"Venom of Serpents"

I.

She heard a bit of naughty language from the Viper. That was weird.

Fionnghal didn't know a machine could have a dirty mouth.

The rat rolled over onto her back, groaning, and then her blue eyes opened wide. With a quick leap she was on her feet, again facing the behemoth before her. Only now she wasn't standing alone.

"Watch the acrobatics, Pew," Sonic said. "You're lucky you've still got legs at all, let alone the brains to use 'em..."

"What just happened?" Fionnghal asked.

"I played your trump card for you."

"Quinn—"

"Is airborne. Probably having a heart attack, too. This was a really stupid plain. But with some tweaks, it was at least serviceable—"

Those angry shouts for the Viper's cockpit subsided. Eggman's voice again filled the speakers.

"That was unwise, Speedster!"

Sonic rolled his eyes, muttering under his breath.

"Yeah, I know..."

"Why'd you choose to come along, Sonic?" Fionnghal asked. "What made you change your mind? I thought you were so obsessed about not breaking any of those asinine 'laws' of yours." The rat looked at him cockeyed, a mischievous glimmer in her azure eyes. "You are sweet on the little human, aren't you?"

The hedgehog scoffed.

"I'm sweet on the law, Pew. And that's why I'm here, period."

"Thatmakes about as much sense as Tails when he gets to munching coffee beans..."

Sonic didn't take his eyes off the ship before them.

"You shouldn't let a kit that young get hopped-up on caffeine—"

"Spare me. He likes it, and it helps keep him focused. Gibberish notwithstanding—"

"—given that he's occasionally working on my braces. And weren't you the one so worried that one wrong adjustment to them would end up ripping spacetime a new one?"

"That was if you worked on them. Difference is that Tails knows what he's doing. Look, can we talk about this some other time?"

"There actually might not be one of those." Sonic's eyes focused on the horizon: a plume of ash rose up in a wavy line, like a hedge of flames cresting the blasted earth.

"Convoy?" Fionnghal asked.

"Probably Delta Tribe. Regulars and Elites, I think," Sonic said. "Well, they had to mobilize eventually."

The hedgehog squinted, and then he cursed in his lowspeak.

"What is it?" Fionnghal asked.

He shook his head, grumbling.

"One second."

Fionnghal shielded her eyes as the hedgehog vanished in a bright blur of light.

II.

"Please to stop those incessant struggles! Your weight is quite enough to work with, filthy little mole rat! Not even considering your smell..."

Somehow Quinn managed to stop screaming like a terrified little girl. It helped that his lungs were almost completely empty at this point. The boy craned his neck, staring up into a brilliant azure forest of feathers. Scaly bird claws gripped the boy's shoulders tight.

"Fringe?"

The chaffinch bristled; she belted out her words in an angry staccato, in rhythm with her flapping wings:

"Fringelline Sheldapple Spiza-Pinson Vinkholler—"

"How? Wh— What?"

That was really the best Quinn could do, given the circumstances.

"I am at the mercy of the Mistress Fionnghal!" The finch bowed her head, exposing that ornately-etched beak to the boy. Her eyes bled conceit. "Or rather she is at mine. The Mistress so desperately wants her mole rat, and so she will get it. And I get enough meager perks to make that miserable hovel of a forest livable." The finch looked up briefly, as if reconsidering her words. "Tolerable. Or rather: survivable, and just barely, at that!"

"But you're no soldier—"

Fringe chortled. It was an odd sensation, and it made her whole body reverberate. This was not comforting to the boy as he watched the ground race by 200 feet below him.

"Soldier? I should think not. Talent and intelligence preclude such a thing!"

"How are you doing this, then? The damselflies—"

Another scoff.

"Wretches! They are the lungfish of the sky!"

Quinn wagged his head.

"Uh, damselflies... and lungfish?" After dealing with Eggman's pompous monologues he really was in no mood for nonsensical bragging screeds, and so he told her as much:

"Will you start making sense, you puff-chested... bird-brained... bird!"

Not only was this a bad insult, but Quinn quickly realized that he might not want to insult his only current means of avoiding gravity.

"Oh, you ignorant little mole rat! Those ridiculous Dames are like lungfish: creatures of two elements, uncomfortable in both. They can fly only slightly better than they can jog..."

Fringe dropped her altitude, cruising low over the dunes as she put a graceful arc into her trajectory.

"And me? Well, the chaffinch is of a different level, and of a different game. Myself personally? Well, I'm the best of them, without a doubt! No damselfly could ever catch me," she boasted. "To think: even the Mistress doubted my abilities!"

Quinn cocked his brow.

"Fionnghal did?"

"So confident was her belief in the Dames' superiority, too! She all but told me I could never hope to outpace a simple damselfly. Leader or not, she is a foolish rat! And to see her face after this? That would be worth very many trifling perks..."

A small smiled crept up Quinn's face. He had to hand it to her: Fionnghal knew how to push people's buttons. And vanity was always a big button to push...

The boy suddenly gasped.

"Fionnghal! Eggman's gonna squash her! We gotta do something!"

"Excuse me: all I must do is take possession of a mole rat..." the chaffinch again bent her head, looking down at Quinn. "And I so have possession. That was the sole request of my services. I would sooner court a fruit bat than I would risk my beautiful body any further in this misadventure!" Fringe again looked up at the horizon. "Why, I owe it to posterity, if nothing else..."

"Hey: if you're so great, then you should be able to swoop down there really quick and—"

"Tch! It is the way of the chaffinch to outfly Dames, and to outfly rockets, even. Bullets are a different matter. No: I will remain outside the range of that bloated airship—"

"Then at least drop me off at that next dune!"

"—and,following the Mistress's orders, I will also hold on to you, stinky mole rat!"

Quinn grit his teeth. He looked down at the ashen ground below him, now racing by quite close, and then he waited for Fringe's next elegant bank, wherein the finch lost a bit of speed.

It was at this point— in his professional opinion— that Quinn utterly and completely lost his mind.

"By the way, Fringe," he said, "you should know that I'm not really a naked mole rat..."

"Ha! And just what else in creation could you be? Hideous thing, you..."

"Nothing in your creation, anyway: I'm a human."

Another chortle began, but Fringe's body suddenly stopped its awkward shuddering; the bird craned its head down, peering at Quinn first with skeptical and sardonic eyes, but then a cold and panicked fear burned through her gaze. She suddenly parted her ornate beak and screamed. She screamed quite loud, too.

Quinn didn't hear most of that; he was tumbling head-over-heels across the dunes before long.

He came to a rest face-down, buried in an ash pile. A cursory check showed no obviously broken bones, and so he got to his feet and crested the nearest dune.

The Viper hovered in the distance, looming over a tiny speck on the ground that must have been Fionnghal. Quinn hoped it was her, at least. All things considered, he really didn't want that rat's death on his conscience at the moment. If it came to that, he'd have to put it on the shelf next to Myrtle's death, as it was.

"And that's a lot of weight," he grumbled.

Just as he was formulating a suitably insane and suicidal plan to distract Eggman and take the heat off Fionnghal the boy was interrupted by a distraction himself: it was an annoying buzz, like a swarm of flies.

As long as they're not damselflies, he thought. Quinn turned around just in time to see a phalanx of rusty, weather-worn dune buggies blast across the dunes behind him.

"Or that."

He actually said that last part out loud. Looking back it was kinda funny. But at the moment? Not so much.

Quinn didn't know who was at the wheel of those terrible, sputtering buggies, but he guessed they weren't friendly. They weren't driving friendly, at least. He put his legs to work, racing across the dunes as fast as he could. Which, it turned out, wasn't very fast at all.

The lead buggy pulled up alongside the boy and a hatch popped open; a metal-faced wolf poked its head out and aimed a massive weapon directly at him. Terrified of being shot, Quinn was only partially relieved to see it was a net-gun, instead.

What a relief! He wouldn't take a bullet: he'd just probably break both of his tender little legs when they got wrapped up in the webbing.

The wolf barely had a second to aim before a loud 'pop' sounded. This wasn't the net-gun firing; the device exploded into a mix of broken metal fragments. A bright white blur accompanied this devastation.

Quinn knew this particular blur quite well by now.

Even as the wolf cradled its injured hands Sonic appeared on the front of the buggy. The hedgehog balanced himself for a fraction of a second before driving one of his shoes right into the metal hood, his leg brace blazing with light. His foot sunk at least two feet in, decimating the engine, and then the hedgehog was gone in a silver flash, streaking over the top of the buggy in a miniature rainbow. He repeated this process with the next four buggies in the line before leaping off the last one, gracefully, and spinning through the air. He came to rest about 20 yards away from Quinn, who by now stood in awe of the hedgehog's performance.

Three more buggies crested the dunes. Sonic looked first to them, and then back at the boy. He smiled.

And it wasn't that nice-guy grin Quinn thought he saw earlier.

The boy waved his hands to either side, slowly backing away.

"Uh... wait, Sonic... please: not the—"

Quinn barely had time to see the blur before he became part of the blur. The boy screamed as he was snatched-up by white gloves and rocketed across the desert ground, flown head-first like a supersonic boy-torpedo. The trip was a long one, too: by the end of it Quinn's limbs felt like licorice, and his eardrums screamed.

Sonic deposited the boy in an ungainly mess; in his distress Quinn could at least pick-out Fionnghal's large combat boots standing beside him. The boy struggled to get to his feet. Needless to say, he found this to be uncomfortable.

The hedgehog found this to be hilarious.

"Woozy, isn't he? Did Eggman drug him, you think?" He asked Fionnghal.

"I think you just forced most of his blood into his toes, Sonic."

"Serves him right," he mumbled. "Little idiot ditches his escort and everything. No survival instinct: that's his problem, I think..."

The three remaining dune buggies eventually passed beneath the Egg Viper; they flanked the trio in strategic formation, and then rifle-bearing creatures emerged from the outside buggies: wolves from one, and possums from another.

Fionnghal readied Curtainrod.

Quinn watched this with his hands on his knees, panting.

"I just wanted... to help..." he managed.

Sonic looked down at the boy, smiling. He stood Quinn up and put a hand on the boy's shoulder.

"You are helping. Believe me..."

The occupants of the central buggy emerged: one was another wolf, but this one wearing intricate battle dress, with ribbons and ornaments dangling from a bright uniform, in contrast to the other wolves' black garb. Its metal facemask, too, was more stylized, with a delicate, shiny emboss to the polished metal. The color was brass, not silver.

Tatu the armadillo emerged from the opposite side of the buggy, his sunken eyes as sullen and joyless as ever.

"How am Ihelping?" Quinn asked Sonic.

The hedgehog looked first at the brass-faced wolf, then at Tatu. Finally, he looked up at the Viper, his eyes lingering on the bridge window.

Without warning Sonic pulled Quinn in front of him and cracked such a punch to the boy's gut that he thought he'd been shot. Quinn went down immediately, and the vomit came soon after. The boy retched, holding his burning gut as he heaved, his eyes brimming with tears as he coughed.

"Sonic!" Fionnghal hissed.

The hedgehog stepped back slowly, his hands extended to either side. He smiled devilishly, projecting his voice to the airship above.

"I come under color of the Thallomoor, as Speedster of the realm, guardian of its honor! Two times this juvenile violated the laws of my domain: once by venturing into its borders without consent, and another time by leaving its borders without my consent. As punishment, two thrashings to his body were prescribed, but only one was administered..."

Fionnghal's jaw dropped.

"You've gotta be kidding me..."

"Now, with this second thrashing, this juvenile's debt to the Thallomoor is paid in full. The realm is appeased, and therefore I have no more cause for him..." Sonic looked back at Tatu and the brass-faced wolf. "But, as it so happens, it seems that the juvenile is now in the possession of Filigree. And possession being 9/10th's of the law, well..." He shrugged.

Quinn spit-up another wad of bile.

"You've... gotta be... kidding me..." he managed.

Tatu was, for lack of a better word, apoplectic:

"After all your actions, you dare to seek neutrality in this, hedgehog?"

"I'm not seeking. I'm claiming." Sonic looked at the brass-faced wolf. "Unless the canines here think that I'm not entitled to defend my territory's honor? Well? Is that just not a big deal, anymore?"

The brass-faced wolf grumbled, snorting steam out its mask.

"Your method in securing that right is duplicitous, at best..."

"And not illegal, at worst," Sonic replied.

The wolf pointed at the animals flanking them; he addressed Fionnghal.

"Mistress of Filigree: it so happens that the other 1/10th of the law often involves guns. Not so irrelevant a percentage, is it?"

The flanking animals chambered their weapons and took aim.

And then, from the dunes far behind Fionnghal, two loud clacks resonated in the stale desert air.

Fionnghal's ears twitched; she tried to hide her surprise.

"Nope: it's not an irrelevant percentage at all, wolfie."

This threat of cover fire brought a chill to the burning desert air. For a few seconds nothing happened, but every moment brought another itch to the animals' already twitchy trigger fingers.

Eventually it was Tatu who broke the silence:

"I say we take 'em all down," he grumbled. "Who cares what soldiers she's got covering us? These Filigree twits are the softest of the softies—"

"Lumber over here and say that to my face, Tat!" Fionnghal growled.

"They're not even an amateur fighting force! None of them can shoot straight, anyway—"

"Ballsy of you, being such a wide target! Tempting fate, much, Tat?"

Tatu's grin widened.

"And of course they can't fight worth a damn, either—"

The brass-faced wolf looked over at the armadillo.

"Perhaps schoolyard taunts are not the way to settle this situation, Tatu? If you'll restrain yourself and allow the Elites to handle—"

"Ah, but you didn't see this rat after the Delta Tribe Regulars finished cutting through their little complex like knives through butter! Pathetic. Not even a proper fight. That's right! She wasn't so tough at all when we got her tied to a chair, helpless, gun pressed against her kneecap—"

Fionnghal's blue eyes blazed. She unleashed a vicious string of rat lowspeak, as if temporarily incapable of even using the highspeak, before she finally regained at least some composure:

"If you hadn't blindsided us with a damned unprovoked attack without the slightest hint of a grievance then maybe right now you'd have yourself a broadsword sticking right up your—"

Another cloud of steam billowed from the wolf. It turned to face Tatu.

"'Unprovoked' attack?"

Tatu shook his head.

"No, no: it was provoked. They killed one of ours on the wreckage of that human ship—"

"By accident!" Fionnghal roared. "And even if it wasn't, and even if you wouldn't believe us, you bastard Delts didn't even give us a chance to explain!"

"Is this true, Tatu?" The wolf asked.

Tatu crossed his arms.

"Well… yes, technically, but—"

"You violated the Code of the Tribes?" The wolf's distorted voice burned with anger.

Tatu pointed at Fionnghal.

"They're not a tribe! They claim to represent the old order! They claim to rule from the authority of the royal family of Sulumac'Dun! They live in fairy tales! And just because they say they've become some phony group called 'Theta Tribe' group doesn't actually mean—"

Fionnghal pointed her blade at the Armadillo.

"Hey! We never said—"

"—that doesn't mean they can actually call themselves a tribe!"

Fionnghal opened her mouth, more than eager to shout-down this insane accusation, but the brass-faced wolf literally blocked Tatu from her, standing directly before the armadillo.

"Tatu! You dishonorably, and withoutnotice, attacked a group who had a potential tribal claim?"

"The claim is bogus—"

"As was your attack, you treacherous snake! The Code of the Tribes demanded they at least explain their claim to tribehood: their uniting factor! By attacking without giving them that opportunity, you've given them their entire claim! 'Unity born of spilled blood' Tatu! That is their uniting factor. You are a fool!"

Tatu pointed at Fionnghal.

"Hey: she's not making any declarations here and now, is she? So let's exterminate the lot of them before they can even try exercising that claim? They're not a tribe, yet..."

"You'd further disgrace the Code?"

Quinn looked up at Fionnghal as the two animals argued. The rat stared at Tatu with undisguised hatred. When she looked down at Quinn her face softened a bit.

"What are they talking about?" He asked.

Fionnghal looked like she was about to start a detailed speech, but when she looked at Quinn she closed her eyes and shook her head.

"Tatu messed up. He just gave us a get-out-of-jail-free card. We can make it out of Dolamiram, maybe, because of what he did to the Filigree complex. But to do that we'd have to sink down to their level. They damn-well ought to know that we're not gonna do that; we're not gonna become what they are." Fionnghal looked up, staring at the Viper. "The Delts, and allthe rest of them. The whole reasonwe put Filigree together in the first place was to avoid this damned system: to fight against it! This setup is killing our miserable little planet! So if it means I've gotta die here today to keep it from spreading..."

Suddenly the rat blinked. She looked down at Quinn: his disheveled jumpsuit, his cut and bruised face, the slingshot in his hand, fingers trembling from exhaustion (among other things).

Fionnghal drew a deep breath, and then she released it.

"Are you tired, Quinn?"

The boy cocked his head, confused, but then he nodded.

"Me, too," she said. "I think we ought to go..."

Tatu and the wolf still exchanged heated words, but when Fionnghal took two steps forward they alerted like pointer hounds.

"And just what do you have to say, Fi?" Tatu sneered.

The rat rammed Curtainrod into the ground; she crossed her arms, and then barked out words in a voice Quinn didn't think she was capable of:

"My people have been wronged at the hands of the citizens of Dolamiram! Delta Tribe has spilled the blood of our people, unjustly, hunted us through the great forests, and as a result it has united us in a shared cause. For our greater good, in unity against our persecutors, we are a cause, and our cause lives within us all! We are made one! And so are the lines drawn for us!"

Fionnghal's voice broke on this last bit, but when she looked up at the Egg Viper her eyes narrowed into slits. And when she yelled again her scream was loud enough to pierce the clouds themselves:

"We are Theta Tribe!"

These words struck the pair in different ways: Tatu sneered mockingly, but the wolf simply leaned back, bringing its hands down to either side of its body. It spoke softly:

"And, so—"

"We declare ourselves your enemy, here and now. And we'll have at it, for sure, when our paths cross again. So, if you wanna do this by the book—"

"Declarations precede hostilities," the wolf looked at Tatu as it spoke, spitting its words with acidic inflection. It looked back at Fionnghal. "In that case: we canines of the Dolamiram look forward to destroying you, animals of the Thallomoor…"

Sonic stood by throughout all this, arms crossed, lips screwed tight. He wasn't scowling, but it looked like that might be because he was beyond the concept entirely. Quinn could almost feel the hatred leeching off his body, and he had a feeling that most of it was directed at Fionnghal.

The wolf put its paw to one edge of its mask, which glowed like a halo around its metal ear; it looked up at the Egg Viper as it spoke.

"There is a development. This has become a contest of the tribes. By the Code, battle is currently... 'disfavored'. Nevertheless, we await your orders..."

Quinn swallowed hard. Seconds passed like hours. He kept his eyes on the brass-faced wolf, but then suddenly the Egg Viper above them roared anew.

If he were less exhausted, Quinn might've considered wetting himself.

III.

The Viper's speakers echoed with the wolf's words. Eggman clasped his hands behind his back, head bowed before the window. Bellesailes approached him.

"We can't allow this insult to stand!" She snarled. "That rat, that chaffinch... and that hedgehog!"

"They played their hands," Eggman said. "And for now this idiotic Code ties mine..."

"To hell with the wolves! If the Elites won't budge then order the Regulars to attack! We'll crush the lot of them!"

Eggman shook his head.

"The wolves wouldn't stand for it, Bellesailes; it's their way. We cannot afford to lose them."

The man faced away from the window and began walking off.

"Dasy, withdraw."

"Destination?" The android asked.

"Beyond the reach of chaffinches and stones, please."

Bellesailes stood up against the window. The Egg Viper's powerful enginesroared beneath her. The damselfly snarled, staring down at the hedgehog below. She shrieked, slamming her fist into the glass wall. This failed to crack the glass, but did manage to put a big dent in the supportive metal brace along Bellesailes' slender fingers. She held that fist tight, seemingly oblivious to the busted metal plating and the pale yellow blood oozing out of her knuckles.

Eggman turned and noted the damselfly's injury without a hint of surprise.

"I'll add that to your repair list, along with the prosthetic wings."

The Dame looked away, scowling.

"Save the supplies. I'm sure we have more pressing needs back home..."

Eggman shook his head.

"None I can think of, offhand—"

Bellesailes crossed her arms.

"I don't want new wings. Not until I've avenged my old ones. Not until I've seen that hedgehog bleed."

"Sonic the hedgehog has the power to kill you, Bellesailes. And with you being wingless I have no doubt that he would succeed, if he were so inclined. For now you must agree not to engage him—"

"What's the difference? I'm expendable, aren't I? I'm not like your precious canines in the Elites! You can afford to lose me, can't you?"

Eggman stared at the Dame, emotionless, for quite some time.

"Yes," he admitted. "But, then, I don't want to."

Bellesailes crossed her arms, a chastised pout on her face. She stared down at her lanky legs.

"Bellesailes—"

"I won't go after the hedgehog," she grumbled. "But I won't accept any prosthetics until I've earned them!" She stormed off, heading for the ship's lower decks. She stopped just short of leaving the room:

"And I apologize for my outburst. And I'm sorry you couldn't get what you needed out of that little human juvenile."

Eggman toyed with his greasy moustache, shrugging.

"I don't know about that, my dear. In a way, I suppose I am..."

IV.

Quinn's legs trembled quite visibly until he was entirely sure the leviathan was rising up into the air. Within seconds it had turned on its axis, and then the mighty Viper roared off, moving towards the interior of the Dolamiram.

The brass-faced wolf moved for his dune buggy, but then he turned to face Sonic:

"Speedster: if the Thallomoor now lays claim to a living tribe, this might serve to 'complicate' your neutrality—"

Sonic's brief answer to the wolf was entirely crude, but likely matched his level of anger.

The wolf barked at Tatu to get into the buggy, which the armadillo did. With a parting scowl he closed his door and then all three vehicles sped off across the ashen terrain.

Not long after this Brady stumbled into their midst. The sloth moved awkwardly over the uneven ground, exhausted. He tossed a large, heavy-looking missile launcher down at Fionnghal's feet before sitting down himself.

"Ooooh: that's a lot of wasteland to cover. Can see why they call it a waste of land, though. What a dump!" He motioned to the rocket launcher with his head. "Oh, and enjoy your new paperweight; somehow the thing's been totally shot to hell, electronics and all..."

"Why carry it back up here, then?" Fionnghal asked.

Brady stared at the ground for a good, long while.

"Probably 'cause I'm an idiot, I guess." He looked up. "Although I'd assume we should take a look at the thing to figure out how in the hell Eggy managed to pull off that little parlor trick. Oh, yeah, and unless I'm totally delirious, I may have just heard an even bigger idiot— er, potential idiot, that is—announce our tribehood to all of the Dolamiram?"

Fionnghal rubbed her forehead.

"Yes: Asher's gonna be pissed, I know..."

"At least he'll have a chance to digest the news before you see him again: your voice likely made it all the way back to the Thallomoor."

Then, for the first time, Brady noticed Sonic standing beside Quinn.

"Ah: and it's the Banshee. Guess that explains the... well, the lack of bodies, here..."

Sonic scowled at the sloth.

Brady didn't take the hint.

"Well, Speedster: I guess we're kinda on the same team, now, aren't we? Temporarily, at least..."

Sonic stepped forward very slowly, and very deliberately.

"Uh, if it's not too much trouble: please don't kill me..."

Fionnghal approached the hedgehog:

"Listen, Sonic: I had no choice at the time. It was the only way to get the Delts off our backs. I know you don't want to have a tribe—"

The hedgehog spun around to face the rat:

"And I don't havea tribe! I don't care what you do with the Delts— whether you play nice or play rough— and you really wanna list the Thallomoor as your home address? That's fine. I'm not your Speedster, and I'll never be part of your 'cause'. If the Delts come looking for you in my territory then you're fair game: they either drop you all, or drive you all out; it's all the same to me!"

He stalked off, turning around only once.

"And Qui'ntroshe..."

Quinn looked up at the hedgehog.

"You take a punch like a champ," Sonic muttered.

He didn't want to, but he couldn't help it: Quinn's lips twitched upward in a partially-unwilling smile.

"I wasn't even afraid, either."

Sonic smirked.

"That's 'cause you didn't see it coming." The hedgehog's face turned to stone as he looked back at Fionnghal. "You won't, either: when the Eggman comes to collect. You didn't save anyone today, Pew; you just postponed judgment day..."

The rat crossed her arms.

"If that's all I could do, then I'd be fine with that, Sonic."

He scoffed.

"'Hope' is a damn cruel trick to play on someone. Well, if those civvies are at least smart enough not to fall for your cheap tricks, then maybe they'll at least be clever enough to save themselves..."

"Hopefully, Sonic." Fionnghal's furry face was a wall of dirty ice.

The hedgehog scowled at her in reply, and then he was gone in a flash.

Katchy's voice sounded behind the rat:

"I don't really like him," he admitted.

Fionnghal merely stared at the dust-strewn horizon, her eyes trembling lazily.

"He's an acquired taste," she said. The rat turned to face both Katchy and his sister; she looked the male up and down slowly, speaking as if commenting on the weather: "And, uh: you're dead, you know..."

"I feel pretty good," he mumbled.

Fionnghal looked over to his sister, her expression vacant:

"I seem to recall him taking a lump of shrapnel to the torso, right? About the size of a coconut..."

Catchie cocked her brow, staring dumbly at Fionnghal, as if the rat had spoken in her lowspeak.

"Not that I saw..."

"I got grazed a bit," Katchy admitted. He motioned to a tear in his shirt; at tiny bit of blood shone underneath. "Flesh wound, you know..."

"Oh I got a few of those, myself," the rat admitted.

Brady chuckled. He reclined in the desert ask.

"Heck, at this point the lot of you are nothing but a collection of scrapes and bruises. There're some animals buried down there, somewhere, but they're under an awful lot of boo-boos and dirt!"

The rat looked down at Brady. "Builds character, you know. You want some?"

The sloth waved a paw, shaking his head.

"Ah, no! No, see I'm suffering with you all in spirit. Believe me: that's enough."

"Fair enough." Fionnghal again looked around, popping her spine as she groaned.

"Scrapes or not, everybody survived," Quinn said. "Pretty incredible, huh?"

"Oh, yes," Fionnghal said. "And now we can get everybody home, so that Asher can shoot me right in the face..."

III.

Fionnghal remembered only bits and pieces of the journey home. Time passed unevenly; in places she felt herself stumble, and thus was jolted back into consciousness, but otherwise she was a shuffling corpse. More than once she nearly planted herself square in the dirt, and it was Quinn, walking by her side, that gave her a light jostle or two to keep her trundling on. In one respect this made sense: he was the only one of the group who had gotten anything approaching a decent night's sleep in the past few days (even if that sleep had come at the hands of a powerful sedative forced upon him).

But, in another respect, it was also pretty sweet of him.

The 'K-dogs' disbanded from the group as soon as they were near the Thallomoor camp, scurrying off in a most shifty fashion. Even though they'd done their jobs reasonably well, that kind of furtiveness didn't sit well with Fionnghal. She was already suspicious of the pair— being canines and all—and they certainly weren't helping their case by actually acting suspicious, were they?

It didn't matter. If Fionnghal had the strength to care, she might have cared. But, as it was, she most certainly did not.

A ribbon of pipe smoke curled around a tree outside of camp; Thadesch rounded the trunk and hobbled up to Fionnghal, wobbling quickly as he could.

"Thadesch: unless the very firstwords out of your mouth relate to a bed that you've prepared for me then I'm gonna cut you in half..."

But the toad's flabby face was uncharacteristically grave.

"Fionnghal," he whispered. He held out a small stack of papers, treating them like eggs.

The rat picked-up on his sense of urgency. She willed her brain awake long enough to take a look at the documents.

And within a few seconds she didn't need to 'will' her brain awake at all.

Her head smoldered.

She looked up at the toad with dangerous eyes, narrowed to razor slits.

"Location?" She growled.

Thadesch pointed behind him:

"Conference at the main camp. The scouting party just got in from the deep woods and they're being debriefed, so naturally—"

The rat stepped around him, her feet tramping loudly over the moldy earth.

"Thank you, Thadesch."

"Do you need me to—"

"No," Fionnghal shook her head as she walked. "The spymaster's part in this is done. Now it's time for the assassin..."

IV.

The modular table was set up beneath the fronds of a particularly large tree, terribly out of place in the bucolic splendor that surrounded it. Asher sat at the table's head, his knee up on a nearby stump as he toyed with the bandaging over his chest. Tails sat to one side, engrossed in a ladybug's progress over the tabletop. Spindletop sat opposite Tails, bundled up under a mess of thick blankets, shivering fiercely (this despite her fur coat and at least partially-intact overalls). The poor cheetah had seen better days, to be sure, and her usually messy cowlick was now a full-blown disaster of epic tangles and knots, complete with bramble and dirt caked all along her upper body. M'quelo stood opposite Asher, busily presenting his report on the deeper parts of the Thallomoor woods.

Asher immediately got to his feet when Fionnghal sauntered into view, with Brady and Quinn behind her. They must have been a sight, probably just as Brady had described: little more than a collection of scrapes and torn clothing packed under a thick coat of desert ash. If Quinn wanted to spit right now, his loogie would likely be solid mud.

"F—Fionnghal?" You're back? And you actually did it?"

The rat shrugged.

"Sonic gets half-credit, actually..." She slammed a long metal box down in the center of the table; her voice was as cheerful as a wood chipper.

"Well done, my dear!" M'quelo congratulated her, his artificial voice bubbly through the suit's speakers. The bulbous back head of the octopus's suit turned transparent, revealing the occupant himself, and he blinked his eyes at her warmly. "I myself had some luck in the bush." He motioned to Spindletop, who still shivered under her blankets. "Poor girl might've wandered for days if we hadn't stumbled upon her. So, you're sharing credit with the Thallomoor Banshee on our ops these days?"

She shook her head.

"Nope. The other half of the credit goes to Thadesch."

Asher squinted, scratching absently at one of the bony horns on his head.

"He went to the Dolamiram?"

"Nope," Fionnghal circled the table as she spoke. Behind her both Brady and Quinn stood silent, their arms crossed, pitch-black scowls on their faces.

"While I was off collecting Quinn, here, Thadesch was out saving Filigree."

"You mean your little secret project?" Asher crossed his arms. "Admittedly, you weren't very subtle about it..."

Fionnghal stepped away from the cottontail; she approached M'quelo and stood by his side. The octopus appeared quizzical.

And Quinn didn't even know that an octopus could appear quizzical.

"'Secret project', Fionnghal?" He asked.

"Back when I was captured by Tatu at the complex I overheard him speaking with his subordinate, and they said something ominous: they were talking about how, now that I was in their custody, they needed to secure the other target..."

Asher cocked his head.

"I don't understand..."

"Really? You're really not that smart, Ash? They were looking for only one more leader to capture, and not two!"

The cottontail's eyes widened as he considered that deduction. He looked up at M'quelo, and then back at Fionnghal.

"Fi... you're saying that—"

"We assumed Kakkari Nez was working alone to sabotage the complex. Well, Asher: that wasn'ttrue, was it? Tatu had someone else working for him: someone who was, unlike Nez, beyond the very thought of suspicion. Nez couldn't have been working alone! He was in the perfect place to do the most damage possible. Hell: he even took out M'quelo without giving the guy a chance to counterattack or defend himself." Fionnghal turned her head to look at the octopus. "Isn't that right, M'quelo? You weren't even able to land a glancing blow!"

The octopus's ringed face twisted with displeasure.

"To my everlasting shame: I never saw it coming..."

"See? So just who was behind the real show here, Ash? Do you have any idea?"

By now Asher's arms were crossed. The cottontail's normally stoic eyes burned.

"What are you saying, Fionnghal?"

"I'm saying that Thadesch got our answer for us, and it's in that box." She pointed to the metal case on the table. "Care to open it for us, Ash?"

The cottontail scowled at Fionnghal; he approached the box carefully, and ever so slowly raised the lid. As soon as he did he shut it tight.

"By my forefathers!" He coughed. "What the hell—"

"What? What is it?" M'quelo asked. "Speak up, Asher!"

"Rotting flesh!"

"Flesh?" The octopus mused.

Fionnghal stood between Asher and M'quelo; she dropped a mess of papers on the table.

"Not just any flesh: DNA's a match to one Kakkari Nez..."

Asher's eyes widened. "Nez! But how?"

"Thadesch's contact with Delta Tribe managed to get Kakkari's body out of the complex after the fighting. Or a piece of him, at least. And, Asher: what do you think Tails found when he did an analysis on that little piece of flesh, hmmm? What do you think Kakkari's skin was literally dripping with?"

"What? What did he find, Fi? Tell me!"

All at once the rat leapt to Asher's side and whipped around; she looked right into the watery confines of M'quelo's helmet:

"Poison, Asher: blue-ringed octopus venom!"

M'quelo quickly took a quick step backward.

"But... that's impossible, Fionnghal."

"I know." The rat crossed her arms. "Especially since you never landed a single defensive blow to Kakkari, isn't that right? Isn't that what you've said? No, M'quelo: the blow you landed on Kakkari was offensive: it was a stab in the back, and you did it right before you sabotaged the e-grid!"

The octopus' eyes trembled, and then suddenly devolved into cold black pearls. His suit went completely opaque from head to toe, and then he leapt backward.

Fionnghal already had her sword out, and she darted straight for the octopus, swinging for his head. He proved too nimble, though, and she missed.

And that's when he overturned the conference table.

Brady pulled Quinn to one side as a chair nearly took out the boy's legs. Tails and Spindletop fell to either side while Asher hit the ground, narrowly avoiding being crushed by the airborne table.

Fionnghal swung for the octopus's suit once again, but suddenly a mess of colored lights flared from M'quelo's chest plate. The disorienting show made Quinn queasy even at range, and up close they hammered Fionnghal long enough for M'Quelo to spin her about and grip her in a strong bear-hug.

By now Asher had cleared the table wreckage, his sawn-off shotgun pointed right at the pair. M'quelo held Fionnghal up between himself and the cottontail, even as the rat struggled, throwing what Quinn assumed were incomprehensibly vile curses in rat lowspeak.

M'quelo put the rat into a one-arm chokehold, freeing one of his suit arms; the black glove burst off, exposing a writhing blue-ringed tentacle. He held this appendage near Fionnghal's neck.

Asher cocked his shotgun.

"M'quelo... how could you—"

"I'd prefer to skip that part of the script, if we could, Asher..."

The octopus's artificial voice was neither angry nor cocky. If Quinn had to pick any emotion to categorize the garbled, scratchy sound, it would be 'sullen'.

The cottontail's eyes trembled, either with hatred or hurt, Quinn couldn't tell. He guessed it was about equal doses of both. Asher nodded.

"As you wish."

Fionnghal continued twisting in the suit's grasp, even with the poison-laden tentacle up near her face.

"Shoot this piece of scum, Ash! Blow his damned suit out!"

Asher cocked his weapon.

The octopus's voice remained unsettlingly calm:

"Your weapon is loaded with buckshot, Asher, and not slugs. To incapacitate me, you would have to make hamburger of Fionnghal."

This seemed to strike a nerve with Asher. It didn't with Fionnghal, though.

"Forget it! Just shoot him, Ash. It's my own damned fault, anyway. I'm no bargaining chip! Drop this bastard!"

"Spoken like a true assassin," M'quelo said, never looking away from the cottontail. "She truly finds it so difficult to suppress that instinct. But then, she's still young. What of you, Asher? As a leader: how many bodies are you willing to bury needlessly?"

Fionnghal scowled.

"Then let me make it easier for him," Fionnghal yelled.

The rat twisted in the suit's grasp; Fionnghal struggled to press her face up against that deadly, poison-dripping tentacle. This caught M'quelo off-guard. He quickly pulled the appendage away from her.

And that was all the opening Quinn needed.

The chunk of metal nicked M'quelo's flesh, glancing to one side, but it was enough to slice deep into the tender tentacle. The octopus roared through his suit speakers in pain as a spurt of dark blue blood burst from the wound. He instinctively withdrew his tentacle into the suit, and that must've interrupted something in its wiring, because Fionnghal found her opening and slipped down underneath him. M'quelo tried to reach at her with his gloved hand.

But then the forest roared with the echoes of Asher's shotgun. Both barrels, too.

The suit fractured and blew out like a set of aquaria stacked atop each other. The water gushed freely, covering Fionnghal as she recovered her sword and leapt to her feet. She stabbed the watery innards of M'queo's suit with Curtainrod, and the blue-flamed sword sank clean through. She missed the octopus, however, and it must have been by inches, too.

Immediately two bulbous rockets rose up from the suit's shoulders. The suit's head was forcibly blown off the body, rockets and all, and as those boosters flared to life Quinn could see the octopus's many tentacles poking out the base of that helmet, huddled-up tight within the small space. The head soared up into the sky, and it was out of sight within seconds, fiery exhaust tails training in its wake.

Quinn lowered his slingshot and looked over at Brady.

"Okay: sucks and all, but that was probably the coolest thing I've ever seen..."

Fionnghal watched the head disappear with an icy scowl. She looked down at the now-empty suit before her with disgust and kicked it, pulling her sword free and sending it tumbling lifelessly to the ground.

"She's gonna be one of the hottest, I'd think—" Brady said.

"Gotta say: animals don't really do it for me," Quinn grumbled.

"I meant by temperament, you speciesist little twit. Can't imagine she's gonna take this too well..."

Fionnghal raced up to Asher.

"I told you to shoot, Ash! Now where are we? The son of a bitch got away!"

Asher crossed his arms.

"We're all alive, Fi. And you can help me figure out all the damage he did to us, and how to fix it—"

"And M'quelo—"

"What about him? What can he do to us, now? It might have been nice to question him, Fi, but I wasn't willing to partially decapitateour organization just to gun him down. Filigree can't afford the waste..."

The rat still stared at him icily. Brady took it upon himself to rather inappropriately correct the cottontail.

"Uh, about that: we're kind of going by 'Theta Tribe', now. Not so much 'Filigree'..."

Asher looked at Brady quizzically, then at Fionnghal. The rat's icy stare softened, and she looked to one side.

"Long story," she muttered.

"You didn't..."

Asher looked around at everyone else. The deep scowl on his face softened. He shook his head and walked off.

"You'd better just brief me on all this, Fi. In one hour, your tent..."

"Why not now?" She asked.

"Because you smell like octopus crap!" He snapped. "Take a bath, for everybody's sake..."

Fionnghal watched Asher storm off, and then she sat down on the edge of the broken table.

Brady shrugged.

"Seems to me he's got a point, Mistress—"

Fionnghal glared at him.

"Uh, not about the bath thing. I mean about the waste thing. You know: leaders are hard to come by. Good ones, even less."

"And I'm that good, huh?"

"Eh, you're ballsy," Brady answered. "And you're down for the cause, 125%. Speaking freely, I couldn't call you any 'good' because you haven't been leading anyone long enough to tell. It's the potential I'm talking about, ma'am. Seems to be an awful shame to waste you on something so trivial."

The sloth walked off, shaking his head.

"You're speaking awfully freely, Brady..."

He nodded.

"I know that, too. You'll see why after your little chat with Asher..."

She cocked her head, but Brady didn't explain himself any further.

Spindletop slowly walked up to the rat's side, still buried deep in her blankets. The cheetah's copper eyes trembled, and she ground her teeth together robotically. Her black feline nose twitched absently.

"Fionnghal..." she whispered.

This seemed to snap Fionnghal out of her daze. The rat hopped up off the table and patted the cheetah's shoulder.

"Spindletop, yeah. My tent. I've got it there, okay? C'mon, let's go..."

The cheetah nodded absently, and Fionnghal began leading her off. She paused once to face Tails:

"Oh, Tails: take Quinn to see your patient, will you, please?"

The little fox nodded.

Fionnghal walked off with the cheetah, while Tails wandered away in another direction. Quinn assumed he should follow. The little fox spoke a bit as they walked, but Quinn couldn't pull enough context out of him for his words to make any sense.

"Right lower quadrant entry," Tails said. "Minimal vessel tearing, primarily gastronomic shearing, no kidney/liver involvement. Clean cut, and microbial contamination standard..."

The little fox looked up at Quinn, his face dismissive.

"Child's play," he asserted.

The pair moved through a dense collection of tents surrounding a central built-up section. Salvaged medical equipment lay all about this place in temporary storage. The nook was set-up as a crude field-hospital, and there were several cots arranged along one side.

The occupant of one of these cots drew an immediate response from Quinn.

"Myrtle?"

The sugar glider looked up as Quinn entered, a warm smile on her face. Her gigantic black eyes glowed with pleasant surprise.

"Quinn!" She lay propped on pillows, bandages covering his belly. She set aside a small book on horticulture as the boy rushed to her side.

"How?" He asked. "I thought that Dame commander gutted you!"

Myrtle cocked her brow; those thick black lines along her nose twitched.

"This isn't a very delicate way to phrase it, is it?"

Quinn shook his head.

"Sorry but... I thought you were dead."

"It's alright. And it's all thanks to Tails. He's the best."

"Best? As in..."

"Surgery. No better hands out there. And he really has the best training there is."

Quinn blinked. He looked back over at the small fox, who was now preoccupied with following a train of small ants making their way across the tent flaps.

The boy realized that, at the moment, he was just too tired to care.

"I'm just gonna let that one go, for now," he muttered. He sat down beside Myrtle's cot.

The sugar glider smiled.

"No offense, but you look terrible, Quinn."

"Hmm. I'm a little worse for wear. But we 'naked mole rats' always look pretty ugly, don't we?"

Myrtle laughed, but instantly regretted it. She held her abdomen and chastised the boy:

"No jokes, please!"

"Anyway, I feel better than I look," Quinn admitted.

"And how do you feel? Good, huh?"

The boy looked beyond the medical tent, at the bustling activity of the Thallomoor settlement. He shook his head.

"Not even close. But, well, I think I feel safe, at least. And it's the first time I've felt that way since I got thawed, I guess..."

V.

Asher toyed with a few baubles on a makeshift table in Fionnghal's tent. He sighed, looking over at the dividing curtain.

"You're the one that suggested I bathe, Ash..."

Fionnghal eventually emerged from behind the curtain. She set a tubular stick down on the table.

"Didn't think you'd be quite so long, though." The cottontail picked up the tube and unscrewed the cap: a beige-colored sludge resided within. It had a decidedly pungent scent to it. "Or get so hung-up on your feminine 'vanities'..."

Fionnghal snatched the tube away from him, scowling.

"We brown rats are never vain, are we?"

Asher chuckled.

"No. I guess not..."

The cottontail walked to the tent entrance and stared outside, arms crossed.

"Ash, about the whole 'tribe' thing—"

"You didn't have any choice, Fi. You weren't given any, at least..."

"Tatu practically gift-wrapped that opportunity for me. All his bragging in front of the canines was a bonehead mistake. Look:I didn't exactly want to make us a tribe—"

"I think Tatu did. And I don't think he made any mistakes, either."

"What do you mean by that?"

Asher closed the tent flap and faced Fionnghal.

"I was thinking about that device you saw Eggman use out in the desert: the weapon that disable Brady's rocket launcher..."

"What about it?"

"Eggman's figured out how to disrupt Mobian technology, and he knew how to do it from a good distance. That means he could have parked the Egg Viper right at our doorstep, disabled our e-grid, and offloaded his troops directly into the complex."

Fionnghal's brow furrowed.

"But he didn't need to: Tatu had his inside man. After M'quelo shut down the grid—"

"The Delta Tribe Regulars attacked. They hit us hard, but they left plenty of escape routes, and our civvies had just enough time to escape before the Elites got wind of the attack and joined them. Odd, don't you think?"

"That just means Tatu's overly ambitious: he wanted to get all the credit for the raid—"

Asher shook his head.

"Fi, he suggested we call ourselves a 'tribe' the minute he met with us, and then when he was in public with the canines he deliberately crowed about breaking their honor code. He had to realize the wolves would immediately back down from the fight after that. That move wasn't 'boneheaded': it was stupid. Say what you will about him, Tatu is not stupid..."

"But what the hell is his motive, then?"

"Think about it," Asher said. "Eggman comes up to our compound in the Viper, he demands Quinn be turned over, and satisfies all the wolves' requirements for 'notice'. We say no, 'cause we assume we've got the e-grid on our side, and when we refuse Eggman zaps the grid: the full force of the Delta Tribe Elites would then come pouring into the complex, immediately…"

Fionnghal stared down at her bare toes.

"In that case... it'd have been a slaughter."

"More than what we went through, at least. I doubt anybody would have made it out alive." Asher crossed his arms. "Tatu might have doubted that, too..."

Fionnghal looked up.

"You can't seriously be suggesting that Tatu's the good guy in all this?"

"No. But I think Tatu might've done the wrong thing for the rightreasons. " Asher looked to one side. "Still: I wonder what he promised M'quelo to get him onboard..."

Fionnghal shook her head.

"Maybe I can ask that armored bastard that then next time I see him."

"And M'quelo?"

Fionnghal opened her tent flap; she faced Asher with a venomous scowl:

"That'd be a one-sided conversation: next time I meet M'quelo I will kill him."

Asher shrugged, nodding.

"And, Fionnghal, about Quinn, and the Eggman... did he manage—"

Fionnghal shook her head.

"I've talked to Quinn about it: I don't think Eggman could get what he was looking for out of Quinn."

Asher again nodded.

"I guess killing Quinn would have been pointless, then. And turning him over wouldn't have cost us anything, either. That's quite lovely. Hindsight's a beautiful thing..."

Brady lumbered up to the tent, walking ungainly across the uneven forest floor. He stopped in front of Fionnghal and Asher, holding his combat spike claws in one paw.

"Ah," he said, "good to find you two together. Makes it easier."

"What's on your mind, Brady?" Asher asked.

The sloth held up his claw extenders, then set them down at the tent entrance.

"Thought you should know: I'm out as security chief. No surprise, really. M'quelo was my sponsor for Filigree in the first place. I knew him long before I ever joined up with you all and, so... well, with him... gone... you know. Kakk was a good security chief, and I guess he was always loyal, after all. You should have the chance to pick the personnel you can count on." Brady looked over at Fionnghal. "And I know you've got problems with my mouth, too. Not always my finest asset, truth be told. So, I thought you both shouldn't have to worry, anymore. And I'd still like to stay on, as a civvy, if you'll have me. I could be put to use elsewhere, I'm sure."

Asher and Fionnghal exchanged glances. The cottontail cocked his brown, and the rat nodded.

"We don't mind frank opinion, Brady." Asher said "Especially if it helps put things into perspective. That can be something a leader lacks, surrounded by people too sniveling to speak up."

"But M'quelo—"

"You're not M'quelo. Yeah, he did vouch for you, but just because he turned on us doesn't make you damaged goods. Flowers can grow just fine out of manure, you know..."

Brady perched his lips.

"Thanks... I think…" Again he looked at Fionnghal. "But I know you've gotta be eager to see me out, right? I mean, there's some obvious tension you've got with me, I think..."

Fionnghal picked up Brady's claws from the ground and pushed them against his chest.

"Maybe. But it seems to be an awful shame to waste you on something so trivial. Don't you think?"

"We're not taking your resignation," Asher said. "We're dead-low on trained officers, and maintaining order is a top priority right now. We need you as chief right now because you're the best animal for the job."

Fionnghal smiled.

"God help us all, Brapes."

The sloth took his claw extenders and nodded slowly.

"Then I'll stay on, I guess. Maybe just until you find someone better..."

"That's settled, then," Asher said. "So, anything else, chief?"

Brady nodded. He looked at Fionnghal, smirking.

"Just a minor point: you smell terrible, ma'am. Didn't you just bathe?"

The rat grit her teeth.

Asher suppressed a chuckle.

"Uh, she's got a peculiar body lotion. Complex scents, you know..."

True to form, Fionnghal was less amused:

"You could smell it better if I had you in a chokehold, if you'd like."

"A sleeper, you mean?" The sloth chuckled as he toddled off, one eye on the rat. "Doubt it'd be effective: a scent like that probably works better than smelling salts."

"All things considered, he does have a certain charm," Asher said.

Fionnghal shook her head.

"Just keep your eyes open for that 'someone better'," she grumbled "All things considered, I'll probably end up killing him at some point..."

"Maybe let me know before you do that, at least. That is, if you feel you could trust me with that information."

Fionnghal looked over at the cottontail, her head cocked.

"What's that supposed to mean?"

Asher shook his head, walking off for his own tent.

"You know damn-well what I'm talking about, Fi: your little secret operation. Look, it doesn't matter. We got M'quelo, our civvies are safe— at least for now— and we've got a little time to plan our next move. Still: don't pretend that we were in this thing together, because we weren't."

He turned around to face the rat, arms crossed.

"You weighed me against M'quelo, and in the end you just didn't trust me. Maybe that was smart, Fionnghal, but I won't pretend it's not insulting as hell. And, smart or not, that kind of thing's a double-edged sword: how can I trust you, implicitly, when you act like that to me?"

Fionnghal stared at the ground; she had no immediate answer for him. But as the cottontail walked off she gave him one:

"Whoever said that implicit trust was ever a good thing, Asher?"

He glanced back at her one last time, looking Fionnghal up and down.

"We don't need trust, huh? Fine: then we can spend the bulk of our hours planning when and how we're going to bury our daggers between each other's shoulder blades." The cottontail rounded a row of tents, his voice carrying back to her: "That seems a very productive use of our time, doesn't it?"

VI.

Black clouds passed by in the night sky. The outside windows crackled with frost. Bellesailes' face lay pressed up against that cold glass for a brief moment before she pushed off the wall and attacked her sparring post anew: she sliced the central post with a flurry of brutal sword strikes, leaving her blade embedded in the side while she pummeled the thick rods radiating from the body with her bare hands. With a savage overhead strike the damselfly sheared through three of the rods at once, leaving herself panting like a dog, snarling at the devastated training equipment.

"I don't think there's a name for that technique," Tatu said.

The Dame looked up, startled. Tatu stood in the doorway, leaning against the wall. She snarled at the armadillo, but then relaxed, slumping down against the far wall.

"Rage," she answered. "And it's not productive, I know..."

"I heard that you're leaving the Viper at the caldera's edge?"

Bellesailes nodded.

"I'm off to rally all my units; we need to be prepared to mobilize at any time."

"Why aren't you staying aboard until we get to Genocide City? You need your prosthetics—"

"I need to get my girls ready to crush all the enemies of Delta Tribe! What I need is to get back to my command!" She looked down at her massive curled toes, still snarling. "I need... I need to atone for my failure at the complex..."

"That was on me," Tatu said. "You were acting under my orders, Bellesailes—"

"I waited too long to disregard those orders. Subordinate or not, it was my responsibility to assess the situation and to realize that you were acting idiotically!"

Tatu pursed his granite lips.

"Sir," Bellesailes grumbled.

"It's stupid to punish yourself like that—"

"It's smart to leave a visible reminder about your mistakes, isn't it?"

Tatu stepped into the room, his massive stone head shaking.

"That's what scars are for, and we've both got enough of those, Bellesailes. What you're doing right now is crippling yourself for no damned good reason. Listen to me: you're worthless to the Eggman like this! He needs a mobile Dame Commander."

The damselfly swallowed, looking to one side.

"He hasn't ordered me to go under the knife—"

"And you damn-well know he wouldn't. Even if he knows that it's in your best interests. But that doesn't matter, because it's in his best interest that you knuckle-up and take those prosthetics. Otherwise? You're denying him a war-asset, and you're being quite the selfish little martyr. Why the hell would you cripple him like that?"

Bellesailes' copper eyes burned. She looked like she might leap off the floor and tackle the armadillo, but ultimately she rested her head to one side, grunting.

"Fine, then. I'll stay on into Genocide City," she mumbled. "I'll take the prosthetics, but it's because I want them. If anything, they'll make it easier to get my revenge..."

The armadillo nodded and prepared to leave, but he paused once:

"Also... I'm sure with the material we have it'll be possible to make them, well, at least something like they were. What I mean is: your wings were, at least as Dame wings go, they were quite... beautiful—"

She scoffed, shaking her head.

"Never my best feature," Bellesailes said. "All I hope is that the replacements might come with some added 'features': maybe something to make them more functional than my originals. In the end, Tatu, that's really all that matters, isn't it?"

Tatu again pursed his lips, as if he might disagree, but the armadillo seemed content to leave off there. Bellesailes called after him:

"By the way: I know exactly what you did at the Filigree complex. I know your dark little secret, Tatu: the reason you withheld information from the Elites."

"And just why did I do that, Bellesailes?"

The Dame stood up.

"You wanted glory. You were looking to put down our enemies and take all the credit for yourself. Isn't that right? I am right, aren't I?"

The armadillo crossed his arms.

"So what if I did?"

"It's bloody shameful, is what. The Eggman could pull you from your commission if he heard you admitting to that kind of petty gamesmanship."

Tatu nodded.

"And then you'd be able to work with another leader for the Regulars. Is that what you want, Bellesailes?"

The Dame crossed her stick-like arms. Her voice became deathly serious:

"Do you know why they call him 'Eggman', Tatu?"

"Of course I do," he grumbled.

"Do you know why they call it 'Genocide City'?"

"We all do, Bellesailes. What's your point?"

"My point is that man deserves—"

The damselfly's throat twitched; she wrinkled her slit nose awkwardly and shook her head.

"My point is that our operations have to succeed," she said. "And that's more important than earning some meaningless amount of glory..."

She stepped quite close to Tatu, staring him in the eyes like a mongoose might eye a cobra.

"The next time you want your 'glory', or your 'honor', or any amount of 'recognition', you can take it from me: I'll give you my part of the credit for anything you want, no exceptions. And I mean that. But don't you dare jeopardize Eggman's operations ever again."

Tatu met the damselfly's gaze with an iron face.

"Is that all, Bellesailes?"

The dame faced the window.

"Yes, sir..."

Tatu lumbered off.

"But, also...thank you," the Dame added.

"For what?" He asked.

"About the prosthetics. For putting things into perspective," she said.

"Likewise," the armadillo grumbled. He stepped into the outer corridor and closed the door behind him.

Perspective, huh?

At this point that word was nothing more than a sick joke. Tatu leaned against the wall, his grizzled ear to the door, and listened as Bellesailes went at it again with her sparring post.

He'd made an awful mess of things, but at least now things were 'manageable'.

But even that word might be a bit of a joke at this point, too.

Tatu lumbered through the Viper corridor, grousing. In all honesty, right now the only 'perspective' he wanted was the one that came from staring down the lips of an empty bottle...

"And something with less of a bite than a damselfly, at least," he muttered.

VII.

Eggman sat before the small chamber's window, cold starlight reflecting off his dead black eyes. The Viper shuddered gently as the ship body came to rest atop the back frame of a shadowy building Behind him, shrouded under a pink curtain and partitioning, an awkward mess of machines churned.

Dasy entered through a side doorway from the bridge, its wheeled base squeaked.

"You need oil, Dasy."

"You need sleep, sir," the android extended one metal arm, a datapad in its slender fingers.

"What is this?" Eggman asked.

"The impact trench report for the vessel Rainbow Runner, as you requested—"

"That was 48 hours ago, Dasy."

The android attempted a 'shrug' of its beaten-armor shoulders. It wasn't entirely successful.

"Due to the size of the vessel and the kinetic energy involved, as well as its shallow trajectory, my report took longer than expected. The trench itself spans three kilometers, broken in places where the vessel 'hopscotched'—"

Eggman looked up at the robot.

"Most expedient term," Dasy said. "In any event: its third successive impact with Mobian soil is the most interesting..."

Eggman scanned the datapad: it displayed a wire-frame topographical display, including a deep fissure in a section of hardscrabble land, cut by the crashing ship as it careened along the surface.

"These energy readings..." Eggman mused. "They're subterranean? 1.5 kilometers, perhaps. And preexisting structures? And an energy output... an output consistent with 'it'?"

Dasy nodded.

"By my estimate it must be a significant piece of the whole. Perhaps even an entire facet of the stone, itself..."

Eggman tossed the datapad onto the windowsill, scowling.

"We stay in the City for 48 hours. No longer."

"And after that?"

"We hunt."

Eggman rose, walking out onto the bridge.

"Have we finished our docking procedures?"

"Yes," Dasy replied.

"Send word for Bellesailes to be prepped in operating room one. I'll be there momentarily..."

Two masked wolves met Eggman at the docking room door and escorted him through a maze of corridors. He reached a room guarded by other animals, who stepped aside for the gaunt man. A possum in white scrubs came out to meet him.

"His condition?" Eggman asked.

"The subject's regeneration factor is finally kicking in on its own, although it was touch and go for some time. The operative who recovered him only managed to keep some of his limbs intact. And the toxin's 98-percent flushed. Prognosis is very positive at this point."

Eggman nodded, and then went into the room alone. It was dark, and streaks of light permeated the gloom from various monitors and medical equipment. A body hung suspended between all this, ringed up in awkward harnesses. It twitched absently.

Eggman pulled up a chair and sat before the figure, hands clasped on his pointed chin.

"Can you hear me?" He asked.

The body stiffened, but then a sputtering breath exhaled into the room.

"You can... how wonderful." Eggman leaned forward, his black eyes intense. "I'd like to talk about the circumstances that bring you here, amongst us, today. You might think it has everything to do with me, and you'd be quite wrong. Oh, it has something to do with me: you're alive right now because of me. But you're near death because of someone else: an armadillo you might have heard of. I'd like to talk about that armadillo, just for a little bit, if you have the strength, as well as all those animals who claimed to be your 'friends': the ones who abandoned you to die like a dog. And that doesn't seem right, does it? You are not a dog, are you? No, not a dog at all..."

The body twisted, grunting out a strangled, gurgling noise.

"Isn't that right, Kakkari?"

VIII.

Dusk came quickly to the Thallomoor that night. Quinn didn't manage to find a cot or a bedroll in the animal's chaotic little tent city, but he was just fine with that. He actually got an impromptu offer to join a tent, courtesy of one of the beaver juveniles. The buck-toothed little thing was no doubt excited by Quinn's novelty, but his parents' reaction to this offer clearly bordered on horror. Even if they didn't explicitly object, Quinn thought, it wouldn't be right to accept.

And anyway, all he wanted right now was to sleep comfortably, and without a bunch of suspicious eyes on him. Everything else didn't matter.

Twenty minutes later, huddled up on a straw bedroll, exposed to the elements and without a blanket, however, he was reconsidering. The boy crossed his arms and pulled his legs up against his chest, but still he got to shivering. Footsteps behind him eventually broke his miserable attempts at sleep.

"You're the odd boy out, tonight?" Fionnghal asked.

Quinn looked up at the rat.

"Juvenile, right? It's fine, but they were out of blankets everywhere, I guess."

"Mmm. We never keep than many around. Most of us have coats. The fur kind, I mean. Well, maybe we can solve both our problems here: all the other bedrolls are taken. Mind if I bunk with you tonight?"

Quinn sat up, scratching at his disheveled hair.

"Huh? But you've got a tent, don't you?"

The rat wagged her head, sighing.

"It's, uh, being used by a certain chaffinch tonight. And every night, for the foreseeable future..."

"Oh," Quinn nodded. After a moment he moved over to a corner of the roll, motioning to the open space with his head.

"Thanks," Fionnghal said. She dropped her sword and boots to one side and reclined on the tough bedroll, groaning with effort as her bruised body made contact with the bedding. She lay to one side and Quinn faced away from her, prepared to curl up into his fetal ball again when the rat shook her head.

"C'mon, don't do that. Just get over here, alright. And try to be an adult about it, if you could."

Quinn looked over at her; the rat held her arm up, leaving a nook for the boy.

"No, uh... it's okay," Quinn stammered.

"Just shut up. I'm basically a big thermal blanket here, and it doesn't make any sense for you to lie over there and freeze to death instead of huddling up. That's basic physics, you know? And I promise I won't stab you to death in my sleep. Probably. Just get over here, unless you have your own physics equation that explains why you shouldn't."

Quinn cocked his brow.

"Uh, you got six months to listen to a lecture on wave-particle duality?"

Fionnghal scoffed at the boy, again beckoning with her fingers. Eventually Quinn rolled over, timid, backing up against the rat, allowing her to spoon him. At first he was as tense as a steel beam but after a moment his body melted under the radiant warmth of Fionnghal's fur. The awkwardness of the situation was no match for the rat's comforting body heat; ultimately Quinn even pulled himself closer in, sheltering his body from the crisp Thallomoor air.

"I never thanked you," he said. "For coming after me, I mean."

"Mmm," she grunted dismissively. "It was my fault that you ran. What I said to you before you left— about how I should have killed you— I didn't really mean it. At least, I don't think I did."

"That's comforting..."

"What I mean is that I'm glad you're still alive, Quinn. All that talk: I was just being angry at myself."

"You should probably be more angry at M'quelo now, right?"

"Oh I am, just a teensy, weensy bit. And that was good shooting back there, by the way."

The boy shrugged, jostling Fionnghal's arm a bit.

"I'm a natural. At least it looks like I am. Maybe I used to get into trouble back home. Maybe that's why someone put me in a cryo tube and sent me into space..."

A long pause followed.

"We'll figure it out, Quinn. We'll get your memory working, again. At best it'll just come back on its own—"

"And at worst?"

Another pause.

"We'll cross that bridge when we get to it. Somehow we'll figure out where your people are, I promise. Until then we'll look out for you."

Quinn's tired eyes scanned the tree canopy above; a few twinkling stars peeked through the dark foliage, burning cold in the night sky.

"Of anywhere to be stuck," he muttered, "of all the stops on the Rainbow, this place isn't really the worst. And of anywhere to be left so... alone... and by my own brain, too..." The boy paused a moment, shaking his head. "It's just nice not to be alone, Fionnghal."

The pair remained silent for a long time, sleep slowly crawling into their bodies.

"Quinn?"

"Yeah?"

"I don't suppose anyone's actually said this to you yet, what with all the... 'happenings' since you woke up. But I just wanted to tell you, formally: welcome to Mobius."

The boy smiled.

"Thanks..."