FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

The next few years did well by Robin and her merry crew. It felt like she pulled in half of the outcasts that the school spat out. Thankfully Yakoub had plenty of room, and before long, it seemed like the apartment complex had few residents other than her crew, but that really didn't bother Yakoub. He had all but adopted the lot of them, and Robin's crew treated the place well. More, they always paid on time, even if it was always in cash.

Hugo had even all but moved in with Jenny, and they were a fine little budding couple. Everyone in the crew was happy for the two of them. Christine had even relaxed about where Robin had moved, coming to see how much of a community builder she was turning out to be. “I always knew you had it in you to do wonderful things like this... it is why I supported you so much, even when dealing with the Mother Superior," she said with a little giggle, which got a bit laugh out of Robin.

The truth was that Christine had become half dethatched from the convent, nominally coming to serve this little community... though, the truth of the matter was that the Mother Superior had little patience enough for her, and she'd allowed Christine to take her... ministry to this place of... such questionable young people. Even if they did tithe well.

Robin was successful enough that she was able to slow down with taking on the large drug dens, but with Nothing's help, she'd been able to tackle smaller criminal groups who preyed on the people of the city, providing a fine flow of felons for the judiciary to handle. As her work had become less... dramatic, the rumors of a modern Robin Hood continued and grew, becoming a kind of buzz around the city, with most people taking pride in what she was doing... even if they had no idea who this new Hood was.

It made Robin happy, and she did her work with pride, both at Elias' store and, in the night, serving all of the people of Nottingham. This was a good life, and with Nothing by her side, she was confident that it would continue to go well.

---

Only... there was a complication. They first heard about it on the news. In Los Angeles, someone had been discovered to have turned into a half-human, half-animal creature. Soon enough, more reports started flooding in from around the world. A panic began, with rumors of some kind of twisted disease, though the scientists quickly dispelled those rumors.

Robin and her whole crew... her whole community watched in horror as they heard that the nations of the world had begun to coordinate, establishing what they were calling “Transhuman Districts" scattered across the globe. Transhuman. That's what they were calling them.

“That's not right... they're just people... they didn't do anything wrong..." Jenny said, her heart visibly breaking as she pressed close to Hugo, holding his hand.

“You're right... it doesn't matter if they've got fur or feathers... it's not like they're turning into wild animals and going on rampages..." Krystine said, an intense scowl on her face.

And yet, the reports continued to come in. Tall walls being built around disused parts of cities. Thankfully, there weren't enough from the UK for them to have one of their own, otherwise, their neighborhood might have wound up being converted like that, and they would have all needed to find new homes to live in.

But soon enough, their concerns on that front changed very abruptly.

One morning, they were awoken to a scream, and Robin was right there at Jenny's door, knocking on it, “Jenny? Hugo? It's me, Robin. What's the matter?"

A moment later, Hugo opened the door, his eyes wide with fear and anxiety. He let Robin in before he checked the hallway and closed the door quickly, locking it back again. Robin went to the bedroom and stopped dead in her tracks when she saw Jenny on the bed there, sobbing her eyes out.

It was definitely Jenny, though. She still had her long, blond hair, and her voice was still the same... but so much had changed. Not least of which the long, flopped-over ears on top of her head... the golden fur covering her body... the fluffy tail that was behind her now. She had changed. Robin's heart sank into the pit of her stomach.

She went over to the bed, breathing deeply as she was fighting back tears of her own... but she had a lot of experience with that, and none came. Jenny needed her to not be crying right now. “Jenny... honey... it's me, Robin..." she said.

Jenny brought her paws down from her face, which now had a long, canine muzzle on it. When she opened her eyes, they were still Jenny's beautiful, blue eyes, even if they were... puffy and red from all of the crying she'd been doing. She practically pounced forward, hugging Robin tightly, burying her face in her friend's neck.

Robin wrapped her arms gently around Jenny, holding her close and breathing deeply as she rubbed along Jenny's back. “Ssh... it'll be alright... trust me... I won't let anything bad happen to you..." she said.

Hugo came to sit beside them, too, placing his hand on Jenny's shoulder. She looked up and saw him, sniffling as she pulled him into a hug as well, just needing the presence and comfort of the two most important people to her at that moment.

As she held Jenny with Hugo, there was a small twitch, her ear flicking a little at another distant sound. As time had gone on, her ears had stayed more sensitive than usual, even when she was in her room. It sounded like a sound of pain, and she blinked a little. “Nothing?" She didn't ask the question out loud, she'd learned that wasn't necessary.

It took just a moment, but nothing replied, “That was Yakoub... you need to go check on them, too."

Robin cursed in her mind, taking a little breath as she drew back, looking into Jenny's eyes, her hand gently holding her cheek as she just did her best to project calmness. “I'll be back in a moment, I need to check on the rest of the crew."

She nodded her head weakly... and really, right at this moment, she needed time to process what had happened and calm down. Hugo would do a fine job with that.

Robin set off to the landlord's apartment, knocking on the door, and calling out, “Yakoub? It's Robin."

There was a moment where the sounds inside the apartment went silent before there was some shifting about and after a moment more, Yakoub came to the door. His expression, at first, was wary and defensive, but as he looked at Robin and the concern in her eyes, there was a shift to defeat and then a kind of relief. He took a deep breath before he said, “Robin. Yes. You should come in." His accent was heavy... which it usually was, but it was heavier than usual, which was a clear sign that he was very upset.

Robin followed him into the apartment, letting him close and lock the door behind her before he guided her back to Sofia's bedroom. His wife, Jinan, was sitting on the bed, holding their daughter comfortingly, stroking along her back and side... just breathing deeply as she tried to soothe the crying girl.

Sofia looked up at Robin, her eyes quite puffy as well, while her pointed ears on top of her head flicked, and she brought her hand up to rub at the cute little nose at the end of her new, whiskered muzzle. Her fur was a soft cream color, and her long tail lay beside her on the bed.

Robin smiled and came over to sit next to her. “Hey there. Don't worry, we're going to get this figured out." She thought for a moment, furrowing her brow as she looked up at Yakoub, “Would you mind if I went and brought someone else here?" There was a look in her eyes that stressed that it was important.

Yakoub was, at first defensive, but as he saw the look in Robin's eyes, he took a deep breath and let it out slowly, nodding his head. “Yes. If there is someone else here... who... should be here... please." Robin went, nipping off to her safe room to grab a cloak before popping back in right in front of Jenny's room, letting herself back in and going to the bedroom.

“Jenny, I need you to come with me. Hugo, please go gather the crew."

Jenny looked nervous but saw that Robin had brought something that she could cover up in. She took the cloak and pulled it around herself, unable to quite keep from giggling as it lay over her ears. It was good to see that Jenny was still herself, even after the change.

Hugo nodded his head, taking a deep breath, “I'll go gather everyone up. We'll be in the common room." The 'common room' was... well, honestly, it was a retrofit to the building. The laundry room was down in the basement, and Yakoub had been confronted with the fact that it was in such an awkward, unpleasant part of the building. So, he had converted the room next to it into a common room for the complex, giving people somewhere to relax while they did their laundry... but it had actually been more successful even than that - with Robin's crew especially just using it as a hang-out space.

While he went to get to work, Robin took Jenny to Yakoub's room, knocking to be let in. She ushered the still-cloaked Jenny back to Sofia's room. When she saw the feline sitting on the bed there, she perked up quickly, and even under the cloak, they could see Jenny's tail starting to wag excitedly. She didn't wait, tossing off the covering before dashing over to the bed, her tail going a mile a minute. “Sofia! You're so cute!"

Sofia laughed and blushed, her ears folding back a little as she looked down for a moment before looking back up at Jenny. “You're really cute, too, Jenny... I... so I'm... we're not alone..." she said, just trying to process through everything.

Even Yakoub and Jinan looked relieved to see the two girls there like that, the landlord breathing deeply as he looked over at Robin. “So... she's not alone... even if... they... she wouldn't be alone..." he said, choking up a little bit, showing his hand on what he'd been worried about.

“No, Yakoub. They're not alone. But we're not going to let anyone get taken," she said, burning with a resolve that took Yakoub aback.

“But... how? If anyone tells the authorities..." he said, visibly starting to worry again.

Robin laughed softly, shaking her head. “I've got Hugo rounding up the crew... and you can bet that none of us are going to snitch. Besides, I've got something that I'll need to talk to everyone about... and yeah, that includes you and Jinan."

He nodded his head warily, but at the moment, it was hard to be upset when the two girls were sitting there together on the bed, chattering away excitedly as they compared their transformations. It was just too damn adorable.

---

When the assembly was ready, Hugo messaged Robin, who let out a slow breath, handing Yakoub the two cloaks she'd grabbed, “I'll let you bring the girls down to the common room." She then made her way down to the gathering spot, where she was glad to see everyone there. The room was quite full, since she'd done a good job of gathering up those who would have otherwise fallen through the cracks. She'd pulled in fifteen more of her former classmates, and they really had become one hell of a family.

Even before she got down there, the room was a buzz of conversation, a lot of it rather serious and concerned. When they saw Robin arrive, the room quickly started to quiet down. It was odd. Back when they were all students, Robin was no kind of a leader. She barely even had a clique that she was a part of. She'd been way more of a loaner than anything, but ever since she'd graduated... something had ticked over to make her the leader that... she supposed that she'd always had inside of her. And maybe if her life had played out differently, she'd have discovered that about herself a long time ago.

But that's a good way to drive yourself crazy.

She walked to the head of the room calmly and confidently, even if she felt very little of that within herself. Caroline gave her a reassuring smile, nodding her head to the young woman. That made Robin smile a little as she looked out across the room. “Okay. I know you're all wondering why I had Hugo drag you all down here," she said, getting a little ripple of laughter from the crowd.

“It's obvious. You've brought us down here to finally enact your devious master plan," Jewel said with a great-big smirk.

That got a bigger laugh from the room, and even from Robin. She silently thanked her friend for the icebreaker. “You know, now that you mention it..." she said, trailing off for a moment, getting a groan from the crowd. “No, all joking aside, we're all well aware of what is going on in the world right now. The collective panic attack that humanity is having over people turning into..." she trailed off for a moment, unable to bring herself to use the term “Transhuman."

The revulsion as she got to that word was plain on her face before she continued on with a little assist from Nothing, “Turning into furries. Worse, this collective panic attack includes taking these people," and she put extra emphasis on that word to stress that even if they had physically changed, they weren't suddenly monsters, “and putting them into what is barely more than a global network of concentration camps. I know for a fact that every one of you feels the same revulsion about that kind of bullshit that I do. I also know that we've all been worried that one of us was going to change and get dragged off to France," which was where the Western European district was located.

“Well, I want to let you know that it has happened. The first part, at least. No one has been taken yet, but not one, but two of us have changed this morning," she said as Yakob got there with Jenny and Sofia. With a nod from Robin, he guided them up to the head of the room, where Robin had the two take their robes off, revealing their new furry forms. There were gasps of surprise, but not a single person in the room reacted with revulsion or horror, instead they were all alert and sat forward, taking a moment to take in the adorable pair.

Robin held her hands up, trying to calm down the crowd, “Woah, woah, woah, easy there. There'll be time to love on them later," she said with a big smirk, knowing her people way too well. “But, there is something else I need to share with you all, which may help with our situation." She took a breath, and thought to Nothing, telling him she was ready to change. And, right there in front of everyone, Robin changed into her fox form in front of everyone, drawing gasps of shock from the crowd.

She opened her eyes, which were even more piercingly green than usual. “It's tough to explain... and harder to believe, but on my trip to Bath, when I raided the drug ring there (everyone had long since been brought up to speed on Robin's “real" job, even the landlords), I nearly got caught. However... something magical had noticed me when I burned that first lab," she said with a little chuckle, “It helped me handle the goons that were going to beat the shit out of me, and ever since then, it's been helping me deal with the crime rings around the place."

She laughed and shook her head, “When it helped me, it changed me into this, but when I was done, I insisted that it change me back to human... and given how the rest of the world is handling furs, I'm glad I did. But even if it isn't able to make it so that Sofia and Jenny are able to change back and forth, I wanted to make sure we were all working from the same book. First of all, not a word of any furs in our community go to the authorities. Second of all, I want to drive home the point that we've survived... and in a lot of ways thrived because we've stuck together and helped each other. This doesn't change that. Whatever any of us become, we cannot lose sight of who we are as a family."

That got solemn murmuring and nods of agreement from the assembled crowd. “If anyone has any comments or concerns, now is the time to speak up, yeah?"

Allen, who had really found his confidence since coming to the complex, stood up and looked around the room before looking to Robin, “I think I speak for all of us when I say that there's not a single person here who would go to the authorities... or let anyone be taken by them." That statement was met with a decisive murmuring of agreement from everyone, which brought a big smile to Robin's face.

The only one who really spoke up in response to that was Lynsay, who was a real firecracker on a quiet day. “So, this... magic thing that did that to you. Think it'd mind changing any of the rest of us?" She laughed nice and big as she asked her question, getting a surprising response from the others in the room.

Robin raised her eyebrow, inwardly posing the question to Nothing. A look of surprise came across her face before she looked to the others in the room. “Just... okay. Nobody scream, alright?"

A moment later, a being that seemed to be made of smoke and shadows formed in the room next to Robin. It was taller than her, but what looked like its clothes were actually a rather nice, sharp suit of sorts. Rather than a fox, though, it looked to be a tiger. “Well, seeing as you are all curious," Nothing said with a dry chuckle, “I suppose I should introduce myself. I go by Nothing... and I'm not from your world. The place I'm from is nothing more than chaos. But, by bringing some of my world here, I can do what you would understand as magic."

“I'm not going to argue over definitions, but yes. I can do quite a few things," he said, looking to the dumbfounded Jenny and Sofia, smiling tenderly at them. “Your inner selves are quite lovely, I have to say. In a place like this, I can understand that it is hard to not let them out. However, if you focus right now on how you looked as humans, you'll find that you are able to change back," he said, his voice easy and calm.

The two looked at each other and seemed to have a silent conversation before they exchanged a nod and closed their eyes, focusing on their human appearances. Right there, in front of everyone, they began to change back. When they opened their eyes again, their faces lit up and they gave each other a great-big hug before hugging Robin as well, getting cheers and laughter from the room.

“That should help keep this secret. Now..." he said, a sly grin coming across his face as he turned to look at the rest of the room, “If anyone else wants to see what their inner selves look like... I happily welcome you to let them out now."

Lynsay was the first to change, the long, pointed ears of a lynx bursting through her hair while a cat-like grin spread across her face. Allen was next, becoming a rather handsome dalmatian, though he kept his scraggly hair. Hugo became a fox before striding forward to wrap Jenny in a big hug, the young woman very abruptly poofing back into her canine form as she snuggled into him.

One by one, they all changed, each one becoming a different fur. Misty was a very cute little mouse, Jewel became an emerald green lizard, while Krystie and Cailyn became a cat and a fox respectively. Everyone in the room was celebrating, as Sofia looked to her parents, giving them a sweet smile. “Your turn."

Yakoub and Jinan were rather taken aback by that, having felt like this was more something for the younger members of the group, but after exchanging a few looks, they shared a smile and let loose. Jinan became a cheetah, her black hair turning to warm gold, while Yakoub (who was already a rather imposing man) grew taller, helped by the rack of antlers that now stood atop his head. And, to be fair, he turned out to make a very handsome stag.

Robin made her way over to Caroline, giving her a big hug, “Come on. You're one of us, too, at this point," she said, her voice full of warmth.

Caroline blushed, starting to stammer something about it not being proper, but she stopped herself and took a deep breath, closing her eyes and just letting herself go. A moment later, still in her habit, was a tigress. The habit was... having a little bit of a difficult time quite containing the nun's new figure, but it hadn't failed, and her normally short-cut and well managed red hair was now hanging quite far down her back. “Ahh... oh, that feels nice... I always wanted long hair, but the Mother Superior never approved..." she said, with a look of practically blissful relief on her face while her long tail flicked from side to side.

Robin looked at Nothing and smiled broadly, seeing... a bit of what he'd always talked about with creating a community like this... where people were free to be themselves.

She was starting to catch the vision of it.