Commissioned Story: Fang, Part 5 (Patreon)

Nemea held the door open for herself with a footpaw as she wiggled her way inside.  Several boxes full of Sam's belongings were tucked under one burly arm, hardly heavy to one of her size and power but cumbersome all the same.  She growled softly as she snagged the corner of one of them against the doorframe and stuck before she adjusted and slid inside fully.  The door rattled closed, automatic lock latching back into place and she turned back to confront the empty, dark gym.

She paused, midstride across the breadth of the floor towards the stairs leading up to the office and backroom where he slept.  Something lingered in the air, something out of place.  It was a familiar scent, one that she would not have blinked twice to know was there as it was constantly around.  But not today.  Not for several days.  The scent, a soft, iron-like musk, was fresh, fresh enough to mean they were here.

A pang of uncertainty wracked the huge Alpha and she peered through the gloom.  Someone was sitting on the steps to the office.  A second later, she identified the twitching, scarred ear tips of the source of the scent.

"Kilboros?" she asked, voice quiet and surprised.  They turned to look over their shoulder at her, flinty eyes gleaming like lanterns in the dark.  They said nothing.  "What are you doing here?"

A snort came, grim and unamused.  "I work here, don't I, boss?" they asked.  Their tone, usually dry, taciturn, and without inflection, sounded off.  It was as if they were deliberately speaking to try and sound like they usually did, and that only made it all the more startling to hear.

"True..." Nemea rumbled, walking slowly closer.  Her paw tightened on the boxes in her grasp, uncertainty and instinct gnawing at her that something was terribly wrong.  "Haven't seen you for the last few days," she commented.

"Been busy with the other job," they replied.  "Not that you've really called or checked in.  Have to take care of myself anyways."  Did they sound... bitter?

"I'm not your mother," she growled right back, trying to return to their usual, gruff, joking manner.  "I figured you would let me know if something was wrong."

No light, however subtle or slight, shone in those grim, haunted eyes that had seen and experienced many horrible things, as traumatized and troubled in their own way as hers had been.  Combat, prison, many dark and twisted dealings of their time before working for her; Kilboros had had a hard life.  Their friendship, while unorthodox, had settled into an easy regimen: taunts, jests, jibes, and thinly-veiled respect hidden behind growls.

They said nothing.  Nemea's fur began to stand on end.  She drew closer and now her keen nose smelled other things.  New scents.  Unfamiliar, unknown scents, and many of them.  Her jaw tightened and her muscles twinged as Aggression warred to begin surging through her.

"Kilboros?" she asked once more.  They met her gaze, now only ten or so feet between them now that she had rounded the stairs and was gazing right at one another.  The smells came from behind them, above them, from the open door to the office...  Her green eyes went severe, cold, and wide.  "...What...did you do...?"

Silver orbs of winter chill narrowed up at her and their shoulders slumped as if the weight of years and many sins were coming down heavily and harder than ever before in their life.  They looked away.

"What did you do?" she snarled, tension pushing her restraint out of the window.  The boxes fell to the ground and she rolled forwards a step, paws lifting, claws extended, and hackles raised.  Her eyes flashed up, past Kilboros, to the office and mentally past it, to the backroom where Sam was.  Where...he was supposed to be.  "Kilboros..."

At that last uttering of their name, the Lynx hybrid flinched visibly.  Gone was her scared, angry tone.  Nemea's voice rolled out from her like the hiss of fallen Royals, the temperature of the air spiking in both heat and cold as pure Fury leaked from her.  They met her eyes once more, and they were colder than winter twilight without moonlight to give any radiance to a barren, unfeeling, and frozen heart.

"Your problem is you care too much," they growled softly, under their breath, the equivalent of a full on snarl.  "You, like all the Alphas, think just because you're bigger, and stronger, and scarier than others, just are immune to the dangers of others."  Their tone was bitter, sharp as acid, and bit into her like fangs and talons of ice.  "Nemea Spartos, the champion of the ghetto, the queen of the downtrodden.  Come hither to her side, ye abandoned and forgotten, and find solace and strength in a Royal scaleless."

"Kilboros!" Nemea snarled, baring all of her fangs.  Her eyes whipped up from them again and she called out, "Sam!"  There was no reply.  Her gaze fell onto them again, weight heavy like hammerblows, and her claws itched to tear.  Old rage, old pain, rushed into the void forming in her stomach, an acrid, sour taste filling her maw.  "Where?"

The Hybrid met her eyes, trying to match the hatred lurking there...but it had never dwelt in them.  Kilboros' head slumped and their ears folded down.  Their gaze panned to the floor from where it did not move.  "You can't make a difference here," she heard them mutter.

"Where?" she snapped again.

"You cannot just muscle your way through life like you have," they continued.  "You can't just roll your lip, show some fang, flash some Aggro, and expect the world to obey.  There are wounds that don't heal, some fears that never fade...and you can't save them all."

The words lanced through her, twinging old scars and making her muscles seize and ache.  She saw again the winter forest, black pines and white snow backdrop interrupted periodically with flashes of yellow, white, red.  Grim decorations like spilled paint dotted the trees, the snow, the torn ground.  She saw the enemy as she stalked through the brush, fallen comrades' names filling her head, their dogtags hanging from her neck.  The insurgent turned to face the copse of trees she lurked behind, too slow.

Her paw latched onto a throat, claws digging in through the fur, and the Alpha roared as she drew back her other fist and fangs, ready to tear.  Sharp pain lanced through her, not the tactical blade shoved into her ribs, but new pain.  Joint pain.

The world and cold of the past fell away and she stiffened to see Kilboros' paw latched onto her wrist where she had it locked around their fluffy neck.  The pressure she exerted should have been enough to crumple their windpipe but they returned it just as strong to her joint, disabling much of her mighty Alpha strength in a simple lock.  Furious green eyes met cold grey.

"Accept that some are too far gone for even you," they whispered to her.  "Some of us cannot be saved."  Their limbs, although not visibly, shook beneath the thick fur from the strain and warring strength between them.  "Accept it, Fang."

Nemea Spartos roared again, the sound filling and echoing around the interior of the gym.  She hauled back and tugged Kilboros off the stairs.  She would smash them against a wrack of weights nearby, pin their spine and break the hold they had on her wrist.  If she couldn't tear them apart for this betrayal, she would break them.  She would ~!

Rapid, furious punches, two, three, four, hammered into her ribs and exposed side.  Breath exploded from her and her grip on the Lynx faltered.  Theirs did not.  In a whirl, Kilboros flipped up around her arm, hanging on like a demented spider, and in an instant had seemingly teleported onto her back, footpaws never touching the ground.  Her arms were pinned behind her back by their clever lock, one arm wrapped around her throat and cutting off her air, while the other held the grapple in place.

Lights flashed in her eyes as her oxygen began to falter and she saw spots.  Rage, Fury, Aggression warred inside of her and she snarled, her lips feeling wet and her side throbbing.  She whirled and spun in place, unable to dislodge their deadly chokehold from around her neck but not giving up.  The traitor hung on stubbornly, if anything tightening their grip.

A bluff, to make them think she was choking out.  No, that would never work; Kilboros was a killer, just like her, and would hang on long after she stopped moving to make sure the takedown was final.  A bodyslam against a wall or wrack.  Also no, they were far too fast and would expect that; they would move out of the way in time given she was fighting blind and being stunned would be just as much of a death sentence as doing nothing.

Mind racing, throat tight, she tried to bite at the arm holding her throat but Kilboros had expertly locked their arm underneath her jaw, making her fearsome fangs effectively useless, and her paws were pinned, pad to pad, against one another, so she couldn't claw them.  She had no defense like this and was rapidly running out of air, and time.

Who knew where Sam had been taken?  Who knew how long ago, or what they would do to him?  She didn't have time to fight against someone like Kilboros, even if she wasn't being choked out.  She didn't have time.  She couldn't fight.  All her power was abruptly being used against her.  Fury gave way to an even colder feeling, one she had tried furiously to never feel again: fear.  For someone other than herself.

"P-please..." she grated out, still straining against their hold.  It ceased growing tighter but did not relax.  "Please...Kil...boros..."

Silence was her only reply.

Vision fading, blackness creeping in, the Alpha's knees thumped down onto the ground.  They jostled atop of her but did not dislodge.  "L-let...me...s-save him..."

A small, awful, cold growl resounded in her ear.  "You aren't listening, boss.  You can't save everyone.  You couldn't then, and you've never forgiven yourself for it.  Just..." their voice cut off slowly and drew to a long, drawn out pause, perhaps only a few seconds but a life time for her with air and consciousness rapidly running out.  "Just let go.  I'm sorry it has to be this way...but I pay my debts..."

Tears dotted her scarred cheeks, leaking from her closed eyes.  "Y-you...aren't...this..." she rasped, barely able to think anymore.  "You...aren't...who you used...to...be."  The grip tightened again and she hacked out a cough but stubbornly held on.  Nemea could not give up.  "P-please..."

"Why?" they grated out in a harsh, broken voice.  "Why can't you just accept I'm a monster, Fang?  I've done things I cannot be forgiven for.  I'll only ever hate myself more for tonight...because..."  They took a deep, shuddering inhale...and the pressure lifted just barely.  Enough to allow a small rush of air into her.  "Because you...were the best of anyone I'd ever met...you...let me in.  You were the best of us all...and you're throwing it away."  Their voice snarled, echoing in her ears like those in a deep cave.  "Why do you get to have a happy ending?  Why do you get to make peace, when I never will?  I'll remember this day forever...  And I hate...what I have to do..."

"Except..." Nemea coughed, straining to stay breathing and aware with the little burst of life she had been given.  "You don't have to do this, Kilboros.  You can let me free.  Sam is out there, in trouble."

"Nothing he didn't bring down on himself," they countered.  "It's eat or be eaten, Fang; kill or be killed.  The strong survive to rule over the weak.  You should know that rule better than anyone."

"Strength...is nothing..." she gasped out.  "Without...honor."  Her head was spinning and the world was slowly falling away as if being sucked down into a mighty, dark whirlpool from which there would be no return.  "You...will always be...my...friend...Kil...boros."

The grip faltered, tremors wracking those iron-hard, scar-covered limbs.  It was not much in the way of an opening, but it was enough.  Rolling her shoulders slowly forward as if finally succumbing, Nemea suddenly hammered her head back, smashing the back of her skull against Kilboros' muzzle.  They let out a startled grunt, the scent of blood now in the air, and the pressure atop of her lifted.

Still raggedly coughing and gasping for air as life surged back into her limbs, she whirled on the briefly stunned Kilboros and her paws latched onto their lithe, powerful frame on the ground.  There was a brief, blind struggle, before she pinned them.  Too easy of a takedown.  She glared down, head throbbing, eyes straining to recover the ability to see properly again, and the taste of Fury still filling her maw.

Her friend, the Hybrid, gazed up at her flatly from the ground, arms pinned beneath her mighty paws, and their expression strangely calm, although their nose was covered in bright red now.  Their fur almost looked deflated and all fight seemed to have completely gone out of them.  Those cold eyes closed and they lifted their throat up, baring it to her.

It would have been so easy.  A single bite and her rage would be assuaged, she would have revenge on the one she had trusted most only to betray her.  But Nemea was not some hot-blooded youngling, not some fresh-faced Warrior.  There was more at stake here than her anger, than her pride.  She took a deep, swallow of air, and pushed back her Aggression.

Kilboros stiffened at the change in her scent, but even more so as something cold and wet splattered onto their face.  Their eyes opened again, shocked, to see the small lines of tears still leaking down her scarred muzzle.  Their ears went completely erect before her, gang tag brightly showing against the pale fur.

"Please..." she begged them in a whispered tone, weakness and vulnerability shining through.  "Please help me.  Help me save him.  The strong who prey on the weak have no honor.  That meant something to you, long ago."

Their eyes closed again.  "For what I've done..." they breathed, each rise and fall of their chest resolved and reticent.

Nemea did not let them finish.  Instead her paw lifted and, even gently, the resounding slap she gave them across the cheek echoed around the gym.  Their eyes flew open, head rocking to the side, and gazed up at her in open-eyed shock.  "It doesn't matter what you did!" she snarled at them.  "What matters is what you do.  The Spirits may judge you harshly for sins but no harder than you have already judged yourself.  You are only ever honorless if you give up on the chance to redeem yourself.  Evil is not nature, evil is the ease of choice when you believe you have none.  I've seen you, Kilboros.  I see you.  You, are not, evil."

Her head lowered and brushed her furry brow against theirs.  They trembled beneath her, breath hot and rapid against her face.  Her grip on their arms lifted and she just kneeled there atop of them.  Eventually she stood, holding out a scarred paw to them.  They took it mutedly and she hauled them up to their paws, the heaviest weight she could remember.  Then the two broken warriors embraced each other, arms tight enough to make each other's bones creak.

"Where?" she whispered down against their flickering ear.

"...The docks," they muttered back.  "Old canning plant."

Nemea knew exactly the place, having studied the area extensively when she moved here and set up her gym.  Certain areas of the lower wards were dangerous even for an Alpha like her, but she had staked out her own territory and guarded it well, believing they would keep to theirs.  She had been wrong, but that slight would be corrected tonight.

"Come with me," she growled as they stepped back away from one another, fur tight and tense even with their peacemaking.

They shook their head.  "Orders were to stay here and deal with anyone who might ask questions.  If I show back up there, they'll suspect something is up.  This was supposed to be my last job, but I fail to believe that he will honor that.  He never has."

"Who is he?"

"Vinny Obersteer."

Nemea nodded again.  "How many men does he have?"

"A dozen Human goons, half that in Anthros.  No Alphas, but personal firearms issued to them all."  They gestured at the stairs and in short order they had both climbed up into her office and they rapidly clicked onto her computer, pulling up a 3-D satellite map layout of the surrounding lower ward.  They pointed at a specific building, clicked onto it to enlarge the picture, and printed it out.  Grabbing up a yellow marker, they highlighted various doors and spots.  "Cameras here, loading bay doors are wired with alarms."

Nemea watched with a scowl, mentally cataloguing the information as it was fed to her in rapid-fire format.  Her mind, still torn and worried over the idea of Sam being imprisoned and no doubt probably soon to be made an example, locked away her emotions the way that Verastalyx had taught her to do so.  Vera Frost, aka the Royal who had personally instructed her when she joined the Black Legion, also the owner of One Star Enterprises in Kallos, had drilled the importance of tactical winter into her mind during their many grueling training sessions where the towering Anthro had overpowered her time and time again.

"Harden your mind, shut away your emotions, Nemea Spartos," she remembered the Dragon Anthro's voice clearly in her mind.  "Be as the Void.  Do not fight with rage, or Fury.  Fight with the intent to kill, with the goal of protecting those you would keep from harm.  You will be as a Fang to your enemy, the sharp edge of judgment, and the final shadow to fall across those who dare to draw your ire.  I train you not as a soldier, or a killer.  I train you, my child, as Warrior in the Dark, and wish you the brightest of Lights to one day lead you home."

Nemea finished listening to Kilboros' hurried briefing, seeing the past shared military expertise in every ounce of their words and actions.  They exchanged a nod before she turned, stomped into the backroom, and changed from her casual clothes into tight-fitting tactical black ones, comprising of a sleeveless turtleneck, army cargo pants, and heavy reinforced boots and gloves meant for delivering lethal punches but leaving her claws exposed.  The fabric was still stiff even after all this time, dark stains visible only to those who knew to look for them.

Once she had returned to the office, she turned at last to the poster of herself in her younger days and tore it from the wall.  Behind it, the small, black-iron safe rested.  The code was a bitter memory to her, that dark day she fought always to forget, for what rested inside would forever haunt her each time she even thought about them.

This time, as the door slid open and she reached inside, paw pad falling upon hard metal and withdrawing it, she knew that once more she must become the Fang that everyone knew of and feared.  For once, she did not fear it herself.  The black-steel, skull-like armored mask slipped on over her muzzle, straps frayed but as tight behind her ears as she remembered.   Etched into the temple of it was a simple mark: a crescent moon with three slashes across it.  When next she looked out on the world from behind its eye sockets, she saw Kilboros visibly shrink before her savage visage.

"Respectfully?  Boss?" they muttered, and she blinked once, eyes now bare flickering gems of emerald fire behind the now fully face-concealing Black Legion combat mask.  "I hoped I'd never see you wear that thing."

"I'd hoped I'd never have to again," she growled out from behind it, voice muffled and steely.  She looked back to the safe and retrieved the items stowed in there as well: a metal, rounded baton about the length of her forearm and as thick around as three of her burly fingers, a single-edged tactical blade of roughly the same length, almost a sword, and a bracer for each arm, into which each weapon was slotted into for easy carrying.  She left the firearm behind in its attached holster, as stealth would be the key objective here.

Finally fully outfitted, Nemea gave her friend one last look.  The two Anthros nodded.  "What's your plan?" Kilboros asked warily.

"Get Sam back," she growled.  "And clear house."

"And if it's too late?"

Nemea turned away from her and strode down the stairs.  She heard Kilboros follow her out but pause on the landing above.  "Find a new name," the Sabretooth Alpha grunted.  She spared them, and her gym one last look.  "Because I won't be Nemea Spartos after tonight if they've hurt one hair more on his head."

The door rattled beneath her paw but she paused as Kilboros called out one final time.  "Boss."  She didn't turn, but her ear flicked back beneath the mask's sloped edge to let them know she was listening.  "Is he really worth all of this?"

She smiled beneath her mask softly.  "When you've seen death so many times, lived in nothing but the endless winter twilight of regret and loss, Kilboros," she growled out softly.  "You start to believe you will never see the sun again.  The Spirits provide for us all in unexpected ways, find new ways to make us want to live again."  The door opened beneath her might grasp and she lumbered her way through it.  "A last piece of advice, my friend.  Don't deny yourself your Sunshine when you find it."

The door swung closed with a final snap and Kilboros was left alone inside of the gym for the second time that night.  The corners of their muzzle quirked up, expression soft and small, but on their stoic face it was the equivalent of a beaming smile, ears tucking slowly down against their head in a fluster that they would never show anyone else.  Their paw slowly traced down to the phone in their pocket and plucked it out.  The screen brightened before their cold eyes as they looked down the three contacts they had.

Boss.

Jackass.

Sunshine.

Their thumbpad brushed the call icon of the last but they shook their head and switched to messages instead.  The old conversations they had shared pulled up and they reread the last few, feeling a twinge inside they had long denied but wanted so desperately to at least pretend was real.  Sadness threatened to consume them at how their last one had gone, them trying to cut ties for the other person's own good, but met only with stubborn refusal and demanding to know the real reason.  They didn't deserve Sunshine, even if they yearned to feel warmth again.

Fingers trembling, they typed out a message.

'You awake?'

...

...

Sunshine is typing...

'Yeah!  You never text this late.  Didn't you say you were working?  Is everything okay?'

'I need to see you.'

'Are you hurt?  Do I need to come get you?'

A flicker of spring warmth penetrated the barren cold of their constant winterscape of a heart.  'I'm fine.  I just needed to know it was okay.  I'll come right over.'

'Kirby, of course it is.  I always want to see you.'

Their eyes shut tight at a surge of emotion.  'Even after everything?  Can you...'  They paused, deleted the last two words, then retyped them from determination to at least finally be brave enough to ask; no fight, no job, nothing in their life had ever been as hard as this was.  'Can you forgive me?'

' :) There's nothing to forgive.  Come over.'

'Ok.'  They put down the phone and took a deep, shuddering breath.  Their phone buzzed with one last message.

'I love you, Kirby.'

There was the longest pause.  'I love you too, Sunshine.'  A veritable wall of emojis and flowery text greeted them in response.

'Can I ask one favor more than the absolute blessing it is to finally have you say that back to me?  I know how hard it is for you to open up like that, after everything you've told me about your past.  But I gotta know.'

They sent Sunshine a 'thumb's up' emoji in response, already having left the gym on long-legged strides back out of the Lower Wards and towards the upper city.

'Why do you call me Sunshine?'

Kilboros smiled gently to themselves in only the way that Sunny could make them.  'I'll tell you when I get there.'  They tucked the phone firmly back into their pocket and continued striding on.  They spared one last look out back across the warehouses towards the distant docks.  There, a very different battle of the heart would be taking place, and they wished they could be there to help.  But if anyone could triumph, it would be her.

"Good luck, Boss," they whispered to the night air, then turned and headed on up the street.  It already felt warmer.

***END OF PART 5***