Sorry for the long delay folks, college really sucks at times. Nonetheless, I got chapter three finished.

As always, feedback much appreciated and enjoy the third chapter of the Burning Paper Tigers.

"So you think that we're on the wrong side, do you?" Joe asked, shoveling more American food—steak and potatoes—into his mouth.

"I know we are," Amber returned, sipping wine grown in the hills of the Western UN.

Joe nodded. "The WRA has ceased some of its more... primitive tactics in a new PR push. Trust me when I say that it's all politics. Don't let it get to your head."

Amber directed a flat glance at him. "You are every bit as aware of the brutality of that failed attack Scythe ordered as I am. The rebels are not the primitive ones here. Scythe is. I honestly don't know how much longer he'll have any supporters."

Joe nodded and sighed, "I actually wonder how he still has any at this moment, actually."

"Is that agreement I hear?" Amber asked, sampling more of the delectable UN food, like lightly roasted deer and highly cooked vegetables. Joe had told her that the stomachs and palates of Unities, being half omnivore and half carnivore, didn't take too kindly to many plants. Seeing as Amber hadn't had real, fresh, vegetables in months, she partook of them just fine.

"It might be," Joe said. "Listen, I ain't stupid. I can see what Scythe is doing. However, thousand-year-old alliances don't die easy. I may have mostly exclusive jurisdiction over the military itself, but The Congress holds power to declare war and peace. At the moment, The Congress still believes that we need be at war with the Rebels, not the King."

Amber nodded. She understood. She didn't like it, but that was far from not understanding. "Then tell me you've ceased your attacks on the rebels, at bare minimum?" She asked hopefully.

Joe grinned toothily—being about half Fox and Tiger, it was a very toothy grin indeed—"Oh, c'mon, you know me better than that. Of course I have."

Amber rolled her eyes and watched him wipe gratuitous amounts of food from around his mouth. Unity traditions said nothing about being a clean eater. Amber found it both just plain strange, while at the same time strangely refreshing. The world she'd found herself in was totally different from the world she was used to... but she somehow liked the more lax and laidback Unity Nation. It wasn't like it was closer to being savage and it was no more primitive than the US, but it had a more homely, less acculturated, less snooty and proper, feel to it. Amber, being a bit of a country girl herself, very much liked that.

It was about then that she realized that she'd been staring into Joe's bright blue eyes. That's really not a smart thing to do, she thought, breaking her stare.

Joe raised an eyebrow and an attentive ear. "Thinking about something, are we?" He asked.

Amber felt herself blush and looked away. "Sorry about that," she said, "I honestly don't know what happened there. I was thinking about how different our worlds are."

Joe chuckled sarcastically. "Sure you were. My brother keeps giving me heck about you, you know."

"Trace? What do you mean?"

"He's always giving me heck about being single. Since you showed up, you've become part of that."

Amber raised an eyebrow. "Is that so? What are your thoughts on the matter?"

"I told him I'd see what happened. That's more than I usually give him."

"That so?" She asked contemplatively.

Joe nodded as the waiter gave them their tab. After the waiter had gone, he pulled out his pocket watch (a wristwatch would have chaffed his fur) and checked the time. "Tell you what, the theatre down the street is playing The Great Lanes here in about fifteen minutes. You'd probably like it and I've yet to see it all the way through. You want to go?"

Amber grinned widely, almost flirtatiously, "Is this a date you're suggesting?" She honestly didn't believe it.

Joe shrugged, "Might be," and grinned again.

Amber smiled, "Then I'm all for it... By the way, how did you know when they were playing that movie?"

Joe appeared to choose his words carefully, "I may or may not have checked beforehand."

"This is the third time we've gone to supper, for business at that, and you're already checking up on movies?"

"Not sure how dating works on your world, but that's nothing unusual here."

Amber smiled, "I'm messing with you, you know, right?"

Joe rolled his eyes. "Let's go before I'm ready to elbow you in the ribs."

Wolf King Scythe yelled at the top of his lungs, "I have seen failure and I have seen incompetence! But how does... This work? Our whole First Armored and Fifth Mechanized Infantry divisions defected to the fools! With our brand-new armor from The Great Lane's world! How?"

"Permission to speak freely, sir?" General Nari asked.

"Begrudgingly granted," Scythe said flatly.

Nari nodded, "Sir, they refused to kill innocent civilians. They couldn't stomach it. It's that simple."

"It is not!" Scythe exclaimed, "They were trained to obey what I told them to do, what their training told them to do, not what their 'stomachs' could handle! We can't win a war this way, Wolves. We've got to fight any way we can!"

"Sir," Nari said, "We can't exactly choose when our forces defect. What we can do is not give them missions or orders that will cause them to. That I know of, there is no other solution."

"There has to be one," Scythe said in seething thoughtfulness. "Have the field commanders shoot anyone who disobeys orders."

"It is worth noting that the field commanders of our strike on the civilian compound defected, too."

Scythe felt his ears lay down in thought. He let out a low exasperated growl. "If I can't trust the field commanders to obey and insure my men do, then who can I trust? Who... or what, will always obey?"

"Magic," Nari said. "Control spells were used on slaves in the era before The Great Lane. They could be used on soldiers all the same. There would be nothing but perfect obedience then."

"Good, good," Scythe said, feeling—and no doubt looking—very smug. At least he had one Wolf with good ideas. And he soon would have plenty of men and women he could count on.

"You're kidding me, right?" Joe asked Wolf General Nari at the next week's USA BoG meeting. "Control spells violate, what, fifteen,"

The Bastian General broke in, "Try sixteen,"

Joe nodded in thanks and continued, "United Species Alliance regulations? You start using them and you can forget what little help you have from Unity Nation."

"Like you're really giving much help at the moment," Nari snarled back.

Joe couldn't give him much, but the Wolf High General wasn't a fool. He'd noticed when Joe had stopped his attacks and drives into WRA territory. Joe shrugged. "Well, no guarantees about the fate of your nuclear... erm, atomic, weapons if you withdraw from the alliance."

"Just what are you insinuating, General Lane?" Nari asked, sounding both angry and confused at the same time.

"Our alliance with the Wolf Nation was the only thing preventing my crack teams of operatives from destroying your atomic weapons stores. If that goes away, on the other hand..."

"You wouldn't," Nari growled.

"I'm certain he would," the Bastian General said, "Because we are ready to do the same."

The Fox and Tiger Generals didn't say anything, but the smug look on their furry faces and the attentiveness of their ears told Joe that their nations were ready to do the same.

"General Nari, think about it. Once the alliance is gone, what have we to lose? Nothing. We have the safety and security of our whole world to gain," Joe said very matter-of-factly. His tail twitched with aggravation.

Nari let out a low growl. Joe thought it might have been the Wolf form of an exasperated sigh. "Gentlemen, I find it very sad that I am torn between my king and my country. The two should never be separate. I fear that they have become so."

"Then why are you still on the wrong side?" Joe asked rather pointedly.

"Scythe didn't ask before he used the control spell on his highest generals."

Joe's jaw dropped, his ears fell and he felt his tail go lax. The other generals assembled around the table had their respective species' form of the look. "Then I don't think you need be here, General Nari," The Human Republic's General, who was very quiet, reserved and rarely spoke, said in his usual slow baritone, stroking his long white beard.

"Why is that?" Nari asked, sounding offended.

"I think the answer is obvious," the Bastian General said, "Wolf Nation is no longer an official part of the United Species Alliance."

General Nari snarled and put up quite a fuss, but he reluctantly got up, grabbed his briefcase and made his way out the door without another word.

"We need to relay this to the diplomatic side of things," the Dog General said.

"I'll send it to my brother," Joe said. "Trace'll be sure to do something about it and on short notice."

"I'll get you a copy of the minutes and a recording of the meeting," the secretary, a soft-spoken Unity who never said anything except when his job demanded he do so, stated matter-of-factly.

Joe nodded to the secretary, "Danke." To the assembled generals he turned and mused, "Gentlemen, our world just got a whole lot more interesting."

UNAF Sergeant Kelly Youngston-Lane checked over his maschinenpistole. All the spells that spiraled around the inside of the barrel were intact and hadn't been scratched off. The grooves of the rifling were clean. The rounds in the clip still had their spells; special ones that wound past the bullet itself and onto spiral tails that went back into the cartridge. The small überschall stealth transport jet he rode in zipped over the ancient border mountains. The Unity Nation Special Forces had been activated to destroy Wolf Nation's atomic weapons. Presently, a fleet of Lane Industries Schwarzen Adlen stealth small transports were carrying the men towards the missile silos in groups of five.

Groups of two stealth fighters, adapted from the F-22 of The Great Lane's world, flew escort for each Adler. As much chaos as the Wolf command structure was in and as good as UN stealth was, Kelly doubted that the escorts were really necessary. The UN, however, was not a nation prone to taking chances it didn't need to.

The pilot interrupted his thought process, "We're nearing the drop zone."

Kelly and his fire team began incantations—they were going to be dropped from a jet going past the speed of sound, meaning they'd need a little protection from magic if they wished to live. The shield formed around him and Kelly stood straight as he possibly could, tucking his tail neatly between his legs and making sure his ears were hid under his helmet. The light on the front compartment wall turned to green. Kelly took a breath in as the floor under him opened, revealing the ground of Wolf Nation beneath him. As he fell, he slammed into the jet's slipstream and again into its hot afterburner. He saw the bay doors close as the larger black ship made a wide turn back home.

He and his squadron just kept falling. They all stayed straight, heading for the ground like so many arrows. Slight movements of his body corrected his path onto his target, seemingly small and far below him. It looked like any other house, actually, but the barbed wire and large concrete disks in the ground for miles around it gave the house away as the command host of WN AMCICBM launch site number 1-5. The house grew ever larger as Kelly and his squadron streaked toward it at terminal velocity. He checked an altimeter in his helmet's HUD. 300... 200... 100. He balled up and felt himself smash into the house's roof, knocking out support beams and going through the ceiling. The magical shield around him left him unscathed, though it was clearly almost shattered. Might take a hit for me, though, he thought and decided not to break the spell as he stood up quickly, staying at the ready. Wolves moaned from under the roof he and his squad mates had collapsed.

He reached behind him and grabbed his gun off his back, bringing it to his hip as an unarmed wolf ran into the room. "Surrender," Kelly told it flatly.

"I'm not able to," the Wolf said and lunged at him, snarling.

Kelly's Tiger instincts kicked in instantly, bringing his booted foot up, connecting with the Wolf's side in a rapid spinning kick, shoving the Wolf to his side and putting its face into the floor. He continued the spin until the barrel of his weapon was pointed at the Wolf's back, now buried in the rubble of the roof. He snapped the stubby unibody gun to his shoulder, bringing the reflex sight into alignment in front of his face. He quickly brought the crosshair just below the lip of the Wolf's helmet and fired a single shot into the back of his neck. "Be aware," Kelly said to his men, "the enemy will not surrender. Shoot on sight."

"Those controls spells of Scythe's?" Private Dean Winchester-Legacy muttered as a question.

"Yeah, verdammt spells. Verdammt crazy king," Kelly said as he moved out of the room into the next, sweeping it with the barrel of his gun. A Wolf, armed with a bolt action rifle, ran into the room, no doubt investigating some pretty nasty things that he'd heard. He rapidly drew it to his shoulder when he saw the team of black-garbed Unities. Kelly was a bit faster on his draw, bringing the Wolf down with a quick three-round burst. "Are these guys wearing magical shields at all or are they that stupid?" Kelly asked, putting another two rounds into the face of an assault-rifle armed Wolf.

"I think our bullets' spells are just that good," Dean said.

"I guess it's possible," Kelly said, "But they just don't seem like they're really trying to fight, do they?"

"That's a good point," Dean said, scanning the room around them.

A Wolf burst through the door, assault rifle blazing as he crossed the threshold. One of the bullets hit Kelly square over the heart, shattering what was left of his shield and stopping somewhere in his body armor. He instinctively dove behind a desk, letting magically-enhanced copper-jacketed lead fly at the Wolf. The rounds struck the WAF Captain in his body-armored chest and impacted the wall and door behind him. They had no visible effect. One of his privates—though Kelly didn't catch which—put a couple rounds just below the foe's helmet, stopping him cold.

Catching a breath behind the desk, Kelly muttered, "I stand corrected."

Dean huffed, "I'll say you do."

Kelly rolled his eyes and got up, doing a brief and silent headcount. All of his men were still there, though it looked like they'd all lost their magical protection. They'd have to be careful. The team moved through the next room, scanning it, finding it empty save three doors. One was the one they'd just gone through, the second lead outside and the third was closed and locked. "I think this one's our ticket," Kelly said, facing the lattermost, waving for his squadron to gather at their door-breaching positions. He set a hand on the door and started looking through it with magic. He found that, behind the wooden door was a much thicker one of metal and concrete. "Yeah, this is it," he said, motioning to his demolitions expert, who also rubbed the wall with a glowing hand.

The private shook his head, "The idiots reinforced the door like crazy, but the wall's just cinder blocks hid behind drywall."

Kelly rolled his eyes, confident the UN would never make such a folly. "Then you can handle it?" He asked his resident pyromaniac.

"Well of course," he said, slapping shaped charges onto the wall. Kelly motioned for the rest of his men to go back to a safer location, now that a wall breach was simpler than a door breach. They all retreated to the previous room. The demolitions expert ran into the room, taking cover just behind Kelly, who hid right behind the door frame. He heard a click as the detonator was triggered and, in the same instant, a massive explosion.

Through the smoke in the next room, he could see the massive hole that had been blown into the wall and, more faintly, the Wolves scrambling around behind it. He leaned around the door and fired a long burst into the room, though he really couldn't be sure if he'd hit any enemies though the chaos. He ejected the horizontal clip, pulling it off the top of the gun and jamming another in, cocking the bolt and bringing the first round into the chamber. He took in a deep breath and motioned for his men to move, keeping his senses—sharper than a humans but not quite as sharp as the full Keidran he fought—on high alert. They charged out the small door and into the opening they'd made in the adjacent wall. For Kelly, it was nothing but a blur.

He ran, he fired, ran some more, fired some more, dove behind cover and fired some more. He took in a deep breath and regained his senses from the blur. Becoming mechanical in combat was a good way to get himself killed and Kelly knew it. That recalled, he re-surveyed his surroundings. Five or six Wolves, all armed with assault rifles, were hid behind various points of cover in the room. At the end was a highly reinforced set of doors. Those doors were to an elevator that no doubt went where he needed to be. His target in mind, he decided that eliminating the Wolves guarding it would be smart and picked one out, waiting for his head to pop up at just the right time. Finally, the Wolf did, earning it a 5.7×28mm round to the forehead. Kelly switched prospective targets, only to have one of his men take the Wolf out before he had the chance. He scanned the room and found another target, this time taking the grey wolf down before any of his men had the chance.

That Wolf down, Kelly thought that he'd cleared the room. Nonetheless, he and his men were cautious as they fanned out and checked it quietly and thoroughly. "Clear," Kelly said, lowering his gun, but not his guard, not by a hair. "Judging by the scrollwork on that elevator door, we'll need your handiwork, Dean," Kelly said, motioning the soldier towards the door. Dean was his best mage by a long shot. This said, however, Dean still took several minutes to crack the spell, with his technology-oriented man working on the control panel to its right. As usual, they both finished at roughly the same time and the doors slid open. Kelly smiled and nodded to them as he climbed in. He was the only one that went down the shaft.

He found that the elevator only had two buttons. He also found that some Wolf had taped a piece of paper with "Hell" sloppily written on it in Keidran over the second button. Kelly let out a rueful chuckle and pressed that button, feeling the elevator move downward rather rapidly. Wait a second, Kelly thought, why was the elevator at the top of the shaft? Deciding that safe was better than sorry, he keeled down low and aimed his gun up. The elevator ride seemed to go on forever. Finally it stopped and several different doors opened in front of him. He found the small area in front of him empty. He cautiously moved into that concreted area, scanning his surroundings with his gun's barrel, staying crouched low. It was clear. Oddly enough, the door to the small concrete and steel pod that housed the real control center for the atomic missiles stood wide open. Kelly scratched his head and peered in, gun before him. The controls were empty. Clearly, the operators had gone to the top to assist in stopping Kelly's men. That clearly hadn't worked too well for them. That discovered, Kelly climbed into the cramped pod and took a seat in one of the chairs. He dug a memory stone—not far removed from his communications stone, but used for computer memory, much like the less practical flash drive—from a uniform pocket. He sat it on a stone receptacle on the computer terminal and listened to the old computers whir as the UN coding and spells did their work. Shortly, a countdown appeared on the old screen. Kelly grinned and ran back to the elevator, hitting the up button as he crossed into it.

The ride up seemed to take forever. He bolted out of the elevator, calling to his men, "Please tell me the extraction team is on its way!"

"Yessir," one of them replied as they fell into formation behind him, running. The extraction point was several miles away and there was no way for him to teleport to it; not without a waypoint. He wished he could have just teleported back to the UN, but it was simply too far... He shrugged and got to work hotwiring one of the Wolf Air Force vehicles as his men piled in. That accomplished, he shifted into first, pressing the gas and releasing the clutch. The large utility vehicle bucked back and forth as the clutch locked in and it got off to a slow start. It was longer than Kelly was used to before he had to let off the gas and press the clutch again, shifting into second.

He finally did make it up to fourth gear on the terribly constructed vehicle and cruised toward the large field of an extraction point at somewhere around 70 kph. The ride was terribly bumpy, but Kelly really didn't worry about it. He would be gone shortly. He shot into the field and stamped the clutch and brake, stopping the vehicle with neck-jerking, grass streaking force. He shifted it into neutral and jumped out, the rest of his men doing the same. They all filed into the hubschrauberthat was waiting for them. Kelly sighed and sunk back into a seat, waving to the pilot to takeoff as Dean slid the door closed.

Kelly looked at his watch and out the window. He kept waiting... only a second longer... There it was. Suddenly, the hundreds of concrete domes and the ground around them lifted up and collapsed back onto themselves. Kelly grinned. Those atomic weapons wouldn't be used by anyone any time soon.

King Scythe looked the Unity Nation and Bastian ambassadors over. He let out a growl, "You two realize this is an act of war, right?"

The UN ambassador laughed hardily. "Alright, declare war then, please do. It would make my job so much easier. Our special forces defeated you with five to one odds, all over your nation. Do you really want to face us man-to-man? Panzer to panzer? Only a madman would try."

The Bastian looked at the Unity, "I think he's just crazy enough to try."

"Let. Him. Try," the Unity said, leaning over the table and making the statement very pointed. "Do I even need to mention that The Great Lane's world is on our side?"

Scythe let out a low growl. "I am well aware of the facts, ambassador. Sometimes, you have to stand for what you believe in, however."

"Tyranny? You find that worth standing for?" The Unity said with a hint of a growl himself.

"I am opposing tyranny! I am standing for tradition! Well over two thousand years of it!" Scythe exclaimed, throwing his hands up in the air in helplessness. The two ambassadors had thick skulls, that was for sure. Could he not bring them to see?

The Unity stared him down. "Look, Your Majesty, we don't want any more of our men to die. You don't declare war on us and we won't do anything more to you. We wanted to remove the chance of this turning into a global atomic holocaust. That was all we wanted. We want no more part in your war."

Axe busied himself with paperwork behind a very normal desk. There was plenty of the stuff to keep busy, that was for sure. Now that the Wolf Rebel Army was beginning to form a tentative new government, Axe was starting to have to concern himself with diplomacy. He hated the idea. He hated politics, but he'd made leading people his job. Politics were unavoidable when you started leading people. Diplomacy, he thought, would be better left avoided, but they, the people, want me to be their leader. I can't lead them and not do everything in my power to protect them. 'Everything in his power,' of course, included making sure that he was in right standing with the more powerful nations of his world. He'd tried associations with the Arctic Wolves, but had come up empty handed.

The Bastian People's Republic, on the other hand, had been very helpful. They'd given the Rebel Army some of their best air and armor divisions, along with advisers and instructors for his soldiers. As it turned out, most of Axe's men had been better at tactics than the Bastians, who were still using textbook Lane Doctrine. The Great Lane may have been a genius, but his tactics were made for a very different battlefield; one Axe's men no longer faced. The dragons had also known how to fight and had helped his men. That had meant that the Rebels had had better tactics than the King's men for some time; meant that the Rebels were able to scrape out victories, especially after they acquired Wolf Army panzers and crews from defecting units. When a squadron from The Great Lane's world had arrived in the UN, however, and when the UN had begun its atomic policy, the men and women of the Wolf Rebel Army had started losing again. The Unities started getting better tactics and more advanced weaponry...

But then Axe (with the help of his beautiful wife) had realized that he needed to start waging more than just a military campaign, but also a campaign for the hearts and minds of the millions of people of the four different species around the globe. That had had a lot of impact. Recruitment and defectment rates had surged and sympathy for the rebels all over the globe had gone up. That was when Scythe decided that he would hit the rebels right in the heart—their civilians. The whole attack force, composed of two divisions, with the squadron from The Great Lane's world riding shotgun, had defected to the rebels. That attack convinced Unity Nation to cease its attacks on the Rebels. It had also gained the WRA two divisions' worth of the most advanced military equipment on the planet. That had given the Rebels all they needed to beat back the Wolf Army substantially, despite Scythe's last resort control spells.

Those control spells had also lead to some interesting developments, like what was happening that day. Right on cue, Axe's new secretary opened the door on his new office, "Comrade General Secretary," - The position in the new government Axe had reluctantly accepted - "the ambassador from Unity Nation is here."

"Ah, yes, let him in, thank you, comrade."

The slim, tall Unity, with close-cropped black hair, thin red-orange fur striped with brown-black stripes, white running across his face, down his neck and below his suit collar, walked in. He nodded to Axe and walked over to his desk, extending a hand. As Axe took it to shake, the ambassador asked, "How may I address you, General Secretary?"

"First, have a seat, please," Axe said, motioning towards the two simple chairs in front of the even simpler desk, "then you can call me Axe; I'm a very simple man. How may I address you?"

The ambassador nodded, seeming impressed. "George will do just fine."

Axe grinned, "That decided, I want to extend the thanks of this budding nation's peace-loving workers, soldiers and peasants to you and your people for their assistance in our struggle against our oppressors."

George nodded, "We did what needed to be done. Nothing more. If Scythe doesn't declare war on us, it's all we'll do."

Axe grimaced and sat back in his chair, thinking. "I understand, I'm afraid." He scratched the tuft of fur under the end of his muzzle, "However, I suspect that, the madman he is, Scythe will declare on the entire USA, just to prove a point formed in his deranged mind."

George chuckled, "Have you talked to the king recently?"

"No, he rather hates us and we rather hate him. Why do you ask?"

"You seem to know him well. My previous appointment was with him. He said, and I quote, 'I am well aware of the facts, ambassador. Sometimes, you have to stand for what you believe in, however.'"

Axe chuckled. "Sounds like him, anyhow. I used to do contract work for the king, when I was a construction worker. The new annex wing of the palace? My work crew built it. I conferred with him frequently. I was inspired by him then. Now?" he let out a snort. "I see how foolish and young I was."

George nodded. "You lead the crew?"

Axe returned the nod.

"That's no doubt where you learned to lead the common people."

Axe shrugged, "Perhaps. Perhaps I just told people what they needed to hear; did what needed to be done. That is my personal opinion of the matter, anyhow."

The ambassador shrugged, "A humble and respectable opinion, at that."

Axe shrugged, "I try."

"Will all due respect, General Secretary, I believe you do better than try. I believe you succeed, in more ways than one."

Axe shrugged, "I've never taken compliments well, but thank you, Ambassador."

"You're very welcome, sir," the Unity said, rising and again extending his hand.

Axe rose as well, clasping the dignitary's hand firmly, "Please don't call me sir, and it was good to speak with you. I hope our two nations become most beneficial to one another."

As they stepped to the door, George chuckled, "Scythe was rather stingy. I get the feeling our nations will get along just fine with you at the helm.

Axe grinned, "Then I guess we'll meet again?"

"Probably before this bloody war's over," George said condescendingly and walked out the door.

Axe grimaced—toothily, he was a Wolf, after all—and got back on that pesky paperwork.

Wolf Rebel Army Colonel Juniper surveyed the battlefield from the open hatch of her panzer with a pair of binoculars. Below her, WRA militia units and Ground Dragons ran in full retreat from several divisions of Scythe's armor and infantry. Presently, she sat concealed behind the old trees of the Forest of Wolves on top of a large hill. Actually, the hill was called a "formation," specifically, the "Wolves' Bowl," an area where the hills and mountains at the very southern end of the Great Border Mountains formed a large bowl surrounded by forests housing a bare grassy plain at its center. There was only one pass into and out of the bowl, and the rebel militia and Ground Dragons had retreated straight into it.

Typically, retreating to here would have been a tactical folly, and a severe one at that; leaving the forces with no way to retreat and surrounded by a superior army. It wasn't a folly that day. Or, actually, it was a folly; for Scythe's troops, who were left with no way to retreat and surrounded by a superior army. Juniper's division, which was more like a small army, was all around the rim of the crater, hiding just behind the tree line. Scythe's forces were twenty meters downhill, sixty years outdated and fifty units outgunned. And they were trapped, too. They only began to realize this when two columns of older WRA panzers and APCs sealed off the pass and the militia units got into fortifications they'd dug themselves. That meant it was time for Juniper's forces to do their part.

Juniper touched her comm stone, "All units, spring the trap."

The massive diesel engine in her Leopard II panzer roared to life, its gun traversing and finding a target as the beast of a machine lurched forward. The massive gun thundered and one of the tyrant's panzers went up in a massive fireball. Several more followed as Leopard II panzers and Stryker APCs rolled out of the woods, cannon thundering and maschinengewehre blazing. 200mm artillery on the rim of the bowl opened up. Regular professional infantry followed right behind the massive armored beasts. In short order, the bowl became a chopping block.

On the floor of that chopping block, WRA units fought it out with their counterparts who unwillingly served an unjust king. Scythe's men seemed to take a long time to realize just how badly they'd been trapped and the extent of the rebel forces. They clustered up in the center of the valley, fighting it out to the last man. Rebels climbed into turrets and killed crewmen of panzers with their rifles or magic, saving the equipment in a desperate attempt to bolster the Rebels' pathetic arsenal. The attempt was rather successful, Juniper noted as the Rebels mopped up. As usual, there were no prisoners. Scythe's control spells didn't allow his men to surrender. That was a tragedy, one over which Juniper had lost more than a few nights' sleep over, but the Rebels dealt with it quite nicely, and they still got recruits (granted, untrained recruits) from the civilian populace, whom even Scythe didn't dare enslave.

Panzers and APCs were shut off as the soldiers got out and combed the field, salvaging all the equipment they could off Scythe's slain forces, all the while taking a silent body count of their own dead. Juniper's panzer shut off, too, and she climbed out of the copula, sitting on the side of the massive flat turret. Her gunner followed and sat on his rather large instrument of death. The mission had really been straightforward enough that Juniper hadn't honestly needed to be there to command it; she hadn't even had to tell her men to cease fire. The Rebels had their kacke together at all times. They knew what they were fighting for and they didn't want to screw it up. Along those same lines, Juniper was there if something did go wrong.

The gunner lit a cigarette. Juniper ignored the acrid stench that emanated from it. She hated the things. Nonetheless, her gunner was a very competent man; the same one who'd operated her Stryker and the WA APC before that. "Should've just dropped an atom bomb on 'em," he remarked, surveying the battlefield.

"Would've been easier and cleaner, that's for sure," Juniper muttered. "But our objective was to salvage materials and supplies, too."

The gunner looked thoughtful as he took a drag. "Pity we can't do both."

Juniper took her turn at looking thoughtful. "If we detonated it just far enough above the ground, it might kill the soldiers and leave most of the equipment."

The burlier Wolf nodded as he took another puff, "And any survivors will be left without magic. It could work."

Juniper's whole body, jaw, tongue, ears and tail included, went lax. "Heinz, no magic... means..."

"...no control spells," they finished in a shocked unison as Heinz's cigarette fell from his mouth.

Jason laid on his bed silently. His little sister was curled up in a ball beside him, trying to sleep. Both their sensitive Dog ears could hear through the thin trailer walls into the next room. They were tuned in on the conversation—argument—his parents were having. Jason sighed, it wasn't pretty.

"How in the gods' names did you forget the lorry payment?" his mom almost-put not quite-yelled.

He could have been worse off, he supposed. His parents weren't divorced. His father wasn't a drunkard or a druggie. Nor was he abusive or mean (at least to Jason and his brothers). For that matter, neither was his mother. They were loving and caring to him and his siblings, at all times. In all honesty, the only problem his family really had was money... or the lack thereof. That was about it. Sometimes, when the money ran low, things got... messy. And loud. Very loud. Well, there were other things that contributed, too, like the collection of crackheads, prostitutes and drunkards that composed his mother's side of the family. Along that trail of thought, adopting his abandoned niece was often a subject of their more heated debates.

He tossed and turned. Thin trailer walls and superior animal senses didn't help at all. His little sister huddled ever closer to him. She held her ears desperately, seemingly trying to claw the noise away. The fights were hard on everyone in the house. His younger brother looked at him with hollow, helpless eyes from his bed on the other side of the room.

She finally unclenched her ears and looked at him desperately, "Jason, when will they stop?"

"I don't know, Kate, I don't know," he said, every bit as helplessly, no matter how much confidence he tried to put in his voice. The same desperation he saw in her tiny green eyes was no doubt present in his larger yellow ones.

Ever since the economy had gone downhill and taxes quite the other way, his family had had these kinds of problems. It was becoming a weekly deal on the day his parents did the bills. If it weren't for those taxes and perhaps the skyrocketing price of liquid manna, he would have been sleeping quite nicely. The King regulates both those things, he thought with a sneer. He reflected on what was happening only a few miles north in Wolf country. That needs to happen here, he thought. That would fix it. Getting rid of the king would fix it. He took in a deep breath. You want something done right, you gotta do it yourself, he thought. So he decided to do it, taking Kate and putting her in bed with her brother. "You two look out for each other," he said. "Stay here, no matter what happens. I'll be back. I don't know when, but I will be back and things will be better when I get back."

They looked at him helplessly as he went about the room, putting on a full military uniform he used for mil-sim with his buddies. He put a real handgun and as many manna crystals as he could find on the utility belt, grabbing his smartphone off its charging stone as he walked out the door and into the hall. He walked right past the fighting animals that somewhat resembled his parents and grabbed the keys to the lorry (which apparently hadn't been paid for) on his way out the door.

He floored it to the nearest city, hoping to be caught by a policeman. The police in the Dog Kingdom were rather underpaid. The king signed their paycheck. It wasn't long before one of His Majesty's finest caught up with him. "License and registration please," he demanded monotonically once Jason pulled over.

"Do I really need to?" Jason asked, not giving the officer time to respond, "Aren't you terribly underpaid for the important job you do?"

"Well, yes..."

"Isn't everything too expensive?"

"Rather."

"Aren't you tired of it?" Jason asked pointedly, grinning widely.

"I am," the cop said with resolve.

"Isn't it the King's fault?"

"It is!"

"Then get on your comm stone and get all your buddies into the city and off duty. We're having a riot! The King's time is up!"

The officer rushed back to his car and stayed there for some time. He came back out ecstatic. "Several will be stopping people on the highways into town and get those people fired up. Several will go into the city and get things heated up there, too. You're a genius, kid, and you're getting a police escort to this thing!"

"General Lane, Grand General Lane," a voice called from afar.

If took Joe several seconds to realize that he was not, in fact, at the restaurant with Amber, as he'd been happily dreaming. Instead, he was in bed on base and his secretary was paging him through the intercom.

"What is it, airman?" he asked groggily.

"Emergency session of the USA BoG has been called. Trust me, it's important. Nora is waiting on the roof."

Joe was instantly awake. Many years of military life had acquired him that skill. He rapidly put his dress uniform on and rushed up to the roof, where a small white dragon with oversized wings and bulging muscles waited on him. He ran over to her, not even stopping as he hooked on foot into a stirrup, swinging his leg over her neck and locking the other foot in. A pat to her side let her know he was ready as he laid down against the contour of her neck, which instantly conformed to his shape.

She bolted off into the cold night. "What is it this time, Joe?" Lady Nora asked.

"I'd love to know," he shouted over the roar of air that her fight—near the speed of sound in her present, fighter-like form—generated. A spell streamlined the two of them as much as possible, while keeping the wind out of Joe's eyes. "I'm told it's important, however," he finished.

"Must be if they called me," Nora said in the manner in which dragons spoke. The Lady had been in the service of Unity Nation since well before it was a nation at all.

With the speeds she was pulling, it was only a short time before they arrived at the USA Military Command Center—USAMCC for short—which was located on the border between the UN and HR, as close to the center of the world as its planners could put it. Joe dismounted no sooner than Nora's feet touched the tarmac, thanked her, and ran inside, straightening his uniform as he went. Thankfully, he wasn't last to arrive, but he was closer than he would have liked.

When all parties had arrived (The Bastian General, having the farthest to travel, arrived last), Joe broke the silence promptly, "Would someone please tell me why I've been drug out here at the godsforsaken hour of 0200 hours now?"

The Dog general spoke slowly, "The same riots that started the Wolf Revolution? They are happening in some of our northern cities and towns. Policemen appear to be leading them."

"Policemen?" the Tiger general asked.

"Yes, apparently fed up with how little they say they get paid and the abuses they apparently suffer."

Joe let out a singular chuckle, "Someone definitely has a healthy taste for irony."

Jason stopped his lorry outside of a block of government buildings that were closed for the night. He grabbed a glass wine bottle from the bed and poured liquid manna into it from the gas tank, stuffing a rag into its mouth and pulling a lighter out of his pocket

The officer got out of his patrol car, looking somewhat shocked, "What are you doing?"

Jason lit the wick, "I'm burning a paper tiger," and tossed.