by Tom Jones
The fox kept his eyes closed as he could feel Jason bending backwards towards the water. Arcades heard the sound of the wolf entering the water, and he eventually could feel both of his hands submerged into the water as well. With Jason underwater, the fox began to count aloud, “One… Two… Three!” When the fox reached three, he pulled the new wolf out of the water. Brother Jason emerged from the water, and he opened his eyes to see the sun shining right back at him. Arcades opened his eyes as well, and he looked back at the wolf. Jason extended his arms, and he grabbed the fox’s shoulders while Arcades still held onto the wolf’s shoulders. A genuine smile of joy was displayed over the wolf’s face, “Thank you, Saint Arcades.” The wolf pulled in the fox to hug him, and Arcades embraced the wolf back. After a couple seconds, Arcades could hear a sniffing sound, and he looked down to see that Jason buried his face into the fox’s chest. Arcades smiled as he stroked the fur on the back of the wolf’s head, “Don’t thank me. Thank the Lord. Without Him, there would be no salvation. There would be no eternal life.” Jason lifted up his head, and the fox could see tears rolling down the wolf’s face. Jason said, “Kurt… I love you. You’re my true brother!” Arcades kept his hands on the wolf and replied, “I love you too Jason, and I want you to remember that Jesus Christ loves you as well.” The fox held on to the wolf and spoke aloud one last time, “Lord, thank You for everything You’ve done. You’ve blessed us in so many ways, and I want to see both of us enter into eternal life to live in Your Kingdom together.” The wolf hugged the fox tightly, “Amen…” Arcades smiled.
Book Three
FOX HUNTERS
“Now God himself and our Father, and our Lord Jesus Christ, direct our way unto you. And the Lord make you to increase and abound in love one toward another, and toward all men, even as we do toward you: To the end he may stablish your hearts unblameable in holiness before God, even our Father, at the coming of our Lord Jesus Christ with all his saints.” 1 Thessalonians 3:11-13
“For we are unto God a sweet savour of Christ, in them that are saved, and in them that perish: To the one we are the savour of death unto death; and to the other the savour of life unto life. And who is sufficient for these things? For we are not as many, which corrupt the word of God: but as of sincerity, but as of God, in the sight of God speak we in Christ.” 2 Corinthians 2:15-17
“For our conversation is in heaven; from whence also we look for the Saviour, the Lord Jesus Christ: Who shall change our vile body, that it may be fashioned like unto his glorious body, according to the working whereby he is able even to subdue all things unto himself.” Philippians 3:20-21
Chapter 1
Business as Usual
“Alright everybody. Are y’all ready?” A voice sounded before receiving confirmation at different intervals from different people, “Yeah!” The first voice spoke again, “Raise your weapons at the target, disable the safety, and take your shots!” Numerous 1911-style handguns leveled out before all firing at their respective targets. The instructor, Saint Arcades, nodded to himself in approval as he watched the barrage of airsoft gun fire land on the paper targets. Arcades congratulated his students, all of them human children between the ages of 7-10, “That was really nice! Alright, make sure you engage the safety before putting those back on the tables.” The children took a moment to remember that the 1911 featured a thumb-engaged safety lever situated behind the slide release. A few of the children had emptied the magazines of their airsoft handguns, but a few did not. The children with the emptied replica handguns simply placed their weapons on the table unknown that they could just drop the slide and then engage the safety.
One of the children saw a shadow approaching him from behind, and when he turned around to see who was walking up to him, he recognized the six-foot tall black and white fox, “Mr. Hofmeier, my gun won’t turn on the safety.” Arcades looked at the human child before he got down on his knees to be at a level comparable to that of the child’s height. Being six feet tall, Arcades towered over the rather short children. The fox could already see what the issue was, but he decided to use the opportunity to teach the child about the 1911-styled handgun. Arcades took the handgun from the table and spoke, “Let’s see what’s up with it.” As the fox looked down at the handgun, he started to notice his Oakley SI Radar EV sunglasses were about to slide off of his face. Using his left hand, Arcades pushed the glasses back against his face before returning his hand back to the airsoft handgun. The airsoft handguns were made by the company Elite Force, and they had a two-toned black and tan coloration. The fox saw the slide was open since the magazine had been depleted. Arcades showed the child the handgun as he slowly dropped the magazine into his hand, “Looks like you’ve ran out of rounds.” The human child did not have anything to say to Arcades, so the fox continued to show the child why he could not engage the weapon’s safety. Arcades pointed to the open slide with his right hand, “Your slide locks back when your magazine is empty. Your gun is safe when it’s open like this. But first -- here, check this out.” Arcades moved his thumb to the slide release lever, and he made sure to show the child where his hand was before pressing the lever down and releasing the slide, “You see this little piece right here?” The child nodded, “Yeah.”
The fox looked over to the child and replied, “That right there is your slide release lever. You press that down and the slide will move back into place.” Arcades depressed the lever, and the child watched as the slide quickly returned to its standard position while accompanied by a rather loud clicking noise. Arcades smiled when he noticed the surprised look on the child’s face. The fox continued to show the child more about the weapon, “Now, you can turn the safety on, but there’s something you can still do if you want to be extra sure that your gun will not fire.” The young human still had nothing to say, so he stood by and watched the fox point the weapon in a safe direction before pulling the trigger. The hammer on the airsoft handgun struck the fake primer and only made another clicking sound. Arcades finished by putting the magazine back into the inert weapon and engaging the thumb safety, “There we go. How’s that?”
The fox stretched out his rather long and skinny hand to give the replica weapon back to the human child. The child grabbed the weapon, but he still did not say anything more to the fox. Arcades looked past the child, and he could see that a couple other children who were watching had done the same technique he had just done to the handgun to their handguns that were empty. The fox got up from his kneeling position, and he moved his white-tipped black tail out of the way as he brushed off the sand from his bare knees and calves. A polo shirt tucked into a pair of Tru-Spec Tactical Shorts was the most common outfit for the fox living in the southernmost part of Alabama. Arcades took a couple steps backwards, and he could see that the human children were looking at him wondering what they should do next. Before Arcades could say anything else, he heard a somewhat distant sound of a door followed by a familiar voice, “Hey Kurt, did you guys just finish up?” Arcades turned around to see a gray wolf calling out for him, “Yeah, Jason. We just finished.” Jason emerged from the door and made his way down to the area where Arcades had the firing range, “Here, I’ll take it from here. You’ve been out here for a while, and it’s been rather hot out here. Come on inside; I can already see some sweat on your fur.” Arcades looked down at his black-furred arms, and he could definitely see where his fur was getting wet. The fox looked back up at Jason and replied, “Alright. Thanks, Jason.” The wolf returned a nod to Arcades, “Strewth. Come on in.”
As the fox returned back into his air-conditioned store, placed his sunglasses on the table, and he saw that it was rather empty as far as customers go. However, Arcades did have a decent collection of firearms on the walls that were a mix of weapons for sale and rental weapons to be used at the firing range. As Arcades paced around and tried to cool himself off, he began admiring some of his many firearms. Since the fox’s company held a Federal Firearms License as well as a Special Occupational Taxpa
yer status, his company was able to legally own fully automatic weapons. Arcades looked at one of his favorite weapons, a Salient Arms International Tier 1 AR-15 GRY Rifle, and he remembered all of the experiences he had while using the weapon. Though some of the experiences were extremely unpleasant for the fox to remember, he did still believe that he accomplished what needed to be done.
Arcades reached out for the weapon, and he lifted it off of the rack before pulling the custom ambidextrous charging handle to ensure that the weapon was not loaded. Though the fox knew that the weapon was not loaded, he still racked the charging handle a few more times just for the fun of doing so. At one point, Arcades had racked the charging handle far enough to lock back the bolt since he had an empty magazine inserted into the weapon. The fox looked at the safety selector switch, and he could see that the weapon was set to the ‘safe’ position. Knowing that the weapon’s hammer was primed before he even picked up the weapon, he decided to flip the fire control group to the ‘fire’ position so he would be able to return the hammer to the down position once he was done playing with the weapon. As Arcades looked into the open chamber of the rifle, he studied the unique magazine well and upper receiver group. Arcades shifted the weapon in his right hand as he moved it in a position so that he would be able to see the bolt carrier group as it would return into battery. While still holding the weapon, the fox placed his left hand around the left side of the magwell and watched as his furry fingers wrapped over the right side of the magwell. The fox pressed down on the bolt catch with the pad of his left thumb, and he watched as the gold-colored bolt returned into battery while accompanied by a very satisfying click.
After Arcades dropped the bolt, he pointed the weapon in a safe direction before pulling the trigger. The trigger made a slightly less satisfying clicking sound, but the fox still found it satisfying enough. To ensure that the weapon’s hammer was down, Arcades attempted to move the fire selector into the ‘safe’ position, but he found that the selector would no longer move. Arcades knew that he successfully rendered his rifle inert, so he began to examine the Magpul stock, pistol grip, angled foregrip, and magazine he had installed on the weapon. The fox removed the magazine, a Magpul PMAG, and he looked at the feeding ramp to see that it was absent of ammunition. Arcades inserted the magazine back into his rifle, and he then held the rifle by the aluminum M-LOK rail installed by the factory for the Salient GRY. The rail was a proprietary part manufactured by Salient Arms International with the main purpose in mind of attaching their equally proprietary JailBreak Muzzle Device to provide an interesting way of dealing with weapon recoil. Right before the fox returned the weapon back to the rack, he tested the L3Harris EOTech PEQ-15 as well at the L3Harris EOTech EXPS3 to make sure that both devices were functioning properly. After becoming satisfied with the results, Arcades disabled the two devices and finally returned the GRY to the weapon rack.
After putting the rifle back up, the fox looked down at his hands to see if he could see any grease on his hands from manipulating the aging weapon. Arcades closely examined his furry palms as well as the pads of tough skin he had on the tips of his five fingers as well as the upper halves of his palms. Since the fox’s fur was black and his pads were black as well, he was unable to see any grease that might have ended up on his hands. Arcades’ hands did not feel sticky from grease, so the fox concluded that his hands should probably still be clean enough. Arcades looked past his hands to view his bare legs and feet. While many Anthro sapiens often wear shoes much that to the likes of humans, Arcades still chose to not wear shoes for personal reasons. The fox always wondered why the shape of anthros’ hands were most comparable to human hands, but their feet were fairly different. Though the feet of anthros still had the same general shape as a human foot, anthros only had four digits on their feet, and they also had padding on their digits as well as the balls of their feet. Anthros do have nails on all of their digits, but the nails themselves resemble more of an animal’s claw instead of a standard human nail.
As the fox was still in the process of examining his own body, he heard the front door of his store open, and Arcades’ eyes immediately shot up to view the person entering his store. The fox watched as a human entered his store and began to look at the many firearms mounted on the walls. The fox did not recognize the human who had just entered his store, so he decided to greet him, “Welcome to Fox Armaments. What can I do for you?” The human commented on the collection of weapons Arcades had for sale, “Phew… You’ve sure got quite a bit of guns.” Arcades nodded, “Yes, and most of them are for sale. The only guns we can’t sell to most people are the fully automatic weapons. Well… If you have an SOT and FFL then you’d be able to buy them, but people themselves don’t really have those. That’s more of a thing for business. You know what I mean?” The human seemed to disregard Arcades’ attempt at making smalltalk, but his eyes fixated upon one specific weapon on the wall. The human pointed towards the irregular weapon and asked, “What’s that thing there?” The fox looked at the weapon the human asked about before replying, “That’s a rather new weapon. If I remember correctly, they were made in 2028, but I dunno if the group that made them is still around anymore.” The human approached the weapon in question that was still hanging on the wall, “Yeah? What is it, though?” Arcades approached the human and replied, “It’s called the XMP-1, and it was made by the Omega Foundation.” The human did actually know what the Omega Foundation was, but he pretended as if he did not, “What is the Omega Foundation? I’ve never heard of that company before.”
Arcades continued to look at the XMP-1; it was actually composed of two firearms in one: The weapon was based on numerous prototypes of the Objective Individual Combat Weapon project, and it fired both 5.56x45mm NATO rounds from STANAG compliant magazines as well as 20mm high explosive rounds from the airburst launcher. The fox tried to answer the human’s question to the best of his abilities without revealing too much information that he figured would scare a curious layman, “The Omega Foundation was a group involved in numerous clandestine development projects. They produced vehicles, weapons -- and much more…” The human wanted to push the fox for more information, “What do you mean by much more?” Arcades took a small sigh which he hoped the human did not see, “Projects that they’d sell to the highest bidder. Those bidders being governments and other people who could cough up the funds to purchase from them.” The human looked at the fox, and he could visibly tell that Arcades’ face was one which indicated distress. Knowing that he was getting somewhere, the human asked the fox another question, “What happened to the Omega Foundation? Are they not still around today?” Arcades shook his head, “No, I don’t think so. They had an… incident occur at one of their locations in Canada, and I’m pretty sure they lost enough of their assets that they wouldn’t be able to recover.” The human was almost certain that he was looking at the correct fox, “When did this happen?” Arcades shrugged, “That incident happened back in 2028. I’d say it was probably August or September when that happened.”
The human looked the fox over, and he did match the description he was given. The human asked another question to Arcades, “How did you come to know about the Omega Foundation?” Arcades took a step away from the XMP-1 and adjusted the collar on his polo shirt before making sure that his shirt was not coming untucked from his khaki shorts, “It was kind of a long story, but I’ve done business with them before. It’s not the kind of business that I like to do. Their conditions weren’t really the best.” All the human needed to do was to confirm the identity of the fox was an absolute match to what he was told during his briefing, “You’ve done business? You don’t happen to be the owner of this establishment, are you?” The fox nodded, “I am.” The human now saw his opportunity to confirm the fox’s identity, “I’m sorry, I didn’t catch your name. What was it?” Arcades still replied, even though he did not even remember saying his name to the human in the first place, “I’m Kurt. Kurt Hofmeier.” The human nodded casual
ly, but he knew why he was visiting Fox Armament, LLC, “Wow. Who knew that an anthro like you could be able to buy all of these weapons. I bet a lot of humans think you’re very dangerous, huh?” Arcades only looked down towards the floor and shook his head, but he quickly returned his eyes back to meet the human’s, “Intimidation is not a good business practice. I’m just here to sell people guns.”
The human commented on the fox’s fur color pattern, “Are you that color naturally, or do you dye your fur?” Arcades looked down at his bare arms and legs and replied, “Well, it’s natural, alright. I’m technically a silver fox, but both of my parents were red foxes. I’m pretty sure my pattern is uncommon, though. I’ve seen a few silver foxes before, but I don’t think any of them had white going down their chin all the way to their lower torso. I have the same color pattern as a standard red fox, but without the red fur.” The human was completely sure he was talking to the right fox, so what he needed to do now was grab two specific details: The human saw an opportunity to obtain at least one of the details he required, “You’re pretty tall. You’re taller than a lot of people, aren’t you?” The fox shrugged, “Well, I am six feet even, but that’s not counting my ears. With my ears, I’m probably about six feet and four inches.” The human took a mental note of Arcades’ height, but he still needed to know his weight. The human thought that it would be less suspicious for him to first reply to the fox’s last bit of information, “Yeah, I wasn’t counting the ears. Still, you’re pretty damn tall, and I know that humans and anthros are basically the same as far as proportions go.” The fox shrugged, “That’s another little factoid I’d like to know the reason behind.”
