cable ready to lower it into the deep dark pit it was above. Not wasting any time we were enveloped in the darkness of the pit with the quickly dying sunlight fading away from above us.

The elevator dropped us nearly two thousand meters into the planets surface coming to rest on a steel platform, as our eyes adapted we saw a city sized cave network lit up by the network of florescent lights. It was breathe taking, an entire city carved right into the light red rock of the lupine planet and even though they had been standing for fifty thousand years it all looked pristine.

"Well hotshot, where too?" Aiden said to me as he orders his team to fan out and secure the area.

I looked around seeing a raging river of water leading along one of the cavern walls heaving out of a large opening just above the city. "Hmmm, see that large structure beside the waterfall?" I said pointing to a large blocky construct with six sharp spires jutting out along the pathway leading to the entrance.

"Alright, I want communications set up right here. We need to report back to the Priestess." Aiden orders to his team as Marcus, he and I move down the scaffolding to the eroding cobblestone street along the side of the river. Every couple of meters there was an arching bridge that would take you to the other side of the river although they didn't look all that stable. While I sauntered along the street, Aiden and Marcus kept there large assault weapons braced against their shoulders not taking any chances. The air was thick and smelt faintly of sulphur which probably was caused by a near by volcanic channel I could feel an ancient energy permeating the cavern.

"What is it Zen?" Marcus asked.

I shook my muzzle not looking back at him my legs seemed to have a mind of their own, pulling us towards the large building. "I don't know something happened here along time ago. Something dark and evil, a lot of people died here."

We stepped up the steep stairs to the large archway of the building as it loomed over us covered in a thick shadow. I looked back at Aiden and Marcus "Just stay here, I have to do this alone."

"Wait a minute here!" Aiden barked "We're supposed to watch your back, there's something down here that killed the twenty research scientists and there's no way in hell anyone is going anywhere alone."

I don't know what came over me but I rushed up to Aiden, putting my muzzle right up to his. "Listen here you don't know what you're dealing with. I'm going in there alone so just do as your ordered and you may make it out of here alive!" I snarled out then blinked stumbling back. "Oh shit, dude, I'm sorry I don't know what that was."

Aiden growled and took a step forward probably to fire something back at me but Marcus got in between. "Okay Zen, go we'll be here for you."

I panted and rubbed my muzzle turning away without another word and stepped inside the building suddenly the huge stone door somehow slamming shut on their own power leaving me in pitch blackness, I could hear through my tactical radio, Aiden and Marcus' yells asking if I was okay, but as I took a few step into the darkness the radio crackled and soon fell silent.

"Hello!" I called out into the void as all around me cauldrons of fire burst to life illuminating a large domed audience hall the marble ceiling held up by columns of ebony stone.

"Why have to disturbed us!!" A thundering voice roared from every direction.

"I am Zen Hunt, I come looking for a weapon!" I bellowed out in response.

"For what purpose Zen Hunt?"

"Blaze, the Thane demon stalks this existence once again and I must stop him." I darted my head and eyes around looking for the source of the voice but it seemed to come from everywhere.

"But you are a Thane yourself you merely want his power why should we give you the tool to get it?"

"Yes I am a Thane demon by blood but I care not for power, I just want to stop thousand of innocent people from dying."

"A Thane with a soul, this is interesting. If you want to kill Blaze then you must be willing to die yourself."

I tensed my fists then felt a gust of wind blowing past me forcing me to turn seeing three brown robed figures standing before me all of them at least six and a half feet tall and none of them had any feeling of energy or life from them. "If that is what is required, will you help me?" The figures stood silently for several moments causing me to grow a bit annoyed. "Well?"

"You are not ready for the power these weapons contain, go now and do not return." They said to me and turned starting to walk away.

"Hey fuckers, I'm not leaving here unless you tell me what's going on. What did you do to the survey team, did you kill them?"

"No we did not you have travelled into a different realm. This place is cursed the furs who came here awoke the evil in this place, If we were you we would leave as soon as we could." The said as their body slowly disappeared.

"Fuck..." I grumbled to myself, and began walking to the doors again as a paw touched my shoulder making me yelp and whip my handgun from my thigh holster jamming it against the nose of a slim yet toned female fox, her fur soft and silky faded red fur and ivory white chin fur flowed down along her chest, her upper body covered in a black tight shirt that only covered his breasts and a brown loin cloth along her groin, two golden ribbons flowed along her shoulders tying back her shoulder length glistening black hair.

"Do not pay them any attention my friend." She softly said to me not even a little bit afraid of the gun in her face.

"Who are you?" I barked loudly already being quite frustrated.

"My name is Alicia I am here to help you if you will accept it." She said to me as I lowered my weapon at least this fur I could sense was at least somewhat real.

"How can you help me, those guys already said that I cannot have the weapon that I need."

"Come with me, I will explain." She said leading me through the hallways of what looked like a temple the halls etched with the old language of the Cloudrunner pack. Eventually this female fox opened the door to a large library, the walls lined with empty wooden book shelves, a large open balcony gave a view outside but where I had expected to see the dark musty cavern it was a panoramic scene of a lush temperate grass land the fields covered in the peaceful forms of apple blossom trees.

"Wait a minute, where is the cave, where are we?" I blurted out, my senses going on the ready but I still didn't get any malicious feelings from this female.

"I simply felt that you would be calmer in this setting, your mind must be focused." She said to me taking my paw and softly led me onto the balcony into the warm sunlight and sat me on a lavish soft material bench and took her seat across a table which had a very expensive porcelain tea set laid out. "What I am going to show you will not be easy to hear or experience but you must listen."

I nodded sitting up straight in the chair, not letting my guard down for a moment.

"Fifty millennia ago the Lupine home world was not unlike it is today cities built to a monolithic scale ranged all over the surface it was very peaceful, each of the packs working with each other for the greater good of the species. But as you know very well nothing good ever lasts forever the Cloudrunner's secretly vied for power over all of the packs and created this cavern, they gathered there best wizards and warriors here to search for the weapon that would give them control. What they did not know is that in each major world in this universe had been seeded by the fates with both energies of light and dark ready to be used in their great balancing wars the Cloudrunner's discovered these..."

My vision blurred for a second as the scenery changed taking us into the temple, this time it was bright and clean the walls lined in tapestries and weapons as the three brown robed figures I had seen before walked towards the head of a long room on a red carpet a wall of lava fell from the ceiling into a pit in the floor. I watched as the robed figures began to glow and each plunged weapons of obsidian into the flow as they came out the etchings on them burst with a red light. Then suddenly the scene shook violently the lava flow exploding over the figures burning them to death.

"...the flow of molten rock was cursed with these dark energies and for their obsession with power the Cloudrunner priests were destroyed. In turn it also created a beacon of evil forces which drew the demons to this world." The images shifted to the surface a large city of castles and stone structures as a shadow fell upon it, my vision focused in as I saw Blaze, Killien, Rangoth and a fox effortlessly and brutally slaughtering every single wolf in the city "...the army of one hundred rode fiercely against the fallen angels each one being struck down like mere beasts and like a plague he collapsed on the world laying waste to everything and every fur that stood against him became him." The vixen explained in the exact same way it was written in the ancient text I had been reading.

"How was he stopped?" I urgently asked as I watched Blaze lift up a wolf warrior by the arms and roar as he pulled tearing the limbs from the sockets sending a torrent of blood spilling over the ground and a screeching howl of pain echoing through my mind.

"The power of these weapons was not supposed to be released at that time, so as the Thane's were about to approach the cavern city the fates intervened and cast Blaze and his brothers into a prison universe never to be heard of again, or at least until recently."

I panted as the soft peaceful scene returned to me my stomach turning having seen the biblical scale of carnage. "What happened to the weapons? The legends said there were seven weapons created but the fates only took five of them."

"The fates felt that one day Blaze might escaped so they left the two weapons for warriors of the light to find and use to destroy the threat. They hid them in this place and here they have rested for all this time." The vixen said.

"Where are they? How do I find them?"

"You are looking at one of them the weapons have the essence of living beings inside of them."

I gasped and rolled my eyes up and down the vixen. "You are the thing that can destroy Blaze?"

The vixen stood up and leaned her paws along the balcony looking out over the fields. "Yes, I have lived here for eons waiting for the one strong enough to find me. And now you have come and I must give myself to you." She said and turned to me, her paws stripping her shirt from her chest showing me the firm ample breast of her chest.

"Whoa, hold on there, I can't do this." I blurted out, standing up sharply.

The vixen padded closer to me. "Do you not find me beautiful? You also said you were willing to do what was required."

"Yeah but, my heart belongs to another and well I am gay." I responded quickly.

"Our minds and souls must be united if you wish to defeat Blaze." Alicia said as per paw fingers pulled the string on her loin cloth letting it fall to the floor as well leaving her completely naked in front of me. "You do not have much time. Blaze has already located this place."

My lower jaw quivered and my mind raced trying to decide as the vixen stepped even closer her warm breath passed over my muzzle. "The choice is yours Zen."

I sighed and dropped my stance suddenly being sucked into a darkened lavish bed room, lit by a large fireplace, I saw Alicia lying still naked on her side looking seductively along a satin covered bed. I looked down my body seeing my clothing had been stripped away. I couldn't get Marcus out of my head this was the only way to get Blaze if I had any other way I would have taken it but I didn't so with a deep breath I moved forward and slid my body up over the vixen's.

The room echoed with our passionate pants and moans as we kissed and let out paws roam over our bodies in the back of my mind I could see like a convex portal the desolate cave erupting in violent gun fire as Aiden's strike team is assaulted by an army of demons. My mind focused on Alicia's nothing else mattered just something about her just made my entire essence quiver like she was born just for me, my muzzle lapped and kissed along her neck as I cupped one of her breast giving the nipple a long slow lick making her gasp and moan loudly. She dug her claws into my back lightly raking them through my fur. Alicia rolled up on top of my body lightly pinning me to the soft bed lustfully kissing my lips as her hips ground against my midsection and my erect fox hood.

I grazed my paws along her hips sitting up to burry my muzzle in between her breasts inhaling her intoxicating female scent and shifted her backwards lowering my muzzle down between her legs and darting my tongue out over the folds of her heat making her yowl in pleasure. "Yes Zen yes!!"

Alicia's scent filled my nostrils and the taste of his juices coated my tongue as I washed my tongue again and again over her clit, soon she pulled away and turned over on her paws and knees, her large bushy tail swaying tantalizingly behind her. I never thought mating with a female would be like this, I had never gotten this far with one but I found myself falling completely into my instincts making me climb up behind her, my paws taking hold of her hips and my throbbing hard on dripping with precum just before her tunnel. I growled pleasurably into the vixen's ear leaning my chest against her back as I plunged inside of her, instantly feeling the near boiling heat of her vagina surrounding me. My hips quickly built of a hard rhythm as we mated I threw my muzzle to the ceiling as I felt the lust boiling up then I looked down seeing Alicia's body begin to glow soon it enveloped me ,our orgasms exploded making me yowl violently my eyes clenched tightly.

I fell forward but where I had expected the satin bed covers my chest collided with the hard stone floor of the first audience chamber I had walked into. I shook my muzzle and looked around frantically as my senses came back to me my ears rang with the shouts and screams of Aiden, Marcus and the other soldiers as they ordered for retreat. I raced up the winding staircase of the temple to the roof top seeing the bright flashes of automatic gun fire aimed at masses of zombie like furs staggering towards my friends.

"Shit..." I growled and wished that I had brought an assault rifle, all I had was a single pistol not enough to take out the hundreds of these demons swarming all over the streets of the cavern.

"Remember you have the weapon now, go and save them." I heard Alicia's voice echoing in the back of my head. I looked down at my paws not quite knowing how I was doing it, but they began to glow. It was at least a fifteen story drop to the ground below, something just made me leap off the edge of the roof top sending me into a perfect swan dive spinning my body around at the last second and coming down with a thundering boom on one knee, the pure force of the landing caving in a section of the stone walk way. I looked up with my teeth bared as three of the un-dead horde spotted me and stagger there way towards me, moaning with deep painful growls of thousands of years of suffering. I stood up slowly extending my paws to the sides and the same glowing light that surrounded them, some how the light was under my control with merely my thoughts it extended forming two curved short katana typed swords etched in the Cloudrunner language the hilts covered in golden metal. I snarled and leapt towards the zombies slashing through the decomposing flesh without the slightest resistance.

I stopped briefly looking at the diced corpses as they dissolve into puffs of ash, filling my senses with a sort of calmness, the cursed souls being released. The urgency of the situation hit me like a ton of bricks as my mind locked in on the strike team and Marcus running for their lives frantically firing off magazine after magazine of bullets from their weapons.

My mind became focused signally on saving the team and in a flash I darted down the degrading staircase and along the street way seeing the waves of un-dead people dragging their barely movable limbs along the stone walkway, literally thousands of droning cries echoes off the walls of the caver. "Too many to fight..." I said to myself looking up at the close knit buildings and somehow pushed off my feet casting myself up onto the roof and again raced towards my fellow JSTF agents bounding across the sometimes five meter gaps between buildings with ease.

Finally my feet slammed down onto a roof top gazing out into the clearing which led up the incline that supported the modern steel platform built by the researchers. I saw the swarms of demon marching against the seven remaining strike team members as well as Marcus, their panicking voices screamed through my radio ear piece. "Hold the line, don't let one of those bastards close!" Aiden's voice aggressively barked out. "Keep moving to the lift!"

"What about Zen?" Marcus' panting voice came on.

"I doubt he's even alive Mark, we have to get out of here!" Aiden responded.

I watched for a couple more seconds as they reached the stairway and began racing up to their one chance of escape then I spotted him at the top of the platform, standing with his dark chestnut brown mane, broad built upper body covered with a green tunic holding his large serrated claymore sword. I gasped in horror and vaulted off of the roof down into the middle of the zombie horde using the mystical short katana blades to carve a path to help my friends. I grunted and spun my body around my foot paw resting on the first step looking out at the straight line of collapsed zombies as they explode into a huge cloud of ash, realizing just what I had done without any type of firearm what so ever. My head shot up the staircase as I heard the screams of pain and leapt up each flight of stair bringing me into plain view of two of Aiden's soldiers trying to gun down Blaze but only to have their bodies picked up and thrown over the railing sending them down into the horde and having their bodies torn limb from limb and their souls ripped right from them.

"Enough Blaze!" I bellowed out getting the attention of everyone, the lion's glare shot around and focused on me.

"Zen!" Marcus shouted out and ran over to me but stopped short seeing my attention completely upon the lion.

"Just stay out of this Marcus, you'll only get hurt." I coldly said sending him Aiden and the last of the strike team dashing to the side. Blaze and I stood only ten meters from each other, neither budging. "I'm going to tear you in half you son of a bitch!"

"Ha, you think you have the power, I created you. There is no hope of you challenging me. I'm giving you one last chance to join me I will even allow you to turn your precious Marcus so you can be with him forever." Blaze finally roared.

"Take you deal and shove it up your ass, I couldn't beat you on my own but..." I grinned and flung off my tactical vest leaving my bare chest in plain view, my back and sides lined with a dark crimson red jagged tattoo which wrapped around my chest into three sharp points over my pectoral muscles and flowed down along my arms. "...I have the weapon."

Blaze laughed and pointed his tree trunk arm out at me. "You fool you allowed that thing to join with you? I can't believe you are so narrow minded want to know why I never captured the weapon for myself."

My upper lip curled as I tensed my fists.

"She is a manipulator the weapons were never created to serve anyone but the will of the fates in their wars. Since this one was never used, it has grown bitter and jaded towards it purpose. The weapon's only goal now is freedom and now you've given yourself and your power to her."

I listened to Blaze, knowing full well this was probably just a trick. "Bullshit, you came here fifty thousand years ago to take the weapon and its counterparts for yourself and in doing so the fates banished you."

"You are correct but I was mistaken I learned what the weapon was really about, the fates didn't take the weapons because they were hiding them, they were all defective and would not listen to their owners. And now you will be controlled by her and there's nothing you can do about it..."

I slid my leg back into a long fighting stance preparing to lunge at the lion hearing Alicia's voice in the back of my head "Do not listen to him, remember what I have shown you he is the enemy, destroy him." Her soft feminine voice spoke.

Without wasting a single breath I launched at the lion, my arms outstretched to my sides as the tattoos on my right wrist began to glow flailing out in four ribbons of white energy that as I swung my arm forward became a long thin shiny steel blade, the hilt much like the Chinese Gin I used to carry and was broken by Blaze himself. As I fell upon the lion he brought his own sword up to match mine, the sheer force of the blade connecting sending a tremor through the ground causing several of the more dilapidated structures toppling over.

Blaze pushed his other arm up against my chest and flipped me over his head crushing me into the steel. I whipped one of my feet towards his muzzle but had it batted away and twirled my body back to my feet engaging Blaze head on, both our swords clanging together with a dizzying set of moves, I don't even remember the movements I was making they all seemed to be happening on their own. I finally regained control over my limbs just as I carried Blaze's sword over my head with my own and swiped my fist across his ribs but instead of my knuckles connecting I saw my paw extending with three razor sharp claws out the back of my wrists, the metal slicing right into his flesh making his roar in pain. I knocked him several feet away with a hard side kick to his muzzle and came back to my fighting stance.

"You little piece of shit, I should have let Killien slaughter you in that cage after he and Rangoth had finished rapping your ass!" Blaze hissed, making me snarl viciously and vault into the air coming down with the butt of my sword right into his gut, making a fountain of blood spew from the lion's muzzle.

"Never speak of that ever again do you hear me!" I yelled out, glancing over to Marcus, whom I just could bare to tell what had really happened to me. I simply saw his jaw drop.

The split second I let my guard down Blaze hit me with a powerful blast of demon energy which threw me right to the edge of the platform which was a hundred feet from the hordes of demons ready to tear us apart, my paw barely grabbed the railing as my legs flailed around in the air. The next thing I knew blaze was standing over me, with the tip of his sword pressed against my chin. "Tsk tsk, the thing about the weapons is that you have to have total focus on the battle, and it looks like you're a little distracted."

I struggled to keep my grip as I watched my sword explode into sparks of energy and reform over the tattoos on my arm, my mind flashed with the painful images of the wolf and raptor all over me, their claws raking into my sides as they took turns fucking me.

"There is one constant in this world, one thing that all living beings can understand. They will die!" Blaze drew his sword above his head ready to plunge it into my body but before it could fall I clenched my eyes hard and heard the lion grunt. I opened my eyes to see blaze turning quickly, and Marcus, Aiden and the five strike team soldiers riddling the demon's body with their automatic weapons.

Blaze merely let out a malicious laugh as his paw out stretched and Marcus' body flew off his feet and crashed into Blaze's paw, slowly his grip tightened around the helpless wolf's neck cutting off his air supply.

I cried out and using every ounce of strength in my upper body launched myself from the over hang into Blaze, my sword whipping back into existence and with a pure clean stroke I slashed it through the lion's elbow joint severing it off and dropping Marcus to the steel. "Don't you fucking touch him!" I snarled and spun around brining my sword into Blaze's body with such force it seemed to pass right through him without touching.

For a moment everyone stood silently, I came to a rest from the spin my back to the lion's, my sword held to my side as I sighed. "You're time is over Blaze..."

The lion returned with a similar sigh to me not moving "But yours is only beginning..." I felt the big fur body slipping away from me and crumpled to the steel grating completely cut in half, as I turned the corpse began to glow then burst into a brilliant blue fire that erupted in a shockwave filling the cave washing over the zombies and causing them to explode in pyres of fire and ash.

As the cavern fell silent, the sword I was holding became the tattoo over my arm once again, Marcus rushed in front of me having to shake me back to reality. "Zen!? Zen? Are you alright?!"

I nodded slowly and looked to the astonished JSTF strike team soldiers "Let's go home..."

Chapter 11

"Hunter 57...? 57 are you listening?" The large set Colonel wolf yelled across the conference table at me, startling me a bit.

"I uh...sorry sir, could you repeat the question?" I stammered and uncomfortably adjusted myself in the chair and my tactical uniform.

"I said how did you accomplish to terminate the Thane demon?" The Colonel asked again growing very annoyed.

"I do not know for sure sir, I suppose I just managed to find its weak point and exploit it sir." I half heartedly answered.

"Alright 57 that will do, for now, but you will have to do better when you address the advisory board. As for the rest of you, I'm putting you all on temporary leave until this incident can be resolved." The Colonel growled and stormed out of the room.

I stood up shakily, looking to the seven furs out of fifteen who had survived and sighed sadly. "I am sorry for putting you all through this, I know you lost friends in that cave but I thank you for covering my ass for the moment. I just need to find out what is going to happen."

Aiden looked to his soldiers and nodded slowly not making eye contact with me at first. "Zen, look what happened down there has to be one of the weirdest things I've ever seen and I've been leading this strike team for over a year now but in this job you learn that there are things in this life you will never understand. I just hope you figure out what happened before something worse emerges."

I smiled softly as Aiden stood up signalling his squad that it was time to go and shook his paw lightly. "It was a pleasure to work with you, I hope to see you again sometime."

Aiden's eyes finally came up to meet mine, I could see and feel that he was genuinely worried. "I have a feeling we will see each other very soon."

Later in the day, Marcus and I sat for an uneasy lunch, neither of us really eating just idly moving the food around the plates. I looked up at the brown wolf as I put my fork down. "Marcus, I'm sorry I couldn't tell you. It hurt too much..." I forced myself to say, making Marcus look at me.

"I understand, I mean you were beaten, tortured and raped by those things for god knows how long. That's not an easy thing to tell people I just wish you had trusted me a little more." He quietly responded.

"I know, I should have...I just felt that it was something I had to deal with on my own but now I realize that you are my real strength, if it had not been for you Blaze would have killed me and there's never going to be away I can repay that." I fired out, my words just flying out my muzzle almost bringing me to tears.

"You don't have to repay me Zen..." Marcus said with a smile, putting his paws over mine, squeezing softly. "...I love you and will protect you with every bit of life I have left."

I smiled feeling for the first time in a good long while actually safe.

Together we entered into the hotel room the JSTF had setup for us, Marcus padded out in front of me looking over the modest looking room, two beds and half kitchen and bathroom. I glanced over it and shut the door behind myself coming up behind the brown wolf wrapping my arms around his waist and rubbed his stomach and chest slowly starting to kiss his neck.

"Mmmm feels good to have you back Zen." Marcus whispered and turned locking his muzzle with mine. I softly rubbed his back letting my paws cup his firm butt cheeks, my lust for him building up inside of me.

I let my paws roam over his body as he gasped and moaned, his eyes softly closed as I edged him over the bed and pulled his shirt over his head and tossed it to the side. "Are you sure about this? I don't want to force you into anything you're not ready for."

I merely grinned giving him all the assurance he needed and unbuttoned my dress shirt and peeled it from my toned upper body, I watched as his finger tips traced around the edges of the red line along my chest.

Our passions ran hard into the night, naked fur rubbing against each other, our paws touching every inch of each other's body filling the room with both the sounds of our lustful growls and groans and the scent of heavy male arousal. Marcus smirked up at me as I rested my paws on either side of his body, his eyes gazing down between my legs to see my aching erection hanging in plain view. He licked the slide of my muzzle and turned over onto his stomach, spreading his legs a bit, presenting himself fully to me.

I didn't hesitate long before grinding my cock along his rump bumping the slightly pointed tip against the entrance to his body, making it slick with the pre that was dripping from my deep red length. My paws stroked his sides as without saying a word and slipped forward penetrating his depths with my fox-hood.

My hips rocked against his body, each time I pushed to the hilt the brown wolf gasped and moaned louder and louder sliding his body onto his side and placing his leg up on my shoulder letting our eyes meet. It didn't take much more of his tight anal passage to massage my cock, both of us gritted out teeth as orgasm set in and my seed was send spilling into my wolf's body and his own was forced out onto the bed sheets.

I locked my gaze onto his expression, both a mixture of pure ecstasy and pain, I gasped as my vision clouded over shocking me into a scene of a fiery building, scoured in black marks from explosions. The vision locked into one window I saw Marcus dashing along the hallway, his body dirty and covered in matted fur with some blood dripping from his forehead, my eyes took me from window to window as the wolf ran for his life eventually it brought me inside one of the offices as Marcus becomes cornered and all I saw was a single bullet flying through the air and collided with my wolf's chest and exploded out his back spraying the window in his red blood before shattering followed by the same expression I just saw as he toppled out of the high rise.

I violently shook back to reality seeing Marcus in one piece on the bed, stroking my chest fur softly with a very contented smile on his face. "Wow, I have to say that is one of the best fucks I've ever had." He laughed, he must not have seen my reaction so I slowly slid out of him and lay behind him, wrapping my arm tightly around his midsection.

"Yeah definitely..." I whispered into his ear before we both drifted into slumber, his probably being a lot better than mine.

A few day past before I waltzed into the JSTF headquarters in the Lupine citadel building, dressed in casual blue jeans and a white muscle shirt with my short black leather jacket over top and my gold rimmed sunglasses covering my eyes. I flashed my ID to the receptionist and made my way to the inner sections of the massive building coming up to a red oak office door.

I entered slowly, finding Lauren the forty some odd year old stone grey wolf female and leader of the JSTF sitting across her large white marble desk. "You asked to see me Priestess?" I said formally standing at attention a couple feet from her.

"Yes Zen, please sit...I got the reports about what happened and am curious." She said offering me a seat before standing herself to look out of the large window upon the city.

"Curious about what?"

Lauren looked back at me narrowing her eyes, letting me know to drop the act. "I am curious as to how you defeated Blaze so easily and am curious as to those new tattoos. I don't think they are a fashion statement."

I cleared my throat uneasily taking the offered chair. "It was not my intentions to deceive the taskforce or you, I simply do not want to become another science project. At least until I know what the weapon chose me."

"Chose you? I'm afraid I'm not following you." Lauren replies with a confused voice.

"It would seem that the weapon is some how sentient and symbiotic with its user, they become one being. I am assuming the tattoos are a representation of that. Do not come down on Captain Florenas or Marcus, I asked them to keep it out of the reports for the time being." I explained causing Lauren to sigh and sit in her large officer chair and rest her elbows on the table top.

"There will be no reprimanded towards them, the whole incident is being swept under the rug. However, I personally do want to know more about this weapon and its capabilities."

I sighed loudly and looked around the office briefly "I can only tell you what I know. It some how can manifest implements of incredible power through these tattoos and it goes by the name Alicia. When I was in the temple she showed me when Blaze and the other Thane's came to this planet in search of them, it wasn't pretty. Also I think somehow she can also see the future to some extent, I have been having flashes of something that either can or will happen."

"What flashes?"

"It's really dodgy Lauren but there will be a battle and a lot of lives will be lost, there's not much more detail I can give you..." I explained suddenly my body convulsed and shot out of the chair tipping me onto my back I felt the tattoos surging, almost like someone sticking a hot branding iron against my back, making me howl out in pain. Lauren collapsed down at my side.

"Zen, Zen! What's happening!?" She cried out.

"Gahhh! The marks...!" I growled out as Lauren grasped my paw and squeezed. "...fuck, I can't control it!" I growled out and saw Lauren's eyes go wide as she was flung off of me by an energy wave that warped the office for a brief second. Lauren's body crashed into the wall shattering a picture that was hung there and denting the drywall.

It was like I was watching a movie through the first person, I had no control over my body as I stood up and stalked over to the female wolf then I spoke but it was not me saying anything. "Pathetic ascended being, I am free now and with this body not even you will be able to stop me."

I fought for control of my body feeling Alicia's presence heaving outwards, I threw myself against the wall grasping the sides of my head. "It's the weapon...its taking control, Lauren help me!!" I cried out and lost control again throwing my paws forward the tattoo points launching towards Lauren like daggers, it was just lucky she was quick and leapt to the side, the tentacles ripping through the wall.

"Zen, calm down, relax...force the weapon to obey you. Don't let her take control, focus Zen focus!" Lauren yelled out flipping her body over her desk as the talon swept down upon the marble table top cracking it in half.

My body pivoted around as three black armoured guards burst in, I saw my paw rise towards them sending the tentacles wrapping around their bodies and flung them off to the side. I pulled every bit of strength I had in me and brought my body to its knees, every muscle quivering with the internal battle, eventually I gained control again although I could feel Alicia hitting me again and again. I yowled in pain looking back at the torn and broken office and at Lauren. "I'm sorry!!" I yelled out and ran out into the Lupine city.

My entire body twitched and shivered, sweat ran down my brow as I knelt down over the ledge of one of the high rise watching the rush of hover cars and ground vehicles pass by the light twinkling like distant stars.

"Why didn't you kill them Zen, it would have been so easy..." Alicia's voice echoed in my ears.

"Shut up, get out of my head, how would you just like me to throw us over the edge of this building, bet that would fuck you up pretty good." I growled.

"You won't do that Zen, you're too stubborn."

"Oh yeah" I placed my feet right at the edge of the building and raised my arms out ready to take the plunge when I heard a shout come from behind me.

"Zen, wait don't do it!" Marcus yelled as he approached.

"Just stay back hon I can't control her."

"Look Lauren told me what happened we can help you if you'll let us." Marcus cautiously said as he stepped forward, I could sense he had his pistol in his paw just in case.

My body whipped around as my paw swiped thru the air throwing out a yellow energy wave that cut into the very concrete of the roof and slammed into Marcus tossing him helplessly into the stair well door. "I said stay back!!!"

Marcus coughed and whimpered as he picked himself up, standing his ground against me. "I'm not leaving Zen, I can't. Listen if I can't bring you in the JSTF will send strike teams after you, even Lauren can't stop them."

"Let them, no one can stand against me." Alicia's thoughts poured out of my mouth and forced me to rush forward grabbing Marcus by the throat hoisting him into the air.

"Marcus, why didn't you run?" I forced out as a violent wind kicked up behind me, as my eyes looked I saw two huge rounded sloped wings containing two large fan engines which kept the blue steel fuselage of a military gun ship.

"Zen Hunt, release 66 and place your paws in the air." The PA system roared from the screaming ship as it trained its large three barrelled rotating particle cannon at me.

I looked deep into the brown wolf's eyes as he struggled in my powerful grip. "Please Marcus, go, she's winning over me, run now!" I snarled and forced my paw to release him dropping the wolf to the concrete, he looked up for a brief second a single tear rolling down his cheek before he scrambled down the stairs. I felt Alicia building up inside of me and before I could fight it off she pushed my body around and casts two yellow lightning bolts at the gun ship both of them gouging jagged holes into the armoured hull.

The ship jerked to the side out of the path of the blast and quickly brought its weapons to bare, unleashing as high pitched wine as the loud rapid thumps of charged energy fires out of the guns and shredded the roof top followed by a billowing cloud of grey smoke from the vaporized concrete. But I was perfectly fine the gun ship's engines hummed and blew away the smoke as it flew over head showing the pilots my unscathed body surrounded by a translucent blue energy field. As hard as I tried I couldn't get control again and was forced to watch as my body vaulted into the air the tattoos becoming a large curved sword that sliced through the wing cutting the fan clear off. The ship tipped a veered towards the roof, as my feet touched the roof so did the gun ship exploding into an orange ball of fire and casting shards of twisted steel and concrete into the air.

I watched as the fire whipped around me, calmly walking to the stair well. My legs sauntered down the stairs taking me into the large open lobby of the upper floors of the office building, with a long curved staircase that led onto the marble floor. I could sense the JSTF soldier's already in position behind the various pillars and doorways then they burst out as my paw leaned onto the railing. "Freeze" The lead soldier shouted as his people all trained their weapons upon me.

"Aiden?" I shouted out seeing the auburn wolf in black tactical armour holding a large assault rifle at me knelt down at the side of a pillar. "Please get your people out of here!"

"Get the fuck on your knees Zen, or I will fire, this is your last chance!" He howled out.

Alicia made my body move and slowly walked down the steps, I could feel the evil grin crossing my muzzle. Leaving them no choice Aiden pulled the trigger on his rifle and let the stream of bullet fly towards me also sending his people into action, none of them even got close however bouncing off the energy shield. I stopped right in the middle of the lobby, surrounded by the thundering sounds of fifteen high powered weapons continuously firing. As each one of their weapons ran dry, the soldiers rushed towards me, I ducked down flipping the first of them over my back sending him crashing into the floor and stepped through blasting my foot into his stomach. One other smashed his rifle butt across my muzzle but doing little damage, I grabbing him by the helmet and thrust down to my knees breaking his muzzle into the hard marble. I was powerless to do anything I could only watch like some kung fu movie as my limbs whipped out annihilating the Special Forces soldiers.

Within seconds it was down to just Aiden and me the bodies of his dead soldiers lying in crumpled heaps around us. "You son of a bitch, I knew I should have left you in that cave."

"It's not me Aiden!" I yelped out as he dashed at me and flung his leg but with my high reflexes I caught it mid air and twisted him down to the floor my other paw grabbing his side arm and placing it against his temple. "How does it feel to be only a second from death?"

Aiden didn't respond simply closing his eyes waiting for the bullet to tear his skull to pieces. I watched as my finger began to pull the trigger, I couldn't let this happen but I had nothing left Alicia was in control.

I yelled out into my head but as the gun went off someone tackled me off of Aiden, as I rolled to my feet I saw Marcus growling fiercely towards me then aims his gun right at my face. "I'm sorry Zen, I have no choice..."

"Do it! End this, you won't get another chance!" I tried to say but my mouth wouldn't move and watched as the bullet left Marcus' weapon, in slow motion I watched the piece of steel fly through the air but even before it could land Alicia made my body dodge to the side and ram into the brown wolf levelling him against a wall.

My body stalked towards his battered form, blood seeping along his face from a wound on his forehead. He looked up briefly then turned and took off running down one of the hallways.

It was like I was living my vision, seeing the wolf frantically trying to get away but ever door he tried to get in was locked. At the end of the hall I saw him launch his body at twin office doorway smashing it off its hinges leading into a large spacious room with a four panel glass window out into the city. He was trapped with my body fast approaching, Marcus stood there for a second as I entered behind him and slowly turned with a blank expression on his face. "Don't let her do this Zen, you aren't a killer."

"Zen is no longer in control here...good bye." Alicia said as my arm lifted with Aiden's pistol gripped tightly. I thrashed around in my head trying to stop her but just like my vision, the gun fired and the bullet struck Marcus with such force it ripped his chest open and flung him thru the window.

"Noooooooooooooooooooooo!!!" I managed to make my voice yell out hearing Alicia laughing at me then let me have control over my body again. I collapsed to my knees sobbing madly followed by my ears hearing the angry whine of another gun ship approaching.

***Open email program***

***Send message to JSTF HQ, address Lauren Florenas 8812 priority one***

***Message header: I'm sorry...***

***attach file: the nature of evil***

I know for what I let her do, you will have no choice but to hunt me down and kill me. And I do not mind, I deserve it. I am sending you this file which explains how I ended up like this; my only hope is that it will help you track me easier. Please forgive me

***send file and close account***

Zen's charcoal grey body slumped down into his chair, looking out of the window into the brood depths of hyperspace. The space liner he was on lurching into the unknown. He could feel Alicia hiding inside his mind waiting for her opportunity. For the moment Zen was in control, but not in control he knew this was not over, not by a long shot.