FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Marvel has credit for all the X-men characters in this story. None of them are mine, yet anyway. I may add some characters, but as of yet i haven't.

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I was having a wonderful dream when Bird came and woke me up. I don't even remember what I was dreaming of, but all I know is that it was a great dream.

"Hex, hay Hex. Wake up, hurry this is really important!"

"This had better be important Bird, I had a long night last night and I'm not in the mood for helping the squirrels collect nuts again." It was early morning, the sun still hadn't come up yet and the cool autumn air threatened to steel my warmth. My feral wolf form usually keeps the cold away, but I still get cold some times in the winter.

"This is really important!" Bird shrieked in my canine ears, "Poachers have come on to the land, and they killed Travis." My eyes shot open, Travis was a good dear, two years old and had a good family to take care of. I sprang to my paws and shook off the dead leaves and dirt from my onyx fur.

"Which way Bird." I growled and started to sniff the air.

The little blue jay just shot off down wind and I followed her. Bird had been my best friend ever since I my family died, always showing me were to find food and shelter, showing me were the dead animals were before all the other predators got there, and always warning me of poachers. I have sustained myself on...a different diet than that of other animals. I strictly eat human flesh, and dead animals. If they come into my forest and harm my friends I'll eat them alive and I'll listen to their screams of pain, making them suffer tenfold what pain they caused to my forest.

I started to smell the smoke of a camp fire and then started to hear them so I started to slow down and listen to their conversations.

"I don't get it Kitty," a young boy was talking, around the age of sixteen, "why do we have to be sent on such trivial missions when the X-men need us the most. We are practically senior members, why do we have to go recruiting when we can be fighting Magnito."

"Because Bobby," a girl around sixteen as well retorted, "the X-men are spread too thin, and this is the least we could do. Xavier wants us to round up a few more students to help fight the upcoming war. He found one close to this aria, a level four mutant at that. Ugh! Bobby did you really have to freeze the deer to kill it. It'll take hours to thaw out."

"Well what were you going to do? Phase it to death!"

"I'll phase you upside the head!" I started to hear a struggle and some grunts and surprised screams. This was my chance to get closer, I stealthily came up just enough to survey the aria. A small camp had been set up, two tents, probably one for each of them, a small camp fire was burning and...Travis? He was covered in frost, almost as if he had died in a blizzard and was just found in the spring, but this is fall, how could he have been...That smell! These are no ordinary humans.

I watched the two fight for a moment. The boy named Bobby was a slender boy with blond slicked back hair in dark genes and a red sweat shirt. The girl had long brown hair in pig tails with skinny genes in a leather jacket on that was three sizes too big for her. The girl was punching the boy furiously as he raised his...frozen hands to block her!

"Kitty stop!"

"Not until you say uncle!"

"Never!" he shouted and gave a little hardy laugh and the ice spread all around him, his entire body encased in ice, and he just sat their wile she through punch after punch.

"Not fair! You can't use your powers against me!" she squealed. Then a wicked grin played across her face. Then what I saw shocked the living hell out of me, she stepped straight through him! Like he was vapor! The ice boy shivered and not the cold kind of shiver, the inner cold kind of shiver.

"I hate it when you do that. Fine Kitty, have it your way uncle." The ice evaporated from his skin and the girl gave a little smirk and cocked her head to one side. I was shocked, but not entirely, I'm a little freaky myself. I started to form a battle strategy, I couldn't fight the girl, at least not yet, if I got close enough I could, but I need time to work my magic. So if I attack the boy...

They had no idea what hit them. I leaped into the air and over the girl transforming into my lupine form and bit down on the boy's neck, and spun him around and held him up.

"Listen hear girl," I growled around the boys neck, "If you try anything funny I'll bight down on his jugular so fast that you won't know what to do with all the blood." The boy started to struggle and I felt ice forming around my teeth and I bit down a little harder and the ice reseeded.

"If you even think of icing me pretty boy." I sent into his head using telepathy, "I'll bight down nice and slow so as to hear you scream wile I squeeze the life out of you."

"Whoa big fella," the girl said, "We're only hear to help you." She put her palms up as if to emphasize this. It was laughable, a human wanting to help me, no matter how freakish, was just plane ludicrous.

"Kitty be careful, he's also a telepath!"

"Quiet boy!" I said into his mind as I started to squeeze down onto him, "I don't want you to say anything unless I tell you to, I want you to communicate for me."

"Kitty he wants me to communicate for him."

"Well, what does he want?"

"He hasn't said yet, give him a sec."

The boy eased back into my hold on him as if to say go ahead, my strong lupine arms pulled him tighter, strengthening my hold. He was about a full foot shorter than me from the tips of my ears to the crown of his head. I had to lift him up off the ground to keep his throat in my maw.

"I want you to tell me why you killed Travis in cold blood? Are you hear as poachers or just passing through?"

"Who is Travis?"

"The dear!" I shouted into his head, "The beautiful young buck you killed! Why! I want to know why! For sport! To fulfill some sort of sick human emptiness you have!" I could feel his muscles tense up from the pain my thoughts were giving him.

"Travis is the deer?" the boy said in an exhausted breath that he had been holding.

"What about the deer, did he want to eat it or something?"

"No" the boy said, "He wants to know why we killed it?"

"Well that's a stupid question." The girl said, "We killed it because we ran out of food and we needed something to eat."

"Killing should be a last resort for survival!" I shouted into the boy's mind, "There are plenty of plants you could have eaten, berries that are mature this time of season! I saw some nuts you could have gathered for protein on the way hear, no more than ten feet away from your camp! You didn't need to kill Travis!"

Tears started to roll down my eyes and the girl saw, I would have wiped them away, but then the boy would have and opening to escape. If I had to show a little humility before I killed my pray and not be killed by them, I would take that sacrifice.

"It seems he was good friends with the dear we killed and he is really, really upset about it being dead."

"What was that!" I shouted again into the boys head, "He wasn't an IT! He was a fully grown man, with four children, two mates! How dare you call him an IT you vile disgusting human!" this time I just shot white noise into his head simply to caws him pain and to feel him squirm.

"I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

"Bobby!" the girl shouted, "stop please!" she took a few steps forward, big mistake. I shot her with my mind blast too.

"No! Why don't you stop!" I shouted into her head, "You humans always come into my family and take and take, I have seen the death of countless loved ones by the hands of you humans! Did you even stop to consider the pain you would caws by killing Travis! Did you stop when he was out of breath from trying to escape. No you didn't you killed him by freezing him to death! That is unforgiveable!"

"Please! We didn't know!" the girl shouted writhing on the ground.

"Of course you didn't" I telepathy told them, "That's what they all say." I was about to close my jaws around the boy when he sprang to life, ice shot down my throat and I couldn't bight down, there was too much snow in my mouth. I let go of the boy to try and unlogged the ice chunk from my maw. I lost my focus on the white noise and I noticed that I was in a very vulnerable position. I spun around to see the boy in his ice armor, the girl in a fighting stance.

"Please we don't want to fight you, we just want to talk." The girl started, "We're sorry about your friend..."

"Sorry won't bring him back!" I shouted. Snow and spit flying through the air.

"Come on Kitty," the boy muttered to the girl thinking I couldn't hear him, "we have to take him down now, or he'll kill us both."

"No," the girl said back, "we need to bring him back, he is the mutant that Xavier sensed out hear. If we come back empty handed then what will he think about that almost senior position thing you were talking about. And besides, he just seems like he is just as scared and frightened by us just as much as we are of him." She never looked away from me to talk to the boy and now she turned her focus on me again, "Now listen, if you are a telepath, you can tell if I'm lying can't you?"

"I don't need to be able to read minds to know that all humans would lie their ass off to save their skin." I can't read minds, but I'm not about to tell them that I can't, better let them think that I can.

"Either way," she said dismissing my insult without so much as a flinch, "you know we could have killed you as soon as you lost your grip on Bobby. You don't stand a chance so just give up and listen to what we have to say."

"If you weren't going to kill me then, you sure as hell aren't going to kill me now. You two have the domesticated eyes of humans, too weak to kill anything you deem intelligent. I will not listen to what you have to say, but I will accept the fact that I can't kill you...alone that is." And I turned away and ran into the forest, shifting into my feral form, and spread my mind out for the first big animal I could find. It took me seconds to find a big animal, canine in nature. That's all I need.

"Hay you!" I shouted out with my telepathy, "Help me take out a few humans." I made a bee line towards the guy. I smelt him before I saw him. He smelt...funny for a canine, and when I reached the clearing I ran into the shock of my life. A man wearing dark jeans and a black T was collecting nuts from the forest floor, he was only about ten yards away. He had black hare cropped up to look like horns and thick sideburns, and he looked to be in his mid-thirties.

He smelt just like a wolf, but...something was off about him, the way he held himself. Then I felt the wind change and he was down wind of me. The man instantly tensed up and sniffed the air. His head snapped towards me, I was still on all fours. No way, no human has that strong a sense of smell.

"Hay you," he said in a deep husky voice and looked up and down my exposed body, "boy. What you doin' up hear?" It was strange, how a human could be so alluring, but I stood my ground and let out a feral hiss.

"Feisty guy now aren't ya. Well," he lifted up his fist and three blades slowly came out of them, "I got some claws too. You wanna play?"

"Logan!" I heard the girl in the distance coming closer, "The guy we're looking for is a wolf human hybrid!" the girl came fazing through the bushes and into the clearing were we were. I let out a bark and another hiss at her. She jumped and pointed at me, "That's him!"

"Kitty," the man said in a warning manner, "Get out of here, I don't think wolf man likes you very much." Kitty was about to protest, but then backed down.

"He's also a telepath. Not a strong one, but strong enough to make me and Bobby worthless."

"Thanks Kitty," Logan said slightly annoyed, but still in a low calm manner, "get going." And the girl gave me and him one last look and took off the leather jacket and gave it to the man and ran back to camp.

"So wolfy," the man said stretching his clawed hand behind his head. Giving me a nice display of his rippling muscles, "How did you get all the way up here?"

"I've always been up hear." I snapped back shifting into my lupine form again and followed up with a growl.

"O come on now, you must have been with your family at one time or another." The man said wile sizing me up and putting on his jacket, "you know. With your human family."

"Don't you dare group me in with those horrid glutamic avaricious monsters!"

"Quite a vocabulary you got their wolfy, how did you learn them if you don't have a dictionary."

"Stop calling me that." I growled.

"What, wolfy? Then what should I call you?"

I thought about that for a minute, and I decided to give him my real name, "My name his Hex."

"Well Hex, you have a very peculiar stink, one that I'm not too fond of. You reek of human blood."

"I only kill humans that come in this forest and poach my friends down like beasts. Do you have any idea what it's like, having people hate or think you are an inferior being simply because you're a different species!" the man gave a low chuckle, "This isn't funny!" I shouted.

"Sorry kid, but you have no idea how much I do know about that. Come on, drop the tuff guy act and let's just talk for a minute."

"I won't talk to nor have murderers on my mountain side!"

"From what I can smell you're the murderer hear Hex. By the potency I think you have killed more humans than I have." My ears perked up at that.

"You killed other humans?" I was so shocked that I almost forgot to be menacing.

"Only bad ones that try to kill me first."

"And you try to justify your killing on my mountain by saying you only kill bad things. Travis was a good deer and your little bitch, what was his name, Bobby killed him in cold blood. And I don't know how you see it, but blood can only be repaid in blood."

"Kid...I mean Hex, I know one or two things about revenge, it ain't worth it, trust me."

"Why should I trust you?"

"Because we are the same." And as if on cue the wind shifted and I could smell his wolf sent. I felt the tension in my body ease up just a little.

"Listen Hex," the man started, "I'm going to take Kitty and Bobby off of your mountain, and then I will bring someone hear that can help you."

"I don't need your help." I seethed.

"Regardless," he said, "I'm giving it."

I thought about my chances of fighting the new guy and the other two and knew it was impossible. As long as the two brats are gone, I don't think I would care that much, as long as I got the blood of this guy. I could probably win against him and one other person, reduce their numbers Hex and then strike, "Go then, but know that if I see either of those two on this mountain again I won't hesitate to kill them like I did today."

"Then I won't hesitate to kill them if they try to come back, save you the trouble of dirtying your claws." I knew he was joking so I didn't laugh.

"I prefer to eat my pry, not waste it by maiming it." I saw a slight look of disgust craws the man's face, but it vanished quickly.

"If you wana talk, I'll be in this exact spot tomorrow with my friend at the crack of dawn. And I know it might look like a bad bet, but I swear if you do trust me I will make it worth the trouble." With that he pulled his claws back in, leaving three cut marks along his knuckles that quickly regenerated. Wow, he heals faster than I do. I guess having his blood is out of the option, but maybe this friend of his is more...fragile. Then he turned and walked away.

When I was on my way to find some breakfast I heard a jet going off in the distance, if it causes a forest fire I swear I will go to the ends of the earth to bite that man's heart out so many times that he will refuse to regenerate.

***

I woke up early the next morning, long before dawn rose just so I could be lying in wait for the man and this friend of his. I quickly got over to the spot and laid a few branches so no matter what way you came you would have to follow the path to get to it. My lupine strength made it easy to haul large branches into the clearing. Next I climbed up a large pine tree and waited for the man to come, and then I would strike.

I deviated from my malevolent thoughts to simply enjoy the fleeting night sky. The stars are so beautiful in the pre-morning light. The darkness of night changing to a deep indigo dusted with the universe in a painting framed by the autumn leaves and branches of my forest. There is something about looking up into all that space that makes my problems and anger seem so small and insignificant, and that was when I got that feeling. It is this...feeling that I get when I feel completely alone and surrounded all at the same time.

A slightly warming feeling wrapping around me and the stars exploded in front of me into austere focus, and then the tears. The damn tears flowing down my face, it is maddening. This feeling, in the only way to describe it, is like a memory of a memory, fogged over by the tolls of time. Yet the feeling gets stronger every time I look into that sky brightening up, the first fingers of sunlight pulling back the veil of yesterday bringing forth the new day with its own story to tell. Each day a new chapter in the days of our lives, and this one was going to start with plenty of spilt blood.

I wiped the tears away from my face and then put my paws behind my head, one leg hanging lazily off the branch. Yes, plenty of blood. The thought of blood forced the tears away and brought forth my blood lust, my anticipation for vengeance.

The moon was slowly being bleached by the pinks and oranges of morning brought on by the brilliance of the sun. Such beauty my forest holds, this is why I defend her, because she has stolen my hart by fancying my vanity. Humans might see it as inviting as living in the opulence of the Vatican, my forest has her own beauty that traps you like the face of the sirens. I don't get the beauty of the Vatican, or anything made of lifeless stone. It's maddening, I feel like the stone is trying to suck the life right out of me, desperately trying to feel the warmth of life, but in the forest, life radiates from the sealing of the sky from the floor of stretching grass.

My forest is strong, but has its weaknesses that humans constantly exploit, that is why I must protect her, because no one else will. Then a black jet shot across the sky and landed in the forest not far from where the humans had set up camp the day before. Time to take out the trash. I let the feeling the sunrise gave me fade away and let the blood lust fill be back up.

I got out of my lazy position and crouched on my branch and waited for the man, Logan, to come back with his friend. I was ready to avenge Travis's family. To spill the blood of the horrid humans that caused my forest pain. They shall know the pain and shed the tears that my forest has over Travis's loss.

I heard something strange while I was waiting, almost the wine of an electric engine. Then I only heard one thing, the slow slicing of wheals cutting into the dyeing leaves of the forest floor. Soon I saw Logan silently make his way into the clearing.

"His sent is everywhere in hear Charles." He said, "He must have been hear a while and then left." That's when a weak looking old man came into the clearing in an electric wheal chair, it had wheals with "X" s on the caps of them.

"Then why don't we give him a minute to show up again." His voice was soft and strong at the same time, very inviting, "We are a little past the break of dawn, from what I saw from you, this child isn't very trusting. So it's probably a safe bet to say he left, but if we wait he will probably come back to confront us."

"Do you sense him Charles?"

"No, as a matter of fact I think his telepathy is stopping me from finding his mind, but what I saw he would never leave this forest without a fight. I just hope we can convince him to come to the school. He looks like he could be a good man, but we need to find the root of his rage."

"He seemed to be pretty angry with humans, like our own little Magnito."

"Let's hope he isn't as far gone as him."

"How long do you think he will take to make it back?"

"Not that long Logan." I said under my breath, and I jumped. Just before I jumped I saw Logan's ears perk up, he couldn't have possibly heard me. I made a direct line for the guy in the wheel chair, claws outstretched, fangs bared. The man hand no idea I was about to take out his throat.

"Charles!" Logan shouted, but he would be to slow, I timed it perfectly. I could practically taste the old geezer's blood fill my maw, sating my hunger, then it would be Logan. I was just about to slice into the man's body when a burst of wind blasted me in the face. I was bombarded with telekinetic energy and thrown off course just enough to run directly into the outreached claws of Logan's fist.

I was impaled on those raiser claws, parsing my stomach and diaphragm. I couldn't believe what I was feeling, how had this happened. I looked up into Logan's eyes, and my blood ran cold. The ice and rage in Logan's eyes was frightening. I couldn't remember the last time I had felt fear, not since I was a pup.

"He's your forest..." I said without thinking it and a small bit of blood spurted from my maw.

"Logan! We have to stop the bleeding! Quick, get him to the Black Hawk, we need to get him to the institute as soon as possible."

"He tried to kill you out of cold blood Charles." Logan seethed, "I say we let him rot!" I couldn't listen to much more, a thick sheet of red had started to come across my vision, and those two words kept playing over and over, "Cold Blood, Cold Blood, Cold Blood...cold...cold...cold...col" the red curtain pulled me under and the cold wrapped around me, engulfing me in a frigid red dawn.

***

Cold...Cold...Cold. That word kept flowing through my head, in the darkness of death. Why was I in such a dark cold place? Is this what death is? Nothing but substance-less cold? I can't even remember the last time I was cold, I hate the cold, even in winter I was never this kind of cold. This is the deep seeded kind of cold, the kind that takes you before you die in the snow. Before the cold blows out the heat of life from you. Cold...Cold...Cold...

Why so dark...why so cold...why so fuzzy? All around me, even in my ears I felt and heard this fuzzy feeling and noise. Fuzzy...fuzzy...fuzzy...So damn fuzzy. Like my fur when I haven't taken a bath for weeks.

"Hello Hex." a soft feminine voice said.

"Hello..." I breathed through the fuzz and the cold.

"You're so sad, aren't you Hex."

"Take me away from hear..." I breathed with difficulty, "From this dark cold place. There is no life around me...just cold...dark..."

"Rest Hex," the voice said again, "you're safe now. You can relax."

"I can't..." I breathed, "It's too cold, too cold and fuzzy."

"Just stop struggling," the voice said in a soothing voice, "just think of some place you can be completely relaxed. Somewhere you feel completely at home."

I tried, I tried to think of the forest, the trees the grass filled with warmth and life, filled with energy slowly fading to slumber in the autumn air. I tried, but it was too cold, so lifeless I couldn't think of anywhere but a place made of stone, of steal, and this fuzz. Like one big, frozen, suffocating cotton ball.

"It's too cold hear, too fuzzy, to dark too see."

"Don't focus on the dark, focus on the light. The place that you can see light."

"I only see darkness. Cold...dark...fuzz..."

"Then remember the last place you saw light, the last time you felt warmth, the last time you felt safe, the last place you felt alive, the last place you didn't feel the darkness."

I could suddenly feel a light behind me, I turned towards the warmth, the smoothness of it all. Then all of a sudden I was in the prairie at the base of the mountain. My brother and sister pups jumping in the tall grass of spring. Warm sunlight filtering down from the scattered clouds. My adoptive mother sitting looking at us play.

"Good," the girl said, "why is this place warm, why is it filled with happiness."

"It was the first time I hadn't felt alone since..." I couldn't remember anything before then, but I knew something was before this moment, but it was the happiest I could muster after the cold and the dark. It was nice to see them all alive again, they all died a long time ago, and none of them could live as long as I could. I was different, my mom said so, I was special. I protected them all for as long as I could. The scene fast forwarded to a moment I was taking watch in a cave when poachers came onto the mountain.

"They were so fragile...so pure...so young...yet so old..." soon I was watching my mother die and one by one I watched my brothers and sisters die off until I was left alone. My sister was the last to go when I was ten, that was fifteen years ago.

"When am I..." I said

"I don't know," the voice told me, "I only know what you tell me."

"I want them back...I don't want to feel alone anymore...take me back there..."

"I can't bring you back. Only you can take us back to that memory."

"What do you mean?" alarms blared in my head, "Who are you! Take me back! Take me Back!"

I started to shout, and the vision of my sister's lifeless body shattered and I was in the darkness again, cold, fuzzy!

"No! Take me BACK!" a blade of light slashed across the darkness, and the light filled the darkness. My eyes shot open, looking for my brother and sisters. I couldn't see anything, but a...HUMAN!"

I jumped out of the bed I was in and pinned the girl to the floor, "Were are they!" I shouted.

The girl was on the floor, her long, curly, red hair spread out in tendrils like I halo of fire. Green eyes wide in surprise, "You already told me Hex...Their dead."

"No I just saw them!" panic gripped me I got up and felt something. I looked down...pants! I tore them off instantly removing the fuzzy cotton fabric. I looked franticly around the room for...ROOM! My eyes looked around and I saw all four walls closing me into an all-white room that looked like an infirmary, with a medicine cabinet on one wall and two beds, on neatly made, one messy with black hair all over it. I ran to the door and grabbed the handle, it refused to turn.

"I need to get out of here!" I shouted at the girl, "I need to protect them, I need them! Their My FAMILY!"

The girl got up and dusted off her clothes, some baggy jeans with a green tank top, a lab coat around it all. Hair held back with a now crooked blue head band. She looked to be in her early twenties.

"Hex they..."

"How do you know my name!" I spat at her, quickly taking a fighting stance, "who are you...were am I."

"Hex, you're in the institute." The girl said in a calm voice, "You are safe here, you aren't in any danger."

"Who are you." I growled then doubled over in pain and landed on one knee, I put my hand on my stomach...bandages. I lifted my paw...blood."

"You popped a stich. Let me..." she took a step forward and I growled at her.

"Don't come any closer!" I shouted and I regretted it, pain rocketed up my body and I crumpled to the floor doubled over in pain, my pain blurring my vision. When my vision cleared up enough I saw the girl kneeling in front of me removing my bandages.

"Why..." I started but couldn't finish so I sent it telepathically, "Why are you helping me."

Then I heard that voice again in my head, "Because we all have been in the same position you have been in. Hurt and torn up inside, betrayed, forgotten, alone, take your pick. At least one of us in this place has been right where you are now." I didn't like her in my head...but I didn't have the strength to fight her.

"Get out of my head" I sent to her.

"Ok Hex," she said, "I'll stay out if you let me treat your wounds."

"Fair enugh," I let my weakness take me again and I went limp. Then I felt like I was weightless, I shot my eyes open to see that I was floating.

"Just stay calm Hex, I'm just bringing you back to your bed were I can better treat your wounds." She is a strong telepath if she can lift me with her powers. I would have, on a normal occasion, torn her head off, but I didn't have the energy to muster up even the smallest amount of anger. Whatever spark of energy I had before vanished. That's when I felt the pants starting to roll up my legs again.

"No," I said to her through telepathy, "it's too fuzzy."

"Fine," she said, "I'll stop putting pants on you if you get some rest." And with that I felt a prick in my arm and a cold rushed in my blood and I was on the verge of sleep, just before I went under though I heard one last thing that the girl said.

"I'm Jean by the way." And I slipped into dreamless sleep.