I am very happy to finally get this chapter out. I am soo sorry guys. It has been too long. I hope you all don't hate me. Thanks to all the readers and reviewers!

Disclaimer: I do not own The Hobbit.


"Honestly," said Ori with some exasperation, "What did I tell you to do?"

"Well you try to fight someone who hits harder than Mr. Dwalin and see if you can get through it without some sort of injury," Kili sniped back without heat.

They were in the infirmary, where Ori was dabbing at Kili's cuts with antiseptic.

He gave Kili a wide eyed look and said, "That's impossible."He finished cleaning them soon and smeared some salve on them. "At least they're not bad," he muttered.

"It is too possible," said Kili groaning a little.

"Did you win?" asked Ori.

"Yes," he said, "and don't ask me how because I don't know." He paused and the said, "Ori, there's something wrong going on with that ring, The Dragon's Den. I can't put my finger on it but it's the way the fighters talk…Something's really wrong…."

Ori frowned and Kili knew he wouldn't discount it because he was Ori and he cared about everybody.

"I don't think we can do anything about that Kili," said Ori, "We have our own problems right now. And even if we did it still wouldn't be our problem. But you could speak to that investigator, Bard."

Kili grimaced and then said, "I'll think about it."

"Kili," said Ori, "You have to find what you're looking for fast. You know that. Your Uncle needs you and your mum. They both need you to stand steady for them right now and we do too. We want to help you with this, but we don't want to lose you over it."

KIili squirmed uncomfortably but Ori held him and looked him in the eye sternly and at last Kili nodded. "I understand. I'll do my best, I will."

"You better," said Ori cleaning up, "We need everyone we have." He looked up at the camera in the corner which gave a solemn nod. "Nori said you're clear to go. Thorin's in bed."

"Thanks," said Kili. He gave a thumb up to the camera and then staggered afterwards to his room and fell asleep.


He woke, up, worked out, then he paid Mr. Balin a visit. Two hours later he walked into his Uncles office.

"We need to talk," said Kili.

His uncle took one look at his cuts and bruises and said said stonily, "Yes i imagine that we do."

Kili waved a dismissing hand. "Not about that. This is about the company. I think you're going to have to pull back from our clients."

Thorin's eyes darkened dangerously. "I never thought that i had raised a coward," he said scathingly.

Kili's eyes darkened as well but he took a deep breath and kept his temper. He had a job to do here and he was going to do it.

"You didn't," Kili said. "I'm not saying to run away. I'm saying: protect the people we promised to protect. They are our clients. We promised to protect them. We promised to give our lives in the service they hired us for."

Thorin looked a little repentant but then his face hardened. "By letting this ORC scum run about unchecked we endanger them more."

"Who said anything about letting them run unchecked?" Kili said, "I don't remember saying anything about that."

His Uncle raised and eyebrow and watched his nephew properly. After a moment he gestured for Kili to sit and said, "Tell me what you have in mind."

Kili sat and then said, "Detective Bowman said that the ORCS are targeting stores protected by us right? So i say we should pull back from them. Tell the clients why. I think they'll respect us for it. Talk to another company, Rivendell, maybe even Mirkwood," he wrinkled his nose, "Whoever. Just provide a replacement. Spilt the fee between the next company and us. They can pay us a sum for getting the job. That way the clients will be safe and they'll respect us enough that when this is over they will retain our services. I talked to Mr. Balin and he said our finances would hold up if we did this and get the Orcs out fast."

"And how do you propose we do that?" Thorin asked, raising an eyebrow.

"Ask for help," said Kili, "and spring a trap. If we use one of our clients, with their permission, keep the police on call, and send people to wait outside in the surrounding buildings then we could catch them."
Thorin's eyes glittered with approval. "Just one change," he said, "We don't tell the police our plan, they would never approve. We will however request more patrols."

"Done," said Kili.

Thorin nodded and said, "You're dismissed."

Kili got and headed for the doorway. Just before he left though, he heard Thorin say, "Good work." Kili smiled.


It took a few days to set everything up, but soon enough Kili found himself lying on a building opposite the site of a former client. The Client in question had in fact been ready to move out for some time now and had offered the use of is building for Thorin's trap. He was going to have it demolished anyway so it didn't hurt him one bit. there was no jewelry inside there but Dis had put up some pretty convincing fakes to ensure the ORCS would come. The building had the advantage of being a little on the small side and so might prove and easier target.
Other groups however were watching all their others clients' buildings on the outside while Rivendell and Mirkwood guarded the insides. For their trap building though, their own people guarded that.

The night air chilled him as he scanned the area through his scope. His comm. crackled quietly in his ear as the other members of the company murmured positions to each other. Kili had one other sniper with him on the roof next to him, while the other two snipers who were here on this mission were on buildings behind the clients building.

The hours ticked by, long, frustrating and tiring. Everybody was on a knife's edge tonight, attention span strung as tight as bow. It practically hurt to be so vigilant but they soldiered on and hoped that their plan would bear fruit.

At one o'clock in the morning, there was a burst of static as one of the other snipers reported seeing movement coming up behind the building. Everyone tensed and waited for future developments.

"It's the ORCS, sir," the sniper reported a few moments later to Thorin. "They're coming around the back."

Kili cursed softly and but held position. He was scanning his area again when he heard a faint scuffing from behind him. He spun to see and saw an ORC coming up on the roof. He held a sniper rifle and looked as surprised as Kili felt.

Still Kili moved fast, running across the roof and hauling him up. He and the Orc scrambled but Kili wedged his forearm into the Orc's mouth to keep him from sounding an alarm and got his other arm around the Orc's neck and choked him into unconsciousness.

Once the Orc was down he sent a warning to the other sniper just in case and quickly set up the Orc's rifle and pulled his own back a little to avoid detection. He didn't want the ORCS to know that they were there because that would spoil their plan.

He breathlessly explained what had happened over the comms. Thorin alerted the rest of the teams who were out there with them because the problem with two groups of people trying hide was that they might choose the same hiding spots.

Luckily the ORCS soon grew bored of hiding and once they had amassed enough numbers they hit the building hard and fast. First they cut power to the building and then they blew open the front doors with a grenade launcher.

Kili was of the idea that that was 'a bit too much' as Mr. Bilbo might say.

"Go, go, go!" shouted Thorin as the ORCS began flooding the incapacitated building. The guards inside had already begun firing away at the ORCS trying to hold their own and keep the plan intact but if the reinforcements didn't come so they would be slaughtered.

As the ORCS poured towards the building like ants funneling down an anthill, Erebor Corps flooded after them, teams of men in black, moving together so smoothly it was like they were operating under a hive mind. They waited until most of the ORCS were packed tightly together and out of the alleys and side streets before they started shooting.

The Orcs at the back of the group fell first. The ones up front did not notice as their own gunfire covered up the sound of the Corps'. And Thorin and the others had screwed silencers on a many guns as they could.

Ranks of ORCs fell before they really understood what was happening.

Kili meanwhile was both watching their backs and picking off the Orcs in the building to save their employees inside. He slowed the tide inside the building while the Orcs were confused as to why, apparently their own sniper was shooting at them. The other sniper next to him was carefully targeting those Orcs who seemed to be the leaders, crushing the power structure as he could.

But things were going to get messy soon.

The main body of Orcs finally figured out that there were enemies behind them and began to retaliate in earnest. Shots ricocheted and Kili was hard-pressed to either defend the men in the street or assist the men in the buildings.

Erebor Corps held its own though, at least until they pulled back out the grenade launcher. They shot off one shot and men from the Corps. dived to the side. A loud bang rocked the street and set car alarms off. He could hear men groaning through the comms and he could feel his rage build in him.

"Kili!" he heard Thorin shout, "Shoot them!"

"On it!" he answered and shot the man holding the grenade launcher in the chest.

It fell out of his nerveless fingers only to be caught by another Orc who quickly aimed it at a team of men. A shot rang out from the building next to Kili killing him too. The launcher fell out of his hands bounced down some steps and was picked up and aimed at Kili. Kili shot him dead before he finished aiming it. Another shot from the other sniper finally killed the grenade launcher.

Kili sighed in relief and turned his attention to the client building. He shot four Orcs who passed a window and shot two more who suddenly appeared on the roof. The sound of motorcycles coming up the street behind Erebor's men, had him running to the other side of the roof and shooting the approaching Orcs off their bikes. A call for help within the building had him sprinting back to his original position.

Somewhere along the line he ran out of bullets and had to use the Orcs' sniper gun. It was not as good as his but it was better than nothing. Below him, the ground had turned into a raging battle field, full of deadly missiles, lighting up with dangerous flashes. Men screamed and shouted and Kili worked feverishly to keep his own people alive.

In the distance he could hear sirens.

He finally ran out of bullets for either sniper rifle and he huffed and called that he was out of bullets. He picked up his bow and arrows which he had brought with him on a hunch and slipped the quiver on. He had no sooner done that than he was attacked from behind.

The Orc he had laid unconscious earlier had woken up and attacked him. They rolled around the roof in a confusion of fists and kicks. They grappled with each other and Kili felt a searing pain in his arm as the Orc bit him. He was finally gaining the upper hand when the Orc rolled, hefted and threw Kili off the edge of the building.

Kili was weightless for a brief moment before gravity caught hold of him and dragged him ruthlessly down. He yelled but his scream was cut short as his flailing hands caught on a window ledge. He grunted harshly as his body slammed into the side of the building and knocked the air out of him. His shoulder wrenched painfully and he knew it was only by a miracle that his arm didn't come out of joint.

He flailed there for a moment before he hung his bow haphazardly around his neck and got his other hand onto the ledge and hung there gasping for breath. After a few moments he fished the hand gun from his side and shot the window into pieces and then hauled himself inside the building. He fell hard, landed on the glass which bit eagerly into his flesh and groaned but he popped to his feet, got his bow sorted out and went searching for the grappling hook he had somewhere in his gear.

It wasn't standard but when on tall inhospitable buildings, snipers carried them in case they needed an unorthodox exit. Kili got the line from one of his back pockets and rappelled down the building in short order.

""I'm grounded!" He announced over comms as his boots hits the ground.

"What happened?!" snapped Thorin.

"Got thrown off a building," Kili told him cheerfully even as he used his handgun to shoot an Orc coming after him. "Survived."

With adrenaline pumping through him, Kili wasn't feeling the fear yet, not really.

"Are you okay?" asked Nori.

"Fine," he said, "Just my right shoulder is strained."

He spun and shot his last bullet at another Orc. A shot from above had him looking up to find that the Orc which had thrown him off the building was shooting at the men from Erebor Corps. He obviously had had backup ammunition.

He unslung his bow and pulled out an arrow. He ran back as far as he could to get a good shot and released the arrow. The Orc sniper's head jerked back as the arrow hit him point blank.

A shot killed the Orc that was coming up behind him and Kili looked up to see the other sniper give him a thumbs up and resumed keeping their men out of trouble in the building. Kili soon found himself doing face to face combat with a bow and arrow which was nothing he had ever done before.

Time blurred again and Kili himself was a blur, shooting, whacking people with his bow when he had no other choice, grabbing a gun from Orcs he had dropped and doing as much damage as he could.

He wasn't on the ground for very long before the sirens finally reached where they were. Along with them came the unmistakable sounds of a helicopter. The police had finally arrived.

The Orcs, seeing the reinforcements finally gave up, most of them running away as fast as they could. A lot of them didn't make it out but a lot of them still did. Bikes hidden in corners roared to life as the Orcs made their escape.

One of those bikes roared right at Kili. Kili dove out of the way but he was fast enough. The bike clipped him in the side and spun him into the air.

"Kili!" he heard Thorin shout. Not though the comms alone but somewhere close to him.

His body corkscrewed into the air and then he was falling. Pain blossomed through him and he knew some of his ribs were broken but still somehow through the blinding jabbing hurt, Kili's body remembered his training and he automatically spun out of the corkscrew and landed on his feet.

He gasped and then immediately regretted it. Still he drew himself up and in one of the fastest draws of his life, pulled an arrow from his quiver with his aching arm, nocked it, aimed and shot his attacker in the shoulder.

Then his bow fell out of his hand and he fell to the clutching his ribs. He wasn't sure when he passed out.


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