Here ya go =D I think I'm going to start including more about Tessorori and the other whitecoats because I feel like the villains need to be better developed and stuff.

… also I have some stuff I really want to write about them :'D

ITEX

After the Director left that meeting in a huff, there were six people left in the room (including Tessorori), all very uncomfortable. Tessorori only recognized four of them (discluding himself). There was him, Ter Borcht, Kidd, Jackson, and Werner. There was one woman that Tessorori didn't recognize, though. During the meeting, she had gotten up to fix the coffee machine, looking scared, but now that the Director was gone, she was obviously anything but.

"Vell," said Ter Borcht. "I'd like to introduce the newest member of our project, ja?"

The woman stepped forward. There was a cool smirk on her face, but she didn't look particularly mean. Just stuck up and maybe a little overconfident.

"Zis is Doctor Hansson," Ter Borcht said.

"Call me Diesel," said Diesel, smiling. "Everyone does."

"Vell, then, Diesel, these are the other leaders in ze Numerals project," said Ter Borcht. "Leonard Tessorori…"

Tessorori waved.

"Joshua Kidd."

Kidd nodded in her direction.

"Tina Jackson."

Jackson smiled brightly and winked.

"Jacob Werner."

Werner tipped an imaginary hat.

"And I am Roland Ter Borcht."

"Well, it's nice to meet all of you," Diesel said. "I'm sure we'll be great friends!"

Not likely, Tessorori thought. Jackson was the only one without some sort of personal vendetta against one of the other scientists. Kidd and Werner were always bashing heads about something. Tessorori and Kidd were constantly fighting over funds. Werner was convinced the Director had it out for him (he was probably right. His paycheck kept getting slashed, and he was getting dangerously low on test subjects). And no one got along with Ter Borcht. It was a statistical impossibility.

"This is great!" Jackson trilled. "I've always wanted a girlfriend in the Numerals! It's so boring with all these men. I swear, even the grunt work is done by guys around here."

"Well, looks like you got your wish," said Diesel. "I was surrounded by guys in my old job, too. Not fun. I mean, testosterone overdose, anyone?"

"Just as long as you two actually do work," Werner rolled his eyes. "No offense, Jackson, but more DNA splicing, less nail polish."

Jackson pouted, but Diesel just laughed. "Don't worry, Werner. I'm an excellent worker."

Third Person POV, Angel

"This is creepy," Angel whispered. Her voice still echoed ominously through the cave. They were in some tunnels. It was dark, and even Angel, with her genetically enhanced sight, could barely see a thing. There was a rancid smell in the air, and she kept brushing up against sticky things. She wasn't sure what they were.

She reached out with her mind, but she couldn't hold onto any thoughts other than Sam's, and those weren't very useful. His were basically a mirror of hers. This is weird and dark and creepy and not normal and can we go now?

"What's this?" Sam stopped suddenly and bent over. He gulped. "Oh, no, Angel! It's Sting, Mr. Frodo's sword! And that funny vial Lady Galadrial gave him!"

"Huh?" he handed her the vial (not the sword, though, he kept that). Angel took it and wrapped her fingers around it tightly. Nothing happened.

"So… what does it do?" she wondered aloud. Sam shrugged. She held it up to her ear and shook it experimentally. It lit up. "Cool! It's like a firefly! Except… not."

"Mr. Frodo wouldn't just leave these lying around," Sam gulped. "He must be… hurt."

Angel noticed that he didn't say 'dead'. "Come on, then!" she held the vial up, bathing the cavern in light. "Oh, god… what is that?"

Lining the tunnels, sometimes stretching across, were what looked like giant, wet spider webs. Sam looked scared.

"Let's… let's just find Mr. Frodo…"

They kept on walking forward.

Third Person POV, Total

Total could feel Merry trembling. It was getting kind of annoying.

"Don't worry," he said impatiently. "Just stay with me and you'll be fine."

Eowyn laughed. "That's what I was going to say!"

Theoden was shouting orders, but the orders soon melted into an inspirational speech. "Forth and fear no darkness!" he called. "Arise! Arise, riders of Theoden! Spears shall be shaken, shields shall be splintered, a sword day, a red day ere the sun rises!"

"Ready?" Eowyn breathed. Merry nodded and Total wagged his tail excitedly.

"Ride now, ride now!" Theoden yelled. "Ride for ruin and the world's ending! Death!"

Wow, this guy's sure optimistic, Total thought.

"Death!" shouted the army.

"Death!" shouted Theoden.

"Death!" Eowyn joined in on that one.

"Death!"

"Death!" then Merry.

"Death!"

"Death!" Total only added his voice in on the very last one. Dogs weren't supposed to shout about death, after all.

"Forth, Eorligas!" Theoden ordered. Eowyn kicked the horse, which neighed and bounded forward, along with all the others.

"It's official," Total groaned when he saw the orcs raising their bows and getting ready to fire. "We are so gonna die."

Max POV

Battles are, like, my element.

Seriously.

I mean, most people are most comfortable sitting in their rooms, reading or something, or hanging out with friends, or even (somehow) doing school stuff, but that all seems way too… I dunno, idle? Ironically, the only time I'm not completely on edge is when I'm whooping major butt. Sort of like right now, for instance.

"Yo! Leggy!" I shouted. "I'm open!"

Legolas smashed his bow across and orc's face and it stumbled backwards right into my waiting knives.

"Oookay, look at that thing!" Nudge pointed. My jaw dropped. It was an elephant, but not just any elephant. It was a giant elephant, even for elephant standards, and you know, elephants are pretty big in the first place. And there wasn't just one. There were at least five. All of them were decked out in expensive looking armor and clothes and they were accompanied by an army of men – not orcs.

"Arry!" me and Aragorn exchanged a look. We were getting good at that – it was sort of like what Fang and I do sometimes. Pack an entire conversation into a couple glances.

Aragorn, Legolas, and Gimli ran off in one direction and I took off. "U and A, guys!"

"Eeny meeny miney mo," I said, pointing to each of the giant elephants. "Catch a freakishly big mammal by the toe. If he hollers let him go, eeny meeny miney mo. That one!"

My final 'mo' had landed on the furthest elephant to the left. "You guys cool with that?"

Fang, Iggy, Nudge, and the Gasman all nodded, but Fang looked a little skeptical. "How are we going to take down something that big?" he asked.

"Um."

"Tell us, o great leader!" Iggy held his hands up dramatically. "What is our infallible plan?"

"Err…"

To escape a shark attack, one should aim to disable its eyes, said the Voice helpfully.

"Okay! I got it!" I said. "Iggy, Fang, and Gasser, you guys take out all the soldiers in those saddle things on the elephant's backs. I'll go for the eyes. Nudge, you cover me from afar. Kapeesh?"

"Whoa, you actually had a plan?" said Iggy with disbelief.

"Ig, how many times do I have to tell you?" I grinned. "There's always a plan. Now move it!"

The boys zipped off towards the saddle thingamajig, drawing their swords. Nudge took out her crossbow and hovered above me as I dive-bombed the elephant's face. There were people there, unfortunately, but they were no match for me. I just ran them over, kicked them off the side. If one got away, Nudge would just shoot him and he would go careening towards the ground.

Okay, so let me just tell you that stabbing a giant elephant in the eye is not what we call a fun thing to do. First, I felt kind of bad. I mean, it was just doing what its masters told it too, right? Which was killing us, I reminded myself. Also, there's no way we could take control of one of these monsters. Too big. So I slashed the left eye. I'm not exactly squeamish, but I wasn't really looking forward to seeing if elephant eyeballs bleed, so I quickly moved onto the next eye. It's like rinse, lather, repeat, only more like kill, slice, repeat. So.

And guess what? It worked! The blinded and in pain elephant stumbled and crashed onto the ground, flattening everything it landed on top of. Whoops, I hope that didn't kill anyone I know.

"Oh yeah!" I punched the air. "Fantastico, guys! Fantastico!"

The Flock regrouped. "That was ridiculously easy," Gazzy observed.

"Yep," I said. "Now, what do you say we go kill another one?"

Third Person POV, Total

"Ow!"

"Sorry!" Total tried to say, but it was hard. His mouth was full of Merry's arm. Honestly, if they went any faster he would fly off. He wriggled in a little closer between the woman and the hobbit, wedging himself behind Merry's back and inside Eowyn's knees. It was an awkward position, but he was a dog, first of all, and second of all, they were in a fight for their lives.

Eowyn was the one doing most of the work, hacking off orc-heads and generally beating the crap out of things. Turns out you can't do much ankle-biting while you're riding high speed on a horse. Still, Total got a kick out of yelling at orcs. They always seemed to register where the yell came from, look at Total in disbelief, totally distracted, and then get creamed by the only chick fighter in the entire freaking army. Total liked to think of himself as a helpful diversion.

"What is that?" Eowyn gasped suddenly.

"Holy crap! And I thought I was weird!" Total said. Coming in from the south was not only another army (made up of human dudes), but with it a bunch of giant honking elephant things.

"Re-form the line!" Theoden shouted somewhere. "Re-form the line!"

Eowyn steered the horse up with the rest of them, forming a line again, and Total got a great view of this new army. Well, if they'd been winning before, they definitely weren't now.

"Sound the charge!" Theoden ordered. "Take them head-on! Chaaarge!"

"Which one do you think we should take?" Merry gulped.

"That one looks kind of runt-ish," Total said, pointing a paw at the one in the middle. "I mean, for a giant elephant."

"Eomer is already on that one," Eowyn said. As they watched, her brother threw a spear at a man steering the middle elephant. It caught the man in the chest and he fell, yanking the elephant to the left where it charged into one of its own buddies. They both went down.

"Well!" said Total. "How 'bout that one?"

"I think I see Max, Fang, Iggy, Nudge, and Gazzy there," said Merry doubtfully.

"Dangit!" Total growled. "Oh, that one!"

"Looks good to me," Eowyn nodded. "Ready?"

"Ready."

"Ready."

"Hang on tight."

They charged towards the giant elephant, weaving between its legs. "Take the reins, pull us left," Eowyn ordered. Merry grabbed the reins, fumbling with them for a second as Eowyn leaned down and snatched a sword away from a fallen orc. "Left!"

Eowyn held both her sword and the orc's and each hand and thrust her army outwards, slashing the insides of the giant elephant's legs. The elephant roared (trumpeted?) and fell backwards onto its butt, but it wasn't done yet.

"Bring it down, bring it down!" someone hollered.

"Ah! Move, horsey horsey, move!" Total yelped. The elephant was crashing down towards the ground. "We're gonna get flattened!"

"Gah!" Eowyn screamed as their horse fell over, catapulting the three off in different directions. Total face planted into the dirt and dragged himself to his paws, sneezing dust out of his nose. He looked around wildly and spotted Eowyn fighting some orcs to his right.

"Oi! Ugly!" he bounded over dead bodies towards Eowyn at started biting her attacker's ankles. Together (well, Eowyn did most of the work, but hey! He's a dog!) they whooped both orc and human butt.

"Whoa!" Total grinned when Eowyn punched a particularly ugly looking orc in the face. "I think that was the leader dude! You are one kickass chick!"

"And you're one kickass dog," Eowyn returned with a breathless smile. "Now, where's Merry?"