The standard disclaimer: I do not own the Happy Tree Friends; they are the property of Mondo Media. I own only my own characters and this story. Now here's chapter 20:

20 – IN THE ENEMY CAMP

Although XL-Jack-3 was an extremely brutal, efficient, and above all logical leader, not all of his followers were as competent as they should have been. Whenever you get a large collection of people who are mainly out for themselves and are kept in line mostly by fear and brutality, there are always going to be weak spots in the regime. So it was when it came to the security of the perimeter of the Marauder camp. The camp, rather than being efficiently organized, regimented, and guarded the way an effective military fortress should be, was instead loosely clustered in a haphazard fashion. Of course the damage inflicted on it earlier that day by Splendid and Flippy didn't help either. At any rate, although there was supposed to be a perimeter guard all around the encampment, in reality there were many unwatched holes in the border that a clever spy could easily penetrate.

It was in the dead of night and most of the Marauders were sleeping. After they returned from the massacre most of them had celebrated a "splendid victory" in the usual manner of such things: they got very drunk and fell into deep stupors from which not even a supernova explosion could have awakened them (needless to say the following morning saw an enormous collective hangover, but that's war). It was into this drunken and silent camp that a small figure quietly slipped and made its way as quickly as it dared toward the center of the encampment.

Petunia moved furtively in the darkness, darting here and there in order to stay in the blackest shadows and avoid both lights and any wakeful Marauders. She met no one on her way through most of the camp and heard little except for drunken breathing. She was not reassured by this, however, because she knew the center of the camp would be a different story.

It was. If the outer camp was totally haphazard, disordered, and not well secured, the central camp was everything the outer camp was not. A clear circular space divided the two parts of the camp so that it would be impossible to slip through tent shadows to get to the inner camp unseen. The inner camp itself was made up of larger, better kept tents and shelters that were more clearly organized in rows. There were guards posted all around the inner camp every ten meters or so, each standing beside a lighted torch. It looked like a hopeless task to get into the inner camp unobserved. Petunia, hanging back in the shadows, considered turning back.

However just at that moment one of those freak chances that cannot be predicted occurred. It was a partly cloudy night. It was also quite windy. As Petunia hesitated over what to do a thick cloud suddenly covered the moon, substantially darkening the night. At the same moment a strong wind sprang up which extinguished several of the torches in front of where Petunia was, making the area almost pitch black.

"Damn" swore the guard who was two places to the left down from where Petunia was hiding. He called to the others. "Help me relight this thing."

"I'll do yours if you'll do mine" said the guard next to him. The guard directly across from Petunia snickered.

"Ha, ha. Whatever" said the first guard, "c'mon."

The second and third guards, both still laughing, moved toward the first guard. A fourth guard, whose torch had also gone out, followed. The way into the inner camp was suddenly open and Petunia, realizing she might not get another chance, sprinted as quickly and as quietly as she could across the space and into the opening between the nearest tents, where she dived into another shadow. There she froze and waited.

"Did you hear something?" came the voice of the first guard. Petunia couldn't hear what the other guards were saying very clearly but it sounded negative, although uncertain. One of the torches had been relit by this time and two of the guards headed back toward where Petunia had entered the inner camp. They looked at the ground as they did. It was lucky for Petunia that the place where she had crossed into the inner camp was a patch of exposed bare rock, so there were no signs to give her away. The guards flashed the torches around the area, and even once into the opening between the tents where Petunia was. She cowered down as far as she could into the shadows and, fortunately before the light reached her, the guards decided they were satisfied that there were no intruders and went back to their posts. Petunia had escaped detection (for the moment at least) and had successfully entered the Marauder inner camp.

(To Be Continued)

A/N - Wow! So what sort of crazy mission could possibly have Petunia entering the Marauder camp alone? Find out next time, and meanwhile please leave me some feedback and let me know how you like the story!