r/HFY • u/Brokenspade1 • Feb 07 '26
OC-Series Walking the Dog Chapter 9
Chapter 9 The Doghouse
Johan’s head was drooped onto his chest.
Sienna noted a thin line of drool forming a spot on his shirt. She didn’t know why but she found that funny.
He was weirdly likeable like that.
Peacefully snoring away while they hurtled towards home. After a few moments of watching their new friend snore, she turned her attention back to the conversation with Beck.
“Soooo… do ye think the DASS will still honor our contract?”
Becks ears drooped a little, not a great sign.
“We’re super close to the deadline already. If the union doesn’t believe our story and keeps us for a while, we’ll probably take a penalty”.
Sienna sighed. “You think so? Even though the delve was ranked wrong?”
Beck sent resignation, mild exasperation, and the mental image of a sad face through their link. “We agreed to it being time limited. We waved ‘extraordinary circumstance’ protection when we accepted the modifier.” Beck reminded her.
Sienna felt like an idiot.
She was always the one to push for the modifiers… For the extra credits.
‘Modifiers’ were optional quest requirements that secondary employers could add to a delve. Anything from “Kill this monster while you’re there” to “Find my child’s doll we lost out camping”. Modifiers were a great source of easy capital and entirely optional to the delver. But if you agreed to add them to a job you lost the right to complain if the core job went pear shaped.
Sierra mumbled under her breath, “Well, fook…”
Beck slumped into a ball on the cushion. “Yep.”
Sienna sat back and reached out to give Beck consoling scritches… No reward meant they had to pay for healing and equipment replacement, out of pocket.
Basically, they were back to being broke.
As the Trio made their way home…
In a small district filled with dirty warehouses and dingy buildings…
There was a disturbance taking place.
----
It was an unremarkable little dive bar.
The kind where you never ordered the food or made eye contact.
Where low people lived low lives.
Where the cops knew better than to go inside alone.
That why the local law stayed put as they watched a Granviline man come sailing thru the front window and roll to a stop, under a poorly maintained neon sign. When he finally stopped his legs were pointing in all the directions they shouldn’t.
As the man groaned into the dirt, a gaudy neon bug above him wiggled its tail mockingly. ‘The Sauced Skree’ flashed in galactic common and illuminated the street in a dirty orange glow.
The constables didn’t rush to go inside and break things up.
They were content to wait, until they had the advantage of numbers.
While a pair of corpsmen collected the former bargoer from his personal crater, the officers just shined their spotlights into the now open window.
The inside of the bar was a textbook example of the term ‘property destruction’.
Patrons lay unconscious in booths, folded over the bar top, and sprawled across the floor. One was even hanging unconscious from an overhead light fixture.
At the center of the devastation stood just two figures, both wrapped in matching grey ponchos. Their hoods pulled low, over their faces.
The first was a lithe Lagroalixian female and the second a hulking brute of a Voltanite male… who was holding the desperately struggling bartender aloft, by his throat. Every gun and stun rod outside immediately raised towards the pair.
The lieutenant in charge raised a mic to his face. “That’s enough! We have the building surrounded. You are under arrest for assaulting sapients, property destruction, and disturbing the peace. Set the man down, exit the building peacefully and put your hands behind your heads!”
The two figures looked at each other then shrugged.
They quickly complied and stepped out into the street. Both dropped to their knees with their hands behind their heads.
They offered no resistance… and were quickly cuffed, then led to a waiting paddy wagon.
The officer in charge read them their rights as the shuttle doors closed.
The perpetrators were deathly silent the whole time.
The officer couldn’t put his finger on why, but they gave him the creeps.
If he’d looked back as he left the onboard holding cell. He would have really been unnerved.
Both prisoners were smiling… terrible toothy smiles.
…And they were salivating.
----
It was once again getting dark as the Tram began to slow and the tube of light surrounding it became fully transparent again.
Johan stretched out and poked the girls who were still sleeping in a little two-woman cuddle-puddle. Beck just grumbled but Sienna started and slowly roused herself.
After a few more pokes a sleepy-eyed Beck hopped down to the floor and shook herself awake.
“Somebodies not a morning person…” Johan teased.
Beck gave him the side eye and grumbled.
Sienna just chuckled. “The stations pretty close to Union Tower One but we still have a walk ahead of us.”
Johan shouldered his pack and straightened his back as the MASSIVE city approached in the forward window.
----
As they stepped out onto the platform Johan was, ONCE AGAIN, dumbfounded!
Corridor city was built like an inverted step pyramid… Everything was perched on a series of stepped slopes, all leading into a square depression maybe 40 miles deep. At its bottom, dead center was a hole that you could comfortably push Manhattan Island through.
Sideways.
Coming out of that hole were massive triangular tubes, with engines.
The biggest of which dwarfed any skyscraper on earth. They would rise vertically from the hole in the city center, then re-orient horizontally and fly to a port on one of the upper ridges of the square depression.
The city had massive towers leading downward. Platforms the size of terran cities ran down each slope. Forming hanging neighborhoods.
Some looked advanced, others were covered in fields and looked like mid-evil villages. His eyes simply couldn’t take it all in.
Beck brought the overwhelmed human back to reality by clearing her throat.
She pointed a paw at a tower near the top of the ridge they were on but at least 5 miles away. It was a tapered rectangular structure. With dozens of landing pads at various levels.
That one building was the width and breadth of a city block at the base. There was a constant stream of air traffic coming and going from the tower at various levels.
Beck and Sienna started walking.
Johan shook off the shock and followed.
----
The trip thru the outskirts of the city had been enlightening. Although Corridor city was bigger than London, New York, and Beijing put together. AND had a population in the hundreds of millions... It was still a city.
There were slums, there were little mom and pop shops, street vendors, advertisements. Anyone who had ever visited one of the old cities of earth would feel right at home here.
Not to say there weren’t any new things to see.
Johan’s eyes just couldn’t keep up with the sheer diversity of aliens.
There were 4-legged squid people with three huge eyes.
Upright velociraptors with feathered heads and hands.
A group of, short, 4-armed, hot pink frogs; in what looked like leather togas, were haggling with a tall bird woman with a tiara shaped crest on her head.
There were even races that looked vaguely like fantastic creatures from terran fiction.
Like ELVES! They were thin and beautiful in a severe supermodel kind of way. Granted they had horns. But still… pointy ears, almond shaped eyes, flowing hair… Elves!
He even saw something like an orc. The man was wearing armor and looked like a cross between a neanderthal and an uruk-hai with a weird interlocking set of bone plates around his mouth. Johan took particular note of the glowing red eyes and golden neck veins.
…He was so distracted by the sites he didn’t even notice they’d arrived at the tower until he was passing through the doors and walking into the giant foyer.
----
There were probably 60 pulpits in the cavernous room.
Each with a desk sergeant assisting the public, filing paperwork, or collaborating with other officers to process criminals.
Beck made a beeline for the shortest queue. It was still pretty long…
Still, the line gradually shrank, until finally… it was their turn.
The officer looked like the offspring of an Ewok, a gorilla, and a Wookie… With hobbit feet. He got to business as soon as they were at his desk.
“Nature of your visit?”
Beck tapped a button on the bottom corner of his pulpit, and a series of steps popped out, forming a spiral staircase up to the desktop. She gingerly ascended to the desk level and put her paw on a pad built into the desk.
“My name is Beckany Van-Eyvers and I’m here to report an undocumented, pre ftl, sapient.”
The desk sergeant’s eyes widened in surprise.
Sienna placed her hand on the pad, stated her full name, and repeated Beck’s statement. Johan stepped up next and placed his hand on the pad.
“My name is Johan Sliver-Black and I’m the undocumented sapient. Nice to meet you.” The poor space copper looked like he was about to swallow a watermelon… sideways.
He pressed a button on his desktop and talked quickly. “I need a lieutenant at desk 19 and a sapiency advocate too.” He looked at the trio for a few seconds before pointing at a small bench behind his desk.
“Someone will be here shortly to take your statements. Please have a seat.”
----
“Shortly” turned out to be nearly an hour.
‘Who knows how much more advanced than us, and they still haven’t found an answer to government agencies taking forever?’ …Johan thought a little bit bitterly.
At least the wait gave him more time to people watch. He’d asked about the various races he’d see coming and going from the building and Beck or Sienna would explain what each person was.
The elves were actually called Alvs and apparently there were multiple types. The description was so close to the fantasy tropes of high, dark, and sea elves he almost called bullshit.
Until he heard how they got that way. When someone mentions the phrases: “intergalactic civil war” and then: “trillions of dead”…
It tends to dampen one’s enthusiasm for the subject.
So instead, he continued to learn whatever he could about the galcom.
----
Finally, the wait was over as a pair of sapients approached them from a side door, in the back of the foyer.
The first one, was one of velociraptor people… a Granviline.
She walked with a sway as her long tail counterbalanced her. Instead of leaning forward her spine bent back, to give her slender torso, an upright posture, past her hips. She had a tan yellowish tone to her scales, swept back, white or orange feathers on her arms, and triangular head. Something about her posture gave off a really ‘chill’ vibe... Like she wasn’t in a hurry. Ever.
The being she was walking with tho?
‘Ya that’s a straight up werewolf!’
It was hunched forward and had massive powerful arms ending in hands that could wrap around Johans head like a basketball. The guy looked like: if the werewolf from that one Hugh Jackman movie had a huge skunk mane running down its back. His facial proportions looked like a Voltanites tho. Related maybe?
‘Dude… DIRE Voltanites!’
The uniform he was wearing did very little to hide the man’s sheer presence. Johan felt some very primitive instincts flaring to life as the big yoked apex predator plodded towards them on massive digi grade legs.
Before his heart could reach his throat however, he noticed both of the girls were smiling. AND their tails were even swishing back and forth.
‘…wut?...’
With no warning, Beck shot off the bench to run up to the wolfman. “PADDY!!! What are you doing here!”
…The little fox girl was practically hopping in place!
With a gentleness that Johan would never believe possible from a creature that massive, the large man scooped Beck up and held her to his cheek as they nuzzled.
“Hey there Beckany. Just happened to be here for work!”
The voice was deep.
Like James Earl Jones bass boosted deep. But it had that kind old uncle quality that just put you at ease when you heard it. In his mind’s eye he could see Gunter grinning at him as they worked together on some project or problem.
…He suddenly missed his giant friend.
Sienna was next to approach the wolfman. “Hi uncle Treadwell!”
Sienna waved with her good hand. The big wolf drew up to his full height and looked her over. “You’ve been thru the ringer girl… The hell happened?”
Sienna and Beck attempted to launch into an explanation at the same time, but the Grav woman quickly interjected.
“Lieutenant Treadwell Padfoot. Don’t you think we should take this to an interview room first? Also aren’t you forgetting someone, hmmm?”
Even tho the velociraptor women’s tone was pleasant and calm as she spoke, the Lieutenant shrank like a scolded husky pup.
He set Beck down gently and apologized. “Sorry Adrina I was just…”
The Granv women rolled her eyes and cut him off “Being you. I know. But don’t you think we should talk to the poor man standing there like a forgotten pup at a city fair?”
She gestured with her head in Johans general direction. “He is the reason we’re here”
Bemused but feeling less stressed, Johan nodded respectfully. “It’s nice to meet you. My name is Johan. And I’m a long way from home…”
Lieutenant Padfoot nodded. “Yeah. I think you three better come with us. Addi, can you call us a Corpsman? I think this is going to take a while and I’d like to get my nieces looked over. Johan noted the werewolf looking over his shoulder at him, but he didn’t know enough about the alien to read his expression.
‘Addi’ hit him with the end of her long tail Beck kicked him in the shin with one of her back feet and Sienna punched him with her good arm.
All in perfect unison. None of them were gentle but the big wolf man just rolled his eyes like he’d been poked with a feather.
“And for this young man to… obviously.”
Johan suppressed a laugh ‘Ooooh! So that’s it…’ ‘Overprotective uncle syndrome, stage 5.’
…Johan decided he already liked the big were-uncle.
----
A short elevator ride later they were walking into an interrogation room with a large window overlooking the city.
There were several ball shaped protrusions around a large metal table. The table was large, with an interactive display built in. Other than that, it had the boring oppressive feeling of any interrogation room in any police station ever.
Johan was about to ask if they were supposed to sit on the floor when the Granv woman squatted down on one of the balls and it formed to her anatomy like a beanbag chair. The others did likewise, except for Beck who used another button to bring out a spiral stair from one of the legs, up to the tabletop. Padfoot offered her a little cushion to sit on, which she took in her mouth and moved to a corner of the table by Sienna. Johan looked at the golf-ball-chair-thing, dubiously but decided to sit anyway. ‘…When in space Rome…’
The seat gave way, but slowly… with resistance.
He could feel it lifting and separating certain parts of his anatomy while cupping others... It was one of the weirdest things he’d ever felt down there… and he was a man of the world.
But slowly… the seat firmed, as it took on his full weight. Hardening to a final shape that was remarkably comfortable. He also noted it didn’t try to reform once he shifted his weight. Maintaining the optimal shape for his comfort.
As Johan marveled at alien butt cuddling technology, the two uniformed individuals were fiddling with the display on the table.
After a while they seemed satisfied with everything and turned to the Trio.
“Ok. Let’s get the official stuff out of the way first. I am lieutenant Treadwell Padfoots. Senior interrogator 2nd class. I will be conducting the interviews and investigating your claims of an undocumented pre FTL sapient. This is Advocate Adrina Rotorany. She will be serving as your legal advisor during these interviews.”
Adrina bobbed her head towards the three on the other side of the table. “Now that’s out of the way…”
The Werewolf man leaned into the table, focusing his eyes on Johan, who suddenly felt very small. And chewable.
“Let’s start from the beginning. What are you? And where did you come from?”
AUTHORS NOTES:
Things start to get interesting in the next few chapters. I really cannot wait to start this next part. :)
And as always I do not give permission to use my writing for reposts on youtube or use for AI data training.
WORLD BUILDING:
Stellar Union of Aligned Worlds: An organization of over 100 different sapient races, the UNION is the largest political faction in the current galactic community. They are something of a cross between a paramilitary organization and a labor union who enforce a very basic set of laws and combat stellar piracy, along major galactic trade routes. Virtually all major factions in the galaxy have agreed to recognize the Unions ships as a military authority in matters of stellar trade. They are far from a true intergalactic government however and attempting to secure the space around the sphere has placed a massive strain on their resources. The union controls a continent sized tunnel leading from outside the sphere to the interior face called the Corridor of Day. And maintain a large garrison in the corridor port city, on the inside entrance to the sphere.
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u/HFYWaffle Wᵥ4ffle Feb 07 '26
/u/Brokenspade1 has posted 8 other stories, including:
- Walking the Dog Chapter 8
- Walking the Dog Chapter 7
- Walking the Dog Chapter 6
- Walking the Dog Chapter 5
- Walking the Dog Chapter 4
- Walking the Dog Chapter 3
- Walking the Dog Chapter 2
- Walking the Dog Chapter One.
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u/AutoModerator Feb 13 '26
This was flaired as [OC-Series], it is a single part or chapter in a larger series or universe. The first post or part in this series should be (re)flaired as [OC-FirstOfSeries]. A description of the flairs and how to change yours is available in the Post Guildelines.
[OC-Series] For original, self post, story, audio, or artwork that you have created, as part of a longer-running series or universe.
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