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Furry Fist - The Fist Gathers Forces

The very moment the mouse girl woke up she jumped onto her feet with a single jerk.

Overly excited but completely speechless, she looked everywhere around her until her view reached the gryphon. Amazed, she turned to her three companions, still sitting on the edge of the cliff and waiting for her reaction. She sat down again, nothing but relaxed by now.

"We're still alive. So we won"

• "Hardly", Fauho disagreed, but he was reluctant to do so. "Still being alive means we can go on. Victory can be claimed when the humans are no longer here"

Waiting proved to be harder than a fight against an overwhelming foe. The gryphon was still asleep, but he deserved to rest.

Fauho tried to distract himself, and as he looked down the cliff his eye caught the hare's whiteness in his sleeping-not-sleeping position, holding on tightly to his sword.

"Why does he carry a human weapon?"

Blue followed his gaze and shrugged.

"Don't know. I once asked him and all I got as an answer was a glare and a sigh. You can chance your luck asking him yourself."

The wolf had actually meant this in a joking way. To his surprise Fauho slid off the edge and went down the entire cliff, finishing in a sitting position next to the hare.

"I was wondering why you carry a human weapon. Would you tell me the reason?"

The fox saw the two black holes growing in the hare's face, giving him the glare he had been warned of. It ended with a sigh.

"I guess, I can tell you...I don't even know why I haven't told anyone before..."Â Staring at the horizon, he gave another pained sigh.

"When I was just a kid, my family was once hunted over long distance by a large group of humans. I watched my parents fight with all they had to save the lives of my older brother and I. They gave their lives to try to save us, but only half succeeded...my brother didn't survive... After the battle, I found this sword, all covered with the blood of those I love and swore by its blade to not let this happen ever again.

Many days I've spent, weeping about my families death. Afterwards I went to kill humans wherever I found them...but soon had to face the futility of my actions.

I awaited my death until the day you appeared"

-"I'm sorry..."

"It was not your fault"

-"I'm sorry to make you think about it"

"I think about it every day. A long time it was the only thing keeping me alive"

Fauho put his arm around the hare's shoulders.

-"How I wish I could help you..."

The white warrior was feeling quite uncomfortable to be so close to someone of the same gender as him...or someone at all.

"Uhmm...I'm not into..."

-"Doesn't matter. Love comes in many shapes..."

A lump grew in the hare's throat. It grew and expanded upwards. He was totally confused by this feeling and tried to fight it down.

The lump won.

Tears emerged from the blackness of his eyes and wetted the white fur underneath. There were only a few, but they brought great relief.

A whoosh came from above.

The gryphon had jumped down and gave a mighty flap close above the ground to stop his downfall and to land silently.

"I acknowledge your strength...", Fauho stood up and so did the hare, wiping away the marks of his tears.

"...And I hope you are going to fight with us again?"

The gryphon nodded.

"Our next destination?"

The fox pointed into the same direction Blue had before.

"Will anyone of you come with us?"

He spoke to the freed ones, who, instead of an answer, just looked aside or down.

An older feline stood up.

"I'm sorry, but we have decided...we are a little tired of the humans and everything..."

• "You don't need to excuse yourself in front of me. Do whatever you want"

After all that, there was no one to reinforce the pack. The group of rescued had planned to travel into colder regions where encounters with humans were a bit less likely.

The pack itself set off immediately, despite the little bit of information they possessed: a rough direction.

Nevertheless, they moved straight through the land as quickly as possible - the gryphon managed better in the sky, transporting the mouse on his back who visibly loved the feeling of flying.

Again the lack of time came into Fauho's mind, and brought with it a feeling of powerlessness. Therefore the fox forced himself into a pace which would be considered really fast among his own kind.

So determined on speed as he was to help his new friends, his new home seemed to give in to a desire of his. The flow of magic changed and became supportive. Inside Fauho something had come to life that now let the whole pack ride on the back of the wind.

Through the beauty of the land the journey went and the daylight slowly began to fade, but a rest would have to wait.

At the horizon finally an unnatural shape appeared, just behind a small forest, which they chose to rest at to plan for their next battle.

"What now?" Blue asked, as the pack sat under the trees, facing the wall around the town with its number of observation towers, "This will be tough".

Fauho remained in pensive silence for a moment with his arms and legs crossed.

"Just like last time: we go in, free our people and kill many humans...But this time...", he paused to reassure himself again, "...We will take over their town".

Once again Fauho had proven his talent to leave his friends absolutely speechless. He patiently waited for a reaction.

"It might be a bit late for that, but...are you OUT OF YOUR MIND?!" the girl actually jumped while yelling at him.

• "It isn't that much more a suicide mission than the former ones...so...when do we start?" the younger wolf's eyes were the only ones glowing, but they did so brightly.

"You can't be serious".

• "He's right. We all knew from the beginning how dangerous this would be", the older agreed with his brother. "If this fox is a lunatic, then we all are"

"Well, granted, but taking over the town is FAR beyond crazy"

The mouse looked around at grinning faces, which caught her off guard.

She sighed.

"You don't need to say it. What's the plan?"

Fauho leaned back against a tree, stroked back a strand of his long hair and then scratched his chin.

She wanted to say something, but kept herself from it and just flung her arms up into the air and climbed up a tree.

"You know, she has a point...hm?" the gryphon just had said that, but then turned around. He and Fauho exchanged glances.

"You noticed it too", the fox stated.

Word- and soundlessly the gold-feathered giant moved out of sight. The pack was alerted.

"Someone might be following us. I could be wrong, but in case it is like that, the problem will be taken care of".

The gryphon's abilities could surely be trusted.

"As for how we could move...I suggest, like last time, we sneak in at night, make sure the captured ones are saved and then clean up...".

• "Vague", a female voice commented from above their heads.

Agreement wasn't announced verbally, but could be sensed. Fauho knew it himself.

"Can anyone come up with something better than breaking in and strike as hard as we can?"

Again, silence gave the answer.

"Seems that's what we're going to do", Blue concluded.

The gryphon reappeared.

"Either there is no one or he's good enough to trick my senses. As long as he doesn't attack or voluntarily shows himself we're safe to ignore him".

Since night was the time to start, the decision was made to wait after the sun had set.

This town's observation towers were arranged too close to just go over the wall between them. Fauho again was about to wreck his mind trying to work out how to move unseen and again Renardeau was right there to bring him back.

One of the towers would have to be raided. Dead humans can't alert the others, can they?

Now that the last light had faded from the world, the shadows rose and moved towards the wall. Any human eye, if it had maybe seen one of them, would have needed at least a second glance to distinguish it from an optical illusion.

They pressed their backs against the cold, wrought stone, holding their breath and listening for any possible reaction. There was none to hear.

After a nod the hare put his sword between his teeth and somehow managed to climb up that wall, which was at least five times his height. Fauho looked after him in awe.

"You still don't know our abilities, do you?"Â Renardeau, as always, showed his smile.

Some distance above, with his ears laid back, a tall lapine pried into the tower through a window. He looked back down and by a hand signal told the others to stay where they were.

He swung inside a moment later.

Sounds of scratching and scurrying were hardly audible and almost instantly a long-eared head appeared above again. Another hand signal told them that it was safe to move forward.

The pack stood in front of some dead humans.

"That was fast", Fauho mentioned while passing.

• "Yes", the hare ears twitched, "But more are to come up".

Footsteps on the stairs were approaching.

The human came up, saw his dead comrades and before he could react, huge gryphon claws dug into his chest. His eyes then threw a glance at the hare.

"You could have killed him much faster, why didn't you?"

The hare simply returned his glare, and then chuckled.

Up on the roof of the house, inside the town, the situation was overlooked.

The only difference between this town and the previous one was the size and nothing more. Streets lined with buildings, flickering lights of fire, and a few guards patrolling, plus One big LAB.

Examining it, Fauho found its' architecture to be different from the others.

There was a door up on the roof, and the pack walked through it into complete darkness, where none of them could see a thing.

"Wonder, what this room is used for...", Fauho moved slowly, not wanting to trip or to make a sound and felt around for something useful.

"I have an idea, cover you eyes", Blue said, somewhat confusing his friends. Before they could reply or do anything, there was a sudden flash of light, followed by series of complaints.

• "AH! DAMN!"Â The girl yelled loudest, wincing in pain, "Stupid wolf! What was that?!"

The shock made the pup stumble and fall down with an 'OW'. His brother called out for him and blindly stumbled about.

Further hisses were audible and grunts and sighs, just the hare remained silent.

"He told you", was all he said.

"Sorry...I try something different..."

This time, just to be sure, everyone did cover the eyes.

Some moments of silence passed until Blue gave the all clear.

"This should do it"

In the middle of all their attention the blue furred wolf stood...glowing with a warm blue light and grinning all over his face.

"What...", the thought couldn't be even formed properly, but it was going through everyone's minds.

"I have no idea how I could explain what I just did", the glowing wolf explained in a non-explaining way.

• "No time for wondering. It's useful. Well done", Fauho decided.

The glow itself was just as bright enough to reveal a small area, so movements had still to be performed slowly and with care. Due to the limited radiation they still had to walk in the darkness.

"Isn't that much of help...couldn't you make it wider?" the pup complained in a whiny tone.

-"Actually, even holding this up is hard enough..."

Right where Blue could have expected a reply there was a muffled bump. The pack turned into the direction of the sound and found a young grey wolf lying down, holding his snout.

"You found the door", his brother commented, as he helped him standing up.

Through a gap everyone looked inside the LAB. Cage boxes at the walls, a few humans walking around.

"You can do this by yourself, just wait for me to come back", Fauho turned to go.

"What now? Where are you going? Taking flight?" the mouse mocked.

"Tactical move. Killing a certain human can weaken the rest. Same as last time." He left without any further words, Renardeau right behind him. Without any doubt, this would work out.

"You coming with us?"

The hare had followed the two foxes.

"I have a strange feeling..."

Fauho decided to trust the warrior's hunch.

Back in the only intact observation tower, the figure in the pile of cloth shook.

It stood up and stretched its body, then discarded the cloth.

A short dragon stepped out of the building and spread his wings.

From high above he saw the place were the town used to be.

"Interesting"

He closed his eyes and concentrated. A grin decorated his face.

"Interesting", he repeated before, with strong flaps, moved his naked, dark green body forward.

The special building of the major was the place to go once again, and still the feeling of being pursued was nagging at Fauho's mind.

On the balcony the group of three landed and stepped through the open door.

A really fat man sat there, at a desk. A wide grin appeared on his swollen features.

What the man said was barely understandable to Fauho, but he didn't listen anyway.

Without hesitation he punched this man's plump face hard enough to make the whole head spin a good 360 degrees.

"Now for the second part", he stepped to a big shelf which was full of books. "Look for a big piece that looks like the land from far above"

Randomly, several books and scrolls were chosen and examined, though few of them seemed to be of any use.

"What's this?"

A book that Fauho tried to take seemed to be stuck. He pulled hard and ripped out half the shelf. A mechanism was revealed, which was now broken.

The fox ripped the rest of the thin wood into pieces and stared into a hole.

From out of the darkness a weak whimper reached his ear and made him frown.

"I don't know what it is, but I found something..." he let his companions know.

As Fauho's eyesight got used to the darkness inside, he moved in.

It appeared to be just an additional room, built of the same material and in the same way as the rest of the house.

At first sight it seemed empty but in the back Fauho made out a pile of ragged cloth.

Fauho heard another whimper and even saw a slight movement, and then it dawned on him.

His mind had unconsciously come up with an explanation for this situation, which the fox did not want to be true.

Stumbling back and falling he covered his face in horror.

Renardeau, alarmed by his lover's reaction, came to his aid and heard Fauho repeatedly whisper words of denial.

Showing presence of mind the hare rushed past the squatting foxes and took the bundle, looking to see what was so upsetting about it.

Into light he brought pieces of dirty cloth, and wrapped within them was a small feline body, shaking with fear.

The hare had no distinct idea of what could have happened to the kid, but everything about the creature in his arms told him that there must have been unbearable pain.

Outside, on the balcony, the black eyes rested on the silhouette of the forest.

"I will take him there. You two go to the LAB"

A low-pitched bang shook the town.

"It'll all work out."Â The hare jumped off, again showing uncommon grace for someone of his physique.

After a second bang the foxes hurried towards the LAB, and above it they saw a figure flying.

On the way, Fauho noticed humans moving in the same direction on the streets.

He looked at Renardeau and gave a nod.

A moment later two blurred reddish shapes landed in the middle of a group of humans. Poles and blades were swung, but just hit empty air.

The vulpine claws found their targets, digging deep into human flesh.

Even before the last dead body hit the ground, the foxes were running again.

Around the building enemies were either lying dead or chasing the intruders.

Fauho spotted Blue and approached.

"Have you been impatient?"

"Not at all", the wolf caught a pole and flung the human holding it into a wall. "We were all sneaky and they kind of suddenly appeared..."

"And now you all spread out?"

"Nah. The others are up there."Â Above, over the edge of a building, a lupine figure leaned out and signaled to come up.

On that roof were the rescued ones.

"Someone's missing", the pup greeted. His left side was red with blood.

"The hare's fine. We explain later"

"Criminy! That looks terrible!"

Renardeau immediately wanted to cure the wound.

"Not that bad. The others need it more than I do."

All discussion was futile. Before the fox went to tend to the rescued victims, at the very least the bleeding had to be stopped.

Fauho looked down from the roof at the humans below and shook his head.

"What have I gotten us into?"

"A challenge."

The gryphon landed beside him.

Fauho chuckled. He became aware that he didn't think this through, which now proved to be a mistake.

"A really tough challenge," the correction was necessary, but the avian's face wasn't grim or anything like it.

It gleamed with anticipation.

"Challenge, huh? Trying to deceive yourselves or are you too dense to take this situation seriously?" the mouse girl once again complained as she descended from the feathered giant's back.

"Humans coming from everywhere with no end and the two of us are already too worn out for a proper air attack. We will die here if we don't flee."

She just saw grinning faces.

"Yes, how could I forget. This is fun for you."

Just as she wanted to turn away, another deafening boom shook the town. Everyone assumed human action, since they were all on that roof, resting.

A short silence was broken by a flapping sound.

"I guess I have your attention, now."

The dragon took his time landing. His mere presence radiated power, which was almost tangible and seemed to force everyone to bow.

Except for two foxes. They just watched and waited for the remarkably short dragon to do something.

The scaled creature himself had a plan to test these interesting vulpines.

"Why don't you show me respect?" he played his role.

"Have you done anything to deserve it?" Fauho calmly stated and caught the dragon off guard.

"I'm stronger than you," the dragon underlined his obvious provocation with a glare.

Fauho returned it for some moments of tension, then turned it into a bright smile.

"Wonderful," he said. "Reinforcements would come in handy right now. Did you bring any friends with you?"

A really dumbfounded face of green scales looked at the gryphon, which just shrugged.

Before the dragon could come up with anything, Fauho had already stepped close to him.

"Never try to fool a fox. You probably know the state of affairs. Will you help us getting rid of the humans in this town?"

Minding Fauho's words, the dragon's view wandered around the pack and back to the fox.

"You can't be serious"Â He had gathered himself again.

"He is as serious as one can be. We already went through that argument. Will you follow or not?" the mouse spoke up, and received shocked glances for it.

Fauho was special and surely strong, but for anyone else it was just dangerous to talk to a being of such might in such a way.

"Sure. I have nothing else planned anyway."

This second shock was due to the abrupt change in the dragon's demeanour. He was more relaxed and showed nothing of the inherited pride of his kind.

"However", he continued, "don't expect too much...I bluffed."

The natural submissiveness disappeared and was replaced with doubt.

"OH, come on", the mouse was at her best part again. "Don't tell me, you made this performance just to admit that you're a wimp?"

She saw Fauho's grin.

"No. Don't tell me you..."

"...Knew it from the beginning? Yes, I did. He is strong, but not stronger than me."

"But the explosion and everything..."

"Compressed air and high speed. Simple trick", the dragon actually felt a little bad for giving this false hope.

The female mouse flung her arms into the air, walked away and bid her sanity farewell.

She spotted some humans on a roof nearby. She cocked her head and watched them.

"Guys, this is suspicious"

She looked around, but nobody was listening to her, so she went broke into their discussion.

"EXCUSE ME FOR INTERRUPTING!" she butted in, "But may the gentlemen please give me some of their precious time and move their attention over there."

The humans were putting up some kind of plank to bridge the gap between the roofs and then began to cross it.

The mouse worked her spell and crushed the plank along with the humans on it.

"Do I have to say it, or will you move your tails, now?"

There was no need for further argument. Everyone who was either able or willing to fight leaped over the edge into the crowds below.

With death-defying grins the pack swarmed to hunt down every single human.

The town's defenders were able to reorganize and moved like a mass, slowly rolling through the streets.

Single members of the pack were able to seperate small groups from the mass and to kill them.

Numbers proved to be the strength of the humans. It was the only one, but that was enough. For ten attacks failing there was at least one, and might it have been accidentially, that hit and sometimes these lucky strikes caused serious injuries.

The strategic advantage was that anytime someone was wounded he could jump up a building, out of the humans' reach, and being healed by Renardeau, who was conserving his stamina for this purpose.

Despite this there were losses among the pack, and each of them hurt Fauho more than the physical assaults ever could and made him fight even more furious.

Everything had already turned into a rather desperate hit-and-run fight with everyone jumping around.

Fauho and Blue had met by chance during the fight, backing away from an approaching legion.

"How's it going", the fox asked almost casually.

The look he recieved was not motivating. Both fighters were panting due to massive fatigue.

• "I can't go on much longer", the lupine finally managed to reply.

It was worse than Fauho had assumed.

"This cannot be the end", the fox decided, "Take a rest on a roof, I can..."

He was cut off speaking by the wolf shaking his head.

• "I'm afraid, I can't do even that...Thank you for making my life fun at the end..."

With a faint smile the wolf started to fall. He was definitely done.

Fauho was quick to react, catching his friend and taking him up on a roof.

He looked around for a reddish figure in the twilight of the incoming dawn.

"RENARDEAU!", he called out to his lover, who immediately came by.

"He fainted from exhaustion"

Renardeau saw both of them were injured, but he wasn't able to treat Fauho because he aleady jumped down again.

For the first time Renardeau's face showed worry.

Fauho was rushing through the human troops leaving behind a trail of death. Desparetely he tried harder to go beyond any limits.

"Come on! This can't be all!', he yelled at himself.

All his powers seemed to be useless. No matter how hard he struck, each time he was only able to hit a few humans. That just wasn't going to be enough.

Angry with himself, the fox drew upon all his inner energy and released it, performing a diagonal slice with his right claw from low down to shoulder level along with a mighty roar.

The man he had hit was shredded to pieces.

Unlike the other times, there was further effect now.

Humans who stood far out of Fauho's reach got twisted and blown away, either flying far off or into a building.

The fox stood stunned by his own actions and so did his enemies.

Determination replaced exhaustion and worry, and made him bare his fangs with a grin.

"Again!", he ordered himself, and started jumping through the town sweeping away dozens of humans.

Every one of the pack he passed couldn't help but stare at him in awe.

"Wind magic...?", the dragon hardly believed what he saw, but the sheer view of this power filled him and everyone else with hope and renewed their will to fight.

The humans' hearts, however, were beating with fear until they finally stopped.

Without doubt there must have been a number of them taking flight from the battle with the purpose of reporting what had happened. Therefore Fauho was already starting to plan.

The sun already stood high as the town fell silent, the remaining humans still alive having been finished off.

Fauho looked down from a roof, Renardeau standing alongside hugging him. The victorious fighters on the streets collapsed into well-earned rest or cheered or began treating their wounds.

One thing they all did though, was look up to the to foxes with thankful happiness.

"You did it", he said.

• "We did it", Fauho corrected.

---

another chapter done.

Thanks to Sir lycanthropictendancies for proofreading and creative advise.