TwoKinds: Redemption

by WildSnivy

A full year has passed since the events on the Na'Rella. A failed ambush and whispers of a secretive Wolf organization threatening to destabilize the Human-Wolf situation lead Keith, Natani, Zen and some old acquaintances out to unmask the ring and prevent Mekkan from plunging into war yet again. Thanks to Tom Fischbach for creating TwoKinds as source material! And you for reading!

3. Part III: Colds, Cuts and Cookies

TwoKinds: Redemption

A Fan-Fiction Novel

Written by WildSnivy

Part III: Colds, Cuts and Cookies

Chapter 16

"What did you two fools do to my door?"

"Look, I'm sorry. Like, really sorry, and I'm not even the guy who did it," Mike shakily stammered as he showed Natani back to her room. The wolf carefully navigated the floor, making sure not to step the multiple shattered wooden splinters, scattered throughout the chamber like confetti. Mike was still irked that Evals hadn't managed to at least begin cleaning up the spot between breakfast and now, mid-afternoon, but he also wasn't expecting Natani and Keith to come back to the ship this quickly either.

"Well, thanks for the apology, but you probably could have told me about this earlier, you know!" Natani barked as the fox dug through the room adjacent to hers, another maintenance closet. "I don't know what prompted you to break in here, and I'm pretty sure it wasn't this urgent."

"Uh, right, right," Mike stuttered, power walking back into the room with a dustpan and hand broom. "It was extremely improper of us, and we won't do it again," he rushed as he knelt down and began sweeping some of the wood chippings into the dustpan.

Natani grunted softly as she gave the trunk underneath her bed a solid, two-handed heave and slid it across the floor. A glowing blue seal, stuck onto the side of the trunk where the lock should have been, served to keep it shut and secure. Natani kept all of her belongings secured with a magical lock spell of her own design. It wasn't just a run of the mill, textbook locking spell that could be done away with by anyone who ever thumbed through an elementary spellbook. She had perfected this one over months of study, trial and error, and maybe just a little help from her big brother. Unlike standard locking spells, which were usually bypassed by a simple open command or phrase, Natani's variant used three of them, to be said out loud in a very particular sequence. The words and the order they were spoken in was a combination only her and Zen knew how to crack. And possibly Mike as well if she didn't keep her voice down.

She began reciting the code under her breath. All it was were answers to three simple questions.

How much younger was she compared to Zen?

"Fifteen months, seven days."

Name of their first thieving guild?

"West Street Crew."

First thing she called Keith when they first met?

"Long eared weirdo."

The seal dissipated into nothingness as Natani successfully answered the final question, and the wolf spun the trunk around to face her and lifted it open. She brushed the various clothes and travelling supplies aside until she caught sight of a small burlap pouch, pushed against the left side of the trunk's interior.

"Did you really go through all the crystals I gave you already?" she asked the sailor, befuddled and slightly alarmed at the rate they did so.

Mike inaudibly gulped before responding. "Yeah. We did a bit of experimenting as well. Making sure we knew what we were doing." Probably shouldn't have brought that up earlier, he reprimanded himself. Good thing he couldn't sweat, because he'd likely be drenched by this point if he could.

"No need to sound guilty. I gave them to you to practice with, and you did that," she commented, peeking into the pouch briefly before tying it back off. "Also, I wouldn't have given that many to you I didn't have a backup supply on hand, so don't worry about it."

Mike shuffled over to the trash bin in the corner of Natani's room and deposited the fragmented wood in it. He was never good at lying, and he was never good at not getting into trouble as a direct result. That was actually, much as he hated to admit it, why he always tried to have Evals around whenever he needed a cover. But switch the roles, where Mike had to make up stories about Evals, and the results were far from ideal.

He could just tell Natani what happened and see what could be done about it. This was likely a relatively simple fix for someone of her skill. What would Evals do, though? Twice now Michelle came by for an unscheduled visit, and twice Evals diverted attention away from her. True, the fox now had an unsavory accident prone reputation as a direct result, but at least Michelle was kept a secret, known only to Evals, Kat and...

Actually, Natani knew about the Na'Rella incident as well. Mike nearly completely forgot about that. He understood the need for his friend's ailment to be kept private, but here he was, with someone who knew about the problem and, seeing as how the Basitin black arts held no influence this time, maybe the wolf would be more useful in finding a solution. Natani didn't really have a reason to talk about this at all either, so realistically, talking to her about Evals wouldn't result in him breaching his gag order, right?

The fox took a deep breath and followed that train of logic. He would have to ease Natani into the situation, though, if he wanted to be taken seriously. "Hey, uh, Natani?" he started. "Remember Michelle, from back on the Na'Rella?"

Natani slowly turned her head towards Mike, then sighed and covered her eyes with her hand. "Where's Evals and what did you do to him?"

Mike blinked, stunned at how perceptive Natani had become. "It'll explain why the mana crystals have been used up already and why I'm also currently cleaning up a door."

"Where is he, Mike?" Natani pressed as she stood up and scooted the trunk back under her bed with her foot.

"He's in his room, taking a nap," Mike answered. "Maybe I should tell you what..."

"When we get there," the wolf interrupted, briskly walking past the fox and turned right down the corridor, her spare mana reserve still in hand.

"Natani!" Mike called after her, dropping the dustpan and setting the broom against the wall. "You need to know how this happened first!"

"Effects first, then cause," Natani dictated, pointing at the third door on her left, Evals' quarters.

"But...why?"

"Sometimes, Mike, a spell is very easy to identify just by looking at what happened to the subject. I don't need to hear the story if I can fix it by inspection."

"That's the thing, though!" Mike insisted, keeping his voice down as the two canines finished approaching the third's room. "You can't tell what it is."

"You can't, but I might," the wolf replied, and motioned with her hand to keep quiet as she carefully lifted the latch to Evals' door and gently pushed it open all the way. True to the fox's word, Evals was indeed enjoying a mid-afternoon nap, lying on his side on a large, white canvas hammock, back towards Natani and front towards the back wall of the room, towards the window. Evals never bothered to disrobe for these intermissions; it was more work to get into something more comfortable than it was just to collapse onto his hammock and get to the main event.

Natani stared at the dog studiously for a moment then looked back down at Mike. "So, what's the problem, again?" she whispered.

"Uh, here," Mike offered, gently clapping his hands at Evals. "Hey, Evals! Roll over, boy! C'mon boy! Roll over!" he quietly coaxed.

Evals began murmuring in his sleep as he subconsciously obeyed the fox's commands. "Only if Imma...ma get..cookie after," he mumbled as he flipped over in the hammock, showing the lupine mage the other side of his body...

Natani's face looked nothing short of stunned, much like Mike's was a little bit earlier. She didn't gasp, yell, or seem to do anything else out of surprise. Instead, she continued to calmly look at the dog, albeit with a bit more confusion and prudency this time. And, after a relatively lengthy silence, she gave her final conclusion. "Huh."

"Yeah, you see what I mean now?" Mike pointed at the dosing Evalyn.

"Changed my mind. How did this happen?" Natani asked, not sure whether to be fascinated by how advanced the spellwork was, frustrated that the two sailors managed to do this to themselves, or interested by the results.

Mike inhaled deeply, and then quickly rattled off the entire chronicle of their magical studies. "Evals found a book and was testing spells out of it. All of it went well until he found one that made Michelle appear. He tried to cover it up, which was why he never let you downstairs to look at my 'broken foot.' He found a way to fix it, but the dispel rebounded and jumped onto him. So..." Mike struggled to finish his thoughts, and instead held two upturned palms in the dog's direction. "Natani, um, meet Evalyn!"

"Hi..hiya, Timmy," Evalyn woofed back, licking the corner of her mouth, halting the saliva flowing into a small pool on the hammock.

"You two do not make my job easy, you know that?" Natani glanced at the fox as she flipped a mana crystal out of her pocket and into the air, like a coin.

"Please don't be angry?" Mike timidly squeaked, putting his hands up in front of his face.

"Why would I be?"

"Eh?" Mike lowered his guard.

"You had me scared earlier. I thought you turned him into a frog or something like that. This...is actually kind of funny," Natani said, grinning slightly.

"I think weird is a better word, to be honest with you," Mike corrected, watching the crystal bounce up and down in the wolf's hand. "So, what do you think?"

"I'm about to figure that out," Natani answered, catching the crystal midair and crushing it in her fist. "Deprendo magia," she spoke into it, then shut her eyes and tossed the sparkling blue dust towards Evalyn, still sleepily snoring away. A couple seconds passed, and Natani's view came back up with an amorphous grey blob where the dog should have been. She hummed quietly to herself and opened her eyes again, which flashed yellow for a split second as her detection vision disappeared.

"That's no good," she spoke out loud as she detached her backup mana reserve and shook out some more crystals into her hand.

"Is Evals alright?" Mike asked with concern. "It's not permanent, right?"

"Permanent magic isn't a thing, and it will wear off given enough time," Natani explained, carefully counting off the stack of mana she was currently holding. "Pretty much, you've bounced so many spells off of him that, whatever...that is, it doesn't have a definite magic school to it. So I can't just do a simple dispel and expect it to work without consequence."

"Can you explain it like I'm five?" Mike requested, lost in the jungle of technical speak and science that just bombarded him.

"I'm casting a mass dispel, Mike. It'll go through a lot of my spare mana, but it's potent enough to get rid of almost anything. And it should fix Evals."

Mike nodded, and curiously looked at exactly how much "a lot of mana" was. The cone-shaped stack in Natani's hand was at least an inch high and two inches in diameter, a very large pile considering how small normal mana crystals tended to be. "I can get you some more of those when we get to wolf country if you like," he offered. "I should at least pay you for..."

"Nah, it's fine," Natani put a hand up. "You can get a kilo of these things for, like, twenty silver if you know where to look. Dirt cheap."

Mike shamefully gulped, though he wasn't really sure why. "Thanks. For doing this, of course."

"Let's just get this little problem fixed and done with," Natani responded, as she shut her eyes again to begin focusing on the spell. Mike glanced back at the snoozing dog momentarily, glad to hear he'd be back to his normal self soon, and then interestedly back at the increasingly luminescent blue mass the wolf held in her hand. A small, thin wisp of what Mike could only describe as magical smoke began to drift upwards out of the pile, as the wolf made the necessary mental and magical preparations. The smoke started to accumulate into a sphere about six inches above the top of the stack, and Natani raised her other hand, set to finish the cast...

Then her eyes jumped open abruptly, unexpectedly, and the wisp sank back down into the mana crystals. "What is it, Zen?" she asked out loud.

Mike's ears drooped as he turned his head to the side. "Um, Natani?"

"This really isn't a great time for this," she barked back with annoyance. Her left ear perked, as if she was listening for something, and her expression shifted from annoyance to surprise after a moment. "Why didn't you say that, then?" she exclaimed as she jammed the mana crystals back into her pouch and marched towards the stairs to A Deck.

"Natani, what just happened?" Mike called after her, chasing her down the hallway. "What about Evals?"

"Something urgent just came up, so Evals is going to have to wait," she instructed as she began to jog up the steps, the fox following closely behind her.

"Slow down!" Mike yelled. "You were casting, then you started talking to yourself, and now you have somewhere you have to be? Just like that?"

"I wouldn't ignore your friend like this if it wasn't completely necessary," Natani assured, thrusting open the window onto the Quantum's main deck then making a sharp right turn to the docks. "Just keep him, or her, comfortable for now until I get back, alright?"

"We cast off tomorrow morning!" Mike continued to protest as the wolf continued into the shipyard. The fox halted himself on the deck, lacking the proper credentials to set foot on the island. "If we can't do it now, then..."

"I'll be back before it gets dark, Mike. Calm down before you have a heart attack," Natani responded over her shoulder, still briskly walking towards wherever she was headed. She did, however, stop for a moment and pointed at the wooden banister bordering the main deck. "Oh yeah, someone left you a package too," she noted, directing Mike's attention to a medium-sized brown paper bag parked against the railing. It was folded over the top, likely to keep its contents fresh, and also had a small note pinned next to the bag's opening.

Mike walked over to inspect the bag as the wolf continued to hurry along the docks, as if she had just stolen something and was trying to escape and not be noticed at the same time. He sighed softly and scooped the bag up in his arms, yanking the note free with his right hand. The writing was sloppy at best, and the fox did have to squint to read a few sections, but the message seemed simple enough:

Mr. Orangetail!

Here's the herbs you wanted! Got as many of them as I could. I also found a few grams of clearveil as well. If anyone seems stressed or annoyed, the herbalist says mixing that in with tea will help a ton! Thanks for letting me see the ship!

Maddie

"Stress relief, huh?" he said to himself as he folded the note and neatly slipped it into his back pocket. He heard a low rumbling sound come from beneath him, and he looked down at where his feet were. From a top-down perspective, he was standing right above Evals' quarters. Likely his friend was still dosing, but would be awake and active in a few more minutes. Even if his...affliction was not cured by that point.

Mike strode over to the door leading below deck and kicked it open with the back of his foot. "Gods know we'll be needing them soon," he mumbled as he descended back towards the galley, the door gently shutting itself behind him.

---

"So your brother knows who Domino is now?" Blitz asked, flipping his signature knife in his hand as always.

"Just finished talking to him. He does now," Zen responded, boldly striding down the upper hallway of Clovis' manor with the Polar Fox. "How's Clovis been doing?"

"He's still working on poking through that packet you found. He's been a little reclusive since too, come to think of it."

"Clovis being reclusive, how insightful you are today."

"More than usual, mate. You know what I'm trying to say."

"What's eating him?"

"Didn't ask. Wasn't really my place," Blitz replied as finished escorting Zen to the large, ornate doors leading to the half-fox's office. Shut tight, as per usual, with two muscular bodyguards standing on either side of the doorway. Longswords were fastened securely to the right side of their belts, and they also wore Clovis' signet on their left middle finger, symbolizing not only their loyalty but also providing a source of mana should it be needed.

"Hopefully he'll be willing to talk to us," Blitz continued as he stopped in front of the two bouncers. Zen followed suit, slipping his hands behind his back.

"Who's 'us'?" the guard on the left asked, sternly. An Arctic Wolf, much like Alexei from earlier. Clovis tried to keep his followers diverse as far as the Keidran tribes were concerned. He found that it displayed a sort of amiability towards his kind, an openness of sorts, that he was willing to help anyone, as long as he was properly reciprocated afterwards.

"Zen and Blitz, mate," the fox answered, clicking the knife shut and pocketing it in his trousers. "And yes, we have an appointment."

The guard pressed against his forehead and relayed the visitors to his charge. "Sir, they're here," he stated, and then nodded as the half-fox mentally transmitted his acknowledgement. The guard snapped his hand down and leaned over to open up the door to the office.

"He's a bit ill at present, so play nicely in there," he advised as he turned the brass knob and pushed open the oak just wide enough for the two agents to slip through. Zen was the first to pass, and noticed almost immediately what the guard meant. Instead of the normal glass of wine he almost always had with him during office hours, Clovis had settled for something warmer, more specifically a tall mug of what seemed to be chicken broth. The wolf also noticed the spymaster keeping his handkerchief within arm's reach, generally something he didn't have too much need for, nor had with him on a regular basis.

"Ah, Zen, do..." Clovis started to welcome, but stopped himself to yank his handkerchief over to him and sneeze into it, producing a relatively noisy choof sound in the process. A small sniffle later he managed to finish his thought. "...do come in."

"What happened to you?" Blitz inquired as he closed the office's doors behind him.

"I dare say that your niece gave me..." Clovis paused again to choof into his handkerchief a second time. "...gave me a rather nasty cold after tackling me into that puddle. I've been trying to recover ever since." He tapped at the stack of lifted papers in front of him. "At least I have some reading material in the meantime."

"Natani knows about Domino..." Zen began.

"...and she's aware of what we found. I heard the whole exchange, thank you," Clovis finished. Zen leered at the half-fox, who seemed blissfully oblivious to the idea that eavesdropping was considered rude in most circles. "What is she up to, now that she knows what we do?"

"Don't know. He hung up before I could ask," Zen replied, trying not to trip over his "brother's" gender identity as he spoke. "I'll try getting a hold of him later tonight."

"Very well," Clovis nodded, crookedly, painfully smiling through his sickness. "So, now that we're in here, how about we go through our little treasure in more detail?" he suggested, gently patting the stack of papers like it was a housecat.

"What have you gone through so far?" Blitz asked as Clovis began to separate the papers into three, relatively equivalent divisions.

"That's what you're here for, as a matter of fact," the half-fox stated as he handed one of the smaller stacks to Zen. "I've went ahead and looked through the first few pages, and I have a decent idea of what The Fang's up to, but I think this will go much faster if we, as the Humans put it, divide and conquer?"

"Suppose it works," Blitz agreed as he accepted one of the other stacks from Clovis and started to flip through it.

"Let's do it then." Zen encouraged as he perused his sections. "So, Clovis, what are they doing today?"

"It's just like we thought, gents," Clovis sat back in his chair, beaming with pride, scanning the pages in his hand. "The Fang's trying to use our little scuffle with the Humans to ramp up a worldwide war, and they intend to be the ones supplying it. They sent in Domino to pose as one of the Basitins on General Keiser's hearing board, and ideally try to brush him aside in favor of a more...volatile response."

"Didn't do too well, seeing as how we managed to get a reprieve out of it," Blitz pointed out.

"And thus we arrive at one of the most peculiar points of this plan," Clovis observed, looking back up at his agents. "There doesn't seem to be a fallback if The Fang doesn't get the result they wanted. From the first few pages anyways."

"What do you mean?" Zen asked, unfolding a larger, detailed map of the Basitin Parliament.

"The Fang's goal seems to hinge entirely on them instigating a war and then supplying it. But, hypothetically of course, had your General friend succeeded, then the Basitins don't get involved, and then they send him right back in to break up our little scuffle with the Humans. No war, no supplies, no profits."

Blitz looked up from the meeting agenda in his stack, back at the spymaster, the skepticism in his gaze abounding. "That is a pretty big flaw in the plan there, boss."

"Which is why..." Clovis moved for his handkerchief again, thinking another sneeze was imminent, then put his hand back down once the sensation ceased. "...why I am amazed that this got choof!" he sneezed, burying his muzzle into his elbow.

"Overlooked! Blast it all, I hate colds!" the half-fox loudly snapped, reaching for his mug with annoyance.

Zen and Blitz looked at each other like they had provoked a wild animal, then turned back to the spymaster. "Is there a better time we should be doing this, boss?" Blitz carefully asked, as Zen returned to his papers.

"No," a disgruntled Clovis asserted with a small sip out of his mug. "If you're healthy enough to work, so am I." He pointed at the two stacks of papers his agents were currently perusing.

"Now, as I was saying, unless there's something in your piles I haven't seen yet, then I'd argue, as strange as this sounds, we've successfully upended their plans."

"Except we haven't," Zen spoke with realization as he shuffled his papers around. "Not yet at least."

Clovis' ears perked, and Blitz walked over to Zen to better look at the documents he held. Zen spilled the first couple papers on top of the half-fox's desk, like pieces to a jigsaw puzzle, and pushed them around, trying to keep his thoughts organized.

"I take it you found their backup, Zenny?" Clovis grinned, sitting back up in his chair and setting his mug back down.

"Not directly, but it's hard to avoid the conclusions," the wolf said, tapping the leftmost document: another floor plan for the Basitin parliament building. "First, the Parliament. This map is for the basement of it."

"Since when do government buildings need basements?" Blitz itched the back of his head.

"Multipurpose rooms, and the Basitins use this one for structural integrity too. Their Parliament is a huge, heavy building, so they needed a little underground support to keep it up. That's what all these pillars are scattered around for," Zen explained, motioning to the three by two array of pillars placed in the basement's main chamber. "Bring down most if not all of these, and the entire structure..."

"Goes up in dust," Clovis finished, making a gesture reminiscent of an explosion with his hand.

"You're thinking Domino is going to try attacking the building itself?" Blitz inquired, looking over the map for himself.

"There's no reason he couldn't," Zen continued to deduce. "Makes a statement, gets the people angry, and pretty much forces the Basitins to make a move."

"Nicely played, Mr. Domino," Clovis said to himself, tapping his fingers together with excitement. "Although, there's no way he'll feasibly take down those pillars just by himself."

"Which is why he had this on the packing list," Zen pointed at the rightmost document. This one had no pictures or drawings on it. Instead, it looked more like a recipe, with a list of components at the top followed by a set of instructions below.

"Take a look at those ingredients," Zen encouraged.

Blitz picked up the paper and read a few of them out loud for the half-fox. "Sulfur, potassium chloride, peroxy...chemical something something, to hell if I'm pronouncing that," he defeatedly grumbled as he handed the recipe over to Clovis.

"Oh, this is divine," Clovis clapped his hands together before accepting the paper, chuckling slightly as he spoke.

"Zen, all that looked like was a glorified science experiment. What's it really for?" Blitz inquired, paying no mind to the relatively sporadic reaction Clovis just gave.

"I'll answer that one," Clovis smirked with unadulterated glee, picking up his white ceramic mug and taking another sip out of it. "Everything on this list happens to be explosive."

Blitz and Zen looked at each other for a moment, one expecting the other to either ask a question or continue explaining. Blitz volunteered to continue moving the conversation along. "How explosive are we talking?"

Clovis crookedly grinned again as he set his beverage back down on the desk. "With the masses given here, explosive enough to, say, dislodge a certain structural support out from underneath a certain government building?" he crooned.

Blitz glanced back at the wolf, an eyebrow raised. "The Fang's making a bomb, aren't they?"

"And if it isn't made already, it will be shortly," Zen affirmed.

Blitz sighed to himself and, almost sorrowfully, glanced back at the half-fox, who was distressingly calm despite just discovering a bomb threat. "Boss, is it just me or is this job getting more and more dangerous by the second?"

"Come now. You say that like it's a bad thing," Clovis responded, leaning back in his chair again.

"I mean, think about this for a second. In less than a day, we found out that this group of mercenaries, which is actually a group of war profiteers, is actually now, by definition, a group of terrorists."

"Yes, so it would seem,"

The fox had to stop himself, mostly out of confusion as to how Clovis could be so at ease about what they found. "Boss, everything in this room now is sensitive. As soon as they find out this..." Blitz rapidly pounded on his packet with a clenched fist. "...is missing, they're going to start looking for us. And for that Basitin. We're not prepared to deal with an entire army, and I don't think he'll be either. This needs to be secured, and that means it has to be reported."

"You're panicking," Clovis monotonously responded, arms folded in front of him. "We'll be able to handle this just fine."

"If I may, I think you're taking this a little too fine."

"Because we already know what to do from here," Clovis replied. "Use this intel for us, make it a jumping off point for our next set of activities."

"And what if we get attacked?" Blitz looked like he was starting to lose it, and Zen instinctually took a step backwards.

"Then we get attacked," the half-fox answered, calmly and methodically. "We've handled these sorts of offensives before. We can certainly do it again."

"But not against an entire militarized mercenary corps with weapons nobody's even seen yet!"

"Rather it be them than the police, frankly."

Blitz lost his words for a second, and ended up just making random noises for a while as his hands twitched and contorted like he was sitting in an electric chair. He let out a puff of air to relax himself, even if it was just enough to enable basic speech again, and yanked his facemask down in a fit of frustration. "Did I miss something here?" he yelled at his employer, angrily leaning on the desk with both hands. "Clovis, this is not a game! This isn't one of your 'puzzles' anymore. We're talking about somebody threatening to explode a building! People are going to die and this whole op is going to hell if we don't tell someone about this!"

Clovis said nothing in response, and instead slowly stood up and raised his hands. "Alright. I understand. You win," he whispered, mollified anger seasoning his words like hot spice. The spymaster's visage remained neutral, save for the eyes. There was something about that glare he was exchanging with Blitz, and Zen couldn't quite put his finger on it.

Clovis motioned to his chair, regally presenting it to the fox as if he were royalty. "Why don't you take the lead for this job, then?"

"Clovis, hold on..." Zen tried to interrupt.

"No, no, it's fine," Clovis reassured, expressionlessly. "Apparently our Polar Fox here is displeased with my decision to stay quiet, and for that, I must step down."

"Screw you," Blitz snarled, reaching for his trouser pocket.

"Tell me, Blitz, what's your first act as head of our little company going to be, hmm?" Clovis seethed, pacing around the desk to approach his agent. "Oh, silly me, the intel. Of course, it must be the intel! Yes, absolutely, we need to tell someone, don't we? Now who to tell, who to tell...?"

"Clovis, you need to calm down," Zen commanded.

"How about the watch? That's a start; alert the authorities, set up a quarantine...oh, wait. No, no, no that's no good. We're technically criminals aren't we? They'll have us in prison before they listen to anything involving their favorite suppliers, won't they? What else, what else?" he pondered, closing the distance towards Blitz. "Ooh, another ring, possibly. Get reinforcements, prepare for a fight. Oh, no, that's not a thing either, since they'll be next right after we get stamped. Well..." Then Clovis started laughing. Inexplicably, maniacally, uncontrollably laughing, as Blitz continued to defiantly stare back. "Well, this is certainly a problem isn't it?" he yelled at the fox. "This intel is practically virulent by this stage! We can't share it without making our position worse off now, can we?"

Zen saw Blitz flip the knife open behind his back, and his eyes went wide. "Clovis! Back down!" he interjected.

"Do you get it yet, Blitz? You didn't 'miss' anything. I didn't jump ahead, leave you behind, or anything of the sort. You simply need to accept the fact that we, in this office, are the only ones who do know, can know, and will ever know, what's on those papers," Clovis pointed a shaking, adrenaline-fueled hand in the direction of the lifted intelligence.

"But please, don't let this...filthy blooded amalgamation of a Keidran let you dictate what ought to be done. By no means!" the half-fox continued to rant. "Please, take a seat and impart on us your wise, wise words, for you clearly know what's best for everyone, don't you?"

Clovis finished talking for a bit, but then leaned forward, placing his muzzle just next to Blitz's right ear.

"Or perhaps, it's just what's best for you?" he whispered.

Zen sharply inhaled as the next few moments of his life seemed to jump into slow motion. It started with Blitz extending his arm outward and beginning to swing the knife towards Clovis, the blade on a direct path towards the spymaster's rib cage. Instinctually, Zen bolted to his right, and then grabbed the mana necklace tucked underneath his shirt. The short range teleportation spell that he used on a very frequent basis fortunately did not require a word of power to invoke, and he disappeared into a cloud of black smoke as he drew the power out of one of the crystals. He reappeared a split second later next to Clovis, and using the momentum he had generated from running earlier, leapt onto Clovis and tackled him to the ground, Blitz's swing whirring harmlessly over their heads.

Clovis and Zen crashed onto the hardwood flooring with a hearty thump as they fell on their sides next to the desk. It took Blitz a moment to realize what had happened, and once he noticed that his wild attack hit only the air, he took one step to where Zen and Clovis lay. He flipped the knife's casing again, tossed into his left hand, knelt down. Clovis' eyes blankly, disinterestedly followed the blade, dancing in the fox's hand, then ascending for a final strike...

And then, instead of the anticipated pang he would have felt in his abdomen, he was greeted by the sharp cling of a parry. More specifically, Zen's wrist blade had brushed away what would have been a very devastating strike, and was currently lodged just underneath the other knife's casing. Blitz continued to press with his weapon, as did Zen with his, trying to shove the attack away from Clovis. Zen reinforced the bracer by grabbing his knife hand near the wrist, using his other arm to produce the additional power. It worked, as Blitz's blade slipped off of Zen's and instead stabbed the wooden floor next to Clovis' head, no more than a few centimeters in front of the eyes and just a hair above the muzzle.

Save for the Polar Fox's heavy breathing, and the pitter patter of the rain as it pelted the room's single stained glass window, the office went quiet again after the struggle. There was something off about it, Zen felt. Blitz didn't sound like he was trying to calm himself down, but rather he was trying to keep himself from breaking down instead. The knife wobbled back and forth next to Clovis' head as well, the fox holding it hard enough to dig his shortly trimmed claws into his hand.

He relinquished the knife, the case clacking onto the ground, and slowly pulled back the cloth eye patches. Zen was about to shut his eyes, but noticed that the gem housed in there was not glowing like it should have been. Blitz was not about to use it.

"Don't ever say I only look out for myself," he softly grumbled, tapping his face underneath the gem. "I wouldn't have a damn rock in my skull right now if I did."

"Yes," Clovis responded, his gaze shifting up from the knife and back to Blitz. "Then you also know about sacrifice, and why I have to make this decision."

"I do," Blitz growled back. "Sacrifice is all about choice. I chose to stick with you even after my eye got shot out, and I chose to keep running jobs for you even though I have my own family to worry about. I know a lot about it." Blitz slowly put his hand around his black bandana, the bandana Zen had never seen him without so far, and sharply yanked on it, undoing the knot around his neck and coming free.

Blitz stared at the garment for a second, then tossed it down onto the floor, letting the cloth drift down and finally stop next to the knife, partially covering it. "Well, I'm sorry, boss. But this time, I'm not choosing you."

"Blitz..." Zen started to say, sitting himself back up.

The fox immediately cut him off. "Zen, by keeping that intel a secret, we're putting thousands of innocent lives at risk just so Clovis can keep this little spy ring of his secret." He stood up and began walking towards the office doors.

"There's more to it than that..." Zen tried to argue as Blitz continued to pace away.

"Don't care if there is," Blitz flatly continued. "If he's going through with a plan that ends up killing civilians, then I'm not going to be one of people he drags down with him. Getting my hands dirty is one thing, but I refuse to let these people die through my own indifference."

Blitz turned the knob on the office door again, opening it back up to the hallway. He turned his head, melancholically, towards back to the wolf. "And what about you?" he asked, quietly, gravelly.

Zen didn't have an answer. He couldn't even begin to formulate one. His mouth remained shut, despite his brain's desperate attempts to get it to move, as he simply looked back and forth between Clovis, the only one who could do anything about what was happening, and Blitz, the only friend he ever made during his time here.

Blitz pitifully shut his good eye in disappointment, and used his other hand to cover up the gem embedded where the other should have been. "It was good knowing you, Zen," was his last sentence as he exited the spymaster's office, as Zen collapsed back onto the floor, feeling like crying for the first time in years.

---

Chapter 17

Keith's room in the palace didn't look too dissimilar to Natani's, and in fact one could be forgiven for confusing the rooms' interiors, as they were designed to be practically identical. A large bed, three narrow windows overlooking the main part of the island and the harbor, a large trunk for storage and two well-sized dressers pushed against the back wall. The general's room was also outfitted with a small meeting table, likely since King Adelaide figured that Keith might need it given his position and contacts. It wasn't anything too special: simply a small round wooden table, painted white and outfitted with two chairs and placed next to the three windows. In his honest opinion, it looked like it was tossed into the room at the last moment, like he could have exchanged rooms with Natani, taken the table with him and nobody would have been the wiser. But it served its purpose as a meeting spot, and that was all he really cared about at the moment.

The Basitin was currently sitting in one of the chairs, leaning in it such that the front two legs were off the ground and his long, slender tail could provide additional support. He tried to dress nicely, though not nearly as formally as he had to for yesterday's audience. Instead of his full, black and red military uniform, he went with something that had a little more importance to him: his father's old battle uniform. It was hard for Keith to formulate a simple opinion about it. The memories contained in the faded, deep aquamarine outfit and scratched, polished steel shoulder piece ranged from happy to sad, angry to relaxed, romantic to nostalgic, and a myriad of other spectrums Keith couldn't begin to properly label. His father was an old Arms General when Keith was born, and was arguably the most prolific one to date. He was an honorable and sincere man, and despite his flaws, he was revered by almost everybody on the island, both Eastern and Western halves.

Keith glanced over at the missing piece of the outfit, the tinny, one piece helmet that hung on his bed's corner post. He considered putting it on for a minute or two, just to fully immerse himself in his past exploits on the main continent, but then decided against it. He actually was expecting company to be arriving soon, and, given the subject matter, the last thing he wanted to do was come off as unprepared, uninterested or anything of the sort. Though he did make a small mental note to slip "Old Buckety" back on at some point and reflect for a few moments.

The knock finally came from one of the sergeants stationed outside his room, and the door squeaked open as the guard spoke through it. "General Keiser?"

"Has he arrived yet?" Keith asked back.

"He's right here, sir," the sergeant responded, and in walked the abrasive councilor from yesterday. The war hawk, as Keith called him now. The imposter. To his credit, his acting was very nice, and had he not set up that recording crystal that tipped off Sythe he probably would have gotten away with it too. It was well played, but not well concealed, and Keith had requested this meeting to say exactly that.

"Afternoon, General," the visitor greeted, coldly, like this meeting was a major inconvenience to something.

Keith nodded back and raised his voice for the guard again. "Sergeant, seal the room. Anything you hear from here until he leaves is top secret. Direct orders." The last part was important; Basitins, especially the Eastern ones, followed a biological compulsion to follow orders from higher authority. This ensured that the meeting's privacy would not be breached.

"Yes, sir," the sergeant responded, closing the door behind the councilor, leaving only him and Keith in the room.

The visitor waited for the click of the lock before he began speaking. "Now what's all this about, sir?" he grouchily asked, crossing his arms.

"First thing you can do is drop that illusion you're wearing," Keith ordered, letting the first two legs of his chair drop back to the ground.

The councilor blinked in annoyed confusion. "Sorry, sir?"

"We both know you have one on, and I'd like for this to be as open as possible," Keith elaborated, not taking his eyes off of the councilor for a moment. "Go ahead. Nobody but me will know who you are."

The visitor scowled at Keith, but then bowed his head and smiled out of the corner of his mouth. "How'd you figure it out?" he said as he removed the ring on his right hand, a dim green glow abounding in the center stone.

"Natani. He fired off a detection spell while you were talking with Sythe yesterday," Keith explained as the other Basitin started to draw power out of the ring. "It's a shame I can't use magic. It sounds really useful."

"So I can safely assume that..." the councilor started to say, pointing towards the room's walls.

"Nobody's watching or listening right now," Keith responded, blankly yet calmingly.

"Good," the visitor replied as he finished the incantation. The Basitin began to dissolve away from the feet up as his fur changed complexion from a flat grey to a thick, patterned black and white. The long tail was truncated slightly and became significantly bushier, fully fading into black save for the white tip. The dank, brown eyes also gave way to a bright grey, similar in hue to Natani's, or at least one of them. His proportions didn't change much as far as his middle-range height and slender physique were concerned, so his current wardrobe, an informal short-sleeved forest green shirt and brown pants, didn't have many problems adapting to his actual self.

The visitor sighed with relief as his true form finally worked its way through the illusionary disguise. Keith felt relatively confident in saying that this was yet another Forest Wolf before him, though he had to admit that he was not entirely convinced, seeing as how almost every one he had met beforehand was some shade of brown or grey. He disregarded it, though, and let the Keidran finish doing away with the illusion.

"That's better," the wolf said in a more natural, even tone that would have come off as rather soothing had it been under different circumstances. He strode over to the other chair and stopped to bow reverently before his host. "We were never properly introduced, I don't think."

"No, and yet you seem to know who I am," Keith observed, shifting his posture and leaning on the table with his elbows.

"Everyone knows who you are, General Keiser," the wolf responded, spinning the chair a half revolution and then sitting down, his arms resting on what was supposed to be the support for his back. "Son of the late great Cornelius Keiser, first Ambassador General to the Basidian Isles in its history, you uprooted a Templar plan that could have ruined the Basitin race as we know it. I mean, come on, man," he toothily grinned. "That's a pretty shiny resume, if I may say so."

"That'd be a little more meaningful if I knew who you were," Keith indifferently said back, flattery aside.

"Domino, General," the Keidran answered. "I lead up a little group of mercs called The Fang. Heard of us?"

"First time I have."

"Oh, brother, have you been missing out," Domino shook his head, talking like him and Keith were old friends. "We do everything. Actually, you know what? Imma write to a smithy friend of mine once we're done here. See if he can't do you more justice than that..." Domino waved a hand in front of him, trying to motion towards Keith's apparel while also trying to hold back a laugh. "...whatever you call that mess, right?"

"That's my dad's armor, thank you," Keith defended, eyes narrowing. Not out of distaste for Domino, though that would have been an equally valid reason given his mannerisms. This was for concentration. The wolf was trying to get into his head, disorient him, push an agenda of some sort. Keith wasn't going to allow it, not today. Familial insults were a common tactic when dealing with these types of people, since they tended to be particularly antagonizing. The solution was not to linger on it, and Keith stopped paying it mind soon after.

"Ah, gotcha," Domino clicked his tongue, snapping his fingers and pointing at Keith. "Sentimental value. I hear you. Still, let me give my man..."

"Why were you at the hearing and why were you so bent on trying to get us involved?" Keith directed, trying to stop the wolf from wasting any more time than he already had.

"Jeesh, General, you always this serious?" Domino raised an eyebrow. "I mean, all work and no play and all that."

Keith didn't justify that question with a response, and instead let Domino restart the talk. He finally did after another small grin. "I'm a businessman, General. I deal in weapons and soldiers, and make some pretty nice money for my efforts."

"You're avoiding my question," Keith interrupted. Maybe the secret to talking to this Keidran was to keep him on topic.

"Here's some trivia for you," Domino continued, like Keith never said a thing. "The Forest Wolves have one of the largest Keidran armies in the world. My people have been supplying them with over two-fifths of their military supplies for the past five years. You want to know why that is?"

"I'll humor you and say yes," Keith sighed.

"Contrary to those lies the Templars spit out on a regular basis, us Forest Wolves are not 'war hungry' or anything like that. We're aggressive, sure, but we don't pick fights without a reason. That's why we've been ahead of the pack for so long; our stuff's never had a chance to be used."

The wolf looked up at the ceiling for a moment, seemingly lost in thought. "So when we see something like what's happening between us and the Humans, it's in our interests to see if we can't..." Domino paused and put a hand to his jaw, thinking on how he could finish his thought. "...catalyze the process."

"You're trying to start a war, aren't you?"

"No. We're not starting a war, General. Because it's already been started. That's what the Humans did when they started sending in Templars to burn villages and kill families," Domino clarified. Keith noticed that he had stopped smiling when he asked that question, and his visage had become palpably more grave. "We are simply providing the tools to end it."

"Why would the Basitins support the Forest Wolves after I get attacked by a hit squad they sent?"

"Never said they would," Domino replied, renewing that familiar, smug smirk. "And sorry about that, by the way. No hard feelings, right?"

"If we aligned with the Humans, the Forest Wolves would be annihilated. I think you know that, too," Keith pointed out, the wolf's lack of care reaching distressing levels.

"Well, it'd be nice if the home team won, sure. But it's all about economics. More war, more weapons, more soldiers," Domino nodded and clicked his tongue again at Keith, rubbing his fingers together. "Yeah, I think you know where I'm going with this."

"You're insane," Keith finally spat out his thoughts. He normally would have saved such opinion for when he was alone, but this time his emotions got the better of him slightly.

"Wrong again," Domino crooned. "I'm not insane. Insane people aren't nearly as successful as I am."

"If you can count that verdict a 'success,'" Keith countered. "Sorry to hear that your war's been put off to next month."

"I'd say it could've gone worse, actually," Domino returned with another smirk. "For both of us. And so, here we are. Two great minds battling and yet lacking the means to defeat the other. It's beautiful, if you're into that kind of thing."

Keith glared back at Domino, and leaned forward on the table more than he already was. He would have likely toppled it had he pressed on it any harder. "You know I'm not going to let you do this," he threateningly rumbled at his adversary.

"Except that you don't really have a choice at the moment, do you?" Domino replied, resting his head on his fist. "What can you possibly bag me for right now? Impersonating a government official? I just slip the disguise back on and nobody's around to take it off. I know you, General Keiser. You'd love to arrest me right here and now, but we both know you don't have a lick of evidence against me, and don't have any way to get it." Then his ears jumped up almost immediately after he said that. "Save for your friend, though. What's his name, Nathaniel or something along those lines..."

"What does Natani have to do with any of this?" Keith snapped back.

"There we go, Natani," Domino pointed at Keith again as he repeated the name. "And nothing, General. I've no interest in him. For now at least."

Keith's glare intensified once more, as the mercenary stood up from his chair. "So, assuming that we're done here, and it sounds like we are, I think I need to take care of a couple things around the parliament. If you'd excuse me, sir," he politely requested as he invoked the power of his ring, preparing his Basitin disguise again. Keith continued to stare past the chair and towards the back wall, as if Domino never stood up.

Domino gave Keith a curious glance as he finished the incantation and the magic got to work. "I must have hit a nerve with that last sentence," he noted as his fur receded back to the light, monochrome grey from when the meeting began.

Keith turned his head back to the slowly changing wolf. "I can accept you wanting to set the world on fire, Domino. I can accept the fact I'll have to fight you in order keep my people out of this conflict." The Basitin stood up and slowly paced over to his counterpart, the blank yellow-eyed leer intensifying by the second. "But this is solely between you and me. Nobody else. You are going to leave Natani out of this."

Domino flashed a toothy, diabolical grin in response, as the disguising magic finished concealing him. "Uh oh, someone's getting protective," he melodically responded. "I already told you, he's not important to me," he repeated, then turned back for the door. He made a few paces towards it, then stopped himself and turned around, a finger in the air.

"Though, I will say this about my plans," Domino clarified, the smile still plastered on his face like it had been painted on somehow. "From what I've heard, you seem to be under the delusion that I only have one version of them."

Keith's eyes went wide for a change, and blinked at the wolf in Basitin's clothing. "What are you saying?" he coldly asked, trying not to appear any more concerned than he had to.

"Oh, dear. You seriously thought that tripping me up at the hearing was going to be the end of this, didn't you?" Domino pitifully asked, shutting his eyes and shaking his head disappointedly as he turned back for the door.

"What are you going to do?" Keith demanded, composure quickly disintegrating into terrorized panic, his usually calm and impartial demeanor starting to fail him.

"During my time here, I noticed that all of you Basitins love your laws," Domino continued, knocking on the doors to signal the end of the meeting. "Seriously, there's one for almost everything with you: decency, curfew, living areas. I wouldn't be surprised if I found out your laws had laws!"

The clicking lock retracted and the sergeant pushed open the door for Domino to exit. The disguised wolf continued to look at Keith, surreptitiously, as he started through the doorway, and then finished his thought once he was about halfway through.

"If there's one thing you people need more than anything right now, it's a good dose of chaos," Domino smirked at the general. "And I'm thinking I'm just the man for the job." He respectfully nodded at Keith one final time, before entering the hallway and permitting the sergeant to let the door slide shut.

---

Domino waltzed out of the palace's front doors and started dancing downhill across the tan gravel walkway, towards the Parliament. Well, maybe he couldn't be as enthused as he wanted to be without breaking character and drawing attention, but that didn't mean he couldn't celebrate a little bit on the inside. That little meeting with General Keiser went splendidly. His cover wasn't blown, since almost nobody on the island could ever see through his disguise. He could get away with practically anything, since almost nobody would ever suspect him. And, perhaps most importantly, he could set the entirety of his Plan B into motion, since nobody would ever notice him doing so.

Which was the main reason why he was trekking back to his quarters in the Upper Residential District with all due haste. There was no time to lose now. Almost everything was ready: he just had finish the recipe, divide it up, set the fuses, transport them down to the basement of Parliament, then run like a maniac and watch the fireworks. He passed through the main exterior gates of the palatial courtyard, turned his head to make sure the watch was not watching him, then jumped for joy, tapping his heels together in midair. Then quickly jammed his hands back into his pockets and continued to casually stroll down the walkway, like nothing had ever happened.

Domino did not consider himself, by dictionary standards, evil. He just knew what he wanted, and was taking the steps necessary to obtain it. Standard business practice, the foundation for everything he did in life. The Wolves and Humans having a scuffle? The Fang a bit strapped for cash coming into the early middle of summer? Ramp it up into a full-scale fight and become the official sponsor for it. Phase two follows from phase one, and as soon as Domino managed to get everyone he could behind the war banner, then all he had to do was sit back, maybe open up a bottle of beer and cook off a bratwurst and enjoy the show.

The Parliament building came up on his right, and Domino slowed his pace to about half speed. The Basitins may have been law bound zealots who couldn't light a match without breaking some sort of code, but if they did one thing well, they knew how to make things look nice. Case in point, the Parliamentary Botanical Garden. Domino had only been to the interior courtyard a few times during his stay here, but he loved coming by whenever he could. Maybe a celebratory promenade through there was in order. Yes, that was not a bad idea at all. Not insinuating that Domino ever came up with bad ideas. There was no such thing as a bad idea, simply flawed execution, and he was yet to disappoint in that respect.

The wolf pivoted on his right foot, about to take the side entrance to the garden, until he noticed somebody else coming up the pathway out of the corner of his eye. His left foot froze halfway through his step as, whoever this person was, rapidly walked in his general direction. The newcomer drew closer, the outline slowly becoming more and more clear. Indeed, it was one of his counterparts. General Keiser's friend. Domino set his foot down gently and kindly addressed the Keidran as he approached.

"Ah, good afternoon, Mister..." he paused for effect, even though he knew the name well. "...Natani, was it?"

"Aufero illusio," the mage angrily incanted. Domino blinked back, wondering what in the world all that was about, then innocently looked back down at the ground. He noticed that something was off about his feet. They were normal. Like the illusion he was sporting was completely removed...

Mostly because it was. Domino blankly looked back up at Natani, as if she had committed a social faux pas of some kind. "That wasn't nice," was all he managed to say before his lower jaw heavily impacted the other wolf's right fist. Natani also grabbed the collar of his shirt with her free hand, and forcibly escorted Domino to the Parliament's grey brick wall. She then spun him around, grabbed him by both shoulders and pinned him against it, all the while leering at him with disgust.

Domino turned his head to the side and wiped his cheek against his shirt, cleaning his face off at the expense of a thin red smear at the shoulder. "For some reason, I don't think this is how we usually greet each other," he chortled. Even when he was in a spot like this, he always tried to remain positive, with a cheerful demeanor and a smile on his face.

To Natani, however, this simply came off as wisecracking. "You're pretty damn smug for someone trying to start a war, Dom," she hissed.

"Domino, if you would," he corrected. "Only my mother gets to call me Dom."

He was rewarded with another punch to the left side of his mouth. Natani stopped caring for logic and reason the moment she found out that Domino was the one who tried to kill her and Keith. This man was the focus of all of her rage at present, and he would be on the receiving end of all of it for what he did.

Domino spat some blood over Natani's arm before smirking at her again. "Why's it always my left side with you? That's my good half!"

"You lost the right to talk to me when you tried to kill me," Natani seethed, pointing a finger just in front of the agent's nose.

"Well, if we want to be technical..." Domino started, raising a finger matter-of-factly.

"Shut up!" Natani rammed another fist into his abdomen, near the kidneys. Domino hunched over momentarily as he recovered from the pain, breathing heavily to keep his mind focused. Natani released her other hand's grasp on his shoulder as well, as Domino collapsed onto his knees, onto the short grassy area directly in front of the wall. She turned her back to the wolf, taking a small step away from him, trying to decompress and relieve what remained of her emotions.

"I think I like talking to the Basitin more," Domino called out to the mage, still trying to recuperate from the recent onslaught. "At least he doesn't beat you senseless without giving you a chance to say something."

"You talk way too much," Natani growled over her shoulder.

"What exactly were you trying to accomplish with this, if I can ask?" Domino grinned, cringing in pain slightly. "If this was simply for intimidation, I've been through much worse, trust me."

"You were coming from the palace. Why?" Natani barked.

"Your friend, the general, wanted to talk was all. Completely harmless, nothing personal, just some friendly banter. That was it."

Natani turned back to him and squatted down, leering at the smirking, bloodied wolf with contempt. Domino started talking again, licking the small bleeding stream out of the corner of his mouth. "Now don't look at me like that. Your friend's fine. I mean, after all, killing him now gives me nothing, and you know how we are about that kind of thing."

Domino chuckled to himself again as well. "Besides, you forgot. I'm trying to get a war started. If he just drops dead for no reason, then without me it's just another murder case in the long run. No intrigue, no tension, no anything. And really, where's the fun in that?"

"So you starting a war, threatening to kill a general, all of this is just for fun?" Natani coldly repeated.

"No, not in the slightest," Domino replied. "Actually, this is how most of my business gets done. You'd be amazed at what some people can do for the right money. In fact, you're probably already on board with all that jazz, aren't you? You know exactly what I'm talking about."

The assassin yanked a dagger out of her belt and held it in front of her. "I am not like you," she firmly stated.

"I beg to disagree," Domino retorted, toothily smiling. "You take a contract from your employer, you run out, you kill, capture or do whatever you need to do to fill it, and you get a nice little stash at the end as a reward. Me, I'm doing exactly that as well. I just happen to be on a much larger scale."

"An indiscriminate one," Natani spat back. "Zen and I only kill who we need to."

"Again, much like me," Domino pointed out. "I'd like you to think for a second, Natani. About the Templars. About what they have done to you and your brother."

"That's personal!" Natani snarled, gripping the leather wrappings around her knife harder.

"I've read all about you, girlie. Your parents, that life-saving operation your brother put himself through for you, oh yes. I know you just as well as you know me."

"Shut up!" Natani yelled again. Domino thought he saw a small tear come out of one of her eyes as well, and he grinned triumphantly.

"I know how you feel about the Templars," Domino continued, dropping his voice to a soft, serpentine whisper. "You were one of their direct victims, too. Think about all of the anguish they caused you. All the pain and suffering you and your brother went through all those years alone. And think of how satisfying it's going to feel when, with the flick of a switch, I can fix everything."

And then Natani did something she hadn't done in a long time. She finally snapped. "You son of a...!" she screamed lunging at Domino with the blade, in a fit of pure bloodlust and rage, sorely wanting his blood to spill somewhere...

Her hand stopped just in front of the wolf's sternum, and she wasn't quite sure why for a moment. Until a bolt of pain jolted through her arm as she involuntarily twisted her hand around and tossed the blade into the air, spinning like a parade baton. Domino scoffed as his eyes followed the dagger's upward journey, impressed by his own disarming skills. Then, with his free hand, he snatched the knife out of the air, and pointed the tip just underneath Natani's muzzle, smirking as always, exactly as planned.

"Please," Domino sighed as he raised an eyebrow. "Don't ever threaten me like that again." He casually glanced down at Natani's wrist as well, which he still tightly held in his right hand. His thumb was jammed right against the long nerve running up her wrist, which forced it open to begin with. He also noticed the hand was turned at a most peculiar angle as well, one that probably couldn't be achieved through normal means.

"Might want to get that wrist looked at too," he advised, tapping the lower part of Natani's arm with the flat part of the hijacked knife. Natani let out a sharp yelp of pain in response, grimacing as her adversary innocently tortured her. "Sorry in advance if I broke it."

He curiously inspected the blade, rotating it, observing it at various angles. It was nothing special, just a normal assassin's knife. Steel, with heavy leather wrapped around the handle to make it easier to grip. Natani wasn't sure what he saw in the rudimentary weapon, but it seemed to please him nevertheless, as he spun the blade around in his hand and then slipped it between his pants and the brown belt holding it up. "Nice knife," he commented. "You won't mind if I hold onto this for a bit, do you?"

"Keep it," Natani barked back, still grimacing from the fractured bones in her hand. "Those things are cheap and common. I can always find a replacement."

"I see," Domino nodded, taking the knife back out, making Natani wonder why he even bothered with putting it away to begin with. "Well, then on that note..."

Natani was momentarily blinded by the bright sunlight jumping off of the weapon, but she knew exactly where it was a second later as yet another uncomfortable sensation sliced through her arm. A small grunt later her vision was restored, and noticed that Domino's newly acquired knife now had a distinct, wet red edge that wasn't there earlier.

"I think this has a little more value now," Domino diabolically cackled, admiring the beauty of the wolf's blood decorating the knife's edge. He tossed Natani's busted wrist off to the side as he stood himself back up, now leaving the other wolf on her knees instead. "Should you ever have second thoughts about my little project, please don't hesitate to find me. I'd love to have you."

"You're a real bastard, Domino," Natani huffed, glaring at the other wolf. She would have loved to continue this fight further, but there was only so much an assassin could do with one hand, especially her non-dominant one. Words were really her only weapons at the moment, and they couldn't do much more than slow him down at this point.

Domino turned back to face Natani, towering over her like a statue. "If you're not happy with my plans, then I understand. I've no reservations about our relationship as is." His ears jumped up as he got an idea. "Wait, I know what we can do together! How about we make this a wager?" he proposed, inspecting the bloodied knife again. "Next time we meet, we'll fight, just like we did today. If you can steal this knife away from me, I'll call it quits and it'll be just like nothing happened. No war, no subversion, no anything. Life as usual. Sound good?"

He smiled warmly, clicking his tongue twice, then turned away from Natani and began to walk back down the road, towards his temporary residence. The assassin scowled back at him. "Hey!" she called after him, standing up by herself as well. "It isn't a bet if you don't stand to win something."

Domino halted to turn his head back to Natani. "You forgot that I'm a businessman, Mr. Natani," he chortled back. "I don't make bets I don't intend to lose, and once I win, there'll be nothing else for me to gain." And at that, he began strolling down the gravel path once more, cheerfully waving goodbye to his newly found rival.

---

Chapter 18

Blitz threw his head back with the glass, then raised it in front of Kayle, flipped it over and slapped it back onto the bar. "Hit me again," he requested, sliding it towards his niece.

Kayle hesitantly obliged as she corrected the glass and refilled it halfway with imported rum. "Uncle, you need to slow down. You know we don't have a high alcohol tolerance."

"I don't really care about that right now, sweetheart," he grumbled, grabbing the glass and swirling the shot around in it. "I've a...more important things on the mind."

Kayle rested both of her elbows on the bar. "I think you overreacted today," she scolded, but in a caring, almost motherly way. "Just because you didn't agree with Clovis..."

"It's not that I don't agree with him, it's why," Blitz pointed out. "He's gonna let an island nation explode just for the sake of continuing this job covertly. And I'm not gonna be a part of it." He tossed the shot back and slapped the glass back onto the bar. "Again," he ordered.

Night had fallen upon the wolf capital about an hour and a half ago, and MacMillan's was completely empty save for the two Foxes. The pub's vacancy was chiefly due to the fact that it was supposed to be closed by this time, and Kayle would normally be locking up for the night. With Blitz here, however, her entire routine would have to be put off until later. She hadn't even locked the front door yet, and she felt relatively confident that there would be at least one person who wouldn't see the sign, sit down on one of the stools and wonder why Kayle was ignoring him.

And that answer would be because she was currently occupied with her uncle. Kayle took the glass back from Blitz and started to tip the decanter into it, but not permitting any of the liquor to flow out of the mouth. Her hand twitched slightly for a second, and then she blinked and set the bottle back down. "Uncle, I can't," she sighed with depression. "This isn't like you."

"Kayle, I've had one hell of a day and I need to get my mind off of Clovis," Blitz replied as he shut his eye and massaged his forehead.

"Fine. I get that. This isn't the solution, though," the vixen stated. "The Blitz I know would go right back in there and demand he change his mind."

"He's not going to, is the problem," Blitz mumbled back. "He's so convinced that he needs to keep this a secret that he's actually afraid to make it public."

"Don't say you don't understand where he's coming from," Kayle responded. "We both know you don't exactly have the world's most legal occupation. I'd be surprised if anyone of the law takes a spy and a contract killer seriously."

"I don't have a problem with killing, sweetheart, but I do have a problem with unnecessary killing. Innocent killing. And that's exactly what that bastard's about to do," Blitz quickly snapped back. "Even if the police arrest me, they're not going to ignore a terrorism threat as big as this one is. They can help, as much as Clovis wants to tell himself otherwise."

"I'm not agreeing with Clovis, but you have to realize we're really out of the way to do anything about this."

"Then they'll find a mage or something, some way to get over there and stop this. They can stop this."

"Uncle, you're starting to scare me," Kayle softly replied. "You're thinking too much about this."

"Kayle, you're not listening to me. People. Are going. To die," the older fox enunciated, tapping the bar with his finger with each sentence. "I need to figure this out, and not sometime soon, but now."

He was interrupted by a knock on the pub's front door, and he slammed both of his hands onto the bar. Kayle jumped in surprise, never seeing Blitz react so violently to something like that. "Get the hell out of here! We're closed!" he exploded, trying to frighten away whoever was outside.

"I can see the sign just fine. I wanted to talk to you," Zen called back through the door. "Mind if I come in?"

Blitz sighed to himself, annoyed that he let himself get that jumpy, and rested his head back in both of his hands. "Dammit," he sighed to himself.

"It's unlocked, Zen," Kayle announced as she put the liquor back on the shelf behind her and started to clean her uncle's glass.

The door creaked open, jingling the tiny bell near the top corner, as Zen entered the shut down pub. He flicked the moistened hood of his shirt off of his head and wicked some of the excess rainwater off of the sleeves.

"Still raining?" Kayle curiously asked, as she ducked behind the counter.

"It hasn't let up all day," Zen answered as he dripped over to the stool adjacent to his old comrade and sat himself down. "Supposed to clear up for tomorrow, but still. It's very wet."

Kayle popped back up with a white dishtowel and handed it over to the wolf. "What's Clovis been up to?"

"He's trying to figure out what we're going to do about the bomb threat. Natani's gone quiet too, so we'll have to run the plan by him as soon as we can get in touch," Zen updated the foxes as he dried off whatever he could with the loaned towel.

"You waited this long to tell him?" Blitz exclaimed.

"He's been blocking me out ever since I left the manor. Didn't have much of a choice," Zen explained.

"And somehow this isn't a problem?"

"I looked at the blueprints again with Clovis. For something that reactive, Domino can't just toss everything into a pot and hope it works. He's going to need time to make sure it's ready. So no. We have until tomorrow. At least."

Blitz blinked and rubbed his hands over his face. "Remind me to buy your brother some flowers or something once this fiasco's over, eh?" he groaned. "He's been saving hides way too many times."

Zen laughed a bit. "Nat's not really a big flower guy, but I'll tell him you're thinking of him," he replied, handing the damp towel back to Kayle, who walked it over to the nearby sink and started to wring it dry.

Blitz spun in his chair to look directly at Zen. "You're not here just to chat, are you?" he rhetorically asked, leaning on the bar with his right arm.

Zen silently huffed as he brought up the main topic. "Clovis wants you back on the job."

"Yeah, we all want a lot of things," Blitz cynically spat back.

"He says he's sorry for lashing out like he did, and he's trying to think up a plan for Natani right now." Well, maybe that first part was a little fallacious. Clovis never apologized for anything, at least not whenever Zen was around to see it. But maybe it would help get his partner back on his side.

"He's gonna need more than an apology if he wants me back," the fox answered, spinning back around to address the bartender. "Uh, Kayle?"

"I'm not giving you anything more to drink tonight," she asserted as she used the towel from earlier to clean up a few spots on the bar.

"Not even some tap water?" he asked.

"That's different," she replied, hanging up the towel to dry and grabbing a tall glass from down below.

"Blitz, look, I'm not here to tell you that you're wrong. Because you aren't," Zen started to explain.

"Good to see two people agree with me at least," the Polar Fox grumbled as Kayle dropped off the water glass in front of him. "So then why are you trying to get me back with Clovis?"

Zen opened his mouth to answer, but then Blitz put a hand up and kept talking. "No, scratch that. Here's a better question. Why are you still with Clovis, if you think I had the right idea?"

Zen took a deep breath, trying to make sure he knew what he was saying. He wished that he did. Blitz brought up a great point. Zen wasn't completely on board with the half-fox's plans either. And it was a little upsetting how little Clovis seemed to care for the Basitins in their initial exchange. Blitz's question didn't need an answer in that regard. So then what was Zen still doing with him? Apart from Natani's safety, did he really care about anything else that happened?

No, that couldn't have been it. Zen might have been tough with some people in the past, but even he knew when he was being excessively cruel. This wasn't just about his brother any more. This was also about his friends. Their friends. Zen wasn't about to leave anybody behind, and he wasn't about to let anybody die either. But that still left the question of why he still bothered working with Clovis? Was the contract? Maybe psychologically, sure, but Zen tried to think of a better reason than that.

Or, maybe, it could have been...

"Just because I think you're right, Blitz, doesn't mean I think that Clovis is wrong," he finally spoke up. "I don't want to see anybody else die, believe me, but we have to make sure our work up to now isn't for nothing."

Blitz took a small sip out of the water glass. "It's good to see you're trying to get a compromise out of this, but it's not going to work like that. We can't have one with the other."

"Really? Because Clovis is working on doing exactly that."

"You'd understand if I'm not biting on that," Blitz sipped out of the glass again, disinterestedly.

"I went through the file again, more specifically the stuff you didn't get to before...you know," Zen informed, trying not to make the recent fight any more sore than it already was. "We're not nearly as alone as you think we are."

For the first time tonight, Blitz finally found this talk intriguing. "What do we have? Another contact?"

"His name's Sythe, spelt without the 'c' for some reason. Not sure why Nat never told me he was on the island with him, but that's not important. He got sent to that hearing the day before to represent the Forest Wolves and try to defend them."

"What do you mean by represent?" Kayle asked. Blitz shot a confused glance her direction. Normally she didn't put herself into conversations like this, but the Polar Fox was slightly impressed that she was keeping up to speed on their happenings.

"He has family in the right places. So when they heard Keith got attacked and the Basitins would probably start pointing fingers at them, they sent Sythe out to try and calm them down."

Blitz took another sip of water as Zen continued briefing him on the new findings. "And you'll never guess who caught wind of it as well."

"The Fang?" Kayle asked.

"Well, of course. He found Sythe in the packet. Zen wouldn't have figured out he was there otherwise," Blitz added. "Right?"

"Partially," Zen said, clearing his throat. "Nat never brought him up, but I had a good idea he was with him for a bit."

"Can I ask how?" the bartender kindly inquired, leaning onto the bar again.

"Well, uh," Zen started, again unsure of how to tell this story. "Blitz, remember when I told you about Domino spying on the hearing?"

"Yeah, your brother thought he had an illusion on him, right? Why?" he asked, lifting the water glass again.

Zen cleared his throat again, multiple times in fact, before answering: "A squirrel may have tipped me off."

Both Blitz and Kayle stared disbelievingly, narrowly at the wolf for a second. "A squirrel?" the two foxes asked in unison, making sure they caught that correctly.

"Please don't ask, it's a long story," Zen shook his head in embarrassed disappointment. "Shortly, Sythe is the only guy I know who has a pet squirrel and could possibly coerce someone like the Basitins into letting him take it into Parliament with him. So there you go."

Kayle blinked. Blitz accidentally tipped some of the water onto his pant leg. "A squirrel?" they repeated synchronously.

"Yes, a squirrel. Can we stop saying that, please?" Zen requested.

"Sorry," Kayle smiled, shutting her eyes. "Needed a few seconds to work that through."

"I'll deal with it later," Blitz commented, brushing the spilled water off of his pants. "So, this Sythe guy's with the government, huh?"

"Clovis has been trying to use Natani to put the bug in his ear since I left," Zen responded, confidently. "With any luck, we'll get the right people involved and, worse comes to worst, minimize any casualties."

Blitz also noticed the wolf digging around in his shirt pocket for something as he talked. "So, until that little problem gets sorted, or at least until Domino has to come back here, looks like we're pretty much back to where we started," he stated, as he extracted a small black cloth bundle out of his shirt and slid it across the bar to Blitz.

"You left that in Clovis' office earlier," Zen observed, as Blitz untied the small knot in the cloth and opened it up. Inside was the worn, grey-painted casing of Blitz's favorite butterfly knife, neatly collapsed and tied up in what the Polar Fox now realized was his lucky bandana. He picked the collapsed knife up gently between his thumb and first two fingers, slowly inspecting the loved blade.

"So what do we do now?" Blitz asked, softly.

"Clovis was playing with the idea of going on another intel raid. Maybe find out some more about Domino and what exactly his next move is once he's finished on the island," Zen informed. "I'm going to need a co-op, though. Natani's on the other side of the globe, and Clovis is, well, Clovis."

The fox flipped the knife open expertly with his hand, and casually looked over the blade itself. Kayle turned back to Zen as her uncle admired his keepsake. "No hard feelings between us and Clovis?" she asked, with a welcome, lighthearted grin.

"Well, Blitz did try to assault him. Said that'd be reflected in his holiday bonus this year," Zen jocularly replied, succeeding in also finally getting an enthused smile out of the older of the two foxes. "You said a few days back that trust isn't an easy thing to build up. With you, Blitz, it's pretty damn hard to tear down too."

Blitz finished inspecting his knife, and then clicked and snapped it shut in a series of maneuvers Zen couldn't even try to replicate. The fox slipped his weapon back into his trouser pocket, then looked back at Zen, determinedly, as he picked up the solid black bandana and tied it off around his neck.

Zen leaned both of his elbows back on the bar, smiling to himself. "So, you want to get to work?"

The white-furred Keidran gave his response by simply pulling the bandana back over his lower face, the lone, icy blue eye saying everything that had to be said.

But, just in case there was any confusion: "Yeah, ready when you are," Blitz acknowledged. "Mate."

---

"A bomb? You're serious?" Natani repeated in bewilderment as Clovis inspected her arm. Despite being almost everything on the Quantum being made out of wood, at least it was good soundproofing material when the doors to the rooms were shut. She didn't mind so much if Keith managed to catch a word or two, nor would she be surprised with those long, large ears of his. But as far as Mike, Evals, or Gods forbid if somehow Domino was concerned, she preferred these issues be discussed where they couldn't drop in on them. Exactly why Clovis demanded they meet in her room, then, was a mystery, considering that, with the busted door, it currently had all the privacy of an outhouse with floor to ceiling windows. She managed to make do by shutting whatever remained of the door and then stuffing a blanket into the hole where the doorknob should have been. Far from ideal, but it would suffice for now.

Her only other gripe involved the person she was talking to at present. If she was going to use the mental link to discuss something as sensitive as a bomb threat, she'd rather it be from Zen. Much, much rather. Despite holding a grudge against Clovis for simply being Clovis and trying to milk the two brothers for every single coin he could, there was also the matter of his mannerisms that put the younger wolf off. The half-fox could be reciting a battle speech from a hundred years ago and he still wouldn't be able to manage that without sounding patronizing, undignified or just smugly superior. Usually a combination of all three.

That was just her being bitter though. And in fact, it actually looked like Clovis was trying to help her, taking a closer look at her wounded arm from earlier while Natani sat on the edge of her bed. Maybe if she just tried to picture him as Zen with a voice change...

"Quite, and I regret having a conversation like this with you at this hour. You are a terribly hard person to get a hold of, you know that?"

Not working, or at least while he continued to talk like that.

"But enough of that for now. I'm more interested in how you managed to do this to yourself," Clovis continued, pointing up with his finger.

Natani cringed with displeasure as she obeyed, holding her arm out straight in front of her. "Ran into Domino a little earlier," she explained as Clovis resumed his examination. "Talk got a little philosophical."

"Do tell," Clovis invited, squeezing the arm's lower half at various points.

"He got to me emotionally, and I wanted to hurt him," Natani admitted. She hated when others made her act out of rage or anything else. "He disarmed me..."

"Almost literally, I see."

Natani snickered a bit. If there was any upside to talking with Clovis, at least he could make a decent joke every once in a while. "...then made a very, very strange bet with me after."

"How strange do you mean?"

"Next time we fight, he'll use my knife, and if I can steal it back from him, he'll drop everything about trying to start a war and go home."

The half-fox looked skeptically up at Natani. "And what if you can't?"

"Nothing," she answered. "He's so confident we can't get the better of him, he doesn't want anything if we lose."

Clovis thought about that for a moment, then went back to the arm. "There's a fine line between confidence and simply cocky arrogance. And this Domino fellow is almost certainly the latter."

"You're arrogant too, in a way, you know," Natani pointed out.

"That may be, but at least I know a bad deal when I see one."

The wolf blinked for a moment. "Did you just give me a compliment?" she asked in bewilderment, as the half-fox may have just said something that he almost never heard him say.

"If it makes you feel any better, then yes. I suppose I just did," Clovis chided with a clap of his hands. "Now, regarding that wrist. I have good news and bad. What would you like first?"

"Might as well start with the good."

"It isn't broken as much as it is dislocated, which means there's a very simple way to fix it."

"Does that mean the bad news is...?" Natani started to ask.

"Yes, do you have anything hard or firm you can bite on?" Clovis replied.

Natani thought about using her bag of crystals, but even in mass quantities they weren't all that sturdy. She glanced over at her dresser for ideas, and then got a workable one. "I have a few shirts I can probably chew on," she thought out loud.

"That'll do. We'll roll it up and tie it around your mouth like a gag. You'll thank me for this later," Clovis ordered as Natani rose to her feet.

"Most people generally get help for this kind of thing, right?" Natani pushed for clarification as she walked over to the dresser and opened up the middle drawer.

"Generally. Unless you'd like to try it out for yourself."

The wolf looked up pensively as she thought about who could help put her wrist back in place. "Keith is out talking to Sythe again, Mike would be way to squeamish to do this, and Evals is..." She stopped to find the right adjective for the dog at present. "...indisposed at the moment."

"Indisposed, how, exactly?" Clovis asked, perking an ear up from underneath his red hood.

"You don't want to hear the answer," Natani responded, and then looked back over her shoulder at the projection. "But then, it's just me, isn't it?"

"Not necessarily," Clovis answered. "But I will need to borrow you in order to do it."

Natani froze as she picked up a blank white short-sleeve as she heard that. It was one of the features of the mental link she didn't really care for and hated when it was used involuntarily. It pretty much involved Zen taking over her body for a few seconds and then jumping back out. He only ever used it with her consent and it wasn't for a long period of time either. Clovis, on the other hand, used something a bit more sneaky, whereby he could do that whether Natani felt like cooperating or not. It was a very fiendish backdoor trick he had integrated into the original mental link, and Natani despised the fact that it even existed. At least she should be thankful that Clovis hasn't used the exploit ever since her previous business with him concluded. Just the idea that he was even bringing it up though, was disconcerting.

"...if you don't like it, I'm going in anyways. Your arm is in dire need of repairs," the half-fox pushed.

There was something about this scenario, though, that kept Natani from severing the connection right now and just living with the pain. If this had been anything else, say, Clovis needed her body to steal a painting out of a museum or raid a bank, then that would have been her reaction almost immediately. Then it occurred to her, and even Natani had troubles taking it in.

"You want to help me?" she dubiously inquired.

"As I told you before, you don't have to like it, but your cooperation would be nice to have," Clovis smiled his practically trademarked crooked smile. "Also lessens the chances of your body rejecting me. You remember what happened last time."

"Distinctly," Natani muttered under her breath. She finished extracting her shirt and slammed the drawer shut, looking back at the grinning spymaster perched on her bed. She took the spot next to him. "Let's just get this over with."

"Ah, I know what this is about," Clovis crooned as he moved himself behind Natani, bringing himself up to a kneeling position. "You don't trust me doing this, do you."

"Do you want the truth or one of those little white lies that won't hurt your feelings?" Natani rhetorically questioned.

Clovis laughed to himself instead of answering. "You know me, Natani. You know that I like to keep my investments in good condition. My agents are not an exception."

He interlocked his fingers and pushed the palms of his hands outward, making a low, nearly inaudible crackling noise as he did so. "I implore you. Keep calm, relax, and breathe. I'll be done before you know it."

Natani took a deep breath, shut her eyes and let her mind go blank as Clovis' projection started to merge with her body. A very strange tingling sensation was felt in the back of her head, and she shuddered as it dispersed down her spine and through the rest of the nervous system. The feeling finally stopped as Natani's eyes, through no will of their own, jumped open, the one grey iris now dyed a bright, crimson red.

Her head looked around the room and her shoulders rotated as Clovis tried to get comfortable in her body. "I forgot how strange this feels," her mouth said after a bit, in Clovis' voice peculiarly. "It's...a good strange, though. I like it."

He looked at Natani's arm, curiously, now that he was doing it in first person, then set it gently back down on the bed. Clovis also looked back down at his new form's lower half, and once more started toothily grinning. "So this is what it's like being a woman," he thought out loud. Then his face lit up with a very mischievous idea. He took both of his hands, dug them underneath his new shirt, started to gently pull it up...

He got about halfway, just below Natani's bandages, before the body's left hand jumped back to life and socked the face squarely on the left cheekbone. Clovis exhaled loudly as the blow hit, and had this body been anybody else's he would have been quite surprised that it happened. He had these complications before when using Natani like this, when she would sporadically grab control of her body and complicate the possession. So far, this was going very normally.

"Alright, I probably deserved that one," he admitted, setting Natani's shirt back down.

And if that wasn't hurting me too, I'd still be pounding you, Natani mentally projected her protests against Clovis' behavior. Just because you have my body for a little bit...

"You're not amazing at taking jokes, I notice," Clovis chortled.

Look, can you stop messing around and fix my wrist? the wolf barked.

"Since you asked nicely," Clovis replied, tightly rolling up the shirt Natani had gotten out earlier. "This isn't going to be fun, by the way. I'll still feel some of it, since I'm the one in control, but you'll feel the majority, seeing as how this is your body in the end."

Didn't expect it any other way, Natani replied.

Clovis slipped the cloth into Natani's mouth, but didn't tie it off quite yet. "You sure you're ready for this?" he asked, despite the mouth he was speaking through being partially filled with cotton.

I'm no good with just one hand, Clovis. The sooner we do this the better.

"Just the response I was hoping for," Clovis grinned as he yanked the cloth gag back as far as he could and tied it off behind Natani's head, not exerting the right hand any more than he needed to. Once he assured the gag was tied off sufficiently, he lowered both of the wolf's arms and then grasped the right wrist with her left hand. The thumb ran parallel to the rest of the arm, ready to provide some additional torque for the operation, as the other four fingers rested perpendicular to the arm bone for support.

"Ohn hree?" Clovis requested through the cloth binding.

On three, the wolf agreed.

Clovis took a deep breath in, for the sake of Natani's body, and started the count. "Ohm...foo..." he announced before he gave the faulty wrist a violent twist upwards, like he was turning a wrench on a stubborn pipe. The nerves there were painfully jolted awake as the wrist bones cracked and popped on their journey back to their proper places. To the half-fox, it felt like he got stabbed in the hand by a hot fire poker. To the wolf, it was more on the magnitude of five pokers, about ten times as hot and with a wood saw grinding into the rest of her arm in addition.

Clovis bit hard into the shirt as he let the body fall backwards onto the bed. The procedure took less than two seconds, but the aftershocks lasted far longer. Natani's mental screams bordered on deafening, and despite Clovis' attempts to compartmentalize and block out the wolf's cries, even then the suppressed howls echoed inside his head. He continued to breathe deeply, evenly, trying not to leave Natani's body in any worse condition than he found it in.

The hot fire poker sensation finally passed through, and Clovis used the restored hand to wrestle the shirt off of Natani's mouth. Another long breath, followed by another toothy grin as he stared up at the quarter's ceiling for a few moments, lying down on the bed. "That was character building," he chuckled after a prolonged exhale.

He waited patiently for Natani to say something back to him. She did take the brunt of the pain after all; she would have needed much more time to recover from her share of it. A few seconds passed. A few more. The wolf didn't answer. "You still there?" the half-fox asked, professionally.

Next time we do something like that, Natani mentally panted. You need to tell me exactly how painful it's going to be.

"That of course implies that there's going to be a next time."

There won't be, Natani asserted.

"Oh, I see," Clovis slowly responded, as he looked back down the body currently hosting his psyche. "Well, then if that's the case..." he said, snaking a hand up the back of the shirt he was wearing and starting to pick at the bandaging there...

The wolf convulsed slightly in rejection and then yelled, "Get the hell out of there!" as Natani mentally kicked the spymaster out of the body, his projection flying out of the bed and onto the floor. Natani's eye returned to its natural, grey tone as she sat herself back up, flexing her hand comfortably.

Clovis leaned himself back up onto his lower arms as the wolf checked his work. "I get that it's just your personality and everything, but you never let me have any fun, do you?"

"You know damn well I'm touchy about that kind of stuff," she barked.

"And it's partially my job to ensure you haven't forgotten."

"Honestly, it isn't," Natani argued as she jumped back up off the bed and made her way to the door.

"Off to see your friend Sythe, I assume?" Clovis politely asked as he stood himself up off the floor. "I don't think he's quite up to speed yet as to where we are."

"Neither is Keith, and waiting for tomorrow gives Domino the advantage," Natani quickly answered. "What time is it over there?"

"It's pushing ten. And you're, what, two if not three behind me? Why do you ask?"

"I think I missed curfew. Damn," Natani swore, slamming a hand into the wooden doorframe defeatedly. She hung her head, but for no more than a couple of seconds. "No, this can't wait."

"You know you're in trouble the moment someone catches you, right?"

"I can't afford to sit on this, Clovis. If I don't tell Keith now and we cast off tomorrow knowing there's a live bomb in Parliament, then Domino wins. We have to tell him."

Clovis scoffed a bit in response. "Well, good luck to you then," he stated. "Stay out of sight, and please, don't do anything stupid."

Natani yanked her door open. "You really don't have a lot of confidence in me," she noted.

"None in the least. Now get out of here before I think you're making a mistake," Clovis shooed the wolf out of her room, waving both hands in front of him.

Natani nodded back and fast walked her way out of her quarters, dragging the door behind her. She halted abruptly, though, before the door closed all the way. "Oh, and Clovis?" she addressed the half-fox through the small opening. Clovis was about to cut the connection on his end, but waited to see what the wolf needed.

"Thanks," she quietly said to him. "About the wrist." The half-fox gave her another sly smile and a nod before the projection evaporated.

---

Chapter 19

Mike waddled down the ship's narrow corridor towards Evals' room, carrying at least twenty kilograms worth of spellbooks in his arms. That was another thing that got to him about his physical abilities; apart from him being rather short, he didn't have that much to go off of as far as strength was concerned either. The Fox Keidran body was designed for speed and elusiveness, a nice benefit to have when it came to rigging, climbing and other ship related upkeep. As far as moving heavy materials, however, he would have liked Evals around for some sort of assistance. His arms drooped further to the ground, and Mike stopped his trek, set the books down for a moment and tried to give his arms just a bit of a break.

Frankly, Mike just wanted the day to end. Essentially, everything he needed other people to do, namely Evals fixing Natani's door and Natani fixing Evals' gender, were never accomplished, while everything he didn't necessarily needed to get done at first, like sending Maddie on an impromptu mission to the local herbalist's, was. Somehow, today got all of his priorities backwards, and while that didn't cause him to admit defeat yet, he was annoyed by the idea that it was now late in the evening and he still had a ton of work to do. And since Natani couldn't help with Evals since her wrist was at an angle Mike didn't even know was possible to attain, she was in no position to be casting spells at the moment.

Which of course meant that it came to Mike himself to rectify the situation. Of course, he had no idea how mass dispels worked, since Natani only briefly brought it up earlier and then had to run off for...something. So that meant it was studying time, and Mike had grabbed all the material he could manage to fit into his arms for what was sure to be an aggressively boring evening.

He finally entered the galley, one of the very few rooms on the Quantum with a table large enough for his books, and tried to pick up the pace as he neared the resting point. He scooted one of the chairs out of the way with his foot, then, with a series of struggling grunts, lifted the book stack as high as he could manage in one last burst of strength, until the bottom was just above the table's lip. Mike quickly tried to put them down, hastily finishing his approach in an attempt to do so. The momentum and weight of the books carried him to the table. It also carried the fox over the table as well, resulting in him comically lying down on top of it, feet dangling off the edge and hands pinned down by the books' mass.

Mike tugged underneath the lowermost book, trying to slide his hand out from under it. He successfully liberated his right after a few yanks, then went for the left in a similar manner. He gave it a small pull, then stopped once he noticed the leaning tower of spellcasting starting to turn in response. Thinking fast, he elected to put his right hand near the top to support it, while still trying to free the other one in the meantime. He tried again, yanking with more force, and was pleased to see his left hand escaping the books' clutches. Mike sighed with relief, glad to see he had averted a crisis, and, ready to sit down and get cracking, moved his supporting hand off of the top of the tower...

Causing the entire library to continue leaning, towards the fox as he noticed posthumously, and then topple and collapse onto the sailor, burying him in an avalanche of intermediate spellcasting, mana theory and the history of the magical schools.

An echoing of padded footsteps came down the hall, as Natani urgently paced towards the A Deck stairs. She was armed to the teeth with a slew of throwing knives, short blades and a pouch stuffed with mana. She was out for a mission, and nothing was about to delay this news. Not the harbor guard. Not the Basitin city watch. And definitely none of Mike and Evals' high jinks. She blurred past Evals' room, where she could have sworn she heard the dog still snoozing away. She rushed past the multipurpose room, where she and Keith had been sparring on their way to the island. She hurried past the ship galley, where Mike was lying on top of the table underneath a mountain of textbooks...

Natani froze, perplexed, and slowly backpedaled out of the hall and back to the galley, just to make sure that...

"Mike?" she addressed, astonished by the realism of the scene before her.

"I'm okay..." the fox wheezed back, his voice muffled by the numerous pages he was trying to talk through.

Natani ran over to the talking book pile and began to excavate Mike out from under it. "What happened here?" she demanded, pulling off one of the books and setting it aside.

"I wanted to study up," Mike gasped. "You never got around to casting the spell to fix Evals, so I was going to read up on it myself." He paused for a moment to catch his breath. "It's heavy material."

"I have the crystals on me, you know," Natani sighed as she continued the dig. "All you had to do was ask."

"Well, yeah," Mike explained. "I saw your hand when you came in, though. Didn't want to be..." He paused as the wolf removed some of the weight off of his back, uncompressing his lungs. "Didn't want to be a bother."

"I never said that it was a bother. I just..." Natani tried to word this as softly as she could. "...had other priorities pop up."

"What about your hand then?"

"I patched it up. It's fine now," she declared, yanking off a rather thick text on advanced illusion spell mechanics. With the majority of the mass now off of his body, Mike pushed off the table with his hands, sliding himself out from under the rest of the mound and onto the galley floor.

He took a deep, glorious breath of fresh air, overjoyed that he wouldn't be fatally victimized by the onslaught of reading material. "Thank you," he panted, looking up at the mage.

"Did all of that come out of my room?" Natani jabbed a thumb towards the book stack.

Mike nodded as he stood himself back up. "I wasn't sure where exactly that spell would be, so I just grabbed everything I could. I was in my room until the sun went down, so I decided to move here."

The wolf blinked at the sheer size of Mike's studying material, unable to provide a more emotional reaction. "You really want to get Evals back to normal, don't you?"

Mike picked up one of the books arbitrarily and started to pan through it. "He did his homework to try and help me, so it's only fair I try to help him." He looked back at Natani and nodded his head towards the A Deck stairs. "If you have somewhere to go, you better head out."

The wolf sighed to herself and removed her mana pouch from her belt. "I was actually going to run to see Keith, but this shouldn't take long."

"You're...you're sure?" Mike insecurely asked. "I mean, if you're off to talk to him, it's probably important, so I get it if..."

"I kinda feel bad for pushing you aside earlier," Natani explained, counting off the requisite number of crystals for the mass dispel. "And I think it's kinda cool how you're willing to do all this for him. So, I want to lend a hand."

Mike was slightly surprised by the wolf's proposal, and smiled widely as he started to clear off the table. "Natani, you're..." he choked on his words slightly. "...you're too nice to us sometimes."

"Don't think on this too much," she replied, setting the bag down and double checking the count. "But, like I said, I want to make it up to you guys."

Mike finished stacking the books into two smaller, less unstable stacks, and then shoved them aside to the corner of the table to make room for the pile of crystals the mage just set down. "He'll appreciate you doing this for him."

Natani looked up and quickly surveyed the galley in response. "That's actually a good point. Where is Evals? Or Evalyn, rather?"

"Still sleeping," Mike answered unsavorily. "You might have heard her when you were coming out."

"I'll go wake her up," Natani volunteered, starting towards the hallway.

"Nah, I've got her," Mike grinned. "Watch this." He turned his head towards Evals' room and put a hand to his mouth.

"Evalyn!" he shouted down the hallway. "Evalyn! Here, girl!"

No response, and Natani judgingly looked down at the fox. "This is sort of depressing."

"Nah, she'll come," Mike assured, turning back to the hallway. "Evalyyyyyyyn!" he called as he clapped his hands a couple times.

"...what is it, Mike?" came a sleepy, muffled yell back.

"C'mon into the galley, girl!" Mike commanded. "Natani wants to see you!"

"What..." Evalyn needed a second to register what her friend was saying. "What did you tell him?"

"He knows what happened to you, and he wants to help."

A pause arrived before Evalyn's answer. "Tell him...tell him to come back tomorrow. I need a nap before I go to sleep."

"Mike, this was cute, but I think I should just go and..." Natani started to say.

"Natani has cookies!" Mike hollered down the hallway.

"What do you mean, I have...?"

"Cookies?" Evalyn enthusiastically asked, poking her head out of the door to her room, ears at the ready after hearing the magic buzzword.

"Go get him, girl!" Mike coaxed, pointing at the wolf.

The dog scampered out of the room and ecstatically began a full sprint towards Natani at the promise of her favorite snacks. "Yay!" she exclaimed as she bounded down the hallway, arms outreached.

"No, nonono!" Natani stammered, bracing herself for impact. "Down, Evalyn! Sit! Stay! Heel! Whoa!" Mike shut his eyes as the distance closed, unable to bring himself to watch the inevitable head-on collision, as Evalyn screamed towards Natani.

If there was ever a time Mike could have used the word "pow" to adequately describe something, then he likely would have deployed it here, as Evalyn leapt for joy and crashed onto the galley's floor, with Natani locked in a loving embrace as the one who promised the dog food. Mike felt the floor beneath him vibrate slightly as the two canines literally hit the deck, and as soon as the tremors died, he slowly opened an eye to view the aftermath. Or at least what he could of it for now. This was also when Mike realized that he hadn't swept any of B Deck ever since they cast off, so presently there was a small cloud of dust between him and the other two, obscuring any traces of the impact. The fox waved a hand in front of him, trying to dispatch the cloud and see exactly what happened.

Natani also opened her eyes a bit to see if any of her bones were broken. She also wanted to yell at Evalyn for a little bit as well, for tackling her like this despite her saying "no" in multiple ways. She tried opening her mouth, but for some reason it wouldn't obey...

And it wasn't until she looked directly upward and saw Evalyn's mouth adoringly, lovingly interlocked with hers that she understood why that was. Mike couldn't bring himself to say anything about what the two Keidran could possibly be doing in a position like that, and instead just stood off to the side, with his mouth open but no sound coming from it.

It also bothered the wolf to a tremendous degree that Evalyn seemed to be enjoying this completely accidental moment far too much. Natani quickly pushed the lovesick puppy off of her mouth and body, rolling her over to the side, then immediately sprang up from the floor and paced over to the galley's sink in a very disgruntled manner.

Evalyn looked up at the wolf she stole a smooch from as Mike finally recovered his voice. "What did I just see?" he tried to comprehend.

"I've been kissed by a dog," Natani grumbled, turning the faucet and splashing some water around. "I've got dog germs."

Mike sighed and turned to face Evalyn, like he was holding a rolled-up newspaper in his hands. "How many more kisses are you going to steal on this trip?"

"I figured that, since I'm still a girl, I may as well make the most of it," Evalyn woofed, sniffing the air intently. "Anyways, there are more pressing issues right now. Cookies?"

"There aren't any," Natani growled as the water started to heat up. "Mike just said that so you would come out of your room."

Evalyn's ears drooped as she let out a very, very sad "Awwwwwwwwwwwwwwwww," in response. It reminded her of her time with Eric, whenever he needed to bring in her and Mike for their annual check-ups. Evalyn never liked going to the vet for anything, and Eric loved to promise her food upon coming with him. Of course, there never was, and she was usually treated to a vaccine or two instead. She hated being exploited like that, but she hated the fact that she kept doing it to herself even more.

"Then what are we here for?" Evalyn asked as soon as she accepted the cookies were a lie.

"As soon as I'm done cleaning my mouth out, I'm going to cast the spell to fix you up," Natani blandly answered, pooling some hot water into her hand and lapping it up with her tongue.

Evalyn's ears perked right back up, her tail thumping the deck. "You know what to do?"

"I know what to do, yes," Natani cynically responded. "The question is if I still want to."

"Natani, don't be like that..." Evalyn pleaded as she stood back up from the floor.

"I don't know, pooch. I have a lot of things to do tonight. I might need to get back to you tomorrow."

Evalyn whimpered, but it seemed a little unnecessary once she saw Mike walking up to Natani, leaning against the adjacent countertop.

"You know, it might actually be in your best interest to do this as soon as you can," the fox asserted as Natani shut off the water.

"I doubt that it is," the wolf replied, splashing the leftover hand water down the drain.

"You sure?" Mike smiled. "Because if not, that kiss might not be the only one you get from her."

Natani shuddered as the sailor brought up a very valid alternative. Dreading the prospect of having to decontaminate her mouth a second time, she glanced over at the fox and pointed a finger in his direction. "Don't scare me like that," she stated as she turned for the mana crystals set aside from earlier. "Alright, doggie, come over here," she coaxed.

Evalyn happily sat down in the chair next to Natani, cheerfully, expectantly panting. "So what do I have to do?" she asked obediently.

"Nothing, and don't you dare try doing anything else," the wolf barked as she prepared the spell, the blue wisps of mana floating up from the pile of crystals.

Mike curiously tilted his head as he watched the assassin get ready. "Hey, won't this also kill the hot water enchantments and whatnot on the ship?"

"It might, but I'll deal with it later," Natani pushed the problem aside. "For now..."

She accumulated the various blue wisps into a large smoky sphere, hovering just above her hand. She then pointed her forefinger at the globe, softly said "Discute omnes," and then prodded the sphere, like she was bursting a bubble. Only instead of releasing soap, this time a short lived but shockingly bright flash came out. Natani was the only one with the foresight to try shutting her eyes before finishing the spell. As for the dog and fox, they would have been lucky to see the results after a burst as luminescent as that was.

Mike shook his head vigorously and put a hand down on his counter to keep his dazed balance steady. His vision was whitewashed for a few moments, but the environment slowly faded back to its natural values after a few seconds. He dizzily turned to the other two canines...

"Evals! You're back!" he exclaimed, throwing both of his hands into the air like he was at a New Year's party. His body quickly reminded him why that was a bad idea, and immediately gripped the countertop to regain balance. Evals looked back down at his body to double check, and let out a deep sigh of relief.

Natani nodded once she verified the spell worked and began to clean up the now empty crystals. "Good to see this is done with," she remarked as she slid the empty crystals into her hand. "Now, I'm going to head out for something. Please don't..."

She got interrupted by a big, thankful hug from Evals, once more pinning her upper arms to her sides. "Thanks, Natani!" he cheerfully yelled, tail wagging hard enough to generate hurricane force winds.

Under different conditions, the wolf likely would have told Evals to get off of her and resumed cleanup. This time, it felt different, somehow. Like Evals wasn't doing this for the sake of doing it. He had a very "because he felt like doing it" personality that caused her and, to a larger extent, Mike a lot of trouble as a result. Just judging from the reaction, however, this felt more...genuine.

Natani patted the dog on the back, returning the gesture as best as she could manage. "Yeah," she responded. "Yeah, no problem, Evals."

---

"And why haven't we done anything about this yet?" Sythe demanded, keeping his voice down out of respect for the squirrel napping on the table.

"Because we can't do anything about it yet," Keith asserted, hands defeatedly resting in his pants pockets. "Between the three of us that know who Domino is, only one of us can tear off the disguise, and even if we did that, we can't prove he's done anything. For all anybody else knows, he's just another Keidran practicing his spellwork."

"Hell, for all they know, he was even spying to begin with! That's how far behind we are!" the wolf yelled. Mrs. Nibbly sleepily opened an eye for a second, and Sythe promptly turned his attention to the squirrel, soothingly patting her. "Sorry I woke you, Nibs. We're just talking is all."

Mrs. Nibbly softly squeaked in acceptance, and rested her head back on her paws. Sythe was at least a little thankful that Mrs. Nibbly was the only person disturbed by that last outburst, which would have definitely not been the case had he and Keith been having this talk in his quarters instead. With the palace's large, probably empty hallways, that yell likely would have been amplified and rebounded multiple times before it finally died out and tipped off every guard in there to a noise disturbance.

The alternative, then, was Sythe's apartment in the Keidran District of the island. It laid in a relatively high end, stone brick housing structure about three stories high, with Sythe's room being located on the ground floor. It was also in an ideal location as far as his business was concerned, since the building itself and Sythe's front door opened directly into the district's main street, which in turn led into the main avenue to the Basitin governmental buildings.

The apartments, as usual, were neatly furnished and cleaned, and Sythe felt quite at home in his temporary residence. Probably in an attempt to replicate the living style of most Keidran houses, the apartment was laid out in such a way that it felt like one gigantic room instead of just the plain, traditional, nothing-to-see-here type Keith was accustomed to. It was hard to discern where exactly one room ended and the other began, because all of the rooms blended seamlessly into each other. Sythe's "bedroom," as an example, consisted of just a section of the apartment where he had a bed, dresser, mirror, and the rest of the standard amenities for such a room. The area wasn't partitioned by a wall or door, and instead led directly into the kitchen area, which in turn led into the common area, where the two diplomats were currently conversing. It was akin to a one-room cabin someone would rent for a vacation, and this particular format happened to be one of the most loved by Keidran homeowners everywhere.

The common area itself featured one large, round table with a vase of orchids placed in the center. The Forest Wolf nation's symbolic flower, presumably set there by the unit's housekeeping staff once they heard that Sythe would be coming. The table was surrounded by four standard wooden chairs, and illuminated by an array of three gas lanterns, hanging a couple of feet above the table by a thick strand of cable. Sythe had all of them lit for the sake of seeing where everything was, but had them dimmed down to about half power to give Mrs. Nibbly less of a hard time sleeping.

"So what do we do then? Just sit and wait patiently for him to make a mistake?" Sythe softly, angrily spouted off as the squirrel curled itself back up.

"Sythe, I have to leave for an appointment with the Wolf King tomorrow, and Natani's coming with me. We don't have time to wait. If we're going to expose Domino, we have to do it before then."

The wolf sighed, walked around the rectangular table and collapsed into his chair heavily, but not loudly enough to reawaken Mrs. Nibbly. "Gods, what a wreck," he muttered.

Keith took his seat as well, mimicking the wolf's movement, trying to be as sympathetic as he could. "Listen, I wouldn't leave you like this if I had a choice, but if I don't go, then we both lose."

"I get that, and I understand it," Sythe nodded, undoing the top couple of buttons on his shirt. "But Domino picked one hell of a time to show himself."

"Which is why I need you to stay here, keep an eye on him and make sure things don't get any worse than they already are," Keith calmly instructed.

"That doesn't change the fact that this plan still hinges on whether or not we go to war," Sythe pointed out, gently petting the sleeping squirrel as he spoke. "Because if we do, nobody's going to want to hear a thing I have to say. Actually, I wouldn't be surprised if I end up getting deported because of this."

"Nobody's getting deported, Sythe," Keith responded, recalling as much as he could of the labyrinthine Basitin legal code. "You are a verified diplomat and spokesperson for a sovereign nation and, because you know me, also a friend of the state. That alone is enough to keep you from getting thrown out of here."

"Alright, fine," Sythe agreed, his primary concern dealt with by what was effectively three phrases of law. "I'll keep tabs on him for you, make sure he doesn't try anything while you're gone."

"That's all I ask, my friend," Keith nodded.

Sythe transitioned from petting the squirrel to scratching her spine with his index finger. "Should I be worried about Domino trying to come after me?" he anxiously asked. Another valid concern. If he managed to get his attention, though he was doubtful he would, then he needed to know what to expect.

"I don't think he will," Keith replied. "He's crazy, but not a violent crazy. If he comes after you, it's probably because you did something to threaten him."

"...so, keep a sword with me?"

"Just in case, yes," the Basitin advised, just before a muffled "Get your hands off of me!" leaked through Sythe's front door, in a voice the both of them recognized.

The door started to shake as the visitor started to pound on it, but Keith had risen and opened the door about halfway through the sequence. He was instead greeted by two people, more specifically Natani, being dragged along by the scruff of her neck by a young, rookie member of the Basitin night watch.

"General Keiser, sir?" the officer addressed as professionally as he could manage while still trying to wrangle Natani under control.

"What are you doing to my traveling partner, Private?" Keith sternly inquired, displeased by how Natani was currently being handled. He'd normally try to start out conversations with his inferiors a bit more nicely than this, but extenuating circumstances prevailed. He was actually more curious as to why Natani was even letting this happen to begin with. Probably didn't want to add "assaulting a city guard" to her list, he figured.

"I found him sneaking around in the Trade District, sir. He asked to speak with you directly," he answered, as he continued to fight against his wily captive. "Would've just locked him up, but he told me exactly where you were, it looks like."

"Okay then," Keith acknowledged. "So, why is he still in your custody?"

"Sir, this Keidran was breaking curfew, and..."

"Private, you know who that wolf is, correct?"

"Yes, sir. He arrived with you on your ship. Still..."

Keith put up a hand to shush him as he used the other one to dig through his pocket and retrieve a well-worn brown leather wallet out from under it. He flipped it open with one hand, then searched it for the neatly folded white paper hiding in the main compartment. He pulled it out between his first two fingers and held it front of his face. "Let me show you something, Private," he quietly stated, handing over the paper to the guard.

The guard gave Natani another controlling yank on her shirt as he unfolded the paper with his free hand and started to read it. There was a mess of legal talk on it, all written down in a rather haphazard manner, and he had to squint in a few spots to make it out clearly.

"Do you know what that is?" Keith continued questioning the watchman.

"I...can't say that I do, sir," the guard replied, handing the paper back to Keith.

"That, Private, is a certificate of diplomatic immunity handed down from the desk of King Adelaide," Keith clarified, refusing the paper with an intense glare. "Don't hand that back to me!" he commanded angrily. "Read the first line of the fifth paragraph there."

The guard quickly panned down for paragraph five and started reciting it for the general. "This document absolves the above individual of any reasonable but necessary offenses that he or she may have committed during their time at the Basidian Isles, as well as any of his or her party members." He slowed down as he read the last clause of that sentence, Natani still fighting to get the guard to let go.

Keith paused to let him think about what he just read and then took a step forward out of the doorway, into the clear darkness of the island's night. "Do you understand what that sentence means?" he softly seethed, briefly looking at Natani, as if he was dropping a hint for the guard to pick up on.

"Y-yes, sir," the watchman stuttered.

Keith nodded. "Do you understand why I am so angry you're treating my partner like you are right now?"

"Y-y-yes."

"Yes, what?"

"Y-yes, sir!"

The general took one more step towards the now very nervous night guard and clapped a gloved hand on his shoulder. "And do you understand," he asked a third time, quietly, but gradually increasing in volume. "That if you don't let that wolf go in the next two seconds, I'll have you cited for disobeying a direct command from a superior officer?!" he boomed.

The watchman instinctually released his grip on the wolf, and Natani dashed inside Sythe's residence the moment he did so, leaving the beleaguered guard by himself with a furious general staring him down.

"Have a good night, Private," Keith spat, turning back to the door and forcefully slamming it behind him, inadvertently waking Mrs. Nibbly again. Natani fell into the chair facing away from it, rubbing the back of her neck.

"Thanks," she nodded to Keith, mentally kicking herself for making such a rookie mistake. Then again, she effectively got boxed in by two moving patrols. There weren't too many assassins who could get out of that situation.

"That shouldn't have happened to you," Keith apologized. "Night watch thinks that they're the top men when it comes that sort of crap, but we all answer to someone."

"Think you overdid it a bit?" Sythe asked as Mrs. Nibbly climbed back up to his shoulder to curl up on it.

"Not at all," the Basitin stated as he reclaimed his seat at the round table. "I take care of my friends. So what are you doing out this late anyways?"

Natani took a deep breath, and got ready to dump almost everything she learned tonight. "Domino's going to bomb Parliament, and I think he might try to set up Sythe in the process."

Shocking news, to be sure, and the entirety of the apartment went as still as a graveyard upon hearing it. It wasn't a standard silence, like standing in an empty room. It felt ominous, tensely eerie, like standing in an empty room but also knowing there's a serial killer on the prowl somewhere.

The second wolf was the first to break it. "Makes sense, I guess," he solemnly commented. "Someone needs to take the fall for it. Why not somebody who's already on bad terms with them?"

"Wait for a second, Sythe," Keith advised, sternly looking at the assassin. "Nat, how and when did you hear about this?"

"Clovis contacted me through the link. He told me what he found, fixed my arm, and then I came right here."

"Again with that mental link stuff, huh?" Sythe skeptically remarked. "And now there's somebody else in there too?"

"Says the guy with the talking squirrel," Natani puffed some air at her hairline.

"Hey, you leave Nibs out of this," Sythe defended. Mrs. Nibbly offered up a squeak in her name as well.

"Unusual methods of communication aside, we have a lead on Domino now," Keith interrupted. "Granted, it involves billions of gold worth of damage if we play it wrong, but it's still a lead."

"And a dangerous one," Sythe added, turning back to Natani. "Do you know when this might happen?"

"Zen has the bomb's blueprints, and he doesn't think it'll be ready until tomorrow," Natani informed the ambassadors.

"He doesn't think?" Sythe repeated uncertainly.

"My brother is one of the best alchemists I know, and I trust that he knows what he's saying, but everything has error in it."

"Tomorrow is still a good timeline, though," Keith stated. "I can get the security in Parliament ramped up for that day."

"Make sure nobody gets into the basement, either," Natani advised. "That's probably where the bombsite's going to be."

"I'll get it done," the Basitin confirmed, standing up and straightening his uniform. "We'll have plenty of time to contain and deny Domino any windows to attack. This ends..."

Keith's speech, which sounded like it was turning out to be quite heroic, was cut off by a sound he didn't think he would ever by cut off by: a squeaky cart wheel. One in very dire need of lubricant, considering how it penetrated through a tightly shut door and some remarkably sturdy walls from a street at least ten meters away. A small tinkling sound inched its way through as well, like a tiny bell ringing along with the cart.

Keith sighed and walked over to the apartment's front window with puzzled curiosity. "What in the world is a merchant doing out after curfew?" he asked aloud as he peered out the window. Indeed, the sounds were emanating from a traveling salesman's cart, the contents inside covered up by a large square cut of burlap, squeaking and bouncing along the paved road as it was pulled along by...

A grey-furred Basitin with deep brown eyes, who paused in the lantern-lit street to look right at the window of Sythe's apartment. The two stared at each other through the glass, trying to recognize the other, until the Basitin with the cart acted first. He pointed his forefinger at Keith, with the thumb raised, winked, and fired it like a gun, all while toothily grinning and presumably making a click sound with his tongue. He then turned away and continued to tug the cart down the Keidran District's main road.

---

Chapter 20

"It's Domino," Keith muttered, stepping away from the window and drawing a curtain over it.

"You're sure?" Sythe's eyes widened.

"Positive. I saw him and he saw me," Keith replied. "He was pulling a cart behind him for some reason too."

"Did you see what was in it?" Natani inquired.

"He had it covered, so no," the Basitin answered. "I have no idea what he could be moving..." He stopped himself short as he started to draw the obvious conclusion from his sighting. He licked his lips, embarrassed that he didn't see this immediately.

"All together now," Keith ordered as he raised his arms like he was conducting an orchestra.

"It's the bomb," all three of the apartment's occupants chimed in, judging Keith's lapse in deduction. Even the squirrel disappointedly squeaked in tune with the rest of the choir.

"So much for your brother's timeline," Sythe grumbled, standing up from the table. "No problem, though. We can just head out, rip off the illusion, and..."

"...arrest him for breaking curfew?" Keith countered. "Because right now, that's really the only thing we can prove he's done so far. He spends the night in prison and he just tries again the next day, while Nat and I are at sea."

"Then we search the cart, right?" Sythe pressed. "People generally don't walk around with carts loaded with explosives. Someone has to know something's up with that!"

"Let us know when you find someone on this island that knows how Forest Wolves make bombs," Natani cynically remarked. "He can probably get it passed as contraband if he tried hard enough."

Sythe slammed his hands onto the table, digging into it with his claws. Mrs. Nibbly jumped off his shoulder in fright and somehow landed on his head. "How hard can it possibly be to catch one damn mercenary on this island?"

"It's called proof, Sythe, of which we have none!" Keith sternly remanded. "If we want our case against him to stand up at all, what we need to do is catch him in the act. Otherwise, this isn't anything more than just throwing words at him and hoping a jury thinks we're telling the truth. Which, if we're being perfectly honest, they probably aren't."

"That doesn't mean he's not a suspect. If we were in my country, we'd be detaining him right now!"

"Except we aren't in your country. We're in mine, so whatever we do gets played by my rules. And they say that we need evidence first."

Sythe bared his teeth and turned to his counterpart on the other side of the table. "Natani, come on. Back me up here. You know how we work."

Natani didn't respond, not immediately. She was looking down at the table, contemplatively, silently.

"Natani?" Sythe repeated.

Instead, the assassin turned her head back to the general. "Keith, you said we need proof before we can take him in front of a court?" she quietly asked.

Keith nodded, his mood quelled by the relative calmness of his companion. "We just need some way to show people that we aren't making this story up."

Silence again, then Natani huffed and stood up from the table. "Alright then," she stated, looking back up at her friends. "I'll go get it."

"No you're not," Keith objected, moving his cloak aside to unveil his signature longsword. "If someone's going to stop this bastard, it might as well be the guy who he'll see in court. I can handle this."

"Keith, assume the worst for a second and let's say Domino gets away with this," Natani reasoned, straightening out her hood. "If Sythe follows him, he plays right into his hands, and if you go, Sythe doesn't have a cover story. I'm the only one who can do this, because if I fail, at least I won't instigate a war."

"What's to keep him from just turning around and having you take the fall?" Sythe pointed out.

"You say that like he's going to have time to do that," the assassin replied, digging through her mana reserve and dropping three crystals onto the table. "All I have to do is follow him in, get him to tell me what he's up to, and then get out. If we fight, then we fight, but not before the guards arrive and notice him."

Keith opened his mouth against his companion's plan, but Natani wasn't going to hear it. "Save it, Keith. You know this is the best way to do this," she argued, dropping a depleted crystal on the table. She raised a hand over the three charged crystals, again drawing the power out of them in a steady blue vapor, and channeled it into the vacant one. It started to glow red with increasing brightness as the wolf continued work the hearing enchantment.

"Nat, this is risky. Even for you," the Basitin stated. "The night watch apparently doesn't care you're my assistant. So if you get caught in there, I'm not going to be around to bail you out."

"They'll never know I was there."

"The only entrance that'll possibly be open is the front. Domino has the excuse that he's a senator, but they'll arrest you as soon as they see you."

"I'm an assassin, Keith," Natani reminded as she finished her enchantment. "I never believed in front doors." She picked up the newly imbued crystal and tucked it away in her pocket, ready to detect and memorize any noises made around it.

"Again, not to kill the mood or anything, but let's say you fail," Sythe spoke up, trying to sound realistic but not pessimistic either. "We, or at least you two, need a fallback plan. I can stay and try to keep them calm, but you guys need somewhere to go."

"Exactly," Natani responded, tying off the entire bag of crystals and giving it over to Keith. "Hold those for me."

Keith hesitated to take the bag. "Nat, don't you need these?"

"I'm following a terrorist in a large, dark, empty building. The less he sees and hears me, the better."

"What am I supposed to do with these, then?"

"You're going to stay here with Sythe and make sure things don't get any worse than they are. If I get trouble, I'm going to run right back here and get us somewhere safe."

"What's somewhere safe?" Sythe asked.

"With that mana, I can probably get Keith and I to the wolf capital. My place, actually," Natani clarified, checking that the rest of her loadout was readily available.

Mrs. Nibbly squeaked into Sythe's ear, and the wolf nodded back at her. "Yeah, so if you could teleport practically anywhere with a cheap energy supply..."

"It only transports you and the clothes you're wearing. Zen and I don't like to use it except for emergencies."

Keith continued to stare at the pouch, with Natani staring back at him. He felt both compelled to take it and determined not to.

"Take it, Keith," the wolf demanded.

"This is an awful backup plan," the Basitin criticized, not at all satisfied by the fact that he would end up running from a criminal if Natani failed to do anything about him.

"If you have a better one then I would love to hear it."

The two friends continued to stare, leaving Sythe in the very unfortunate position of having to be the one to break the stalemate. Only he wasn't feeling quite up to it. Because that would mean he would need another idea for an escape plan, and he didn't have one at present. So instead, he was forced to simply watch Keith and Natani silently debate, while a very dangerous Keidran stormed the Parliament.

"Just for the record, the more you two sit there staring at that bag, the closer Domino gets to exploding a bomb," he pointed out.

Another second or two of silence ensued, until Keith sighed with concession and snatched the bag out of the assassin's hand. "You better not come back for this," he said, shaking the bag with emphasis.

"I don't intend to," Natani commented, striding past Keith and flipping the hood of her cape up. "No promises, though."

"Right," Keith whispered back, tossing the bag onto the table. Natani gave him one last glance of determination out of the corner of her eye before creaking the door open and instantly dissolved into the dark, clear night, melding into it without a trace as the door was left slightly cracked behind her.

The Basitin sighed again and fell into his chair, resting his head in his arms, once more staring down the ordinary brown sack in front of him.

"No promises."

---

Domino happily whistled an improvised tune as the cart continued to bounce its way down the road and towards Parliament. The few lamps placed along the stone pathway faintly lit up the correct route there, but neither Domino nor the wolf tailing him needed them, their enhanced night vision proving to be of great use at the time. It was a benefit Natani knew far too well, and she was playing around it cautiously. She tried to stay close enough not to lose sight of Domino, and yet not so close that, if she made any accidental noise, he'd identify her.

The solution came in the urban landscape, and the rooftops. There was a bit of a learning curve, due to the ceramic shingles of the Basitin architecture not having quite the same underfoot texture as the forest boughs Natani and Zen loved to race each other on, but she adapted to it rather quickly. Don't stop moving your feet. Try to stay on the pointed top of the roof. Keep your arms out for balance. All of these quickly became second nature to the assassin as she chased down Domino from above, trailing him slightly behind and off to his right.

The cart took a right hand turn onto the main street. Domino waved to a small patrol of guards passing by, who sharply saluted back at him, untroubled by the lateness of his business. Hypocritical, Natani said to herself, jumping off one of the upper tiers of the building she was on and landing softly on the lower. She put a hand down to support her landing and muffle the noise she made, then waited a moment to ensure Domino didn't suspect anything. The whistling tune and whining, rattling wheel indicated that he didn't, and Natani proceeded down the rooftop.

Though that turn did indicate that Domino was on the home stretch towards his destination, and soon Natani would not have a place to run to. It wasn't a problem now, and that was still a moderately good distance away, so the wolf put it out of her mind for now. Future worrying would not do her any good at the moment, and Natani had to remind herself of that as she continued to run alongside Domino. No worrying about where she goes next. No worrying about how she's going to get inside the building. And absolutely no worrying about possibly having to defuse a bomb she had never seen before... The wolf stopped for a second, and took a deep breath. No thinking about what she shouldn't be worrying about at the moment either.

She peered down and saw Domino approaching a small intersection. Another paved walkway, illuminated regularly with lanterns, branched off to the left, and it appeared that the mercenary was taking that path. Again, Natani waited for him to pull away while she formulated a new plan for how to follow him. She surveyed the structures on the other side of the road, and found one. Natani slid down the tile roof, gradually gaining speed, then kicked off the edge with one foot as she gracefully leaped off the building. She let herself fall for a second, then, after guarding her face, landed on her toes, rolled over onto her forearms, then her back, and then back to her feet in one fluid motion. The wolf then sprinted towards the building across from her, a general store judging from the sign, and jumped and pulled herself onto the post holding it up. Another small run-up, then she scampered up the wall as far as she could, barely reaching the windowsill just underneath the roof, grabbing it with both hands. Then, summoning the rest of her strength, Natani then grabbed the solidest part of the roof she could find, and slowly hoisted herself up on top of it. She sat down for a moment, panting slightly, then looked down the road to see where Domino was. Not much further ahead, but Natani picked up the pace anyways.

The Parliament building lay just in front of her, if she wasn't mistaken about the front doors. The cart continued to jingle as it bounced down its path, and Natani noticed that hers was about to come to an end as well. She quickly examined her options. This path to the Parliament's front doors, or at least near the end, were flanked by long, white rose bushes, starting at about where Natani's building ended. She could keep low behind them and then follow them around to the side of Parliament. Begin infiltration.

Domino stopped abruptly, unexpectedly. The cart creaked as it slowed down, and the joyful dinging of the little bell died out. Natani had to skid to a halt on the tile rooftop in response. Whatever Domino was doing...

He started to turn back over his shoulder. Natani's heart jumped a few beats, uncertain of what action to take. What should have felt like a moment of pure instinct instead turned into an eternity of fear-inducing chaos as the wolf struggled to find the correct response. The bushes were too far out, the far side of the roof would make too much noise...

She felt one of her feet slip, and reactively fell onto her stomach, trying to rebalance herself in some way. But it was over. Domino would for sure notice her on the roof now. He finished the rotation, now directly eyeing the building she lay prone on. Natani took one final breath in before she was detected, and held it.

Domino examined it for at least a minute, and Natani could have sworn her hair went grey at some point down the line. The disguised mercenary finally turned back to Parliament and slowly started to squeak the rickety cart away.

Natani heavily exhaled as she rose back to a crouching position. That was the last time she would ever cut it that close with tracking this jerk. At least she'd be able to get off the rooftops soon, as she closed in on the long rosebushes.

She finally reached the end of her roof, and she draped both feet off of the edge and gracefully landed on the area behind the bushes, a soft grassy area. Domino either didn't hear her land or brushed it aside as ambiance. In either case, Natani maintained a low profile and continued to stalk her target, as Domino finally finished approaching the front gates.

Two guards were standing at the ready at the front doors to greet him, both carrying a torch in one hand and a spear in the other. The one on the left started the formalities. "Evening, Senator. What are you up to so late?" he inquired as Natani continued stealthily through the roses.

"Good evening to you as well, Cohen," Domino cheerfully responded, pointing a thumb at his cargo. "I had a few things I wanted to bring down to the basement. Needed to do it sooner than later."

"Right now, though?" the other guard asked, walking over to the cart and hovering a torch over it. "It couldn't wait for later?"

"Look, um," Domino started, scratching his head. "I don't know if you guys heard yet, but General Keiser's birthday is tomorrow."

"Is it now?" the second guard nodded approvingly.

No it isn't, Natani disgustedly thought. Unless tomorrow is code for two months ago.

"Yeah, and I wanted to bring this stuff down before then, get a surprise party set up."

"This is a lot of set up for just a surprise party," the guard called Cohen noted.

"Hey, the General's turning thirty. Nice, round multiple of ten there. Kind of a big deal, eh?"

The second guard nodded his agreement and returned to his post. "If this was anyone else, I'd say it sounds suspicious as all hell."

"But, since I'm a senator..." Domino urged. "Please? Just this once?"

The two guards looked at each other for a second, then stepped aside as they pushed open the doors. "As long as you promise to keep the noise down, alright? No need to startle the guys in there," Cohen advised as Domino started to work the cart through the gap. "There's a cargo lift in West Wing if you need help moving that."

"Will do," Domino smiled with a wave to the doormen. "Oh, and feel free to come down tomorrow as well. Everyone in Parliament's invited."

"Really?" the second guard asked enthusiastically.

"Yes! By all means, swing by whenever you're off duty," Domino invited as the Basitins shut the door behind him.

"It'll be a blast," he commented, with a click of his tongue.

---

Chapter 21

Natani waited for the low, booming bang before continuing onward, behind the bushes. They fortunately led directly to the front doors, albeit a few feet short in front of it. A paved pathway branched off to the left, likely to the courtyard. She deduced that would be the best way to get in.

She stopped just behind the end of her bush to watch the two doormen out front for a moment. The two Basitin soldiers became statues at their post, standing perfectly at attention, eyes focused directly, singularly on the road before them.

Which meant that, as long as Natani stayed in the shadows, they likely wouldn't notice. She examined the courtyard walkway again. Much like the main road, apart from a few sparsely placed lanterns the path was dark enough to conceal her presence. She'd follow it down and find a way in from there. She nodded to herself in acceptance of that plan.

But first, she had to get around those two. Seemed simple enough, though. Natani dropped to her stomach and crawled her way out from behind the bush to the first dark section of the pathway, once more thankful that the Basitin landscaping team was partial to sod instead of gravel. The wolf turned her head to keep the guards in her line of sight as she moved, trying to anticipate if and when they would turn and notice her.

The cool, hard sensation of concrete inched up her hand, and she allowed herself to come back up to a crouching position now that she was acceptably concealed. She still spied on the guards as she walked backwards down the path, the Basitins out front growing smaller with each step, then disappearing behind a thick black bar, the outer wall of Parliament. With no way to see her now, Natani turned around and carefully, stealthily proceeded towards the courtyard.

Natani took cover behind the interior wall of the courtyard, and peeked through the archway through which the path cut. She needed a few minutes to ensure that there no patrols were present, and swung around through the archway after she confirmed that there weren't. This time, she stood herself up all the way and sprinted across the blackened gardens, trying to adhere to the path as much as possible. She found the far end of the courtyard speedily, and the secondary doors leading inside as well. She also saw the yellow, lit window next to the doors, a very easy way to be seen. She fell onto her right leg and used the momentum she had gained to slide just underneath it, out of sight of anybody who could possibly be inside.

But, just to make sure, the wolf leaned up and quietly peered in through the window. She turned her head both ways, trying to make as much use of her vantage point as possible, and was relieved to see that the adjoining hallway was vacant.

Which meant that she could now focus on the doors. Though not nearly as fancy as the front, and not nearly as accessible as the front either, the Basitins still took care to chain a heavy padlock onto the doors, barring the wolf from simply entering from the outside. She suspected as much, and reached for the inside pocket of her cloak, extracting a small metal lockpick. She placed it inside the upper half of the padlock, while she unsheathed one of her smaller throwing knives as well and slid it into the lower section.

I hope I remember how to do this, she thought to herself as she gave the blade a clockwise twist. It made about a quarter of a rotation before Natani started to feel unnecessary, unwanted tension in the thin, metal pick, and immediately backed off. She tried it again, this time with the lockpick offset slightly to the right, allowing it to punch the tumbler upward. She twisted the knife once more, hoping that her calculations were correct.

Her reward was the satisfying ka-chunk as the shackle disengaged from the chain, and Natani hastily undid the Basitin's security, tossing the now obsolete chain down to the ground. She checked the window again. Still nothing, the signal for Natani to officially begin infiltration. Quietly, she pushed the door open, crept into the long hallway, and silently pushed it shut behind her.

Now, for the stairs. The hard part, as strange as it sounded. Really, a route down to the lowest level of a building should not be that difficult to plan out, but the interior of Parliament was comparable to that of their law system: about as straightforward as cold spaghetti. So that meant the first part of finding Domino in here would be solely guesswork. Natani sighed and looked left and right down the hallway. Randomly, she decided left would be the best option, and turned to proceed.

"I think your time would be better spent going right," a voice echoed, causing Natani to jump and immediately dart to cover behind one of the hallway's alcoves. She breathed heavily, checking as many corners as she could for incoming patrols. None ever came, and Natani finally started to relax, recover from that snap reaction.

Actually, what was that voice from anyways? If nobody saw her, and if nobody was coming her way, then what did she hear? She put a hand to her head and took another deep breath.

"I'm sorry, did I spook you?" the voice spoke up again. It sounded much clearer this time, and this time Natani managed to keep herself from panicking again. But she did become noticeably more furious as she finally found out what the source of that noise was.

"Clovis, what the hell are you doing?" she angrily barked at the top of her lungs.

"Volume," Clovis reminded, and the wolf slapped two hands over her mouth once she realized what her mistake was. Again, no alerts. She exhaled again and snuck out of the alcove, down the other direction the hallway led.

"And to answer your question, I completely forgot I could track both ends of that link with you and your brother," Clovis continued. "I noticed that you were in Parliament tailing our...friend, so I thought I'd come by and lend a hand."

"By jumpscaring me and almost blowing my cover?"

"I'd argue you did that to yourself, actually."

"Look, if you want to guide me, fine. But shut up and just give me directions."

"You know those two orders are mutually exclusive, right?"

"You know what, screw this," Natani grumbled with annoyance as she took a sharp left at the hallway's end. "Where's Zen? Put him on."

"I gave him the night off. He needed to talk with one of his friends," the half-fox responded. "I'll also point out I'm the only one with a map now."

The wolf sighed as she continued deeper into the building. Dependency on Clovis was one thing she did not need more of in her life. But it was either that or wander the Parliament's insides without any sense of direction and hope Domino doesn't blow her up in the process.

She approached another junction in the hallway. "Alright, fine. You can track me," she hesitantly permitted.

"Brilliant!" Clovis cheered, clapping his hands together in the background. "Right here, by the way."

Natani stuck to the hybrid's advice, and pressed her back to the wall as she slid down it. She came to yet another intersection, with another corridor branching off to the left. She peered around the corner cautiously, and then darted right back once she spotted the two-man patrol at the far end of the hallway. They didn't seem to move, they were just standing around, chatting to each other in a manner that became unintelligible from Natani's distance.

She peeked again, trying to better understand the layout of the hallway. There were multiple rooms branching off on both sides of the corridor, likely senatorial offices, each shut off by a red stained wood door with a fogged glass window in the center. and the Basitins at the end were stationed in front of a very nicely hand painted portrait of King Adelaide, probably at the lack of a better item to be guarding at the moment. And then, about halfway through the right side, spiraling downwards into the floor...

"And there's your stairs," Clovis identified.

"Those guards might end up seeing me, though," Natani returned, removing another throwing knife and swiftly switching sides to the other half of the hallway entrance.

"Let's give them something else to look at, then," Clovis encouragingly stated as Natani spun the blade around and gripped it between her first two fingers. Another peek, and she readied to throw the blade.

She inhaled. Focused. Then flung the knife towards one of the windowed doors, ducking back behind the corner just before the glass exploded fantastically behind her, a lovably spectacular crash reverberating up and down the corridor.

Needless to say, both guards were immediately alerted by the noise, and it sounded like one of them might have dropped his sword for an instant out of surprise. Both of them jogged over to the disruption, moaned and gasped at the magnitude of the damage for a second, and then one of them opened the door to further inspect the mess.

Natani turned the corner once more. Both Basitins were in the office, fully engrossed by the mysterious accident and what could have done this. Both of their backs to her, Natani then slipped out from her cover, shuffled quickly by the now open-faced office, and then swung around to the staircase, hastily pacing down towards the basement level.

"Nicely done," Clovis remarked, impressed.

"Hopefully Domino didn't hear that one," she whispered as she raced down the stairwell.

Clovis didn't respond immediately, like he was checking something. "I think one of them is sending for backup. They found the knife you threw."

"Good, it'll keep them occupied while I deal with Domino," the wolf replied as the staircase made way for flatter terrain. It was a small, empty area before two standard wooden doors. Behind those lay the basement to Basitin Parliament.

The target area. Natani took a deep breath in, trying to calm her heart, her mind. Her eyes seemed to flash intensely for a split second before she powerfully walked to the doors and tossed them open, like they were made of cardboard, entering the Parliament's expansive underground level.

Of course, being built onto the side of a hill, the basement area wasn't completely built into the earth, and the large glass windows reaching from the bottom of the floor to the top of the elevated ceiling provided plenty of natural light for the huge room beneath. A few braziers lay scattered across the basement in case more lighting was needed, but the full moon and clear night sky proved to be more than ample for the occasion. Like Clovis had mentioned earlier, six thick pillars, placed about twenty meters apart from each other, rose out of the ground and carried the entire weight of the building above it. They also appeared to be decorated with murals, wrapping themselves around every bit of area. It was hard to tell what they were attempting to depict, thanks to the color distorting moonlight, but just like everything else on the island, it was taken care of and proudly displayed in the only way the Basitins knew how.

Natani strode into the basement, and passed the first row of pillars. The silhouette of two pointed ears and a gently wagging tail off to the right told her everything she needed to know about Domino. She also identified the cart, despite the burlap sack being removed, and its now unveiled contents. Clovis and Zen kept using the word "bomb" around her like there would be only one. But the cart carried a number of small yellow parcels instead, each outfitted in a black cloth harness with a softly glowing deep green crystal embedded into the center. He walked back over to his cart to grab two of the packages, then returned to the pillar the cart was parked in front off. Natani continued to approach him, listening to him softly talk to himself in the meantime.

"There we are, making sure everything is perfect. An explosive package for you," he sang as he planted one of the bombs on the pillar's base, watching it adhere to it like glue, then giving it a small tug to make sure it was stuck.

"And an explosive package for you. Everybody gets one," he pranced around to the other side to plant the second parcel. Natani now stood at the cart, semi-interestedly looking at the bombs inside. She didn't really care if Domino saw her; they were going to have to fight in any case. May as well let him have his fun before she gutted him where he stood.

"Five to go!" Domino melodically announced as he proudly walked back to the cart. He didn't even seem to mind that Natani was waiting for him there either, and simply waltzed right past her, in his lupine form, giving her a friendly wave as he strolled by. "Evening, Natani! Want to help me with the fireworks?"

"You can stop right there, Domino. Game's over," Natani growled as she yanked out a knife and spun it in her hand.

"I can stop, yes. But, I don't think I'm going to," Domino smirked as he pulled out two more parcels and casually glanced at the assassin. His eyes widened slightly. "Good Gods, woman. How many of those things do you have?" he asked with exasperation as he took the explosives over to the second pillar.

"Domino, enough with the bombs," the assassin tried to talk the mercenary down. She didn't have nearly as much experience in this sort of scenario as some like Keith would have. But maybe she could find a way to stop this peacefully first. Natani saw Domino now as a dead or alive contract, and she was in need of the bonus.

"We both know why I'm not giving myself up right now," Domino laughed as he stuck a bomb to the side of the pillar.

"You expect me to honor our bet?"

"Next time we met, right?" Domino confirmed as he danced around to the other side, his back to Natani again. "I think this counts. I'll be with you in a second."

"...I'll hand it to him. If he's going to be a terrorist, he may as have some fun with it."

"Doesn't make him any less of a threat," Natani muttered.

"Who you talking to, Natani?" Domino asked, bouncing up from his bomb plant. "Actually, no, let me get that," he kindly offered, holding up a deep purple, almost black crystal in the air.

"Now what does he think..." was all Natani heard Clovis say before Domino crushed the crystal in his hand and the mental link went dead silent.

Natani put a hand to the side of her head. "Clovis? Clovis?"

"It's okay, Natani," Domino crooned, looking at her almost sympathetically in a way. "I hate it when voices get into my head too."

"What have you done?" Natani snarled, tightening her grip on her knife.

"Just killed your link for a little bit," Domino clarified, reaching behind him for a leather knife sheath. "Don't worry, it'll be back in a while. I just don't want you to get distracted is all."

Domino yanked out the bloodied blade from that afternoon and inspected it once more with fascinated exaltation. "Yes, I would like nothing but the best from you tonight."

"I don't want to kill you like this," Natani threatened.

"You don't have to," Domino reminded, pointing at Natani's blood with a smile. "The moment I lose this, my plans are called off, remember?"

Natani exhaled deeply and took up an aggressive fighting stance, the Wolven standard suite, holding her blade in front of her. She didn't like her chances of avoiding conflict now.

Domino laughed as he flipped the knife over his hand and caught it again. "Now that's better," he smirked, as he prepared himself as well. "So, shall we begin?"

Natani huffed. Domino clicked his tongue.

And the two wolves charged at each other. Natani's knife was pointed for Domino's abdomen. His for Natani's right shoulder. It was a game of chicken. The first person to block was the first one on the defensive. Natani blinked first, and raised her blade to parry her adversary's strike. She then spun around, trying to get a blow in on Domino's side. Domino replied with an expertly timed half turn and slid the attack away from behind the back.

"Sorry to interrupt," Domino scoffed as he tossed the blade from his right hand to his left and began to strike back. "But I can take this as a 'no' for you joining me, right?"

Natani parried each blow as it arrived, save for the last. She dodged her head to the right, allowing her to take a slice at the underside of the mercenary's arm. It hit, and Domino yelped as the steel broke through his skin. He paused to examine his wound, watching a red stream form and run down his arm, then turned back to Natani, sinisterly grinning.

"That's what I thought," he remarked, giving his new wound a small lick to tend to it.

Had this been anybody else, Natani would have gutted Domino right here for letting himself drop his guard like this. She would have loved to sink her knife right into his heart and end her problems right here. Only she couldn't, and Domino was acting like he knew it as well. He was teasing her. He knew she wasn't going to kill him since the Basitins would never let her live it down. With no evidence against him and no contract on his head, it was murder in the first degree, and he was using it all to his advantage.

Natani charged him again regardless. She wasn't going to kill him, but he had to at least be subdued. The cut was placed there for that reason specifically. She wasn't going to spill all of his blood, but just enough to knock him out.

Domino readied his blade again just in time to knock away the first of the assassin's strikes. The second. The third. The fourth was a top to bottom swing, a reckless but surely devastating attack would it find its mark. Domino merely sidestepped out of its way. Natani growled in frustration and sliced back up, prompting a small jump backwards from her foe.

And she didn't realize that she left her entire arm exposed until Domino grabbed it, swept her feet out from under her with a kick, and then flipped her over his head, slamming her back first onto the hard tile flooring. He knelt over the assassin, pointing the bloodied blade at her throat with one hand, pinning her knife hand to the ground with the other.

"Drop it," he ordered nicely. After a couple seconds of Natnai declining to obey, he went for slamming her wrist onto the tile instead. Natani's grip on the knife disintegrated bit by bit with each blow, until it finally jiggled free.

"Good girl," he whispered, stepping on Natani's hand while he tossed the freed blade off to the side of the basement. He looked down at Natani, eye to eye, smirking superiorly over his bested enemy. He savored every second he could to its fullest.

"Well?" Natani demanded, breathing heavily. "Aren't you going to kill me?"

"I was, but I promised the General I'd do something special with you," Domino confessed. "And frankly, that last part was kind of bland for my taste."

He looked up pensively, resting his muzzle in his free hand, scratching himself under the chin. "Now, what can we do together is the question. Ice cream, maybe? Nah, not this late. And someone of your physique probably shouldn't be eating that anyways. Hmm, this is tough."

His ears flipped up as he caught sound of clanking armor hastily running down the stairwell Natani barged out of earlier. He turned his head curiously and watched a lantern-toting Basitin enter the room, then watched his eyes grow in horrified confusion to the scene before him. "What the hell is going on here?" he barked, raising the lantern to better see the wolves.

Domino answered with a devious, sinister smile, similar to the one Natani had typically seen Clovis with. Only this was dishearteningly malicious to boot. "Natani, I think I just got an idea," he softly informed her as he reached for another holster on the side of his trousers.

He finally turned to address the guard, not letting up on his pin. "Sir, your timing could not be any better," Domino stated with a smile.

"Why?" the guard demanded. "What's..." was the last word he could say before Domino yanked out his pistol and placed a shot right between the Basitin's eyes.

---

Chapter 22

"Hold that for me. Please and thanks," Domino coolly requested as he placed the gun onto Natani's chest and stood up to search the body. He didn't need to restrain the assassin any more. The stunned, horrified expression on her face said everything he needed to hear. All Natani could do was gawk at the downed guard, watch the lantern's shattered flame ignite the pooling oil, creating a small fire patch next to Domino's latest victim.

The mercenary started patting down the body, presumably searching for any hidden pouches or supplies he could use. He did find a small coin bag, which he immediately cut open and drained into his own, before tossing it into the small puddle of flames.

Natani had the willpower to pick her head up and examine the pistol Domino had left on her chest. She shakily picked it up with her right hand, slowly rolled back the trigger, and gently aimed it towards Domino.

"Nice try, Natani. But I only keep one shot in there for a reason."

Natani pulled the trigger anyways. Instead of the loud, spark-flying bang she expected, she received a disheartening, almost mocking click as the hammer harmlessly tapped the back of the chamber.

"What's wrong with you?" she yelled at him, throwing the gun defiantly back at him. "He was innocent!"

"Maybe," Domino responded. "But I just gave him a new purpose."

"You killed him, you bastard!"

"That I did, and I'm sure more are on the way," Domino continued walking back over to his cart. "So unfortunately, I need to head out for now. But I'm sure you can probably tell them what all this is about, right?"

Natani willed herself back to her feet, still traumatized by the dire actions Domino had taken. She took one shaky step towards the wolf. Another. A third, more rapidly this time. Her speed increased from a walk to a faster walk, to a run, to a full sprint at the mercenary. She wrapped both arms around him and tackled him onto the cold tile, his arms resting above his head.

"We really need to work on your people skills, don't we?" Domino shook his head.

"Yeah, you'll need to also," Natani snarled. "What I didn't say was that I was recording this little talk, just like you did at the hearing."

Domino scoffed, impressed by Natani's handiwork. "Learned from the best I see."

"If I'm going down, you're coming with me," Natani forcefully stated, checking over her shoulder at the stairs. A soft orange light was now seen in the chamber, gradually expanding as the onslaught of Basitins inside the Parliament rushed towards the gunshot. Keith might not be here to support, but with the evidence on the crystal, there was no way she would be in custody for long.

"Oh, you put it into an empty mana crystal. Clever girl," the wolf remarked. Natani wasn't sure what prompted that comment, until she looked back down at him. Somehow, he was holding the recording crystal in his hand, admiring it. Natani would have checked her pockets to make sure hers was still there, but she knew they had been picked. She made a grab for the crystal, but Domino simply batted her hand away, dropped the crystal onto the floor, and pounded it with his fist, shattering it into countless bits and pieces.

Natani heart sunk as she watched her hard-earned evidence be destroyed in such a primitive manner. Domino started laughing, heartily, dominantly, knowing he was in control all along. Natani grabbed his shirt collar and pulled his head up close to hers. "This doesn't change a thing," she growled. "Someone's going to be responsible for this."

Domino set both of his hands behind his back, fiddling with his back pocket. He gave Natani one more smirk. "To which I say, lanuae domum," he replied, then vanished into blue vapor instantaneously.

Natani's hands went empty as the mercenary vanished, and she punched the floor in frustration. She didn't even see where he was keeping his mana, either. It was like Domino had all of this planned from the start, which was obviously not true considering what he just did. And Natani fell for it all the way.

The wolf stopped the inner scolding session and tried to think about what happened. What did she know? It was likely teleported considering the words of power he used. Actually, she knew that spell. It was used for transport, and brought the user "home," wherever he set up a waypoint for the spell prior. So, if Domino went home, then...

"Oy! Over there!" a voice screamed from the stairwell. Natani peered over to it and saw a swarm of Basitin guards flooding through into the basement. Some of them checked the dead guard for vitals. Others inspected the bombs stuck on the sides of the pillars. Most of them pointed fingers at Natani and readied their weapons, mostly spears and swords.

"Wolf! Don't move! You're under arrest!" one of the soldiers yelled, as the mob slowly, cautiously approached her. "Put your hands up and lie down!"

"Dammit," Natani swore as she quickly looked around the room. Maybe she should have taken some of the mana with her when she left. There weren't any vents, doors or other hiding spots, and Basitins continued to pour in from the stairwell in front of her. The phalanx continued to move towards her, and the wolf started to run out of ideas.

Save for one. "Wolf! Get on the ground, now!" the soldier repeated.

Natani did exactly the opposite, and bolted for one of the large windows behind her instead. The plan was going to hurt, but it was either this, or get arrested for something she had nothing to do with but couldn't prove otherwise. She ran directly at one of the larger panes, about her size, and covered her eyes with the lower part of her arm, elbow protruding towards the pane.

Then, one loud tinkling crash later, she found herself running down the hillside and back towards the main road, sparkling, flashing glass shards raining down in front of her like glitter. She felt one bite into her arm, but she experienced a more relieved feeling instead, knowing that could have landed in a worse spot.

Natani lowered her arm again as she raced down the hill and hit the road. She knew exactly where to go. The only problem was finding the time to escape. She checked over her shoulder out of curiosity. As suspected, the guards were not going to let her go easily, as many of them jumped out of the new hole in Parliament and quickly joined the pursuit. Natani considered taking to the roofs again, but with the guards already chasing her like they were, she probably would have made herself even more conspicuous. Oh well. They were a good distance behind anyways.

The wolf didn't let up, however, as she continued to bolt down the empty streets back to Sythe's apartment. Maybe if she led her pursuers back to Keith, he could clear all of this up and she'd be able to keep chasing Domino. But then she also remembered that they likely saw her as a murder suspect, and as reputable as Keith was, he'd have a difficult time trying to explain how the death of a Basitin soldier would, in any way, be considered reasonable or necessary. On the other hand, if she was going to have a problem, she might as well have a problem that someone else knows about.

Two more guards unexpectedly walked out of an alley a few feet in front of her, and noticed her almost immediately. "Hey, get back to your house!" one of them ordered. "Curfew's..."

"I don't care!" Natani hollered as she continued to dash towards the patrol. The second guard pulled his sword out, the one most directly in Natani's path, but the wolf managed to get by. She grabbed the collar of the Basitin's armor, then rolled herself onto his back and flawlessly vaulted over the befuddled guardsman, losing no momentum in the transition.

Of course, that meant that there were now two more members in the mob behind her, and she could also check off "breaking curfew" on the list of infractions against her now. Frankly she had no intentions of ever tending to them. The worst kind of debt, in her opinion, was one that she wasn't liable for. And if Domino honestly expected her to serve his time for a murder she wasn't involved with, she'd have a few words to say to him before she finally caught him and turned him over to the Basitins.

Natani looked at the buildings to her left and right. They began to share a few similarities to Sythe's building, an indication she was coming up on the Keidran District. Another look back. Somehow she let her pace slip, as the mob slowly crept back up to her. She already felt out of breath, unsure of how much longer she could manage this level of exertion before she had to stop.

No, she scolded herself. You will not stop. You're dead if you stop. Keep going. Faster. There's Sythe's street on the right. Turn now. Alright, now he's in the big apartment building on the left. Good thing he's on the ground floor. Found it, just up ahead.

She got to the door and started to pound on it urgently. "Keith! Open the door! Now!" she yelled. She turned to the road's intersection, the eerie orange glow of torches signaling the mob's presence.

"Keith!" she cried, hitting the door as fast and as hard as she could. She thought she would punch a hole through it before it opened for her.

The door finally jumped open and Natani rushed inside. Sythe and Mrs. Nibbly were likely snoozing just before Natani arrived, as the both of them looked like they just woke up. Sythe grumpily sat himself up properly in his chair, while Keith peered out of the door, eyes wide, trying to figure out what in the world could have happened.

"Shut the door, dammit! They're after me!" the wolf barked, snatching the bag of mana off of Sythe's table. Keith jumped at the outburst and promptly obeyed.

"What the hell did you do?" Sythe demanded, trying to foil his counterpart's emotions, trying to stay calm.

"Domino's gone, I'm framed for murder, and the entire Basitin police is out to get me!" Natani hurriedly explained as she peered inside the bag. "Good, there's enough here."

"Enough for what?" Keith asked as he tried to look out the apartment window. He'd seen Natani rile people up before, but never quite to this large a degree. He was actually worried for once.

"We're leaving."

"Like, now?" the Basitin confusedly inquired.

"Domino teleported back to the capital. We're going there and putting an end to this," Natani explained as she readied the crystals for casting.

Keith blinked pensively, then turned to his companion. "Go then. Sythe and I'll stay here and..."

"No, you're going too," Sythe asserted, with Mrs. Nibbly squeaking compliance. "You brought Natani here, and they're going to think you're trying to keep him safe if they find you."

"They wouldn't do that. Nat wouldn't try something like this. I wouldn't have brought him here if I thought different."

A muffled voice came from outside. "Search these buildings! Make sure he doesn't get away!"

Sythe pointed at the mana the assassin was speedily preparing. "You're already in enough crap as it is with you being associated with him. You let him onto the island, and now they think he was trying to blow it up. You need to go just as bad as Natani does!"

"Sythe, I'm staying here. I can protect him!"

The door vibrated as the watch knocked on it, hard. "This is the watch. Open the door."

"Keith, it's ready!" Natani announced.

"I'm not going, Natani!" Keith asserted.

"The hell you aren't!" Sythe snarled. "You can either stay here, and leave Natani alone with a terrorist while you run out the clock with the ceasefire, or you can go with him right now and end this damn war! Now, which one is it going to be?"

Keith lost his words, if there was ever a good time for that to happen.

"We're breaking it open now!" the watch warned from outside.

"Keith?!" Natani yelled, starting to panic slightly.

The Basitin clenched his teeth, thought for just a second more, then gave his decision.

"Nat, start the spell!" he commanded, running to the wolf and grabbing her forearm. "Sythe, make sure my crew knows where we are!"

"Right," Sythe acknowledged. Mrs. Nibbly stood back up on the table, looking like she was giving Keith a rather reverent salute.

Natani nodded at the general and raised her free hand over the pile of crystals. "Lanuae domum!" she cast.

"Thank you, Sythe," Keith said before evaporating into nothing with Natani. The lock on the door fell to the ground and the soldiers stormed the apartment, as Sythe reclined in his chair, shut his eyes and let them conduct their search.

---

Keith fell onto the hardwood floor with an audible thump alongside Natani, and groggily staggered his way back to his feet after a while. Not only was this the first time he had been teleported, it was the first time he had ever traveled that long of a distance in that short of a timeframe. Useful, to be sure, but he felt sick to his stomach after the ride tonight. He'd probably need a few days before he was ready to put himself through that a second time.

He rubbed his eyes, trying to get them to refocus and get his bearings, but he did recognize where Natani had taken them. Keith didn't visit her house on a regular basis, but it was the atmosphere he remembered more than anything; a strong sense of comfort and fraternity hung in the air like the scent of a pine forest, intoxicatingly inviting and secure. The interior was nothing special: just the standard Keidran one-room style layout similar to Sythe's apartment on the island, with a few dimly lit candles to serve as meager lighting in the dead of the night. At least there were two floors to the building. Keith could only guess that the brothers preferred to keep their sleeping areas on a separate floor to avoid clutter.

And considering the state of some of the other Keidran domiciles he's visited, "cluttered" would be the last word he'd use to describe Natani's place. Furniture may have been minimal, with just a table, chairs and basic amenities in the kitchen and a sofa and fireplace in the living area. But it did open up the area for a few more personal touches. Keith surveyed the walls and saw a few keepsakes were mounted on them at regular intervals, mostly trophies from the brothers' many contracts. Inscribed staffs, battle scarred swords, half-shattered shields, the memorabilia augmented the house very nicely, like Natani had ardently tried to make her property her own.

Natani recovered from the teleportation's side effects as well and took a spot standing next to Keith. "We'll be safe here, for now at least," she informed, then curiously glanced at her companion. "Hey, you alright?"

Keith ran a hand though his hair and heavily sighed. "Adelaide's going to have my head for this at the end of everything."

"She's going to understand completely once we find Domino," the wolf assured, resting an arm on his shoulder. "We bring him to her, we explain what he did, and it'll be like nothing happened."

The Basitin returned a friendly grin in her direction. "We can only hope," he replied. "Smart money says I'm back on trial again."

"Probably, but you turned out okay from the first time," Natani grinned, more closely looking over her friend. "But we're waiting for tomorrow. You need some rest in a bad way first."

"Nat, how can you possibly think about sleep at a time like this?"

The wolf slightly tugged on the Basitin's shoulder, leading him towards the sofa in the living area. "If anything happens, I'll get Zen and we'll deal with it. You need some time off, big time," she persuaded, practically tossing Keith onto the couch like one tosses sheets onto a bed.

"I'm not that tired," Keith argued back, drowsily.

"Long-distance teleportation does have drawbacks and sleepiness is one of them," Natani pressed. "Just rest it off, and you can think about Domino tomorrow, alright?"

Keith sighed with depression as he tried to make himself comfortable. "I hate having nothing to do," he mumbled.

Natani laughed softly for a second, then perked her ears as the rapid thump of footsteps danced down the stairs. Zen leaped from the fourth stair and noiselessly landed, investigating the hard landing noise Natani made on her way in.

He seemed to suspect a break-in, but his demeanor changed to something much more personable once he saw the "culprit." "Nat! What are you doing here?" he excitedly asked.

"Long story," the other brother responded. "It's good to see you again."

"Come here, little brother," Zen walked over, arms outspread. Natani did the same, and they met each other in a nice, fraternal hug as the two wolves finally reunited in person. "I missed you a ton," the older patted the younger's back a couple of times.

"Yeah, you too, Zen," Natani whispered after a deep breath. The two brothers stood there, silently for just a few more seconds, then Natani broke it up. "Listen, Domino's here. In the city."

"What for?"

"I caught him planting the bombs in Parliament. He teleported here and tried to frame me. I think he's trying to think up something else now."

"Does anyone else know about this?" Zen asked.

"Sythe does, but he was left on the island. Someone's going to have to explain this one to them."

"Nobody here, though."

"So far."

Zen moved over to the kitchen table and took a seat in one of the plain chairs. He pressed a hand against the side of his forehead as Natani took the spot next to him. "Clovis? You there?" he transmitted.

A pause. No response. "Clovis?" Zen repeated.

The half-fox cleared his throat as he finally picked up on the other end. "Yes, yes I'm here. What's going on?"

"Were you sleeping or something?"

"Maybe I was just a bit slow on the pickup, Zen. Now what is it?"

"Nat's in town. And Domino."

Clovis wasn't immediately ready to respond to that development. "As in this town, just to clarify?"

"He's sitting across from me right now."

"So I see. Give me a second," Clovis stated as his image started to materialize in the third chair. Sitting in his office chair back at his manor, his appearance looked quite natural at the wolves' house, even if he was still just a projection. Natani looked up at the spymaster, who peered back at her underneath his hood.

One crooked grin later, he pressed the tips of his hands together and reclined in his seat. "Now, Natani, how was your little vacation to the island?"

---

"That is unfortunate," Clovis nodded as Natani finished relating the news. He adjusted himself in his chair slightly as he looked at the two ethereal wolves sitting down across from his desk. "And where would Domino be now?"

"We're not sure," Zen answered. "He's probably back at The Fang's HQ or a safe house. Probably the latter, since he's kind of high profile now."

"I'll look into it," Clovis volunteered. "We know he's in the city somewhere, so he can't have too many spots to hide." He peered back over at the younger brother. "On the topic of high profile, Natani, what are you going to do?"

"About the Basitins?" Natani responded. "They're looking for me, but I'm a little out of the way right now. Things should clear up as soon as this does."

"Nat brought Keith along as well," Zen added. "If we can't find Domino, then he should be able to talk to the wolves and get them to look into it. With Sythe on the island working with the Basitins, I'd say we're sitting pretty, all things considered."

"I concur," Clovis smiled, taking a small sip of broth out of his mug. His cold definitely died down since this afternoon, but that didn't mean it was gone entirely. It wasn't like he hated the taste of the soup either. It was quickly becoming one of his favorite drinks now, common it may be.

"We'll pick this back up later," Clovis proposed. "In the meantime, girl, I dare say you look like hell at present."

"When you're on the run from the police, it tends to happen."

"Rest up for now. I'll think of something for you to do. Zen, we'll meet tomorrow. Usual place?"

"Usual place," Zen agreed. "I...talked to Blitz also. He's still pissed, but at least he's still with us."

"I'll apologize in person tomorrow," Clovis rolled his eyes. The one thing he almost never did, and the Polar Fox was adamant that he do it. "Are we done here?"

"I'll let you know if anything happens," Zen stated.

"Very well. Good night," Clovis grinned as the two projected wolves vanished from his desk. He looked back up from the now empty chairs, at the one very real wolf pointing a pistol at his head.

"They're gone now," he stated, as the gunman removed a deep purple crystal from his pocket and crushed it in his hand. Clovis felt the presences of Natani and Zen melt from his mind as the incandescent purple particles swam through the room, randomly but gracefully.

He turned his attention back to his visitor. "You don't suppose you can lower that now?" Clovis kindly requested, trying not to focus on the firearm instead of its bearer.

"You don't suppose you can back off and let me finish my work?" Domino mocked.

"You're a smart man. What do you think my answer's going to be to that?" the half-fox calmly replied. Threats carried a lot of psychological weight, but not so much physically. They were made to coerce someone into doing something, and Clovis had already done what he had to.

"Is this really the way you want to do things?" Domino smirked.

"Don't act like you aren't going to enjoy it," Clovis smiled. "I like games, and so do you from the sound of things."

Domino snickered as he took a couple steps closer to Clovis. "I also like results," he replied.

"And it's laughable that you think this is the way you'll get the one you want," the spymaster blandly added, paying no mind to the gun advancing towards him. "Do you play a lot of chess, Domino?"

"I do, actually. Favorite pastime of mine."

"That's magnificent, then. I happen to also. We should sit down for a match sometime."

Domino smirked again. "As lovely as that sounds, I think I'd rather take my money," he asserted, rolling the hammer back on the handgun.

"Only, I'm not the one keeping you from having it," Clovis pointed out. "I might know what you're doing, but I can't get in your way. Not at this stage."

"Doesn't make you any less dangerous," Domino countered. "Which you are to a very severe degree."

"Why, thank you," Clovis beamed. "But I'm not nearly as dangerous as the one man standing between you and your war."

"General Keiser."

The half-fox nodded, slowly. "I'm worthless in your eyes. A bishop stuck behind a pawn wall. A knight surrounded by his own men. I can't do a thing against you. But General Keiser, ooh, he's the queen threatening mate in two. And you need to do something about that."

"You seriously think the chess metaphors are going to save you now?" Domino raised an eyebrow.

"No, but I don't think you're going to kill me either way."

"And why's that?" Domino demanded, glaring sternly at the half-fox.

Clovis grinned back at the mercenary. "Because," he clarified. "I am simply too fun to play against."

The wolf blinked, continuing to stare at the half-fox intensely. "I understand you, Domino," Clovis continued to lecture. "You like money. You wouldn't be trying to jumpstart a war if you didn't. You're a businessman and I get that. I happen to like money myself too. But, surely, there must be a safer way to get it, right?"

"Why would you care if there was?"

"You know, you must be remarkably patient if you're willing to put your own war three weeks on hold before it actually begins," Clovis calmly explained, trying to ignore the cold steel pressing against his forehead. "Any sane businessman would think that's just unacceptable. They'd bow out, cut their costs and move along. Not you, though. So why are you waiting so long?"

The wolf huffed back in response, leaving Clovis to resume speaking. "You got tired of just selling arms, didn't you? You never saw the reason behind it, why they would just sit on a rack, never seeing any use at all. You didn't mind that then, because you made profits in the end. But you saw an opportunity when we started fighting the Templars, and you're refusing to let it go. And I know why."

Clovis rested his elbows on his desk, his head on the back of his hands, the gun now aimed just above his head. "You're not starting a war for the money. You're starting a war because you just don't want to be bored anymore. And you're leaving me alive because I'm the only one who gets it."

Then the half-fox gently grabbed the barrel of the gun and pulled it back down to his forehead. "So, I'll leave it to you. If I'm wrong, you'll pull the trigger right here and have one less problem on your hands. I won't take it personally if you do. But if I'm right, then..." Clovis scoffed, and grinned back up at the wolf. "It would be a treat to play this game with you."

Domino's trigger hand trembled slightly, as Clovis simply waited on his decision. Tense moment after tenser moment ticked past, the wolf in a perfect position to end one half of his issues right here with no resistance. All that was needed was just a little pressure...

He sighed heavily and raised the pistol towards the ceiling. "You are so right," he remarked with a reluctant smile, as he disengaged the hammer and slapped the firearm on the desk, in front of Clovis. "Never had someone who's had more fun messing with my plans than you."

"I aim to please," Clovis replied.

Domino turned to the office doors and began to take his leave. "You know that we'll see each other again," he said over his shoulder.

"Most assuredly," the half-fox cheerfully affirmed. "Perhaps we'll get in our chess game then as well."

"Do you play blitz?"

"My favorite," Clovis chortled.

Domino nodded and clicked his tongue. "I look forward to it," he smiled at his new favorite enemy as he opened the door. He then immediately shut it again as another thought struck him.

"Oh, yes, since I have you," the wolf turned back to Clovis, one hand still on the handle. "A few of my recruits just came in from up north, and they wanted to know where a good spot for a drink would be."

"There's a tavern in your headquarters if I'm not mistaken," Clovis recalled. This question sounded a lot like filler, simply asked to waste his time. But this was the first time in a very long span that Clovis actually enjoyed talking just back and forth like this. True, Domino was a horrible person as far as motives went. The personality, conversely, matched the half-fox's almost blow for blow.

"Yeah, that stuff is nasty though, and Hurley kind of kills the mood. I wanted to show them somewhere new."

"Oh? Did you have a spot in mind?" Clovis inquired.

"I gave them a recommendation for..." Domino paused, snapping his fingers trying to remember the name. "...what was it, MacMillan's! Yeah, MacMillan's. What do you think about them?"

Clovis' gaze narrowed, trying to mask the cold feeling of dread that was just instilled in his body. "It's a lovely spot," he flatly commented.

"Alright, awesome!" Domino pumped a fist. "Wanted to hear it from you first," he beamed as he now exited the office for real.

"I'll let them know you approve," he toothily grinned at the half-fox. "Good night!" he called, leaving the door open and waving at Clovis.

"Yes, good night indeed," Clovis softly spoke and returned the gesture, as friendly as he could manage. He then rose from his seat and walked back to the door, slamming it in a fit of panicked frustration. He leaned against it, his eyes gone wide with fear.

"He's played us," he whispered out loud.

---

"Kayle, quit it. I'm just fine," Blitz asserted as his niece walked him through the tavern's back room. "I can walk home by myself."

"You've gotten sick twice ever since Zen left," Kayle remanded as she navigated the maze of barrels and shelving units. "I'm taking you home, whether you feel like having me or not."

"And let go of me. I can walk just..." Blitz hiccupped sharply, causing a little bit of pain in his stomach. "...just fine."

"And that's the fifth time you said that in the past ten minutes. Trust me, you can't."

"Watch me," Blitz challenged as he lifted his arm off of his niece and staggered the rest of the way to the back room's door, stumbling only when he reached the doorknob. His back foot did kick a wood box placed to his left, which upset a small bottle resting on top of it, but not so much for it to start rolling. Kayle ran up to support him, yanking on his free arm.

"There? You see that?" the Polar Fox grunted as he pulled himself back to his feet. "Just fine."

Kayle was about to protest more, but her uncle did manage to go much farther than she initially thought. Maybe he wasn't quite as hung-over as she thought before. "Are you sure you're alright?"

"Sweetheart, I wouldn't be telling you that if I wasn't," Blitz replied.

The vixen wasn't convinced, and skeptically crossed her arms. "And how do I know that isn't just the rum talking?"

"Would this be the rum talking?" Blitz kindly asked as he softly tugged the bandana down. He stooped down, gently held Kayle's head between both hands and gave her a warm, fatherly kiss on the forehead. Kayle shut her eyes and smiled, taking in her uncle's love like a plant would take in sunlight, and gently wrapped her hands around his abdomen.

Blitz moved his hands around her as well, escalating the half-hug to a fuller version. "I love you so much, sweetheart," he whispered.

"You too, Uncle Blitz," she lovingly rested her head on his shoulder, her tail slowly but happily wagging. She sighed, and started brushing her head against his, effectively scratching herself just behind the ears.

Blitz petted her back for a moment, then placed his hands on her shoulders, looking at her back in her radiant green eyes. "Now get back up front and finish locking up for me, okay? I can manage from here."

Kayle smiled back at her wonderful uncle. "Alright, you win," she giggled. "But if I hear anything from the police about you, you're not allowed back here for a week."

"Not going to happen," Blitz grinned, pulling his bandana back up and yanking open the door. The rain eased off significantly, but it left a patch of very thick fog in its absence, obscuring most of the night in an impenetrable shade of moonlit grey. "I know exactly where I'm going," he stated as he marched out the door and took a professional left-hand turn down the road.

Kayle sighed again, only this time with exasperation. "Uncle, our house is to the right," she called out to him.

Blitz walked right past the doorway again as soon as he heard the vixen's correction. "Yes, dear. I knew that," he quickly replied, acting like he was going the right direction all along.

Kayle smiled again, shut the door and locked it up using the bolt above the handle. She then jogged through the maze of supplies in the back room and back to the front area. The chairs were stacked upon the tables, the floor was swept and mopped up. The only thing left to do was to finish counting the gold for today and take it to the back room's safe. Kayle went behind the bar and returned to the already emptied gold drawer and got back to where she left off. She took ten coins out of the big pile she made earlier, arranged them into a tight stack, then placed it down on the bar, finished a two-by-five arrangement of one hundred gold. The count looked good so far.

She grabbed another handful of coins and started the count to ten again, until the door was unexpectedly knocked on. It came so unexpectedly that the coin stack almost disintegrated in Kayle's hand out of surprise. It was unusual though. The sign she used outside to show whether the bar was open for business or not tended to be very visible to most people.

Or it might of been Blitz, who just turned around and came back for something he forgot. In either case, Kayle finished counting the stack, placed it down and ran over to the door. She had to undo the deadbolt lock above the doorknob, but left the chain one above that alone, just in case.

She slowly opened the door and peered though the crack, cautiously. She did indeed have company, but it was almost impossible to identify them through the overly soupy fog. There seemed to be four of them, reasonably wearing hooded jackets for their late night trek through the dismal weather.

"You do know we're closed, right?" Kayle asked as the fog eased up just slightly, revealing a little bit more of the guests' attire.

The cloth was dyed deep green, and sewed onto the left sleeves were patches of a Human skull and two swords.

---

Yet Another Note From The Author

It's me again, friends! And what would you do if I told you that we are now officially at 600 total views, and coming dangerously close to 300 on the month (January 2015)? It'd feel pretty awesome, wouldn't it? And that's exactly how I feel right now about you guys and where this novel is right now. I know I've said this in my last update but I'm going to say it again: sincerely, honestly, thank you so much for checking this work out. You people are not numbers to me. You guys are avid, purebred readers of the highest degree, and it means so much to me every time I see that counter go up. It means somebody took a look at the website, saw my story and decided that it was worthy of their time, and I can not possibly emphasize how amazing that feeling is. And it's all thanks to you great, fantastic people.

Once more, thanks so, so much. One thousand hits is on the horizon!

Cheers,

WS