FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

"(It's...over....)"

Rhynsa groaned in pain as he tried to move, but knowing how that throw damaged his spine and made him lost his feel to his lower part of the body, he couldn't move that much. Tyrall noticed his predicament, and said, "(Rhynsa, don't move too much. Let me look at Kghron. You should rest)."

"(Thanks...it feels strange not being able to move my legs. Guess I'm stuck on a wheelchair the rest of my life...)"

Tyrall did not heed his new friend's comments and walked towards Artios's body. That shot actually tore through his body, tearing apart the machinery and blowing most of it from within. The place where there was heart was heavily damaged, and he was apparently dead. That is until Artios promptly moved, yet he could not grab Tyrall.

"(Fuck...I guess I fucked up, big time)," said Artios with a mechanical voice. "(Never thought you guys are such a big pain in the ass.... I miscalculated my part)."

"(Why are you attacking this place?)"

"(Why, indeed? When I heard what this wrath demon had in mind, I came to contemplate my choice. I guess...my ambition of becoming a better demon ended up becoming a servant to another demon. Talk about irony)."

"(I am trying to warn you about it)," said Kghron, talking with fluent Hordo. "(I may be a fifth circle demon, but I still have a master. If I screw things up, I might get thrown to jail)."

"(You guys really are strict, huh?)" Artios then said, "(I...may not have much time left, so if any of you can take me to Rhynsa, I'll be grateful)."

"(How can we trust you not to start open fire?)"

"(Well...my heart is busted. I don't have the energy to move anymore. What more you want to ask of me?)"

Tyrall nodded and took Artios's broken body towards Rhynsa. Despite of having a broken body, he was still heaving, straining Tyrall underneath him. But fortunately, the walk to Rhynsa was short. He was thrown to the ground, giving out a growl, and said, "(At least put me down slowly, you mutt...)"

"(Hey, want me to bash your head in? Talk what you must say to him while you still breathe)."

Artios and Rhynsa made an awkward stare to each other, but then Artios said, "(I chose whatever path I chose, Rhynsa. You cannot change that, not anymore)."

"(You are dying, so regretting that choice is not an option anymore)."

"(I think you are right.... Listen, Rhynsa...my masters...or should I say, Ensalder Winsel...they are not your typical fighter demons)."

"(I can see a greater force playing us when I heard about Tyrall and Kghron's camp disappeared without a sight)."

"(That's just one of the anomaly. Apparently, many outposts and hellhounds had started to form a blood cult worshipping the old demons. Well, that's not something new, given how they were sacrificing many hellhounds and humans. I honestly don't care about those bullshit, but let me tell you one thing, Rhynsa. Your enemy is not only Ensalder or me, but something more sinister than what you have seen before. Your princes might not be able to cope with this problem)."

"(We don't know what we have to do about it if we cannot fight together)."

"(Well, you have that creative brain of yours, batty. Use it)." Artios then looked towards the sky. "(Talking to you take a lot of my life energy, but at least it's not a hostile intent)."

"(I know...but I have been thinking...does dogs go to heaven?)"

Artios laughed. "(Just because we look like dogs, doesn't mean we can go to heaven. Where did you get that shit anyway?)"

"(It's a common surface saying)."

Artios laughed again. He never laughed this much after betraying Rhynsa, but he wished he could return back to his old friend sooner. Rhynsa then noticed Artios stopped laughing, his voice abruptly stopped. The hellhound's eyes, which were glowing before, lost its glow and faded away. Artios was no more.

As he died, the siege ended with the failure to break through Arbal, due to Rhynsa's ingenious strategy, yet there were consequences on Rhynsa's side. Cleaning up the bodies became even more difficult when it rained, causing most of the dead bodies to be piled up by the wall before they could be properly buried, causing some hellhounds and humans to look at the pile in disgust.

Rhynsa, after breaking the back of his bone, needed to be carried by Tyrall. He noticed how people saw them walking, which made him awkward and said, "I'm paraplegic." This comment made them disperse, but also made some hellhounds rushed towards him, since they knew he was not supposed to be like that.

On the bed, while being examined by a doctor, who turned out to be Mitchel, he pulled out a needle and pricked on Rhynsa's foot paw. He did not react. After some testing, Mitchel looked at Lilac and Tyrall and said, "He will not be able to walk anymore...I'm sorry."

"Don't be sorry, doc. It's the risk of the job," said Rhynsa, trying to lift the mood. The human doctor smiled at him before he left. Lilac walked to Rhynsa's side and said, "I have never felt so useless in my entire life."

"Brave heart, Lilac. You have done well with giving that fake signal. If those hellhounds weren't duped, I will say that this whole plan might ended up even worse."

"But...you..."

"A sniper does not need that much legs. My adventure days may have been over, but I can still guard this place like a vicious dog."

Lilac wanted to laugh, but she didn't feel like it. Everybody had sacrificed many things for the sake of helping the surface world. Rhynsa was the worst possible sacrifice. While he could still move around, he basically lost the function of his legs. Rhynsa tried to be a strong hellhound, that was what Lilac thought.

Rhynsa, on the other hand, did not think that his new situation would hamper his need to protect Arbal. True, he might not be able to walk around, but at least he could still move his wings and use the upper part of his body. Still, it posed him a lot of problems.

While the wheelchair part was practically solved, many other parts were not. He had a hard time moving himself onto the bed, requiring Kghron or Tyrall lifting him up and slowly putting him on the bed. Given Tyrall's sexual preferences, it was an awkward, if not misinterpreted, situation. Next, he had another hard time when he was trying to clean himself. His room had a shower by itself due to his injury, but given permanent paraplegia caused him to need a friend to help him bath. He managed to do it himself, but the early weeks of adapting to his new situation proved to be an awkward experience.

Despite of all the hardship and sympathy many of the townspeople gave to him, he hardly noticed them, mostly concentrating on his work dispatching scouts to gather supplies and information. Since they had finally liberated some settlements on an area of 10 miles from their position, it was a relatively safe place to live. Tyrall and Kghron, despite of their attempts at volunteering, proved to be a problem. First, both of them were deserters to the rebels, yet despite of how much Rhynsa respected Tyrall and how Kghron was always a neutral party, many still did not trust them both. Also, another problem arose when Rhynsa realized that Tyrall was the second-in-command of the camp's leader, and was quite notorious to the point that many hellhounds could even know his full name, Tyrall Bhane.

The persistent state of awareness went on to stay like that for the next month. Due to the same problems Tyrall had, there were even more refugees coming to Arbal. Since the trade border town was quite big in itself and not many buildings were occupied, they could shelter many, most of them were surface dweller races like humans and werewolves. Yet, after a month and a half, they realized Arbal started to become overpopulated with the presence of camps outside the wall. The other settlements, despite of trying to help, were unable to take on people that much. Some lived in wagon stations, while some continued their journey to Tanah Region to get to the tree city.

This turn of events actually benefitted the interracial relationship of the surface dwellers and the outer ring demons. Due to similar circumstances, many hellhounds had started to become friends with the humans and Lycans, as most of the hellhounds had basically learned basic human feeling, which was one that they needed to earn. Since Outer Ring demons were not considered demonic (just a different race altogether), they managed to see hellhounds mostly as 'horned dogs' instead of a demon, which was the case of Kghron.

5 months since the failed invasion, the medium-sized town of Arbal had started to grow considerably into a city with an influx of refugees claiming that their hometown disappeared without a trace. By this point, Rhynsa had started to realize the dire situation throughout the continent.

"(There are a group of villagers claiming that most of the villagers lost their minds and started building weird demonic buildings, seemingly out of trance)," said Tyrall while assessing some of the reports in the book. "(Then there were others who saw the graveyard had engraved many of the present day population names, which creeped them out and forced them to run. Some...saw a graphic version of this problem)."

"(Most of the reports are the same)," said Rhynsa while savoring the tea and the cake Lilac got. "(Artios was right...we are fighting something far more dangerous than our little civil war. If the circle demons were involved, then...)"

"Possessed surface dwellers have started to appear more frequently," said Kghron walking into the room. Since abandoning his human host body, the goat demon had changed his attire into something more tribal-looking and warrior-like to fit with his muscular appearance. He now wore shoulder pads with a cross-strap harness with some potions strapped on the harness. He wore footwraps to cover his hooves, and he wore loincloth, despite of the presence of a proper armor his size. He just did not like the idea of not showing much of his body's proper masculinity and tone. Tyrall almost thought that Kghron was also gay, but the goat demon still had no signs of sexual preferences towards a certain group.

"Possessed?" "Glutons, succubus, incubus, and even members of my race are mixed with the flock. I can identify most of them as spies and throw them away..."

"Wait, throwing them away like..."

Kghron bared his claws to them, in which Rhynsa nodded and said, "Perfect way to clean up shit, huh?"

"Some that are not spies are just like me, neutral and don't want any trouble with the locales. Oh, and uh...you have guests."

Rhynsa was rolled out of the room by the similarly confused Lilac (Kghron referred to her, too), but they were pleasantly surprised when they saw who was waiting for them.

The Three Kings, Ifrit, Eshdar, and Anubis, waited for them by the gates, contemplating on the sudden spike of people in the city. A presence of a familiar hell dragon made some of the people ran in panic, but the three of them ensured that it was okay, as that dragon did not mean harm (people in Ternor Continent did not know about dragons like the people in Main Continent did). It had been half a year since he saw the three of them, and they did not change a lot, except maybe they had Angelus with them.

"Sorry, we explore a little," said Ifrit to Rhynsa and Lilac. Lilac quickly ran towards Ifrit and hugged him, to which the hellhound said, "Hey...I missed your face already."

"6 months can make you feel like that," said Lilac before kissing Ifrit by his nose. Rhynsa looked at the couple while smiling. He knew Ifrit, despite of his mission to find more friends to boost their defenses took a long time, would always wanted to see the first girlfriend he had ever had.

That night, Eshdar and Anubis walked around the city while Ifrit talked with Rhynsa. He was especially surprised and saddened by the state Rhynsa was in, but the bat-hound apparently did not care about it. He was more interested on what he found with the rest of the group and Angelus. Rhynsa was hearing it all while trying to process everything. Tyrall and Kghron, victims of the strange phenomenon, also heard what Ifrit would say.

After finishing his story, Rhynsa nodded, contemplating on the report, and said, "This is very bad. I feel like I have been repeating this so many times, but we are fighting an unknown enemy with an ability to displace people in time. It's so surreal it's terrifying."

"Walking on your own grave is one thing, but walking on your own corpse? Now that's some shit," said Tyrall. "But it is a strange experience to see a friend you know comes up to you as an older version of himself."

"We need to find out more about these new problems before we get hit, or else we won't be able to fight anyone," said Rhynsa to them. "Just imagine what those invisible creatures would do to this city if they ended up terrorizing this place and cause people to time travel to an unspecified past."

"How about if we start making a call to those in the Tanah Region?" said Ifrit.

"It should be okay, but we can't afford any more hellhounds stationed here, given how big this place has become," said Rhynsa. "It's fortunate that we are not being attacked from Tragoria, but who knows what will happen if they decided to attack again."

"I doubt they will. We are facing a far deadlier enemy and no one is thinking about a bloody civil war."

They talked about strategies and such before each and every one of them left the room, slowly, before Rhynsa was the one left alone. He became more concerned on the state of the whole continent. Their civil war became redundant with the start of the new threat. But, he thought it was for the best. If the hellhounds could reunite it would be great, since they were fighting a common adversary.

Just then, Angelus flew to the tower and landed on top of it, just like what dragons stereotypically did in most fairy tale stories. She noticed Rhynsa and said, "Seeing you bound to a wheelchair does not make my heart content, dear child."

"I can't help it, Angelus. Say, where's your rider?"

"The man you asked for is currently in that tree city called Tanah region. Apparently a member of the Order is recovering there after fighting out of an ambush. I am surprised on how his dragon was so badly injured that he could not fly here sooner. Apparently she was trapped in an Olhend Circle, but then, unlike me, she is a mortal dragon, if not old."

"That's a nasty way to stop a dragon from rampaging. So how is she?"

"Like I said, she's fine, yet shaken from the pain and torture unknown to her. A dragon's experience may be vast, but when it comes to the hellish domain, they are not ready."

Rhynsa nodded, acknowledging Angelus's reports, understanding the way she talked. Hearing her report made him even more distressed. Now that there was a definite witness whose claims could be understood, the more the bat-hound knew that this threat was real. It was not as if he did not believe Tyrall and Kghron, but he had known Angelus for a while, so he could believe her.

Before she left him, she said, "Take good care of that body, young one, lest you'll be broken before you reach your golden age. Farewell."

Golden age, huh? Thought Rhynsa with a grin on his face. Angelus may had talked with a poetic undertone, but surely she was joking about that 'golden age' part? For hellhounds, 45 years of life could be considered a golden age itself, for they survived that long. If he could see how life would lead him from there, he would gladly follow it.

Rhynsa rolled down the platform towards his bedroom. That night, Tyrall did not wait for him to put him to bed, so Rhynsa tried to pull himself up to the bed. He grunted as he struggled to push himself up to the bed. His hands were shaking, unable to withstand the weight of his body. He knew this would happen as he did not practice his aim with the rifle. While he was a natural sharpshooter, he needed to train so he could have better accuracy, but months as a strategist made him soft.

Just as he started to give up, a figure came to his bedroom. He first thought it to be Tyrall, but when he took a glance to the door, he saw a familiar black-furred hellhound coming to him and silently lifted his leg to the bed slowly.

"(You could've just asked)," said Ifrit putting on Rhynsa's blanket.

"(I'm not as helpless as you thought, kid, but thanks anyway)."

Ifrit turned towards the door, without saying a word, but Rhynsa stopped him, and said, "(Whatever you do from this point, don't make your girlfriend be lonely again. Keep safe)."

"(I will, Rhynsa. Good night)."

Ifrit closed the door gently as Rhynsa pondered on his own relationship. Now that he had lost his leg's functions, it would be too late to start any romantic relationship.

"(Now I don't really have so much blood on my hands)," thought Rhynsa. "(I'm still guilty with all the deaths and misery I caused, though. That's one part of my life that I cannot redeem. Maybe I'll become a teacher to the cubs. Well, I was an assassin, so it might be awkward with their parents, but that might just be an interesting story to tell)."

As the night went on, Rhynsa kept himself awake with thoughts of retirement and such, feeling that after the conflict ended, his fighting days would be over, and he would need something to pass the time. Thinking on those possibility, however, made Rhynsa went to sleep anyway, yet not before thinking what he had achieved after so long.

He may not have kids, but being with children might be an interesting adventure....