Shiinx POV

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That poor boy almost didn’t make it on Tier in his ‘feral’ form. I’m still blown away by the difference in his personality from the condition he was in when we first found him, or rather, how he found us, versus the Forza Ninetails I know. Our meeting was almost the end of his life. Or was it nearly the end of mine? It’s hard to say.

Life on Tier had been pretty quiet. Our job here was anything but legit, but the illegitimate functions had been slow. A select few of us, intelligence officers from the System’s Alliance, were tasked with monitoring the Sun Jin Empire’s activity in the area by posing as a neutral branch of a logistics and mercenary company, Asuya Company. It was one of many companies like it that littered the forest planet, waiting for work, and thus money, from whoever controlled the planet. For now it was the Sun Jin. They paid well to have their weapons restocked and cargo transferred to planetary storage for later pickup by proper transports, but for our outfit the real payoff was the intelligence we could gather from what kind of cargo they were carrying, where their ships were going, from where, etc.

I still remember being summoned to General Ukatan’s office. I’d never met the new special operations overseer. Not many had. He had only recently taken charge of all the secret military projects after the last overseer was assassinated by Sun Jin operatives.

“Tier’s a remote planet, out in the middle of nowhere. It’ll be a big change of scenery for you, Lieutenant Shiinx. Are you sure you’re ok with this position?” A rare feline Amber Krowen breed. White fur with gray spots, short in height, and white swept back hair. He finished a long gaze out the skyscraper office window and turned to look at me with a grin I just couldn’t trust. He had those eerie glowing ice blue eyes behind his glasses. “Last chance.”

With a small gulp I nodded my head. “Sir. Job needs to be done. I’ve been looking for an out of office vacation anyway.”

He laughed quietly and looked out the window again, arms folded behind his back just above his thick white and gray Amber Krowen tail’s base. “Your team’s being assembled. You’ll have time on the way there to familiarize yourself with the finer details of your position. You’ll be assuming command of the Asuya Co operation. Good luck.”

“Sir,” I saluted, turned, and left.

Now here I am, Tier. Seems like a lifetime ago, I thought as I knelt beside his bed stroking a finger through Forza’s sleeping hair, since I’ve been here. All the information we’ve been able to send back to Amber Krowe, ranging from the typical onboard diet of a Sun Jin officer to the schematics of new weapon systems, and yet the most important mystery and secret we’ve been unable to crack is the one inside Forza Ninetail’s head.

I sighed to myself, resting at the side of his bed, lowing my muzzle to the soft padding of the mattress he laid on, and watched him in the darkness. He stirred a lot. He was uncomfortable. I couldn’t get it out of him why. It wouldn’t be for weeks longer until he’d finally start talking more openly to me instead of crying in my arms every other day.

The ‘feral’ form I spoke of, our meeting, still makes me chuckle. It was a close brush with death and yet it’ll happily remain the day I met him to me. Much later down the line I would find out it wasn’t too dissimilar to when Forza investigated the crashed vessel and found Kiara. Instead I lead a team to find the source of a distress signal originating from a team sent out to repair damages to a weathered listening post in the mountains.

What the nine of us found were bodies. Three dead technicians, and two of my soldiers, slaughtered. They were ravaged. There was blood everywhere. Some of them with their insides on the outside. Of course, how safe are we to be here at night? Great planning, right… but I feared for their safety and waiting until day to mount a rescue would be too late.

Throughout our time there we kept hearing sounds that kept us on our toes. Rocks rattling, tree branches being bothered, twigs snapping, and so on. Our support was on the way to gather the bodies and damaged equipment but we still had to hold our ground in case whatever did this came back.

“What the fuck?” shouted one to himself standing just outside the small station’s main entrance.

“What is it,” I asked with my back to him trying to help clean up.

I heard him take a few steps away and then the simultaneous sound of his gunfire mixed with his shouting, then the gargling of his voice choking on blood. Of course we all readied our rifles and filed out of the compound. I was near the back of the group and only one of us could fit out of the door at a time. Death trap. Whoever it was knew we couldn’t all exit at once and waited until most of us were outside.

Everything was still pitch black besides where our rifles flashlights were pointing. The station was powerless and gave no illumination, of course, right? As the first person exited the doorway I saw a black wipe of something, a weapon I’m guessing, swooping down sideways along the top part of the opening, and the spray of blood from his head, another body on the floor. The dark figure landed on the dirt, and the weapon went through two more of my men. They fell over moaning in pain, bleeding.

By the time all of us got outside only four of us were still standing uninjured. I looked back and forth, weapons at the ready, trying to see where it was, but we saw nothing. An ambush was coming, again. It’s a very deep feeling when you fear for your life but you have to hold on and keep your eye on the target... once you find it that is.

I signaled to one of my men to assist the wounded and when I turned to look forward again I saw something out of the corner of my eye. I turned my head, but I hesitated in turning my body to draw down on it. I don’t know why I waited. Maybe I didn’t want to alarm it, or my men, and start another slaughter. With my body forward I instead kept my head turned to the side eyeing him. I could see him. It …

Before me was a dark figure on his hands and knees with his side to me holding a hand crafted spear in his hand. Like a cat, he looked like he was watching us, studying us, waiting to strike with his thick tail stretched outward stiff but with some loose sway in it. All I could see was the dark outline, his silhouette I could tell from the wide flat fins running down his spine, from his shoulders, and on his hips, that he was a typical build Amber Krowen. I could also tell he was naked. Don’t ask how. Why though? What’s up with all of that? What’s he doing out here like this? Why were those dimly illuminated red eyes staring at me? He knew I was looking right at him, right? He studied me, a few slow drips of blood leaving the tip of the crudely crafted spear.

Gunfire. One of them saw him and opened fire. “Take that you bitch!” He shouted, amongst other things. I didn’t know what to do. I turned my gun to face the Krowen, to light the area, but he was gone.

The dark figure landed right on top of the one firing at him and pierced his light body armor with the spear, right in the heart. More gunfire from the others as they realized what was happening.

Their flashlights lit up the area but the Krowen quickly leapt away from the light with unnatural speed, taking its weapon with him. The light, the bits I saw, the Krowens fur was pitch black. No apparent coloring or shading on it at all. What gave me a small jolt of fear was seeing what it left behind. When it left the area the lights were not aimed at you could see small particles still in the vicinity slowly rising upward, shrinking, and fading away. I can only describe those small bunches of particles as darkness. The flashlights didn’t penetrate them like they would a gas, yet like a solid they did cast a light shadow. It was some kind of energy…

From behind me another soldier fell, alive but wounded. I rushed to his side, came to a sliding stop, and put my arm around him. I didn’t know what had happened to him but his blood was pouring onto my arm, and into my hand.

I looked around and saw the last nearby guard. I called out to him, he looked my way, and suddenly his whole body became a splashing blood bath. It wasn’t a weapon that did this, like the spear being used. His torso seemed to have exploded in place. Behind him, the Krowen.

Fear. All I could feel as it slowly walked towards me, cradling the wounded man, was fear. I was afraid to raise my rifle to get a better look with the light or even move. I was paralyzed. Sweat dripped off the length of my canine muzzle and my breath was fast.

All of that fear almost blinded me to what began to happen next. The Krowen took another step and stopped. Something was happening to him. He began to shutter a bit and raised his freehand to his head and pushed his head into it as if in pain. He took another step towards me and from the motion of his body I could see the dark texture of his body seemingly shift. The physical layer of his body seemed to have been sliding around, like his skin was crawling. What was happening? A splash sound. I looked towards his feet and saw him leaking something while he slowly marched towards us, grunting in pain. Was he bleeding? The liquid left on the ground was pitch black like oil and was somehow quickly absorbed into the rock surface beneath him. It continued, more and more, the black layer over his fur peeling off and splashing. His spear hit the ground followed by his knees, and onto his hands. The rest of it was rocked off his body and onto the ground and a second later his face splashed down in it as it hit the floor.

A moment passed and I hesitantly lifted the light on my gun towards the body. The Krowen transformed, or something. He had somehow shed the layer of pure black coloring and left behind this other, wounded, weak, feeble looking Krowen. This didn’t look like the same killing machine. He looked asleep, or unconscious, and in pain. His fur color had changed too. After the black seemed to drip off it left a red and black striped coat, unnatural for any Krowen breed, with a white underbelly. The black afterglow of his motions was gone too. It was as if it was a power, to transform into that darkness, and his energy had ran out leaving him tired and weak.

“What the shit, Shiinx?” The voice came from one of the random soldiers with me.

Seeing as I was being watched now I couldn’t afford the curiosity. Instead I got to my feet and held my rifle ready, approaching the unconscious Krowen.

“I don’t know,” I responded. “I don’t know.”

That night could have ended much differently for both of us. I could have died, Forza could have died. Another sigh as I closed my memory of that night and leaned over the bed a bit to kiss his forehead.

He was recovered that night, detained, and put in medical care with armed guards in the room. I watched through the window for a while each day, curious who he was and what was going on. What had I witnessed in the mountains that night? That power? That darkness?

It was haunting him, the darkness. Every night he cried in his sleep. Each day he hardly spoke. I had no idea at first what he was talking about until I came to his bedroom one night to seek the answers directly from his mouth.

I sat on the end of his bed, he paced back and forth in the middle of the room.

“It’s alive,” he said holding his forehead with his eyes closed. “It’s alive and it just wants to hurt m… everyone.”

I listened to his words, quietly, but with great focus. I’d seen how he slept. I knew he wasn’t just insane or had some condition. I’d seen the shadowy figure that he describes as a mirrored version of himself in his nightmares in person. I’d seen it with my own two eyes and I know what I saw wasn’t natural.

“I shouldn’t be here, Shiinx,” he said with a staggered breath. “You’ve been great to me, really. If I were you I would have killed me in-“

“Forza,” I cut him off. “Don’t talk like that?”

“You don’t know what it’s like. You don’t know who I am, or what I’ve done.”

I rubbed the bed, beside me, and my face went concerned. It was sort of starting to look like I was upsetting him more than helping. “Then tell me?”

He paused and stood there. With his eyes locked on where I asked him to sit he took a deep breath. He slowly, hesitantly, sat beside me. He closed his eyes and hung his head a moment. “I...” a long pause. “I don’t remember.” Forza massaged his forehead a few more moments. His expression was that of an old man trying to recall his life. It was genuine. He didn’t know.

After a slow rise of my arm I let it rest on his back. He flinched a bit, but relaxed.

Another long exhausted breath escaped his maw and he suddenly just leaned over. His head came to rest on my shoulder, and he laid there lifelessly for a few moments.

“Are you ok?” I asked looking at him best I could from the position.

“Honestly?”

“Of course,” I replied.

“Out of everything that’s been going on over the last few weeks here, ever since I woke up in that medical lab of yours, I haven’t felt safer.”

Surprised a bit, I smiled and rubbed his back a bit. “Why’s that?”

“You, actually.” His voice was calm. A nice change from his attitude only moments prior.

“What do you mean?”

“I’ve felt you. Whenever you’re around. I don’t know how to explain it.”

Seeing the calm I seemed to give him, I tried to make him more comfortable by leaning my head to the side and resting it against his.

“When I was asleep, in the medical bay, I could feel you there. Watching me. I knew you were there. It... calmed me.”

“You mean that darkness inside of you.”

A small chuckle from his mouth and he shook his head a bit, against mine. “You must think I’m craz-“

“No,” an interruption I felt was necessary. “I believe you.”

His long pause of silence was broken with his hand squeezing mine. Though quiet beside me I could read him. His hand’s grip on mine, the drip of water from his tears landing on my wrist, his body relaxing against mine as if a puppy who’d found someone who’d take care of him.

“I’m going to get you through this. We’re going to find out what this is. Even if your memory escapes you.”

“Thank you,” he mumbled through a gasp of air. “Why would you do this for me?”

I didn’t know how to answer him. I felt bad for not having an answer for him. It was happening so fast I didn’t even know how I felt, but I knew I had to take his hand in this.

After thinking about it down the line I’d realized that Forza is exactly what I’ve needed. It’s been four months since that night in the mountains. I didn’t know it at the time but I need him. He’s adorable, really. Since the first night I began sleeping beside him he holds my hand as we sleep. When we’re alone he’ll come up behind me and wrap his arms around me, kiss the back of my head, and whisper that he loves me in my ear. I... He’s changed so much...

“Puppy,” he mentioned one day as I was starting to fall asleep near him. A silly nickname really, but I loved it... as long as he didn’t use it in public.

I stirred a bit and squeezed his hand, letting him know I was awake and listening. “Fuzzy?” My own nickname for him.

Before continuing he nuzzled the tip of his Krowen nose through the hair and gave the back of my head a little kiss. “One day, when we’re off this planet, I’m going to take you back to Amber Krowe.”

I chuckled a bit as he curled up closer behind me, spooning me. “But I’ve been to Amber Krowe,” I mumbled.

“Not that Amber Krowe. Our own Amber Krowe.” He kissed my head again. “When everything is set right, when I’ve found what I’ve been looking for, you’ll be on Amber Krowe with me. I’ll make sure that when you’re there with me you’ll never have to work another day for the Alliance. Neither of us will. You and I will be free. We’ll make our own lives from then on out and nothing will stop us.”

I so wanted that. Forza... I wanted to help him so badly. I wanted to bring him back to his normal self and rid him of this dark force haunting him. I felt so helpless sometimes. All the talk of this Templar culture he tries to educate me on was all so much and opened my eyes to a world that none of us besides him understood. I felt so small and powerless but at the same time I knew I was his rising sun. I brought him warmth and peace. He tells me everyday that without me he feared something else would be happening in his head.

“I love you,” I said staggered with a sniff, trying not to cry.

“Love you more,” he said kissing my ear.

“Love you the most.” A common little I love you battle we played between us.

This war. I want it to end. I want off this planet. I don’t care about riches or gain. I just want to hear his heartbeat against my ear with his arms around me.

Kiara, you are just like him! You’re just lost and hurt. Why can’t you see this? At least you’ve acknowledged my love for him and seem to have some sliver of understanding. Please, don’t kill him. I beg of you. Your soul is lost like his and he was a monster. I pray you’ll come to realize that Forza is the closest option you have to having your soul soothed.

That said, I beg of you, Forza, to not kill her either. You’ve come so far and you’ve become so much stronger. I want you to teach her. I want you to heal her and show her the way. With her on our side we could finally do what you promised me. We can end this. We can try to be there for each other, and find our home in our hearts. Kiara needs friends now. She needs a family. Don’t end this in a bloodbath. The oncoming battle is not really a duel between you two at all. It’s a battle of your souls. Both of you have to conquer your demons and finish the battle within once and for all. Both of you together, as Kiara has said, create a power that cannot be rivalled in the universe. It’s time to end this. It’s time for us all to go home.