The disturbing and adult themes warning continues.

As one might expect.

There are lengths you have to go to in order to keep the existence of anomalies secret, and Jaune always did say it's not just by killing them.


Cover Art: Kirire

Chapter 57


The only amendment they'd made to their uniforms was a white armband with bold blue writing spelling out, in capital letters, "STAFF" on their left arms, just beneath the shoulders. Blake clung to it like a shield and made sure to angle her left side towards anyone and anything she saw, lest they think her "up" for something she wasn't. Maybe it wasn't fair to colour everyone in the community that way, as there was no doubt a lot of normal people in normal relationships who would never consider this. They wouldn't be coming, however. This event was for the freakiest of them, and they arrived by bus the next day.

Not one bus, not two, not three, but twelve busses filled with men and women coming off in obnoxiously bright furry outfits. Obnoxiously. Blake couldn't quite understand why a bright yellow and striped blue (the blue being shaped like lightning bolts) wolf had to exist. Nor why someone in a rabbit costume needed its fur to be pink with green dots all over it. Wasn't the point to look like an actual animal-human hybrid? She'd seen children's TV mascots less colourful. It was like some cruel monster had taken an animal shelter's worth of abandoned pets and put them through a paint factory.

"Everyone please form an orderly line and present your tickets." Jaune spoke into a megaphone from beside her at the main entrance.

As much as the sight before her was an assault on the eyes, what lay behind was no doubt worse. She'd seen the actual werewolves daub themselves in paint and groom their fur flat, and she'd seen them practicing their provocative poses. If the appreciative "ooohs" and "ahhhs" from the crowd before here were anything to go by, there was some seriously nasty stuff going on behind her. Blake kept her eyes ahead, her lips forced into a smile, and her eyes wide. She stuck a hand out toward a… toward a furry. It was impossible to tell gender or race like this.

"Ticket and name please."

"Fenrir, the mighty dire wolf paladin! First of his line!" The big, furry snout leaned in. "But hopefully not the last, eh?"

Jaune fixed his eyes on her, over Fenrir's shoulder, and shook his head slowly. "No" he kept mouthing, slitting a hand across his throat. What, did he think she was going to stab this person or something? She was only gripping Gambol Shroud so tightly because she felt like it. Ha ha. No problems at all.

"Go on through," she gritted out. "Next!" Another wolf approached. This was Wolf Con, after all. "Ticket and name."

"Fenris," said the man in the black fursuit with hundreds of white scars painted on over his body. "A dark wolf born in the wild and raised by actual wolves. I had to learn to survive on my own, and only recently discovered my origin, and beyond that my destiny-"

Blake stamped his ticket before he could get into his backstory. "Go on through. Next!"

They weren't all wolves. The Wolf in Wolf Con obviously referred to the abundance of wolf furries (and actual werewolves) but a lot of furries who just wanted to… well… fuck showed up. Blake counted it as a win that no one of a questionable age was here, and that no one she knew turned up, because that would have been entirely too horrifying.

Then again, there'd be no way of knowing given the outfits.

Still, no one gasped and said "Blake!" so she took that as hope for there being no one here. That and the fact she had very little friends outside work. If Adam had shown up then she'd have recognised his voice, and quite possibly smashed her head against the nearest fencepost. It took an hour to get them all in, which honestly wasn't bad. They were polite, orderly, and content to wait in line and chat with one another. Evidently, a lot of them knew each other from previous conventions and were happy to catch up. The hard part was ignoring the few who got frisky. To her relief, no fur suits were opened, but that meant also couldn't really call out a group of rabbits grinding up against one another and giggling. They technically weren't harming anyone or exposing themselves as they were in big fur suits. It was just… distracting.

Very distracting.

What she could, and would, call out was the lack of originality in names. There had been at least twenty variations on "Fenris" and "Fenrir" here today – and no shortage of "dark, tragic backstories" that would have had even the staunchest role-player rolling their eyes. It was almost a relief to have someone come up and tell her their fursona name was "Steve" if only because it was logical. Only two people tried to flirt with her too, which was another relief, and only one had tried to convince Jaune to "find them later" in the orgy and join in. He'd declined with more politeness than she thought she could have managed.

"Well, that's the queue done," said Jaune, stretching his arms over his head. "That wasn't so bad."

"I'm still furious you didn't warn me what we were doing here."

"You'd have run off into Vale and hidden."

Yes. Yes, she would have. "What comes now?"

"Now we make ourselves visible and try to stop any problems. The werewolves are usually good about not causing them, but it's the humans we need to keep an eye on. They tend to get lost in the moment and want to see the person under the fur as it were. If they try, we have to pull them off and warn them."

"Pull them off?" asked Blake, grimacing. "With our bare hands…?"

Jaune rolled his eyes. "Just grab the scruffs of their necks – they're in costume after all. They get a warning for the first time and then are kicked out for the second. We don't want to come on too harsh or that'll make them hard to deal with."

"Of course. I'd hate to come across as tyrannical…" Blake sighed. "Remind me why ARC Corp allows this again?"

"Because the alternative is either all-out war or the werewolves sneaking into the cities and risking exposing themselves. Better we let them get it out their system in a controlled environment." Jaune looked back into the convention. It was a mistake. He realised it a second later, grimacing and leaning back. "Oh lord. They're already at it."

"I'll guard the entrance."

"You're helping me! Just… turn around."

"I don't want to."

"It's better to get it over with in one go."

"…"

He was probably right. Blake knew what it was she'd see, but it was only going to get worse if she kept delaying herself. Better to look now and get used to it, then push through the night and let it come to an end. Blake took a deep breath – and regretted it because of the smell almost – and turned around.

It was…

It was bad, she couldn't lie, but it wasn't awful. Not yet.

There were literal animal people nuzzling with fake animal people, and a lot of bodily grinding that would have practically been sex if one of them didn't have a costume between them. There was just as much talking, however. Flirting, chatting, getting to know one another, and thankfully it seemed the actual coitus was being limited to the various tents. Blake watched as a Fenris was lured into a tent by an actual wolfwoman in several string bikinis. The less she knew about what went on inside, the better.

"There. It's not so bad, is it?"

Blake took a deep breath. "It gets worse, doesn't it?"

"…" Jaune glanced away. "Admittedly. But let's face it. This isn't as bad as a city that traps people in the last day of their lives and drives them insane, or a little girl trafficked as a slave stuck on an abandoned ship torturing herself with nightmares. Those are bad. This is… This is uncomfortable. And we should be thankful it's only that. What's a little humiliation at the end of the day?"

That was something she couldn't argue with. This was… This was embarrassing, mortifying even, but would she trade it for the death of an innocent child? Of course she wouldn't. Blake sighed, ran a hand over her face and nodded silently. It was a low blow on his part, but she couldn't say she didn't deserve it. Professionalism had to come first, especially with how much she was being paid, and how much relief on her and ARC Corp to keep things secret. Lives could be lost in a conflict, and there almost certainly would be one. People were already racist against faunus; it would be ten times worse with actual animal-people.

"Okay. I can do this. Split up and take quadrants?"

Jaune nodded, relieved to have her back. "Yes. I'll take the east side and you take the west. We'll meet back in the centre in two hours. Don't think you have to watch things if you don't want to. Just pick somewhere to stand that's close enough be seen, and watch videos on your scroll or something. No one's asking you to watch it happen."

/-/

In the end, Blake took a spot by a post and read a book on her scroll. Not an erotic book – not at a time like this – but a good, old-fashioned fantasy novel. The kind she used to eagerly grip the covers to as her father sat by her bed and read out the words, trying to match the voices of the characters and often failing thanks to his gravelly tone. She'd loved those moments all the same, and her parents often joked she was the easiest child in the world to convince to go to bed early, so long as there was a new book ready.

It would have made her smile more if her senses weren't being assailed on various ends. Grunts, howls and gasps in her ears, and the smell through her nose. God, the smell. There was the urine from before, and wet fur, and then there was whatever synthetic material the suits were made from, which did not smell nice when wet. The howling wasn't even all sex, either. In fact, most of it wasn't. There was a circle of brightly coloured furries howling at the sky, and the worst (or best) part was all the literal wolfmen shaking their heads or rolling their eyes at it.

The scroll in her hand buzzed and Blake answered it without thinking, expecting it to be Jaune calling something in. Instead, she was quickly faced with a static video image and a voice all too familiar. "Hello dear! How are you?"

"M – Mom!?" Blake winced, but she couldn't see it. They were on the edge of CCT range, so while the audio quality was there the picture couldn't load. "A-Ah, mom. I'm on the job right now. I can't talk."

"Oh? Oops. I'm sorry, dear. I thought you might-"

"Yes! Yes! Yes!" screamed a woman from the closest tent. "Harder, you – you animal! Ahhhh!"

"…"

"…"

Blake wanted to cry.

"Busy, huh?" Kali's voice was teasing. "It certainly sounds like you're busy."

"I… I am busy. With work. It's… It's not something I can… um… It's a disaster zone?"

"It sure sounds like someone is helping that woman with a disaster." Kali's voice became a little distant, like she'd taken the scroll away from her mouth to talk to someone else. "Darling, our daughter is at a swinger's club."

"Mom, no! I'm not at a swinger's club! I'm at…." A furry convention. There was no way she could say that. "I'm adjacent to a swinger's club. I am in the vicinity of a swinger's club that is loud. I am not attending or taking part."

"You don't need to be shy with us, dear. Why, your father and I had an adventurous phase once and-"

"I don't want to know!"

"All I'm saying is-"

"Mom. I'm working. Please leave it at that. I'm not here to-"

"Blake!" Jaune was jogging up. He looked flustered. "I need you!" he gasped, voice raw from running over. "I need you right now!"

"Oooh~" Kali gasped. "I'll leave the two of you to it, darling. Give me some grandchildren!"

Blake considered calling back and screaming at her mom but let the scroll fall and glared at Jaune instead. "I hate you."

"No time. I need your help. There's an incident at the front gate. It's them."

Damn it. Blake started jogging with him, but asked, "Who is them? More werewolves? More furries? Your sisters?"

"Worse," he said, groaning. "The judgmental."

There was a crowd outside the entrance. Mostly female, and middle-aged and older, but there were a few men too that she suspected had been dragged along with their wives for solidarity. They were carrying placards and banners and chanting in solidarity (but out of tune so she couldn't make out the words) and they looked angry. Blake came to a stop by the gate and was immediately reminded of the anti-faunus protests in Atlas. The signs were almost similar.

"Say NO to filth."

"Animals are pets!"

"No more depravity."

"Down with the fur industry!"

And, of course, there were more that were just a cartoon image of a provocatively posing furry with a red circle and line through it. The exact phrases in some cases had been used in anti-faunus protests, often portraying faunus as no better than animals as well. Blake scowled, but Jaune pushed her toward the entrance to keep it shut and walked out with his megaphone. He was going to face them alone but needed her to make sure none ran past.

"Please back away from the convention," His voice boomed through the device, aimed at the crowd of angry adults. "This is a legally held and licensed convention and you are trespassing."

"Down with the freaks!" screamed one woman.

"They need help, not to be encouraged by monsters like you!" shouted another.

"They're corrupting the good people of Vale!"

"It's a conspiracy!" yelled one very overweight man with a scruffy beard. "They're trying to lower birth rates in Vale because the shadow government wants to crossbreed us with Grimm, and this is the first step! You'll never take me alive!"

Even a few of the other protestors backed away from that one.

"This is a consensual event." said Jaune, sighing. "Please back away."

"Think of all the children you're corrupting!" screamed one of them.

"Ma'am, we are twenty miles outside of Vale in a forest. There are no children here. This event is about as private as it could be without being hosted on the literal moon."

"My baby boy is in there! He's being corrupted!"

"Ma'am, your baby boy is a grown man and can make his own decisions."

"He's only thirty!"

"For shame!"

"Shame!"

"Fur shame!" yelled another, and like a pack of hyenas they jumped on the catch chant.

"Fur shame! Fur shame! Fur shame!"

"I am going to have to ask you all to board whatever vehicle brought you out here and return to Vale for your own safety."

"You can't threaten us!"

"Ma'am, I will reiterate. You are in a forest twenty miles outside of Vale. This area is not safe, hence my assistant being a professional huntress hired to protect the area. You are all in direct danger of being attacked by Grimm, or wild animals-"

"The only wild animals are the ones fucking in there! Sickos!"

Blake rolled her eyes. Maybe the woman was jealous.

"Ma'am, the fact these so-called sickos get more action than you is not my problem-" Blake cackled and gave him a thumbs up. "What is my problem is a group of grown adults trying to insert themselves into the sex lives of other people. I am going to have to ask you to leave."

"Look!" cried a voice behind her. "It's the repressed!"

Uh-oh. It was bad enough with the protestors in front, but now they had a group of furries behind. Blake winced and turned her back to the first lot to hold her arms out and block the newcomers. Fortunately, they didn't try and push their way out. Behind her, she heard the protestors shout for them to take off their suits and become normal people again, and that they could get them help. That they could be fixed – as if they were broken in the first place. Blake knew that wouldn't be taken well, and sure enough the furries puffed out their chests.

"You think you can tell us what to do, huh? Well, come on, guys! Let's show them what we can do!"

"Please remain calm!" shouted Jaune. "Do not fight!"

They didn't fight.

Blake wished they had.

Instead, they did what was often considered the best way to fight back against protestors telling you what you couldn't do. They did the thing they weren't supposed to do. Furred forms in costumes began rubbing up against one another and moaned provocatively, and some even got down on all-fours. Blake was forced to see it all, unable to turn away as the nightmarish scene unfolded in front of her.

"Please do not fornicate either! Please- oh good lord, no! Stop that! Stop that!"

Some of the costumes had flaps on them. Flaps that could be opened up to allow for… things to come out. Or go in. Blake hadn't felt she needed to know that and regretted knowing it now. It was like watching a car crash happen in slow motion; she couldn't look away.

"Blake, stop them! Make them stop!"

"I… I can't move. My feet are rooted to the ground."

"Hey now, what's this!?" Of all the people who could have approached, it was Paddlefax. The werewolf they'd first met, with his fur stretched over a muscular barrel chest and, to her discomfort, little lipstick marks dotted here and there over it. He was obviously a very big and muscular man… wolfman, and he seemed to carry with him a lot of respect in the community because the display in front of her stopped.

"F-Freak!" shouted a woman outside.

"Freak?" Paddlefax grunted and stretched his arms over his head, making his muscles bulge. "Darling, I am a freak. In bed! Now, what are you sexy souls doing here wasting your time with closed-minded losers like them when you could be in my tent learning how a real wolf makes love, hmmm?" He winked. "Don't let them ruin your day."

It was like a flick had been switched. Men and women in suits stood, and zippers were zipped up. They coughed into their paws and turned away from the protestors, and one even (Blake felt he was a Fenris, rather than a Fenrir) said, "You're right. They want to ruin our big day but we're not going to let them. Arooooo!"

"Aroooooooo!" howled the rest, linking arms and walking away. Blake never thought she'd be grateful for the intervention of one of these horny wolf-people.

"Don't turn your backs on us!" howled someone outside. "You're entering a den of evil and depravity. Scum! Perverts! Think of the children!"

"Ma'am, please leave the children out of this. I repeat, we are in the middle of nowhere. There are no children other than those in your imagination."

Another set of footsteps rushed up behind her and a clawed hand touched her shoulder. Blake tensed, and even more so when an actual snout pushed past her head to her ear. A gravelly, feminine voice whispered, "We have an issue. Need one of you."

"We have an issue here," she hissed back. "Can't it wait?"

"No. One of yours is causing a fuss trying to take a costume off. If you get what I mean."

Damn it. Someone was pushing boundaries with the werewolves. This was the main thing they were here for. Blake hissed and pulled away from the wolf woman, then rushed to Jaune to whisper the same to him. He leaned into her, away from the megaphone, and sighed when she was done.

"Now of all times. Damn it. Right, I'll try and hold here while you handle it. Can you…?"

"I'll be fine." Blake unlatched Gambol Shroud and gave it to him. "To send a message if you have to." Several of the protesters close enough to hear backed away nervously. She'd meant shooting it into the air or the ground, but that worked too. "Finish up here and come help me when you can." Blake rushed back to the werewolf female, and tried to ignore how sticky her fur was. "Take me to them now. I'm not in the mood to be gentle."

"I bet I could get you-" The werewolf quailed under her gaze. "S – Sorry. Let's go."

Jaune would be all right; they were just angry idiots at the end of the day. Worse, they were idiots who felt the need to butt into other people's business and tell them how to live their lives. Blake might not have enjoyed being here, but she knew everyone else was and that was their choice at the end of the day. She just wished the world could understand that and let her have an uneventful evening. No such luck.

There was a commotion outside a tent – no one hurt and no fight, thankfully, as the werewolves would have probably torn the person responsible to shreds. It was more that others could hear an argument and gravitated close to listen like bystanders at a traffic accident. As per usual, no one was being helpful as a male werewolf growled angry words at a woman. Blake could tell it was a woman because she had her head off. Helmet? Mask? Either way, her pale blue bunny fursuit was on up to her shoulders, where a woman's head could be seen. The rabbit head was on the floor. The woman looked… flushed, to put it lightly. Sweaty, too. And the smell. Blake bit back a grimace and interposed herself between the two.

"All right! Calm down! Security! What's going on here?"

"Crazy bitch tried to rip my head off!" snarled the werewolf. Blake kept her eyes firmly upward, because he wasn't wearing a stitch of clothing and he was… well, he'd come from sex. That was the only way to put it. "Right when I was inside-"

"Too much detail." Blake turned to the human woman. "And you, ma'am?"

"I… I mean, I just wanted to see what he was like under." Now that she'd been called out, she sounded a little more embarrassed about the whole affair. "I thought we really connected, and we were in the middle of-"

"Ma'am."

"Uh. Right. We were going at it and I wanted to see his face. Share the moment eye-to-eye, you know?" She looked away. "I didn't mean to hurt him but I didn't think his suit would be on as tight as it is. I couldn't find the zip or seam anywhere so I thought I'd give it a tug."

I am really not paid enough for this, thought Blake, sighing.

"Ma'am, please understand that everyone here has agreed to both the experience of a convention spent in a fursuit, and the anonymity it provides. Not everyone here can afford for their names and faces to make it out of here. Some have jobs, families, and friends who wouldn't understand their… unique… lifestyle..."

There were a few murmurs of agreement behind her.

"I get that. I do. But… I mean… we're all furries here, right? Why the secrecy? We know we're all regular people under the suits. What does it hurt to share that with one another as well?"

Blake didn't have the words. This was an alien thing to her, and she couldn't really get with the idea of having sex with someone without even knowing who they were and what they looked like, let alone if you could trust them. She knew a lot of other people did, though. Apparently, her own parents had even dabbled, and that was something she was going to need a lot of alcohol to purge from her memory.

This isn't my strong suit, she thought. Being able to calm people down and find a way out of this. She'd expected an unreasonable and aggressive person she could escort away and have a strong word with, not someone who sounded reasonable. Blake's silence wasn't helping, and the people behind her were shuffling around uncertainly. The only option was to open her mouth and just say something. Whatever bullshit she could think up. Anything would do.

"It's about the spirit of furrydom!"

The woman raised an eyebrow. "What?"

"It's… It's the spirit," said Blake, struggling but pushing on regardless. There was nothing to do now but dive headfirst in and hope she didn't crack her skull open. "When you don the fursuit, yes, you are a normal human underneath, but you become something more by… by the power of imagination and… and by the acceptance of others."

What am I even talking about…? No time. Keep going.

"It's an understanding and an unspoken agreement between two people – between two furries – that while you both wear the fursuit, and while you are both here, that you are not Mandy, and Cindy, or Greg and Roger, but Shadowmane, and Fenrir, and Fenrir and even Fenrir."

"You said Fenrir three times," said the woman.

"How many Fenrirs are here right now?" snapped Blake, patience waning. Several hands rose. "That's what I thought!"

"Bro, you're Fenrir? But I'm Fenrir…"

"I thought it was an original name. Did you copy my OC?"

"Your OC? It's my-"

"Anyway!" shouted Blake, interrupting them before they could start trading art accounts. "It's about respect and belief. None of you are truly furry. You know that. But by respecting one another and believing in one another, and with a dash of lust driving everyone insane, you can believe, for a single day, that you are. Only a moment," she said, "but a moment that brings everyone together. That unites you all here at Wolf Con. Don't forget that!" said Blake, shaking her fist at the woman and channelling her father's most impressive speeches to impoverished faunus. "Don't forget that this is about more than you. This is about respecting your partner, respecting your fellow furries, and about respecting yourself. Not the real you, but the you that you've chosen to be here today – even if it is just another Fenrir."

There were some shouts of approval. Quite a lot, actually. Blake glanced back and realised they – or she – had gained an even larger audience, especially when her "passionate speech" began. There were furries and werewolves, arm in arm, cheering her on.

To hell with it. She was in this deep. Might as well go deeper.

"That's what it means to be a furry!" shouted Blake, to numerous cheers. "Now what's your name?"

The woman, shame-faced, dipped her head. "Rebecca."

"No. I asked you your name. What's your name, wolf."

Her head shot up, tears running down her cheeks. "I am Fenrira!"

Blake's entire face spasmed. "Oh, for fuck's sak-"

"I am Fenrira!" she cried out, over Blake's complaint. "And I'm so sorry! I've let everyone down! I – I should go-"

"Don't go!" shouted a man behind Blake. A furry bright yellow arm shot out over Blake's shoulder, reaching out. "Don't go Fenrira. Everyone makes mistakes. Everyone falters. What's important is growing beyond them. Don't walk away when this is the best day of your life. Don your head and come back to us, Fenrira!" He stepped past Blake, arms open. "We welcome you with open arms!"

The woman cried out, stooped, picked up her rabbit head and put it back on, then leapt into the other person's arms, crying loudly. He wrapped her up and the audience began to applaud loudly. Despite herself, and despite the stupidity of it all, Blake felt just a little pleased with herself. Almost proud. Heh. Wait until Jaune hears about this.

Before she could think to make that happen, a pale blue arm snaked out and caught Blake, yanking her in. Rebe- Fenrira, dragged Blake in between the two of them. "Thank you! I'm sorry! Thank you! I'm so sorry!"

"It – It's okay." Blake squirmed to escape. "No action is necessary. Just don't do it-"

A warm body pressed around Blake. A warm, furry body. Barrel arms came around her but didn't settle on her, instead entrapping her but hugging the woman instead. "Emotions were high," growled the werewolf. "It did not hurt that much. I can forgive, Fenrira. I can forget the bad." His chest rumbled. "Especially when we'd just gotten to the good bit before that."

"Ack! No!" Blake writhed between their bodies. "Let me go! Let me out!"

"GROUP HUG!"

"No group hugs!" howled Blake. "No group-"

They piled in. Furry bodies, some real, some fake, all heavy enough to turn the awkward huddle into a downright horrific mass of bodies squashing together. A loud "awww" rode out over it all, drowning out Blake's own words.

"Let me go! I can smell – oh good lord, your fur is wet! Why is it wet!? I can feel it touching me! No! No!"

"Awwwwwwwwwww~"

They squeezed tighter. Blake's face was buried in fur.

"Noooooooo!"

/-/

Ruby Rose came to a slow stop outside the building that housed the Containments Office and tilted her head. There were a few other people with her, standing on the street and watching the spectacle going on ahead of them. There, Jaune stood with a jet washer in hand, a power washer the likes of which one would use on cars, and he was aiming it at the brick wall ahead of them.

There, Blake stood with her hands on the wall, head bowed, back presented to him and thoroughly drenched in water. Her suit, for she was still wearing it for some reason, was dripping wet, and only getting wetter as Jaune slowly angled the nozzle of the washer up and down, spraying out a thin stream of powerful water that continued to drench her.

"Blake, we have an audience," he complained.

"I don't care! I'm unclean! I need to wash away the evil!" Blake turned and held her arms out. Luckily, her suit was buttoned up so her white shirt, which had gone see-through in places, didn't reveal anything beyond her breastbone and neck. "Clean my front as well. Then you're buying me a new suit. I'm burning this one."

"Um." Ruby raised a hand. "What happ-"

"I DON'T WANT TO TALK ABOUT IT!"


Blake putting that past experience of hers to use to stand up for the oppressed.

Go Blake!

Tell them how it is!


Next Chapter: 19th June

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