FSE

Furry search engine

formerly SoFurry search engine

[Milky Way Galaxy/ Sol System/Valor Controlled Territory/ Core Word Earth/ Sector Alpha/ Valor High Command/Director's Boardroom/ Star Cycle 534, Year 3,528/ One week after the invasion of Core World Geneva]

High Chancellor Alexander Scott paced around the board room of Valor's leaders from military, to intelligence, to science and research. He was dressed in a clean pressed dark blue suit; the buttons that were around his cuffs and chest were a bright gold, he also wore a black tie. His forehead and eye brows were furled in anger as his gaze were on all of his staff who both he and they had failed in keeping their citizens safe. Armed guards stood at the door way, the marines were almost motionless from how stoic they stood alongside the large blue banners that wore Valor's iconic symbol, thirty white stars representing the core worlds and surrounded by a white wreath in a 'U' shape.

"Five million in the first hour, eight million in the second and that is not even factoring in the planetary defense force." Alexander stated the all too well information as he continued his walk around the council, "We failed, our intelligence failed, our technology failed, our men and women failed!"

The head of Valor's intelligence, Director Thanatos, turned his attention to the high chancellor, "Our Hermes droids are already working on tracking down this new enemy, and with the piece meal reports we are receiving there was no rhyme or reason we have found for the attack, after three hours into the invasion they immediately withdrew their forces and shock jumped out of the system."

"That's it? Thanatos you better not be telling me that this attack on Valor soil was just a cowards attempt at weakening us before slinking away into deep space."

"All command posts on Geneva clearly reported that absolutely no vital or any information was taken in any form, downloaded, destroyed, or copied. Whatever these attackers wanted it's nothing obvious although our best guess is that they wanted to test our defenses, or send a message."

Thanatos was a bald man who wore a black trench coat, a large array of medals from countless accomplishments was draped over his chest. He had a small scar across his forehead that had still not healed making it look like a fat caterpillar was moving every time he furrowed his brow. Even among the leaders he still held a frozen air of a commanding presence, with his words equally as cold.

"I have already mobilized fifth, sixth and the ninth battle groups, sir." The voice belonged to High General Summer Beak, an aging vulphus whose once bright orange and yellow feathers were greyed out matching her brown lion-like lower half. "But until the reports come in, and Thanatos here can agree with me... we believe that the enemy has attacked outside of this galaxy, deep scanners and our fringe satellites did pick up an anomaly in an energy spike when they came into our galaxy and left."

"What are you getting at Summers?" Alex spoke trying to get to the point that would bring results and answers that the public all well too needed.

"Well sir, if 'R' and 'D' can modified our scanning abilities we can track the enemy all the way back to where ever they launched the attack from."

"How long will this take?" Alexander asked turning his head to a blue furred macrial who had his long floppy ears tied back in the formal fashion all of his people were accustomed too. He wore the same blue and white suit that matched the chancellor and high general.

"Normally a couple days, but now my researchers can't stay away from their holo-terminals; all of us want to return the favor back at our foe. Give us a couple hours and we will have the bastards track down all the way to what they did this morning and had for breakfast."

"That's good stuff." Alex turned his head to Summer Beak. "Summers, make sure our vanguard force is at the ready and mobilize the Black Stars."

"Yes sir, at once."

[Milky Way Galaxy/ Gamma Cluster/Valor Controlled Territory/ Star Base Epsilon/Medical Ward / Operating Room K-5/ Star Cycle 534, Year 3,528]

General Charles Wareman stood outside of the surgery room; the psi-op officer was still wearing his full grab of his black trench coat over his battle armor. He walked from one end of the long hallway to the other, his hands folded behind his back. The officer peaked into each of the patient rooms, all of them were full, and every one of the wounded came from the terrifyingly swift invasion of Geneva. The planet still bore its scars; sections of the great planet wide city were ripped out, once proud sky scraper that stood tall was cut down like wheat to a scythe. Charles stopped as he looked out a large window that overlooked the torn world; the eastern continent was nothing more than a burning wound easily seen all the way from the orbiting star base.

He took a long sigh and moved down the hall way, the lights had been turned off for some time to allow the people on the floor to get some needed rest, only the light from the large windows illuminated the well clean hallway. A lone janitor stood at the very end just staring out the final window shaking his head before going back to his business, the low whirl of the cleaning device was only hushed by the lone psi-op officer walking up and down the hallway.

Dacota sat with a magazine draped over his face; he laid on his backside on the bench near the entrance of the operating room fast asleep. It had been over ten hours since Jonathan had went in for the Black Star surgery that would accommodate for the new armor, stress and level of weaponry that was needed to operate such tools.

The door to the operating room opened up letting the bright lights to flood the dark hallway but not before Charles closed one of the open doors of an occupied room. A lone macrial surgeon waddled in from the light; he pulled down his mask showing his exhausted eyes and matted fur. The doctor did his best to give a salute to Charles but it ended in a tired waved.

"The lieutenant will be ready to join the Black Stars in the standard morning and ready for service, I would imagine in the same day." The macrial spoke putting a damp towel to his forehead.

Charles peaked past the doctor too see half of his team had already fell asleep in the corners of the room while the rest where cleaning up all their tools and medical waste. He turned back to the chief surgeon who let out a weak smile before walking back inside to help one of the closest napping surgeons off of her feet.

[Andromeda Galaxy/ Blood Cabal Controlled Territory/ Odin Cluster/Planet Midguard / Palace Hellhiem/ Seat of the Malefic /Third Era]

Sanguine Lord Mordred walked within the hollowed walls of Hellhiem, portraits of past emperors, empresses and their children hung on the towering walls. His own blood line was on the opposite side, his family had served the royal family for generations as to them it was more than tradition or mere honor it was a blood pact that ran deep in all of the previous Sanguine Lords. Torches were placed in between the painted portraits that flickered in, he preferred the comforts of modern technology but the metal torches that were bolted onto the stone walls of the hallway always gave him a sense of nostalgia.

Mordred stopped when he came to the second last set of paintings on the royal family side, it was the last emperor before the Blood Rite, and the final era before the majority of the Empire's citizens had become the Blood Cabal's mechanical army. He took a long look on his own portrait; he wore his heirloom armor that was passed down from one lord to another with his helmet under his right arm. He remembered how long he had to stay in that pose; his brown fur had been brushed eighteen times, his whiskers equally as tended around his pink nose. Mordred took a sigh to his younger self, a young buck that had never had his steel tested outside of duel in his noble circle, a simpler time he wish he could go back too.

He regained his focus bringing his attention back to the task at hand. He pushed against the highly decorative doors inward just enough for him to walk into the massive throne room without much effort. The newly called 'Seat of the Malefic' was equally as dark as the hallway outside, torches covered the circular chamber with a large chandelier that hung above the single throne that was the sole focus in the entire room. Mordred continued his way into the flickering chamber coming closer to the occupied throne that took up the spot where the seats of the past leaders once sat along with most of the furniture leaving only a single seat in the dark chamber secluding the Malefic from society.

"You failed Mordred." The Malefic stated in a cold disappointing and condescending tone.

The Sanguine Lord stopped in his advance, "Milord I told you this plan was going to be a failed endeavor, we should have just sent in a team of Valkyrie onto the space station the human was on and just captured him during the night!"

The Malefic was still blanketed in shadows but every so often the hanging chandelier would illuminate his ancient form as the cold air of Midguard's brutal winter would blow in through the opened hallway causing it to sway ever so slightly.

"Need I naught remind you, Mordred." The Malefic's voice was sharp in his words, "We are fighting a war on multiple fronts, the human would have been an invaluable resource and the world we attacked had also ample amounts of bodies to not only replace our losses but to fuel my armies further."

"My lord we murdered countless of innocent people! Is this is what the Empire has been reduced too, Petty scrap mites?"

"The old Empire is long dead, Mordred, the Blood Cabal is the new authority and its authority is my will." He added showing his clenched fist that was wrapped in bandages before returning his hand back into the shadows. "I suggest you lose your sense of forlorn chivalry, the cabal is here not to make friends or alliances, I formed it for a single purpose Mordred; unrelenting vengeance against our enemies, you among anyone should know what the cabal stands for."

Mordred did not answer.

"It's only a matter of time before we can expect our enemies to attack us now that they have the human with them to bolster their little group, work with Malero and fix this problem, immediately"

"By your command Lord Malefic."

Sanguine Lord Mordred turned on his heels and marched out the chamber leaving the sinister creature alone to his own thoughts.

[Andromeda Galaxy/ Draconian Kingdom Controlled Territory/ Xolotl Cluster/Planet Drakos / Caer Scalesworn /2nd Dynasty]

Arjun Fiaz awoke to find himself in a rather large bedroom; the ceiling was far higher than anything he could imagine. In fact everything in the room was ten times larger than what was needed from the bed to the armories, dressers, and the giant lizard statues that stood near the equally over-sized door. He did a double take back at the obsidian statues as every time he looked away he could swear that they turned on spot to follow their gaze on him, he would have noticed if the only light source had been more than a handful of torches placed evenly around the bedroom.

"So...am I dead?" Arjun asked rhetorically looking over the bedside to see he was a couple meters off the ground, "Or has Valor taken up a new medieval theme to its dorms now?"

The large thick wooden door began to creak open and he could hear the small patter of footsteps enter the room. Arjun stood straight up on the comically large bed and walked over to the edge where he saw the first pseudo-normal thing since he woke up, a black skinned human was staring back at him, he was armored in full plate mail like he had gotten lost from a medieval festival, in fact as Arjun looked around; between the lizard statues who wielded both shield and sword, and the torches, he saw himself the one that was out of place.

"Feeling better?" The knight asked with his helmet underneath his arm.

"The...hell am I?" Arjun said back still looking around.

"Why should I tell you?" The man answered.

"What?"

"Come again?"

"I said-" Arjun spoke before he was interrupted by the knight's small chuckle.

"Sorry I was just seeing how long we could go with answering each other's questions with questions."

"Ah...uh." Arjun said half thinking the man below was insane. "And yea, I'm fine. Now how did I end up here, last second I was on Geneva now...?"

"Well first slide on off and I'll tell yea."

Arjun looked over the bed and dropped to the stone floor where the silver knight was right there to greet him. With how decorative and well-polished his full plate suit was it looked like the man had stepped out of a time machine from when humans still used castles. Tiny rivets went up the side of his legs and arms, and around his joints he could see the layers of thick chain mail that was worn underneath. His helmet had a single slit that ran across the front of it allowing for him to see out with the helmet pointing outward making a small beak like design. As Arjun examined closer he saw that his armor was incredibly ornate with small carvings in his armor that looked like it they recorded previous conflicts.

"Well it's finally good to meet you Arjun, I'm Mitchel." He stated holding out his hand for a shake which Arjun took still holding the knight out at arm's length with a cocked eyebrow.

"So...what's with the get up? Valor is going retro in its power armor now?"

"Valor...Valor...Valor....! Valor!" Mitchell said scratching his chin. "It's good to hear their still kicking around."

"What do you mean 'kicking around' it's kind of hard to not notice the galaxy spanning super power."

Mitchel laughed, "Trust me; spend two minutes in our neck of the woods and you'll have bigger concerns if a moon was going to drop on your head. I will also assume that you already met the lovely Blood Cabal before you came here?"

"You mean the hollow men right?"

Mitchell laughed, "That's a good name for them; I'm going to steal that if you don't mind. But yes sorry it took us so long to extract you, Mordred and his goons were on you like a wheat tick on a thorn beast."

Arjun scratched his head, "Where you the one throwing those daggers back there?" He asked.

Mitchel let out a hearty laugh, "By Elder I wish I was that good but no, I'm more of a direct kind of guy." The knight gestured towards the door, "We should properly get moving."

"What for?"

"Well for your training of course." The knight stated like it was the most obvious thing in the world.

"Training? What the hell is even going on?"

Mitchell slapped himself on the forehead for not realizing how new Arjun was to his world, "I'm not sure how much Mordred told you but you are a part of something really great, we are a small group of protectors that defend against the many evils in this realm which include the Blood Cabal."

"And what if I don't want this?" Arjun answered.

"Don't...don't want it? Arjun you becoming a dragoon is one in....well a lot, there are billions of people here who would kill for a chance at that, besides until the Blood Cabal is finally put down you need this otherwise you'll never be safe. You saw what the Malefic went at lengths to do just to get you; he will do it over and over again until we dragoons finally put his bandaged ass into the grave. "

Arjun looked around trying to think of his options when he took a long sigh, "Goddammit. Alright if it well keeps those cyber freaks off my back then I'll join you, Im dead either way it looks like."

"That's the spirit!" Mitchel smiled, "Now let's go meet up with some of the heroes you'll be working with before we head on out."

[Milky Way Galaxy/ Sol Cluster/Valor Controlled Territory/ Mars Titan Class Destroyer 'Hammer of Valor'/Special Forces Wing / Mission Briefing/ Star Cycle 534, Year 3,528]

Jonathan Highcastle took his seat beside Dacota who was chatting it up with a black and white Vulphus who had his wings folded close to his back. The two of them gave the lieutenant a casual wave before going back to talk about what ever crossed their minds, women, past missions, or whose team should have won last night's game.

He still had a light headache after the operation but the head surgeon had told him it was normal and would pass within the day. He still had the small pamphlet that he was given tucked away in his pocket that went over all the procedures that separated a Black Star from mere men and women; Pallas plating infused with the skeletal body turning bones into unbreakable steel, lungs and heart replaced with artificial improvements needed to keep oxygen circulated on how much strain their bodies went through, and a myriad of other benefits that John glazed over as they went into details and words that only a macrial would think was a plain language.

The mission briefing room was much like what he was used too, a semicircular room with a single podium that was at the bottom floor like a professor speaking to his or her students. Most of the seats had been filled at the point when John had come in, almost all of the out of uniform soldiers were of the vulphus race which did not surprise him, they were natural born warriors so it seemed fit they dominated the Black Stars.

One of the doors near John's seating swung open inward so XB-1 could enter, his black and yellow armor plating polished to a shine. It didn't seem to notice John as it made its way down to the podium at the bottom where it stopped to the left of it.

"Alright ladies lets settle down." A rather tall vulphus stated casually pointing at Dacota's position in the audience, "That goes double for you Friesen."

A couple of chuckles went through the veterans but Jukebox who remained focused on piddling away at his wrist mounted computer. "We are now at full on attendance, Colonel." XB-1 added shortly after that was drowned out by the out of uniform Black Stars still quieting down.

Colonel Shadow Wing drummed his right claw on the well-polished podium until there were only a few settle coughs and adjusting in the seats.

"Jukebox hit the lights and bring up the Star Map will you?" The veteran vulphus ordered to the war droid.

The macrial shaped droid entered a few commands into his wrist for the briefing room to suddenly be developed into total darkness only to be illuminated once more by the projected image of the Milky Way Galaxy that took up the space that separated the podium from the audience that emitted a blue glow from the holo-projectors.

"Intelligence has track down the unknown assholes responsible for Geneva's attack to the Andromeda Galaxy and High Command has authorized all out full scale counter attack." The colonel stated as the map zoomed out then focused on the galaxy closet to their own, red blinks pinged on the map on several planets with corresponding satellite imagery of the planet's surface as they ranged from ice worlds to dense jungle. "The egg heads down in R and D have isolated a unique energy signature the hollow men use that is represented in both their ground forces..." the image of the planets faded away to be replaced with the robe wearing sentinel undead and beside it was the mummy like undead whose limbs were replaced with rusted blades. "...Navy and air support."

Colonel Shadow Claw moved off from his spot to allow General Charles Wareman to take his spot, all eyes was on the psychic officer who strode in with his gloved hands behind his back. Charles let out a long slender finger to tap a button on his pedestal before placing his hand back behind his back.

"Director Thanatos is adamant that the only way to defeat our enemy is to understand the enem-"

Suddenly Dacota coughed on purpose to get some unneeded attention which caused Wareman to look up directly at the individual.

"Yes, Friesen?"

"What's there to understand about the scrap heads? They attacked Geneva then ran off, no doubt when they learned 'Cracker Jack' here was about to shove a foot up their asses" He answered smiling pointing both of his thumbs at himself.

"They properly left because you smell like the ass-end of a sand toad." A voice from the back row said without pause which Dacota rolled his eyes at the response.

"Both of you stow the attitude!" Shadow Claw ordered losing his already short temper.

Charles Wareman continued, "Either way the director has given us the go ahead to launch a vanguard strike within enemy territory, we will assess the enemy strengths, cripple their industry and provide general recon for the invasion fleet." The psi-op officer gestured for Jukebox to turn on the next set of holograms. "Our first target has been confirmed to be the regrouped invasion force that has settled on this planet..."

The holo-image zoomed in on the mentioned planet that revealed to be a lifeless desert world. Giant metal towers stuck out of the sand dunes like a sore thumb with satellite imagery of hollow men star ships landed around their own alien version of a space port.

"...To resupply, the vanguard fleet will shock jump into the planet's orbit and begin bombarding the space port once the initial defence fleet have been neutralized. You gentlemen will be sent in to secure the hollow men's secondary bases while the fifth infantry regiment and the twenty-second light armored company draw the main defence forces away." Wareman nodded to Jukebox to end the holo projections and to turn the lights back on. "We will be shipping out tomorrow; additional details for your specific assignments will be available through your personal data assistants. XB-1 will also have back-up copies if it wasn't sent correctly."

With the end of the briefing the general adjusted his cap and proceeded to walk out of the room when the colonel waited for Wareman to be out of earshot when he pointed at Dacota, "Open your mouth like that again I swear I'll shove my foot so far up your ass you will choking on leather."

[Andromeda Galaxy/ Draconian Kingdom Controlled Territory/ Xolotl Cluster/Planet Drakos / Caer Scalesworn /2nd Dynasty]

Arjun followed the fifteen century looking knight through an incredibly large hallway. He felt like ant walking down the street of a Core World, the arch ways that led to different parts of the castle were so large that even the largest construction drones could easily fit through and then some.

"With you here Arjun, I really think we can put down the Malefic and his Blood Cabal once and for all." Mitchel stated

"I hardly think that another one of you guys would do that much." Arjun answered half paying attention looking at a giant of a statue that touched the celling with its head. The statue like the ones where he woke up, it held a tower shield that covered most of its body with its sword just behind it, its hilt poking out from behind.

"You'd be surprise how much a difference we can make in a situation." Mitchel responded never checking to see if Arjun was still following him.

"Can I ask something?" Arjun asked

"What is it?"

"What's with the knight armor, you do know that power armor was invented like over five hundred years ago..."

'Who says I wasn't wearing power armor?" Mitchel answered.

"Well for starters you have no battery pack."

The knight laughed that echoed in his armor, "It's enchanted with the best of arcane magic that only the most dedicated of magisters can pull of."

"Magic? Right...." Arjun said with great disbelief, "What like pulling a rabbit out of a hat?"

Mitchel shook his head while rolling his eyes at the question, "I'm sure you are fully aware of the Blood Cabal's sentinels."

"Yea, what about them?"

"Well those guys aren't running on Duracell if that's what you thought, the cabal reanimates the dead of both ours and theirs for the Malefic's army."

Arjun looked down the hallway as he felt they had been walking forever, "Yea this Malefic sounds a great guy; must have been fun at parties."

Mitchell let out a small chuckle before taking a long sigh, "Khraven or 'The Malefic' as he calls himself now was like us, being dragoons or 'heroes' as some call us that is, but ever since he broke into the Arcane Library and learned the ability to command blood magic he began turning his own people, and anyone else into his fun band of cyber zombies."

Torches continued to flare in their variety of colors in unison, switching from one to the other. Arjun still kept his distance from the silver knight thinking this could all be some kind of interrogation the cabal had set up after he was knocked out.

"You keep saying that we are dragoons or heroes want to explain that a bit?" Arjun asked looking past the silver knight to see if the end of this hallway was ever going to show itself.

"I don't really want to bore you with a history lesson as of this moment but to get you the short answer, Elder, a really, really powerful guy gave some of us the potential to be truly powerful." Mitchell answered as he cocked his head to the side to see when the next turn in the grand hallway was coming up, "Normally this plays into a person's own personality and strengths, intelligence, aptitude for magic, skill with a blade and so forth." Arjun was about to open his mouth to speak that he never felt that but he reconsidered it, instead he thought back to when he fought the skeletal dragon and even aboard the Crimson. "Elder named the mortals he gifted this power to and called them 'Dragoons' to help keep the peace on a giant scale. You, me, and a whole array of colorful characters are dragoons who have been lucky enough to win the lottery at birth to be gifted such a chance. Both Mordred and Khraven were dragoons but their own greed caused them gain short sightedness and formed the Blood Cabal thinking they can rule the realm.

"Great, wake up one morning thinking you're going out on a patrol, few hours later I'm a part of an ancient order to defeat an evil necromancer, did I get the of all that?" Arjun stated.

Mitchell laughed in his same way shaking his head "Ah there we go, were almost out now." The knight said pointing towards the enormous castle doorway that marked both the exit and entrance to the almost obscenely large hallway. "We'll get you suited up, some training and if there's time meet some of your fellow co-workers."

Arjun shook his head with a sigh thinking on what kind of hell he's gotten himself involved in.