CHAPTER 14: The Game is Afoot

I'm FINALLY back with another chapter. Sorry for my lengthy absence. I've had the worst few months of my life, and I'm glad this damnable year is almost over. Next year will be better. I'm moving to a new city, one with a little culture this time, and opening an anime-themed cafe. And once I move, expect me to be writing more.

But you don't want my sob stories and dreams of the future, do you? You want what you've been waiting far too long for, the next chapter of this fic. Well here it is, and included is a cameo I had planned some time ago, and now included. I won't keep you guessing on it. It's actually a cameo by my best friend, without whom, I would have surely gone mad during my down spell. Read on, and review, my loyal fans.

3:20 AM

Mulder drove the Impala down the road as fast as he could, taking the route that he believed the ones who had kidnapped Zim would have taken.

"Mulder," Scully said, "What if they didn't take this route? There are at least 10 roads leading out of this town." Mulder thought for a minute. He pulled the cell phone from his coat. Flipping it open, he dialed a number.

"Hello." He said curtly. "This is Agent Fox Mulder with the FBI. I need to talk to Sergeant O'Reiley immediately." After a few seconds, Mulder spoke again. "O'Reiley, it's Mulder. I need a favor. There's a large vehicle, possibly a truck, leaving town in a hurry. There will possibly be a couple cars providing security for it, so it's not going to be hard to miss. Put out an APB, but do not intercept. Call me when you find the truck." Mulder was quiet for a few seconds. "Yeah…I think that this could be the wining move for somebody." More silence. "Thank you." Mulder said, and hung up. He stopped the car at an intersection, and looked over at Scully. "Now we wait."

3:25 AM

Mulder, Scully and Dib sat in the car at the intersection, waiting impatiently. For once, Mulder's calm, witty demeanor had turned to nervous tension. He gripped the steering wheel and bit his nails regularly, sighing now and again. There was an unspoken bond between all three of the car's occupants at this point, a silent hope beyond hopes, and a fear that neither of them would voice. The silence was broken by the shrill ringing of a cell phone. Mulder quickly and nervously opened and answered it. A few seconds of hearing whatever the person on the other end was saying was enough, and he started the car and sped off, closing the phone and tossing it into the backseat, almost hitting Dib.

"Hey!" Dib called. "Watch it! Who was it anyway?"

"O'Reiley." Mulder answered. "The locals spotted a large moving truck and two unmarked sedans on Main, headed toward the edge of town. They faked a roadblock to slow them down, and the men passed with government ID's."

"Government?" Scully asked.

"Yeah, and all this time you thought my crazy conspiracy theories were relegated to flights of fancy." Mulder smiled. His smile faded. "Dib, this could get bad really fast. Whatever happens, I want you to stay in the car."

"But…" Dib started to protest.

"No buts." Mulder interjected, taking a turn hard. "If something happens to us, you have to get the truth out. You have to tell the Swollen Eyeball Network, MUFON, any network or paper you know what happened, okay?" Dib nodded.

"I promise." Dib said.

"That's them." Scully said. Up ahead, the three could make out the taillights of three vehicles, three blocks from the freeway onramp.

"You ever have one of those days when you wish you had a Sherman tank?" Mulder asked. "I'm having one of those days now." The light ahead of the vehicles turned red, and they came to a stop. Mulder didn't slow.

"Mulder…" Scully exclaimed.

"Hold on." Mulder said coldly. He veered at the last second, sideswiping the sedan in the rear and passing the truck on the left. He hit the brakes hard, screeching to a halt in front of the sedan in front. Mulder and Scully dove out of the driver side of the Impala, drawing their pistols as four men exited the sedan in front, pulling guns of their own.

"FBI!" Mulder yelled. "Put down your weapons!" He was answered by a volley of gunfire from the four men. The agents fired back, causing the conspirators to duck behind their car, and giving Dib time to jump from the Impala and run for cover behind a strategically placed dumpster. The two men in the truck climbed out with HK MP5's, and fired into the Impala, shattering the windows, and flattening the tires. Mulder fired over the trunk, his bullets sparking off of the truck's grill guard.

"Mulder…" Scully panted. "I think we're seriously outgunned here."

"You're telling me." Mulder replied. Scully fired over the hood, and the men fired back. "Can you get to the phone?" Scully started to move to the door when another burst of gunfire hit the Impala. Scully heard Mulder cry out, and looked to see him gripping his left arm.

"Mulder!" Scully gasped. "Are you hit?"

"It's not bad." Mulder replied, wincing in pain. He fired two more shots before his pistol clicked empty. "But it's about to get a lot worse."

Dib watched helplessly from behind the dumpster, ducking behind whenever an errant round ricocheted off of its thick metal walls. Mulder and Scully were in serious trouble, and there was nothing he could do. He saw Mulder get hit in the arm, and then watched as the Agent expended the last of his bullets.

"Oh man….oh man…" Dib panted, holding a shaking hand to his forehead. He looked back out at the scene in time to see a dark figure move toward the action from the shadows of a dark alley.

Scully fired two more rounds at the sedan, breaking the windshield. She was taking aim on one of the men armed with an MP5, when she saw the assailant on the far right go down, his pistol skittering across the pavement. A figure stepped out of the darkness. To Scully's trained eye, it appeared to be a young woman dressed in dark, loose fitting clothing and a conical straw hat. Mulder noticed the look on Scully's face, and peered cautiously through the shot up car.

"Who called in the samurai?" He muttered. The girl walked calmly up to the second gunman, who still had his attention focused on the Impala. In a lightning fast move, she drew two sais, and in the blink of an eye, the gunman was laying unconscious on the ground.

"Wow…" Dib whispered. "It is her." The gunmen now turned to face the new threat. Scully took the opportunity to use the last two rounds in her pistol to down one of the men with the automatic weapons and one of the men from the sedan. In the confusion that ensued, the girl in the hat gave a physics defying leap that landed her on top of the sedan, and as one of the gunmen turned to fire, she sprang off of the car, catching his wrist between the prongs of the two sai, and twisted. Before the man's pistol had hit the ground, the girl had slammed the pommel of a sai into his head, sending him down to the asphalt next to his weapon. The sedan in the rear, its occupants no longer wanting any part of the battle, pulled out in a screeching of tires, the car aimed at the girl. Mulder, Scully and Dib watched in awe as she leapt into the air, and shot her sais from her hands, the weapons sticking in the windshield as the car sped off. As it passed, the agents could make out a dark figure in the backseat, partially illuminated by the glowing of a cigarette ember.

Now without her sais, the strangely dressed girl turned to the last gunman, who raised his pistol. The girl quickly drew a fan from the sash about her waist, and flicked it open as the man fired, the bullet hit the fan with no effect. There was no time for a second shot, as the girl sped toward the gunman, easily knocking the gun from his hand with her fan. With a graceful wave of the fan, she stepped back. The gunman looked down in time to see half of his tie fall to the ground. His surprise was short lived as the next thing he felt was the girl's now folded fan impacting his skull. He collapsed as the scene grew silent. Mulder, Scully and Dib rose from their hiding places, and stood beside the bullet-riddled Impala, awestruck and speechless. The figure in the hat turned to face them for a moment, and they could barely discern a small smile beneath the shadow of the hat, and long brown hair upon the shoulders of the black samurai-style clothing.

"Who…" Scully muttered.

"Our backup…" Mulder replied. "I just never thought they'd be so…"

"Is this for real?" Scully muttered, still entranced.

"It's her." Dib whispered. "Agent Phoenix." They watched as the figure bowed lightly, before stepping backwards into a dark alley. Their trance now broken, Mulder and Scully ran after the figure, with Dib close behind. They reached the alley, but it sat empty. The realization of the moment struck Mulder.

"The truck!" He exclaimed. The three ran to the vehicle and Mulder quickly unlatched the door and rolled it upwards. The three quickly climbed inside and looked about. The truck had been converted into what looked like a rolling laboratory, complete with a stasis chamber. A man in a suit lay unconscious on the floor. Another man in a lab coat sat motionless in a chair.

"What…" Scully asked quizzically. "Who did this?" Mulder looked down on the stasis chamber, the glass bubble broken, shards laying about the cargo bay. Mulder looked up. There was a hole in the ceiling of the truck, fully three feet across, the edges burned as if it had been cut with a welding torch. "Mulder?" Scully asked.

"I think we weren't the only ones out to rescue Zim tonight." Mulder said, pointing to the hole. "Whether before the fight, during, or after it…" He looked around again. "He escaped." They looked at each other, sharing in the mixed emotions that the night had led to. Suddenly, the door of the truck slid shut, sealing the three inside. Mulder and Scully ran to the door, and began pounding, trying to pry the metal door open. They could hear voices outside, and the sound of several vehicles pulling up.

"Hey…Hey!" Mulder shouted. "Let us out of here!" The sound of doors closing reached their ears, followed by the sound of vehicles pulling away. Dib quickly jumped onto a table, and leaped toward the hole, grabbing the edges, and pulling himself onto the roof of the truck. "Dib!" Mulder called. "

"Dib?!" Scully shouted. After a few seconds of silence, the hatch opened to reveal Dib, a look of disappointment painted on the boy's face. "Dib, what is it?" Scully asked, climbing out of the truck. Dib just stepped aside and looked at the ground.

"What's wrong?" Mulder asked, stepping down. Scully and Mulder stopped as they rounded the truck. All of the men were gone, along with the sedan. "No." Mulder said, holding a hand to his forehead. "No! We were so close Scully!" He exclaimed, his usually calm demeanor giving way to his dispair. "So close." Dib stood beside him.

"What now, Mulder?" He asked. Mulder just sighed.

"It's over." He said, defeated. "At least the bad guys didn't win, but neither did we." Dib and the agents stood in the gloom of the dark street, lost in their thoughts.

Well there it is. Have I lost any of my writing talent during my time away? I'll leave it to you to decide. I'll finish this story in time...and in time, I'll return to the site and my forum just as Arthur of old shall return when Britain faces its darkest peril. Until next time, my friends...cheerio.