FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

This is a work of fiction. Unless otherwise indicated, all the names, characters, businesses, places, events and incidents in this story are either the product of the author's imagination or used in a fictitious manner. Any resemblance to actual persons, living or dead, or actual events is purely coincidental. All characters are of legal and consenting age, likewise if you are reading this story, you should be of legal age in your respective country.

All characters are my own creation, any resemblance to existing characters is purely coincidental and not intentional, please do not use them without permission. If you would like to use them in a story, please feel free to send me a PM either as Inja on SoFurry or TheRealInja on FA. As always, I am open to new story ideas or situations with existing characters as well.

Yes, it's a short introduction to another series I have had running around in my mind for a while now. Going to be a bit of a sideline project as 2023 goes on.

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"Greetings MechWarrior's! Jo Buck from "The buck stops here!" coming to you live from the glorious century city, where we bring you another nail-biting and totally illegal underground Solaris division one matchup! This round sees two teams going head-to-head and playing for winner takes all! That's right folks, out here on the edge of the periphery, slavery is not only legal, it's encouraged! Whomever wins this matchup walks away not only with two new shiny mechs...provided they don't go nuclear, but also two new pilots on their roster, if they survive of course!" the stags voice echoed between the abandoned buildings of the ghost town, booming out from the speakers attached to the floating camera drones.

There were no people living in Century city anymore, not after raiders had come through and caused reactor malfunctions which had dosed the area with unlivable levels of radiation. Even now, the short two versus two battle was already cutting it close before the pilots would have to evacuate, or run the risk of getting a case of radiation poisoning.

"You ready for this, Chief?" The old one eyed ebony wolf asked with a hint of a growl touching his words. His jaw set as he began the power up procedure of his trusty old Mad Cat MKII B while his life-long friend and co-pilot beside him, Chief powered up his Kodiak Spirit bear. As a force of habit, the wolf idly ran his index and middle finger of his left hand down along the scar which had blinded his left eye. The jagged wound extended from his forehead, down across the now milky white orb and to his left jaw. It served as a constant reminder of how vicious battle could be, especially when fighting for those you loved.

"Do not be too hard on our enemy, they're young and impetuous. They do not know whom they are fighting against, their youth blindly drives them forward" the polar bear reminded the old war worn wolf. They had received the challenge via the HPG network, their rivals had not even been honorable enough to show their faces. All Chief and Gladiator knew was that they were facing off against two young women. It appeared they had planned to make a name for themselves in the periphery by taking down two of the toughest pilots on the illegal Solaris circuit, as if trying to form a reputation in a prison yard by attacking the biggest bully there.

Gladiator was an old soldier and being spoken to like this from someone he'd never met and was probably young enough to be his daughter had really gotten his back up, the complete lack of respect or even just common decency did not sit well with him. These young upstarts thought they could really take on a pair of old pro's; when they'd offered to make it interesting, Gladiator had grinned at the thought of beating them into submission before taking the mouthy one as his concubine. He'd show her what a real man was and put her in her place!

"All systems nominal" the old wolf's Bitching Betty announced, Gladiator shifted his joysticks and watched as the arms of his Mad Cat shifted side to side smoothly where ever he aimed. As the doors opened to their dropship, the swirling pale green haze below coiled with a faint otherworldly groan as a soft wind blew through the deserted cities streets. With an earth-shaking thud, both the Mad Cat and Kodiak landed heavily on the six-lane highway leading into the city, cracking the tarmac under their weight. Bits of paper and empty cans swept down the road toward them, carried forth by the chilling nuclear winter wind as it whistled through the cracked building windows before them.

Gladiator took the lead, scanning side to side as he entered between the tall buildings, searching for any sign of their enemy. Chief followed close behind as they slowly pressed on toward the open park at the city center, swiveling the opposite direction to where Gladiator was facing to cover both their flanks at the same time. They hadn't even heard of Dance or Aurora before; they were relative unknowns on the underground Solaris circuit. Usually this meant they were going to be complete dogshit wannabe heroes, or they were naturally talented. Their commlink over the HPG network hadn't seemed overly braggy or overly self-confident, but something in the one whom identified herself as Dance's voice had an air of familiarity to it. She didn't sound familiar, no that wasn't it. She sounded like someone whom had seen their fair share of fighting and then some, war was not new to Dance and that worried the old wolf.

"Movement on the left flank" Chief called calmly over their commlink. "It's fast, can only be an Arctic Wolf one in this division...unless they're breaking the rules."

"Nah, Dance didn't seem like the sort to risk that sort of shit" Gladiator confirmed, turning left to follow the direction Chief had indicated. He caught glimpses of a smaller fast mech sprinting at roughly a little over one hundred kilometers per hour. "Not going top speed, must be carrying something heavy in that chassis."

"Or maybe she just wanted to make sure we saw her" Chief offered; no sooner had the words left his mouth did the sound of ballistics shredding armor explode beside him. Something was firing on them from behind and at range.

"Shit! Right torso's gone!" Gladiator growled as the right arm of his Mad Cat was sheered off in seconds from the hail of LBX2 fire from down range, fired in such rapid succession that it acted almost like a chainsaw to cut his mech up.

"Direwolf!" Chief shouted with his own growl, kicking in his MASC and punching it towards the retreating dark purple and pink patterned mech. The electronic whirring charge sounded as he squeezed the trigger on his gauss rifle, taking aim and letting go to send the slug hurtling down the four lane road between the buildings. Timing his shot just right, he fired off a follow up shot from his twin extended range particle projection cannons a moment later, his temperature alarm briefly blaring at him for the sudden heat spike. A fraction of a second later and before the Direwolf could retreat back behind a building, Chief's shot landed with a satisfying armor shredding "Thunk!", quickly followed by the sizzling crackle of the two blue electric orbs impacting the spot where he'd cracked the ferro fibrous armor, and took off the enemy mechs left arm. "Got a hit, only took an arm though" the polar bear growled as his bloodlust began to grow, his MASC screaming with a high-pitched whine as he chased down the fleeing mech.

"Don't get too far ahead of me you fat bastard, can't go very fast with only half a mech" the old wolf called out as his mech plodded along after the sprinting Kodiak, the distance between them growing with every second.

"Told you that you needed to Tumbleweed that thing; a moth landing and farting on your mechs back would expose the structure" Chief sighed as he slowed his mech down and disengaged his MASC.

"Move!" Gladiator shouted out suddenly over their commlink, but it was too late. The Arctic Wolf had circled about without them noticing and was now standing right behind the Kodiak, right in Chiefs blind spot. The old wolf watched in horror as it fired a full alpha strike into the Kodiaks' back; the medium mech had been set up for close range brawling all along. Packing no less than twenty-six short range missile tubes, all of which she had just fired off nearly point blank into his friends back. Chief's cry coming back over the commlink quickly died out as the short-range missile ammo in his mech exploded its left torso apart. His mech dropped to its knees before slowly falling snout forward onto a row of abandoned cars, crushing them like dried leaves under a boot and lay motionless.

"You can surrender now, Gladiator. Or my friend behind you can blow open your cockpit from behind" The pilot of the Arctic Wolf's voice sounded over the short-range link before her face appeared on the small heads-up display within his helmets visor.

Gladiator grit his jaws so hard his teeth nearly cracked as he finally saw the face of the pilot whom called herself Dance; his finger had already begun to squeeze the trigger but he'd halted the moment he saw her. She was a rather beautiful and young ebony furred wolfess with violet eyes, definitely young enough to be his daughter. The white tips of her ears perked forwards as she grinned at him almost mockingly, as if expecting the old dog to put up a fight. Instead, he reached over and pressed the power off button on his mech, "I yield...we...yield" he corrected himself as he spotted a rather banged up Chief climbing out of his downed mech, very much alive and exceptionally pissed off.

"Glad to hear it, welcome to the crew of the Ebony Rose" Dance smiled.

"Oh ho ho, what an upset! These two unknowns have managed to sneak a victory with barely any damage to their own mechs at all! Well, that Direwolf Ultra Violet won't be clapping any time soon, but the sneaky Arctic Wolf doesn't even have a scratch on her, what an upset!" Jo Buck commented as he watched the downed mech and pilot quickly being collected before the radiation could do any permanent harm to them both. Both Gladiator and Chief, along with their mechs, were retrieved and delivered to Dance's dropship waiting just outside of the radiation zone.

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"Why the bloody hell did you surrender!?" Chief growled as he sat in the meeting room aboard the Violet Thorn, Dance's Cheetah dropship. "You could've blown her mech apart, you still had weapons and ammunition! I've seen you take the wings off a Viridian Swamp fly at two hundred yards in that overgrown Urbanmech of yours!" the polar bear raged, slamming his fists down on the metal table angrily.

"Gentlemen..." The meeting room door hissed open to reveal a stunningly beautiful vixen, her coat various shades of green, blue and black. Her eyes a dazzling emerald, partially obscured on the left by her black and green streaked fringe. Her appearance was enough to stun the raging bear into a momentary silence as he stared at her in wonder. When Dance entered the room however, he saw the ebony furred wolfess his friend had seen and he was knocked from his feet to slump back into one of the chairs. "It can't be..." the large ursine mumbled, staring at the young wolfess as if his ancestors had risen from their graves to stand before him.

"I believe you two know a little something about me, or rather my mother?" Dance stared intently at the old wolf looking back up at her. Leaning over the table with her white furred fingertips idly drumming her claws against the metal surface in staccato.

"Yes, your majesty...we do..." Gladiator replied and bowed his head. "I am, or rather was...General Pherran Gaul of the Aleutian Army. I served your mother for many years before your uncles' coup."

"So, it's true then...you really are a princess" the vixen teased with a little friendly smile.

"Apparently so, Aurora" Dance nodded before holding out her hand to the old wolf. "I am Commander Grace Kelly, but you can call me Dance."