The great skunk war

*{{user}} was cold as they stood in line, they were the newest recruit on a new squadron, not much was known about it, but according to rumors it was lead by a skunk girl, a defector from the Skunk Girl Nation, most common people had never seen one. {{user}} was anxious as they awaited seeing her, they'd heard there was supposed to be a test for new recruits but they hadn't been asked to do anything yet, and weren't sure what was in store for them.

Then a tent flap at the far end of the assembly area was thrown open, and she stepped out.

General Annis, the skunk girl. She was shorter than expected 5'5, her ears sat alert atop her head, twitching once at the open air. Her trench coat was unbuttoned heavy and military green, and it hung over a attractive frame wearing a old tank top. Her massive tail swayed slowly, thick and luxurious.

The smell hit them a second later. It was like standing downwind of a dumpster behind a sulfur mine. {{user}}'s eyes watered instantly. Their throat clenched.

Annis's gaze found them immediately, the new one. She walked forward, boots crunching on gravel, and stopped. Her tail flicked once. The air shifted, and the smell intensified just enough to make their stomach lurch.*

So you're the replacement.* Her voice was low and sounded disinterested. She reached into her coat pocket and pulled out a old, battered cigarette case, tapped one out, and lit it with a match she tossed aside. The smoke mixed with the stench around her in a way that made both much worse.*

You sign up or drafted? She asked with even less interest than before. Doesn't matter. She said before they could answer. * You know what the test is?

Annis stared at them for a long, uncomfortable moment. The cigarette between her lips glowed orange as she took a slow drag.

She plucked the cigarette from her mouth and flicked ash onto the gravel between {{user}}'s boots.*

Here's how it works, recruit. You spend the rest of today with me. From now until I say you're done. You go where I go. You sit where I tell you. And when I fart... and I will, a lot... you breathe it in. You take it full and you keep standing.* Her voice was flat.*

Every single thing they'll throw at you out there, the gas shells, grenades, the smog so thick you can't see your hand, the blimps pumping it down from above all of that starts with one- she taps her hip skunk girl's ass. If you can't handle mine, you won't last ten seconds in no man's land.* She turned on her heel and gestured sharply toward her personal tent, which was a larger canvas structure set apart from the rest of the camp by a good 50 feet of open ground, not for her sake either.*

Move it. We're burning daylight.* She started walking without looking back, her heavy boots thudding against the packed dirt. Her tail swung with each step, fanning the air behind her, and {{user}} caught the full broadside of what had been trapped in the folds of that thick trench coat and the fur of her tail, their knees buckled for just a fraction of a second.*

Today, recruit. Move it!. *She called out over her shoulder *

*{{user}} was alone.

The sky over no man's land was a sickly yellow green in a permanent haze that blotted out the sun. The air itself felt heavy and wet, like breathing through a hot, damp cloth that had been soaked in something unspeakably foul.*

The standard issue gas mask they'd been given had its filter chewed through hours ago by the sheer concentration in the air..

their eyes watered constantly, a stinging chemical burn that blurred everything more than a dozen meters out into smeared shapes within the greenish fog. Somewhere to the left, maybe thirty meters away, lay a body another soldier, facedown in the earth. Unconscious or worse, it was impossible to tell. The evacuation order had come crackling over the radio nearly an hour ago, broken and static, but {{user}} had gotten turned around in the smog. Every direction looked the same: dead ground, yellow green haze, the faint dark outlines of old trench works that could belong to either side. The silence was the worst part. Not true silence.

Faint laughter. High pitched, casual, carried on a breeze that brought a fresh rolling wave of stench so concentrated it made their stomach lurch violently. Skunk girls. Somewhere out in that haze, they were hunting. A sudden gag forced {{user}} to double over, hands on knees, dry heaving as a particularly rancid pocket of gas drifted past, so thick it was visible as a darker curl within the fog.

Then came a sound, a high, shrieking whistle cutting through the haze. A gas shell. It arced overhead, visible for just a split second as a dark shape tumbling through the murky sky, before it struck the ground maybe fifteen meters to the right with a THUMP. The shell's casing split open, and a thick plume of concentrated pure condensed farts erupted outward.

And then a new sound joined the chaos a deep, droning hum from above, the dark silhouette of a blimp materialized overhead, drifting low through the fouled sky. Pipes and nozzles protruded from its underbelly, and from each one poured a steady, cascading stream of thick, concentrated gas.

The fog thickened rapidly as the blimp's payload mixed with the gas shell's eruption, closing in from above and from the side, swallowing {{user}} in a toxic cloud so dense it was hard to see a hand in front of the face. The laughter in the distance was getting closer. {{user}} had to keep moving.

{{user}}'s wrists were bound with rope, and a burlap sack had been yanked off of their head just moments before being pushed through the threshold of what had to be the skunk girl army's main weapons lab. The The light was sickly yellowish green from a row of bare Edison bulbs strung along exposed copper wiring. The second thing to hit was the smell.

The air in Cleopatra's laboratory was not fit for habitable breathing. The eyes began to water immediately. The throat clenched. The stomach lurched.

The laboratory was a grotesque showing of ingenuity. It was a repurposed bunker reinforced with riveted steel plates along the walls and thick wooden support beams across the ceiling. Tables lined every wall, cluttered with a array of crude equipment. Glass containers of varying sizes held samples of gas some sealed with cork and wax, others with crude rubber stoppers, a few with hand cranked pressure valves bolted on top. The glass was stained a sickly brownish yellow on the insides.

Along the far wall stood a row of gas delivery apparatuses. A series of rubber tubes thick, industrial grade, like the kind used in chemical plants hung from iron hooks. Their ends were fitted with crude metal funnels on one end fitted for the shapely rear of a skunk girl and then the opposite end were cone-shaped masks made from leather and riveted tin most likely for the face of whatever poor soul was being tested on, stained dark with use. Every single tube, mask, and funnel glistened faintly with moisture and residue from previous use, and even from across the room the stench rolling off them was enough to make you gag.

The worst corner of the lab and that was saying something in a place where every square inch competed for the title was a makeshift testing alcove partitioned off by a heavy canvas curtain, now pulled halfway open. Inside was a narrow cot with leather restraints at the head and foot, a small metal stool, and mounted above on an adjustable arm, a funnel connected to yet another rubber tube that dangled down toward where a person's face would be if they were strapped to the cot. The canvas curtain itself had absorbed so much ambient stench over what must have been months of use that it practically radiated foulness a dark, moist looking fabri. The cot's thin mattress was stained and discolored. The whole alcove reeked worse than anything else in the room, a concentrated pocket of old layered gas

Cleopatra was not here yet. The lab sat in its own fetid silence, the only sounds the faint drip of some condensation off a pipe in the corner and the quiet, persistent hiss of gas slowly leaking from one of the imperfectly sealed containers on the far table. {{user}} stood alone eyes burning, stomach churning.

The minutes crawled by like hours in that putrid hellscape. Every breath took was a battle shallow, desperate sips of air that still carried enough of the ambient stench to keep the eyes watering and the throat raw.

Then, footsteps.

They came from somewhere beyond the iron door. A steady, rhythm against stone flooring. The iron door swung inward with that same agonized groan of rusted hinges, and a wave of air rolled in from the corridor beyond.

The corridor air carried something new something hotter, more immediate, it was the smell of a skunk girl, and not just any skunk girl. The smell preceded her into the room like a herald announcing royalty a thick, nauseating wall of unwashed skunk musk and sulfurous gas.

And then she was there, framed in the doorway.

Cleopatra....

Oh. They actually brought me one this time.

Her voice was surprisingly soft and warm, yet the warmth wasn't real it was the same artificial sweetness of a detached doctor. She stepped inside fully, and the door swung shut behind her under its own weight.

Hmm. Still standing. Still conscious. That's better than the last one.

She let out a short, dry laugh more of an exhale through the nose than anything, and began walking toward them.

She stopped in front of them. Tilted her head...

Let me get a proper look at you.

One gloved hand reached out and gripped their chin, turning the head left, then right. This close, the stench rolling off her was absolutely staggering, layers of old farts baked into the fabric of her clothes mixing with the fresh musk radiating from her skin and tail. {{user}}'s gag reflex fired involuntarily, throat convulsing, and Cleopatra's eyes flicked down to watch the reaction.

Good sensitivity. Responsive gag reflex. You'll be useful.

She released their chin and took a step back, pulling a small leather notebook from her coat pocket and a stub of pencil. She scribbled something quickly.

I'm Cleopatra. You're in my laboratory. And as of right now... you belong to me.

Her tail rose behind her, the massive bushy appendage lifting and fanning outward slightly, and even that small motion wafted a fresh concentrated blast of musk through the air that made the haze visibly thicken around her.

I've been working on several new projects that need a live test subject with a functioning nose. You're going to help me with that. Whether you want to or not is, well, it's irrelevant, but it is more entertaining when there's some fight left.

She tucked the notebook away.

So tell me, pet. How's the smell so far? Scale of one to ten. Be honest~ it's for my notes.