Chapter 56 – Tail Between His Legs
As Sheba inspected the pools of blood covering every bit of the floor and walls not littered with a sea of bodies covered in numerous stab wounds, burns, puncture marks, dismemberment, disembowelment and endless varieties of murder and suffering, she remarked, "Well… it seems you two have been quite busy."
She then examined the piled bodies making up the body barricade smiling admiringly and then came to stand over her boss who seemed satisfied to just sit with his back leaning against the wall as he gently pet the small sniffling child in his paws whispering to her and licking her. Sheba looked questioningly at this strange sight and then to Alexei who explained what had happened and why the small little kit was here in the middle of this horrific scene of death and violence.
The tigress got extra furious once she understood what had happened and pounced on the giant armadillo she and Alexei had cracked like a lobster biting his head and growling as she ripped at his thick neck muscles until she was able to remove the head completely and pounced on it over and over again until it was flattened and the brains were splattered out all over the bloody floor.
"MEWTHER FUCKER!" She screamed over and over until she was satisfied the pain in the ass giant armadillo had been punished thoroughly.
Alexei rubbed her shoulder finally announcing, "I believe he is dead Shea!"
The tigress growled and then grinned at her mate proudly showing him the bits of the armadillo in her teeth as she explained, "I was just making sure."
The two of them then went and inspected the team of medics who were attending to what remained of the four guards collapsed against the barricade. One guard had been run through and had died instantly earlier. The other three were quite battered and cut up, but their injuries seemed to be survivable, however they would not be fighting or even up and walking around anytime soon.
Rath then arrived explaining he had been busy making sure the rest of the lower level was cleared of any enemy forces and then joined Sheba and Alexei to report on what had happened while they sent groups of scouts ahead to make sure no living enemy forces remained on the basement level.
Little Scarlet finally realized there were others around her besides her father and lit up seeing those assembled, but then shyly tried to cover herself realizing her dress had been ripped off her and she was just wearing her underwear and a small piece of her destroyed dress hanging off her shoulder. Sheba grinned and picked her up ripping a hole in small towel in her backpack and draping it over the little girl. It was decorated in the crest of the Docks District showing the map of the area. The tigress laughed at the little kit telling her she looked quite stylish. Scarlet hugged Sheba's muzzle laughing, "Auntie Sheba! I'm so glad you are here!"
The little kit seemed to ignore the blood coating nearly every part of the tigress' body as the huge feline cradled the wee girl in her arms and let her climb up next to her head as she sat and listened while Reynard and Alexei updated them on the situation at the estate. But considering that her father was even more covered in blood, fur and bits of flesh than the tigress, this was certainly understandable. The small child may be very young, but she was a child of Reynard and seemingly unphased by such scenes of violence and death.
The Fox then got a message out to his allies in the Rainforest District to let his wife and Coal know that they had found and recovered Scarlet relatively unharmed. For safety reasons his family was kept in radio silence in case any enemy forces sought to locate them. But he knew Sweet Lou's team would get word to the frantic worried mother as soon as possible. They also informed him that The Council had decided on an action and were now on their way to the estate.
Once Reynard was satisfied the basement and sub-basement were secure, he sent scouts to contact the guards on the upper floors and see if they could get some updates on the status of the invasion above them. He also ordered the remaining forces to make sure all those bodies littering the floors everywhere were truly dead. He had already been fooled by an opossum playing possum earlier and would be damned if any others tried to pull that on his watch. Any enemy forces within his walls were to be killed on sight. There would be no prisoners or mercy to those that sought to harm him or his family.
Sheba then mentioned, "I believe we killed an opossum earlier trying to pull that same move."
Reynard nodded his approval, "Good, hated to think he was still scurrying around somewhere. How did you two end up meeting us here?"
Sheba and Rath then told Reynard how they had seen the large force splitting off with part going to the main gate and the other half heading toward the southeast. Because the perimeter defenders seemed to busy engaging those heading toward the front of the estate, they had decided to follow the other half of the forces to determine what they were up to. They quickly realized the enemy were heading toward the tunnels and called ahead warning their forces who were currently engaging the guards left at the tunnel entrance to retreat before they were overrun by the huge force now heading their way.
Once most of the enemy force had poured down the tunnel, they charged the remaining group overrunning them and tossing some firebombs down the tunnel entrance to prevent the others from reinforcing the remaining force before they were slaughtered. Sheba gleefully described the stunned faces of those left outside the tunnel as she leapt over their vehicle barricade and pounced on them shredding as many as she could get her claws on. She described their deaths as glorious as she disemboweled a few and strangled one with the intestines of another. The tigress seem to relish the idea of causing one to choke to death as she shoved the stomach, dick and balls of a buffalo down the throat of a deer. Apparently a nice meaty diet did not agree with the herbivore.
Reynard laughed, "You must have left quite the impression on them in your blood soaked armor. That must have been quite a sight."
Sheba grinned nodding, "They did seem quite surprised to see me. I just wish they wouldn't always keep shitting and pissing themselves whenever they saw me. I am not sure which smelled worse, their insides or their pants."
Sheba and Rath then explained that they pursued the group down the tunnel using improvised shields and intense strikes to continue to lull them into complacency and then drive into them overrunning the enemy position and killing them before they could retreat. It was a slow steady pursuit until they came to the hole in the estate. There the bottleneck served as a strong defensive position for the enemy, and any attempts to push through resulted in injuries and deaths of their team so they were delayed getting through.
Finally they were able to toss a bunch of bottles of liquid into the hole and light the whole area on fire and then come charging through shortly after using thick blankets to prevent themselves from being burned driving the enemy out of the room and putting out the flames. Once they had control of the room, they used some tools to create a hole in the wall to the right of the exit door into the hallway and moved into an adjacent room allowing them to surprise those left to defend the door. They had covered the sound of their work by making a lot of noise beating on the door next to the enemies' position.
Rath apologized to Reynard, "Sorry about the hole we made in your wall, Boss. We were looking for a way to surprise those waiting for us minimizing any casualties."
Reynard grinned at the lion, "Not to worry. I am not concerned about anything but driving out and killing every single one of these bastards. Anything that keeps our people alive is fine by me. The estate is just a building and can be repaired or replaced."
The Fox then gingerly stood and nuzzled his little daughter in her belly with his nose resulting in a delighted giggle as he continued, "I wouldn't trade this one here and the lives of my loyal followers for a thousand such estates. Besides, I believe my traps all over the house have made much more of a mess than anything you all did."
Sheba then explained, "We then all moved into the adjacent room leaving one to make noise at the door as a distraction so they assumed we were still readying for an attack there." The tigress then gave Reynard a big toothy smile as she continued, "But we didn't strike them where they expected. We all poured out of the room down the hall unimpeded and rushed their surprised force."
The tigress then seemed lost in thought as she described her falling upon the hapless guards knocking most of them off their feet and shredding them like flesh confetti. She ripped off the arm of a musk ox and beat several others unconscious with it. Biting a head off a bighorn sheep and smashing the face of a caracal and porcupine into bits using the head of the ram.
"Those horns make ideal handles, and their skulls are quite hard I find." The tigress explained with a mischievous smirk.
"My Shea is an unconventional fighter, that's for sure." Alexei remarked looking admiringly at the tigress.
Sheba nodded at her mate with a smile continuing, "Well once all those at the door were in pieces, we then quickly checked the rest of the floor, dispatching several others who had decided to foolishly loot your storage rooms. I will only say that you will need some heavy-duty cleaning crews to get those nasty blood and flesh stains out."
Reynard chuckled at that thought.
Rath also added, "We had a lot of help from Francis, the son of Bernard the older bear who is a friend of the little bunny agent of yours I believe. He helped us sniff out several others who were attempting to hide among the furniture and boxes. The bear has quite the expert sniffer. With some training he might make a great addition to our gang. But even without training, an enthusiastic bear can be quite a helpful asset."
Alexei seconded that opinion, "I'd rather have them on our side than against us. I've had quite enough of dealing with bears for some time."
"Getting lazy?" Sheba accused her mate with some displeasure.
"Calm yourself Shea, Lex has been having to wrestle with mobs of enemy both huge and small all night. He has saved me more times than I can count. I would have been overrun so many times without his heroic efforts." Reynard explained to the tigress.
The medical staff who had been working on Reynard and Alexei announced they had been field bandaged as best they could be considering they were both completely covered in blood, matted bits of fur, flesh and armor. It was understood that they would need extensive medical examinations if they managed to survive the remainder of the conflict.
Sheba seemed to be satisfied that her mate had not lost his love for battle and death. And then continued her story explaining how they ran into a large defensive force once they tried to ascend to the basement floor. They had gotten several of their fighters nearly killed trying to force their way past the defenses as the enemy had set a strong defense at the stairs to the basement level.
Rath explained, "Sheba nearly got herself killed charging them. If not for her full set of armor, she would most likely be dead."
The tigress looked quite frustrated remembering her many attempts, "Well I did manage to grab hold of a couple with my claws and pull them down the stairs. They made a nice snack!"
Reynard laughed at that, "I never know when you're kidding Shea."
Sheba looked at The Fox with a completely serious stoic expression, "I don't kid about food!"
"We heard your roars several times. That must have been during your attacks. They helped to re-energize me." Alexei added attempting to change the subject.
"I heard yours as well Lexy! I so wanted to join you in battle!" Sheba exclaimed.
Rath chastised the tigress and then explained, "Yes, and you nearly got yourself killed because of it! Well Sheba's couple of successful attacks where she managed to drag a couple back to us gave me an idea. So we rigged up a bunch of hooks to some ropes and netting and then we setup an assault, but we instead focused on snagging as many of the defenders as possible with the hooks and dragged them all down the stairs and dispatched them."
Sheba gave them all a big toothy grin adding, "Once they saw us rip apart most of their buddies, they were not so keen to stand and face our next attack. We just simply quickly overran them as they tried to run like little cowards as we charged. They did not get very far."
"Well you couldn't have picked a better time to come join us." Reynard admitted, "How about we go take the rest of the house back and show the invaders some hospitality. It appears my team upstairs has been keeping them quite busy."
Sheba then looked at Scarlet and wondered, "What do we do about the cute little thing here?"
Scarlet decided to share her opinion quite loudly and emphatically, "I want to stay with Daddy!"
Reynard thought about his choices and finally decided on a course of action picking the little girl up holding her in his arms gently rubbing her nose with his, "Um, Baby, a battle is not exactly the best place for you. But I'll be damned if I will lose you again, and I don't have anyone I trust or can spare at the moment to get you to your mother but me. If I setup something to keep you reasonably safe next to me, you think you can keep quiet and just watch?"
The little kit looked up at her father and nodded vigorously with a big grin on her face. He gave her a kiss and gentle head rubbing and had them attach a backpack high on Reynard's back covered in an improvised lightweight armor shell. He cleaned the little girl getting her a snack and some juice and took her to a bathroom while the rest of his forces prepared themselves to take the rest of the house back.
Once Scarlet was ready, Reynard strapped her onto his back making sure she was secure and fully protected. The Fox then stretched his sore muscles and tested his balance out with the additional bit of weight doing some somersaults, backflips and cartwheels resulting in quite a few exclamations of "Weeeeeeee!" from his wee daughter.
The little girl then asked to speak to Sheba and whispered to her while Reynard was issuing orders preparing for his plan to retake the estate. The tigress got a strange look on her face listening to the little kit's request and nodded at her nuzzling her with her nose. She then walked over to Mors the Jaguar and casually removed his neck armor and took a couple whacks at his neck with a sword removing the dead jaguar's head from his neck.
Reynard looked at Sheba curiously as she shook off any excess blood from the head and borrowed a portable blowtorch roasting the cut area until it was properly charred to prevent it from dripping. She then created a makeshift hammock with some nylon and casually placed the head so it hung in Reynard's paw.
The Fox cocked his head to the side giving the tigress a curious look.
She simply shrugged her shoulders nodding her head at the tiny grinning kit on his back explaining, "Your daughter said she made a promise to the jaguar and wanted you to have his head as a trophy."
Reynard simply nodded glancing over his shoulder at his grinning daughter. But he had plenty else to worry about so he simply shrugged and attached the head firmly to his backpack and began checking his weapons.
As he loaded the tactical crossbow with a new magazine and tested it to make sure it was working properly, Sheba admired the weapon remarking, "A truly nasty marvel, Boss. You must have made quite a lot of those fuckers quite unhappy."
"We'll meet a good number of those unhappy souls as we head upstairs. Let's stop by the armory on the way and replenish our supply of welcoming gifts. This is my last magazine and I am in a giving spirit and wish to share my hospitality with our guests!" Reynard announced with a laugh and much improved attitude as he hoped to provide a very special welcome for his enemies. One that would leave them quite rested. In fact so rested they would never want to get up again.
Isengrim and his forces had been having a bad visit to The Fox's home. Between the many traps, ambushes and frustrating dead ends, his team was having very little success finding their way downstairs to meet Mors and the other half of his force. He hoped they were having a lot more success than he was. He cursed The Fox for jamming his communications as he desperately wanted to know their status.
The other problem was that anytime he sent out small groups to scout the areas around the house, he had no way to communicate with them and inevitably many of these scouting groups would meet an ambush with no way to call for help and ultimately find themselves dead. By the time their men attempted to chase down the defenders, they seemed to have vanished into the very walls. Isengrim knew there were quite a large number of secret and hidden passageways and had even uncovered several.
The traps around the house seemed to be endless. Once he had a whole team standing on a stairway ready to assault what they thought was the basement, but instead the whole stairway turned into a giant slide with those above falling down plummeting into those below forcing everyone into a pile at the bottom. Unfortunately the landing area turned into a large spike pit. Those at the top of the pit then found a whole wall of spikes slamming into them from the ceiling leaving everyone quite dead.
Also frustrating was that those that actually survived the impact with any spikes found themselves weakened and sick just as the few who had survived the spikes and razor wire surrounding the estate due to some coating on the traps. Isengrim realized The Fox was one truly sick bastard turning the defense of his home into a place of torment and torture at every corner. What was even more frustrating was that it seemed the defenders were just toying with them as they found tiny cameras all over. The sick fuckers were just watching them the whole time finding endless ways to inflict insidious methods of death and frustration on his entire assault force. It was like the whole estate was a giant spiderweb with the intention of ensuring their death.
They did have one success as they managed to capture one guard and kill another. They were so excited to have finally gained access to the enemies communications only to discover that it was completely disabled and useless. Isengrim suspected that they could be remotely disabled by those watching them at all times. Additionally the captured guard was rendered completely unconscious by some kind of drug and could not be revived to be questioned. Then later they found the unconscious guard had been removed somehow when they weren't looking. It was like they are just toying with us!
The plans of the estate seemed to be useless as corridors that were supposed to be there were missing replaced with walls and rooms that were not supposed to exist. The Fox seems to have redesigned the whole building! The ways down to the basement ended in either traps or dead-ends.
Even more frustrating were the mercenaries Tybalt had hired as they seemed to be frustrated that anything portable that was valuable had been removed in advance. As if I don't have enough problems to deal with. Like I am responsible for Reynard not leaving enough treasure lying around. This was one of the problems with hiring mercenaries with questionable motives versus loyal followers.
And now he had another report of deaths caused by hall traps. It seemed that wherever his men wandered they were sliced, stabbed, knifed, poked, roasted, poisoned, acidified, burned, clubbed, ripped apart, punctured, squashed, separated from their body parts and organs, and generally expunged using numerous diverse creative methods. Apparently this latest group happened to be descending a staircase and found several sickle blades suddenly appear from the ceiling swinging down in front of them slicing them in half. At the rate he was going, even if he found the hidden passage to the basement, he would have no one left to confront the damn Fox!
Suddenly a frantic weasel came tearing down the hall looking like he had seen The Devil himself. After nearly a minute of questioning as the weasel attempted to calm himself and catch his breath in between incoherent babbling, he finally exclaimed, "The Fox! He's coming!"
"What do you mean he's coming? He's on this level?" Isengrim demanded of the weasel named Territi.
Territi responded with wide frightened eyes, "We have to get out of here before we are all slaughtered! He will kill us all!"
The Wolf slapped him across his face nearly breaking the weasel's jaw, "Get ahold of yourself! Where was he heading!"
"Bbbbb...ballroom!" Territi exclaimed pointing down the hall.
Isengrim quickly organized a large force to confront The Fucking Fox finally. He sent the remainder of Tybalt's mercenaries at their front piquing the interest of the group with hints that Reynard must know where all his treasure was located, and that he and his personal retinue would be wearing many valuable objects. The Wolf figured this would solve at least one of his problems chuckling to himself under his breath as the mercenaries excitedly led his forces down the hall.
A few minutes later he was met by another frantic mammal, as a cheetah came sprinting to him breathing heavily. At least this one doesn't look like he has seen death itself!
Nuntius the Cheetah panted bent over holding his paws on his knees and announced, "The Council, The Council is coming!"
"Where? They are here now? What about The King?" Isengrim growled questioning the cheetah. I finally have The Fucking Fox in my grasp and NOW they appear to interfere!
"They… they have The King with them. But they are quite livid! They were seen outside the walls and were demanding a halt to everything! They demanded all the defenders and our people outside to end all hostilities immediately or all face annihilation! They ordered all our forces out of The Fox's estate immediately!" Nuntius reported to Isengrim, Bruun, Tybalt and the rest of the command.
Isengrim sighed shaking his head. I just needed a bit more time! I will have my revenge on fucking Reynard one way or the other! But perhaps hanging around to face a furious Council who already wanted me dead before this even started is not the best course of action.
The Wolf turned to Bruun and Tybalt, "Very well, I will personally inform our forces on the upper floor. You two oversee things here and prepare for an orderly withdrawal."
Before The Bear or wildcat could even respond, he bolted from the room heading directly for a backdoor the kitchen staff used that one of his team's had managed to unlock earlier. Let the stupid bear and cat face The Council's wrath. He decided making himself scarce would be a more prudent course of action. The Wolf then slunk down along the inside of the northern wall careful not to get in range of the spike trap pit around the inside of the wall, and made his way down to the beach. He noticed the defense forces down near the water were distracted by representatives from The Council who had been driven on one of those mobile war machines of the estate defenders down to the beach level.
Isengrim slipped around the maze of razor wire, but was spotted by a sea lion who shouted a warning pointing at him. He dove into the water as several bolts landed around him, but he heard shouts from others yelling, "Stop! The Council has ordered an end to all hostilities! Stop Firing!"
Isengrim decided he would take advantage of this opportunity and dove into the water swimming madly toward the water wall. He was quickly intercepted by a seal with a spear gun who seemed quite determined to puncture him with the evil looking weapon. But the seal seemed to be angrily arguing with someone on his communications gear while pointing at him. He then grinned at the seal waving at him and wasted no time climbing over the water wall he noticed was badly bent and damaged from his water team's ramming efforts. He then swam towards the nearest shore to the southeast, but as he got close, his keen eyes could make out spotters all along the wall. It seemed Reynard had mobilized Sweet Lou's entire gang along the border with the Docks District.
Isengrim decided his only chance of escape was to swim south towards the Savanna Central border and try to avoid any boats or spotters along the border. Sometimes one had to swallow their pride and slink away with their tail between their legs to live another day. As The Wolf paddled away from the estate cowering from any sign of life in the water, he thought to himself: I will have my revenge on you Fox. I swear it on my life!
