by Tom Jones
Since the fox was the one without shoes, he had to make sure that he did not step on any recently fired shell casings that would burn his furry feet. Jason wore combat boots, so he did not have to worry about stepping on much of anything. The wolf took off his Oakley M Frame 3.0 glasses, and he reached out to give them back to Arcades. The fox accepted the glasses, and he folded them up before putting them in one of his empty cargo pockets. Arcades retrieved the SIG Sauer MCX Spear from the table, and he dropped the bolt before pulling the trigger in order to release the weapon’s hammer. The fox did not have a sling attached to the weapon, so he held it with his left hand as he tried to collect the three spent magazines with his right hand. Jason stood by and watched as Arcades placed the magazines in his other empty pocket on his shorts, “Those shorts have a lot of pockets on them, don’t they?” Arcades transferred the rifle to his right hand before replying, “Yeah, that’s why I like them. They’re practical and tactical-looking as well.”
The fox looked up at the wolf when he managed to get one hand free from holding various objects, “So, how did you like the Spear?” The gray wolf turned his blue eyes to the weapon again, “It was fun.” Arcades smiled and lifted up his glasses to move them to the top of his head to reveal his green eyes, “Yeah? I’m glad you had fun.” Jason looked back up at the fox again, but he did not say anything. Arcades noticed that Jason was looking towards him, but he was not sure if Jason was going to say something or not. The fox waited a moment before speaking for himself, “Hey Jason?” The wolf directed his eyes to meet the fox’s eyes, “Yeah, mate?” Arcades began to speak, “Jason, you’ve been living with me since ‘27, but sometimes it seems that you think of me like I’m just your employer. We’re family. I know I’m a fox and you’re a wolf, but all races, both human and anthro, are the same in the eyes of the Lord. You and I are brothers.” The wolf did not know what he wanted to say to Arcades, so he remained silent. Arcades spoke anyways, “Jason, I’m not going to get rid of you if that’s what you’re thinking. You’re my brother, and I promise you that I’m going to be there for you. I just happen to give you money for what you do for me. I’d say it’s only fair.”
The wolf still did not say anything in response, but his face began to look a bit distorted, akin to as if he was upset. The fox spoke again, “If it were up to me, you would be my full-fledged brother, but the legal system doesn’t really allow that. I don’t like keeping things impersonal; it takes life out of people. I want you to remember that I do consider you my brother, and I do love you as family. What’s mine is yours, and I thought that you would’ve picked up on that since you’ve been living with me for about three years at this point.” Jason’s mouth began to shape into a frown, and the fox could see that the wolf was about to let his emotions out again. Arcades held out his arms, but he remembered that he was still holding the MCX Spear. The fox retracted his right hand, but he still held out his left hand, “Come here, now.” The wolf approached the fox, and Arcades embraced Jason while still holding the rifle in his right hand. The fox, despite owning the weapon for a little amount of time, let the rifle go from his hand to land on the ground. Arcades felt that Jason was more important than a $2,500 weapon.
“Fucking foxes are always fucking faggots,” the agent said to himself as he viewed the two anthros embracing one other. As the agent still watched from his car, he put his binoculars down briefly in order to check his surroundings: He should not have anybody at all watching him. After confirming that he was the only one in the surrounding area, he looked back through the binoculars to see the wolf and fox finish their embrace. The human was still not sure of who the gray wolf was since he did not see Jason while he was inside of Arcades’ place of business. The agent also did not know that Arcades’ place of business was both his and the wolf’s place of residence as well. The agent could see that the wolf looked a tad bit more built than the lanky fox, even though they both appeared to stand at about the same height. However, it was hard for the agent to get a good view of Jason since the wolf wore cargo pants and combat boots. Arcades, on the other hand, only wore a dark polo shirt tucked into a pair of khaki cargo shorts. The fox’s bare arms and legs were completely visible to the human, but only the wolf’s arms were visible.
The agent still did not know who the wolf was, “Who the fuck even is this?” Though the human asked his question aloud, he did not receive an answer. He was not even expecting an answer, though. The human watched as the two anthros finally proceeded to move back into the building, and the agent continued to look at the building to see if they were planning on exiting again anytime soon. The agent did look back at the sky, and he could see that it would be nighttime shortly. He did not know how long he wanted to stay in his current location, for he was not sure if somebody would discover his hiding spot. The agent really wanted to follow the fox to his place of residence, but he began to hypothesize that the fox might live at his place of business since he could not see any vehicles parked outside of the building. The agent wondered if the fox did have a vehicle somewhere, but he did not want to go snooping around Arcades’ building at night. He was not sure if Arcades had any motion sensors or other surveillance equipment set up with the purpose of locating intruders in mind, and since the fox owned a gun store, he would likely be readily armed in case of a sudden attack. The agent decided that he would wait about ten more minutes to see if the fox would emerge. If he did not, then he would leave the area and come back at a later date to do what he was tasked with doing. After all, he was not about to try and shoot the fox with a rifle that was not sighted in yet. He also was not too keen about shooting the fox at his place of business, even ignoring the fact that Arcades was practically living inside of an armory: It would likely be easy for him to be detected by a potential witness, and he was not exactly sure if the wolf he saw was someone who the fox lived with. Right now, the human had to assume the worst possible conditions: The fox lived at his place of business, the wolf is a close accomplice at the very least, and the fox likely has security equipment deployed around his building.
The agent knew that he would have to devise a plan or some sort of organized method in order to carry out his orders, but he also knew that he would have to wait for the two anthros to go to a different location. The human was certain that he would not make his move on the fox at his business even if he had every advantage on his side. After all, the fox had plenty of firearms in his storefront, and he even had an XMP-1 on display. The human considered that if the fox was willing to display an XMP-1 on the wall, then there was no telling what else he could have behind the counter that a customer would not be able to see. The agent did not even know why the fox displayed the XMP-1, after all, he felt that the fox would have to know that the Majestic 12 or Knights Templar would send somebody to investigate the anthro that almost single handedly overthrew the Omega Foundation. By displaying the XMP-1, he was practically adding insult to injury to the Illuminati as a whole. Ever since the Illuminati lost the Foundation, one of their largest branches, the program to create an army of mindless anthro servants suffered major setbacks. By the time of the assault on Facility Zero, the Omega Foundation was almost ready to deploy their army of anthros to do their bidding and completely replace the Internal Security Group of the Omega Foundation. From there, they would then replace all of the world’s governments with their own New World Order.
With the passing of ten minutes, the agent finally put his binoculars away and decided that it would be best for him to withdraw from his vantage point. The agent pushed the ignition button to start his vehicle, and he soon found himself driving away from Fox Armament, LLC. As the agent drove away from the location he was parked at, he couldn’t stop thinking about the XMP-1 Arcades had on the wall, and he also was surprised at the way the fox described the events to the agent. The agent, being part of the Majestic 12, knew very well about the Foundation, and he also was familiar with their operations. The Omega Foundation was the research and development branc
h of the Illuminati, and they were tasked with obtaining the means to stage a massive false flag attack in order to severely damage anthro-human relations. Though the Illuminati had staged false flag attacks before in order to destabilize political and economic systems, the Majestic 12 wanted to stage an attack that would all but permanently cripple human-anthro relations. What better way to carry out such an attack than to create an army of anthros to do it for you?
The agent knew that the Omega Foundation studied the psychology of anthros for years, and they exploited the sexual desires of anthros in order to break down their mentality. The Foundation discovered that many advances did not have to be done by force or coercion either, as shown by the overwhelming success of operations carried out at Facility Eleven. The agent then remembered that it was Arcades himself who was responsible for Facility Eleven’s intrusion. He knew that he had to get rid of the fox, but he just could not figure out the right time that he would be able to do so. The agent also knew that even though he would get rid of Arcades, the Majestic 12 and Knights Templar would still have to find out a way to deal with Castle Defence Industries. With CDI being the largest private military force in the world, the Illuminati found them to be potentially dangerous when they discovered that their efforts at infiltrating the organization ultimately ended in failure. CDI had amassed a large number of military vehicles, weapons, personnel, and they even had a couple aircraft carriers stacked to the brim with the latest carrier-based aircraft. CDI was present during the downfall of Facility Zero, and the loss of the facility was one that cost the Illuminati so much of their efforts in research and development. The Illuminati would not be able to create the totalitarian one-world-government they were looking to create if they were faced with such considerable opposition.
Though money was the furthest problem for the Illuminati, time was the primary issue instead. Facility Zero housed the XVP-1, an experimental vehicle that the Knights Templar planned to deploy when the false flag attack would have occurred. With the massive vehicle lost along with the blueprints to manufacture another one, the Illuminati would have to research all of the technology and build it all from scratch again. The agent wondered if CDI was able to recover some of the parts from the wreckage of the XVP-1 when it was destroyed. Even if the company was able to successfully salvage enough parts from the XVP-1 to reverse engineer the vehicle, it would still take them at least a few years to develop their own version that would be the same in terms of size and capabilities. Both the agent and the Illuminati agreed that they could not allow Castle Defence Industries to continue to stay active. They would have to get rid of the company. Getting rid of Kurt Hofmeier was just the easy part.
Arcades laid the MCX Spear on the mat which he disassembled it on. Though the fox only field stripped the rifle, he inspected the bolt as well as the barrel to see how much powder had accumulated on the working parts of the weapon. Jason sat across from the fox and watched him clean the weapon, “Still looks to be in perfect condition, right?” Arcades nodded in agreement as he inspected the weapon’s externals, “I’d say so. I can’t see me using this thing as a main rifle as of right now. 6.8x51mm is kinda expensive compared to 5.56x45mm, and the companies that make it aren’t really putting much aside for civilians like us. Instead, they’re focusing their attention on fulfilling their orders for the US Government.” While the fox ran a brush through the weapon’s barrel to clear out the powder, Jason looked around the room to look at many of the weapons Arcades had on the display racks. As Jason turned to his left, he spotted the XMP-1 on the wall. The wolf asked, “Hey, Kurt. Do you think we’ll be able to find any explosive rounds for the Foundation’s rifle?” Arcades looked up at the wolf and then looked to his right to see that Jason was looking at the XMP-1. The fox spoke, “Oh, you mean the rounds for the HE part of the weapon? Yeah, well, that fires 20mm HE rounds, and those are kinda non-standard. 40mm is the standard for most explosive rounds, and those are even out of reach for us for the most part. For one, they’re destructive devices, and two, it would be too expensive for us to buy stuff like that. We could, theoretically get polymer rounds to fire out of it, and I remember the Foundation had that. However, I’m not sure where we’d get 20mm beanbag rounds. I don’t think we’ll be able to use the HE part of that rifle. It’s more of a novelty at this point, anyways. I always thought the OICW was a cool concept.”
The wolf stood up to pick the weapon off of the rack. The fox continued cleaning the weapon since he trusted Jason with the XMP-1; Jason had handled it before. The wolf looked through the weapon’s included sight. The sight was made by the Foundation themselves, but it would lose some of its core functionality if placed on another rifle since the sight was electronically connected to the HE system of the XMP-1. The wolf remembered back in Facility Zero, there was another variant of the XMP-1 that looked slightly different than the standard model. The model which the wolf remembered was the one that was specifically made for the brainwashed anthros stationed at the covert black site. However, the standard model was the model that Arcades was able to take home with him. Jason pulled the charging handle for the KE segment of the rifle, and he watched as the bolt locked back since the inserted STANAG magazine was empty. The wolf found the bolt release button on the XMP-1, and he pressed it. The bolt returned to its closed position and let out a rather loud click.
The fox smiled, “To me, doing something like that is more satisfying if you use an HK MP5. The bolt release button is just a lesser HK slap in my opinion, anyways.” Jason went to return the XMP-1 to the rack, and by the time he returned to the fox, Arcades was already finished cleaning the MCX Spear. The fox reassembled the rifle, and it did come together much like an AR-15 would, but with some minor differences. Since the Spear was a weapon that had a short-stroke gas piston instead of a direct impingement action, Arcades had checked the piston itself to see if it had accumulated any wear from the brief time he had used it. Nevertheless, the fox applied a light coat of lubricant to the key moving parts of the rifle, and he had it reassembled rather quickly. With the MCX Spear back together, the fox placed it on one of the empty racks he had on his wall. Arcades took a few steps back away from the wall before turning around; he did not want his tail to knock anything over by accident. Preventing a tail strike was just something that anthros had to deal with during their day to day lives.
As Jason watched the fox return, he began to ask himself a question he had before. He did not know why anthros were only canines and felines. He began to wonder what anthros would look like if they came in more races, but he had a hard time thinking about races that would be larger or smaller than anthros. After all, anthros were the same size and had the same proportions of humans, and they did not even stand differently than humans. Both anthros and humans walked with their feet flat on the ground, and they were able to wear the same shoes with no need for any footwear accommodations for either species. Similarly to footwear, anthros were able to wear the same gloves that humans were able to wear since their hands were shaped practically the same. The primary difference between the two species aside from their heads and abundance of hair was that the majority of anthros anthros had tails which humans lacked. Though tails did not too much for anthros, they did help out balance to some degree. Not all anthros had tails either. Some lynxes lacked tails, but remarkably, some anthro lynxes had tails due to interbreeding with other feloid anthros. Though humans could breed with all members of their species, anthros could only breed among members of their own major races. Canoids could only breed with other canoids, and feloids could only breed with feloids. Anthros even had whiskers, and both Jason as well as Arcades knew very well that whiskers were definitely capable of feeling their surroundings. It becomes an issue when wearing things such as gas masks, as those items were made primarily with humans in mind. Anthros could not even wear gas masks made for humans due to the shape of the anthro head. Instead, certain models had to be made to fit the face of an anthro, and such models are rather rare and costly.
Even while wearing a mask made to fit an anthro’s face, whiskers and fur can still compromise the seal of the mask, and the mask would be rendered less effective against an airborne threat if it did not entirely form a solid seal.
As Jason thought about the differences between anthros and humans, he could not help but think about all of the inventions that humans made without the thought of anthros in mind. After all, there were plenty of clothing brands that lacked a hole or flap to accommodate the tail of an anthro. Thankfully for Arcades, his favorite tactical clothing brands typically included tail flaps for anthros. Most companies that made tail flaps in the first place also made a human-minded version of the same product without the tail flap. The companies that only make a one-size-fits-both-species product usually had the flap close with the help of velcro so that a human could wear the same pants or shorts without a hole showing in the back. The wolf did know all too well that some humans opted to use the flap for things that were not tails. Jason shook his head to clear his thoughts, but he did not have time to think more since the fox was now standing in front of him, “So, are you ready to go grab some food?” Jason processed what the fox had just asked him, and he saw no reason why he wouldn’t be ready to eat, “Yeah, sure thing, mate. I’m getting pretty hungry m’self.” Arcades nodded, “Alright, let’s go and eat.”
