FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

Chapter 16

Daimon couldn't help but wonder just how willing the manipulation had been, as he lounged back and watched as Eve Hightower's prim vulpine pretty ears bobbed up and down. She'd been angry at Mack for dumping her so viciously, and determined as well to prove that she wasn't afraid of Daimon, despite the trembling that quavered sometimes in her voice when she looked at him.

Convincing the proper but cheerful young vixen to wear the handcuffs while sucking his cock had been fairly easy, once he'd realized she seemed to enjoy being dominated and craved to prove she wasn't afraid, though the fox had seemed as surprised by her enjoyment of it as Daimon himself had been. Maybe the fact that Eve had a pair of police-style handcuffs in her bed-stand was a sign, though, that she'd had such tendencies to begin with.

Then again, he supposed, maybe this was just her way of rewarding him for being her sarcastic, biting, blunt, but accomodating cry-pillow for a night. Maybe, he mused, this was what they called 'being the rebound.' He certainly wasn't going to complain. Instead, he smirked, and gripped one of those tall pointed ears, enjoying the feel of its silky fur as Eve slurped lewdly along his barbed cock and lavished it sloppily with her tongue and warm, drooling maw.

The black cat looked down at her again, marveling at just how pretty she looked like that. Paws cuffed behind her back, topless, her firm perky little breasts bouncing ever so slightly as she moved and struggled inexpertly but enthusiastically at her task. Her big bushy tail flagged, as his bare toe slid along her exposed lips again, brushing her swollen clit as she dripped all over his footpaw. Somehow the fact that she was wearing just her cheer skirt, hiding that act from sight, made the whole thing even better.

Eve gave a muffled, embarrassed-sounding yipping noise as she came, face mashed against Daimon's crotch, his balls against her chin as she tried not to choke herself. A long, slender muzzle meant she could take his entire cock in without it quite going down her throat, but it was a close thing. And when she was shuddering out an orgasm, the pixyish girl looked so vulnerable and overwhelmed that Daimon felt a dominant, predatory growl bubble up in his chest before he had a chance to restrain it.

This was so different from his many previous experiences, and the novelness made things better than ever before. His first, well-remembered experience had been at the age of twelve, when he'd been forced to fellate members of the Shadow Congregation's leadership in front of the entire seated Council of Brothers. They'd fed him their cum and bits of their power daily, to foster the growth of his own abilities, or so they'd said. The rough, carnal fuckings that had started a year later were just for their own amusement, without any pretense of benefit to him.

When he'd tried to threaten them with his father's wrath, they'd laughed at him, slapped him around, held him down and fucked him raw and bloody while lecturing him on the truth of Warlocke's 'love' for his son; that he didn't care for those who weren't strong enough to defend themselves. They'd even forced him to fuck another of their various prisoners, some girl who no doubt had her heart torn out on an altar to power one of their rituals at some point later in time. She'd been tied to a bed at the time, with her knees raised up over her shoulders and her thighs spread by a metal bar latched to her ankles. It had been utterly without eros for him, even though her treasure had been spread open to him like a displayed piece of art. He'd never seen the young tigress again after that, though he'd never forget the fear, pain and sorrow in her eyes as the bloody remains of her innocence had dribbled down her thighs.

Now he was the one playing with an innocent, by his own choice, toying with her instincts while getting his own enjoyment from her suckling, inexperienced muzzle. He was the one guiding her head when she came and lost her rhythm. At least, he mused, he was making sure she enjoyed it. Daimon hated the Shadow Congregation with so much of his heart that the thought of being just like them sat about as well as a hippo on a schoolbus. Besides, he resolved, this wasn't the rape he'd endured so many times over. Eve was quivering with pleasure, pressing her sopping vulva against the top of his foot for more, while gasping shakily for breath when he loosed his grip on her ear enough for her to pull a bit back. If she'd asked him to stop, he was almost certain he would have.

Father Dover would have been disappointed in him if he hadn't. The thought popped into his lust-laced mind just long enough for the sorcerous cat to frown inwardly at it, before the renewed action of a smooth tongue and shifting, hungry lips pulled him away from that new and half-born realization.

She was just starting to get her head-bobbing rhythm back when her pink Hello-Kitty stickered cell phone started chiming a sprightly Muzak rendition of "Singing in the Rain." Her blinking look of startled annoyance as Daimon grinned and reached for it told him exactly what to do next. He grabbed her by the headfur and yanked her down onto his cock, holding her squirming head there until she started reluctantly suckling again, as he brought the thing to his ear and answered it.

"Eve's phone, what do you want?" he said with a bright but biting tone of amused arousal, as the vixen squirmed and slobbered and trailed her tongue along his barbs just the right way. He rewarded her with a squeeze, digging his claws in just enough for her to feel it through her plush pelt, and slipping his toe between her sopping pussy lips. That they were still throbbing amused him to no end.

The voice on the line sounded amused too, perhaps suspecting something fun and naughty was going on. John Silverstone. Daimon hated him and wasn't even entirely sure why. Maybe it was the smug sense of humor, or the calm self-assured demeanor.

"Hey Daimon, am I interrupting something?"

"Yes. What do you want?"

Eve was squirming, trying to get off his cock, and Daimon tightened his grip while slipping his big toe up into her, mashing her throbbing clit against the top of his footpaw. The vixen's skin had turned as red as her fur, and she was wriggling down on his footpaw while trying to get away. A mixed signal Daimon was relishing.

"Is Eve there?"

"You already know the answer to that. She's busy. I won't ask what you want another time."

"Heh alright. Jeff and I are calling a team meeting for tonight, to discuss what we're doing next. Could you let Eve know she's invited? Also, you're welcome to come if you want."

Daimon blinked, then pulled the phone away from his ear to stare at it. Welcome? It wasn't a terribly familiar word, not a concept he'd encountered often in his difficult life. He quickly brought the phone back to his ear, even as he kept directing Eve's bobbing, slurping head, directing her to keep going despite her evident desire not to be heard sucking cock over the phone.

"When and where?"

"Tonight, eight o'clock, at Jeff's place."

"We'll think about it."

The feel of teeth scraping his sensitive tip made him hang up the phone to glower down at Eve, who was glaring right back up at him, even with her lips still wrapped around his shaft, and her tongue still fumblingly but effectively playing along his barbs. He tossed her cell back onto the bed, and grabbed her by the scruff as his balls started to finally boil over, and yanked the vixen back. She yelped in surprise as his tip popped free, and then widened her eyes in realization as he grabbed himself with his free paw and stroked once, twice, and one more time.

She came all over his foot as his first shot hit her in the cheek, shaking and yelping out little moans of ecstasy. The next blasts of cat cream splattered across her snout, her forehead, her lips, before he pulled her muzzle back down on his shaft to let her taste what she'd worked so hard to get. Daimon let out a soft grunt as his release tapered off, then looked down with a smirk to see Eve was frantically humping the top of his foot, which glistened with her girl cum.

When she could finally breath well enough to speak, and had stopped licking at his softening prick and sheath, her sharp-eyed glare and deep blush spoke of just how hot this had all been for her, and how mad she was about it. Daimon sat back with a smirk, landing with a thump on her primly-made bed instead of the chair he'd been on before, and dangled the cuff key from his fingertip.

"So what will you do to get this key, hm?"

Her glare looked hilarious to him, dripping thick strings of spunk from her chin and whiskers. Her little white fox-postrophes had vanished behind a thick splatter of gooey white.

"I'm gonna kill you when I get outta these," she grumbled, even as she failed to keep eye contact, blushed a darker shade of red, and shuffled her still-shaking legs where she knelt on the floor.

Daimon laughed and reached for the bath towel she'd let him use earlier, then sat forward and started cleaning her off far more gently than she thought he might have. When she was mostly clean, he leaned in, and kissed her hard on the muzzle, sliding his tongue past her teeth and into a maw that still tasted like his cum.

"Bullshit. You came three times." The cuffs came undone with a click, and as she pulled her wrists back in front of her, rubbing at them, his paws found her cute little butt and gave it a hard squeeze that had Eve yelping in surprise and punching Daimon ineffectually in the chest.

He just laughed and kissed her again, which she reciprocated even as she whapped at his sides with her balled up paws.

When they finally broke away, Daimon sat back, eyeing the mostly-naked beauty, even as she shyly crossed her arms over her breasts and hunched up to hide in her fur. Little hints of wetness still dappled the fur of her face.

"Oh stop that. You're beautiful, and I love your tits, even if they are kind of small. Now go take a shower and get dressed, we have a meeting to attend."

Tish Williams sat on Jeff's new faux-leather couch and fiddled with the hem of her skirt. She hated the things, but when she wasn't powered up had a hell of a time dealing with summer heat thanks to all the black equine fur that covered her petite young-teen frame. Normally, she would have kept the hammer on her at all times, stayed in her Iron Horse form, with its flesh of many-times condensed iron and steam-powered nigh-invulnerable power. However, even the mighty Iron Horse needed to occasionally be put away, so Tish Williams could eat regular food and get the ancestors out of her head for a few hours.

Not to mention that she didn't grow when she was in that form, as her ancestors kept reminding her. If she kept the powers turned on all the time, she'd be a stunted thirteen year old for the rest of her life. Which was tempting, since bras were stupid and uncomfortable, she thought to herself.

John and Jeff puttered around in the kitchen as she grouched there on his couch like a tiny little black storm cloud, and watched Jeff's beat-up old TV as it crackled along through a re-run of Powerpuff Girls. Which Tish would never admit she idolized to anyone.

She'd only agreed to come to their 'team meeting' because John had promised to help her find better fights to get in. He'd seen right through her enough to realize she wouldn't respond well to offers of friendship and belonging - probably because she hated craving those things, because they felt like weakness to her.

When John doubled back from the kitchen carrying a bowl of guacamole and a bag of chips, he eyed her, walked over, and kicked her foot off the coffee table with a light tap before setting the bowls down.

"Y'know, people are gonna think you're trying to be jailbait, sitting like that."

"What, with my legs spread open? Fuck what people think. It's fucking hot, and my crot-"

Jeff interrupted pointedly.

"Nobody wants to hear that!"

Tish smirked and gave him the middle-fingered salute, raising her paw up over the couch's back to do it. John was laughing, as he sat down next to her on the couch's middle cushion, elbowed the soft-fleshed Iron Horse, and gestured at the food.

"Eat, for fuck's sake. You're a twig."

"And you're a fucking queen, not my goddamn mother."

John snorted and grabbed a pawful of chips, while turning towards the black jaguar who was just then grumbling his way back into the kitchen.

"She's cute, can we keep her?"

Tish was growling as best her equine throat would let her, as she sullenly grabbed chips and dipped them straight into the guacamole, before shoveling them into her maw. She also lashed out a paw and punched John hard in the shoulder, though the hard-bitten wolf just laughed at the hit, and hit her right back, though not nearly as hard.

"Use a bowl, kid, it's what they're for."

"Fuckshou," she retorted, with a mawful of chips.

A knock at Jeff's door interrupted further witless repartee, and the black jaguar limped quickly out of his kitchen on a single crutch to unlatch the locks. As he opened it, he shuffled back with a mix of apprehension and social awkwardness, the slender Daimon Locke, looking sinister in his all-black leather trench and jeans striding inside in a way that came just short of invading Jeff's personal space. Just behind him, Eve followed, stuffing her car's keychain into her purse and then brushing at a slightly wrinkled and faded blue t-shirt. Jeff blinked at the casually-dressed vixen, never having seen her wearing clothes that were less than new, fresh, and trendy.

"Hey uh...C'mon in and..." Jeff trailed off, as Daimon walked right past, and started stalking through the apartment's rooms with a determined energy about him, peering at electrical gizmos and cautiously opening doors. "Hey...That's private space in there!"

Daimon waved him off with a grunt and a quick cutting motion of his paw, continuing his hunt. Eve rolled her eyes and sat down on the smaller of Jeff's two couches.

"Sorry, he did this to my place too. When I asked, he said 'it's only paranoia if nobody's actually after you.'"

"Your place," Jeff asked, brows rising as he watched Daimon stalk and search. "I thought you were terrified of the guy?"

Eve blushed and shrugged, hunching her shoulders a bit as she took a bowl and filled it with guacamole.

"We uh...Came to an understanding. He's...Not such a bad guy. Just kinda gruff and um..."

"Rude?" John added, watching the slim housecat finish his search and wander into the kitchen, open the fridge, and grab a beer for himself without so much as a by-your-leave.

"I don't think he had the best childhood," Eve demurred. In the kitchen, Daimon just smirked, and opened the beer by prying it against the countertop.

"Hey watch it, you chip the countertop and I'll lose my deposit!"

"So? It's not my money."

"Daimon," Eve said, looking over the couch's back at the cat, "Now isn't the time to be a jerk."

He rolled his eyes at her, but made a mollifying paw wave, taking a sip of his beer before leaning up against a wall and speaking again.

"So what's this meeting about?"

John wiped his paws off on a paper towel and stood, stepping around the coffee table to be in front of the tv, which he switched off, to a grumble from Tish.

"I called this meeting so we could figure out what our future is, as a group. Obviously Mack's left, and without Dr. Theorem to give us direction...Well, the group as it was doesn't exist any more."

Eve looked down into her lap, as if her dip bowl were the most interesting thing in the world. Her ears were pinned back, as she struggled and failed not to blame herself. She was supposed to have been the team leader, after all, and had clearly failed the task.

John went on after a brief pause to let his words sink in.

"Given the fact that the last of the Nightsiders are either dead or missing, we're the only real meta-heroes this town has left. And we're the only super-team within about a two hundred mile area of here."

Daimon raised an eyebrow, and snorted into his beer.

"That's pathetic. You're calling ME a hero? Thanks for the beer, but I think I should probably go find something more interesting to do now."

John cut Eve off when the vixen was halfway to speaking.

"You had your reasons for helping us, but you did in fact help. You have the skills, and you seem to have hit it off with Eve at least." Which shut her up immediately, blushing furiously, as Tish snickered and gave her a pointed grin. John continued unabated. "Besides, if you agree to join the team, the police have agreed to let us keep track of you, instead of them dogging you all over town. The DA is still grumbling about charging you, even though all the evidence was circumstantial. You know, about those priests you 'convinced' to off themselves."

Daimon scowled, dark eyes glaring into John's steely, calm and unwavering look. Jeff just sighed, meanwhile, rubbing his forehead as he sat at the cluttered kitchen table and muttered about 'trust issues.'

"Fine. If blackmail is your game, I'll play along for now."

John's grin half-returned for a few seconds, as he shook his head. "Not blackmail, Daimon. Trying to do you a favor by giving you a second chance with the law."

"Trying to buy my help by force, more like."

The wolf continued with a shrug, not bothering to dignify that with more response.

"Eve." The vixen nodded, but didn't look up, hunching more as if expecting to be chastised. Even her tail was down, looped around her side. "Eve, don't blame yourself for how this all went down. You were still early in your training. It was more my fault than yours that things got a bit...Rough. Still, I'd like to take over for now, if you're all okay with that."

Nobody objected, so he kept talking.

"With Dr. Theorem and Tokamak gone, the city has no meta-defenders of any real reputation. That's going to attract a lot of nasty customers looking for easier pastures than whatever city they're predating on currently. With last week's jail break from the Void Zone, that means something like a hundred and thirty powered villains are on the loose, potentially in our area. We'll all need to take time off of our daily lives to train. You're all pretty damn powerful, but so are a lot of them...And they're vastly more experienced, not to mention willing to kill.

"Jeff is putting in for an academic leave of absence. Eve, I suggest you do the same. Tish...The school board isn't going to let you off from junior high school, but your powers have given you plenty of training all on their own, right?"

The filly snorted around a mawful of chips, having devoured about a third of the big bowl already.

"Fuckin' right. I gotsh aboudda thoushand years'a 'xperience on allayou."

"And the manners of a feral two year old," Eve muttered, while primly nabbing a napkin and stuffing it into Tish's paw. The young Arabian looked down at it, shrugged, and used it to blow her nose, scattering chip bits in the process. The guacamole on her chin stayed right where it was.

The filly had swallowed her most recent maw-ful by that point, and shrugged at John.

"But I'll be there anyway. I ain't gone to school since my dad died. Everything I need t'know comes from th'hammer."

Eve just stared at the pubescent filly for a second, then looked at all the boys, before going back to her.

"Uh...No. You and I are going to need to talk about girl things later, if you've missed out on that much school. Health class and stuff. He passed away when you were 6, right? That's what the files say, anyway."

"Pass away? He didn' fuckin' 'pass away.' He died fightin'."

"So that's a yes?"

"Uh. Yeah?"

"Anyway," John cut in before they could get any further into the dreaded Girl Things, "Bobby Shore's also missing in action, so for now we're going to use his place for a headquarters and training ground. There's an old fallout shelter beneath the house that'll do for our training purposes. I want all of you there at 9 am the day after tomorrow so we can figure out how we'll go about things. That work for everyone?"

Daimon sighed and rolled his eyes.

"That's a time when the sun's up," he observed sourly.

Cheerful with a dash of spite, Eve chimed in. "Don't worry, Dai, I'll make sure you're there on time!"

"Dai? My name's Daimon. Dai. Mon. Greek for 'guardian spirit.'"

"Sure," she chirped.

Leaning back against the entertainment center, John scanned over the bunch of them. By the table, neat-furred and presentable but clearly nervous sat the most powerful electro-kinetic he'd ever known. Jeff Castillas was a basket case of nerves who John suspected would start suffering flashbacks and PTSD eventually, but dependable in a pinch and possessed of a strong sense of ethics and morality.

On the couch sat a young vixen with devastating control over gravity, but serious self-esteem issues that made her sometimes over or under-think her choices. Next to her, the all-black filly was rude, brusque, and a lone-wolf personality type, but powerful, resilient, experienced, unflinching in the face of death. Both women had staunch ideas of right and wrong he hoped to foster.

Daimon Locke was still a mostly-unknown commodity, full of anger and spite but with glimmers of something redeemable hiding underneath. Not to mention he was a sorcerer with access to all sorts of creative spells that would give their group much-needed power flexibility. Then again, he was also morally grey at best. During police interviews, Daimon had spared them no detail about his rather awful childhood. It would be no wonder if the cat turned out to be a useful but dangerous sociopath.

And then there's me, John thought ruefully. A washed-out uneducated boxer and veteran low-level superhero with the power to be immune to other peoples' powers but not their fists, knives, bullets or baseball bats. This is going to be tough.

_ _

"One last thing before I adjourn our meeting. Every super-team needs a name, and The Presidents just wasn't cutting it. No offense, Eve."

"No, you're right. It was just...A silly gimmick."

"I've been batting around some ideas, but nothing good's come to mind. So do some thinking, and have suggestions ready for when we meet up day after tomorrow. In the meantime...Well, you can stay as long as Jeff puts up with you. I'm just couch surfing the place right now."

Jeff sighed and looked around at his apartment. Though it was a good-sized place, it was stuffed to overflowing with all of his electronic gizmos and half-built experiments. The couch and kitchen were about the only spots anyone could actually sit down comfortably. The disruption was making him a bit jittery, but he resolved to just deal.

"Movies are under the TV set, and I got cable put in yesterday so...Yeah. Stay late if you want."

"Fuckin' sweet!" crowed Tish Williams, as she grabbed at the remote and waved for John to move. "Move yer fat ass, got cartoons t'watch!"

Hours later, John sat alone in the apartment's living room in just his boxers, watching TV with the volume down low as Jeff slept just a thin wall and a dozen steps away. The wolf wouldn't show it to his teammates, but he'd been deeply affected by the losses of so great a trio of heroes. Dr. Theorem had been a friend and mentor, and Tokamak was someone he had always liked despite the alien's eccentricities. And Bobby...

Bobby had been his boyfriend for years, in many ways had been his whole world for that time, and no one had seen hide nor hair of the cheetah since he'd entered Dr. Theorem's home just hours before the disaster began. John knew there wasn't much chance his ex had survived the demonic assault that had killed the mighty Dr. Theorem and led to Tokamak's ultimate sacrifice. His only consolation was that Bobby would have gone down fighting, and likely was the one of the main reasons Theo had the necessary time to shut down the rift.

It was small consolation at best. John had been drinking steadily for an hour by that point, trying to cool himself down enough to get some sleep. What with re-forming the team, he would need to be on top of his game or risk the team getting off to a bad start that could stunt its growth and ability long into the future. Already, news from around the country was showing the usual nervous calms that came when police forces and organized crime families knew a major spike in supervillain activity was about to get started.

When he finally switched the TV off, it wasn't to get up and go back to bed. He had intended to just sit and think, without the white noise of late-night shows. What he saw reflected on the screen made him instead do the unthinkable; he dropped his beer from nerveless fingers, utterly failing to notice as it burbled out onto the carpet.

"Bobby?!"

Reflected in the TV's scratched glass, Bobby Shore looked like a ghost in a mirror, his shape interspersed with all the things that glass was reflecting naturally. Even so, John could make out his ex's face with ease, and the fact that he was wearing all but the hood and mask of his Shockwave costume.

The cheetah looked exasperated, and was whapping his open palm against the other side of the glass with an impatient look. Less like he was trying to break free and more like he was trying to make a busted TV set work.

"Can you hear me? Goddamnit, is this fucking thing working?" whispered its way out from the set's speakers. John nearly tore the knob off while turning the thing up.

"Bobby!"

The cheetah jerked back from the glass, and tripped over something, stumbling off-screen for a moment. John's heart felt like it was going to explode as he grabbed at the screen glass, feeling it cool and smooth beneath his paw pads. Bobby re-appeared a moment later looking frustrated and relieved all at once.

"Thank god! It's taken me three days to get this thing working! Can you hear me? I can see you, John, but I don't know if you can see me!"

"Yeah, I can see and hear you. Bobby, where are you? You're alive! You're alive, right?"

The cheetah got a wan, drawn grin, and it showed off the tired dark bags under his eyes.

"Yes, J, I'm alive. Theo locked me in his study when the fight started, that ass. You know, the exta-dimensional place he hid all the stuff he confiscated from villains and such?"

John couldn't help the laugh that bubbled up from his chest. Sure, he couldn't touch the cat, but there he was, somehow! He nodded his understanding, however half-baked it was.

"I knew he had a spot like that, just didn't know it was uh..."

"Going to conveniently save both our asses?"

"I get it saving yours...But what do you mean? And how do we get you out of there and back here?"

The cheetah looked off behind him, and when his face turned back there was an empty, sad smile on it in place of the much bubblier if drawn and tired one of before.

"Sorry, hon. There was only one portal. Now that it's gone...I doubt I'll ever be coming home. Lucky for me, Theo has all sorts of magic stuff up here, including a bucket full of fried chicken, mashed potatoes, and coleslaw that keeps refilling itself."

"Seriously? He kept the magic bucket from...What'sisname? The Colonel or something dumb like that?"

"I know, right? Stupidest supervillain ever. Knocking over MacD's chains by filling them to the doors with mashed potatoes and cheap gravy isn't going to bring down the 'super-fat giant'." Bobby rolled his eyes with a laugh, though the shared amusement didn't last but a moment.

"John, seriously though...This thing only keeps a charge for an hour a day if what I read is right, and I need to tell you some things."

"Okay, shoot. And no, I'm not giving up on finding a way to get you home."

The cheetah sighed and shook his head. "Fine, but just...Take care of things on your side first. John, among the other magic in here, I've found a crystal globe. It's lighting up like a Christmas tree had a baby with the Fourth of July, and I just figured out a couple hours ago that it's showing me predictions of supervillain shenanigans."

"Predictions? Uh...Is it accurate?"

"I don't know, J. Won't know unless you and your team can check the ones out that're going on near you."

"Do you have any more information? Bobby, these kids are green as h..." Iron Horse laughing, covered in fleshling gore and swinging her hammer like a professional came to mind, and he trailed off. "Okay, maybe not totally green. But we could use any information you've got."

"I'll get back to you if I figure out how to get better information...Sorry, J, but for now it's just locations and times."

"When's our first date with trouble then?"

"Three days from now, four am. I've got a cluster of two red lights and a black dot right around the north edge of city limits...Assuming this thing is as accurate as I think."

John gave that some thought, and responded a moment later. "Probably the old industrial parks then. Alright...We'll at least get close enough to see what's happening, and get back to you. Uh...Speaking of which, how do I even...Do that?"

"Sorry, hon...For now, I don't think you'll be able to. I'll contact you every night at ten pm, on whatever reflective surface is closest to you."

Glancing towards the hallway to the bedroom he was sharing with Jeff, John cleared his throat and looked back with a sheepish grin.

"Could we do midnight instead? I uh..."

Bobby stared at him for a second, then slapped a paw over his face.

"You always did like cat dick. Let me guess...The twitchy kid with electro powers?"

"Heh. I'm that transparent?"

"Like fucking window glass. Fine. Midnight. Don't be late."

Bobby's bemused face faded from view. John grunted, suddenly realizing he hadn't even told Bobby what happened to Theo. Then he stepped in a sodden patch of beer-soaked carpet.

"Aw...Damnit! My beer..."

Gyro tasted the night, the red panda cyborg villain letting the sensors attached to his tongue and snout tell him what he needed to know. Industrial waste came in so many worthless flavors that it had taken him two entire nights of stealthy hunting to localize the particular energy signature he'd been looking for to an abandoned and dilapidated old industrial district. Behind him, two of Obliterator's mercenary soldiers stayed quiet and alert, the consummate professionals waiting on his word to start digging.

Maric, arctic fox and speedster, was searching another site nearby, scanning it with Gyro's equipment, to which the red panda was electronically uplinked. They were zeroing in quickly on Obliterator's unique radiation, hunting for their leader as they had been since emerging from hiding after the disastrous demonic battle.

Holding the third corner of their triangulation was Spotter, though the golden jackal was largely stationary. Her injuries had been particularly severe, molten metal shrapnel having been slammed almost through the vicious killer's body by her own torture victim. She had survived solely because of limited super-toughness and her own ability to teleport herself back to Obliterator's main base. Gyro's automated medical robots had extracted most of the metal and performed emergency life-saving surgery. Still, she was confined to a motorized caterpillar-track chair, where she sat holding Gyro's scanner with one paw and a target pistol with the other.

Another energy spike had led him to that particular building via triangulation with Maric and Spotter's equipment; an old busted-apart warehouse covered in rust. As soon as he shoved the door open with a squeal of corroded hinges and a hum of cybernetic actuators, he knew he'd found just the place. A large hole in the ceiling where metal had been bent in and scorched by fiery impact made the place look like the site of a meteorite impact. Obliterator's mercenary goons slipped past him with practiced ease, and began clearing the dusty place even as Gyro's short legs carried him straight towards his goal.

The building's thick concrete slab was splintered up in a radial circle of cracks, like a classic spider web. At it's center, a raised section came up like the lip of a tiny volcano, where extreme heat had melted the concrete during impact, allowing it to re-solidify before it could entirely flatten again.

Just as he reached the lip, scrambling up the several-foot tall hill of slagged concrete, his implanted communicator came to life.

"Gyro, this is Maric. We've got capes inbound. I see Mack FR-shhhht!"

"Maric, say again," he queried calmly, while gazing down on a pile of rubble that filled in half of the impact crater. Sticking out of the pile's center, a large, scorched-black cougar paw flopped at the wrist. Gyro was just reaching it after clambering down the side of the pit, checking and finding it's pulse to be strong if slow, when a frantic response came from the usually collected and professional fox.

"Maric is Paladin! He has the sword, and he's pissed!"

Gyro nodded his head once, and noted that the paw twitched, once, as his own chilly metallic fingers traced the tendons of Obliterator's wrist. His call to Spotter was dispassionate, toneless.

"Spotter, this is Gyro. Go to Maric's position and kill Mack Franklin. Shoot for the head from behind, the sword will intercept bullets from the front or sides. Armor-piercing is recommended."

Her voice was grainy, slightly slowed by the pain-killing medications thrumming through the jackal female's veins.

"Roger that."

Obliterator's paw twitched again, and Gyro leaned down to begin moving rubble, servo-motors in his artificial arm muscles helping the small fur to lift hundred pound chunks of concrete and rebar with ease. His ears flicked back, though, when he heard a thunderous explosion of metal shattering apart.

The voice that came through was familiar: Iron Horse.

"OKAY MOTHERFUCKERS!" it crowed. "SHOW ME WHATCHU GOT!"

Staccato blasts of submachine guns lit off, bullets spanging off the filly's iron hide, as John Silverstone's voice shouted over the din.

"Defenders, up and at 'em!"

The red panda raised his head just enough to see over the crater's lip, raising a brow at the new name. He didn't get a chance to see much, though, as a paw with a vice-like grip grabbed onto his forearm and yanked the cyborg down as if all his robotic resistance were nothing more than that of a recalcitrant infant.

He suddenly found himself staring into the blazing red eye of the Mask of the Anihilator. The mask's lip was curled up in a sinister grin that was un-mirrored by the natural flesh half of Obliterator's face. The unconscious cougar's body rose with an unnatural smoothness, and as the Void Gauntleted paw came around, Gyro realized with a sudden spike of what he vaguely registered as terror, that Obliterator wasn't conscious - His body was being piloted by the two demonic entities grafted to it.

Then lips were mashed to his own, and Gyro felt something wrenching about inside him, trying to tear its way free with claws unlike any he'd ever felt. The kiss was no act of passion or love - The demons were clawing at the stunted thing he called a soul. Even as his body locked up, paralyzed, the cyborg tried to shriek in horror, as a laughing crimson ruby eye glittered in amusement at his sudden mind-rending agony.