FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

It was, Hexus mused, a perfect bomb.

Utterly harmless and yet, used properly, awesomely destructive. He finished connecting a few final wires and took a step back to admire his handiwork. Duct-taped to the tallest point in the factory-district of neu accresia city was a weapon of his own design; at the push of a button it would concussively scatter 3000 anti-government tracts, sending them floating like feathers onto the heads of the poorest people in neu accresia, the people that had been screwed-over for so long they had started to believe that this was the way it was supposed to be, his people. Homelessness, rampant unemployment, shit-poor pay for those "lucky" enough to get a job in one of the dirty, chronically dangerous factories, all the while government funds meant to help those people were elaborately embezzeled by the corrupt scumbags who bought their way into power in the first place, leaving their corporate towers for the halls of politics where they could make some real money.

Maybe it was just him, wererats were rebellious by nature, they saw inequality more keenly than other folk and could tell by instinct when they were being stiffed, it was like an itch in an embarassing place that won't go away until you've scratched it, the only difference was that you usually had to scratch it with C4. Hexus hated that, he was an anarchist to the core but always felt that gross acts of violence tainted the cause; he kept a ritually augmented shiv (made of a piece of broken glass with a string-wrap grip, etched with runes and hardened to steel-like levels by his magic) slung in a sheath under his duffel, sure, but he'd never delivered anything more than debilitating wounds with it, something made easier by the enchantments that made wounds inflicted with it ten times more painfull than normal.

He checked the remote was primed, an electronic *ping* rewarded him and he stashed the remote in his coat pocket before shifting to rat-form. There was a brief moment of resistance, like walking through a waterfall, as reality and the un-reality of the spirit world were made one in his body and the excess matter of his human-sized form was shunted out of the physical. That was the trick, the humans puzzled over how weres could seemingly break the law of conservation of mass/energy by taking forms that were larger or smaller than themselves but in reality they just sidestepped it, the ammount of matter in the universe remained the same, it just went elsewhere. In rat form he made his escape, no-one but a wererat could use drainpipes, service choutes and windowledges as a semi-convenient route up or down a skyscraper. Once on the ground he took human form again and strolled away from the accresia-com tower,

"never run from a crimescene" he thought "if you run they follow, just walk away like nothing's happened and have a double vodka to calm your nerves when you get home".

He didn't get a hundred feet before a cop stopped him. "May I see your identicard, sir." he said in a booming voice, by his look and scent Hexus guessed he was a werewolf, a sell-out. The werewolves were one of the so-called "low breeds", like the wererats, it was galling to see one so willing to suck up to the high breeds who run the city by becoming a cop, but that was the nature of dogs, he supposed; to lick the hand of their master, no matter how badly they were beaten. Truth was the wolves and the rats never really got on, one was clean-living and conformist, the other would tell your grandmother dirty jokes just to make you squirm.

Hexus bit back a sarcastic comment and struggled to control his hormone levels, not wanting to risk the officer getting a whiff of anger/fear on his scent. He flipped out his ident and handed it to the cop, he was suddenly aware of how big the guy was when he saw their hands in proportion

"Sweet, merciful, allmother..." he thought "This s.o.b could crush my head with one hand and he's not even in hybrid form!"

"Seems all in order" said the wolf, studying his ident-scanner, which made a pained error-beep "Oh, wait..."

Hexus tensed, easing his agony-shiv in its sheath, his body priming itself for violence and ready to shift to hybrid form at the drop of a hat.

"Here it comes..."

"Oh, no, it was nothing, have a nice day, sir." said the wolf in a tone that implied that his idea of a 'nice day' for the wererat would involve a head-on collision with a crosstown bus, handing Hexus back his identicard. Hexus nearly sighed in relief and once again had to struggle to contain his nervousness, lest the wolf catch scent of it.

"Ah, yes, thank you officer." he stuttered out, pocketing the identicard and walking away, quickening his pace slightly.

"Fucking fascist." he muttered under his breath once he thought he had gotten far enough away, he hadn't.

It was only his advanced instincts that warned him of the first blow, a full-body keening that had him moving into a duck before he was even consciously aware of what was happening. A nightstick connected with the brickwork above his (now much lower) head, spraying shards of masonry all over him. The wolf-cop, wearing his hybrid form, held the end of it

"Insulting an officer of the law is an act of sedition, citizen," he growled through a muzzle filled with jagged fangs "I'm going to have to take you in for a little stay in the holding pens for that."

This was the last straw, Hexus new damn well what that meant; light torture with a side order of gang-rape, like fuck was he going to go through that again. He let go of his self-control and shifted to hybrid, performing a quick kippup to get back to his feet as he did. In comparison to the hulking, muscle-laden form of the wolf his hybrid was pretty unimpressive; strong, but in a lean and wiry sort of way, standing just over 6-foot next to the 9-foot monster cop. But he was quicker, no doubt about it, the wolves may be quicker than humans but there wasn't a wolf on earth that could match a rat for sheer speed, trouble was; the wolf only had to hit him once and it was all over. The wolf-cop roared and lashed out again with the daystick, missing Hexus by several feet as he rolled aside to drive his agony-shiv into the wolfs ribs. Hexus was dismayed when the jab was turned away by the police body armour, nearly breaking the tip of his glass blade. Another blow was dodged by somersaulting over the wolfs shoulders, he managed to nick the beasts ear with his shiv as he did so, causing him to howl with pain, not enough to paralyse, unfortunately. Realising he was sorely outmatched in this kind of fight, Hexus made a break for it, he threw himself into a sprint, supernaturaly energised muscles propelling him down the street (and, more imprtantly, away from the wolf-cop) at inhuman speeds. After a few seconds he chanced to glance over his shoulder, The werewolf was still on him!

"Damn" he thought "He knows Overruning"

Overrunning was a trick of wolf-magic, it allowed the user to match the running speed of whoever they were chasing exactly and, worse still, never tire, all the better to make the perfect hunter that little bit more perfect. Hexus had tricks of his own though. He stopped running, the cop did the same, the overrun link forcing him into a dead stop.

"Fine, you got me." said Hexus in mock-resignation, holding out his hands to be cuffed "I'll come quietly."

The wolf grinned evily at him and dinsengaged the overrun link...not in time to avoid getting hit by a careening transport truck.

Shifting back to human form, Hexus strolled over nonchallantly to the unconscious werewolf, flipping a slim cigar into his mouth and leaning over the rapidly-regenerating body of the cop to light a match on his helmet. He took a long drag and exhaled luxuriantly.

"And that's what you get for fucking with me." he said in a comic voice as the distraught human truck driver rushed over to check if the wolf was still living.

Hexus swaggered off, pleased with himself for bringing down a werewolf so casually, the rats were not, as a rule, a fighting breed and bringing down a veritable warmachine like a werewolf would earn him some major cred. He was so pleased with himself, in fact, that he failed to hear the truck drivers frantic apologies, nor did he hear he wolf drag himself from the wreckage and lay a bone-shattering wallop into the back of the wererats skull. His last memories before the fog of unconsciousness took him was the remote control for his tract-bomb sailing through the air and hitting the pavement, followed shortly by a loud 'bang'.

Well, okay, his last memories were actually of saying "Bugger, wasted a ciggy", but that isn't half as ominous.

To Be Continued! Later chapters will be much longer and Yiffy (Promise!), the primary purpose of this intro is just to set the scene. So, yeah, Hexus is a bit of a punk and an anarchist in a slightly fight-club/tank girl vein, seemed like the perfect personality for a wererat to me. "Hexus" isn't his real name by the way, just a handle, but more of that in the future.