Tails of the Bounty Hunter
is a web novel written by Tyk 5919, and the second entry in the Tails Series.
In a distant section of the universe, bounty hunter Cale Tomlik comes across information concerning a deadly intergalactic cartel. When he learns that the cartel plans on killing hundreds of millions on a distant moon, Cale soon finds himself roaming across a planet called Drorix hoping to dismantle the organization and its five leaders before it's too late.
Tails of the Bounty Hunter provides examples of:
- Artificial Limbs: Cale's right arm is made of metal and can crush certain material a normal arm couldn't.
- Asshole Victim:
- Boris Trovmar, the bull Milz assassinated in chapter 1, was actually involved in multiples cases of embezzlement and sexual harassment. Even Stollar agrees that Trovmar had it coming.
- Olly Kurrmor, the leader of the Quintuple Cartel who tried to have billions killed, has his throat slit in prison while he's defenseless.
- While he's in prison, Gobor Grizzer is forced to eat excrement, and is raped immediately afterwards, by a convict named Larry Wentworth. Considering that Gobor was a serial rapist responsible for the deaths of thousands, he absolutely deserved it.
- Douglas Kevro, a pragmatic, sociopathic-mob boss, infiltrates the Baron's prison cell just so he can give him "The Reason You Suck" Speech, and then cut his throat open. Given that the Baron was a sociopath who had his own minions murdered and tried to orchestrate the deaths of hundreds of millions, it's hard to feel upset for him.
- Attempted Rape: Gobor Grizzer tries to rape Stollar in a restroom after Stollar embedded a tracker into his spine and Gobor thought he was groping his behind. He only stops when someone starts banging on the locked restroom door and threatens to break it down.
- Big Bad: The Baron, the leader of the Quintuple Cartel.
- Bittersweet Ending: Commander Maynard is still at large, thousands of civilians and several IGPA agents are dead thanks to the Cartel's activities, Rellis Rottili is now armed with plasma weaponry specifically due to Cale and Stollar's actions, Cale Tomlik's illness has progressed so much that he'll be dead within a year, and despite their heroic deeds, Cale and Stollar are far from bringing about peace throughout the universe. Nevertheless, the Quintuple Cartel is in ruins, the five Cartel leaders are in prison—with the Baron getting killed during his incarceration—Cale, Stollar, and their allies saved hundreds of millions of innocent lives, Cale has grown much closer to his partner, and he's accepted the fact that he's dying and will continue to use whatever power he has left to stop other criminals in the galaxy.
- Black-and-Gray Morality: Cale doesn't care about collateral damage—even if he's directly the cause of it—and has no problem torturing or killing criminals, even if they're unarmed. But he doesn't go out of his way to kill innocent people. All the antagonists, however, are part of a criminal organization involved with arms and drug dealing, assassinations, acts of terrorism, and illegal scientific experimentations, and most of their victims are innocents.
- Book Ends: The story starts and ends detailing what the five heads of the Cartel are doing. The main difference is that by the end, the five Cartel leaders are in prison instead of freely committing crimes.
- Bottle Episode:
- Chapter 4 takes place in the Baron's meeting room and focuses on the Cartel leaders discussing their future plans.
- Chapter 14 takes place in Cale's spaceship and focuses on Cale and Stollar relaxing and bonding with each other.
- Breather Episode:
- Chapter 14 focuses solely on fleshing out Cale and Stollar's relationship as opposed to working together on a mission to catch more Cartel members. None of the antagonists even show up.
- Chapter 17 is all about Cale taking a mini-vacation in a city and enjoying himself before he, Stollar, and the IGPA go take down the Baron and his forces.
- Caught with Your Pants Down: Stollar is first introduced frantically pulling up his pants and wiping "white goop" off his right hand when Cale greets him.
- Central Theme: Failure Is the Only Option.
- Cale Tomlik was prone to making mistakes that nearly got him killed or resulted in innocent civilians being lost, and he'd repeatedly blame everyone around him as opposed to owning up to what he did. Even after he was exposed to the pathogen, he spent most of his time taking out his frustration on Keevonu—which eventually led to their breakup. But as the story progresses, Cale not only realizes that he's the reason why he keeps failing, but he learns from his failures. In the end, Cale successfully dismantles the Cartel, he's grown closer to Stollar instead of keeping him at a distance, it's implied he'll have a new lover in the future, and he's accepted that he'll be dead within a year or two.
- Stollar repeatedly lambasts Cale for all the mistakes he keeps making, imploring him to act smartly despite not actually knowing first-hand about the situations Cale was caught up in. When Stollar joins Cale on one of his missions, he tries to prevent a bus from being bombed and initially succeeds...until he finds out there was a second bomb he didn't know about—which detonates. Stollar eventually accepts that even if you do everything right, sometimes you'll fail anyway, and you just can't save everyone.
- The five main villains have never experienced failure, and don't know how to properly react when a single person interferes with their plans and foils them. When Cale gradually defeats most of the villains in the story, all of them refuse to acknowledge that they screwed up and try to salvage what they can, instead of accepting their failures and reassessing the situation. By the end, the five Cartel heads are stuck in prison and experiencing their own Ironic Hell, having learned nothing throughout the story.
- Continuity Cameo: Douglas Kevro, from Tails of Fame, shows up in the final chapter so he can personally kill the Baron.
- Continuity Nod: In chapter 8, Yordin off-handedly mentions "that Universal Gardens Massacre back in '98."
- Deconstructed Character Archetype: Cale Tomlik is one for a Handicapped Badass. He's a former mercenary and soldier who's very skilled in combat and knows how to use guns, but the pathogen he's been exposed to is gradually destroying his body. As a result, all of the pathogen's side effects—incontinence, vomiting, loss of teeth, heart problems, etc.—interfere with his missions and take a toll on his mentality. It reaches a point where he's nearly killed because two assassins were able to sneak into his hotel room while he was too busy throwing up in the bathroom to notice them in time.
- Double Standard Rape: Female on Male: Played for Drama in chapter 14. When Stollar was in his twenties, he got drunk at a club and was raped in an alley by a female fox because he was too inebriated to fight her off. Despite calling the cops, telling everybody what happened, and even going to court, hardly anyone believed him, and the fox was declared not guilty. Stollar turned into a He-Man Woman Hater after this, and inevitably raped a woman himself out of frustration. But unlike the fox, Stollar realized what he did was wrong, turned himself in, and went to prison for several years.
- Double Standard: Rape, Male on Male: Averted. All the rape scenes involving Gobor Grizzer are played very seriously, and they do nothing but further show how vile of a person Gobor truly is.
- Even Evil Has Standards:
- Kolson gets frustrated when he finds out that Gobor sent a bunch of abused teenage anthros to him, presumably so he could use them for prostitution or to sell them to be sex slaves. He immediately orders one of his men to take them all to a hospital.
- Rellis Rottili is disgusted by rape and despises people like Gobor Grizzer. He also hates the fact that people like Gobor generated the Depraved Homosexual stereotype for criminals, especially considering Rellis would never dream of raping anyone, but has been accused of doing so anyway because of his sexual orientation and the fact that he's been to prison before.
- Everyone Has Standards: Yordin Mannil is openly homophobic, transphobic, and an all-around Jerkass who isn't shy about letting people know how he behaves. Despite this, Yordin is perfectly fine working alongside Cale (who's openly homosexual) and despises those who harm or kill innocents due to racism, different sexual orientation, opposing political views, or just because they feel like it.
- Food Porn: All the meaty meals Cale eats at Moloch's Meats in chapter 17 is described with exquisite detail.
- Full-Frontal Assault: Chapter 5 ends with Cale fighting and killing two mercenaries while he's completely naked.
- Gallows Humor: Lots. This is actually discussed in chapter 7 when Cale and Yordin are lamenting about how screwed up the universe is and Cale dryly makes a joke about a homosexual anthro who was brutally murdered.Cale: "Was looking for a serial killer once. Real nasty bastard. Went after many transgenders and homosexuals. Guess he despised our 'lifestyle.' Anyway. When I was following a lead, I came across another victim, this fat hog who had been burned to death, and had one half of a pool cue inserted into his rectum, while the other was jammed in his mouth. You wanna know what I told the police when they questioned me?"Yordin: "What?"Cale: "He got spit-roasted."Yordin: (breaks down laughing hysterically)
- Greater-Scope Villain: Commander Maynard, the wasp-like apid alien who struck a deal with the Baron to destroy a moon that's opposing his empire.
- Groin Attack:
- When Cale is fighting off two mercenaries in chapter 5, one of them grabs his groin and tries to crush his testicles and penis.
- In chapter 12, Cale shoots Gobor in his crotch with his plasma pistol. It's later revealed while he's in the hospital that his penis was so mutilated it had to be cut off in surgery, and it's likely his testicles will be cut off too.
- Hollywood Silencer: Subverted. In chapter 12, Stollar finds a silencer and puts it on his handgun so he can kill a few cops without being heard. He fires off one shot and misses, and the two police officers he was sneaking behind hear the gunshot anyway.
- Ironic Hell: All the main villains are stuck in one in the final chapter. Milz Dillvor used her parkour skills to successfully assassinate her victims; now she's stuck using her skills repeatedly trying and failing to escape from prison. Dr. Vogar Oblingor performed horrific scientific experiments on innocent anthros; he ends up being experimented on by scientists. Gobor Grizzer frequently raped innocent people; he's raped in prison, and it's implied it'll happen again. Kolson Arcornoc spent his time organizing his couriers around to perform missions; now he's stuck ordering prisoners around to perform menial tasks. And Olly Kurrmor used to be the leader of a multibillion dollar Cartel who had no problem ordering thousands to be killed; he's killed nonchalantly in prison, having lost everything he's owned for years.
- Karma Houdini:
- Rellis Rottili, despite his affable nature, is still a big-time mob boss involved in organized crime. He faces no repercussions for persuading Cale and Stollar to deliver plasma weapons to him—weapons he will use in the future.
- Commander Maynard is still alive and well by the final chapter, and it's implied he's going to cause more turmoil in other segments of the galaxy, despite the Baron's failure.
- Karmic Rape: Gobor Grizzer, a serial rapist, is raped in the shower while he's in prison.
- Lighter and Softer: This story is not as dreary or pessimistic as Tails of Fame is, despite still containing very heavy, mature themes. It helps that the main character is an Anti-Hero who enjoys Gallows Humor instead of a Villain Protagonist who is trying to gain Fame Through Infamy.
- Mercy Kill:
- At the end of chapter 8, Cale and Yordin burn down Dr. Oblingor's laboratory with the feral, mindless anthros still inside. Both of them realized that Oblingor tortured them and scrambled their brains beyond repair, so they just kill them all.
- Chapter 14 reveals that Cale accidentally killed a dictator's wife and son while he was on a mission to kill the dictator himself. He later discovered the son was still alive, but so badly wounded that Cale shot him in the head to end his suffering.
- Potty Failure: Due to his incontinence, Cale has to spend a good chunk of the story wearing diapers. There's a point in chapter 6 where he shits himself while chasing after Milz because he put too much strain on his body.
- Pyrrhic Victory:
- Chapter 8 ends with Cale capturing (and horribly mutating) Dr. Vogar Oblingor. However, Cale nearly died in the process, dozens of anthros who were mutated on and had their minds fried are all killed when Cale and Yordin burn down Oblingor's lab, and hundreds of innocents in a small town were slaughtered because Cale and Yordin failed to capture Vogar in time.
- Chapter 12 ends with dozens of police officers dead, and Gobor Grizzer wounded and on his way back to a Tero prison facility. Unfortunately, Cale and Stollar failed to stop Gobor from releasing a chemical weapon into a basketball stadium, they killed several members of law enforcement, and thanks to them and the Liberators, Knochen City's police force has been heavily damaged, with the implication that crime will now increase since the Chief of Police is gone.
- Rape Discretion Shot:
- In chapter 10, Gobor rapes someone in a bathroom stall. However, it's told from Stollar's point of view, and he only heard it happen. He didn't even know someone was getting raped until after Gobor revealed himself and Stollar heard moaning from the stall.
- In chapter 11, Gobor rapes Cale after kidnapping him. Just as it's about to happen, the story cuts over to a completely different scene. When it cuts back, Gobor has already finished.
- Self-Deprecation: In chapter 14, Cale and Stollar watch a fantasy show called Cleaning Up the Kingdom’s Mess. Stollar initially criticizes the show for have an abysmal amount of unnecessary toilet humor that is more gross than funny, and for focusing way too hard on mentioning how disgusting everything is. This is clearly a jab at the Legatum franchise—the author's other online series—which is also a fantasy that has loads upon loads of scatological humor, explicit sexual content, and many gory deaths.Stollar: "I don't see the point in forcing all this disgusting content into this series. And I know damn well you've noticed."
- Sex for Services: In chapter 5, a gymnast named Monty agrees to hand out a list of everyone who has a membership at Howie’s 24-Hour Workouts so long as Cale does a little "something" for him. Subverted when it turns out that this "something" was to buy him lots of greasy fast food without his friends catching him and shunning him for it.
- Shoot the Hostage:
- In chapter 2, small-time criminal Georgie takes a drug user hostage after being chased by Cale. Cale casually blows the hostage's head apart with his plasma pistol.
- Double Subversion in chapter 11. When Cale takes one of Gobor's cops hostage, Gobor initially tells the hostage to try and move so he'll have a shot at Cale. Eventually he gets frustrated and shoots his own minion so he'll have a better shot at Cale.
- Shout-Out:
- One of the shows Cale enjoys watching, The Beauty of Demons, is obviously based off The Kindness of Devils, both of which involve the main hero taking down dozens of different supernatural monsters and demons.
- Toasty's Revolution, another show Cale watches, is based off The Heaven Cycle, where the protagonists discover the world is in ruins and they have to save existence itself. Then demons show up, and things get complicated.
- In a case of Self-Deprecation, Cleaning Up the Kingdom's Mess, one of Cale's favorite shows, is based off the Legatum series in terms of its obscene vulgar content.
- Cale and Stollar list off a lot of superhero movies in chapter 14, some of which are referencing various films from the Marvel Cinematic Universe and DC Extended Universe. The biggest standouts are Protectors of the Universe (which Cale loves because it has a "sexy mouse" in it) and The Takeovers: Taking Back Tero (which Cale also loves, up until two-thirds of the cast died at the end).
- Chapter 17 brings up an episode of The Beauty of Demons called "Slithery Savagery" where the main character has to fight a snake god and an eight-headed serpent deity. This is based off A Conspiracy of Serpents, where similar events occur.
- Storming the Castle:
- Cale and Stollar team up with a group of mercenaries to assault Kolson's warehouse in chapter 16.
- Cale, Stollar, and several IGPA agents storm the Baron's tower in chapter 18 to finally arrest him.
- Surprisingly Realistic Outcome:
- Cale Tomlik's illness and all of its side effects are shown in full glory. He suffers from vomiting, chest pain, incontinence, and various other effects that typically interfere with his missions, and he's forced to take medication just to minimize how often the side effects impair him.
- In chapter 2, Cale shoots at Georgie's paw before violently tearing it off. Even though Georgie received no other wounds around his body, he dies off-screen anyway due to shock and blood loss.
- When Gobor is handcuffing Cale in chapter 10, he gropes his right arm and notices it's made of metal. He immediately knocks him out instead, knowing full well that Cale can easily break the cuffs—something he did two chapters earlier when Dr. Oblingor captured him.
- Milz Dillvor excels in Le Parkour, as shown in her introduction. All of her skills are rendered useless in chapter 6 when Cale cuffs her paws behind her back and shoots her in the leg, making it much easier for him to chase after her.
- Cale loses multiple teeth throughout the story and, more embarrassingly, has chronic halitosis. Turns out the pathogen has affected his gums as well and is causing them to rot.
- Shannon tells Milz Dillvor that she ran into Cale, and that he had a Cephalopodan Strikers tattoo on his shoulder—conveniently after Milz assassinated someone, and while she was tasked to carry out more hits. Not taking any chances, she has two mercenaries try to kill him.
- Cale chases after Milz Dillvor despite suffering from stomach problems and incontinence. When he jumps over to another building and nearly falls to his death, he inadvertently loosens his bowels.
- Cale is ambushed and nearly killed by two random mooks at the end of chapter 5, despite having enough training to easily take them down. That being said, Cale was naked, weaponless, and just got finished throwing up in the toilet; the fact that he didn't die is astonishing.
- When infiltrating Dr. Oblingor's lab, Cale tries to pass himself off as a freelancing bodyguard who just so happened to run into Yordin and wants to work for him. The doctor isn't buying it, and the second both of them are alone in an elevator, he fires a tranquilizer at Cale and captures him.
- In chapter 8, Dr. Oblingor releases several feral Super-Soldier anthros to destroy an entire town. What do Cale and Yordin do? Nothing. Yordin is just one ordinary anthro, and Cale was far too wounded to do anything to help. So they ignore the situation and go their separate ways, knowing they're better off letting local police forces neutralize the threat.
- When Cale is following Gobor Grizzer and realizes Stollar is in trouble, he recklessly walks up to Gobor and points a gun at him in public. Gobor, who's technically a police officer, uses this as a reason to knock him out and arrest him.
- While sneaking around a police precinct, Stollar tries to silently kill two police officers using a suppressed pistol. Not only does he miss, but they hear the shot and immediately call for backup afterwards.
- Gobor Grizzer's downfall was bound to happen one way or another. The anthro repeatedly raped innocent civilians and set off several bombs just because he felt like it, and it's shown in chapter 10 and 11 that some of his police officers hate him or find his methods to be cruel. In order to offload the blame, he used the Liberators as a scapegoat for all the terrorist attacks he committed. It really is no surprise that the Liberators decided to band together and attack his headquarters in an attempt to kill him. Even if Cale and Stollar hadn't shown up in Knochen City, chances are, the Liberators would've killed Gobor during their assault anyway.
- Take That!: Several, mostly in chapter 14.
- Against poorly-written, sexualized anime. Cale absolutely hates Blaster Omega's Kitty Show for being an anime series that's trying to push a feminist agenda while also over-sexualizing the main characters solely for Fanservice and to draw in more male viewers. Not only does Cale hate it for how badly written it is, but also for how hypocritical it's being—and the fact that most viewers don't seem to care.
- Against TV shows trying too hard to be realistic and gritty. Cale and his former boyfriend, Keevonu, equally hate a show called Bear's Guidance—not because it's poorly-written, but because it's so dreary and depressing and because so many of the main characters got killed off. Cale points out that he watches television for escapism, and watching something like Bear's Guidance does nothing but remind him of how cruel the universe can be.
- Against The Walking Dead (2010) and Fear the Walking Dead. Stollar points out that he despises The Spreading Virus because all it did was introduce new characters and kill off the old ones over and over again and recycle the same plot lines—something The Walking Dead has been criticized for. Stollar even mentions that the spin-off show, Breathe the Spreading Virus, killed off nearly the entire original cast by season four. This very same thing happened in Fear the Walking Dead.
- Against Venom (2018). Cale saw a superhero movie called Seed and thought it was horrible and trying too hard to start a Shared Universe—and he hated it even more because it made billions of dollars. He still enjoyed watching it because of how bad it was and rated it five stars.
- Toilet Humour:
- In chapter 5, a koala sits down next to Cale while he's busy spying on Milz Dillvor and starts pestering him. He gets so fed up with her constant yammering that he shamelessly farts right next to her. She immediately gets up and leaves.
- After a mercenary grabs Cale's groin and nearly crushes his testicles, Cale decides to pee on the mercenary's corpse just to ensure his urethra still works properly.
- Frustrated with his incontinence, Cale goes to see Dr. Goode personally and demands to get a refill of pills that'll diminish most of his side effects. He dumps a bunch of soiled diapers on his desk, and then ends up shoveling one into the doctor's face.
- When Gobor confronts Stollar in chapter 10, he comes close to killing him, believing Stollar just heard him raping someone in a bathroom stall. He suddenly rips a huge fart and tells Stollar he definitely "heard that" to divert his attention away from the rape victim.
- In chapter 14, Cale mentions that he once suffered from uncontrollably flatulence while at his boyfriend's niece's wedding. Said niece later told Cale that he was talented in "playing the tuba."
- In chapter 17, Cale eats lots of meaty, spicy food in a restaurant despite knowing it'll screw with his bowels. Later on, he emerges from a bathroom and locks the door. And puts a "Wet Floor" sign in front of it. And an "Out of Order" sign. And police tape.
- The Tooth Hurts:
- The pathogen Cale was exposed to is causing his body to decay from the inside. This includes his gums, which are so rotted that he cracks or loses a tooth whenever he gets injured around his mouth.
- In chapter 11, two police officers torture Stollar by yanking out several of his teeth with pliers.
- Two Lines, No Waiting: While Cale is busy taking down the Cartel, he's also dealing with the fact that he's gradually dying and still hasn't gotten over his lover Keevonu no longer being with him.
- Villain Episode: Chapters 1 and 4 focus entirely on the five heads of the Cartel and don't even feature Cale or his partner Stollar.
- Villain Opening Scene: The story opens with all five Cartel leaders committing crime in various different parts of Drorix and showcasing why they have to be stopped.
- What Happened to the Mouse?:
- It's never revealed what became of Drake Keevonu after he and Cale broke up with each other.
- Commander Maynard is last seen in chapter 13, and then he disappears. It's made clear he's still alive and active, but it's never revealed what he's doing in the final chapter.
- World of Funny Animals: Unlike Tero, which is comprised primarily of anthros and humans, planet Drorix's population consists of anthros and aliens.
- You Can't Thwart Stage One: By chapter 11, everything the Cartel has planned has gone the way they wanted. Dr. Oblingor finished manufacturing the pathogen, Gobor tested it out in the public, and Kolson is in the process of getting it ready to be shipped across the galaxy.
- Your Days Are Numbered: The second chapter reveals that Cale has been exposed to a pathogen that's slowly deteriorating his body and killing him.
- Your Head A-Splode:
- Cale's plasma pistol has a charged shot that fires a blast of plasma energy capable of blowing someone's head apart. This is shown first hand in chapter 2, when Cale kills a man Georgie was holding hostage.
- Chapter 16 features some of Kolson's goons using railguns that fire giant laser beams, one of which obliterates Geoff's head.
