Run Around

                            By:

                         Fox Cutter

    Chapter 4


A day later I was wondering if maybe this had been a bad
idea after all. After a long day of walking thorough the
forest and hills I ached all over.

Oria wasn't doing any better, she was laying on the ground
beside me. My body blocking her from the heat of the fire.

Little Fox was a few feet away, finishing the last bit of
his dinner and watching both of us as we tried to recover.

Our leader for this expedition, Jaffee, was doing better
then the rest of us. Still panting the large wolf morph
seemed to enjoy the hike. He was currently sitting on the
far side of the fire from the rest of us, watching us
slightly from one eye as he slowly ate his food.

When we had meet that morning he told us that the patrol was
a relatively safe one, to the west of the Keep and into the
hills. It seemed more like Jack was just having us flush
through the area then defending it.

"So, enjoy the hike?" Fox asked as he licked his fingers
clean.

Oria snorted as her response.

He smiled. "You two should really go out and do more, you
seem out of shape."

I chuckled. "We do a lot of work on the side at times."

He nodded, "Really? What do you the pair of you do?"

I thought that over for a few seconds. "I guess the best
description for me is a trouble shooter. Though it seems
like I'm only needed when trouble is shooting back."

He laughed, "and how about you Oriana, what do you do?"

She cracked open an eye and rolled her head so she could
look at him. "I run a House back on my world."

Fox twisted his ears a bit. "As in a whore house?" He asked.

"Exactly," She answered with a smile.

He looked back at me, "is she serious?"

I nodded, "Most of the time."

"How about now?"

I chuckled, "yes, she is."

He smiled thoughtfully. "You really have an interesting
life."

I shrugged. "At times, mostly it's pretty boring. Outside of
the politics."

He winched a bit. "And evil thing that is."

I nodded. "Yes, especial sense half the Council have decided
that I'm what holds them together."

"Ah... sounds like a problem."

"You don't know the half of it." I shot back.

He raised his eyebrows. "It really can't be that bad, can
it?"

I smiled to him, "you have no idea."

Fox seemed to be at a loss for words after then. He just sat
back and started to stare at the fire. Rocking softly his
tail swished through the dirt behind him.

"Listen," He eventually said, "I want to apologize for what
I said last night. I'm not really a good drunk and I went
way past what was appropriate."

"You're forgiven," Oria commented as she rolled up onto her
side.

I nodded. "I guess it's all right. You're not the first
person to ask about it, but not so bluntly."

"Thanks," he replied, "I think."

"Hey, Little Fox," Oriana said as she sat up. "You still
haven't told us anything about other Fox."

I nodded, every time I had tried to talk about his mention
of three of us he changed the subject. Just the mention of
it seemed to shake him up.

"I figured that you would have already meet him," He
answered. "If I had actually known I wouldn't have mentioned
it at all."

I frowned, noticing Jaffee was now giving us more attention
over the fire. "Now you have me worried about this other one
of us."

He nodded slowly, his ears flattening out as he did. "I'll
trade you. I'll tell you about him if you tell me why you
have claws."

I shrugged, that wasn't much of a trade, he was going to
have to find out about it tomorrow anyway. "Very well, but
you're first."

He smiled. "I feel honored. So, tell me, have you ever felt
that things would have been a lot easier for you if you had
been evil?"

I took in a sharp breath, "yes, many times over."

He nodded. "This third one of us, he took that path, and
took it with hatred and anger guiding him. He may not
directly be pure evil, but he's worked to be close."

I shook my head slowly, understand how easily that could
have been a description of me. The idea of being evil,
either it's defined by my actions, or who I was. It was just
such an easy concept for me embrace. At times it even seemed
to be the best way to go.

It would very easy for me to be evil in any sense of the
word.

"I took that path myself for a time," he continued, "happily
and willingly. If I hadn't been at the right place at the
right time I would still be doing what I was trained for."

I nodded slowly. Oriana just shook her head, no other
emotion showing on her face.

"Last year I meet this other Fox Cutter. He was a human and
had the same face as you."

"Ah," I commented, "that's why you seemed to be scared out
of your mind when we first meet."

He nodded. "Yes, exactly. He was different though. He had a
scar on the left side of his face, from his ear down to the
side of his face to the left side of his mouth. It locked
him into a permanent sneer. His eyes where also dark blue,
not like yours are, or even how I remember mine. His left
hand was gone as well, just a stump."

I rubbed my left wrist softly, up until the curse my left
hand had been a highly advanced prosthetic. It looked real
enough, even to an x-ray back on Earth.

"I was on a single patrol," He continued, "it was only a day
out and a day back, nothing very serious. That night, while
I was setting up my camp, he walked right in and sat down at
the fire. I tried to complain but all he did was raise his
hand to me and tell me to shut up."

He took in a short breath, "I could see that he and I were
the same person. He didn't have the beard like you did so
the face he had was almost the same as what I used to
possess."

"He looked me over and laughed, told me how pitiful I was
and how useless I was to him, and to anyone in general. Then
he snapped me around to face him and stabbed me in the
stomach."

I winched, I had been shot in the gut at the end of last
year, being stabbed would have be much worse.

"Three times he stabbed me, his knife had a serrated edge,
the kind used to rip meat." Fox shook his head. "I was found
two days later. I had barely survived, if it had been even
an hour longer I would have died. Even then it was almost a
month before I was up and about the Keep again."

I blew through my teeth. "Nice person."

He nodded. "Very, I had figured he had found you at one
point. Though, if he's still alive, I think you'll meet each
other soon enough."

Oriana looked to me. "Someone like that would have to have a
record with the Guild, maybe even a contract or two. I'll
look into it when we get home. We don't need this man
surprising us some day."

"Good idea Oria, but we'll leave that until we get back
home."

"So," Fox said, "Any questions?"

I shook my head and Oria was silent.

He nodded. "Well then, how exactly do you have claws?"

I chuckled. "For the same reason why eyes are the color they
are."

He rolled his eyes. "That can not be your answerer." He
said.

I shook my head, grabbing the pending around my neck lightly
on one hand. "Nope, that isn't. Oria will explain everything
to you tomorrow morning, Jaffee will want to know about it
as well."

"Why Oriana, why not you?" He asked.

I sighed. "You'll see." I answered, looking accost the fire
to where the wolf was sitting, watching us quietly. "Both of
you will."

* * *

Morning again, we were all awake and somewhat active as
Jaffee buried the remits of the fire to keep them from
smoldering and igniting the forest.

Little Fox was ready to go, quietly hovering around my Fox,
waiting for the answers that were promised last night. My
Fox looked worried, but he had the right to be. Today was
the day.

Damn, we originally had this all planned out. Fox would have
stayed someplace safe if Rhea's mind came back into control.
Here though, if that happened... It was an idea I didn't
like thinking about.

Fox walked over to me, the morning light reflecting off the
gem like quality of his eyes. It didn't hide his worry
though, or his fear.

"Jaffee, Little Fox," he called, "Could you please look over
this way. It's important that you watch this."

The call was unnecessary, both of them were focused on us
already.

Taking a deep breath Fox removed the pendant from around his
neck, holding it gently in one hand. Then he gave it to me,
setting it in my outstretched paw. "Wish me luck," He
whispered to me as he closed my fingers around the small
piece of dragon shaped metal.

Nodding to him I took a few steps backwards, towards the
others in the group. When I was a few feet away the air
around him started to blur. A sudden burst of power seemed
to electrify the air and in less then a blink of an eye Fox
was gone.

Standing on all fours, where he had just been, was a
lioness. Not a morphic lioness, but a real one. Large and
sleek she seemed unsure of herself as she found her footing.
Her eyes were the same ice blue color as Fox's, and for a
simple reason.

"Fox?" I asked.

She nodded her large head, twitching an ear.

"Any problems?"

She shook her head, walking over to me, each step becoming
surer as she became use to her form.

"What the hell just happened?" Little Fox asked as he walked
towards us.

I chuckled. "I would think that is obvious. Fox just changed
forms."

"Was that caused by his being at the Keep?" Jaffee asked.

I shook my head, putting the pendant in one of the pockets
of my cloak. "This predates that."

Fox snapped his fingers. "The other curse he mentioned, back
at the bar on the day we meet."

I nodded. "It was suppose to be for me."

"That would explain the form." Jaffee said.

I bent down to pet Fox on the scruff of her neck. "Yes, it
happened two months ago. It took a month to finally find
some way around it. Even then though we had lost him for a
week."

"Explain 'lost him'" Little Fox said.

I sighed. "He was effectively dead for the last week. I
can't explain, and I don't want to. Fox may when he's
changed back though."

"Why is he like this now though, you said you broke the
curse."

I shook my head. "No, we didn't break it, we found a way
around it. The pendant Fox wears, it's what keeps him human.
Still though he has to be Rhea three days after ever thirty,
or else all the spells will break down and he'll be stuck
like this."

They both nodded, far calmer about this then I was at the
time.

"Does stuff like this happen to you two a lot?" Fox asked.

I smiled. "Seems like this year it is. The first month of
the year we spent body swapped with each other."

Fox chuckled. "Damn, all you have to do his de-age him to an
infant for a while and you'll have hit all three curses at
the Keep."

In some strange way that was reassuring.

   To Be Continued...

-----

This story is (c) 1998 by Fox Cutter, hardcopy reprints
limited to one a person, all other rights reserved. This
story may not be distributed for a fee except by permission
of the author, and this copyright notice may not be removed.
"Metamor Keep" (C) 1998 by 'Copernicus' all rights reserved.