FSE

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I was sure to bring my cellphone. I may be an anthro tiger and all, but I still may have wanted to be in contact with my friends, and most of my friends had cellphones.

Out the back door I snuck. My dog got a sniff of me and began to growl at me, but I calmed her down when I petted her and whispered, "It's okay Shiloh, it's just me."

I swear to god that dog is smarter than most, because she let her ears back up as she started to wag her tail. She sniffed my face a little and I gave her a little scritch before jumping over the fence to the second driveway.

I had to be very quiet, becuase the last thing I wanted to do was wake someone up.

There were no vehicles diving nearby, so I walked out to the road and ran the block from my house to the conservation area, ensuring that I wouldn't be seen. Plus, I had to get to Cole's house.

Problem was, there was a creek running through the conservation area, and the only bridge was right up by the road.

Taking a risk, I backed up a few steps, made a running leap, and found that my legs were so powerful that I must have overshot the creek by three times. The creek was ten feet wide.

I landed daintily and stopped in my tracks, looking back at the creek contemplatively, then I laughed. Oh man, this is awesome!

I continued over to Cole's house, which was on the other side of the conservation area, and was separated by a small bean field. I crouched as I walked across the field, then I was in his backyard, which was an overgrown Paintball field. Nobody would see me there even if they were looking for me.

I crept up to his house, and remembered that his bedroom was facing main street.

Aw damn, that raises a whole lot of complications.

I got out my cellphone and texted his cellphone. I didn't get a response for a good five minutes, so I decided to take the risk. I walked up to the house, but instead of going out front, I readied myself, crouched down, and jumped as high as I could, launching me up onto the roof and higher.

I landed daintily on the shingles, and hoped to god I was as stealthy as I felt I was, because I felt like I made a pretty hefty thud when I landed.

I walked to the front of the house and decided to give Cole another ring, but this time, I called his Cell.

Three rings later, he picked up. "Runa?" He asked.

I let out a sigh of relief. "Where are you?" I asked.

"I'm on the 401 with Tron and Madius, where are you?"

I rolled my eyes, I should have known better. I knew I should have listened to that voice that told me to just go right to Woodstock. "I'm on your roof, trying to get ahold of you."

I heard the laughter of three people on the other end of the line. "Oh man, we did offer you a ride." I heard Tron say.

I just hung the phone up and ran to the back of the roof, jumping off and landing in one of the big-assed trees in his backyard, flipping over a branch and steadying myself with my tail.

That was cool, and almost totally automatic.

I dropped down to the ground and I quickly jogged my way back to the conservation area, and followed the trail out of town.

I was running most of the way to Woodstock, following along highway 59, but sure to stay a good 100 metres away from the road so that nobody saw me. I could see the road, clear as day, but I knew the humans wouldn't be able to see me.

One thing was for sure, I could run at incredibly fast speeds, and I was noticing that I was encountering almost no fatigue, and when I saw a car, I was able to almost keep up, and that wasn't even me running at full tilt.

"Woo hoo!" I yelled in the night as I leapt as high as I could as I was running.

As I jumped, I noticed that I actually went faster when I was in the air, and not running.

But then I heard a faint yelling off in the distance. It must have been very far, but I could hear it. "Runaaaaaa!" The voice called.

The voice carried, it was definitely female, and the best I could do was guess at who it was, so I yelled back, "Emberrrrr!" then I ran towards where the voice was coming from.

"Runa!" She called back, I adjusted my course to go toward her.

"Stay there, I'm coming!" I called back. Frankly, I could only hope that I wasn't waking the world, I knew I was yelling pretty loud. Chances were that nobody would think we were more than drunken school kids partying.

At least that's what I hoped.

When I got closer to where I thought Ember was, I sniffed the air for anything that I recognized. Problem was that I'd never known what Ember smelled like as a feline.

I called one more time, but this time she didn't respond, I just heard a rustling in a little thicket of trees as she burst out , running towards me.

"Oh Runa!" she cried as she leapt at me, nearly knocking me over. We hugged for a moment before I held her at arms length and looked her over. She was wearing a pair of jeans, backward, so her tail could poke out, and a black hoodie.

"Doesn't that hurt to wear?" I asked.

"Well, it's uncomfortable, but better than being caught." She explained.

"So, what are you doing?" I asked, the answer obvious, but it's always better to ask than assume.

"I was coming to see you." She explained.

"Hun, you don't know where I live." I said to her. "I mean, you know the town, but you've never been to my house."

"Well, I'd find you. Isn't this cool though?" She held her arm out, bent over backwards, then did a little flip on the grass. "I can do anything, look at me!"

With a smile, I felt myself begin to purr, it was nice to see her so happy. "Yeah, it's really awesome. Look, I'm on my way to London. This happened to a few others too, so we're all gonna meet up at Strype's place, figure out what the hell is going on, maybe decide some things."

She cocked her head to the side, "All the way in London? That's a hell of a long ways away." She informed me.

"I know, but I'm already this far, and I've only been running for ten minutes. Plus I've got a plan." I said as tapped my claws together, not unlike Mr Burns.

She raised an eyebrow. "You're not gonna steal something, are you?"

I just rolled my eyes. "No, if I was going to do that, I would have already. No, I was thinking about coming to woodstock, getting you, then going to the 401 to hitch a ride on the trailer of some sort of transport truck. They won't notice."

"Um, are you crazy? That's like suicide!" she said.

"Ember, we're felines now, we're stronger, faster, and have much better reflexes. I'm sure we could make a leap for it off a bride or something and make it just fine."

"Still..." She just sighed.

"Come on, we gotta get back to woodstock first. Let's go." I took her hand and we both went back to woodstock.

On the bridge over the 401, we had to be careful. People could see us, so we had to do what we could to hide ourselves as we leaned over the railing. I had to put the hood of my cloak over my head, and she had to tuck her tail into her jeans.

"This is very uncomfortable." She complained.

"I know, that's why I have loose fitting clothing." I looked over the edge and saw a truck coming. "Okay, are we gonna jump, ready?"

"Not at all."

But I went anyway, and she followed. Right as the transport went under the bridge, we both jumped over the balcony, and we both landed on the top of the truck.

Unfortunately, due to the speed of the truck, we both rolled backwards, but were quickly on our feet again. "Okay, now duck down as best you can!"

The two of us both lay down flat on the roof, and hoped the trucker didn't notice us. He didn't swerve or anything when we landed, I don't think.

The trip was long and boring, but I got to explain to Ember what was going on, all the people that turned, what they turned to, and what we planned on doing. Well, I told her what I hadn't already told her, ensuring that she was up to date with the rest of us.

She seemed really interested in what was going on, I could tell she was excited. She was doing a good job at hiding it though. You could also tell she was a little bit nervous.

Truthfully, so was I. This was, after all, a very considerable leap forward towards making my dreams come true. All I needed now was a way to abuse my powers to become rich.

Preferably a way that doesn't involve stealing, though I would be lying if I said I had never considered stealing if I had superpowers. I mean, telekinesis made it really interesting, so many different ways to make things work. It's like having a team of invisible ninja do all the dirty work for you, while you watch, and nobody does a thing.

The possibilities were limitless. Hell, if I tried hard enough, I could likely steal billions of dollars by going into bank safes.

Naah, that couldn't be done, not in the way I imagined.

I could always be a superhero, the kind of person that kinda slinks around at night and makes sure that nobody was hurt at night. It would have to be at night, of course, I can't let people see my real identity.

Of course, my idea of being a superhero would look like some radical environmentalist nut-job...because I'd be in brazil forcing people to stop the cutting of the trees.

Or I'd be in Iraq telling the Americans to get the fuck out...then I'd deal with the Taliban myself. Of course, that opens all sorts of hypocritical debate points, but I really could care less.

We were in London now, I could see the signs and buildings.

"Hey Ember, we're about here. We just have to wait till we see airport road. Once we see that, I can get us to Strype's place."

"Okay, are we just jumping off?" She asked quietly. If I was human, I wouldn't have been able to hear her. Thankfully I wasn't a human anymore.

"Yeah, pretty much."

I got up, kneeling on the trailer until I saw a sign that said, 'airport road, 300m.'

"That's our cue." I said to her as I looked around to be sure that there were no other cars within viewing distance. "You ready?"

We both stood up and jumped off the trailer and into the ditch on the side of the road, rolling, then coming to our feet in a matter of less than a second.

"So, now we go. This is gonna be hard." Well, now we were in London, a much larger and busier city than Norwich or Woodstock, so we had to be extra careful. "I have an idea, let's get on the roofs and make our way to their place." I suggested.

"Won't people hear us as we jump on their roofs?" She asked.

"Oh, probably, but we're going to be long gone before they can do anything or think it's anything important."

The two of us quickly climbed onto the roof of the nearest home, and we were off, jumping across rooftops like spiderman. We had to stop every few blocks to make sure we were still on the right street.

Frankly, it's hard to lose a street, and it wasn't long before we reached the end of the line, and were only a block or so away from Strype's place.

Actually, we were on the roof of a Tim Horton's when someone drove by us and slowed down, I could tell that they were staring right at us.

"Hide!" Ember said as she grabbed me and tackled me to behind the heat vent.

The car drove away. With any luck, it was too dark for them to see we were anything other than human.

With that threat gone, we took some back routes, and within a few minutes, we were at the complex where we were headed.

Instead of being too stealthy, we quickly just ran our way into their front door. It had to be closer to 2 AM, nobody was moving, but their apartment had the lights on.

The two of us went inside quickly. I took my cloak off. Despite it looking cool, it really was uncomfortable.

Up the stairs we went, and I was overjoyed at the sight that I was greeted with. A room full of furs, actual, living breathing furs.

Cooper was a tall, muscular black wolf with orange and red hair. She had a big grin on her face. Cole was a very large husky, well built and hairy; he almost looked like a wolf. Frost was a reasonably tall Arctic fox wearing a suit. I was wondering how in the hell he was wearing that comfortably. Madius reminded me of a tall Remy from Ratatouille, but less pudgy, and less blue. Poor Tron was still a human, and Lethias wasn't here.

All of them were sitting in the living room. There was barely enough room to fit them all, so of course I would have to stand, so would Ember.

"Still no Strype?" I asked. "No Lethias?"

Coop shook her head. "No sign of either of them."

I sighed and leaned against the back of the couch. "Well then, um, what do we do now? Do we wait for Lethias, or do we go on and discuss this?"

I got a collective laugh from the lot of them.

"No, we've already talked about this hun, we just need to fill you guys in." Tron explained as he hugged Madius.

"So what's up then? What's the plan?" I asked.

Frost sipped at a drink that he must have concocted and he laughed. "We lay low. That's pretty much it. I mean, if we were to be active only at night, that would be cool, but we'd scare kids. If we were active during the day, then we'd be seen."

"But...no, that can't be right. We're unique, we're special, we can't just hide that fact." I said.

"Then what do you suggest?" Cole asked. "Should we all apply to the local sports teams as mascots? I mean, the world just learned to accept black people in the 50s, and gays just in the past decade. You think we would be just instantly liked?"

"Well, no, but at the same time, no progress was ever made by sitting on your ass. I mean, we get out there, tell the people we're here, and that we don't know what happened. We become mini celebrities instantly, then the hype dies down. It shouldn't be that difficult, really."

"You don't think people would be afraid of us?" Madius said, "I mean, most people don't like little harmless rats. Look at me, I'm a six foot tall rat that can talk. Though cute, I don't think most people would agree."

I slumped against the wall. "I guess you're right. I was planning on going out to the public anyway, but only if I had your support. I guess I can't now."

The conversation continued on. Cole wanted to stay hidden, so did Madius and Ember. Cooper just wanted to continue living her life, but a much more interesting one. Frost didn't really care either way. He liked who he was, but he knew that we wouldn't be accepted so easily, Tron wanted to keep us all to himselves, being the only human to know about us.

I wanted to go public. I wanted to tell the world, brag, inform them of how unique and special we were. All of us had things in our lives that made us special, but now the seven or eight of us really were something.

I didn't want to be a celebrity, but I did want the world to know how much better than them I was now.

With great power comes great desire.

I could still be responsible if I was having fun.

Unfortunately, the rest of the group didn't think so. Of course, I didn't blame them, when I explained to them that we should brag, they were like, "No, you're not going to start a competition with the humans."

I thought furries were supposed to be fun.

However, I still planned on doing my thing, telling a few people at a time, it didn't matter. I wasn't going to let the others ruin my dreams.

Something tells me we were all going to do whatever we wanted no matter what the group decided, making this little group meeting null and void.

Then again, it was nice to actually be able to see each other. Everyone was so cool. I did want to see May and Strype though. It's a shame we couldn't get a hold of them and I didn't know where May lived.

"So, who else do we tell?" I asked. I mean, we knew a lot of furries out there that would love to hear about this, and the lot of us can't just drop off the face of the earth. "I mean, Stitch, Sunie, May, Cajun, Em, they would all want to know about this."

Tron spoke up, "well, they will know eventually. Hawk already knows, Em won't be back for a while, she won't know any different."

I shrugged. "I guess you're right. What about our families? I mean, we can't hide from them forever."

"Well, some of us don't want to go back to our families." Cole said quietly.

We all stayed in silence for a moment, letting that sink in.

"Well, I know I like being this a lot better. My brothers can go fuck themselves. I could stay here, live with you guys." Cole added.

"What about work?" Cooper asked. A very good point.

But I interrupted. "What about work? I mean, can any of us go to work now? Where are we going to live if we can't work and pay rent. We can't go grocery shopping, we can't talk to any of our family and friends. It's cool that we have spiffy new bodies, but we can't do anything with them!"

The room went silent, all eyes were on me. I think that was the moment that the reality truly sat in, no more happy go lucky furry happy fun time.

"Look guys, the reality is this: we can't just hide forever. The sooner we get out there and let people know, the faster we can get back to leading our lives. No point in denying the inevitable."

There was as series of nods. Frost commented, "But how would we do it? I mean, like, we can't just jump in front of a car and say, "hey, I'm a furry!" and have that be it."

Just then, I heard a thump on the roof, a loud one, like the crashing of an aerial bird on the roof. All of us hurriedly went to the windows to see what it was.

I heard a moan, then a mass of red scales fell to the ground by the front door. I watched as Frost and Cooper quickly dashed downstairs to retrieve the fallen dragon.

It was Lethias. He finally made it.

I saw him get up before they got down there, he shook himself off and quickly ducked into the front door. I heard them talking about having to stay quiet.

"Well, these wings are new." I heard Lethias explain. "None of you guys have wings to learn, at least I have to learn."

"Still man, you should have like, tried landing on something that wouldn't wake the neighbours." Cooper said to him.

They brought Lethias upstairs, and I admit, it was pretty cool. He was all red and scaley and had cool looking wings. I mean, sure, they were cool and all, but I preferred angelic, bird wings.

Actually, I was noticing there were no avian furries. Lethias was the closest thing to a bird furry we had.

He was also the only one that wasn't a mammal.

I suppose I should have been thinking about Ceylon when I was changed. Then I would have been a flier, then I would have been an avian.

That would have been cool.

"Hey guys, what can we all do? I mean, I know I can make fire and ice, Coop can make glass shatter. Can anyone else do anything?"

Frost shook his head. "No, I'm just a fox."

Madius also shook his head. "Me neither."

Cole shrugged, "I haven't checked yet. I don't think so."

Cooper grinned. "I can, I can manipulate sound waves."

Lethias shook off his wings a little. "Well, I figure I could, but I haven't tried."

"I can." I explained. "I can do a lot. Ember, what about you?"

"No, I don't think so. I don't need to use magic to enjoy myself.

Hmm, only Cooper, Lethias, and myself actually could use magic. Oddly enough, those were all the people I originally thought were only doing it to be cool, the ones that were more into RP than the spiritual side.

But that's just me, obviously I was wrong, and I hadn't gotten that impression in ages.

"Cole, what about you?" I asked. "Have you tried? I mean, I didn't know I could do magic till Cooper mentioned it to me."

He just shrugged. "Well, like I said, I haven't tried anything. I really don't know."

"Well, can your character do anything special?"

Cole hummed and hawed for a moment before nodding his head and pointing at me. "Well, I did always imagine him with telekinesis. I didn't think you'd be able to try it yet."

I walked over to the kitchen and picked up a small plastic cup and I came and put it on the table. "Try to move that with your mind." I instructed him.

The lot of us sat back and waited as Cole stare at the cup for a moment. Lethias was stretching his wings at the other side of the room, Tron and Madius were cuddling on the couch, Cooper was sitting on the couch beside the TV stand, and Frost was standing by the booze.

Cole and I were both standing on opposite sides of the table, waiting for Cole to pick the damn thing up.

I watched intently, and I saw it twitch a bit, then fall on it's side. Cole sighed and shrugged as he felt he failed.

"Try again." I encouraged him with a pat on the back and a little scritch on the back of the neck to give him some motivation.

"Come on Cole, you can do it." I heard Cooper say.

Cole shook himself off and gave it another shot. A few moments later, the cup hovered off the table, then shot across the room into the wall, but it didn't break. It was plastic.

"Whoa!" We all gasped.

"Good for you Cole. Now remember how to do that for later." I told him.

There arose a round of applause from the rest of us.

I pointed to Lethias. "What about you? Your fursona has a whole shitload of magics. I'd say try them, but something tells me it's best to wait for now."

Tron got up. "Guys, guys. Magic isn't exactly the most important thing right now. I mean, this is cool and all, but we have to worry about the serious repercussions. Actually, Runa's right. I mean, if we can't come to terms with this change the lot of you have encountered, then you're all going to be condemned to a life of secrecy, and unless you all plan on living in the jungles or the mountains, then we better find a way to come out. This isn't just about being gay, this isn't something you can pretend isn't there, this is who you are now." And he turned to Lethias, "And you can't even drive. You now have to rely on your own body."

We all nodded, there was some muttering amongst the crowd.

"So what are you saying Tron, are you with Runa then?" Cooper asked.

"In a roundabout way, yes. I mean, unless this is like some 48 hour flu that'll go away when you fall back asleep, this is something you're going to learn to accept and live with. I know most people won't really like the idea of having giant, walking talking animals walking around. Some people would love us, the furries would envy us, but most people would hate us and you know it."

"Yeah, especially church folk." I added.

Tron just shook his head and glared at me. "Come on man, why is it always about religion with you?"

I rolled my eyes. "Dude, it's not about religion, but seriously, you know that there will be protest groups, we'd be called abominations, and we'd be labeled as demonic hellspawn or something."

"No, we really wouldn't, 99% of religious folk wouldn't care, but you know some people make it sound worse. Whatever though, I'm not having this debate again, not now. Either way, what are we going to do about this? Do we let people know, or do we keep quiet and lose everything. Frankly, I vote on going public. We will have to eventually if we don't want to lose the lives we have. Exposure is inevitable."

"I vote for secrecy, for now." Cole said as he sat down on the floor.

"Exposure." I say.

"Secrecy." Madius says.

"Secrecy." Lethias says.

"Exposure." Cooper says.

"Secrecy." Ember says.

"Secrecy." Frost says.

Everyone turned to look at Frost, I guess they were expecting him to go the other way. I know I was.

"So I guess it's decided then, huh." I sigh. "Tron's right. I mean, we can't just stay hidden, unless we want to be housewives, or get people to feed, house, and support us."

Everybody kinda stared. Nobody really knew what to do or say, as much as we all loved our new bodies, we were fucked either way. Either we go public and risk everything, or we go secret and lose everything. No matter what happened, chances are, we'd lose something, in spite of all we've gained.

Goddamn furries, just another thing to go emo over.

None of us really did anything the rest of that morning. We all just stood around quietly. We popped in a movie, but the effect didn't last. Nobody was really watching it. We tried playing some video games, and though it was obvious that we had better reflexes, we didn't enjoy the games liek we should.

It was getting late, and it was early in the morning, so we all kinda lied down on the couch, cuddling one another till we fell asleep.

Too bad for them I was only pretending.