STOP! CHECK OUT THE ORIGINAL SUBMISSION TODAY!

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"Hm... This looks like the place," Leo said silently to himself, approaching what looked like a large metallic warehouse.

The ninja lion was yet again on another mission. And once more, it was a minor Rank-D assignment, but it was the only one available at the time on the bulletin board in his village, and he was looking to get out and about after another long winter. Very few requests ever got posted on said village's ninja mission bulletin board, but they all dealt with everyday tasks; escort services and errands. Leo, among other ninjas, didn't care much for working in freezing temperatures and was therefore cooped up in his domain for the season staying warm, whether through excessive training or simple resting.

The snow lately, however, that had fallen throughout the winter has been withering away making way for the fresh patches of grass and early springtime buds. Spring had arrived with some much-needed sunshine and positivity despite the light, lingering chilly breezes among the warmth. The mass patches of snow had melted into the puddles scattered amongst the fields and walkways leading to and from the village and all over the land.

But luckily, there were no puddles that were in the way of Leo Nekozuki, not when he was happy enough to take on a mere courier mission that allowed him to take in the fresh scents of springtime and the soothing warmth of the bright sunshine bouncing off of his golden fur and auburn mane.

He pulled out a slip of paper from his pocket and double-checked its contents to confirm his destination while holding onto a sizable brown package in his left arm. Indeed this was the typical work of post office officials, but they occasionally enlist the aid of village ninjas for security and trust purposes. Normally a lot of said courier services would entail a lot of ground to travel, but Leo didn't have to go that far from his village as he thought.

Leo made his way to the door and rang the service bell on the side. While waiting for a reply, he was contemplating what could be inside and for what purpose the package was for. Perhaps it was a weapons facility, and the package contained key elements for their detonations. Or maybe the building was a secret training ground, and the box held plans for intense exercises. Of course he would've seen other furries around if that were the case, so he dismissed that. Still, he was curious to find what's what despite knowing that he mustn't pry into other's lives that way. But he was still honorable enough to perform his duties as a ninja without a fuss, Rank-D or not.

Soon the door swung open, and Leo snapped to attention. He looked slightly down at the figure of a young female lioness with a beige and charcoal fur design; she had some grey circular spots underneath her eyes and a charcoal strip right on the bridge of her nose. Plus her full, dark, black mane flowed down from the top and wrapped around her neck quite comfortably. A couple of grey stripes decorated her arms as well. She wore attire befitting that of a typical teenage girl, not that that ill-suited her in any way. She sported a simple black tank top with some sort of warning sign on her shirt - a yellow triangle with an exclamation point within it - and some casual jeans and sneakers. The jeans, in particular, were slightly splotched with shiny black fluids like oil.

"Hello, there," she spoke gently and neatly. Something about her voice felt rather safe and upbeat.

"Morning! Or noon, rather!" Leo replied, giving a quick double-take up to the sky and reminding himself of the current time. "I come on behalf of the assignment posted in our village and am here to deliver this to you."

"Oh, perfect!" the lioness replied, her eyes beaming. "You're the halfway man! Er, ninja. I'm so happy my order finally came in! Thank you so much!"

"You're very welcome!" Leo said happily. "Your name, it says here, is... 'Tylerr?' Huh, it has two R's here. Misprint, I guess? Or do you intentionally growl when you say it?"

"No, that's my actual name. 'Tylerr,'" she corrected the ninja lion, snickering. "It, indeed, has two R's. Here, you can come on in. I'll show you where to put the package."

She turned around and led the way to the front desk ahead of them. At first, the small room they walked into appeared to be all the warehouse had to offer with just a simple long desk and a vending machine with an orange light flashing on a "Sprite" button indicating that it was out of stock. But there was a long glass window behind the desk, and beyond that displayed a vast, spacious garage filled with an assortment of foreign machinery and vehicles as well as a few tool sheds and a couple of lifting platforms. Leo gazed in awe of what he was witnessing; does this girl work with such technology day in and day out?

"Quite a lot of neat machinery in there," said Leo, placing the package on the desk. "You work with all this out here?"

"Yes, I do," Tylerr replied smiling, beginning to unwrap the brown box. "I'm a full-time mechanic engineer. I help with all the designing, producing, and operating of the machinery back there for casual customers or big-name clients from many places. It's a lot of fun; I get to work with fancy cars, factory gadgets, and lots of other cool stuff."

"Amazing," the ninja lion said, fascinated.

"However," Tylerr continued, "I haven't been able to work on much unless I got the extra toolkits necessary for some projects inside. That's what this package is for. I ordered some additional custom-sized toolkits to help with the finer touches on more difficult contraptions."

Sure enough, upon opening the package, she took out a couple of toolboxes filled with instruments like wrenches and drills with varying sizes.

"Let's see..." she muttered to herself, inspecting the tools inside. "Three-quarter-inch, five-inch, one-and-a-half-inch... excellent!"

As Tylerr collected her tools, a waving appendage behind her back caught Leo's attention. The lioness' tail was waving in excitement. But oddly enough, her tail wasn't that of a lioness'... It was a tail befitting a scorpion. It was a fairly long strand of thick bulbs resembling jewellery beads with a pointy tip at the end of the tail being at its darkest shade of charcoal; the bulbs grew lighter and lighter shades if followed all the way down to the tail's base. But she wasn't an actual scorpion, was she? Perhaps she was part of some infection? What kind of crossbreed is she?

Leo was most certainly puzzled. He had never seen such a tail design before. Well, he hadn't seen one on a lioness at least. But was her tail dangerous, or was it a cosmetic defense mechanism against enemies?

"Is something wrong?" asked Tylerr, her voice snapping the ninja lion back into focus once more.

"Er, uh, if I may ask," Leo said, hesitantly. "Is everything okay with your, um...?"

He then pointed towards the lioness' tail. It took Tylerr a second or two to understand Leo's confusion. She giggled and then began to explain.

"Oh, my tail? Everyone reacts this way," she said, playfully sticking her wide, forked tongue out (this, of course, surprised Leo slightly). "Pretty cool, huh? It's what makes me a manticore."

Manticore? What a name for a unique species! This piqued Leo's curiosity even further.

"Huh? Manticore?" he asked. "Manticore as in, uh, the legendary lion creature of Persia? I think I've heard of such a name a couple of times, but I thought they didn't exist. Didn't they?"

"We did, actually," Tylerr explained, placing her new toolkits off to the side. "But those legendary ones died out ages ago. I don't understand the details myself either, but at some point or another, manticore DNA was discovered, experimented, and manipulated biologically till at one point or another, it'd be in the generic genetic coding of lions all over the world. Apparently, the coding's always luck-based with a less-than-one-percent chance that out pops one of our kind. And our species is always female, never male for some reason."

"Whoa!" exclaimed Leo, fascinated by her explanation.

But then a concerned expression veiled his face a tad.

"But wait a minute," he said. "I thought manticores were ferocious. Or, at least, they were ferocious. Didn't they do things like use magic or destroy everything in their wake?"

"Again," Tyler explained, reassuring the ninja lion. "That was during our original ancestors' legendary times. That said, technically, we manticores of today can use magic, but it often takes a rigorous amount of time to learn; I, myself, find no particular need for it. I prefer my love of mechanics. And that's another good thing about us manticores: almost all of us are gifted with expertise in things like engineering and chemistry."

"And history, obviously!" replied Leo. "That's amazing how you know so much about your species and were very informative enough to clarify a lot of things with me.”

"Well, we kinda have to," replied Tylerr, a bit embarrassed for what she was about to admit next. "It's for the safety of anyone we interact with, so they won't get hurt by these."

The manticore girl then grabbed her tail, staring at the tip. Leo raised an eyebrow, wondering what Tylerr could be so supposedly ashamed of sharing next.

"You see," she explained. "We do share a bit of scorpion traits much like our legendary ancestors. Depending on the manticore type and tail length, the venom within our poisons stored in our tails can be harmless or deadly. And sadly for me, I'm a Grasslands Manticore, and my tail's both the smallest and most potent. In legends past, manticores attacked with their tails out of rage. So our Grasslands kind in particular tries to be as calm as we can."

She looked towards Leo again who was nodding in deep thought, trying his best to clearly process the information given to him. The manticore girl felt a bit worried that she was freaking him out a bit.

"I mean, if it's of any consolation," she said quickly. "Even if - God forbid - something terrible were to happen, I have a couple of small emergency vials of antiven--"

"Hold on!" interjected Leo. "It's not like you're a threat at all, you know."

Now it was Tylerr's turn to be puzzled as her eyes widened slightly, caught off-guard by Leo's sudden observation.

"As far as I'm concerned," Leo said. "You're too cool and kind to be a threat to me. You have amazing manners and are very cooperative. You're also very smart and amazing at working with all the interesting machinery back there. Plus you've taken the time to teach me about such a unique species and how far they've come. No vicious beast I know of would behave as sweetly as you do."

Tylerr couldn't help smiling, impressed at Leo's quick yet non-judgmental observation.

"And something separate I've just realised," Leo continued. "Typically, the furries involved in mechanics are those big-shot, muscle-bound fat-cat guys that roughhouse and demand money all the time. You're different. You're very polite and cheerful, like you're always happy to help your clients and get the job done without a fuss. You're shattering the preconceived notion that only guys can handle the big gears and stuff."

Flattered, Tylerr showed off her small yet modest muscles by playfully flexing her right arm.

"I know, right?" she asked. "And someone's gotta represent the female muscle, so why not us?"

"Exactly!" agreed Leo, smiling warmly. "And no vicious monster I know of could ever be as helpful and hard-working like you. See, Tylerr, just because you're a manticore, that doesn't mean you have to be exactly like them. Don't live to past standards; keep being your awesome self like you are now, and pursue what you're interested in like what you enjoy doing now."

As you can imagine, the manticore girl felt very flattered and impressed. She loathed those that were quick to judge harshly and treat her like dirt, so she was very relieved to encounter quite a gentleman of a courier who appreciated and admired species that were new to him.

"You're so awesome, you know that?" Tylerr replied, smiling brightly. "You speak the truth, there, um... what was your name again?"

"Oh!" Leo exclaimed, extending a paw to shake. "How rude of me! I apologise! Leo Nekozuki, ninja lion. Hey, you know, you're kind of a lioness, too!"

"Yeah, you're right," the manticore replied, chuckling. “Well, part-lioness, but I say it counts, darn it! Ha, ha, ha!"

"Yeah," said Leo, chuckling along. "And thank you very much! You know, you kind of remind of a dire-and-timber wolfess friend of mine what with how positive you are."

"Dire and timber wolfess, eh?" Tylerr asked. "Out of curiosity, her name isn't 'Malbat,' is it? Or maybe 'Tundra,' or--?"

"Holy cow, yes!" Leo replied, excited! "You know her?"

"Yeah, that wolfess with a red spade in her right eye, right?" replied the tomboyish manticore girl, seeing Leo nodding. "She's a friend of mine; I've showed her how things worked at garages, and she shows me some cool new music. We hang out every so often with some Sprite."

"Looks to me like you're out of Sprite," Leo mused, pointing to the vending machine with the flashing orange light on the "Sprite" option.

"Yeah, I've been meaning to get a shipment in since last week," Tylerr admitted, chuckling.

"Hey, you know what?" Leo asked. "Why don't you come over to my village for a lunch break? I'm pretty sure my favourite ramen place ought to quench your thirst with it. It's actually not too far from here. Whaddya say?"

Tylerr looked at the large garage behind her through the big glass window, and then she smiled and turned back to Leo.

"Eh, why not?" she replied. "I could use a lunch break. Let me lock up, and we can get eating!"

The two new furry friends, excited to catch some good grub and share some fun conversations along the way, soon left the big warehouse and set off along the puddle-laden path, happy to learn about each other while taking in the fresh spring breeze. No matter how strange or dangerous someone may seem, it's good to take the time to hang out with them, learn from them, and enjoy all that the season has to offer.

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Manticores are part-lion, so and I feel that Tylerr still counts as a lioness.

Last month, said artist asked for help on redesigning her now-scrapped past creations, Tosca and Bullet, offering free artwork in the process to the most helpful. I gave it a go offering some suggestions, and they seemed to have helped her as when Valentine's Day hit - a week after Tylerr (Bullet’s replacement) was first introduced - I was presented with this lovely drawing of her new character and my fursona conversing! Not a bad way to break in Tylerr!

Great job on the positioning and expressions on both parties, as well as their colour schemes and markings. Excellent work on adding the lighting detail in their hairdos. Plus I like how both hairdos are similar except Tylerr's is more like an actual mane. lol Nice going on the background; simple, indoor setting, and it's blurred out so that it doesn't take away from the main subjects.

Thank you very much for drawing out this awesome gift, ! I'm glad I could be a part of the creation of your new character!

GO CHECK OUT THE TOTALLY AWESOME RIGHT NOW! AND TELL HER LEO SENT YOU!