Chapter Five

The Assault of the Tiger General

"Are the troops ready?" Asked the general to the commander.

"Yes, they are. We are ready when you are ready."

"Send out of two of them at first. We'll see if they can get her."

"Of course." With that, the commander left.

After the commander closed the door, the general began talking to himself. "Those miserable fools thought they had killed me. It will feel good to crush that man in my grasp." He looked at his hand, clasping it. "I've changed a bit since last time."

As was custom in the town, at the end of the week, Taily had switched jobs. She switched from a mailman to a cashier at the grocery store, and settled into it fairly well.

Right now, she was checking out Britty's various groceries. "Okay, that's two pounds of pipe tobacco, ten packs of black tea, and a gallon of hat varnish."

"Thank you, milady! I must say, the service here is exceptional!"

"Uh…thanks?"

Suddenly, another tree friend walked up behind Britty. It was Frenchy, the Yin to Britty's Yang. "Bonjour, Britty! It is a fine day, oui?"

"Oh, it's you. What frivolous trivia about baguettes or Jerry Lewis do you have this time?"

"Oh, nothing, nothing, I was just in the store and I thought I'd say bonjour!"

"Go away, you miserable surrender monkey."

"Oh, fine, be that way! Excuse me for trying to be nice!"

"Screw you!"

"Screw YOU!" They began slapping at each other violently, escalating into a mad series of punches.

"Uh… oh, look at that, it's my lunch break!" Taily left in a dash.

She took this time to practice her fire breathing. You see, she was born and raised in captivity, and Riley had never bothered to teach her any moves in her normal state, only in her murderous whistle state. Because of this, she could do practically nothing of much use in her normal state. The biggest fire she had gotten so far was hardly enough to light a candle, and that was after about a week's worth of practice. But she wasn't going to give up until she could do it right. She went to a special spot in the forest where she typically practiced. "Okay…one more time." She took several deep breaths, and focused on a bush. She took one last deep breath, and…blew out a little puff of smoke. "Damn it!" She took some more deep breaths, and tried again. This time, she actually breathed out a little bit of fire, but only for about a second before it fizzled out. "Come on! Why can't I do this right?" Then, she heard a whizzing noise, and felt a sharp pain in her arm. She looked down, and saw a tranquilizer dart. "Oh, shit." Then she passed out. Two of the general's soldiers walked out of a bush. One of them was holding a tranquilizer gun. One of them pulled out a walkie-talkie, and said, "Target acquired. Send helicopter. Over."

The voice on the other end said, "Roger. Sending transport now."

In a few minutes, the helicopter arrived, and the soldiers got on, carrying Taily.

Obviously, helicopters are very loud, so most of the townsfolk heard it. Most of them, however, dismissed it, except for one. Rufus liked helicopters, so when he heard the distinctive "whir" of the blades, he immediately rushed to his window, temporarily forgetting about his Rambo/Terminator marathon. "Sweet, an Apache! Wait, what the hell is that?" He had just barely caught a glimpse of a cream-colored tail, or rather several of them, before the door closed and the helicopter flew off. "Oh, you have got to be kidding me. Not this again!"

A few minutes later, Rufus had made the rather poor decision to become an action hero and attempt to rescue Taily, and decided to get "supplies". "Okay…Twine, bug spray, scissors, sunglasses, matches…That should about do it." He put all of these things in his pocket, and ran for his car.

"That car has been following us since we took off," said one of the soldiers. "Hand me the rocket launcher."

The other soldier started rummaging in the back. "Wait…I got it! Here!" He handed it to the soldier, and he started aiming it. "Firing in three…two…one!" He pulled the trigger, and the explosive launched towards Rufus's car.

A few seconds too late, Rufus saw the missile. "SHIT!" He swerved extremely hard to the right, but the missile hit the ground and threw the car off balance. It began rolling around sideways, like something that rolls sideways, right towards a cliff. Rufus knew he only had seconds to MacGyver something up before he blew up and nobody could save Taily. Then, he got an idea. He opened the door on his side when he was able to, causing it to prop up the car and preventing it from rolling any further. Unfortunately, this also broke the glass in the window, cutting up his arm. "AGH! Damn!" He ignored it as best he could, opened the sunroof, and crawled out. "Oh, now it's on!" He began running after the helicopter, under the cover of the forest.

In the hidden base, the Tiger General asked one of his commanders, "Okay, a verb."

"Stab."

"You've used that three times already."

"I like stabbing."

"Pick something else."

"Oh, fine. Uh…shoot."

"Okay, shoot."

"I did."

"What?"

"Third base!"

Just then, the other two soldiers walked in, holding Taily. "We have the target, sir."

This made the general ecstatic. "Wonderful! Bring her here." The two soldiers walked over and threw her to the ground at the general's feet. He got on his knees (To get on eye level with Taily) and said, "Hello, miss. What's your name?" She didn't answer. "I said, what's your name?" She still didn't answer. "What, are you deaf? Answer me!"

She blinked a few times, and said, "Where am I?"

"You are in my base. I would like to point out that if you die here, you don't come back. This particular area is outside of the hospital's influence. Isn't that fascinating? Now, I'm going to ask again. What is your name?"

"What do you want with me?"

Without warning, the general slapped Taily across the face. "Tell me your name!"

"Why should I?"

The general stood up. "Because if you don't," he kicked her in the gut this time, "I'll kill you! What is your name?"

Taily knew she couldn't keep this up. "Taily. My name is Taily."

"There, was that so hard?"

Suddenly, there came forth a great explosion from the outside gate. "What the hell was that?" Yelled the general. He ran as fast as he could to the window, and saw a figure walking away from the fire, putting on a pair of sunglasses. Part of his shirt was ripped off and tied to his left arm, which was bleeding. It was Rufus.

A few minutes earlier…

Rufus was right outside of the complex's front gate, which was heavily guarded. "Hmm… that's a lot of guards up there." A purely metaphorical lightbulb appeared over his head. He started humming the MacGyver theme song, while tying the twine around the can of bug spray. He lit a match and tied that to the can, right in front of the nozzle. When he was finished, he basically had an improvised bomb. "Sweet." He threw it at the door. When it hit, the nozzle went off, spraying the liquid on the match. Bug spray plus fire equals large fireball of death, so yeah. "Damn! That was awesome!" Since the door was open by way of no longer existing, he walked right over into it, putting on his sunglasses. (Insert cheesy guitar riff here).

The general said over the speakers, "All units report! We have an intruder! Shoot on sight!" he set down the microphone, and walked over to Taily. "How about you show me some of that fire breathing?"

"I can't."

"Why?" The general was getting angry at Taily, since she was being so defiant.

"I just don't know how, okay!"

"Oh, okay, I understand." He took out a whistle.

"NO!" She leaped for it, but it was too late. The general raised it to his mouth, and blew. Taily began the transformation. Her claws came out, causing her fingers to bleed. Her teeth grew sharper, somehow, and her eyes became bloodshot. She leaped at the general, but he was prepared. He pulled out a taser, and shocked her, sending her to the floor. "You work for me now, okay? Kill the intruder. I need him dead. Okay?"

Rufus, meanwhile was sneaking about the complex, in one of the ventilation shafts. "Now, where are you?" He was not paying attention, though, and he fell through a grate, right next to a soldier drinking some coffee. Before the soldier could react, Rufus grabbed his head and slammed it against the wall, knocking him out cold. He dragged him into a closet, and stayed inside for several minutes. When he came back out, he was wearing the soldier's clothes. Another soldier walked over, from a side hallway.

"We have an intruder! Orders are to shoot on sight."

"I'll keep my eye out."

Taily, meanwhile, was searching around the complex for the intruder. She picked up a suspicious smell; the smell of blood. She began searching for its source. Her sensitive nose was able to follow the scent until she turned a corner and saw Rufus. She immediately recognized Rufus as an imposter, and leaped towards him. Just in time, Rufus noticed her and whistled, but not before she managed to scratch his arm up even more. "Huh? What? Where am I? Oh, shit, Rufus, I'm so sorry!"

"Ugh…It's fine, don't worry about it. We need to get out of here." He grabbed Taily's arm. "Come with me!" Both of them broke into a mad dash towards the nearest door out.

The general, meanwhile, was starting to get worried. "You'd think she would have come back by now, wouldn't you?"

"Yeah," said the commander. Suddenly, he caught something out of the corner of his eye. It was Taily and Rufus running towards the front gate. "There she is! She's escaping!"

The general screamed, "WHAT?" and ran over to the window, pushing the commander out of the way. "Oh, that was a bad idea on their part. Now I guess I'll have to follow them." He began laughing, but not like a "Dastardly Whiplash" laugh, just a slight chuckle. "I guess I'll be able to show that miserable fool Flippy all my new toys." He hiked up the laughing, so now it was a "Dastardly Whiplash" laugh.

Oh, this could be the most epic fight scene ever. Once I get around to writing the damn thing. On a completely unrelated note, does anyone else think the star bunnies from Super Mario Galaxy look suspiciously like Shaymin? I'm just saying, the ears are so similar, I started referring to them as Shaymin. Not in a mean way, though. AwkwardVulpix, over and out!