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Third of the Savage stories. Soft vore and mild scat, among other things.

*****

The Feral Three

A 'Savage' vore story

By Strega, with help from Laesd

The first mission of the Feral Three did not go well.

They were on patrol, TechnoCoon (formerly Bandit) riding on Savage's back to man the multifunction cannon, Ratbat (formerly The Rat) soaring overhead on his new anti-gravity wings. Their gear, along with the keg-sized force field generator hanging from Savage's collar, was scavenged from various supervillains. The were-raccoon, it turned out, was a pack rat for things exotic and technological and had been collecting the leavings of super-battles ever since he became a hero. Once they'd agreed to team up, he had ushered the others into a veritable Cave of Wonders.

The Rat had snapped up an appropriately bat-themed set of high-tech wings and Savage had to firmly turn down an offer to assemble him a suit of armor from the various bits of super-materials. "I am a tiger, not a tank." (This led to a comment about 'Tiger Tanks' and him pressing Technocoon firmly to the floor with a massive paw.) He had been reluctant even to wear the collar needed to support the generator, but the raccoon had a roll of active camouflage cloth. There was just enough to cover the collar, the generator, and the saddle and cannon the other two insisted he needed to have on his back.

So they were, they thought, exceptionally well equipped when a bank alarm sounded not a mile from where they were patrolling the rooftops. They were wrong.

Ratbat had flown on ahead as Savage leapt from roof to roof, shaking buildings in his haste. There were many alarms by now, police sirens, car alarms, and the original bank alarm. Technocoon had swayed in the saddle, readying the stabilized cannon, Ratbat swept forward...and was picked out of the air by an eye-hurting violet beam. The new wings burst into flame and he missed being cut in half by a whisker. He was a very unhappy rat as he crashed onto a roof, trailing smoke.

Savage's active camouflage was not very useful with a raccoon riding on his back, so he was relying on mottled urban camouflage scheme to match the one Technocoon wore over his own armor. He dropped three stories to the street in an alley, matching the raccoon's grunt at the impact with a deeper one of his own. There was a firefight going on around the corner, and he shifted just his head and neck to active camouflage and peeked.

It was Starlight. It took Savage a moment to recognize the hero, for the familiar blue and white costume had been replaced with a purple and red one. The blue face and hands with their stars floating in unguessable depths were unmistakable, though. Starlight was fighting with two SWAT teams and winning easily. Just as Savage looked around the corner the energy-manipulating hero cast a beam from one hand that blew a SWAT van to pieces. At least one cop was torn apart by shrapnel, and others lay in the street bloody and battered.

Whatever was really going on - mind control, evil twins, whatever - men were dying, and Savage rumbled a warning to Technocoon as he stepped around the corner. The raccoon wasted no time firing the cannon. The clumsy assemblage of barrels, some duct taped on, gave him many options, but firing the various energy weapons would be like throwing matches at a bonfire. Instead he fired one of the wider barrels. The rubbery spheres it spat forth burst on the wall next to Starlight before a handful struck cleanly, covering half his body with expanding riot foam.

The raccoon missed the next shot as Savage leapt forward, knowing they were outmatched. The tiger was nearly close enough to strike when Starlight turned. White light shot from his eyes, and the shield generator got its first test in combat as the beams stopped inches away from Savage's chest. A searing blue glare set the street to smoking underfoot, and enough heat got through to scorch Savage's fur down to the roots. It did not stop him, though, and he rammed Starlight in the belly with his forehead and slammed the hero into a brick wall with all the momentum from his charge. Such was the force that part of the wall came down on them both.

Instantly he shook off the impact and slammed a paw down on Starlight. Technocoon leaned out of the saddle and fired the glue-sphere gun, which he'd unclipped from the side of the cannon assembly. Savage hit the blue-faced hero so hard the bricks that got between them shattered into red dust.

It was futile. Starlight rose up like something from a zombie movie, shrugging off everything they hit him with and burning away the clinging riot foam. Savage hit him with a blow that started somewhere around the root of his tail, putting his whole muscular frame into it, and nearly broke his paw. Starlight just reached out and dug his fingers into the tiger's shield. He shouldn't have been able to do that, as only fast moving objects and energy impinged on the field, but he did. Then he picked up three thousand pounds of tiger and threw Savage through the wall.

By the time the cat dug out from under the rubble the fight was over. Technocoon, who had leapt clear just in time to avoid being crushed, helped brace an I-beam so the big cat could worm his way free. Ratbat, or maybe The Rat again now, showed up just then, all his clothes burned off and his pelt showing the sheen of newly regenerated fur. He had a scrap of pilfered laundry wrapped around his waist.

"What happened?", Savage rumbled as he crawled out from under ten tons of rubble. Police were everywhere, and medical personnel. Savage shook his head to clear the ringing. The only sign of battle were multicolored flashes overhead.

"Another Starlight showed up," the raccoon said as he studied the sad remains of the multicannon. It had not taken well to having a building fall on it.

"What, two of them?" Ratbat craned his head. Whatever was going on was too far up to make out.

"The second one had the normal costume, so I guess it was the real one.", Technocoon chittered. "The other one, robot, alien, who knows."

A cop was making his way through the rubble to talk to them. He had to detour around two different triage units.

"This is bad," Ratbat said. "Lots of people hurt."

"At least we kept him busy until help showed up," Savage rumbled, and that was really it right there. Starlight was in a weight class so far above their own they'd been lucky to do that. He'd been in the big leagues since before Sovereign retired.

"Good evening," the cop said as he reached them. "Group affiliation?"

"Feral three," Savage rumbled, and the cop tilted his head. "Feral Three," the big cat said as clearly as he could. His impossibly deep voice, slurred by a mouthful of fangs, took getting used to. "New group, just patrol the stockyard district mostly."

The cop checked off a list. "So, Savage, The Rat,"

"Ratbat now," The were-rat said.

"Ratbat," the cop agreed. "And you are Bandit, or did you change too?"

"Technocoon, but I'm open to suggestions if you have a better name," the little were-raccoon said, and everyone laughed. Technocoon didn't get bigger when he changed from human form, like most Weres. He got smaller. He was a foot shorter than even Ratbat, who was barely six feet tall. Techno also got smarter when he went ringtail, though, and his little hands were marvelously sensitive, which was why he spent almost all his time in raccoon form, even behind closed doors at work. Ratbat was a rat nearly all the time these days too, but that was because he didn't have anyplace to go besides Savage's den. Homeless superheroes weren't all that uncommon.

"Thanks for the help, guys," the cop said with sincerity.

"Wish we could have done more," Savage said, "But someone like that, we were lucky to distract him."

Far overhead, the flashes continued.

The next morning a messenger arrived at the door of Savage's "Den", the abandoned garage he used as a lair. Clearly someone in the hero hierarchy knew he lived there. The Western Union guy just stared when the knock was answered by a tiger with a face three feet wide.

"Yes?" came the rumble, a whole octave below basso profundo, and the man numbly held out a registered letter, which Savage took between his teeth. "Thank you," he mumbled. He was trying to decide whether to change to his barely-humanoid form to sign when he realized the messenger had already fled. No doubt he'd not wanted to be known as "That guy who stared at the tiger until it ate him." Savage would have done no such thing, of course.

He padded back into the garage, to what used to be maintenance bays. Each bay was meant to hold a car, which made them perfect for a cat the size of one. One of them served as his bedroom, with a dozen scavenged mattresses and a half-barrel of water for between-nap drinks. A second bay had an old TV, a nearly as old computer and a custom keyboard big enough to hunt and peck with his claws. The mouse next to that was as big as a man's head.

A new addition was a manhole-sized trapdoor in the computer room. Ratbat had "acquired" a copy of the original plans for the garage and discovered a sewer line ran directly below that bay. With the help of Technocoon and a disintegrator liberated from the Professor, back before that genius villain met his end, they'd drilled a line down into the sewer complete with U-bend. Not only did it provide an emergency exit for the two Weres, but Savage no longer needed to leave his Den to relieve himself. The remaining two bays were crowded with an assortment of raccoon-pilfered tech junk. At the rate things were going they'd have to start putting it in the enclosed yard out back, where the Professor was buried. What was left of him after being digested by a tiger, anyway.

At the end of the bays was the old garage office and a functional unisex bathroom. Savage bumped his cheek against the office door and mumbled around the letter. "Wake up." When that brought no result he thumped the door again.

Eventually there was movement behind the door, a thump, and muffled cursing. A moment later it opened to reveal Ratbat. Savage hadn't seen the rat in human form in weeks, and he tilted his head at the sight of his underwear-clad comrade.

"Just wanted to make sure I hadn't forgotten how to change. What is it?" Gary scratched his head and yawned. There must have been a hundred empty soda cans on the shelves and floor of the room behind him, along with a mattress, half-assembled wings and a few technical manuals borrowed from Technocoon. He saw the letter and said "Oh, just a second."

In human form he needed glasses, and as soon as he fetched them he picked the letter from between Savage's fangs and opened it. His eyes widened at once.

"We've been invited to a hero meeting. All three of us. It's tonight."

Savage padded into the warehouse with Ratbat (new, 'probably functional' wings and all) and Techno on his back. He wasn't sure what he'd been expecting, but cheap plastic tables and folding chairs weren't it. He knew almost everyone, if only by reputation; perhaps a third he'd met personally. Doomknight was there, and Chill and Stature from Ratbat's old group, along with the Golden Maid, Callus (worst super-name ever), the Jester, Couatl in feathered serpent form (no one was sure which was his true form, human or "couatl"), Vindicator in his powered armor with his faceplate open. He had a domino mask on under it.

And there at the end of the room, Starlight, with Galvanic and Deva, the Trinity, collectively more powerful than the rest of the room put together. Savage froze when he saw Starlight, but no one else seemed worried. Chill noticed them and waved. Savage padded over after a moment.

"I think everyone is here now," Deva said, her white-feathered wings rustling. "We've called this meeting to discuss certain events in the last day, which are of concern to everyone."

She nodded to Starlight, who simply looked at the far wall and caused a movie theater sized image to appear. (Showoff.) It was the second Starlight, the red and purple-costumed one. After thirty seconds of inconclusive fighting with the point of view character, presumably the real Starlight, Deva and Galvanic appeared in the frame. Galvanic and the POV hero harried the false Starlight with energy and lightning while Deva came after him with her flaming sword.

"That was last night. This...other Starlight got away. Then there was this morning."

Savage, who'd been just in the act of lying down, sat up so suddenly that both his riders tumbled onto the concrete floor. There on the screen was a second Savage, in his twelve-foot-tall tiger-man form, robbing a jewelry store. As he came out of the hole in the shop wall, hands dripping with jewels, a policeman appeared and began firing. It was an act of bravery that came to an abrupt end. The false Savage lunged downward, snapped his jaws once, and swallowed. Just that fast, the cop was gone. The huge tiger-man spat out a shoe and knelt to scoop up the jewelry he'd dropped.

Every other eye in the room was on him as he watched the screen. The Savage there gradually resumed full tiger form, having transferred the jewels to his mouth, and padded out of view. Its belly drooped, heavy with cop.

"But." he rumbled. "I didn't..."

"That was footage from a surveillance camera in the tenderloin district." This from Galvanic. The lightning bolts on his costume writhed as he gestured. "That was also, obviously, not the real Savage, just as the Starlight that the Feral Three and we Trinity fought last night was not the real one."

The next clip was of the Golden Maid, hair tied back and skin gleaming. They watched only a moment of the fight between her and Galvanic. The fight was as unfair as the one the Feral Three had been in earlier, and the false Maid was struck down by a bolt of lightning. The asphalt bubbled where she fell.

""We questioned the fake Maid, she's not talking. What we think is happening," Deva said, "Is that someone has gotten hold of the Professor's old cloning machine. There's been no sign of him for some time, but there is the possibility it's the Professor himself. The reason we think it's that machine is Starlight and The Maid both lost limbs in fairly recent battles and did not recover them. Whoever found them would have all they need to create clones, albeit tabula rasa ones. Savage, did you...?"

"My tail was blown off a couple of months back," he rumbled. "I never did find it. And once before that, but it was years ago." He failed to mention who had blown it off, what had happened to them, and how unlikely he considered it that the Professor was active again.

He also did not mention the issue that was really occupying his mind. No one had said anything, but a dozen heroes had watched him - or his clone - effortlessly swallow a man. It was not just that a cop had been murdered, but how. No one seemed concerned. Perhaps the manner of of it was unimportant; after all, it was obvious that he could eat people if he chose. They simply trusted him not to.

He shook his head to clear his thoughts. Deva was continuing.

"This is what we want to do. Savage, and you and the others who have been cloned have a specific mission...."

The rat scurried down the drainpipe and across the alley, pausing to sniff at a dead pigeon. Then on along the alley wall until he came to a tiger-shaped mound of garbage. The little rat stood up on its hindpaws and nodded, and as it transformed into a much larger rat-man the tiger's camouflage likewise faded.

"There's definitely something happening in the old subway station," Ratbat whispered. "I smelled you, and I saw your tracks, and you haven't been down there recently. Those old tunnels lead all over the district, whoever it is may be using them as shortcuts." He was putting his wings back on as he spoke.

The situation had worsened in the last week. More false heroes had appeared, though luckily no more as powerful as the false Starlight, who had not made another appearance. It was speculated that he'd been injured in the earlier battle.

Savage clicked his fangs, not randomly but in a specific pattern. Click, click, pause, click, and then he spoke. "Techno, do you have anything new?"

"Chill and Stature are fighting what they think are clones of Brass Monkey - their armor isn't nearly as good as the real one's. And over on fourth street Deva beat a Callus-clone into the ground. They're going to try to question him when he recovers. Nothing else tonight."

Savage swiveled a furry ear over to point at Ratbat, who was leaning in close to try to pick up the portion of the conversation vibrating through the tiger's skull. The rat was the one who suggested it, and he was the one who climbed headfirst into Savage's jaws to drill out space in a molar for an implanted cell phone. Savage was beginning to suspect the rat was just a bit too interested in his mouth. Having already been though the tiger's digestive system once, he should reasonably be reluctant to get so close to that maw. Yet there he was, nearly sticking his head in to catch Techno's words.

"All right," he rumbled. "I am going to see if I can sneak in."

Ratbat nodded and dug into the real pile of garbage to retrieve their radio setup. With Techno, Doomknight and Vindicator manning the hastily set up command center, the rat had taken over what would have been the raccoon's job. Half a dozen of these "sniffers" were being set up around down, hopefully to determine how the clones (and their presumed master) communicated.

Just then a new voice came over the phone. It was Couatl, Central American accent still strong despite the hissing syllables. "I have been all over town, 'listening', and I haven't sensed anything unusual. I do not think the clones are connected by magic or telepathy. I was right next to Callus when he went down and there was nothing, nothing I could sense. It has to be technology of some sort."

Savage shrugged and padded off down the alley. There had to be an entrance big enough for "him" somewhere...and sure enough, halfway around the old station were the original double doors, now missing from their hinges. Garbage and rubble half-blocked the entrance, but as he paused to sniff he saw long orange hairs caught on the splintery doorframe. He stepped to one side and found that the apparent blockage was easily bypassed.

He stepped over the turnstiles and almost bumped into Callus. It had to be a clone; the thick, overlapping slabs of leathery hide looked right, but this one wasn't wearing the original's stretchy blue shorts. Savage grunted noncommittally and stepped past.

"Callus" hadn't said a word, but his fist, big as a gallon jug, spoke for him as it slammed into Savage's cheekbone. He weighed five hundred pounds if he weighed an ounce, and all of that weight was superhuman. The blow lifted Savage's forepaws off the ground; they came down three feet away as he counterattacked. Callus blocked, but Savage was six times his mass and the huge paw batted him into a wall.

He came right back at the tiger, but this time the advantage was squarely on Savage's side. He had ample room and could step backwards as fast as the rhino-like clone could run forward. Each time Callus put a foot down wrong a massive paw was there to punish him for it. The third time he hit the clone he put real effort into it, and the ugly creature went down. Unfortunately two more appeared from the back of the station, one of them riding atop a huge tiger that had to be Savage's own clone.

It was time to go and Savage went. The rubble half-blocking the doors sprayed across the street as he slammed through. Shouts and a roar followed him, but nothing else did. His ears were still ringing from that first blow as he trotted back to the alleyway.

Ratbat looked up from the radio as Savage clicked his fangs. It took three tries to get the phone working again, and at that he was grateful it did; Callus had nearly knocked a couple of his teeth out, and the one with the cell phone was one of them.

"Tried to get in, but a Callus knew I wasn't a clone the second he saw me." Savage paused to lick a few drops of blood off his nose. The damage was nearly all healed, but his pride still stung a bit.

"The sniffers got something just now, Ratbat's and another a few blocks away. We think - think, mind you - that the clones have an implant of some sort. We've picked up a radio signal, unmodulated, just carrier." The were-raccoon at the far end of the connection talked to someone for a moment. "It may not be possible to sneak in disguised as one."

Ratbat was pointing at his collar, and Savage ran a paw along the leather. He could feet the camouflage cloth coming off in strips. Either in the fight or in the escape he'd scraped against something. He shook his head and thought about what Technocoon had said.

"Maybe. What if...." But now Ratbat was making frantic hand-signals, and Savage smelled it too. A tigery smell. It was strange to smell himself like this. Ratbat was digging into the trash again, and Savage swung around to face the approaching smell. There was a blur, part of the alley wall closer than it should have been.

"I can see you, clone. Show yourself."

"And I see you, 'father'." The camouflage faded, and the two huge cats, back to their tiger-striped selves, stared into each others' eyes. Ratbat took off behind Savage, his segmented wings noisier than the short-lived leathery ones, and the clone tensed to pounce. Savage stepped between the clone and the escaping rat, a growl rumbling up out of him.

"Why did you eat that cop? He couldn't hurt you."

The clone flicked his whiskers dismissively. "The question is, why don't you eat cops? Since I've been alive I have eaten a dozen humans, all swallowed alive. I like the way they squirm on the way down, don't you?" His ears swiveled as he tried to locate Ratbat. "I'll catch your friend, too. It's only right that a giant rat should end up as food for a tiger. Weres are tough, I will make sure to digest him extra slowly."

He was trying to anger Savage, the cat knew, but he had chosen the wrong threat. The talk of Ratbat brought him to a sudden realization. Ratbat wanted to be eaten. He had provoked Savage until he'd gotten himself swallowed, when the Black Bowman was causing such trouble. He'd crawled into the tiger's mouth perfectly happily to install the cell phone, his nose a foot from the gullet he'd slid down a month before. All the times he'd leaned in close, head inches from Savage's maw. Ratbat was one of the few people who could survive being digested, true, but why did he want to be eaten?

A laugh rumbled up out of him as he took a step toward his double. "You are a fool, clone. I live my life the way I do because I like to have friends. I like to be liked, loved even. It's hard to do that when every passerby wonders if he will be tonight's meal."

The clone was so distracted by Savage's failure to grow angry that he grew angry, himself. "Idiot! When we've taken over the city we will not need love! We will be worshiped!"

Then Savage's paw struck his ear, spinning him half around. He snarled and snapped, but walked into the other paw. It was immediately obvious to Savage that while this clone was as large and strong as himself, had all his powers, it lacked fighting experience. True, Savage had rarely fought creatures as large and feral as himself, but his defense was still far better and he capitalized on every overaggressive move his copy made.

It was still an ugly fight. Claws had come out on both sides and hides as tough as metal would be torn and bloodied. Savage's shields would not stop something as slow moving as a paw. He was sure he could win, but it would take time and the sound of the battle was sure to bring police, or perhaps the clone's allies running.

The fight did not last, though. They circled twice, roared and exchanged blows, and then a nearly invisible force beam came down from a rooftop and struck the clone squarely between the eyes. It pounded his head to the pavement and stunned him. Savage, not too proud to take advantage, clubbed the clone's head with his paws until it finally collapsed.

"That worked," Ratbat said, gliding down on his wings. The force rifle he'd retrieved from the garbage was another relic of some supervillain's arsenal.

"A very good shot," Savage rumbled. He sniffed and listened, but somehow the fight had not drawn attention. They were in the worst part of the borough, and many of the buildings were abandoned, but it was still more luck than he'd expected.

"What are we going to do? It's going to be tough to get him back to the warehouse to question. Maybe call for help?"

"No," Savage told the rat. He felt along his collar with a paw until he found a metal ring. Hooking a dewclaw into this, he tugged until the collar loosened enough for him to slip it over his head. "Take this," he rumbled, and the rat staggered as two hundred pounds of metal and an unwieldy length of leather collar were thrust into his arms.

"But why? You may need..." Ratbat's voice trailed off as he watched Savage step over to the fallen clone. The great cat reached down to hook a paw beneath his double's neck.

"If it's an implant, it could be anywhere in his body," Savage rumbled. "And it is probably designed to shut down if he dies, probably by sensing the lack of heartbeat or a drop in body temperature. So we need to make sure neither happens...by replacing them with someone else's."

Ratbat stared as Savage lifted his clone's head, and as the great cat's jaws creaked wide. He wouldn't have believed that Savage had ruthlessness or even the abilityto do what the big cat was doing now. Savage engulfed his clone's entire head in his jaws, worked them like a snake's to get them firmly settled, then swallowed.

Ratbat had been down the tiger's gullet while curled in a ball, and the clone's head was not much bigger, but it still seemed an impossible task for Savage to devour his clone all in one long gulp. Yet Savage set about doing exactly that. A huge bulge rolled down his neck as the clone's head was swallowed, and already he was stepping forward, using a paw to guide the neck in after. As he approached the clone's forelegs he used his own paws to push them downward, presenting his maw with a neatly swallowable package. There were no awkward shoulders to push over. Ratbat was pretty sure Savage couldn't have done it had his clone been in tiger-man form.

Savage's body was distending bizarrely as he engulfed what amounted to himself. His neck was so swollen the fur parted, revealing skin striped the in the same pattern. Ratbat wondered briefly if it, too, changed color when the pelt did. Weird creaking sounds emerged from beneath his pelt as the bulky tiger head passed his neck and entered his torso. His entire ribcage was expanding to accommodate his meal. Savage was panting through his nostrils as he reached the halfway point, his cheeks ballooned out and his rubbery black lips wrapped around his clone's forelegs. It seemed impossible he was breathing at all, with his gullet packed full of tiger. With a massive gulp he took in the clone's forepaws, and his distended neck rippled as the swallowing muscles eased his meal further toward his stomach. So thinly stretched was his skin that Ratbat could count the toes on the paws sliding down his throat.

He had swallowed his clone's head, neck, and entire ribcage when the still-protruding hind legs began to twitch. Somewhere down in his body the clone awoke to find gullet stretched tight around his face, and if it could not at first grasp what was happening, it knew it was not a good thing. The muscular hind legs kicked, crescent claws sliding out of their sheathes, and the seven-foot tail began to thrash.

Savage was in an uncomfortable position, too swollen around his prey to move freely. The clone's hindpaws hooked up to rake at him, and he barely blocked them with his own forepaws. So stretched was his ribcage that his shoulder blades were disjointed, costing him much of his usual strength. Then the legs slammed downward, into the brickwork of the wall, and though the impact sent a shudder the whole length of his body it was a mistake on the clone's part. The force of the blow shoved the clone deeper into Savage's gullet, and he scrabbled forward as best he could. His hind legs were still at full strength, and his massive thigh muscles went iron-hard as he trapped the clone's legs against the bricks. Three thousand pounds of super-strong tiger squirmed in his throat as he worked his jaws remorselessly over the clone's rump.

Then a hind paw slipped free of the trap, the clone's leg curled inward, and four claws like curved daggers dug into Savage's cheek. Blood leaked out as super-tough skin lost to super-hard claws honed to needle points.

Ratbat was there. He leapt in, wrapping his arms around the paw. The terrible claws sank into his skin, but his flesh and bone shielded Savage from their dagger points. The clone's other leg was forced up along the wall, and with a lurch and a loud, wet gulp Savage entirely engulfed his meal's rump. The clone's legs were forced together by pressure from his palate and lower jaw, and so much of his prey was down his throat that his swallowing muscles alone were finishing the job. Down the length of swollen, thin-furred tiger body Ratbat could see the bulge where the clone's head was entering Savage's stomach.

With its forelegs trapped to its sides by Savage's throat and its hind legs being sucked in after, the clone was all but helpless. It squirmed and thrashed, but Savage moved along with it, stretched so tight by his meal they were essentially one being. Ratbat got a glimpse of the clone's maleness, so like Savage's, testicles as big as fists and a short feline sheath, before it disappeared forever down a tigery gullet.

He almost went with it. The claws were sunk deep in his flesh and though he could easily regenerate the injury once they were removed, they had lodged between the arm bones and Savage could no more stop the swallowing process now than he could stop a sneeze. It was all reflexive action as his mighty throat muscles pushed this largest of all meals down toward his stomach, and Ratbat was pulled into his friend's vast maw as the paws and tail followed after the rest.

His arms went into saliva-slick gullet and he resigned himself to another trip through Savage's innards. Perhaps he even leaned forward a bit, looking forward to his journey. Then Savage's forepaws, still weak by his standards but vastly strong nonetheless, wrapped around his chest. Ratbat squeaked as the claws pulled out of his arms, then Savage's jaws were closing and he was still outside. He watched the massive cat's neck bulge and pulse as he swallowed down his meal and tried his best to ignore a similar bulge in his pants. Furred hindpaws, long claws extended, hung from the tiger's mouth for a moment before being sucked in. Then they were just a bulge moving through Savage's neckfur.

When it was over, when all that was left was a tailtip protruding from Savage's lips, Savage's belly was so distended it hardly seemed he had fur there at all. Two thirds of a tiger every bit as massive as himself lay in his gut, curves standing out like a carving, and the rest of his muscular torso was swollen, too. No amount of swallowing could make his stomach hold more than its maximum capacity, and his clone's rump and hind legs lay stretched out in his gullet still. His clone was still squirming, desperate to escape, but unlike the Black Bowman he had gone down with painful slowness. He did not have lungs full of air to keep him going, only the last dregs of what he had inhaled minutes before.

When Savage let out the air he'd swallowed in a window-rattling belch it was all but over. The protruding tailtip twitched occasionally, but neither Savage nor his meal moved. The winner just sucked in lungsfuls of air, recovering.

Then the paw still clutching at Ratbat tensed, and Savage made an urgent motion with his eyes. Without saying a word Ratbat dropped to the ground, changing as fast as he could to normal rat form. His wings rustled slackly to the ground. Then he ducked into an empty milk carton in the trashpile and froze.

"So," rumbled a voice, and he was horrified to realize it wasn't Savage. And yet it was, in a sense. It was another Savage-clone, who now loomed over his friend. It lowered its head to sniff, not needing to see the tailtip to know what had happened. The vast bulge in Savage's midsection told the tale.

Disaster. Savage could not possibly fight in his condition, and the force rifle was hidden in the garbage with the shield generator.

"You are an idiot," it snarled, and cuffed Savage's head. Another blow, and his friend's cheek hit the pavement with a sound like a dropped boulder.

"How complicated can it be?", the clone said with a disdainful flick of its tail. Savage still said not a word, just panting. It had taken all he had to force his meal down his throat. It would be minutes before he had the strength to retch the suffocated clone back up, even if the half-curled-up tiger did not wedge itself into his stomach somehow. He was completely at the second clone's mercy.

Terrified black eyes watched from the milk carton as the clone lifted its heavy paw again. Sharp curved claws came out, and the paw came down...but it did not tear out Savage's throat. Instead the claws merely stroked where the collar would have been.

"Fool," continued the clone. "Kill the father, eat the father as you like, but save the generator!"

Ratbat suddenly knew what was happening. Without the collar and force field projector, Savage was indistinguishable from one of his clones. Moreover, the implant in the one he had swallowed must still be operating. Confronted with a swollen tiger, a friendly signal, and no collar, the second clone assumed quite reasonably that it was Savage who lay in his clone's gut. The missing collar and generator must be down there too, providing the 'father' with no protection from the digestive juices that were consuming him.

"When you are able to move again, return," the second clone rumbled. "And bring the generator. Digest it and you will go into my belly. I hope you have a wonderful time pushing that thing out of your asshole, asshole." It thumped Savage's swollen gut, making him groan, and padded away.

Minutes later Savage had regained enough strength to stand. Ratbat helped as best he could as the tiger staggered upright, guts sloshing around his colossal meal. Slowly, belly dragging with each step, the tiger and his friend made their way back to the garage. It turned out that Savage's skin did change color like his pelt, but not as effectively. Thankfully the sun would not be up for hours, the neighborhood was deserted, and the garage was close. Only once did Ratbat, returned to rat form, have to scurry forward and squeak at a homeless man to clear their path. Then he had to go back and get the generator, for his friend had all he could handle just moving his own weight.

Savage dragged himself through the doors of the garage, normally an easy fit, only to wedge tightly in as his curled-up 'son' resisted the entry. Ratbat had to throw his whole Were strength against the bulges of swallowed cat before the lump finally popped free. Already he could feel the beginnings of softness as the great cat's stomach worked on its meal.

Savage did not even bother with his mattresses, but simply stretched out by the bays, hiccuped, and fell asleep.

"He did what?" Technocoon said, then waved off Ratbat's repeat of the explanation. Savage was squatting over the trapdoor for the third time in a hour, expelling more ex-clone into the sewer system twenty feet below. When he was done he tipped two barrels of river water water in after to flush the remains past the U-bend, then slammed the door shut with a forepaw. Sewer smell bubbled up to mingle with the usual unpleasant post-digestion emanations despite the U-trap, and he had an apologetic expression as he joined them by the office.

His gut had shrunk remarkably in just a day. He was digesting his clone as fast as he was able, which he'd explained meant the digestion wasn't very efficient. Many, many calories were wasted by such rapid passage of nutrients that would otherwise be absorbed by his intestines. Ratbat knew that the absolute most efficient absorption happened when the tiger was very badly hurt or terribly hungry. In those cases there might be little residue excreted at all. He hadn't known that the tiger could pick and choose the efficiently of his digestive tract at other times.

Technocoon, wearing a lab smock and with magnifying goggles pushed up past his black mask, poked the tiger in the side. There was still at least half a ton of meat and bone sloshing around in there, broadening Savage's beam, but more than that the tiger looked...plump.

"Let me guess," Techno chittered. His voice was higher than most women's, and along with his own mouthful of fangs made his voice as hard to understand as Savage's in its own way. "Even at maximum speed of digestion a lot of nutrients are absorbed, and you ate your full weight in...food...last night. So a lot of it is going right into making fat."

"Correct," rumbled the tiger. "This is unavoidable. If I slow it down I will absorb even more, and in any case speed is essential. Unless I regurgitate all this there is no way to prevent at least some of it from being absorbed, and --"

"And the implant is still in there somewhere." The raccoon ran what looked like a walkie-talkie down Savage's side. When it beeped he poked his finger into the fur, and Savage obligingly turned that spot black with an orange outline. Then the raccoon did the same thing on the other flank. He walked around the tiger, who was stretched out sphynxlike now. One dot was a bit farther back on the tiger's side than the other.

"It's moved noticeably in just the last minute. I think it's in your small intestine now. At the rate things are, well, moving, it's only going to be a few hours until we see it again. I might get it with an endoscope, but we can't take it out of you anyway and I can't think of any way to secure it in there." He shook his head.

"I can slow things down, but only so much," Savage growled. "I do not think it will still be in me tomorrow night, no matter what I do. It will have to be tonight."

"I could still get the drysuit," Ratbat said, but the tiger shook his head.

"If my stomach were empty I could carry you in there safely, suit or not, as long as you had air. With this much meat in me I fear you would be crushed by the movements of my gut, no matter how I try not to digest you."

Ratbat locked eyes with the raccoon, and they both smiled. Savage flicked an ear.

"What?"

*****

The Callus at the entrance to the subway station nodded, his leathery features trying to smile, as Savage faded into view. Savage smiled too, pulling back his lips to show the force field generator held in his mouth. A long strand of saliva dripped from the corner of his mouth. It was hard to keep his lips closed and mouth wrapped around the keg-sized thing at the same time.

Beady black eyes peered over the top of the generator and out past the tiger's pointed teeth. Ratbat, in normal-sized rat form, held onto the metal with his forepaws while his body slid back and forth on Savage's salivating tongue. He tasted like food to the cat, and the tongue kept trying convulsively to flick him down the gullet. Only his grip on the generator and the weight of the thing atop the tongue had kept him out of Savage's stomach so far. Ratbat had never been happier.

It was remarkably simple. With everyone they met convinced they were one of the good guys, or bad guys in this case, they had the run of the old tunnels. The generator in Savage's mouth reduced him to inquisitive grunting, which various Calluses, Golden Maids, Brass Monkeys (some out of their armor, and some in bad copies of the real Monkey's) and even a Stature or two to think they were asking "Where is my supervisor?" A succession of pointing fingers led them to concealed doors, which were politely opened for the poor tiger who lacked even fingers to poke a number-pad lock.

All the while Ratbat, secure as a nearly-swallowed rat could be in Savage's mouth, dictated precise descriptions of the tunnels and defenses into a digital recorder epoxied to one of Savage's carnassial teeth. Periodically, when the tiger made an affirmative noise to indicate he was unobserved, the rat would unstick a a matchbox-sized radio repeater from a tooth and fling it into the shadows by the tunnel wall.

When they finally came to the center of it all, where a towering pillar of computer blinked its lights in an old, long-forgotten underground cavern, Ratbat just had to push a button. All the accumulated voice recordings, compressed into a millisecond squirt, went racing back up the chain of repeaters until they hit the open air.

The cavern began to shake scant minutes later, and the first flashes showed that Starlight and the assembled heroes were forcing their way in, Ratbat smiled and let go of the generator. He was still smiling as he slid down Savage's throat.

*****

"It wasn't the Professor. It wasn't anybody," Deva said. Stature and a couple of others were missing, injured in the fight for the tunnels and still recovering, and most of the rest were bandaged. Even she had an arm in a sling, and Galvanic was in a wheelchair. "It was the computer."

Ratbat lolled on Savage's back and half-listened. He'd recovered from digestion again, growing back from the pile of used food the tiger produced. He had resumed his ratman form in the tiger's stomach and liked to think he had provided some useful nutrients. More than a tiny rat would, anyway. Not that Savage needed them. He was a thousand pounds heavier, loose fat drooping from his belly, neck paunchy, even his tail thicker than it'd been.

"Someone found it and activated it, some homeless person we think, and it took him over. It must have been one of the Professor's toys, because it has his signature all over it." (Literally. The thing was signed in letters three inches high down each side. 'Property of the Professor'.)

The fight was fierce, but luckily there was only one false Starlight. Half a square block collapsed into the tunnels when he and the real one met in an explosion of energy. For a few minutes it had been a near thing, for there were more clones than anyone expected.

But then Savage growled that he would guard the computer and everyone else in the 'Core' rushed out to fight. When he was alone he transformed into tiger-man form, as fast as he could (no shortage of calories to burn now, and little concern for pain) and threw a boulder the size of a minivan into the side of the pillar. With an anticlimactic flash and a tinkle the lights went out, and every single clone dropped where they stood. It must have been another failsafe, a way for the villain running the computer to protect himself from a clone revolt.

"We think he found Savage's tail, that clone was the oldest of all of them. The computer cloned him, then he found Starlight's arm somewhere, and the Golden Maid's foot. Maybe another villain had them. Whoever it was, we think was tiger food before the next wave of clones was grown. Thank God they weren't able to make more than one Starlight."

Thank God indeed. Sovereign nearly came out of retirement when he heard about that one clone. The destruction that multiple Starlights would have caused when contending with the most powerful being on the face of the planet did not bear thinking about.

Savage burped, and muttered an apology. There was still a suspiciously human-shaped bulge in Couatl's midsection; the feathered serpent's digestion ran at a more measured pace than the hot-blooded tiger's.

There had been the question of what to do with the now-mindless clones. A few, including the second Savage clone, had been taken away for study and perhaps dissection. (Savage had merely asked them to make sure he never had to worry about the clone.) A hasty meeting of the heroes led to a vote. No one liked the idea of copies of friends, or even copies of villains, lying about until something or someone activated them. All eyes had turned to Savage.

He had tilted his head inquisitively, and halfheartedly protested against being used as a garbage disposal. Then Couatl had volunteered to dispose of one of the Golden Maid clones, and Savage had knuckled under. He'd now been eating clones as fast as he could digest them for a week. Even a Stature clone, though that'd been so troublesome to digest that he asked that the other two be sent off for research. Couatl had methodically worked his snaky jaws over a second Golden Maid clone when the bulge in his middle was nearly gone. Some of the more squeamish heroes had long since returned to their usual haunts.

It remained that every hero in the city, along with the public, knew he could and did, when circumstances were right, eat people. And no one outside of a few radio show hosts complained. Because of the Feral Three, what might have been a bloody siege had ended with few fatalities, and none among the heroes. In their gratitude several of the wealthier heroes had bought the abandoned garage, paid to have it refurbished, paid future taxes for several years, and then simply given it to the Three. Once he had worked off some of this fat he could go back to patrolling without the worry of an irritated owner one day showing up to kick him out. Technocoon was moving in with them, all aglow about the super-fast network connection and high-tech workshop that'd been set up.

Several little-known heroes and a couple of better-known ones were expressing interest in turning the Feral Three to the Feral Four (or Five). Couatl was one of them, and they were giving his offer serious consideration, as his magical and psionic powers would fill an obvious gap in their arsenal. Life was good.

Life was especially good for Ratbat. Techno was at work - the were-raccoon didn't strictly need to work these days, but he liked to - and it was just him and Savage in the garage. The rat stripped out of his clothes, a one-piece coverall and boxers, and hung them on a hook for later. Then he approached the tiger where Savage lay curled up on his mattresses.

He didn't have to say anything. Savage hadn't said anything either, but he'd known from the day of the siege. Maybe before that. The rat patted the tiger's muzzle, and the great jaws creaked open.

The tiger did not complain as he stretched out on the wet, inviting tongue. It curled upward, hooks like the teeth of a comb raking through rat fur. It wetted down his hand as he stroked himself, scraped the base of his tail like a rasp. It slid over him, coating him with slick saliva as his rat-ears slid along the cat's palate.

When he rolled over and began to thrust, even as he slipped his muzzle into Savage's gullet, the cat still did not protest. Slowly the tiger lifted his head, and Ratbat pushed himself further in. He was to the waist in throat when his toes curled. Big muscles in his thighs spasmed, and his tail slapped the side of Savage's chin.

The tiger waited patiently for Ratbat to finish, then tilted its head back and swallowed him whole. The tailtip was the last of him to see daylight. It was the fourth time this week he'd made the trip down the tiger's gullet. Savage hadn't eaten anything but rat since the supply of clones ran out. Fasting would have let him lose weight faster, but he didn't mind.

Savage burped once, lightly, and lay his head down to sleep.