"Ready...? Okay, on my signal," Anders raises his paw into the air for a brief moment, "Gogogo..." His signal comes in a hushed tone as the three of you burst from an alley and race across the open ground toward the maintenance shack. You all try to keep a low profile to avoid attracting notice from the inhabitants of the school you are about to be sneaking into. Before you know it, your back is pressed against the cool metal of the doors leading to the maintenance hatch, your heart racing and body tense from the dash across the open. You'd estimate you only crossed about twenty meters, but it feels like you've run a mile. You catch your breath as Amelia the fox bubbles with excitement beside you.
"Ooh! This is so much fun...!" She is trying really hard to keep her voice low, you just hope she wont get any more riled up than this. Even the tiniest noise inside could spell disaster for your mission. Anders is to your other side, you're both sitting still and straining your ears to see if anyone has noticed you. Anders, with his better wolf-like hearing, shakes his head, looks like you're clear. You wipe your brow of sweat with your scaled claw-hand, forgetting about your new spiky appendage and you end up giving yourself a good scratch across your face... Ouch, this is going to take some getting used to. You manage to hold back a curse, however.
Next you turn your attention to the door at your back. It seems fairly sturdy, but the handle looks pretty flimsy and the door appears to be secured by a padlocked bar that runs across its surface. You look at Anders, he shrugs. He wont be able to use his gun on the lock unless you want every unsavory creature in the school to know where you are and he didn't bring any kind of crowbar... Out of curiosity, you hook one of your taloned fingers through the loop of the lock and give it a test-tug. It holds firm, but you have a lot of strength in your new arm so you decide to get a good grip on the padlock and start really pulling. The door jumbles a bit under the strain and Anders motions for you to quiet down a little. You nod and try to apply even, constant pressure on the lock to avoid causing unwarranted ruckus. You brace your wing against the door as well as you tug harder, your arm beginning to strain a little. Just when you're about to give up, there is a sharp *pop* sound that rings like music in your ears. The lock falls away in two pieces, you feel a swell of pride at having accomplished such a feat.
"That was too cool!" Your new arctic fox companion beams at you, your face flushes a little at the attention. You scratch the back of your head feeling pretty cool only to receive another small cut across your nape... Goddamnit and your claws. Anders goes to open the door and it swings open with ease, thankfully with little noise. You all step into the small shack, it's kind of cramped, but you get a good look at what's inside. Along the walls, you see tools and equipment hung up and stacked in an orderly manner even if it still looks rather messy. You see shovels, brooms, buckets and a plethora of grounds-keeping equipment. By your foot, you find a particularly large pipe wrench which you decide might come in handy should you find yourselves attacked. Picking it up in your claw-hand, you give it a couple test swings, this would have been unwieldy without your new-found strength but now it makes an effective looking bludgeon. You smile at the thought of delivering some well-deserved retribution... Something in the back of your mind is saying this isn't you, but you push it aside for now, you've got bigger things to deal with. The pipe wrench fits snugly in your belt.
Amelia is sniffing around the equipment, poking at things and otherwise having a grand, old time, while Anders is fiddling with something in the middle of the floor. It looks like he found the maintenance hatch. You hear the small click of a latch being opened and the wolf-man stands up, swinging the hatch door out of the way. "Well, here's our way in..." He says, pulling a flashlight off the wall behind him. He clicks it on and you're almost surprised that it works, what luck. "Okay, stay close to me, it's a bit tight in here so we gotta be careful." He draws his firearm from its holster and proceeds down into the tunnel that will lead you into the school. For a while, you're all silently walking through the corridor, just the sound of padded paws and shoes echoing off the walls accompany you. It's deafening.
It isn't long until you've reached a dead end, just above you is a ladder leading up to the adjacent hatch in the basement of the school. Anders hands you the flashlight and holsters his weapon, "Shine this up there for a moment, will ya?" You do as he says and he jumps up onto the ladder, quickly making his way to the hatch. He listens closely for a time, making sure no one is in the vicinity on the other side. Once he's sure you're clear, he slowly opens the hatch and pulls himself up. You wait...
And wait...
Waiting...
Worrying...
Just as you're about to dash up there, Anders pokes his wolfish head through the hole, "We're clear, just had to deal with something really quick." Well, that doesn't sound good, you nod but wonder what he had to deal with. Amelia is the next to find her way up and you're right behind her. You see a figure slumped over to your left.
"Shit, did they find us...?" You ask the wolf, he shakes his head.
"I didn't give him a chance to call out, he's unconscious and cuffed, but this means we're under the gun to get out of here." He looks at the steadily breathing creature with concern, "When he wakes up, we're blown, so lets get moving--"
"Oh, hey! I know this guy!" Amelia runs over to the creature who you can make out as some kind of feline. "Yeesh, you really worked him over pretty good... or did he have these already...?" She's looking over his slightly bloodied face, he does look in pretty rough shape, you doubt Anders did that, however, you would have heard the scuffle. "Hm, he wasn't a bad guy from what I remember, but he was part of a breeding or dominance program?" She's unsure, you can only offer a shrug because you don't know what she's talking about. "I think his name was... Lexi! That's it, poor, ol' Lexi." She gives the feline a little lick on the nose as a gesture of familiarity, you wonder just -how- familiar they were with each other. A little growl escapes you before you can stop it, you hope no one heard. Time is of the essence though, you've really got to start moving.
"Hey, come on, we gotta get moving..." You usher your companions onward, Anders taking point. As you progress through the belly of the school, you can hear a commotion going on just above you. There are a lot of voices up there, they're quite loud and excited. You're not sure what's going on, but at least the ruckus is enough to mask your footsteps. You notice your foxy companion and Anders both sniffing the air, their ears twitching.
"I smell blood..." Anders says in a grim, foreboding tone, "I can hear fighting up there as well." Shit, you think to yourself, it isn't enough for the city to be falling apart, but now these creatures are setting up fighting pits? Well, you suppose it's not much different than any other kind of seedy criminal activity, but how'd it spring up so fast? Why are you all left to to fend for yourselves? Where are the police? National guard? This is something you'll have to ponder once you're done here, right now you should focus on the task at hand.
"Hm, there's something else... smells liiike..." Amelia has her snout scrunched up in thought, trying to remember something, "Oh, I know! It kinda reminds me of the 'The Pit' back at home! It's all the underlyin' musk that kinda gives it the same smell." She seems pleased with herself at remembering this. You ask her what 'The Pit' was and what was done in them, worried about what you might hear, "Oh, it was pretty standard test stuff, basically our handlers were tryin' to muck around with our... genes or something? I dunno, but I guess the goal was to make us ultra aggressive and then they would toss us into 'The Pit' to have us work it out. Basically anyone who was left standin' got to move on to other tests and were allowed to... de-stress themselves on the losers." She makes it sound like she's participated in a few of these tests, you ask her as much, "Well, a coupla times I suppose, but I never hurt anyone, I just kept runnin' away until no one wanted to chase me anymore, it was actually a lotta fun!" She ends with her usual grin plastered across her muzzle. Guess you could have figured as much, but you refocus as you come to a set of metal stairs.
"Hm," Anders is looking at a floor plan next to the stairwell, "These will bring us up to a catwalk overlooking the gymnasium, I figure that's where all the commotion is coming from, we could get our bearings from there and decide on a course of action." You and Amelia nod in agreement, ready to see what kind of madness is in store for you all. You ascend the stairs with the rest of your trio.
The noise gets much louder when you reach the top, it sounds like a crowd of sports fans as you make out cheering and jeers and boos in equal measure. The sound comes from below you now, so it looks like Anders was right in his assumption about the source of the clamouring. It is in short order that you come across a scene straight out of your nightmares. In the gym, a makeshift ring has been set up and is surrounded by a large group of at least three dozen creatures, maybe more. Animals of all description can be made out in the crowd, you see cervine creatures, equines, lupines, ursines, primates, felines, dogs and even a crocodile or two all hollering and shouting at the creatures in the center of it all.
Your eyes are drawn to the figures facing off in the ring, both panting and bruised. Right now, a human woman, looking to be in her late twenties or early thirties, is in a defensive crouch waiting for her assailant's next move. The creature she is facing appears to be some sort of horse, with a tan coat and white splashes of fur on its nose and at its hands and hooves. Neither is wearing much beyond a pair of gym shorts and shirt. This doesn't seem fair in the slightest to you, but despite your reservations, the woman seems to be holding her own. You turn to Amelia, "What were these fights supposed to accomplish?" Wanting to know why there'd be a similar setup here at the school.
She takes a moment to think about it, "I think our handlers were trying to isolate some kind of 'strength' gene that was present in the more hearty of us. I don't know if they intended to put them in some kind of breeding program or if they thought they could breed the weakness out of the less strong of us, but I know that they shutdown the program not long before the explosion. Many of the more successful candidates from the lab are here in the crowd below us, the rest..." Must be the changed populace from the city, you figure thinking about how many must have been dragged here against their will. There were so many crowds of people during the night of the explosions, they could have been snatched in the dark without drawing any attention.
You return your attention to the fight below you, it looks like the horseman has come out on top. The woman is lying in a tired heap across the ring looking up at the victor. The stud of a horse has removed his coverings, revealing a slowly growing erection, his blunted shaft hanging halfway out of his sheath. The woman looks on in shock as the stallion begins to pump himself to full hardness, his cock throbbing with his heartbeat ready to be used to claim his prize. Shaking herself out of her daze, the lady tries to crawl away, but is instantly snatched up by the much larger creature. With one hand, he holds his former adversary; with the other, he is lining up his pre-dribbling, semi-flared cock head. The stud rubs the bell-end of his cock around the woman's nethers, lubing her up with his own juices and it isn't long before he is satisfied with his work, he starts to thrust into his claim.
The woman begins to scream as the over-sized cock begins to make its way into her sodden box, the horse is grunting and straining to make any real progress into the tight passage. Eventually, and with much effort, the stallion is as far as he can go, only about a third of his cock is actually in her and the woman is sweating and panting and letting out the occasional moan, she has a dazed look in her eyes. Frustrated at the lack of stimulation, the stallion wickers in annoyance before driving his shaft into a series of ferocious thrusts that make the woman cry out in pain and ecstasy, but is unable to drive past her physical limits. Changing tack, the horseman lifts the woman off of his cock with a wet *plop* and realigns his shaft, this time at her back entrance. The woman grunts in discomfort as the throbbing horse-spire begins to split her open from the rear, neighing in pleasure and triumph the stud horse works himself into her much deeper depths. Finally, the horse is hilted in his mare, heavy balls twitching in excitement as he begins to pull out.
He keeps pulling out until only the head is left in the woman's tight pucker, then he pushes forward, giving a little extra thrust to get his ring of prepuce past her sphincter. Soon, he is working himself into overdrive, thrusting hard and fast, the woman below him moaning like a bitch in heat begging for his cock. You're not sure what to make of this, how quickly the beaten woman succumbed to the beast's rut, but you can feel a straining in your pants and your thoughts drift to how you might want to show your dominance in such a primal manner... You try to shake yourself out of it, but the thought lingers.
Looking back at the fuckfest, you can see members of the crowd breaking off into pairs to find a dark corner of the gym to relieve themselves after watching such a spectacle. The woman in the ring is on all-fours now, thrusting back into her stallion, but something seems off about her. You notice that she is sprouting fur in patches along her body and she has grown bigger overall compared to how she looked before the fight ended. You watch in amazement as her changes progress rapidly, the crack and pop of shifting joints and muscle can be heard from your vantage point. You wonder how it's possible for such a rapid development to occur, your own changes have been occurring at a snails pace by comparison. Soon, the new mare is bracing herself on her hoof-like hands while her stud continues to breed her from behind, she makes little neighing sounds as her face pushes out into a muzzle. Finally, the stallion lets out a loud whinny as he blasts the mare's colon full of his musky, foal-batter. You can smell it, even in the rafters, your aching hard-on straining painfully in your pants. You can also smell the effect this scene has had on Anders, his scent beginning to fill your nose as his primal side fights for control, but he seems to be able to shake it off. Amelia seems completely unaffected by the whole scenario, looking rather bemused if anything.
"Lets find out where they are keeping their humans captive," Suggests Anders, you're quick to acquiesce, wanting to get out of here before you do something you might regret. Before you start moving though, you hear the sounds of the crowd increase to a roar as new contenders are pushed into the ring. The first, a tiger-like creature, walks in to a round of cheering and raises his fists over his head like some kind of wrestling super-star, striking poses and showing off his physique. He lets out a roar as his opponent is pushed into the ring, met by jeers and boos. Your blood freezes at what you see.
Your brother, Cameron, staggers into the ring, looking beaten and bruised, but otherwise unchanged. His eyes have a slightly sunken quality to them and the dark circles underneath indicate how little he must have slept in the last while. He raises up his fists, but his arms seem slow and weighed down, you wonder if he has had to fight anything yet and if that is the reason he seems so tired. The bruises on his body certainly tell a story of abuse over the last day and night of his capture, but at least he doesn't seem to be suffering anything life-threatening... and he's alive. You feel a small amount of relief seeing your brother, but you tense as the fight is about to commence. You have very little time to make your decision and what ever you decide could seal the fate of your older brother. What do you do...?