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Fursecution

The image went back to the desk, where the male anchorman was just staring off to the side of the camera, presumably at the video as it finished up. "May god help us all..." he trailed off.

"Hey, you're on the air!" one of the TVA's whispered to him.

He shook out of his stupor and looked back at the camera, shaking his head. "Well, ladies and gentleman, that was, um, quite a video. I'm being told to tell you, this is a warning, anyone out there is expected to display extreme caution when dealing with any of the newly formed furries. If you see any potentially violent behavior, we urge you to report them for interrogation processes."

"What!" Lethias screeched, "They can't do that! That's racist!"

"Oh yes they can." I said calmly. "This is a new threat. The Americans were the ones who actually signed the patriot act, and now they hate all arabs just because they look like a jihadist. If this one wolf can do that much damage, we'll all be labeled as potential terrorists. It's the way the human mind works. I'm actually surprised we managed to go this long without something like this happening." yeah, all of three days...

"Yeah, Lethias, this was inevitable. You didn't think this would happen?" Ember asked, looking over the back of the couch at him.

"Well, you all said it would be fine!" he protested.

"It will be fine Lethias, think about it this way. That guy in California can shoot fireballs, and he leveled an entire City block, tell me, what can you do? I can create massive amounts of fire, I can freeze lakes, and use telekinesis to just obliterate whatever stands in my way. If worse comes to worse, we can at least defend ourselves."

Lethias raised a claw as if to say something, but just dropped it to his side and shook his head. "I guess you're right, but it's still not fair." He grumbled.

I patted him on the shoulder. "It's fine, wait to see what people do before jumping to conclusions. You never know, you might just be surprised."

He leaned into me and nuzzled my paw. I could feel him churring.

I looked over to Cole, and the look I saw on his face was kind of disturbing. It was like a crazy smile that he was trying to hide.

I couldn't quite place his intentions, so I left it be. I didn't want to cause any more shit than I had to.

Back to the front window I went to try and let this sink in.

I wanted to see if there were any people still lounging around. There were only 7 people still around. I decided to address them, but right before I left, something the news anchor was saying caught my eye.

"... fled the scene shortly after destroying a few city blocks. He was somehow able to literally fly away, without the aid of wings or any aircraft that was visible. His methods of transportation, though incredible mysterious, are being investigated. The location of the assailant at this point is unknown, however, authorities are trying to use satellite imagery to follow him to his location. We will update you as we know more."

I just shook my head and stepped down the stairs to the front door. When I emerged to the outside world, the people milling about got excited and came to me.

"Oh tiger man, tell me how to be like you!" The only girl said.

"I don't know how." I said simply as I shrugged. "I just don't know. Look, guys, I have some bad news for you all!"

They all quieted down, eager to hear what I had to say.

"Look, I'm not sure if you heard the news, but someone like me has done a terrible thing down in California. He hurt and killed a lot of people. Now, I just want you all to know that we here are not like that. I know you may not believe us when you see what happened, but I swear to you, we will not do anything to harm any of you."

"What happened?" A younger boy, perhaps aged 16 asked.

"I just shook my head." He blew up a lot of buildings with people in them."

"That's horrible, why would anyone do that?" Another man cried, had to be 25 or older.

"I don't know. I assume he was one of the burned furs getting revenge now that he had the power to do so."

"Burned furs?" The young boy asked. "What's that?"

I took in a deep breath and considered explaining it, but I decided against it. Too much to explain in depth. Perhaps a short explanation would be enough. "Well, there are people like me out there, who dreamed of being like this, and some people really didn't like the idea. Shows like CSI and MTV were making us look like a bunch of fetishists."

They all just stared at me. I guess they didn't know about furries before this happened.

Face it, not a lot of people do know about furries, even those who watch CSI and MTV.

"Look, it's on the news, follow me." I said and motioned them to come in. They all followed me up the stairs and into the living room. Ember was flipping through channels.

"...We interrupt this broadcast for a breaking news..."

"...a new breed of terrorist..."

"...considered extremely dangerous..."

"...Stay indoors, I urge you..."

"...Report any alarming behavior..."

"We're on every station now." Ember explained. "The news is all over the place." She flipped a few more channels. It seemed not to matter what channel we put it on, this event was everywhere.

"...it's like 9/11 all over again..."

"...over a thousand dead, thousands more injured..."

"...the most violent attack on US soil by any one individual..."

"...location and motives unknown..."

One of the humans that I brought in gasped. "My god, when did this happen?" He asked.

"I'm not sure, I figure a few hours ago. Word spreads fast." I said.

This absolutely sucked. Who knew what the hell was going to happen with this. This was a big deal, I mean, this one furry has killed over a thousand people, and injured thousands more. He probably caused tens of millions in property damage, and has pretty much threw that lid off our little innocence lie.

Fuck, seriously.

Right then and there, all I wanted to do was find that motherfucker who did this and take him out, unfortunately, nobody knew where he was.

"I trust you." The female human said. "I can tell you won't do anything like that."

I put my hand on her back. "Thanks, I just hope everyone else feels the same way."

"Oh, who cares?" Cole said coldly. "We'll just fuck up anyone who tries to hurt us. Imagine it, they come to get us, and BAM, energy blast to the FACE! It'll be awesome, and I'm enough of a dick to do it."

Lethias growled. "You're not helping our cause here Cole."

I slapped Cole upside the head. "Cole, don't be a fuckin idiot!"

"What? You telling me you wouldn't defend yourself?"

"Not like that." Ember said. "We don't have to defend ourselves. I don't think people are going to instantly hate us." She said.

I felt part of me brain cringe, that didn't sound like Ember to me. She usually would be telling me how soon people would rush to hate.

Maybe she had a change of mind...that's what I told myself, so I ignored it.

"I-I have to go." Lethias said, shaken. "I don't want people coming here with pitchforks. I'm outta here." He began to run down the stairs, but Ember got up and chased after him.

"Take me with you!" She shouted on her way down.

Interesting conflict of attitudes in such a short time.

I didn't think any deeper into it, I just let her go. Both of them flew away together. I didn't know where'd they go, I didn't really care, as long as they were safe.

"What's up with them?" One of the older boys asked.

"Nothing, they just fear prosecution. Who can blame them? I mean, ones a dragon, the other a cat. They're not exactly normal." I stated factually.

"True. Just don't.....don't get hurt, don't cause any problems." The boy repeated.

It was just myself, Cole, and the humans now. Strype, Cooper, and Frost were all at work.

"Guys, you should all go home, it may not be safe here." I told the humans. "Tell everyone what you think of us, and how we don't plan on hurting anyone. If we try to tell them, that'll just sound like we're being defensive."

They all nodded their agreements, gave me hand shakes, and the girl gave me a hug, and I led them away.

The next hour or two, Cole and I sat by the window, waiting for an angry mob to come storming to our front door. I personally didn't expect such a lynch mob to come after us, but Cole did, and I had to be there for him.

It was like every noise, every set of screeching tires, and every angry looking human was now the enemy. Cole would flinch ever so slightly when there was a noise. I bet he thought I couldn't see it or hear it, but I could literally hear his heart skip a beat, and see his muscles flinching when he was shocked.

He couldn't hide from me.

After a short while, a bus pulled up in front of the apartment complex, and out came Strype, Cooper, and Frost.

Last I heard they didn't get off work till later. That was incredibly odd.

As they walked up, you could see something was up. They were all talking amongst one another, looks of concern on their faces.

"Well, that went over well." Frost said as he walked in the front door.

"What happened?" I called down the stairs.

He just started walking up the stairs. "Well, we're all changed now, that's well and good, but of course our boss wouldn't really take too kindly to giant furballs coming into work. I got to work, and of course people were staring, but I just shrugged it off and went to work.

"Well, after about half an hour, my supervisor had to come talk to me about how my appearance was bothering some other people. He thought it was a suit, go figure, but then I had to explain to him that I was one of the ones that changed. He wanted to send me home, but I told him he couldn't do that, that would be prejudiced. He told me I could go to work."

Strype interjected, "This all happened to Coop and myself too. I pretty much told them the same thing."

"You figure the stupid fucks would realize by the third furry that it wasn't a suit." Coop added.

"So what happened? Why are you all home?" I asked.

"Well, apparently something happened in the states. Something big." Strype said.

"We all got sent home on vacation." Cooper interrupted. "With pay."

I was a little confused, so was Cole. Frost just smiled and nodded in his normal way, like he was enjoying hearing the story again.

But Cooper continued. "Yeah, apparently some furry dude down in California decided to blow some shit up, and now us Furries are on some sort of neighborhood watch. Problem is, the boss doesn't want to piss us off by firing us, so he gave us paid vacation."

Strype nodded. "Yeah, nobody told us right out, but I heard people on the other end of the room talking about it. Some fucker goes burninating a city, and now we're all labeled as terrorists."

I just blinked in confusion. "Wait, you're smiling like this is a good thing; aren't you worried about what that means to us?"

He just shrugged. "Naw man, think about it, one dude goes ballistic and fucks some shit up, but we stay peaceful, that proves that we're all individuals, and aren't associated in any way, it could get us off the hook."

Cole was shaking his head in disbelief. "Wait a minute...you're telling me this is a GOOD thing?"

"Sure, it could be. Holocaust had some good, it just depended on your perception. I don't LIKE the fact that this dude thought it was his place to kill thousands of innocents, but no matter what, we're still all different. It doesn't mean that everyone's gonna be launching a crusade against our asses."

"But Strype, what about our magic? Doesn't this whole event kinda show that we can be destructive? That's gonna attract a whole lot of attention. Scientists, military, hospitals even..."

"Let them. What's the absolute worst that could happen? They come here armed with rockets, tranquilizers or even any sort of harmonic weapons, and we're safe. We all have enough powers to defend ourselves if we need it. Besides, not all of us have powers..."

Frost raised a paw and nodded, acknowledging his lack of magic.

"...we could always just pretend to be without powers. We don't HAVE to resort to violence, you know that. You of all people should know that." Strype explained.

He did have a pretty good point.

"Not to say a little violence can't be fun." Cooper chuckled. That got a smile from everyone. "Hey, where's Lethias and Ember?"

"They left, said they wanted to avoid the shit storm." Cole explained. "Flew out of here a while ago."

Frost pushed his way past us and went to the kitchen to get something to eat. "Good for them." He said passively.

"So, he left huh?" Strype put his paw on his chin and hummed. "Well, that's good of him, I suppose. Better to be at peace than be at war."

I nodded in agreement.

BEEP!

My cellphone beeped, indicating that I had a text message waiting. I left Coop, Cole, and Strype to talk about what was going on and what their contingency plans.

The message was from Welnis. "This is pretty serious, heh."

I tried to reply with my claws, but I was finding it particularly hard to text that way. A few numbers was one thing, texting was something in it's own league.

"Yeah, I know eh? What are you going to do?" I kept the message short and went back over to the others.

"Well, I wonder if Batman has a plan for something like this." Cole commented.

"Batman always has a plan." Strype confirmed with a nod.

I just laughed. I remembered having this conversation not too long ago. "What about us?" I asked. "Do we have a plan?"

"Naaw." Strype shrugged. "I got some funny stares on the bus ride here, but right now, I don't really think most people know about us yet. I mean, yeah, it was on the news, and some electronics stores were playing the report downtown, in their TV's that were by the windows, but it still has the rest of the day to spread."

"So then we have time to plan a contingency?" I asked.

"Sure, why not? Got any suggestions other than 'live life, play it safe, defend if the situation calls for it'?"

"Nope, not really. I'm not Batman, I'm Runa. I'm not too worried about my safety or the safety of any of the furs. If we really needed to, we could level this entire town. We're strong enough, and capable enough to defend ourselves. I really wouldn't worry dude, trust me on this one."

BEEP!

I got another text, so I excused myself from the little group. It was Welnis again, of course. "Ether and I are just gonna stay here. Nobody really knows we're here, so I don't think anyone's gonna stone us, heh."

I took a few minutes again to respond. "Sounds good to me dude. How do you text so fast?"

I went to sit back by Strype, but instead went to the front window again. Waiting to see if anyone was protesting yet. Of course, there wasn't. Now even I was getting paranoid.

In all honesty, I'd love to lay my trust in strype, but really, this struck me as a bad thing. I was cold when September 11th happened, because frankly, I didn't care. It didn't affect me. The deaths were irrelevant. On the grand scale of things, we'd replenish those numbers within hours.

A minor setback, but it started a war just because of the message that it carried.

This was similar. I didn't care about the deaths and wounds, I cared about the reputation I was going to get because of it. I didn't do anything, neither did most Iraquis, but we'd still be persecuted as terrorists. This is just how people work.

My problem was that I really didn't want to resort to violence. I'm a pacifist, I hate violent conflicts, I didn't want to have to defend myself. I knew I was going to have to anyway, but that didn't change my opinion of the matter.

I especially didn't want to hurt anyone in the crossfire.

I wasn't psychic, I never intended Runa to be a psychic, but I knew something bad was going to happen. He always had good instincts.

Just then, I got this strong urge to turn on the TV.

It was Fox News again, same channel we left off. They were still talking about the 'terrorist' attack in California. The body count (which was so far confirmed at 1137) and the aftermath.

Just then, the image went back to the desk, where the anchorman was being told something by the TVA's again. "A shocking update to this terrible tragedy, we have yet another video in our possession. This terrorist apparently filmed himself, explaining his motives, and had the tape dropped off here at our studios. The tape has been edited for vulgarities, but please, discretion is still advised. Roll the tape please."

The screen went blank again for a moment, before you saw the black wolf standing in front of the lens trying to adjust his camera on a stool or something. After he was pleased with the frame, he sat down and glared at the camera for a moment before speaking. I could read his lips, so I'll fill in the beeps.

"Why hello world." He said in a deep, evil voice. "It would appear that I've succeeded in shaking up your fragile little world. Well, that's too fucking bad. Your society has laughed at me, taunted me, and teased me for far too long. I've been called Emo, furfag, homo, hick, fatass, and every other curse out there.

"But no more, I don't know what happened to me, or why, but whatever it was, know that now I have power; power you can't possibly imagine, and I'm going to use that power to be sure that you never think about laughing at me, or any minority again.

"This was the first attack, who knows how many I've killed, I don't fuckin care. There will be more, until you pathetic humans learn to accept people for who they are, not what they aren't. All your repressing of minorities will come to an end. This world makes me sick, you make me sick America. You're nothing more than a nation with delusions of grandeur, and you know what they say, the bigger they are, the harder they fall.

"Well fuck you America, your arrogance will no longer last, and you can only cower in fear until I decide what and where to attack next. Enjoy that fear you seem to live in, you'll be feeling a lot of it.

"And for anyone out there, anyone who has been shit on by the man, or by his fellow Americans for being different, now's your time to stand up. Don't take their shit anymore, you can get the revenge you desire so. Join me!"

He just grinned at the camera and growled as he said those last words. Then he got up and shut off the camera, making the screen go to black.

The view changed back to the anchor, who was staring blankly at the screen. No amount of urging by the TVA's would make him move or shift. Then again, most of the people in the studio were likely in as much shock as the anchor.

I stared at the screen. Everyone in the living room was quiet for a solid minute, letting what was just seen sink in. The images of destruction were pretty bad, but I just thought it was some sort of prank, or an act of rage. I didn't actually think that he planned on turning this into a crusade against humanity.

The worst part is, I would be lying if a part of me didn't want to join him. I hate violence, but his words, they really spoke to me. I agreed with him, the world, America in particular, was a cesspool of hate, fear, and ignorance, and I personally felt that it would be a better place if like 90% of all humans just dropped dead.

That doesn't give me the right to judge and execute.

No, there was no way.

"Strype, we have to stop that guy somehow. I can't let this happen. I don't know about you."

He breathed in a few times. "Dude, we do have to do something." He nodded in agreement.