TwoKinds: Redemption

A Fan-Fiction Novel

Written by WildSnivy

Part IV: Foxes, Fish and Friends

One Final Note from the Author

Hi guys! First off, thank you so much for being patient with me as I got this part up. I had a bit of a rough patch at school, and this, as you can probably imagine, is indeed the last major update for the story. So that's why I'm a week late posting this. But the good news is I know how to make it up to you guys, and I made this part 50% longer as a thank you to you guys for not only reading the story, but sticking around for the ending. So thanks again, and I hope you like it!

Cheers,

WS

P.S. There might also be an epilogue to come. Maybe. Anyways, back to the story...

Chapter 23

"Clovis, slow down! What's wrong with Kayle?"

"If we weren't in a hurry, I'd explain!" Clovis panted as he continued to dash through the empty, fogged backstreets, towards MacMillan's. "We just need to get to the tavern, like, now!"

Zen had to exert himself slightly more than normal to match the spymaster's pace. The soupy fog shrouding the late night streets didn't help matters either, with Clovis fading in and out, back and forth from Zen's sight. One second he would be perfectly merged with the deep grey of the low flying clouds, then Zen would momentarily catch a flicker of the half-fox's crimson cape, fluttering behind him like a banner in a windstorm. Past him, dark windows blurred through the fog, faintly lit by the lanterns hung above the sides of the street, the gas torches' luminosities suppressed by the inclement weather.

The sound of scampering feet off to Zen's left indicated that Clovis had taken an abrupt turn down the alley he just passed. He backed up then dashed down it, not permitting the half-fox to get any further ahead of him. On a normal day, this would have been just another street chase, something well within Zen's capabilities. Fleeing targets were nothing new to him, especially in his line of work.

There were two things about this scenario, however, that distinguished it somewhat in his eyes. For starters, he was still trying to wake up after Clovis all but kicked his door in and started barking orders at him like a drill sergeant stripped of his morning coffee. It was far, far too late for this nonsense, and the least Clovis could have done for the wolf was offer up just a little explanation as to why they were in such a rush to MacMillan's, or why he thought Kayle was in danger or about to be. But nope, now here he was, half-asleep, groggily sprinting after his employer in a dark alley, with little to no idea what was going on. If Zen didn't know any better, he'd have thought he was still asleep, but the last thing he would ever do with Clovis was dream about him, even coincidentally. So that theory was immediately debunked, as pleasant as it would have been.

But the sleep deprivation was a miniscule problem next to the second unique facet of this situation: Kayle. The family of foxes. Zen's friends. It felt nothing short of bizarre to the wolf, that he was rushing to ward off danger from someone who wasn't Natani. His reaction would have been completely understandable then, if he was permitted to judge himself like that. This was not her, though. So what was driving him, then? What was so special about Kayle that...

Zen didn't bother trying to complete that question, because it would have sounded downright stupid if he had. Everything was special about Kayle, and Blitz for that matter. Out of everybody and everything Zen knew around the wolf's capital city, Natani, his home, and the two foxes were the only ones he could confidently say that about. They grew on him, and this was the direct result of his relations with them.

We can't replace what you lost, but we can definitely try.

Zen stared back in front of him, with resolve as he continued to chase Clovis. Kayle and Blitz were more than just a bartender and a cooperative.

They were a second family to him. And he would be damned if he was losing them too.

The half-fox skidded to a halt in front of the tavern's front door, nabbing the knob as he dashed past. Zen didn't notice Clovis slowing down for a moment, and almost collided with him as a result. Instead he managed to check his speed enough to only set his hands on Clovis' back for a second.

Clovis rattled the door for a few seconds, then struck it with frustration. "R'llyat!" he swore, as he frantically began patting himself down, searching for his mana reserve. Make that three things unusual about this situation: Clovis, for once in his life, was starting to lose his touch, Zen noticed. The lack of a long-winded explanation, the undignified, out of place language, the panicked way he was searching for something he should have by all rights known where it was. He finally dug one of the crystals out of his back pocket and fidgeted with it for a moment before kneeling down and holding it before the door's lock, shakily pinching it between his thumb and forefinger.

"Recludo!" he commanded, and the wisps of mana began to float out of the crystal and slip their way through the lock's keyhole. The crystal dimmed to a blank, colorless state, and a few seconds later he received the audible ka-chunk of the lock retracting. The half-fox then stood back up, motioned for Zen to come stand behind him, and took one, final deep breath.

Zen patted the half-fox's shoulder, and Clovis barged through the door to storm the tavern.

Zen slid his blade out from his bracer and positioned it defensively in front of him. Clovis drew two more crystals from his pocket and prepared another spell, two tiny fireballs manifesting in his hands. They were now in the tavern's main area, but if something had happened here, then it wasn't readily noticeable. Clovis crept forward, his eyes darting every which way, checking for anything or anyone unusual. Zen slowly patrolled around the bar, keeping low to the ground. Except for an upset stack of gold coins strewn about on the countertop, the tavern looked deserted for the night.

Zen pressed two fingers to his head to mentally transmit the all clear to Clovis, until he picked up on another noise. The half-fox's ears jumped to full alert as well, and he pointed towards the door to the kitchen. Zen nodded acknowledgement, and moved to the side of the door, the blade held out behind him, now offensively. Clovis took to the other side and blew a puff of air onto the fireball in his left hand to dismiss it. The noise came through much more clearly now. It was weeping, sobbing...

It was Kayle. Zen looked at Clovis, and he could tell he knew it as well. Quietly, Clovis slowly turned the doorknob and gently gave it a push, the hinges squealing as the door came to rest about halfway open. Zen infiltrated the kitchen first, ready to intercept anything looming within...

"Oh, no..." Zen slowly whispered, his blade hand now trembling sporadically and severely. Kayle was indeed in the kitchen, sitting in the corner and on the verge of tears. The scene around her, however, was mortifying. Four Keidran, three wolves and a tiger, all armed and wearing green hooded shirts with The Fang's insignia patched onto the sleeves, lay scattered about on the wooden floor, one of them propped against the wall next to the charcoal grill. All of them had received numerous deep cuts all over their bodies, and had bled profusely from them as a result. Judging from the volume pooled on the floor, all of them were probably dead if not on the cusp of it. The vixen, still staggering with her breathing and her eyes continuing to water up, tightly but steadily gripped a chopping knife in her hands. The edge of it was coated with crimson, and some it had splashed onto her white sleeveless shirt, with a couple drops on her upper arms too.

"Kayle!" Zen exclaimed, sliding his blade back up and running to her. Kayle screamed and jutted the knife out in front of her reactively, causing Zen to immediately stop. He slowly raised his hands, undid the leather fasteners on his bracer, and slid it off of his arm. He placed it gently on top of one of the nearby tables, and then steadily backed away from it. The hyperventilating vixen gradually lowered her knife in response.

"Clovis, get in here," Zen ordered at a moderately soft volume. Clovis got rid of the second fireball and peered into the kitchen. He inhaled sharply as he took in the scene, then fully entered the kitchen area, his arms folded underneath his red cloak. He noticed Kayle sitting in the corner of the room as well, and tossed off his hood at the risk of possibly scaring her.

"What happened?" he asked breathlessly, still stupefied by the possible idea that Kayle had done this all by herself.

"She did a damn brave thing," Zen answered, then turned his gaze back to the vixen, her eyes singularly trapped on the bloodstained floor. "Kayle?" Zen tried to get her attention.

The vixen only gave a sniffle in response. She still held the kitchen knife in front of her, frightfully.

"Kayle?" Zen calmly repeated. Her eyes slowly peered back up at the wolf, timidly.

Zen still had his arms raised as he finally succeeded in making eye contact with the bartender. "Listen to me, Kayle. You're safe," he spoke, soothingly, as the half-fox checked for pulses on the four assailants. "Clovis and I are here. We're going to protect you."

Kayle raised the knife again, and Zen took a half-step backwards. "But before we can do that, you have to let go of that knife first," he stated, pointing at the utensil then outstretching a hand. "Hand it here."

The vixen struggled for breath again, and pulled the knife closer to her chest, her only means of defense.

"It's okay," Zen continued, still reaching for the knife. "We're here to help. You're okay."

Kayle glanced down at the weapon, her vision unfocused through her tears. She gasped for air once more, still unable to process or explain what had transpired in the past few minutes. She raised it in front of her face, as the blade started to tremble in her hands.

Zen inched closer to her, trying not to scare her. "Kayle?"

The vixen dropped the knife between her legs, letting it loudly clatter back onto the floor. She sprang onto Zen and wrapped her arms tightly around him, burying her face into his chest. Her gasping whimper from before now escalated to a full-scale cry, intermittent screaming, her tears staining the front of Zen's shirt. The wolf did nothing in response, not immediately, simply allowing Kayle to hold him for a while. After a few moments he gently put his hands on her back, and let himself sit down on his lower legs.

"It's alright, Kayle," he whispered after a moment. His hands involuntarily tightened their grip on the vixen's shirt. "You're alright."

Minutes passed. Zen still sat with Kayle, silently comforting her in his arms. Clovis finished checking the third body for vitals. None so far. It was a complete massacre. He stood up, curiously glancing at the wolf and fox, huddled together on the kitchen floor. He sighed heavily and surveyed the room once again. Only the one against the wall wasn't checked yet. He thought it best to look at it anyways, just in case.

Kayle finally managed to calm down, still pressing her head against the assassin. Clovis turned his head to her again as he heard her cries start to come down. He looked down at his bright red cloak, then reached a hand up towards the collar and undid the golden clasp securing it around him.

Zen moved his hand up to the back of Kayle's head, gently running a thumb through her smooth auburn hair. The vixen was still sniffling, but moved her head up to Zen's shoulder, resting her muzzle on it. Her eyes were still shut and moist.

"Here," Clovis softly said as Zen was softly tapped on his other shoulder by what felt like wyvworm silk. He turned his head away from Kayle momentarily, and noticed that it was actually the half-fox's scarlet cape. Clovis held it towards Zen, arm extended, looking at him out of the corner of his eye, almost sorrowfully.

"She needs it more than I do right now," he stated, sporting only a black undershirt now.

Zen wasn't sure what to make of the offering, and just stared at the cape instead. Clovis moved his arm closer to Zen, in silent insistence. Zen nodded and took the cloak off his hands, in silent thanks. He threw the cover over Kayle's back and gradually helped her back to her feet. Her legs continued to shake and buckle violently, and she draped a hand around Zen's neck for support.

"I think I need to take her home," Zen informed as he walked the vixen towards the kitchen's door. He held his inside arm tightly against Kayle, making sure she wouldn't fall.

"Yeah. Yeah, I think you should too," Clovis softly agreed, pacing towards The Fang agent against the wall. "I'll be out of here in a moment."

Zen assisted the vixen out of the room, and was about to start towards the front door. He stopped just prior to it and turned back to the half-fox, who was staring down the incapacitated agent. "Clovis," he called to him. The spymaster didn't react, not even turning his head to look at him. "You sure you're okay?"

"Just take her to her uncle's," Clovis replied. "I'll be fine."

Not another word was spoken, and Zen continued to help Kayle hobble her way to the front door. Clovis continued to just stare at the bodies, dismally. The sound of the door shutting immediately liquefied his legs, dropping him to his knees in an instant.

"What have you done, Clovis?" he asked out loud, wishing for an answer yet knowing one was not coming.

The half-fox did nothing of note for at least another fifteen minutes after Zen left. Very seldom did Clovis ever find himself speechless like this. He knew who was to blame for the attack, and he sat on his knees, staring down the bloodied wall, lost in thought about it. Because the answer wasn't The Fang.

Clovis hated taking fault for anything. And yet, for some reason, he couldn't help the feeling that he was solely responsible for this happening. He should have listened to Blitz. He should have hidden the intel. He should have tied off the loose ends leading to his assets. What was he thinking? The sole question of his time alone in the tavern. What was he thinking? He'd blundered on an astronomical scale, and was dangerously close to losing Kayle because of it.

What was he thinking?

The half-fox turned his head disdainfully at the agent resting against the wall. Damn him. Him and his entire entourage. The affront delayed nothing, but it delayed everything. Clovis would be amazed if Kayle or Blitz ever lent him assistance again after this crisis. The timeline wasn't harmed, but Blitz would almost definitely be put off from the job now, well beyond Zen's persuasion skills. It was down to him, Zen, possibly Natani, and that was it. He didn't like those numbers in the slightest.

Head hung with defeat, Clovis lugubriously got to his feet and went to study the last agent in the room, one of the three wolves. He frankly wasn't expecting much as he picked up the limp hand. He just wanted to confirm a death, go back to his manor, fix some tea and go to sleep. He'd have to call on Blitz as well sometime tomorrow also. Though considering the state his niece was currently in, he'd probably wouldn't be allowed to come within a kilometer of his home by the time he got around to that.

He pressed a thumb against the wolf's wrist, and peered through the ordering station, at the large mounted clock just off to the side of the front door. Quarter until midnight. Far, far too late for him to be staying up, especially like this.

Something bumped in the wolf's wrist, and Clovis' eyes immediately darted down to it. Another second, and it bumped again. A third second, a third bump.

A pulse.

Clovis immediately set the hand down and reached into his back pocket. This was a good thing. The agent had lost a lot of blood, but somehow he was just unconscious. Unconscious meant not dead. Not dead meant alive. Alive meant talking.

Clovis knelt back down and placed a mana crystal on top of the agent's abdomen. He applied some pressure using his hand, and spoke the word "Excitandis." A green glow emanated from his hand, and shortly after the agent's eyes jumped open as he took a sharp, full breath of oxygen. Clovis let the agent get his bearings straight, get accustomed to the environment.

The wolf's expression went from relieved to terrified as he identified his fallen comrades on the hardwood floor, then gradually, timidly turned to Clovis. "Oh crap," he said to himself, under the impression the half-fox had just murdered his friends. He clawed at the back wall in panic, hastily trying to get to his feet and possibly run for his life.

The spymaster instead grabbed the collar of his shirt with both hands, hoisted him to his feet and pinned him against the wall he was found. He didn't say anything, and just contemptuously glared at the revived Fang member for a while instead.

The agent toothily grinned and put his hands to the air. "J-just let me go, man! I won't say a thing about this, I promise!"

"Listen to me very carefully," Clovis hissed, his muzzle no more than two inches away from the other's. "I have had an amazingly long and stressful day, and ninety-nine percent of it is because I've been trying to put up with you and your guild ever since I woke up. I want to go home as soon as possible, and I'm sure you'd like to as well. So let's just get this over with and we can both call it a night, yeah?"

"I-I go home after, right?"

"Deal or no?" Clovis demanded.

"What happens if I say no?" the wolf responded.

Clovis released one hand and snapped his fingers, igniting a fireball in his palm. He moved it to the wolf's face, just close enough to singe some of the fur on his left cheek.

"I think you know the answer," Clovis stated, dismissing the fireball and reinstating his grasp on the agent. On another night, he'd remember his manners, but the late night and recent events had worn down his patience and formality, enough to the point where he couldn't afford to expend any more of it on people like this.

"Now, how did you know to be here?" the half-fox seethed.

The wolf inhaled shallowly, awkwardly trying to contort his mouth to blow air onto the burnt part of his face. Clovis pressed on his stomach, where one of the more grave wounds were. The agent yelped, and immediately forgot everything about the burn. "D-Domino drew it up, alright? He scouted this place earlier."

"And the plan was to kill the bartender?" Clovis angrily continued, applying more pressure to the cut. "Someone completely uninvolved?"

"Nono, not kill her, man. H-he just wanted us to hit the place. Smash a few things, leave some notes. We-we didn't expect for her to still be here!" The agent rushed every sentence as it came, tempted with the promise of not being around Clovis any longer.

"Yes, and I'm certain your little team needed their swords and padded shirts for this little job," the half-fox remarked as he flicked the agent's top, feeling the cloth armor underneath the shirt.

The wolf breathed in again. "I can explain that..." he stammered, then screamed again as Clovis' hand dug into his abdominal wound again.

"Then start!" Clovis boomed. "What were you doing here?"

"The boss wanted leverage!" the wolf cried. Clovis removed his hand again, and permitted the wolf a few minutes to let the pain subside. "He wanted to take the girl, alright? Thought you'd back down if he did."

"That doesn't explain the swords," Clovis spat.

"Intimidation, I swear this is true!" the wolf panted. "W-we just had them with us, thought it'd be easier to take her. We didn't expect her to go berserk with a kitchen knife!"

"Well you definitely succeeded in that sense, now didn't you?"

"That, that everything?" the agent squeaked. "I just want to go home!"

"You said Domino sent you. Where is he?"

"If I knew, I'd tell you," he frightfully replied, pointing at the three other Keidran. "They just came up to my room and told me to kit up."

Clovis looked at the wolf intensely, eye-to-eye. The wolf's eyes nervously danced all around the kitchen, looking everywhere except in the half-fox's direction.

"I don't believe you," Clovis rendered his judgment.

"It's the truth! I wouldn't be telling you this if it wasn't!" the agent begged.

"Convince me then."

"How the hell do I do that? I just told you what I know!"

Clovis examined his captive one last time, then shook his head sadly. "You had to be like this..." he mumbled, then swiftly kicked the wolf's feet out from under him, like upright planks supporting a wobbly table. The wolf immediately crashed onto his knees, and Clovis dug into his pocket again.

"What are doing?" he yelled to the spymaster. "Just let me go, please!"

"Then look at me!" Clovis demanded, demonically glaring at the agent and sinisterly holding a mana crystal right in front of his face. "Look at me right in eyes, right now, and tell me that you are not lying!"

The wolf finally succeeded in making direct eye contact with Clovis, but, for some reason, couldn't open his mouth to say that he was being truthful.

Clovis sighed again, exhaling cold air out of his nose and into the wolf's face. "You did this to yourself," he remanded as he rammed the mana crystal against the wolf's forehead and impressed it into his fur with his hand. The wolf shut his eyes tightly, until Clovis pried his right one open with his thumb and forefinger

"Don't do this!" the agent screamed.

"Veritas invenitur!" Clovis shouted. His hand started to glow blue, and the agent's panic gradually subsided to calm. The deep brown eye Clovis had forced open gradually filled with luminescent blue, like a jug of water was being poured into it. The eye's iris fully filled, and the agent finally ceased moving altogether. His eye simply stared up to Clovis in awe, charmed by the spell. He felt no more compulsion to deceive. He had no more reason to lie. His heart felt completely opened, ready to share any secrets he hid.

"Now," Clovis hissed, still forcing the crystal against the wolf's head and still holding his eye open. "Where is Domino, precisely?"

"He's hiding in his safe house," the agent monotonously replied. "Built into the city sewers, underneath Post Street."

"And what is he doing?"

"Never said," came the reply. "This was only a step towards the goal. He always gets what he wants."

"And that is all you know about it?"

"Yes."

Clovis nodded as he accepted that he would likely not get any more information from the wolf. At that, he lifted the crystal off of the wolf and let his eye shut. The wolf's head turned to the side, his consciousness now lost deep in slumber, as Clovis tossed the used crystal off to the side of the room. He proceeded out the door, two fingers placed to the side of his head.

"Thom? Is this a bad time?"

"Is it ever, sir?" the tiger replied on the receiving end of his private mental link.

"I need some bodies moved."

"Mind if I ask what you did this time?"

"Long story," the half-fox answered. "Send three people to MacMillan's as soon as you can. Offer them overtime if you have to, but this needs to get done."

"I'm on it, sir," Thom confirmed his orders. "What will you be doing?"

"Hunting Domino," Clovis replied as he reentered the fogged streets, slamming the tavern door behind him.

Chapter 24

The fire burnt brightly, fiercely, yet softly, as Kayle flipped herself over in her bed, the covers pulled up just below her neck. She slept comfortably, yet anxiously, as Blitz and Zen vigilantly kept watch over her from the fireplace. She had a room upstairs she could have just as easily accessed, especially with Zen escorting her like he was, but her uncle insisted she sleep on the ground level tonight, in consideration of the events that had just transpired in the pub. If anything were to stir her, he'd prefer to be at her side as quickly as possible.

The flames continued to dance and jump inside the fireplace, Zen blankly staring at them like a stage play that just lost his interest. The fox's living room didn't have much in the way of furnishings, save for a small table Blitz like to reserve for games of cards, and of course the low clearance bed stand Kayle was using. When it came to blankets though, Blitz had more than enough of those. At least five of varying thicknesses were heaped onto Kayle as she continued to rest, and two more were spread out on the wood floor for the fox and wolf to sit on for the time being. Zen sat with his legs in front of him, his head resting on his bent knees.

Blitz silently fluffed another pillow for his niece and placed it against her bed for later. He took his seat on Zen's left, placing himself on top of the green and yellow wool. He had his facemask off again, the black bandana loosely hanging around his neck.

He exchanged glances with the wolf, then joined him in watching the fire burn. The night was cold, silent. Very abnormal weather for the summertime. Zen didn't like it a bit. Blitz found it only bearable, his thicker fur coat finally proving itself beneficial during its off season.

"I did this to her, Zen," Blitz whispered, covering his face with his hand. "I made her stay late, didn't take her with me, and then this happens."

"She wouldn't blame you for what happened. Nobody would," Zen flatly added. "Nobody saw this coming. We got ambushed."

"I could have been there, mate," the fox sighed. "She didn't have to fight tonight."

"But she did, and she's a hero because of it."

"How in the hell can you say that?" Blitz sternly replied, leering at the wolf. "She had to kill four people by herself, completely out of self-defense. She didn't want to do it, she had to." He turned his head to check on the vixen. She hadn't moved much since Blitz was tending to her earlier.

"And I'd be damn surprised if she's ever the same once she wakes up."

Zen glanced at the fox out of his peripherals. "Listen, I feel awful about this whole thing too, alright? I don't think anyone can feel alright after what just happened." He leaned forward towards the flames, just slightly. "But it could have ended worse. Much worse."

The fox's domicile went silent, save for the soft sounds of Kayle rolling onto her back, and Blitz turned back to the fireplace too. "Right," was all he could say back.

"All we can really do now is just take it slow, make sure nothing else happens to her," Zen continued.

"No," Blitz argued. "No, between The Fang, your brother and General Keiser, you have enough things to worry about. Just leave me and Kayle alone. We'll be fine."

Now it was Zen's turn to skeptically look at the fox. "This better not be because of what happened tonight."

"It has nothing to do with that," Blitz asserted. "But Kayle needs support more than anything if she's going to get over this. From her family. I'll send a mail to her dad tomorrow and let..."

"And why not me?" Zen demanded.

"It's nothing against you, mate..."

"Remember what you told me at the bar a few days back?" Zen retorted, still mindful of his speaking voice. "That if I ever needed someone you and Kayle would be there? This is me returning the favor. I'm not leaving you."

"Zen, listen..."

"You're my family, alright?!" Zen barked loudly. Blitz flinched. "Alright? You and Kayle are probably the closest things Natani and I are ever going to have to one! Not one damn day goes by when I walk down those streets and pray my parents could have seen where I am today. I am never going to understand what it's like to have someone looking out for you that isn't just your brother! And you and Kayle came so close to fixing that, dammit!"

"Zen, take it easy..."

"You're not just a friend to me, Blitz! And Kayle isn't either! Natani hasn't met you yet, but I'm positive that once he does, he's going to feel exactly like I do right now. With people he can finally care about!"

Zen stopped to catch his breath after his outburst. His vision began to blur as he felt his eyes watering up with frustration. He gripped the sleeves of his shirt hard enough to rip through it if he tightened it anymore. "Please," he begged the fox, finally checking his volume. "I want to help. Just...just let me help you. Like you helped me."

Blitz craned his neck to check on Kayle again. She had rolled back onto her side, her back turned to both him and Zen. Blitz had no idea how she could still possibly be asleep after that, but he ignored it for now.

"You're really worried about her, aren't you?" Blitz whispered, as the fire gave off a moderately boisterous pop.

Zen didn't verbally respond, and just huffed at the fire instead. Blitz stared at him for a few moments longer then sighed again himself. "Then I'm helping you chase Domino."

Zen's ears perked. "You're sure?" he replied, remembering to keep his voice down this time.

"Nobody screws with my family," Blitz growled. "Not you, and definitely not Kayle."

"Blitz, after this, you're well within your rights to just bow out. Clovis would understand."

"I'm not doing this because of my job, mate. I'm doing it for you."

"What does that mean?"

Blitz readjusted his position on his blanket. "You were right, for calling me out earlier. It was stupid of me to think that Kayle wouldn't want to see you after that. It's...good to hear you want to help her."

The fox paused and bowed his head. "It means you're part of the family."

"Blitz, this isn't your fight," Zen continued to dissuade. "Right now, Kayle needs us, but you most importantly."

"She also needs you, brother," Blitz returned. Zen blinked, unfamiliar with that form of address from the Polar Fox. "And we're going to help her. Together. That's what this family is. A problem for one of us gets the attention of all of us." He looked back up at Zen with intensity, sincerity.

"And that goes for you too. Domino hurt Kayle and threatened you. So don't you sit there and give me that sappy 'it isn't my fight' bull crap because I'm pretty damn sure that it is."

Zen wanted to protest further, but Blitz did away with his argument with a flourish of his hand. "I don't want to hear it. If you want to help with Kayle, you're going to let me help you with Domino," he stated, slowly lifting the black facemask over his face.

"Tomorrow, we're going back to see Clovis. We're going to dig until we find out where that bastard's hiding," the fox outlined as he tugged his butterfly knife out from his pants pocket. He glanced at the casing for a few moments before finally flicking it open and spinning it around for a bit.

"Then we'll find him..." Blitz caught the knife, blade protruding outward.

"And we'll make him pay."

Kayle snapped awake, screaming and sitting herself upright. Her blurred vision gradually faded to a better resolution, unveiling familiar surroundings. Friendlier surroundings.

The roaring fire her uncle had prepared earlier had long since died away, a few embers coating the floor of the fireplace, glowing but not nearly hot enough to produce any light. The living area was now almost completely dark, save for the white moonlight bleeding through the windows. The fog had lifted for the most part, and if it wasn't clear already, it would certainly be so by the morning.

The vixen panted heavily and curled herself up, hugging her lower legs. She tilted her head down, and noticed that someone had changed her shirt. The bloodstained white cotton was done away with in favor of...Kayle couldn't tell what the hue was in the living room's blackness, but the scant moonlight reaching her bed led her to believe that it was not a bright shade of anything.

"You alright?" a voice unexpectedly whispered off to her right. She gasped for a moment and swiftly turned her head to the side, almost headbutting Zen as she did so.

"Sorry," the wolf apologized, raising a hand in front of him. "Didn't mean to scare you."

"Zen..." Kayle whispered, then buried her muzzle between her legs. "I killed them, didn't I?" Her tone shook, vibrating up and down, lost in her thoughts and emotions.

Zen sighed, upset that the conversation had to start like this. "You were brave tonight, Kayle," he remarked. He was unsure if he was avoiding the question to keep her or himself sane.

Kayle tucked her legs closer to her face. "How do you do it?" she quietly asked.

"How do I do what?" Zen comfortingly replied.

"You're an assassin," the vixen elaborated. "It's your job to kill. Uncle Blitz does it sometimes too. So how do you do it?" Her eyes started to water up again.

"How do you put up with it?"

"Kayle, look..."

"How can you be so strong?" she repeated, shutting her eyes.

"Look here," Zen tapped the left side of her muzzle twice with his hand, prompting Kayle to turn back to him, her vibrant green eyes the only things in the room that haven't been washed out to a deep blue or black. He gripped the sleeve of his shirt and dabbed it softly just under her eyes, pressing just firmly enough to absorb the tears.

"I think that's enough crying for one day," he stated as he transitioned to the second eye.

"Zen, I..."

"I'm not strong," he finally answered as he removed his hand from the vixen's face, who blinked curiously at the response.

"I know what I do, and I don't take it lightly," he continued to say. "A strong guy wouldn't even remember the names of the ones he kills. He just takes the money and the next contract in the queue. Doesn't care who he steps on in the process. That guy is not me.

"Nat and I keep the weapons and gear of the people we kill. We like to keep it on our wall. But we don't take trophies because we think it looks good. We do it because it helps us remember them. It's a curse, trying to remember whose lives you've ended for your gain. But it's one we carry regardless. And it's because we're not strong like you think we are.

"We do it to prove to ourselves that, in the end," Zen concluded, holding Kayle's hand, delicately, reverently in a way. "Nat and I, we're just Keidran. And you thinking like this, is more than enough proof that you are too."

Kayle was breathless for the next few moments, and she felt her eyes starting to swell with tears once again. She shut them and shook them free, then glanced back up again at the wolf. "Zen..." she started.

He blinked, then noticed the vixen finally smiling at him. Faintly, and hardly noticeably, but still smiling. "Thank you," she softly finished. "Thank you so much."

Zen nodded, with a grin of his own, glad to see that Kayle was finally on the road to recovery. The vixen turned her head to the window across from her. Outside, the fog had now completely regressed, revealing the expansive, star-littered night sky it had been concealing. The city did not receive many nights like this, the local light displays outshining and crowding out many of the stars one would normally see in the forest. Late night, however, was a very different story. Kayle stared up into the space, fully immersing herself in the sky's splendor.

Silently, she thought of her family. Her dad and mother, living near the western beaches of the continent. Blitz, her marvelous uncle. And then Zen started to fade into the picture as well. Her supporter. Her drinking partner. Her protector.

Her big brother, in a way.

Zen marveled at the night sky with her as well, trying to suppress any primal urges to howl at that gigantic white circle cut in the middle of it. "I want to help," she stated. The remark took Zen's attention's off of the sky and back to Kayle.

"I heard your talk with Uncle Blitz earlier," she added, her sparkling green eyes fully locked onto Zen's. "And I want to help too."

"We thought you were sleeping through that," Zen confessed, albeit with slight befuddlement.

"Yeah, you thought," Kayle pointed out with another smile. "But I want to do something aside from just sit here or at the bar while you and Blitz are out finding Domino."

"You did more than enough for now, Kayle. You need time to recover."

"It wouldn't be right," Kayle responded. "I don't want to be pushed to the side just because I had to..." Her voice trailed off, as she subliminally begin to stare at her hands, like she was in a trance, but she quickly snapped herself out of it. "You said it yourself: we're like family to you. That means you are to us too. And if Blitz wants to help you fight, then it's only fair if I do it with him."

Zen considered objecting, just for a moment, but didn't, under the presumption that it would end just like it ended with Blitz. He was still convinced that Kayle was in absolutely no condition to be helping out anyone at the moment, but if she was this determined to be useful...

Zen sighed and grinned back at the vixen. "Fine. We'll think of something," he agreed, with just a small amount of hesitation. Kayle beamed as she heard his approval. "But you need your rest first, most importantly."

"Where are you going?" she asked as Zen stood up from a kneeling position next to the bed.

"I made myself a little spot to sleep next to the fireplace," Zen pointed a thumb at a pile of blankets and a small pillow. "I'll be right next to you if you need anything else. I'm your watch dog for the night."

Zen's eyes went up to the ceiling, contemplating that last comment. "Or would it be watch wolf, technically?" he mumbled to himself. He was rewarded with another smile from Kayle.

He shrugged and finished walking back to his makeshift sleeping area. "Whichever it is, I'll be right there, okay?"

Kayle nodded, unnoticeably so if Zen wasn't expecting it or looking for it, and lied back down in her bed. She rested on the side of her head, watching the wolf settle in. He started by removing his thick black shirt, unveiling a bright, almost glowing in the dark white one underneath. He tossed the hood off to the side of the living room, then paced around his blanket stack a couple of times before lifting the second one from the top and sliding himself in between the gap, trying to cover himself as much as he could manage. They were not reasonably proportioned for someone as tall as Zen however, and despite his efforts, he was left with the lower half of his legs resting on the floor. She saw one of them shiver in response to the temperature as they touched down.

"Good night, Kayle," he quietly called over his shoulder as he rolled onto his side.

Kayle shut her eyes, finally ready to get some good, quality rest, but they slowly opened back up after just a couple of minutes. This was in response to the wolf grunting and contorting himself into a number of different positions, trying to get himself comfortable on top of the blankets but insofar failing to do so.

She leaned herself up, supporting herself with her inside elbow. "Zen?"

Zen looked at Kayle over his shoulder, his front half facing away from her. "What's up?"

She started to say something, then hesitated briefly. Zen blinked in anticipation, waiting to see what the vixen needed.

She finally spoke. "Did you want to sleep with me tonight?"

Zen's eyebrows jumped up in confused surprise, thinking that "sleep with me" was Kayle's attempt at a euphemism. "I..I'm not sure if that's an amazing idea, Kayle."

"You just look cold down there is all," Kayle noted, then lifted the sheets on her bed, inspecting the remaining area. "And there's room here for you if you like."

Zen blinked.

"...ooooooooh," Kayle vocalized after a small pause. "You were thinking that..."

"That's usually what that expression means, yeah," Zen nodded.

Kayle giggled a bit and scooted herself to one side of the mattress. "Well, if you think you need it..." she left the offer open, as she shut her eyes again and prepared herself for sleep.

She was well into her slumber, pleasantly immersed in her now fully quelled subconscious, as her ears automatically flipped up as her sheets made noise in front of her. A weight tilted the bed back to a stable equilibrium, and then more rustling followed as the mass shifted in its position. Kayle's arms, through no volition of her own, reached out and rested itself on top of the weight, pulling its warm presence closer to her. It reluctantly obeyed. Her head moved itself upward slightly, pressing itself against the underside of the mass, as she sighed whimsically and smiled.

Zen peered out at the night sky once more, before closing his eyes, grateful that the night was finally over.

Chapter 25

Evals uncapped another bottle of ale and leaned back in the galley's chair. "So how much trouble do you think we'll be in?" he mumbled to the fox, waiting for him to make his play.

"You think the harbor guard will understand if we explained it to them?" Mike thought out loud, discarding a five of spades onto the pile.

"Well, we're still edging in on their space. They have to kick us out at some point."

"Keith and Natani are probably just held up. I mean, it's still pretty early. We have time, right?" Mike speculated. His mind grumbled in frustration as the dog scooped up his recently pitched card. The fox considered himself a mastermind of gin rummy strategy, so considering that the match's tally was now 93 to 15 against him, it was no exaggeration to say he was becoming quite unnerved. Either Evals was getting very lucky or he was simply off his game, the latter explanation he was very reluctant to accept.

"Yeah, I guess," Evals replied, throwing an ace of diamonds in his opponent's direction. "Where would they be though?"

"Supplies?"

"Our shipment came in last night. You and I inventoried it, remember?"

"Doesn't hurt to double check," the fox shrugged, as he tossed away his draw card with displeasure, the frustration only compounding as Evals gladly added it to his collection.

"Tripling seems excessive though," the dog remarked, triumphantly slamming his discard face down onto the pile. "Gin, by the way."

He flashed his teeth victoriously as he laid down his tidily organized hand in sets of three and four, and broke out the pencil and paper to record his exploits. "So that's another twenty-five for me, plus whatever's in your hand..."

"I think I need to look for them," Mike said as he put his cards face down and rose from the table.

"Calm down, Mikey. Best case scenario, the harbor guards leave us alone and we get another day off. Worst case, Keith and Nat come back from breakfast late and we're off right after. We're fine!" Evals exclaimed, his mood drastically improved by how well that last round went. He started poking through the fox's hand, gleefully scribbling down the points contained in it.

"Evals, they hired us. Don't you feel just a little obligated to at least check on them, see how they're doing?"

Evals glanced up at his friend. "You can't be that worried about them. Can you?"

"Well, no. But if they're being delayed then I'd like to at least make sure someone knows about it," the fox stepped towards the A Deck stairs.

"They'll be fine, I'm sure! Let's just chill here for a bit and wait for them to swing by."

"Evals, we don't get paid if they don't come back."

The dog's ears jumped up attentively, and any enjoyment he was receiving from trouncing the fox at cards was abruptly shut off. He leapt to his feet and raced to where Mike was standing, shoving him towards the stairs. "Then let's go get them! Move it, Mikey! Ándale ándale!"

Mike hated being pushed around like that, and picked up his own pace to get in front of the dog. "Alright alright, calm down! It shouldn't be long!"

"There's no such thing as 'it shouldn't be long' when I have money at stake."

"Look, we just need to go about it logically. We don't know where they are, and we just run in looking for them, we'll probably get lost, alright?" Mike briefed as he approached the trapdoor leading up top.

"Okay. Logically," Evals nodded. "I can do that. So where do we start?"

Mike prepared to push the door open. "I'm thinking that..." he started, heaving on the door. For some reason, it refused to budge, like it had gotten significantly heavier since last night. He pushed on it again. Same result.

"Mike, I know you don't have a lot of upper body strength, but this is kind of depressing," Evals groaned.

"It isn't...my fault!" he grunted, taking a third, unsuccessful shot at the door. "Something must have fallen on top of it."

"Alright, make way," Evals rolled his eyes and squeezed himself between Mike and the narrow wall of the corridor. He placed his hands on the underside of the door, ready to flip it open, and Mike reset himself to do the same.

The dog looked at the fox with anticipation. "One..." he called to him.

The fox looked back at him. "Two..." he continued.

"Three!" they said together, pushing jointly on the trapdoor. The force dislodged whatever obstacle was inhibiting them earlier, and the door flipped open, the two Keidran finally getting to the top of the deck. They stood in the corridor, arms resting on the main deck, the upper half of their bodies poking out through the orifice.

"That's better," Mike said to himself, glancing up at the sky. "And the weather doesn't look that bad either."

"Let's go find ourselves a..." Evals started, until a small, furred paw softly batted him on the right side of his face. "What the..." he said to himself, scanning the deck for what could have possibly done that.

A squirrel scampered across the deck towards Mike, he noticed, and then batted the fox across the face as well. It then ran back behind the two sailors, leaving them thoroughly confused by the woodland creature's recent behavior.

Evals slowly turned to his cohort, an eyebrow disbelievingly raised. "Did we just get slapped by a squirrel?" he asked.

"What in the world was that about?" Mike inquired, petting the side of his face. Maybe the squirrel tacked something onto the side of it.

"It's because you almost broke my back, you morons!" a voice snapped from behind the duo. Both of them turned their heads over their inside shoulder, and saw a very livid wolf behind them, sprawled onto his back and glaring at them with enough intensity to cut steel. On his shoulder stood the slap happy squirrel, who not only somehow managed to find a small scrap of cloth from on deck, but was also, as hard as it was for them to believe, waving towards her master's head, as if it was trying to cool him down.

Evals sheepishly raised a hand in front of him, pointing in Mike's general direction. "His idea," he quickly said, prepared to duck back into the hallway at any moment.

Mike's eyebrows jumped up. "You were the one who was blasting the door open!" he yelled.

"At least I could get it open to begin with," Evals bickered.

"For Gods' sakes, shut up!" Sythe hollered. Amazingly, that outburst worked, with the fox and dog both promptly going silent and turning their attention back to the wolf. "I haven't known you two for thirty seconds and already I hate you!"

The squirrel prodded Sythe's cheek, and meditatively motioned for him to breathe in. Sythe followed suit, held it for five seconds, and then released it. The squirrel squeaked happily once it noticed its master finally calmed down, and leaned against the side of his head.

"You know, how about we just try this again?" Mike proposed. "We ignore the fact that we just got assaulted by a squirrel."

"You ignore the fact that we just hurt you by opening a door," Evals continued.

"And we'll just call this a 'do-over,' alright?" Mike finished.

The squirrel nodded enthusiastically. The wolf was a tad more reluctant, but finally agreed. "Alright, fine. Do over."

"Sweet," Evals smiled, pointing at the fox again. "So he's Mike."

"And he's Evals," Mike grinned, returning the gesture towards the dog and slapping the deck of the ship with his other hand. "And this beauty here's the HMS Quantum."

Sythe skeptically surveyed the ship's deck, then peered back at the sailors. "This thing is a Basitin naval ship?"

"Can't prove it isn't," Evals pointed out.

"Plus it's kind of required," Mike added in. "The Quantum sailed General Keiser to the island here..."

"Ambassador-General Keith Keiser," Evals dignifiedly elaborated his employer's esteemed title.

"And we were actually just about to head back out to wolf country with him. Problem is..."

"We have no idea where he is."

"So we were going to go into town and try figuring that out."

"You won't find him there," Sythe blankly corrected the sailors. "He's already gone."

"What?" Mike and Evals asked in choral surprise.

"Yeah, he and Natani had to teleport out of here to the wolf capital. It was an emergency," the wolf explained as he offered his hand to the other two Keidran. "I'm Sythe, by the way. The squirrel's Mrs. Nibbly." The rodent stopped waving the cloth at Sythe to wave at the sailors for a second, then got right back to work.

The fox and dog stared at the hand like they were watching Sythe perform a very unconvincing magic trick. Then the two sighed with concession and turned away from Sythe to gaze out onto the island, trapped by the sheer thought that their employer had bailed out on them. The wolf was left stunned with his arm still extended, trying to convince himself that Keith's crew was more competent than this.

"He could have at least told us he was going," Mike grumbled, crossing his arms on top of the deck and resting his head on top of them.

"It's amazing how insensitive some people can be sometimes," Evals added.

Sythe was lucky that the ensuing spike in his blood pressure didn't cause any internal hemorrhaging, as the hypocrisy drenching the dog's statement caused the wolf to blow his cork yet again. "I'll show you insensitive, you..."

Mrs. Nibbly put a paw to his mouth before the tirade could escalate any further. Sythe took a deep breath, trying to vent his stress as nonviolently as possible, and only then did Mrs. Nibbly let him speak again. "Keith actually sent me here to keep an eye on you guys," he restarted.

The fox's attention was immediately restored, and he turned back to the diplomat. "You know Keith?"

"I actually backed him up at the hearing the day before," Sythe continued. "Like I said, he was in a hurry, but he wanted to make sure he didn't leave you alone. And that's what Nibs and I are here for."

The sailors glanced at each other, then peered back at Sythe and his pet. Mrs. Nibbly waved at them again, then they looked back at each other once more.

"Better than nothing," Evals shrugged.

"I don't trust that squirrel though," Mike qualified.

Mrs. Nibbly sighed and put a paw to her head. Sythe decided to scratch her back to cheer her up a bit. "He doesn't mean that, Nibs. He'll warm up to you."

"His ponytail looks stupid too," Evals whispered to the fox.

"I am not cutting my hair!" Sythe boomed, then pointed a frustrated finger angrily at Mike's hairstyle. "And what about him, huh? His is arguably worse than mine!"

Evals watched Mike adjust his long, bushy orange and black hair from behind his head, fiddling with the light blue cloth strip keeping it tied back.

"Well, he's a fox," was the dog's justification.

"I get away with it," Mike stated, itching the back of his head.

"Yours..." Evals waved a hand in front of him, failing to find the words to describe Sythe's tastes. "It's just bad," he bluntly critiqued.

Sythe almost lost his composure for a third time in the past five minutes, and probably would have launched into an angry rant for the ages. Managing a band of unaware idiots was one thing, but flaming his sense of style was on a completely different order of magnitude.

Fortunately, logic got the better of his emotions, and it seemed highly likely that this would be a recurring theme with the two sailors. Maybe he was just being a bit sensitive. Overly so. Yes, he should reel it in a bit. Considering everything else that piqued his ire during his stay at the Isles, this was actually pretty tame.

He let that remark go with that in mind. "I'll get it trimmed," he lied, more than unwilling to part with a style that he had been sporting for who knows how long.

"Well, everyone has their thing," Mike shrugged. "That's our two cents there..."

"...but if you like it, keep it," Evals finished.

"But enough of that," Mike interposed. "You're the captain in standing, right?"

Sythe blinked, staggered by how quickly the two were willing to accept his opinion. "Uh, yeah. I talked to the Harbor Guard, too. They said it's okay since we're with the General, but..."

"We're off the hook?" Evals woofed.

"Sounds like," Mike replied.

"Then what are we still doing up here?" Evals asked back, pointing back down the stairs. "The party's down there."

"Great point," the fox nodded, then enthusiastically grinned at the diplomat. "Oh captain my captain!" he addressed.

"Would you care to join us in the galley?" Evals offered.

"Sir?" Mike appended the honorific.

Sythe blinked. "Sure, if nothing else is happening," he accepted hesitantly.

"Well we can't go anywhere without Keith," Evals pointed out. "If he comes back, he's going to need a ride."

"So we may as well enjoy the downtime while we have it," Mike added.

"We'll meet you down there," Evals grinned as he ducked back below deck.

"Love to have you!" Mike cheerfully waved to the wolf and squirrel, following Evals' lead.

Sythe waited for the thumping of their feet to quiet down, before looking at his companion, almost as if he was in need of advice. The squirrel didn't do much apart from turning its head to the side, like it was just as confused as he was.

"They're weird, I know," Sythe told Mrs. Nibbly as he got to his feet. He then walked around the trapdoor and started to descend the staircase the dog and fox were standing on.

"But at least they're a good weird," he said as he pulled the trapdoor back over its hinges and sealing off the stairs.

"It's an unscheduled meeting, yes. But it's also urgent," Keith informed his friend as he finished tiding up his uniform. It was good that he was wearing it when Natani teleported him here. Appearing in front of the Wolf King himself in nothing but his common wear would have immediately killed his credibility as an ambassador.

"You think he'll understand? About The Fang and Domino?" Natani skeptically asked after a small sip of coffee.

"It'll probably take a bit," the Basitin admitted. "Trying to convince him his army's main supplier is trying to instigate a war is going to be hard enough."

"I think he'll be open to the idea if he knows he tried blowing your town up."

"That would just make my proposition absurd," Keith shook his head. "They try bombing us and now we want peace out of it? Too passive."

Natani shrugged her agreement through another swig of coffee. "You sure you don't need me for anything?"

"Palace guards will probably be more than competent, Nat," Keith confided. "Why? Do you have somewhere to be?"

"Well," Natani cleared her throat. "Clovis found a lead to where Domino's hiding, and I thought, if you're going to be on the speaking front, I may as well do the behind-the-scenes stuff, if you know what I mean."

"You're going to capture him?"

"That's the idea. We'll be with him, Zen and one of their friends. With four people, I don't think we'll have anything go bad."

Keith pointed accusingly at the wolf. "You really need to quit saying that."

"What did I do now?"

"Have many times have we said something like 'nothing is going to go wrong' and then actually saw that play out?"

"That's cute, Keith, but I don't believe in jinxes," Natani raised an eyebrow, confidently grinning at her companion.

"Always saw you as a realist."

"Nothing wrong with just taking things as they come," the wolf added. "It's how Zen and I have been living, and it's been treating us pretty nicely."

"Well, can you at least do me a favor and not kill him for me?" Keith requested. "I think Adelaide would want to get a good trial out of him in front of the Forest Wolves."

"I'll do what I can," Natani replied, finishing off her drink. "No promises, though."

"No, don't 'no promises' me this time," Keith sternly commanded. "We need him alive. I don't care what happens while you're in there. Domino needs to come back in one piece."

The assassin would have joked a bit more, but Keith's expression quickly made her think twice about that. He was being gravely, palpably serious this time. Understandably so. If Domino came back dead, then, with nothing except Zen's intel linking The Fang to the Basitins, and just rampant speculation past that, the Basitins would never be convinced Keith had solved their problem with the Keidran. This was critical: Domino could not die this time.

Natani understood exactly what her friend needed. "Right. I'll get it done," she nodded, focused.

"Thank you, Nat," the Basitin slowly smiled with prestige. "And, please be careful."

"You don't have a lot of faith in me alone, do you?" Natani prodded.

"I never said that," Keith defended. "Just make sure you and Zen are back for dinner. Alright?"

He leaned forward in his chair, resting his elbows on his upper legs. "For me?"

The room's atmosphere became noticeably more tender, out of Keith's concern for the wolf. She was a little stunned by how dramatically it morphed over such a short period. All she could do was blink back at her friend for a second, waiting for her mouth to unlock itself. "Yeah," she quietly agreed. "I can do that." Nothing happened after the wolf gave her response, and apart from a couple of creaking floor boards, there wasn't any noise either.

Natani pointed at Keith and then back at her, her hand oscillating between the two positions like the pendulum on a clock. "Did you want to..."

Keith looked down, though he wasn't sure why, and then went back to Natani. "Quick one?"

"Sure," Natani accepted as the two friends rose from their chairs and met off to the side of the table. It was a fraternal hug in a way, but the relationship was a little more...involved, Natani felt. A small tingle danced up her spine as her tail hooked onto Keith's for a brief moment.

"You are going to be safe, right?" Keith reassured himself.

"Yeah, you worry about yourself, Shorty," Natani retaliated, softly laughing to herself. She liked being with Keith, the only person who knew who she really was that wasn't a blood relative. And it was intimate moments like this one that helped her remember exactly why she's been with him all this time. She rested her muzzle on the top of his head in pontification. Sure, it may have been a little demeaning to his height, but he didn't mind.

The wolf's right ear jumped up as it caught someone whistling a tune from upstairs. "Gods Save The King," if she knew the melody at all, and her face went red as she remembered a very, very crucial but forgotten detail.

Clovis marched down the stairs, about ready to break into the interlude, but his notes dropped into a downward spiraling glissando as caught full sight of the Basitin and wolf, their tails interlocked with the other. Clovis just stood on the stairs, gawking at the scene, trying to look as dignified as he could but struggling to do so to any satisfactory degree.

Natani blushed again and peered over to the half-fox. Keith leaned over to his side to look around the mage and blankly stared at Clovis, unfazed by the intrusion.

Clovis softly put his hands together and cleared his throat. "So...um, here's what I'll do," he explained, slowly backing his way up the stairs. "I...am going to go back up there..." he slowly stated, pointing towards the upper floor of the house. "...then come back down the stairs. Yeah? And, um, when I do, I sincerely hope that...the scene will be a bit more familiar, if you know what I'm getting at."

He continued to backpedal up to the second floor. "Just...take your time. I'll..." he continued to stammer. "I'll be back in a second." He finally disappeared out of their sight, leaving them be in the kitchen once again.

Keith blinked and disengaged himself from Natani. "How did he get up there to begin with?"

"I forgot he spent the night," Natani grumbled, covering her eyes with her hand. "He came in late with news on Domino and..."

"Didn't want to leave?"

"I hate him so much," Natani disappointedly shook her head, as Clovis rigidly walked back down the stairs. He was visibly more comfortable with the second take.

"That's...much better," he stated as he walked towards the kitchen's stove.

Keith sat himself back down. "Uh...Clovis, right?"

"It's Prince Clovis, to be precise, but seeing as how nobody ever seems to pick up on that, yes, you're technically correct," the half-fox replied as he flipped open a cupboard and removed one of Natani's mugs from it.

"...sure," Keith hesitantly accepted the explanation. "In any case, I know that Natani's actually a girl." The wolf cringed as he said that. Even if Clovis already knew, she didn't like people telling her that she was still a girl.

Clovis immediately perked up. "Oh, do you, now?"

"So, whatever you thought we were doing when you came downstairs..."

"Oh, thank heavens. That is a gigantic relief," Clovis interrupted, taking the black water kettle off the stove and emptying it some of it into his hijacked mug. Seeing as how Natani had just recently used it for her coffee, the water was still quite warm, as steam vapors floated off of the top. He placed it back down and then shot a skeptical glance towards the wolf.

"Don't look at me like that. I was trying to keep your cover! You know, try and be nice?"

"I'm more interested in the fact that your shirt is gone," Natani pointed at the half-fox's fully exposed, slender, light yellow and white furred upper body. Indeed, Clovis was only sporting his black trousers this morning, and the shirt he had worn on his way into Natani's abode the night before had completely vanished.

"Ah, yes, that," the half-fox noted, examining himself disinterestedly. "I lacked a shirt to wear today, and my last one was in horrible need for a wash. Lesser of two evils." He explored the remainder of Natani's cupboards as well.

"Wouldn't happen to have anything in the tea department, would you?" he inquired courteously.

"Second one from the right," Natani groaned.

"Splendid," Clovis smiled as he took the wolf's advice.

"And would it have killed you to..." Natani lost her words. "I don't know, wear the same shirt twice?"

Clovis twitched and almost spilt the hot water onto his feet. "Wear the same shirt twice? How gauche do you think I am?" he incredulously demanded.

"Apparently enough to the point where you wear the same red cloak every day," Natani retaliated.

"Oh, that's adorable. You think it's the same cloak," Clovis crooned as he flicked open another cupboard and removed an earl grey teabag from the box inside. "Ah, perfect."

Natani couldn't readily think of another counterargument to that. Yes, Clovis had a ton of gold to his name, but even then he had to do such frivolous things with it such as purchasing copies of the exact same cloak just so he could avoid wearing the same one on consecutive days. Instead, she exhaled with exasperation and started massaging the top of her muzzle, close to the base. "You're unbelievable," she muttered.

"I'm glad you think so," Clovis chortled as he dunked the bag into the hot water. "So, would you like to join us for our little outing today?"

"Thought I already was," Natani remarked.

"Simply formally extending the offer, was all," Clovis elaborated as he paced towards the Basitin and wolf. "I like this plan. Under the guise of diplomacy, we are actually covertly yanking the rug out from underneath one of the most violent groups I've had the pleasure of knowing." He sighed gloriously and collapsed into one of the chairs lackadaisically. The tea sloshed around in his mug, some it flying up out off of the lip but landing back in the mug anyways.

"Today is going to be a good day," he concluded with a smile as he jiggled the bag a few more times.

"You still need a shirt, Clovis," the assassin blandly remanded.

"You seem to be under the impression that I intend to go like this for the rest of the day."

"Cut him some slack, Nat. It's actually kind of hot outside today."

"Thank you for the defense, General, but I will be leaving soon to change my attire," Clovis replied. He removed the damp bag from the mug and slapped it onto the table.

"And, actually, Natani, I'm going to insist that you come with me," the half-fox clarified as he tested the brew. Tea, though much more common than wine, was still a gentleman's drink, and Clovis took it like anything else. He shut his eyes, gave the scent a good sniff, and held it as he tasted the fruits of his labor.

Natani shot him a skeptical response. "As delightful as that sounds, I'll pass," she blankly declined. She waited for Clovis to say something back, but he continued to sit with his eyes closed, his hands gently holding the mug in front of him, his mind savoring the beverage for every second that it could.

"Clovis?" Natani tried to grab his attention.

Keith slid his chair out and walked over to the dreaming spymaster. "I've got this," he rolled his eyes as he drew his sword out from his belt. He pointed the tip towards Clovis' neck and, with absolutely no intentions of harming him, as much as the wolf would have enjoyed seeing it, gave it a light poke.

The half-fox snapped out of his tea trance and flinched wildly, again managing to both spill and not spill his drink as he did so. He looked down at the blade, then back up at Keith, and disapprovingly shook his head. "You people never let me have a moment, do you?"

"For something as critical to our relations as this is, we'd appreciate you taking it a little more seriously," Keith reprimanded.

Clovis put a hand up and used his index finger to divert the sword's point away from his neck. "Spoken like a true diplomat, if we disregard the obvious," he agreed, turning his attention back to the wolf.

"The reason I make the offer, Natani, is to allow you to resupply as I get changed. I don't make bets, but I'd wager you left most of your gear on the island, didn't you?"

Natani mentally ran through the items that got teleported with her when she left. "I think I'm good actually," she tentatively stated. She had her mana reserve, her knives, her adventuring outfit. So far, everything she needed, she had.

Clovis shrugged. "Regardless, I'd love for you to come anyways. Might be something you didn't even know you needed, hmm?" he smirked.

Natani's eyes narrowed. "You're not going to leave me alone until I say 'yes,' are you?"

"It'll be a quick detour, nothing more," the half-fox assured through another drink of tea. "Once we're ready, we'll go call on Blitz and Zen while the General here talks to His Majesty, and the five of us together will deal with this problem once and for all. Doesn't sound like a bad plan to me."

The wolf looked over at Keith, and Clovis raised an eyebrow as she did so. "You're concerned about something," he deduced from behind his mug.

She hesitated for a brief second. "I was actually going to escort Keith to the palace," she explained.

Keith warmly smiled at his companion. "Nat, it's nice, but really, I think I'll be okay."

"You think," she repeated.

"I know," he revised.

"Can I just follow you to the front gates? It'll make me feel better. The Fang could be anywhere."

"On an unscheduled visit to the palace, Natani? I don't think they'll be onto me like that."

Natani readied another counterpoint, but Keith shushed her before she could vocalize it. "It's nice that you have my back, but if you're going on this raid with Clovis, you should take him up and trust that I know what I'm doing."

Natani thought about that for a moment, and then sighed as she drew the obvious conclusion, mentally kicking herself. Keith was more than competent when it came to watching his own back. And he was right when he said that The Fang would have no idea that he was even heading out at the moment. Plus, it wasn't even that far of a walk, or at least not comparatively, considering the magnanimous size of the wolf capital.

She bowed her head. "You're right," she sighed, disappointed in herself. "Domino's too important. If you think you can manage..."

"Which I can," Keith interjected.

The wolf smiled slightly. "Then I'll leave you be with the king, alright?"

The Basitin nodded warmly in response. "Sounds good," he grinned.

Clovis downed the rest of his drink while the two friends hammered out the rest of the plan. "Spectacular!" he cheered, heartily slamming the mug onto the table like a rowdy tavern client would do onto a bar.

He wiped his mouth clean and toothily grinned at his two newest assets. "Then let's go catch ourselves a mercenary, shall we?"

Chapter 26

Crowd after crowd of Keidran rushed past Keith on the overly packed street. A few of them stared him as they passed, not used to seeing an outsider quite like him in the city before. He didn't mind it and indifferently pressed on towards the inner city. Time was not really on his side. Domino could have been trying something else at the moment, and it was critical he met with the Wolf King to preserve peace before he did so.

Provided, of course, he even had a chance to pull off his latest trick. With four highly trained contract assassins - well, technically three highly trained contract assassins and the guy that liked to annoy them every now and again - now bearing down on his hideout, he'd be lucky to even get a word in before he was taken down and brought in before the Basitin court. If he was more simple-minded, he'd wonder why he was even going off to see the Wolf King in the first place, if he was this certain that his friends were all but solving his problem for him.

And the answer was that, even if Domino was captured and convicted, the Basitins relationship with the Forest Wolves would still be damaged, seeing as how the war-crazed mercenary happened to be of their blood. This was an excellent time for Keith to drive away that side effect, by possibly persuading the King to crack down on these sorts of internal threats, start policing the mercenary groups and make sure that whatever Domino tried to pull doesn't happen again. That alone would likely keep the two nations' relations intact, quite possibly make it better than it originally was.

That prospect pushed Keith even more quickly down the road, offhandedly ignoring anything that didn't have to do with this mission.

It was one he had to complete.

Zen gathered up the dishes from his breakfast with the two Foxes and gently set them off to the side of the sink, as Kayle prepared a hot water bath for them. Blitz spun his knife in his hand a few more times, trying to make sure it was still in good working condition. He would have helped out with the cleaning, but Zen seemed to be doing a much better job than he ever could have managed. Plus, after catching him and Kayle in the same bed as he woke up this morning, it was good to see the wolf readily take his spot at the waterworks. Blitz wasn't quite sure if Zen was over there out of fear, embarrassment, or simply because he wanted to help, but whatever. It made the elder fox's life easier in the long run, and right now that was all he could ask for.

Though, he did feel a little obligated to lend a hand anyways. For somebody who just survived one of the scariest scrapes of her life, Kayle looked surprisingly energetic this morning. And Blitz suspected it had something to do with his lupine visitor. In fact, it probably had everything to do with Zen, come to think of it. After finding Kayle hiding in the kitchen of her tavern in the condition she was in, Zen staunchly refused to leave her side. Blitz held nothing but respect for that wolf afterwards, and it was likely because of him that Kayle was back to her normal self. Somewhat. He'd bet that she was still thinking on the events of that night with some part of her brain, and would likely continue to do so for a while. It would be a long time before she finally recovered from that.

But it was hard to deny that she was already starting an amazing recovery, and it was all thanks to Zen. Blitz flipped his knife shut as he watched the wolf and vixen get to work.

He made a good decision, he thought.

He would have reminisced longer about his niece and her new friend had someone else not arrived at his front door. Promptly, Blitz pocketed his knife and strode over to open it. He was not impressed by the result.

Clovis stared at Blitz, his hands slipped into his trouser pockets, his slim black shirt rustling in the wind like a flag. Behind him, Natani stood as politely as she could manage. Arms held behind her back, feet shoulder width apart, trying to look professional and approachable.

Apart from the wind and the clinking dishes from the kitchen, the doorway and its immediate proximity were quiet. The half-fox decided to break it. Zen was right. Blitz did need an apology. And not just one of those trivial ones he liked to toss around whenever he was just messing with somebody.

Might as well get that out of the way first, he decided as he cleared his throat. "I think I owe you an..." Clovis started to say, before he was jabbed right in his abdomen. The wind got thrown out of him with an audible huff as Blitz's kidney shot dropped the spymaster to his knees almost right away. Natani did react to the situation. And by react, she more descriptively raised an eyebrow at the pain-stricken half-fox, and not much more beyond that. Generally, most people she knew would gradually come to hate Clovis after a while, but this Polar Fox just cut right to the chase with it. No wonder Zen liked working with him. She's known Blitz for all of five seconds and already she liked him.

"That's for not doing the sensible thing about that intel!" he growled from behind his facemask, fist still clenched. Clovis softly gripped his abdomen, trying to muffle the pain resounding in his gut. His eyes were glued shut in concentration, trying to force the pain out of his system. He continued kneeling there, painfully doubled over and wheezing for air.

Then the fox took a step forward, and opened up his hand to Clovis. The hybrid finally reopened his eyes and glanced at it disdainfully at first, like he was being offered change. He looked back up at Blitz, still out of breath and heavily panting, trying to reclaim it.

"And this is for helping Kayle," he added in a much friendlier tone. The half-fox grimaced as he glared back up at Blitz momentarily, then finally grabbed his wrist in acceptance as he was yanked back up to his feet.

Keith noticed the keep coming up before him a good few hundred yards before he reached it, its spires poking up above the cityscape's horizon, like a mountain range would in the countryside. When he finally approached it, after another fifteen minutes or so of walking, he was actually awe struck by exactly how enormous the building actually was. He never would have thought that Basitin palace architecture would or could be one upped in this manner, but he was glad to see that he was proven sorely wrong by this observation.

The building was made out of the expected cobblestone, a neat, smoothly textured grey forming the majority of the castle's exterior. The walkway up to it was made of red and black brick, alternating every few rows like a checkerboard. After a small length, the path divided into two, each one circumnavigating its way around an ornate fountain, sculpted out of what Keith could only assume was polished black and white granite. The two bricked roads rejoined and continued to tread up the hill upon which the keep rested, where two half-plate armored guards kept watch at the front doors.

Keith took his time navigating his way to the Wolf King's abode, still staggered and impressed by how seriously tribal government was taken in Keidran society. He had talked to various leaders of towns and small nations before, but as far as full tribal leaders were concerned, this was the first time Keith had tried it. Adelaide would probably be quite jealous had she visited here. This would likely be some of the details he'd leave out in his report.

He finished his journey across the red-and-black brick road, and snapped to attention in front of the two wolves. He made a fist with his right hand, pushed it against his left shoulder, and bowed courteously as he began to talk. "I'd like to request entrance to the keep," he politely requested.

"The King isn't seeing anybody at the moment," the guard on the left immediately replied. "Who are you, exactly?"

"My name is Keith Keiser, Ambassador-General to the Eastern Basidian Isles. It is urgent that I speak with His Majesty as quickly as possible."

"It's not that simple, sir," spoke the one on the right. "King Rammstein is extremely busy at the moment. He won't have time to..."

"I'm certain he will," Keith argued back, as he dug through his pants pocket for a piece of parchment, his diplomatic immunity statement. He handed it to the left guard as he continued speaking. "That's from the desk of King Adelaide herself, if you don't believe me. I'm here in response to the Basitin situation."

"In a good way or bad?" the second guard asked as his comrade perused the note.

"I know Sythe. We talked at the Isles and we think we can get our problems solved peacefully," Keith continued. "If you want out of a war you didn't want to start, then I think you'd best let me through the doors."

The wolf on the right turned back to his partner. He finished reading the paper and handed it back to Keith before acknowledging his friend. "It checks out," he replied.

"Then I think His Majesty will want to see you now," said the second guard as he put a hand to the large door behind him.

Clovis marched down the back alley with his three agents, escorting them to Domino's alleged location. To be objective, he would have much preferred to figure out where he was through a more credible source, but his spellcraft was remarkably well done, if he could say so himself. So he was acting on it anyways.

Zen kept his eyes to the ground, looking for any sewage grates or covers that could lead to The Fang's entrance. "You sure we're going to the right spot, Clovis?"

"Absolutely," the half-fox affirmed, testing the clamp on his recently returned cloak. "Nobody has ever lied through that spell before, and I believe that is still the case."

His ears flipped up and he turned to the newest member of his party. "Which reminds me, Natani. I think I have something in our bag for Zen. Mind digging it out?"

Natani flipped the backpack over her shoulder and loosened the knot tied around the mouth. "What am I getting him?" she requested.

"You'll know it when you see it," Clovis vaguely answered as he turned his eyes back to the floor.

Natani rolled her eyes and jammed a hand into the sack. Her hand jostled almost every single adventuring supply the half-fox could be bothered to toss in there: potions, mana crystals, first aid kits, magicked rings...

Something clinked inside the bag as Natani pushed what felt like a large, metal cylinder off to the side. She grabbed it, and slowly liberated Zen's wrist blade from its burlap prison.

"I thought you were missing something, mate," Blitz remarked, clicking and clacking his knife behind the two wolves.

"Completely forgot about that," Zen sheepishly smiled at his younger sibling. Natani narrowly leered at the other Magi Brother with ridicule.

"You're a horrible person, Zen," she criticized, trying not to let him see the playful smile slowly creeping up on her face.

"Yes, please remember to pick up your toys next time?" Clovis patronizingly called over his shoulder.

"Thank you, Clovis," Zen sarcastically replied as Natani tossed him the gauntlet. He caught it in his left hand and promptly slipped it onto his right wrist, securing the leather straps to a comfortable level of tightness.

Clovis put his hand to his head to transmit a message in the meantime. "Thom, how are things on your end?"

"We're at Greyfield and 12th, sir. We're ready to begin infiltration whenever you are."

"Standby, we'll be ready in a moment," Clovis instructed as Zen slid the blade in and out of the gauntlet a few times to test it.

"Who was that, boss?" Blitz asked as he clicked his knife shut again.

"I got a few volunteers to form an auxiliary team while Natani and I geared up. We'll meet them down there," Clovis informed. Not long after, the alley spat the four canines out onto Post Street, right in front of the building the street was named for. It was still relatively early in the morning, and thus few people were out on the street currently. Those who were sparsely populated it, either using the road as a means to get somewhere else or simply waiting outside the various businesses, impatiently waiting for the "Closed" signs in the windows to be flipped over.

The company turned left, hiked for a bit longer, and then Clovis started rubbing his hands excitedly as he noticed the thin metal cylinder placed in the street. Zen checked over his shoulder, as did Blitz, and once they confirmed nobody would be watching, they nodded to the spymaster directly. Both he and Natani knelt down, dug their fingers underneath the cover, and lifted it up off of the sewer entrance. Clovis found the lid to be slightly heavier than he had initially assumed, but it was nice to have someone as strong as Natani was as support.

Natani waved a hand in front of her face as the vapors wafted up and out into the air. Zen had to pinch his nose for a few moments as well to stifle the stench. Blitz silently laughed to himself and let his bandana do all of the stink mitigation work for him.

Clovis would have done something about it as well, if he wasn't still talking to his assistant at the time. With one hand against his head, he used the second to grip the rusted access ladder, and he slowly worked his way down into the underpass, the two Magi Brothers and Blitz following shortly behind.

"Thom, we're in. Let's have at it."

The two guards from out front hastily showed Keith through the keep, towards Rammstein's quarters. The lengthy passageways occasionally broke free of the monotonous grey masonry with colorful landscape paintings, some of which took up entire sections of wall in between the side rooms. A few ancient but well-preserved tapestries extended vertically down from the ceiling, some of which, Keith assumed, had to be in the area of centuries old.

He couldn't say he wasn't surprised. Wolf culture, or rather just Keidran culture in general, wasn't that much unlike the Basitin's in that respect. Family and honor were arguably the two most important components of both, and was important that each of them incorporated the other. Honor your family and lineage, and you will be honored in their name. It was a virtue Keith had heard repeatedly in his youth, and still puzzled over to this day. But there was no time for that at the moment, as the Great Hall's large and prolific doors were gradually pushed open by his escorts.

Again, Keith was impressed by the interior of the Great Hall. It reminded him of his homeland's Parliament a bit, though fortunately without the demeaning witness stand. Instead, the keep's featured room looked more like a dining hall than anything else. A very lengthy table ran down the center of the room, with no less than twenty chairs set along the sides. No artificial light sources were present, if Keith was willing to discount the four evenly spaced candle holders set on the table itself. Instead, an array of multicolored stained glass windows provided all of the light the room needed during the daytime, the natural sunlight being projected onto the carpeted floor in various reds, greens, browns and blues.

The two guards continued forward to the far end of the expansive table, as Keith drew closer to two Keidran currently in that area of the hall. One of them was seated in the ornate throne at the head of the table: a light brown and white furred specimen of a Forest Wolf. Keith could only presume that was King Rammstein, but he probably never would have arrived at that conclusion if he wasn't seated where he was. His dress was very conservative for a Keidran royal; he didn't wear any excessive amounts of jewelry or expensive clothing. In fact, apart from the royal family's signet on his right hand and the relatively heavy green and black cloak, he could have easily been mistaken for a commoner. He exhaled onto his rounded glasses and used the lower part of his grey linen shirt to clean them off. He was currently listening to a lecture by one of his advisors, and judging from his posture, it was probably a safe bet that Rammstein wasn't hearing this lecture for the first time.

"You must understand that the Basitins have to respond to this," the vizier rambled as Rammstein replaced his glasses back on his nose. "Even if Sythe was successful, and we can't be certain that he was, they will want to know why this happened in our territory."

"And they will have their answers," Rammstein calmly reassured. "After we preserve the peace. We can worry about mending our relationship once we make sure that there will even be one to mend."

"I must have arrived at an excellent time then," Keith audaciously spoke up, not bothering to be introduced to the king.

Rammstein's advisor seemed to take offense to that, and stood up to glare at the visitor. "And who are you to address His Majesty on such a subject?" he demanded.

"Markus, calm," Rammstein bade as he rose from his seat as well to inspect the Basitin for a moment. "If I didn't know any better, I'd say you're from the Basidian Isles. Eastern, right?"

"Your memory serves you well," Keith replied, bowing respectfully. "It's a pleasure to meet you, Your Highness."

Rammstein quickly waved him up in response. "No need to stand on ceremony. If your uniform says anything, I'd think we're all here for the same thing."

Keith promptly righted his stature. "I say you can never be too careful at the start, Your Majesty."

"Smart man," Rammstein noted, pushing his glasses a bit further up on his face. "So I am correct in saying you might be here to save our relations?"

Keith nodded back, slipping his arms behind his back. "I thought that this would be the best place to start."

"That it is," the old wolf grinned as he offered a hand to the Basitin. "I'm Rammstein. King of the Forest Wolves."

Keith almost immediately reached out to accept it. "Keith Keiser," he introduced himself. "Ambassador-General, Eastern Basidian Isles."

Natani had to pull her shirt over her nose as Clovis guided her and her friends through the mazelike sluiceways below the city. Despite The Fang agent telling him the hideout was below the street, he unfortunately didn't specify where, and that was a puzzle Clovis was trying to solve. Without any clues, though, it was glorified guesswork mostly, and whether the half-fox led his company through an intersection or turned them left or right was pretty much left up to whichever way he felt like going at the time.

And Zen seemed to be picking up on that as well. "You have no idea where we're going, do you?"

"A general idea is better than none," Clovis immediately retorted, refusing to admit that he was, by definition, lost in the catacombs.

Zen didn't like that answer, but accepted it anyways. Domino was somewhere down here, Clovis knew that much at the least. Though he would have been much happier if he knew exactly how far out they were from him.

He glanced around the sewers trying to find something else to hold his attention while he waited. The stagnant wastewater river he walked alongside on an elevated brick track? Boring. A rat skittering along on the far side, almost mocking the pace at which he was progressing down here? Pathetic.

"Where did you get that blade, anyways?" Blitz curiously asked, pointing his knife at Zen's wrist.

Zen pulled the gauntlet up closer to his face and slid the blade out, displaying it to the fox. "Nat got for me as a birthday gift," he happily explained, finally engaged in something interesting. "This little trigger near the thumb releases a spring that pops the blade out. Then, if I need to pull it back..."

Natani smiled from behind her shirt, pleased to hear that Zen had good company to talk to, and then glared at Clovis skeptically as she noticed that he was effectively using this moment to get directions. His right hand was jammed against the side of his head, and although his whispering was probably enough to escape Zen's hearing, she definitely heard most of it.

"Fine, I'll admit it! I'm lost, alright?" the half-fox furiously but quietly yelled. "Where are you at?"

"We found the door, sir. We're just waiting on you," Thom replied with composure.

"That didn't answer my question. Where are you now?"

"You just passed us, sir," the tiger informed, waving at Clovis' troupe as they marched across the main tunnel entrance.

Clovis halted midstride and instinctively looked everywhere for a moment in confusion. First down the hall at Thom's team, then behind him at the two wolves and Blitz, then back at Thom, who was still waving at him for some reason, then the medium sized metal door in front of them, then back to Natani, who still couldn't believe he was trying to put the idea that he knew exactly where he was going over her and her brother, then he snapped his hand back down to his side and briskly jogged over to his lieutenant before the situation could get any more awkward.

"This is the entrance then?" he asked, permitting the rest of his party to catch up to him.

"Only doorway directly under Post Street. I like our odds," Thom agreed.

"Should we let them know we're here?" Clovis grinned toothily as he drew a couple mana crystals out of his pockets.

"By all means, sir," Thom complied as he took a step backwards toward his volunteer army. He knew what was going to happen next as Clovis began his incantation.

Blitz put a hand on each of the lupine brothers' shoulders. "You two might want to think about backing up too," he warned. Zen did so right away, but Natani waited for a few seconds to study exactly what Clovis would be casting.

The half-fox released his grip on the crystals, allowing them to float in midair momentarily. Then they shifted color into an intense, burning amber and Natani immediately jumped back as soon as she recognized the spell.

Clovis outstretched a palm to the door, gripped the wrist with his other hand, and then yelled "Incaendo!" at the top of his voice as a large fireball erupted from the two crystals and blew the metal door off of its hinges in a fantastic explosion.

"I apologize for the sad state of my quarters," Rammstein stated as he unlocked the door to his business chamber. "I don't receive guests that often, and..." He paused to think of the right word as he slipped his key ring back into his pocket.

"Let's just say that, between you and the Humans, we've had our hands a little full," he finished as he slowly slid the door open. Despite his country being on the bad side of a potential three-way war, Rammstein was surprisingly level-headed given the circumstances. Keith supposed that may have had something to do with his age, for with it came wisdom and composure. Rammstein was not ancient by any definition, but he was old enough to the point where not much got him excited.

Keith admired people like that. He found negotiations and talks went over much better when the opposing party was not only calmed, but was going to stay like that. The king also reminded him of Adelaide, their professional objectiveness blended with familiarity almost copied from each other. For those reasons, Keith felt quite at home inside the wolf's keep. Keith was quite content being a native to the Basidian Isles, but had he been born into a family of Forest Wolves, he would not have minded working under Rammstein at all.

The king showed Keith inside, and provided how morose Rammstein sounded about the state of his office, it didn't look that awful to the Basitin. Sure, the desk seemed a little out of order, with a myriad of letters, reports and other papers scattered across it like someone trying to read a few too many newspaper articles at once, but Keith didn't find that to be necessarily a bad thing. Seeing all parts of a problem, Keith found, actually made solving it come much more easily, and that was likely what Rammstein was trying to do here.

The king finished ushering the general inside and undid the silver clasp securing his cape around his neck. "As much as I love this cloak, it gets quite hot in the summertime," he critiqued as he walked behind his desk and draped it over the back of his chair. "Feel free to take a seat, by the way."

Keith graciously accepted as he placed himself across from Rammstein. "What were arguing with your advisor about earlier? If I could ask?"

"He was worried about Sythe and what would happen to us following that hearing," Rammstein clarified as he sat himself down in the intricately decorated chair. "You wouldn't know him by chance, would you?"

"We're not close or anything, but we know each other, yes."

"Great to hear," the wolf nodded. "I always found these sorts of things to go by much more smoothly when you're with someone familiar."

"Very true," Keith agreed, resetting his position in the chair.

"In any case, Markus thought you'd still be upset that, even if we get this little incident fixed, there's a good chance that our relations would still be...strained, if that's a good word here."

"Sounds about right."

"Which is one of the larger reasons I believe you're here to see me, and why I'm so glad to see you," Rammstein added, opening a drawer near the bottom of his desk. Keith just watched him for a few moments as he extracted a few pieces of parchment and some inked quills. Rammstein set himself up as an improvised scribe, ready to record any details about their prospective agreement.

"Now then, General," he proposed after clearing his throat. "What do you know right now that I don't?"

"Room clear!" yelled one of Thom's subordinates.

"This is absurd," Clovis muttered under his breath.

"This one's empty too," called another.

"So is this one," informed Blitz.

"I think it's abandoned," Zen pointed out as he finished searching a fourth room with Natani.

"You don't say!" Clovis hissed back. Frustration was settling in, the one emotion that Clovis had the hardest time trying to properly manage. Here he was, at a location he was explicitly told Domino was at, and yet, after at least twenty minutes of searching the hideout and almost every room contained in it, he had received no return whatsoever. He wasn't sure whether this constituted annoying, infuriating or aggravating frustration, so he assumed it was all three. The worst kind there was.

Clovis picked up a few papers tossed onto a table, rifled through them disinterestedly and then threw them away. "Is there anywhere we haven't looked yet?" he demanded. He was certain that this location had to hold something of importance, even if it wasn't Domino. Another map, another mission, another scheme, something. And he would not leave here empty handed as long as he had something to say about it.

"Has anyone been in here yet?" Zen asked from the chamber's main lobby. Clovis and the rest of his party convened there, paying mind not to step on any of the still warm metal shards from when the half-fox exploded the front door. So far, both Thom and Clovis had been searching the numerous hallways spreading out from this main area and the rooms within them. This was likely under the assumption that, if Domino was going to be somewhere, he'd likely want to be as far away from them as possible, in as discrete a location as possible.

Which was why the large double doors at the far end of the main room went completely unmolested until Zen called attention to them. Much like the other rooms they had searched, this one was likely devoid of life as well, as any agents inside likely would have reacted to their intrusion by this point. Natani walked up to the right side of the door and tested the knob.

"It's unlocked," she stated, glancing back to her brother and the spymaster for further instruction.

Clovis thought that her next action should have gone without saying. "Then what are you waiting for?" he whispered, still trying to vent and purge his stress.

Zen moved up behind Natani, preparing to back her up for whatever lied within. Clovis also moved over to the other half of the door with Blitz. The four spies nodded in unison as Natani threw open the door, inviting them to storm the room inside.

It seemed to be one of the larger personal rooms in the hideout, likely for Domino or one of his more important agents. But that didn't alter the fact that neither him nor anybody else was in the room at this time. Natani put a hand to her forehead. Zen sighed heavily. Clovis maniacally grinned with his hands clenched, on the verge of strangling something. Blitz shrugged as if to say, "Oh, well," and started playing with his knife again.

Zen glanced over at the half-fox, and for once in his life actually felt a little bit concerned for his well being. "Clovis, do you need a glass of water or something?"

The bottom half of his eye twitched as he rigidly turned to the wolf. "Perfectly fine," he softly but unnervingly replied, like somebody who just escaped a mental ward. This was one of the drawbacks of loving control, whenever he felt like somebody was one step ahead of him or just outright ignoring his plans. Despite his almost always calm demeanor, the half-fox did have a remarkably short temper, ignited only by situations like this.

Which was why, as much as Natani would have readily argued the contrary, she elected not to do so. "Well, we're here," she pointed out as she started searching the office. "Might as well see if there's anything useful."

Blitz's face enthusiastically lit up as he patted Clovis' shoulder. "Yeah, it's an intel hunt, boss. You like those, right?" he enthusiastically tried to revive his employer.

"You three really are clueless, aren't you?" Clovis seethed as he paced towards the desk.

Zen was less than fond of that remark. "Clovis?"

"We staged this entire operation for the sole purpose of finding Domino. I spend money and resources on a leak that I know for a fact is credible, and then this happens!"

He stamped over in front of the desk, arms crossed, his eyes one spark away from catching fire altogether. "We have spent too much time looking for this slippery little bastard, and I'm not about to lose it all right now because we can't find him! Now where is he?" he boomed. He then immediately turned around and slammed his hands onto the wooden desk behind him. Neither Blitz nor the brothers dared to say a word back to him, letting the dank, stale atmosphere of the hideout and the surrounding sewers provide all the necessary ambiance for a while.

Clovis stared down at the desk, not having the will necessary to look back up at the moment. "Just one clue," he whispered, almost like he was praying. "Just one hint to where..." His eyes slowly peered down the rest of the desk's width, and then noticed a very curiously placed scrap of paper, neatly folded and placed in the direct center of it.

His hand immediately jumped forward, snatching it and hastily unfolding it. Even if it wasn't relevant to Domino, he wanted something, anything to look into. He didn't care if it involved The Fang, their crazed leader or anything they were planning...

He finally read the note and felt his spine go cold as he noticed it involved all three.

"It's worse than I thought then," Rammstein remarked, scribbling down notes onto his parchment stack. "And you're positive that they're behind this?"

"One of my contacts found evidence that linked them directly to the war band that attacked me and the spy at my hearing," Keith clarified. "They wanted to get us sucked in and then profit off the war that followed."

"I see," Rammstein acknowledged, adjusting his glasses again. "That is disappointing. We've done business with The Fang multiple times in the past. I never thought they'd be capable of something like this."

"The spy didn't like the fact I managed to get a ceasefire out of it either. He tried bombing Parliament the day after."

Rammstein's eyebrows jumped up, and that was about as emotional as his reaction got. "A bomb, you say?"

Keith nodded solemnly, recognizing exactly how sensitive this subject had gotten. "My escort uncovered the plot and stopped it before it could escalate, but needless to say, my people are not too thrilled that this almost happened."

"I can imagine," the wolf sorrowfully concurred. "Who is your escort, by the way? Would it be someone I know?"

"His name's Natani," Keith answered. "He usually works with his brother?"

"The Magi Brothers, of course," Rammstein nodded reminiscently. "I remember them distinctly. They've been very useful to us in the past."

C-

KxQ. Your move.

-D

"The contact I mentioned earlier was actually his brother," Keith continued to explain, bantering about his assets like one would with a sports team.

"I hope your king helps you cover their costs," the wolf stated. "There's a reason they don't come cheap."

"I'm pretty good friends with Natani, and Zen actually owes us a favor or two, so I'm good."

"Sounds like they've worked for you well so far?" Rammstein inquired as he reorganized his notes.

"They have," the Basitin responded with esteem. "If Zen didn't find those notes on Domino and the bombs, we probably wouldn't be talking right now."

"Hey, hey, wait now," the wolf hastily spoke as he rifled through his notes again. He didn't interrupt Keith, which the Basitin supposed was his way of displaying courtesy to his guests. Strange, but professional.

Rammstein flipped to a fresh page and pressed his quill to it. "Who is this Domino you mentioned?"

"That would be me, Your Majesty," a sinister voice replied on Keith's behalf. Keith instinctively whirled around in his chair, and he breath prematurely vacated his lungs as he saw The Fang's leader towering over him and Rammstein from the doorway. He stood with a toothy, demeaning smile, leaning against the stone arch, with one arm outstretched and holding a small, spherical brass canister.

One click of the tongue later, he shut his eyes and dropped the metal ball onto the stone floor. It took one bounce off of it with a metallic clack, then ignited in a brilliant flash of white light midair. Keith's eyes felt like they were burning as his sight went completely whitewashed, his arms frantically covering his face as he tried to dull the pain...

Until a sharp blow to the back of his head fixed the pain and the whiteness for him, swallowing him into a sweet, black oblivion.

Chapter 27

Keith wasn't sure how long he was out for, but when he finally did wake up, it wasn't much of an improvement. He still felt cold, and tired, and he was still surrounded by a pitch black environment, even though he was certain his eyes were open.

Despite the darkness, he figured he was sitting down on something, and wanted to raise his arms to feel around the environment. They did not obey. He tried stretching his legs. They did not obey either. All four of his limbs were bound at the wrists and ankles, by what felt like very roughly textured rope by the way it dug into his fur.

The loud but distant banging of a door echoed in his ears, followed up by a louder one in much closer proximity. A few muffled footsteps followed, then the clang of the door as it shut again, and then a disheartened sigh.

"Alright, who put the sack on his head?" a gravelly voice demanded. A brief silence ensued before it spoke again. "Why would you do that? He'd suffocate in that thing! Ah! Don't argue, get that thing off of him! Manners!"

More footsteps, this time coming at Keith directly. Then the blackness immediately receded into a burning, blinding red, as his weary eyes gradually adjusted to the torches spread throughout the room. Or maybe cell was a better word, seeing as how the room was minimally furnished and Keith was indeed tied down to a chair for the moment.

An all too familiar voice in an all too cheerful tone started to talk to him as his eyesight recalibrated itself. "Hey, there he is!" Domino cheered, welcoming the Basitin like a long lost relative paying a visit. "General Keiser! It has been way, way, way too long, my friend!" he chortled, vigorously rubbing his hand into his hair.

Keith shook his head to wave off the unwelcome advances put on by the wolf. "Good to see you too," he replied, still yet to recover from his daze.

"Yeah, I know you missed me," Domino beamed, as he clapped his hands and then outstretched his arms, giving Keith the grand tour of the cell in one nice gesture. "Sorry in advance about the room here, by the way. I'd give you one of the bunks upstairs if I had my way, but then that means throwing one of my guys down here, and none of them seemed all that willing to make that sacrifice," he explained. Keith loathed the way he spoke, like he wasn't taking any of this seriously. Like he was getting far too much enjoyment out of just taking a hostage. Like he was simply playing a game.

"So yeah, we had to drop you in here in the end. But I think you can make it work. This is simply a skeleton. You're free to do with it as you will."

Keith was done listening to him ramble. "What do you need me for, Domino?" he growled.

"Oh, Keithy, don't bother yourself with things like that!" Domino laughed. "You're going to be my guest for a little while. The last thing I'm going to make you do is work." He half-ran up to the Basitin and clapped a hand on his shoulder. "Just think of this as a two and a half weeks' vacation, sponsored by me, those guys behind you, and everyone else at The Fang. Sound good?"

Keith glared up at the wolf, standing over him like a mountain. "So that's what you're up to."

"I'm not going to lie, General, I really didn't want to do this. I mean, you're a busy guy, trying to save the world. I'm a busy guy, trying to make it go boom. But..." He stopped, sighed and then walked back to the center of the room. "Things don't always go to plan, do they?"

"How did you know..."

"That you were at the palace?" the mercenary cut him off. He nodded to one of his subordinates behind him, who then walked around to Domino's side. It was a short, white-furred Arctic Wolf, and Domino put an arm around his shoulder.

"This here is Alexei, General," Domino introduced. "He's my cousin, and he also happens to be the guy who was following you ever since you walked out of your friend's house this morning."

"Sorry about that," Alexei cruelly snickered.

"So, here's how the story goes," Domino started to digress, rubbing his hands and pacing about the cell. "I'm in my office, at the hideout you found out about, right? I'm trying to think of something we can do together before we become enemies."

"Too late," Keith grumbled.

"Don't be so pessimistic, General. We're not each other's throats yet," Domino chided. "Anywho, I decided to park Alexei right outside where you were staying. He catches you leaving and he ends up tailing you for..." He turned to his cousin for clarification. "Uh, what would you say, Alex? Three-quarters? Four-fifths, maybe?"

"Let's do four-fifths."

"Four-fifths of the way there," Domino accepted his input. "And then he found out something really, really strange. You didn't have your pet doggie with you. Or anybody else with you for that matter.

"So," Domino clapped his hands together again. "He sprints all the way back here, tells me everything he saw, and then it hit me," he smiled with his mouth open, like he had just achieved enlightenment.

"I saw an opportunity. An extremely profitable opportunity at that too. So I did what any businessman would: I decided to take it. I called an audible. We vacated the site, after I left a little note for Clovis telling him I cancelled my office hours, I ran back here, got myself a few goodies from the armory, shared them with the palace guards and you, and one, two, three!"

He raised his arms again dramatically, like he was performing an opera. "Here we are!" he cackled, grinning at the Basitin sitting across from him. "And you, my friend, now have a front row seat for all the action!"

Keith continued to glare at the mercenary, not able to do much else past that unfortunately. Domino's ears jumped up as he remembered something.

"Oh, crumbs, I nearly forgot!" he shouted as he slapped the side of his head. Keith, as bleak as his situation was, still had to credit his captor in avoiding any form of common swearing up to this point. "Alex, you still have that crystal I lent you?"

The Arctic Wolf extracted a glowing red mana crystal out of his pocket and flipped it over to his older cousin. "Had our mages double check the spells as well. It's ready to go whenever."

"Thank you for doing that," Domino smiled as he admired the enchantment he now held in his hand for a moment. He sighed whimsically and then eyed Keith out of his peripherals.

"Magic really is a wonderful thing, General," Domino sighed as he paced back towards him.

Keith shrugged, not allowing any fear he withheld to become noticeable to the wolf. "I personally prefer shield and sword. Never saw the use for it."

"Yeah, we both know you don't mean that," Domino snickered. "Another thing I noticed while I was on your island, incidentally. Why does everything happen at a snail's pace with you people?"

"Going slow means taking time, putting in effort, making sure there aren't any mistakes."

"Says the man I have tied down to a chair," Domino smirked. Alexei chuckled from behind his relative.

"What's the point, Domino?" Keith barked.

"Everything in life worth doing, my friend, happens in flashes. You don't know how much of it you've been missing until you find yourself right on the edge."

Domino walked right behind Keith's chair and gripped the frame delicately. "My point being, although I could just sit you here in this cell for the next seventeen days, not telling anybody where you are, starting my war, and waiting for my turkey to finish, I'm thinking I want to have a little fun while that clock is ticking. It'll also be a nice opportunity for me to..." He paused on his words once more. "...conclude some other business with your friends."

He swiftly yanked back on the chair's backing, tilting it onto its hind two legs and tilting the Basitin's cold stare right up at his toothily grinning expression.

"So how about we play a game in the meantime?"

"Get out of the way!" Natani angrily panted for breath as she tried to shove her way through the wall of guards now crashing onto her position. She had to be violating at least twelve different laws by this point, not counting the ones she committed back on the island, but once again, she couldn't have cared less at the moment.

The two guards out front, the same ones that had shown Keith inside to Rammstein's apartment in the keep, held their ground steadfastly as three more rushed in through the gates. "Sir, calm down right now before we have to arrest you!" the one on her left barked authoritatively. "King Rammstein is not..."

"My friend is in there!" she cried, hoping that statement was still true.

"We're doing the best we can! Now back off!"

"Keith!" she yelled again, clawing at the main hallway, trying to gain entrance into the keep. More guards continued to pour in, blocking her vision, prohibiting her entrance.

Her struggle finally ended in defeat, and she was thrown to the ground as the guards finally succeeded in their push. Again, she did not care. She didn't care that she left Zen and the rest of the group alone at the empty hideout. All she knew was that Keith was in danger, and that she was currently helpless to do much of anything about it.

No, she scolded herself, as she got back to her feet. No more thinking like that. She had been helpless far too many times on this journey. Getting caught by the night watch, being baited by Domino, trying to get revenge with a faulty weapon. She had quite enough of that.

Defiantly, she rushed at the wall of wolves once again. "Move!" she screamed, putting her head down in the hopes of breaking through.

Two guards quickly positioned themselves up front, metal shields raised high, blocking the assassin's path. Her head nailed them both resoundingly, and she fell back onto her backside, her vision horribly distorted from the near concussion she inflicted onto herself.

Another few seconds went past, but still, she shakily got back to her feet, and made another attempt at mounting the barricade. Her start was less than optimal, due to the sustained damage from her previous failures, and what should have been a third run-up instead turned into a slow, leisurely, stunned hobble instead. She wasn't even sure if she got back to the wall of guards, and instead just collapsed back to her knees, eyes tightly shut, in the hopes that nobody would notice her silently spilling tears at the loss of her best friend.

She heard the conjoined sound of the guard wall marching towards her. Her breathing was staggered. Her arms and legs all failed to move. Her eyesight was still blurred, unable to correct itself yet.

Helpless. Again.

The ground shook as the watchmen advanced closer to her. Natani's mind still wanted to fight. Her body flatly refused. Unconditionally refused. The faint jingling of chained cuffs danced into her ears.

"Gentlemen, stand down! Stand down, I say!" commanded somebody else. It sounded distant to Natani, so it wasn't likely somebody in the phalanx. She did feel the earth tremble again as the guardsmen quickly reassessed their formation, then heard the gravel grind and grumble from underneath another person's feet.

Still shaken from her failed attempts to enter the keep by force, she could only manage to lift her head up, eyes about halfway open at best. Still yet to recover, she could only make out the figure stooping down, and kindly offering a hand down to her.

"You could have just asked for entrance, Natani," Rammstein's words echoed in her head, like he was talking into a bottle. "I know why you're here."

Her eyes continued to generate unnecessary duplicates of the royal, but she did finally gather the strength to raise an arm to his. He firmly grasped the lower part of it, as one of the guards volunteered to help with the other, as they got the assassin back to her feet. She panted heavily for a while, with the two wolves still supporting her.

"Where's..." she barely spoke, as she brushed the wolves off of her arms, willing to stand by herself. "Where's Keith?"

Rammstein looked at her sadly behind his glasses, but to her he remained expressionless as the afternoon daylight reflected off of them. "If I knew where he was now, I'd tell you," he softly answered, sympathetically but sorrowfully, and partially shamefully.

Natani glared at Rammstein, clenching a fist and baring her teeth. The king didn't mind it, as he knew the younger of the two assassin brothers was more excitable than the other. "It's Domino, isn't it?" she angrily asked.

The king sighed, the sunlight still obscuring his eyes. The light dimmed for a moment as a cloud blew past the sun, but it came back to full brightness after.

Natani tilted her head down, knowing what his lack of response meant. "That bastard..." she whispered.

"I'm sorry, Natani," Rammstein replied, quietly. "I couldn't do anything to stop him. He had us stunned with a flash bomb. By the time I recovered, he was gone. My guards searched the entire keep, but we found no trace of him."

The assassin said nothing back, and the front courtyard went mournfully silent for a long while. Not a word was spoken, not a movement made between her and the king. The two just stood there, the guards surrounding them long since dispersed throughout the castle grounds. Between them, they were certain Keith was likely still alive, but, in the hands of the enemy, it may as well have been the opposite.

Rammstein moved a hand into his cloak, searching the interior compartment. "There was this, however," he added. Natani's head jumped back up out of reflex, her eyes pinned on the royal's jacket.

His search yielded a small red crystal, lying on top of a folded up piece of parchment. He held the items before the assassin, palm up, beckoning her to take them. She didn't, not both of them at once at least. First, she went for the paper, sliding it out from under the crystal. Slowly, she unfolded the note, and began to pan through it. The king simply watched over her, certain that she managed to read the entire letter without blinking:

Afternoon Natani,

If you're reading this, then I think you know what just happened. It's alright, calm down, don't panic. Not yet anyways. I'm a nice guy when I want to be, and today is one of those days.

But that can all change depending on how you react to what I'm about to say and what you're about to read. There should be a crystal with this note. If not, you're a smart girl, you'll probably find it without too much trouble. That is the second end of a recording link. I obviously have the first. And I'm going to open up my end at exactly five-thirty this evening, not a second earlier or later. If you want to know where your friend is and what we can do about it, you'll turn that baby on at that time. I invite you to get as many of your friends to watch this as well: your brother, his boss, that vixen from last night (yes I did hear about that, and yes I'm still a little sore over it), anybody you like.

Again, you'll find out why later tonight. I'm looking forward to seeing you again, as I am sure you are to me.

Love,

Domino

She let her hands fall to her sides, taking the page out of her sight and replacing it with the ground once more. Keith was still alive and alright from the sound of the note, thank Gods. But that didn't make the tone of the letter any less taunting or mocking. Domino was toying with her. He loved his games and wagers, and that was probably the only thing he viewed Natani as right now: just another piece on his board. Another game to be played and conquered.

Natani clenched a fist again, aggressively, determinedly, crunching up the note in her hand as she did so. Rammstein looked back up at her, stoically, paying no mind to her reaction.

"What was the note about?" he asked, conciliatorily.

Natani didn't answer and instead took the transmission crystal out of the royal's hand. She then promptly about faced and began to pace back down the pathway, away from the palace. Rammstein tilted his head slightly, confused by the assassin's reactions, but for the briefest of moments, he caught sight of her eyes, flashing fervently as she turned away from him.

"I'm coming for you, Domino," she quietly snarled, making her way back home.

Chapter 28

The wolf, fox and dog all took their place around the galley's table. The air went tense and heavy; any more so and it would have solidified right there in front of them. All of their eyes jumped back and forth between the other two canines, waiting for one of them to take the first move. Waiting for one of them to say something.

The evening light began to dye everything inside the ship orange as it started to vanish behind the ocean. The chilled evening atmosphere began to seep in through the slightly ajar windows, rolling across all of them.

Then, entirely unexpectedly, the wolf's elbows rose from the table, and the other two Keidran glared at him as they began their response, correcting their positions at the table as well. Finally, the real action could begin...

And it started with Mike, Sythe and Evals all clapping their hands together and cheerfully shouting "Let's eat!" as they formally commenced Sythe's first meal aboard the HMS Quantum. His reservations about giving their ship that particular prefix had mostly dissolved by this point, as he was far too busy enjoying the company of the two sailors. Indeed, after everything the past few days had put him through, he needed a good way to decompress, and Keith's crew were more than proficient in the art of relieving stress.

They might still be idiots, but at least they were good idiots. And pretty decent chefs too come to think of it. Sythe had no idea exactly how fish-infested the Basitin harbor was until now, and between Mike landing them and Evals knowing what he claimed was the best sushi recipe known to Keidran-kind, Sythe was reservedly enthusiastic for what the fox and dog had planned.

Mike's ears jumped up as soon as they finished grace, and he reached across the table for a small wooden bowl. "I made something for Nibs as well if she's hungry," he offered. Mrs. Nibbly cautiously crawled down Sythe's arm off to the side of his spot at the table, and Mike placed the bowl down in front of her. It wasn't anything special, just a quick collection of what he thought the squirrel might have enjoyed for dinner. He shelled a few nuts, cut up a banana, broke up some of Sythe's crackers, then added a few more special touches before dropping everything into the receptacle and presenting it for the squirrel's approval.

Her eyes immediately lit up as she saw the banana swimming around in the mixture, and promptly rescued some of it from the sea of everything else. She happily squeaked at the fox and began to quickly gnaw away on the fruit.

Sythe set a few of the fish rolls onto his plate, curiously glancing at his companion as she enjoyed her meal. "How'd you know she likes banana?" he asked the fox, passing the main course in his direction.

"Just a guess," Mike replied as he set aside three rolls for himself. "Read somewhere that squirrels like fruit to go with the nuts and leaves they usually eat, and I just ran with it." Mrs. Nibbly downed the first slice, nodded at the veracity of Mike's statement, and then dived back into the medley for another.

"You made a good call, then," Sythe approved, picking up one of the fish rolls, ready to sample it.

Evals caught the wolf testing his work, and rushed to halt it. "Wait!" he yelled, the roll hovering just inches in front of the jowls of Sythe. He nabbed a small bowl of brown liquid and placed it front of the wolf's plate in a manner that appeared panicked but wasn't quite at that point yet.

Sythe stared at it for a moment, then turned his head back to the dog, who actually looked slightly insulted that Sythe wasn't tasting his cooking properly. "Were you really about to try my sushi without the soy sauce?" he woofed, pointing at the bowl like a mother scolding a kid for not eating his veggies.

The wolf blinked skeptically, not sure why Evals was getting on him about forgetting what seemed like a very trivial detail for his dinner. But he played along with it anyways. The food was prepared by him after all. "My mistake," he apologized, soaking the roll in the sauce for a couple seconds. "Thank you." Mike snickered with suppression as he watched the diplomat get chastised for not eating his dinner properly.

Regardless, he slipped the roll into his mouth, chewing with uncertainty at first, but it gradually picked up momentum as the full flavor of the dish started to come out. "That's actually pretty good!" he praised as he dunked another fish roll into the dark brown seasoning.

"Too bad you didn't know us earlier," Mike chuckled, as he dug into his portion. "This guy was cooking off steak a couple days ago."

"What was the cause?" the wolf inquired.

The dog seemed a little too ready to answer that one. "It was a date..." Evals explained, completely disregarding the fact that Mike preferred not to talk about Michelle.

"The date we first met each other!" Mike quickly added onto his friend's statement. "It's kind of become a tradition."

Evals looked back at the fox, completely confused. "No, we met each other in the winter..."

"Anyways!" Mike awkwardly segued, trying to silence the dog once and for all. "So, what do you know about Keith and Natani?"

Sythe swallowed his bite of the sushi before answering. "What about them?"

"Well, they kind of left us here alone with you," Evals moped. "No offense, you're a great guy."

"But they still abandoned us by definition, and we don't really know why," Mike concluded.

Sythe and Mrs. Nibbly looked at each other, both supposedly surprised by how little information Keith and Natani had shared with the crew of the Quantum. "Did they really not tell you guys anything?"

"Other way. They told us nothing," Mike corrected.

"And we hoped you could help us," Evals woofed.

Sythe was still amazed at how much the Basitin and assassin tried to keep this secret, and in a way he felt obligated to keep it like that. However, the two sailors definitely had a right to know what the holdup was, and Sythe decided to dutifully inform them. He picked up the metal cap remover off the table and dug it underneath the metal rim of the ale bottle in front of him, as he prepared to tell the story. "Well, they're actually in wolf country right now looking for someone," he started, popping off the lid and sending it clinking away in Mike's direction.

The metal cap took one bounce off the table and flew right into the fox's left hand. "Can you say who it is?"

The wolf and squirrel looked at each other again, the moral dilemma being nonverbally discussed between the two. It was settled with a know-nothing shrug from Mrs. Nibbly as she sampled one of her master's crackers.

"It's a bunch of crazies headed up by this guy calling himself Domino. He's an arms dealer with an ego the size of this ship and..."

"That's it?" Evals interjected.

Sythe glanced over at the canine, who was gleefully munching away at his own share of his dinner. "What do you mean, 'that's it?'"

"Like, that's how big his ego is? Just this ship?"

"It's a metaphor, Evals. You know, figure of speech?" Mike tried to clarify.

"I get that, but..." Evals made a shrinking gesture with his hands as he continued to munch on the fish. "It's just kind of small comparatively, don't you think?"

Mike's mouth pursed and put his hands to his head, unable to give a response more cohesive than a simple "Why?"

"I mean, why just stop at the ship?" the dog's ramble continued. "Why not go to the harbor? Or the island? Or the world for that matter? Just saying, as far as egos go, this is pretty tame by comparison."

"Is the comparison that important?" Sythe murmured, his eyes shut and his head on his hand.

Two replies came in at once, with Evals responding in the resounding affirmative and Mike the disgruntled negative. What resulted was a mismatched cacophony of an answer that was probably best summed up with the word "Yo," and whatever significance that held.

That amount, of course, was minimal, so Sythe continued with his explanation like that nonsensical interruption never happened. "Anyways, he got onto the island somehow and tried to get the Basitins on our bad side, and Keith and Natani are in my hometown right now trying to fix it."

"What's his deal?" Mike asked with a splash of water. "I mean, is he just there to mess with you or..."

"He's the head of a whole network of military contractors called The Fang. The theory is to get the Basitins sucked into a three-way fight between us and the Templars and then fund the whole thing."

Mike stirred a bit in his seat. "So that's why he was in such a hurry," he said to himself.

"And that's why you two are stuck with me," Sythe finished.

Evals' eyes narrowed and he pointed a finger accusatorily at the wolf. "So, does The Claw..."

"Fang," Mike corrected.

"Do they know we're here?" he finished his question with palpable concern.

Sythe's face immediately took on a much more worried pose. "That...is a very good question," he hesitantly commented.

"I mean, on the one hand, they know the ship is here, and it's the one Keith came in on," Mike thought out loud.

"But then again, why would they bother with us?" Evals countered.

"They wouldn't!" Mike exclaimed, trying to calm himself but not really succeeding. He moved forward in his chair, looking at Sythe for guidance. "Right?"

Sythe would have answered, but more thumping about on the deck above them cut him off, interrupting him once more. Mike sighed, as this was now a running theme for him ever since the ship docked, and excused himself from the table. Once more, he ventured over to the cleaning closet, and grabbed his trusty armament...

Mrs. Nibbly peered up at her friend and squeaked a question at him. "No, I don't know what the broom's for," Sythe told her.

"I'll be back in a few seconds," he assured the other two canines as he began to stealth his way up the stairs. Evals watched him creep up the steps, waiting for him to vanish out of sight. He observed the orange and black-tipped tail slither up behind the fox, and then reached an adventurous arm over the table, trying to requisition some of his work off of Mike's now unguarded plate. Mrs. Nibbly caught it early, and batted the hand away, causing Evals to immediately back off.

Evals yipped a bit in surprise, and Sythe gave Mrs. Nibbly a few strokes as she continued to munch away at her bowl's contents. With the galley now mostly silent, Sythe could pick out some noise from upstairs as the fox checked the disturbance. The door leading up to the main deck creaked open, meaning Mike was just now inspecting it. A pause, then it immediately creaked again, a little too soon. Distressingly too soon.

Mike quickly paced back down the stairs, holding the broom defensively in his hands as he stiffly addressed the diplomat. "Uh, Sythe? Is this a good time?"

"Is it Harbor Guard?" he asked. "Because if it is, you're not in trouble."

"I don't think so," Mike stammered. "But do you know anybody who wears green shirts on a regular basis?"

Sythe's eyes widened. Evals' ears perked.

"Why?" the wolf slowly, ominously pressed.

Mike pointed up to the galley's ceiling. "Because there's five of them, and they were talking about blowing up the ship."

Natani sat with her head resting on her hands, blankly staring at the red crystal before her. Her eyes slowly drifted off to the left to check the clock. Five-twenty-eight, exactly. The wait was short objectively, but to the wolf it felt like it was taking far too long, and maybe Domino was simply delaying either for extra time or just to spite her. Either way, any stress she felt concerning her friend's disappearance exponentially grew as the clock ticked closer and closer to the five-thirty mark.

She peered up across the dining area's table, just to cursorily check that everybody else was ready to watch the transmission. Domino did invite her to get everybody she could to look in on what he had to say. She would have liked to view this by herself, and she probably would have under the circumstances, but her mind still had enough clarity to know that would have been suboptimal.

Zen was seated on the long side of the table, off to her left, Clovis across from him on her right, fiddling with some mana crystals, presumably to record Domino's stream as he sent it. Against the far wall, the older of the two foxes, the ones Zen had come to be very good friends with, she had heard, stood flicking a blade back and forth over his hand. Kayle sat on the far end of the table, directly in front of Natani, smiling sweetly in her direction, even if it did feel a bit forced.

The clock's hand shifted. Five-twenty-nine. Natani sighed, the weight of time becoming a heavier and more cumbersome burden upon her with each incessant tick.

"Nat," Zen softly spoke, only receiving a passing glance as the younger sibling returned to stare at the crystal. He put a hand to her shoulder, calmly. "We're going to find him."

She didn't bother with a response. She heard her brother speaking, but for all she heard or cared he may as well have been keeping quiet. She was entranced by the glowing red crystal resting on the tabletop, knowing that in less than thirty seconds she would finally know where Domino was, and she could finally end this once and for all.

The clock continued to tick away. Fifteen seconds.

Blitz's knife clicked and clacked as the casing flailed around. Fourteen.

Clovis fidgeted with his crystals again, making sure the alignment was to his standards. Thirteen.

Blitz's knife snapped shut finally. Twelve.

Natani glanced back up at Zen. Eleven.

Zen returned a brotherly smile. Ten.

Clovis raised a hand over his mana. Nine.

Blitz walked up behind Kayle, softly patting her head. Eight.

Natani stared at Zen, but finally ceded a small smile. Seven.

Kayle looked back up at her uncle, still optimistically grinning. Six.

A pause. Five.

Clovis began drawing the power out of his crystals. Four.

Zen retracted his hand and focused on the humming red crystal. Three.

Blitz knelt down as well, as comfortably as he could manage. Two.

Natani inhaled deeply as the red crystal jumped to life. One.

And the show began. The crystal buzzed and hummed as it started to receive the broadcasted images, the crimson outlines of the people on the other end slowly being drawn into view. Zen gave a nod in Clovis' direction, and the half-fox promptly sucked his mana dry for his spell. With the word "Ausculto," he placed the power back into an already depleted vesicle, and it turned green as it began to memorize the sounds in the kitchen.

Kayle's eyes lit up in fascination for a moment, and Blitz seemed mildly impressed by it as well. Neither of the two foxes practiced or even bothered with trying to learn magic, but seeing spells as advanced as these were definitely a treat, even if this may not have been the time to be completely awestruck.

The generated image finally came to its full resolution, and Natani leaned forward expectantly. The start was a little out of place, as the projection right now was just Domino standing with his back to the focus, completely unaware of the time and what was occurring. In fact, Natani even heard him talking to himself, as he "warmed up" for the broadcast.

"And that's how I thought I should start it. What do you think, General?" A pause. "Oh come on, you've done speeches like this before, right? I mean, I know I said you weren't going to work, but a little feedback wouldn't be too much to ask for? Please?"

A voice chimed in off to the side, out of view. "Domino? The crystal?"

The mercenary peered over his shoulder at the transmitting crystal, his ears perked almost in panic as he noticed that he was indeed speaking live. "Whoops," he stated, adjusting his shirt and waistline of his pants. "Let me know when we're doing that next time, alright Alex?"

"Is there going to be a next time?"

Domino raised an eyebrow contemplatively. "Good point," he replied, then turned his attention back to Natani. "In any case, hello Natani and friends. I can't really tell how many of you are there, but I'm going to go under the assumption of 'everyone' just to be on the safe side."

Natani's eyes sparked. "Where's Keith, you...?"

"And if I end up talking over you, then I'm sorry in advance. When my mages made this thing, they couldn't get the visuals to go both ways. So you can see and hear me, but I can't see or hear you. So, yeah, that's a thing. Feel free to use it or ignore it at your peril."

Bastard, Natani mentally finished her sentence. She wouldn't be able to ask anything or demand clarification now. Right now, all she had to work with was what Domino was about to give her and her friends. Sneaky, but very effective.

"But you're not here for me. You're here for him," Domino continued as he took a step off to the side. His projection uncovered an image of Keith. His hands were pinned behind the chair he was sitting in, his head resting on his shoulder, but his eyes still flashing with intensity, beaten but unbroken. Any details about the room were outside the range of the crystal, so Natani wasn't sure exactly what had happened to him or what the extent of the damages were. Keith was a strong Basitin, though. It would take much longer before he even considered showing a crack.

"Keithy, you wanna say anything to the people watching at home?" Domino asked from off screen.

Keith spat in his general direction, and Domino quickly interposed himself between the general and the crystal again.

"He's just a little upset at the moment," he whispered. "Anywho, I wanted to call and let you know I have him set up right here in this room. So don't worry if he's not home for dinner, we're having a good time right here."

Natani claws dug into the wooden table, and Zen heard her softly growling at the projection.

"But we hit a small snag. You see, the plan was to just keep him here for the next few days and wait for the Basitins to come by in person, but I figured you would have guessed that he was with me by this point even if I wasn't going to tip you off like this. And if it wasn't going to be you, Nat, then I think your half-breed might have gotten there at some point."

"Again with the name calling," Clovis rolled his eyes. He didn't mind it so much when it was in good humor, like between him and Zen, but having his enemies address him as such, and hearing them use what he found to be one of the more insensitive options, got on his nerves a bit.

"So, here's the new plan. It's kind of a game, but I think you'll like it anyways. You ready?" Domino let out a deep breath as he prepared his greatest reveal. "I'm going to tell you where I am and where you can find Keith. Free of charge."

Natani's eyes widened.

"I know, I know, I'm an amazing guy, right? Actually, I'm just trying to cut off my loose ends. You see, I love nothing more than when a plan goes off without a hitch. I love smoothness. But you, Nat, and your little band, you definitely have gone and messed them up way too many times. Between you distracting me at my hearing, ruining the General's surprise party, and rejecting my men's business at your pub, I think I've had enough of your shenanigans. So I propose we settle our differences right here, while our minds are still on it."

Natani wasn't sure what to think of the mercenary's proposal. He had to be bluffing, right? This was clearly a trap. He wouldn't invite her and Clovis' troupe over to the exact location where Keith was if it wasn't.

"There won't be any nasty surprises waiting for you. I'm not that kind of guy, I like to play with my cards on the table. No ambushes, no reinforcements, just one big party with you and us."

Both of the Magi Brothers looked at each other. Domino didn't sound like it, but he was being very serious. He wanted to end this. That wasn't terribly out of place. What was unusual, however, was the sheer willingness of him to do so.

"You might see this as me being obnoxiously arrogant. I see it as me being proactive in my problem solving. Pick your poison. Anyways, if you want to come find us, the General and I will be right here," Domino grinned as he pulled up another chair from off screen, placed it right next to Keith and kicked back in it. "Basement floor of our building. Seth and Krieg know what I'm talking about."

"Who are...?"

"Aliases Blitz and I used when we were in there," Zen explained.

"Seriously, swing by! We'd love to have you!" Domino called to them happily, waving a hand at them. Then his face gradually shifted from chaotically gleeful to playfully sinister. "And, to help you make up your mind about whether you should come or not..." he added as he slowly drew the pistol out from his belt and pointed the barrel at Keith's temple. Natani's emotions went into a state of turmoil, but she didn't physically react to the threat. Rather, the vixen across the table did that for her, gasping and gripping her uncle's arm. Blitz indifferently continued to watch the transmission, unfazed by the images. Off to the side, Natani could practically hear Clovis' brain mad at work, calculating a new plan of attack.

"I love the General's company, I really do, but my crew is a little supply starved at the moment, and him being around doesn't really help out. So I'm thinking you should stop by in, let's say, the next twelve hours to come get him. If I don't hear from you by then..." He pressed the barrel against Keith's head, who cringed in turn as the icy steel was rubbed into one of his major vessels.

"Then I'm going to have to show him out myself," Domino qualified. "And I really, really hate being indisposed like that. So, that's the game. Good luck, have fun..." And he clicked his tongue while cocking his pistol. "We'll be waiting for you." The projection froze on him for a few seconds before it disappeared altogether, sucked back into the crystal like liquid through a straw.

Clovis waved a hand to finish his recording, now that the need for it had passed. His crystal gradually transitioned from red to a bright yellow, indicating the message had been successfully stored, and placed it into the inner pocket of his cloak.

Nobody in the kitchen had an immediate response to what they just saw, and instead the five canines simply sat there, trying to interpret the transmission. Either Domino was backed into a corner and was playing for an all-in, or he thought his position was so amazing that this was a gambit he simply could not refuse. Natani's head started hurting, and she rested it in both of her hands, not sure what to think for now.

One of the chairs on the far end of the room slid out. "So, when should we go?" Kayle asked enthusiastically, prompting Natani to gaze back up at the vixen. Blitz had joined her as well, and he dug out his knife once more, keeping his hands busy.

Nobody answered, so Blitz decided to chime in as well. "He's your friend, right? I think we need to go get him."

"The situation's changed," Clovis coolly replied. "This isn't about just capturing Domino anymore. This is dangerous, for us and the General."

"All the more reason for you to hang back on this one," Zen advised. "You can stay here with Kayle and let us know..."

Clovis started laughing to himself. "Have you gone daft?" he chortled. "This is one of the best plots I've witnessed in ages! My word, Domino, you are a riot!"

Blitz stared at his employer for a while as he waited for him to recover. "You're not going to leave us alone until you come with us, are you, boss?"

"That, and I've neglected to go out for my daily walk this afternoon. I insist that I join you this time."

Zen looked over at the vixen, not necessarily skeptically, but with a good dose of concern. She gave him a confident smile in return. "I can do this, Zen," she asserted. "Uncle Blitz found that folder him and Clovis were fighting over. I know everything in it."

The wolf didn't seem convinced. "I'm staying here with you," he stated.

"Zen!" Natani retaliated.

"If Domino finds out that Kayle is still here spying on his building, then he's going to do something about it. We're not leaving her here without backup."

"I can do this..." Kayle softly whispered, barely catching the attention of the older wolf. Her head hung heavy, almost as if she was wounded by that remark. "I can do this myself, Zen."

Zen knew immediately what that meant. "Kayle, I didn't mean it like..."

"I'm not afraid anymore."

Her uncle's eyebrow jumped up, and Clovis smirked from under his hood as Kayle continued to speak. "I'm not afraid of The Fang. I'm not afraid of Domino or anybody he might send after me. That night at the bar taught me that. I didn't want to kill them..."

She leered back up at Zen, her face renewed with determination. "...but now I know I can hold my own. I can do this myself!"

The kitchen went quiet again, almost in admiration, as Zen slowly walked up to the vixen. The two exchanged glances, then the lupine assassin flashed a small grin. "I'm sure that you can," he warmly added. "But I'm not asking as a bodyguard who thinks you need protection."

He affectionately, delicately placed a hand on her shoulder. "I'm asking as a big brother who wants to keep you safe."

Natani was well within her rights to protest, but she elected to keep it to herself. He did have a point, much as she hated to lose him in the field. Nobody would have had this concern if Clovis just kept his trap shut, been a good fox and did what he usually does, because then nobody would have had to worry about him if things went bad. Kayle, though, apart from that unsavory experience at MacMillan's, had no such training. Even if she was a decent fighter and just hadn't shown anybody yet, Zen's concerns were well warranted.

And Kayle seemed to think likewise, raising a hand and gently brushing his off of her. "Alright," she accepted. "We'll think of something."

Zen looked over his shoulder at the other assassin. "Nat, I think that leaves you with Clovis and Blitz then."

She did feel a little distraught, however, knowing that there would only be three people on the rescue team instead of a possible four. Even more punishing, however, was the thought of the two wolves finally reuniting and then getting immediately pulled back apart. "I was looking forward to doing this with you," she sighed.

"You still are," Zen grinned, encouraging his little brother along. "Kayle and I will get a viewing orb set up here and we'll have eyes on you all the way through. We won't leave you."

Natani wasn't that sounded so reinforcing, but she liked hearing that anyways, and she finally conceded a grin for the first time in a while.

"Just do me a favor and try not to do anything stupid, alright?" Zen asked, uncertain of whether that question was supposed to be serious or not.

Natani nodded obediently. "I'll try not to," she repeated.

Blitz's knife clacked shut as he quickly looked over his team for the night. "I think we need to get to work then. Boss?"

Clovis gave another crooked grin out of the corner of his mouth as he began reciting the incantation for manifesting a viewing orb. "I think we ought to as well," he agreed. "But first, here's what I had in mind..."

Chapter 29

The makeshift, hastily repaired door to Natani's cabin creaked open slightly, a quivering light blue eye cautiously peering out of it. Two agents marched past it, weapons drawn as they proceeded to check the hallways. They didn't seem to pay any of the side rooms on B Deck any attention. Either they already checked them or they were assuming that the crew already left the ship and abandoned it.

Mike clicked the door shut and sat himself back against the adjoining wall. Evals and Sythe continued to hug it as closely as possible as the fox finished scouting the hallways. Already the fox was getting fidgety, his highly worrisome mentality promptly beginning to get the better of him. "Sythe, why are they trying to blow us up?" he frightfully asked, tightly gripping his tail like he was wringing it dry.

The diplomat glared at the sailors in response, then limply tilted his head backwards, banging it against the wall. Stress management, as both Mike and Evals deduced up to this point, was not one of the wolf's stronger traits. "Why the hell do these things keep happening to me?" he griped, prompting Mrs. Nibbly to scootch down on his shoulder a bit, gently patting the back of his neck as if to say "There, there."

"Hey, calm down," Evals suggested, sitting farthest from the door. "They don't know we're here yet, right? Why don't we take a breath, get a plan made, and..."

He would have continued explaining if it didn't look like Mike was about to start yelling for his mother. His hold on his tail tightened even more, like that was even possible to begin with. Meanwhile, Sythe looked like he was about to snap as soon as somebody told him the pizza guy was running a minute late. No amount of comfort or affection from the squirrel seemed like it would be enough to quell him past this stage. The conclusion was hard to ignore: calming down and thinking logically was not really an option for the trio at the moment.

"You know, I'm just going to head out and tell them where we are, alright?" Mike shouted as he finally cracked and put his hand back to the door. "For all we know, they're nice guys and they're only carrying around a bunch of explosives for someone else."

"Because people take bombs onto ships on a regular basis!" Sythe yelled back. "Face it, they're here to sink and kill us."

"But..." Mike stammered. "But what do we do then?"

Sythe looked at his squirrel for a moment and froze for a bit as he tried to think of a halfway acceptable answer. "We may as well just wait for them to plant and then sneak out while..."

He was cut off by Evals stamping his foot, and both him and Mike glanced forwards and then upwards to see the dog proudly standing in front of the other two. He held his arms folded in front of him, crossly staring down at the other two people in the cabin. "What's the problem with you two?" he barked didactically.

Apparently, their communal problem was "Sssssshhh!" because that was the joint response of both the fox and wolf as Evals boomed his question their way.

"They'll hear you, stupid mutt!" Sythe aggressively growled.

"Might want to think about keeping it down just a bit?" Mike more conservatively suggested.

"Save those zingers for the enemy, Sythe!" Evals immediately replied. "This is our ship! This is our home! What right have they to take it from us?"

"Uh, Evals, this thing is just a rental, technically," Mike felt obligated to point out. "If it gets blown up by a war-crazed band of terrorists, then I think..."

"We'll get into even more trouble!" Evals finished that statement, even if it was nowhere close to how it should have ended. "We can't just sit here and watch these..."

The dog paused, and then blushed after a second. "I ran out of insults," he admitted, like he was giving a speech and forgot where his script went.

"That's a pretty short list then," Sythe's eyes narrowed.

"Can't you just move it along? Do you really need one?" Mike ventured.

"It isn't an inspirational speech if you don't bash the enemy at least once in every paragraph!" Evals asserted.

"Then you've never written an inspirational speech."

"Shut it, you squirrel-loving hippy!"

"Ooh, that was a good one, Evals."

"Thank you!" the dog said with esteem. "I'd been saving that one."

"But now you can't use it your speech, oh heroic one," Sythe sarcastically remarked.

That needed a second to register with the dog's brain, that he'd just thrown away a critical part of his pep talk against one of the people listening to it. "Dammit!"

"But I won't say you don't have a point," Mike stated, as he stood up from against the wall. "Evals is right. This is our ship, and I think we'd be doing a disservice to her if we don't fight for her!"

"There ya go, Mikey!" Evals cheered, then peered over at the diplomat. "What do you think, Sythe?"

The wolf didn't do much more than blink and respire for a few seconds. "You guys are really about to go out there, and practically make yourselves targets, all for the sake of preserving the boat's 'honor'?" he skeptically asked, flexing his first two fingers as he said the final word.

Mike shook his head. "First, the Quantum's a ship. Not a boat. A ship."

"You don't need to be a sailor to know that one," Evals grinned. "Second, what would Keith do if he found out that we let the Quantum burn while we just ran and saved ourselves?"

"I'm sure he'd think that you have more common sense than you've been letting on," the wolf snidely replied.

"The HMS Quantum, Sythe, is the ship that carried Ambassador-General Keith Keiser across the ocean back to the Basidian Isles to break up a war that his people almost become wholly involved with," Mike slowly clarified, like he was reading out of a history textbook. "Do you hear how epic that sounds?"

"We can be heroes!" Evals woofed. "We transported the one person who could stop the fight here..."

"...and then in his absence, we valiantly fought off the people trying to sink the vessel to bring him back," Mike finished valorously.

"You two are insane, you know that?" Sythe mumbled, unmoved.

The fox and the dog looked at each other defeatedly, their best efforts not enough to swing Sythe in their position, and just shrugged at each other. "We tried," they chimed in together.

"It's all good," Evals stated as he put a hand to his chin. "We can do this just fine ourselves. Now, what can we do?"

"We know the Quantum's layout," Mike posited. "Just go where they aren't, steal supplies, maybe set a trap or two?"

"Maybe, but it's a little too obvious," Evals declined. Mrs. Nibbly made a dash towards Natani's bed, and the dog had to lift his foot out of the way to clear a path. She darted under the covers, and then a second later, she started making a sound under it, like she was clawing a large wooden box.

Sythe leaned over to take a glimpse under the sheets. "What's under the bed there?" he inquired. Mike walked over to the bed and lifted the covers for a better view. Mrs. Nibbly seemed to be scraping her paws against Natani's safeguarded trunk, the one she had been keeping all of her mage supplies locked up in.

Mike looked down at the rodent and smiled widely at her. "Nice find, Nibs!" he exclaimed as he dragged the massive trunk out from under the bed. He huffed as he sunk all of his might into forcing the storage unit out into the open, finally resting once it had been fully revealed.

"What's in there?" Evals asked.

Mike didn't give a response, because his heart sunk slightly as he noticed that Natani's lock had been reengaged, the triple layered spell defiantly prohibiting his unwanted entrance. He just stared at it for a minute, feeling semi-hopeless. The trunk had a myriad of good supplies in it, but he didn't know what to do now to access them.

Or did he? His face lit up as he recalled how to get the box open.

"Mike, really, what are we getting out of there?" the dog repeated.

"Fifteen months, seven days," Mike recited the first part of the code.

Evals blinked. "That...doesn't really answer the question," he stated with confusion. "What are you...?"

"West Street Crew."

Sythe slipped a hand onto his face. "Yep, he's lost it," he sighed, now pushing himself up to his feet. "Evals, if you really need me to, I guess I can help you while the fox has a mental breakdown."

"Long eared weirdo."

"Hey!" Sythe angrily interjected, not sure why he was getting offended by a remark that clearly wasn't aimed at him.

"Calm down, I was unlocking the trunk!" Mike dispelled the confusion and the lock. The blue seal unstuck itself from the trunk and vanished, thus permitting Mike to begin perusing its contents.

He started unloading everything he could out of the locker, picking up spellbooks, spare clothes and everything that wasn't mana related and setting them off to the side. He figured that, if he was going to break into Natani's belongings, he may as well try to keep it somewhat orderly. The digging went on for a few seconds, and Evals even came by to help accelerate the cleaning, until Mike finally found what he was searching for. He was actually still surprised slightly simply at the enormity of Natani's mana reserve and how much of it the assassin took on board, but there was still a few left, loosely spread out across the bottom of the trunk.

Quickly, he stuck both of his hands into the storage unit and began to pick up and toss the crystals into his hands, one by one. "There might be enough mana in here to do something with it," Mike observed as he collected the scattered magic.

Sythe's skepticism continued to get the better of him. "You guys know how to use that properly?"

Evals opened his mouth to answer "yes," but he then got struck by the realization that, apart from just casting some rudimentary apprentice spells and making Michelle appear again, he didn't really have much grounds to give that response. He glanced at Mike with an embarrassed grin on his face, hoping his friend could help, but both of them knew that wasn't about to happen.

Sythe gave an exhausted sigh. An incredulous, mind numbed, exhausted sigh. "Alright then," he commented as Mrs. Nibbly grabbed Sythe's pant leg and slowly worked her way back up to the diplomat's shirt. "What can you do with it?"

Mike found a small empty bag swimming around in the trunk and used that to house his mana collection. "Well, I can start the stove without a match," he started the list.

That sounded promising, and Sythe's ears perked for the first time since The Fang infiltrated the ship. "And what can you do with it?" he interestedly pressed, thinking that the fox knew a few destruction spells.

"I just told you, I can light the stove without a match," Mike repeated. "I just turn the gas on, snap my fingers and I get a little flame."

Sythe's flame of hope was reduced to cinders in turn. "That's it?" he blankly asked.

"It's something, right?"

"Poochie, what do you know?" Sythe inquired, convinced that whatever Mike knew in terms of spellcasting wasn't worth his time.

Evals wasn't quite sure what was going through his mind when he gave the instinctual response of, "Well, I turned Mike into a girl once."

Sythe's eyes widened. Mrs. Nibbly squeaked for a repeat. Mike's jaw dropped. Evals looked around the room at the three others.

"What? You asked me what I knew."

"That was supposed to be between us, nimrod!" Mike hissed.

"I'd ask, but I don't think I want to hear the answer," Sythe convinced himself, his eye suddenly contracting a very strange tic.

"No, true story. Mike and I were playing around with some spells one day, I cast something by accident and..."

Evals' voice trailed off momentarily as inspiration struck him like a wayward soccer ball to the head. He snapped his fingers and pointed at his vulpine friend and the bag of mana he was presently holding.

Mike looked around, not sure what Evals' mind could be scheming. "Evals, I don't like that look on your face," he noted, taking a half step backwards.

"I have an idea," Evals proclaimed. "You're not going to like it, but I have an idea."

"Gods, this thing is gigantic. How many decks have we gone through again?"

"Quit complaining, Rog. The faster we sweep this place out the better."

"Never said I was," Rog defended as he paced down the ship's corridor, sword still drawn and at the ready. "And why are you in front of me anyways?"

The second Fang agent peered over his shoulder at his tailing companion as they regressed back to the galley. "I'm helping you look?"

"You're also the guy with the bomb, Gares," Rog notified his partner, pointing at the yellow package secured to his back.

"There's nobody on this ship right now, bro," Gares rolled his eyes and continued to patrol. "We would've found them by now if there was."

Rog shook his head and forced himself past Gares in the corridor, blocking his path. "You know how stupid that assumption is, right?"

"Not really," Gares retorted, shoving his way around his obstructive partner. "Worst case scenario, we have two sailors who think brooms are effective choice of weapons, a wolf with amazing anger management issues and his pet squirrel. That's five-to-four odds in our favor, at the worst."

"Fine. I'm just saying, let's take this slow and under the assumption they're hiding and know where we are, alright?"

"And I'm saying, I haven't eaten anything since breakfast this morning, so let's just get it over with, yeah?"

The wolves' bickering got cut short as a third thumped his way up the stairs and into the hallway they were currently standing in. "Oy, this level been cleared yet?"

Rog turned back to his comrade. "Not yet. Tell Sasha we'll need a few more minutes."

"Only 'cause you're so slow," Gares murmured.

Rog finally glared at his counterpart, who had finally reached his limits. "You know something, if you're this bent on going home, then why don't you take the bomb downstairs with Locke here and just get ready for the plant? I'll finish sweeping up here."

"Rog..."

"I don't want to hear it. You're the guy who wants to get this job done. You have the bomb, now go get it done."

Gares glared at his teammate as he brushed past him towards the stairs. "Call us if anything happens, alright?" he responded as Locke ducked back down into the stairwell.

"You'll be the last to know," Rog sarcastically called after Gares as he disappeared down below C Deck. He sighed to himself, finally glad he could get some peace alone. Gares was a good guy, and one of the better agents Rog had the pleasure of doing business with, but he was also one of those people that you never wanted to catch on an empty stomach. The timing on this operation caused him to miss out on two meals back to back, and the emergency food supply in Rog's pack was quickly exhausted to assist his comrade. Even then, Gares was still irked, so maybe sticking him off on Locke was a good idea.

Rog finished strolling down the corridor and looked both ways at the walls. There were three doors in galley hallway, which he had initially assumed were just vacant sleeping quarters. That guess was easily checked with the two rooms on his right, as the doors were pushed open just wide enough to look into them. The left not so much, and even though not much noise was coming from inside, the wolf figured that it wouldn't hurt to check it. Just once.

With that mindset in play, Rog took a deep breath, gripped the hilt on his sword a bit more, and pushed the closed door open...

And took a while to simply stare at what laid behind it: a very, very beautiful vixen, fur a brilliant, almost luminescent orange, with a long, silky tail, patterned like someone had just delicately dipped the tip of it in an inkpot.

Rog was at a full loss of words, and continued to gawk at the fox as she finished stretching, like she had just been roused from a nap, and began to remove her shirt to refresh it. Rog felt like he should have said something, but base instinct got the better of him as he just continued to admire her.

Until she took a quick peek over her shoulder, not even advertently, and caught sight of the voyeuristic wolf standing in her doorway. She stared back at him for a few seconds, not quite sure what he could have been there for, then looked back down at herself, and then seemed to get a basic idea.

To which she immediately let out a scream of embarrassed fear and grabbed a water glass off of the nearby nightstand. "Get out of my room, you pervert!" she hollered, hurling the glass at Rog at an incredible speed. The wolf barely had enough time to duck below the projectile, the glass smashing into the far side of the corridor, and he immediately slammed the door and pushed himself against the wall, panting and trying to forget what just happened. Never do that again, he scolded himself. From now on that door is going to stay shut...

"Wait a minute!" he exclaimed out loud, remembering that he was supposed to be capturing and evicting any of the crew still on board the Quantum. And that included that very lovable vixen. That amazing, gorgeous, absolutely wonderful...

Rog shook his head vigorously to dislodge that mentality and immediately kicked the door back open again. He readied his sword, prepared to take the vixen by force if he had to.

What he was not prepared for, however, was for Sythe to whip around from against the other side of the wall, grab his head and slam it into the doorframe, knocking the agent out cold. Rog collapsed onto the floor, but Sythe managed to quiet any noise he made by holding him in his arms and gently easing him to the ground instead.

"Well, there's one," Sythe commented as he dragged the body over behind Natani's bed.

Evals and Mrs. Nibbly popped their heads out from underneath the bed frame and started to crawl out from under it. "Michelle, you were absolutely amazing!" he praised the enchanted fox.

"This is the last time I'm ever doing anything like this for you!" Michelle firmly stated as she readjusted her shirt. "And stop calling me that."

More thumping came from further down the hallway, and all three of the Keidran peered out the door in its direction. "Rog, everything alright up there? Heard something break!"

"Uh oh," the fox and dog chorally exclaimed as they retreated fully into the room. Sythe followed shortly after, back to the fallen agent.

"I'm coming up, alright? Sasha and everyone else is downstairs."

Michelle turned worriedly to the wolf, who had just requisitioned Rog's sword for his own. "Sythe, what do we do?"

Sythe didn't answer and instead whistled for his squirrel. In a flash, Mrs. Nibbly scampered up his leg and onto his shoulder, ready for action.

"There's going to be someone coming up the stairs, and they're going to walk past the galley," he directed. "Why don't you say hi to them when they do?"

Mrs. Nibbly crisply saluted her master and dashed down the wolf and back out the door towards the eating area. Evals shut the door behind her, quietly, and took a deep breath in and out. "So then what do we do?" he asked with anticipation.

"We are going to wait for it," Sythe instructed as he twirled the sword around in his hand, trying to get a feel for the weight distribution.

Michelle looked over her new body once again, and made a circular hand motion towards herself. "Maybe we can do something about this while we're not busy?" she requested with impatience.

Sythe looked at Evals, Evals looked at Sythe, and then both of their stares eventually converged back onto the vixen. "Do we have to?" Evals whispered.

"Yes you do!" Michelle yelled, louder than usual, but not bombastic enough to leak through the door. "This is the third time this has happened to me, and the last two were because of you! The plan's over, I want to be a guy again!"

Sythe cleared his throat, reservedly. "You sure about that?" he replied.

Michelle's gaze narrowed at what she thought would be the only objectively minded person on the Quantum. "You're falling in love with me too?" she asked incredulously.

"Well, no," Sythe scratched his chin, trying to be as soft as he could manage. "But...you look good as a girl. What can I say?"

Evals nodded and happily started wagging his tail. "There. You see that, Mike? Someone agrees with me on this."

"Change me back!"

Evals didn't bother addressing that demand, and instead just began bantering with Sythe. The most distressing part about that entire conversation was probably that the vixen had no way of telling whether the other two canines were being serious or not. "Is it just me, or do her eyes look bluer than they do when she's a guy?" the dog asked.

"Yeah, definitely," Sythe continued. "Her figure is absolutely wonderful as well. You did a good job with her."

"I aim to please."

"Alright, fine!" Michelle finally interrupted. "If it'll somehow help you, I'm okay with being a girl for a little bit longer."

"Thank you, Mike!" Evals happily woofed as he moved in to embrace his friend. He was stopped short by the vixen's palm indifferently pressing against his forehead, staunchly preventing any more forward movement.

"And you're going to stay exactly that far away from me until this is over, dog."

Evals' arms dropped as he whimpered sadly, and it almost completely overtook the muffled screams of panic coming from the ship's galley area. Sythe's ears perked as he readied himself at the door. "That's it," he noted, motioning for the two sailors to follow him closely. Michelle barely had time to interpret what Sythe was silently saying before he charged the door, nearly blasting the fox's handiwork back to the wood chippings from whence it came.

Just as he had deduced, the panicked yells were coming from the agent known as Locke. He had the extreme misfortune of trying to examine the galley cupboards a tad too closely, and came within leaping distance of a squirrel sneakily perched on top of them. Right now, he was in an absolute frenzy as Mrs. Nibbly skittered about every which way on top of, in front of and behind his head, his arms flailing without any mote of composure as he tried fruitlessly to remove the rodent before he went bald.

"Get it off, dammit!" he yelled to nobody as he kept his eyes shut tighter than he thought was even physically possible, praying that the squirrel didn't realize exactly how valuable they were to his well being. Even then, Mrs. Nibbly had him indirectly blinded as a result of her onslaught, and she continued to provide an amazing distraction as Sythe and company approached his position.

Locke finally managed to get a hold on the squirrel and yanked her off of his head, holding her by the scruff of her neck a few feet off the ground, like he was holding a handkerchief someone just sneezed into. "Give me one reason not to toss you into the harbor right now!" he growled at the rodent, like it was going to somehow understand him.

Mrs. Nibbly nodded her head, pointed a paw behind him, and teasingly squeaked as a reply. During the chaotic romp the squirrel had just put the agent through, he had turned his back completely to the room the three Keidran just walked out of. Locke would have turned around to see where the squirrel might have been going with that gesture, but he didn't have time before the hilt of Sythe's hijacked sword bopped him squarely on the forehead, allowing Mrs. Nibbly to scamper back to her friend and further evening the odds.

"You alright there, Nibs?" Sythe kindly asked as the squirrel slowly worked its way back up his shoulder. One small affirmative nod later, Sythe continued to trek forward towards the C Deck stairs, while Michelle and Evals quickly picked up the unconscious wolf and started to drag him back into Natani's room.

"You think they're on C Deck?" Michelle asked as she pushed the damaged door open with her foot.

"If they're going to sink a ship, they'll want to target the hull first," Sythe deduced. "The rest of them are probably down there getting ready to plant it. We'll go once..."

A small thump followed by the sound of the fox wincing echoed back. "Sorry, bumped his head," Evals apologized, adjusting Locke's posture to prevent any more concussive damage.

"This is good," Michelle stated as they finished dragging the wolf into the bedroom. Both of Locke's arms fell again, and Evals and Michelle politely shut the door behind them.

"Just finished sweeping. Nobody's down here. We're good," Shadow informed his leader. Sasha grunted in response, and leered over at Gares. The eyes said nothing and everything at the same time, and Gares needed no more encouragement to jump off of the barrel he was seated on and detach the explosive mounted on his back.

"Yo boss, lighten up, alright? This job's almost over," Gares lightheartedly observed as he moved over to the side of the cargo hold, the hull of the Quantum. "Look, I'm setting the bomb right now, see? Then we'll guard it until it's ready, zap out of here, and celebrate with a burger or something, alright? You like burgers, don't you?"

Sasha grunted again, impatiently, and Gares immediately began to regret his attempts to ease the mood. Instead he just cleared his throat, and dug into his pocket for a mana crystal. This one glowed red, an enchantment already bestowed upon it: the magical encryption that ensured that Gares' explosive wouldn't detonate prematurely. The dim yellow crystal implanted in the middle of the parcel hummed wildly as its red sister drew closer to it, and reached an apex as Gares spoke the word "Initium." The yellow crystal faded abruptly to a sinister red, slowly oscillating between a dim and vibrant brightness. It was now officially set to blow.

"There, bomb has been planted," Gares sprung up from his crouching position, watching the timer gem fluctuate, admiring his own work. He peered over at Shadow with satisfaction. "Hey, Shade, we have a couple minutes to burn. You want to take a look around, see if there's anything good to sell?"

Shadow glanced over at the head of the operation for approval. "Sasha, you'll be alright here for a few? There's nobody here." An audible exhale was the response, to which Shadow replied with a shrug, interpreting that as a yes. "Alright, Gares, let's get you some food, alright?"

"Awesome!" the younger wolf cheered as he waited for his superior to begin marching up the stairs. Sasha continued to glare at the two wolves until the vanished into the ceiling, then turned it back to the bomb, the crystal's luminosity now bouncing back and forth at a slightly faster rate, monotonously humming at each peak.

He considered shutting his eyes for a moment, just letting the melody of the bomb caress him for a few seconds, but that would have been an astronomically huge breach of code. And for somebody who had been denied promotion time and again in The Fang's ranks, that was one of the last things he needed to do. He wasn't sure why he kept getting pushed aside. It could have been his conduct, the way he never spoke and pretty much communicated without opening his mouth at all. It might have been the fact that he fixated on his work like a bird fixates on a nest, constantly cranking it out by himself without much care for those he was working with. It may as well have just been the fact that he was named "Sasha," even though that name had been in his bloodline for an uncountable number of generations. He'd become quite bitter towards a lot of things, needless to say. And this job probably wasn't helping things along. Gares hit the point right on the nose. Just plant the bomb and go.

And maybe pick up a sandwich on the way out.

Two heavy weights suddenly began to tumble down the stairs, and Sasha unexpectedly flinched and whirled around. First came Gares, who bounced down the stairs like a rubber ball and then slammed his back against the bottom part of the stairwell, then Shadow came rolling along and literally got into a head-on collision with his coworker. Sasha growled in annoyance and yanked the sword out from its sheath, angrily stomping towards the stairwell.

He was about to peer up to see what had happened, until two rambunctious Keidran, a male dog and a female fox loudly clomping down the steps, answered the question for him. Michelle and Evals swashbuckled their way down the stairs, their confidence approaching amazingly cocky levels. Their pounding footsteps unwittingly and perfectly telegraphed their position, and Sasha lifted his sword over his head, ready to intercept the bumbling sailors.

"One more!" Evals yelled as he skidded to a halt just in front of the two recently fallen agents. Michelle give a small cheer as well as she finished her descent as well.

Sasha would have taken the first slash at Evals, but he intentionally held it in hopes of solving two problems at once. Evals froze as he saw the raised sword, and Michelle immediately regretted stopping where she was.

"Oh, crap," they said simultaneously as Sasha hollered and sent the blow on its way. The dog dodged right, the fox rolled left, and the blow stuck itself right between the two of them. Evals continued to run towards the bomb, but that unfortunately left Michelle in the corner, rammed up against the stairs with nowhere to really run. She crawled on her back, trying to distance herself from the enraged wolf. Sasha picked the sword back up and marched towards her, darkly looming over her.

"Mike!" Sythe barked down the stairs. The two sailors broke formation, the confidence burst seemingly getting the better of them after disposing of Gares and Shadow. Sythe quickly bolted down the stairs, but Sasha was already poised for the attack.

Michelle cringed and rolled onto her side, hoping that this wouldn't hurt much. Sasha raised the sword again...

"Hey!" a tiny voice chimed in from behind the wolf. Sasha wasn't quite sure why his curiosity got the better of him, but he did feel a compulsion to peer over his shoulder and see what exactly all this was about.

A small, young Basitin, a good two feet below Sasha's gargantuan stature, stood behind him, her sword raised defensively. It should have easily been a one-handed weapon for most people, but this one had to use both to keep it steady.

"You leave Mr. Orangetail alone!" Madelyn Adelaide shouted as she swung her sword at the bomber. The way Sasha was holding his weapon, he was in no position to parry it away, and Madelyn connected her blow right onto the wolf's nose with a loud, resounding, impactful...

"Clunk?" Evals confusedly asked aloud, not quite sure if he heard that sound effect properly.

Madelyn more closely inspected her weapon as Sasha rubbed his muzzle, trying to soothe the pain. "Oh, yeah, this is my training sword, isn't it?"

Sasha let out a furious roar as the pain subsided, and took a swing at Madelyn with his free hand. The young Basitin ducked under the blade as it passed, though considering how high it was comparatively, it probably wasn't quite as necessary as she thought.

The agent prepared another swing, but not before Sythe finally finished descending the staircase, and pounced over Michelle and onto Sasha's back, mounting him like an enthused kid getting carried by his parents. Only this one was much less good-natured and more of Sythe wrapping a lower arm around Sasha's neck and pulling back on it as hard as possible. Sasha growled and danced around the cargo hold with Sythe on his back, slamming him against the interior wall a few times. Sythe did not flinch, despite the mass of his opponent, and continued to hold fast.

Michelle couldn't do much more than just watch Sythe struggle with the agent from the stairwell with Evals trying to inspect the bomb and figure out how to get it disengaged, the central crystal now pulsing at a moderately fast rate.

Madelyn peered over at the fox to see if she was alright, curiously at first, but then horribly confused by the end. "Mr. Orangetail is a girl?"

Michelle was befuddled by that question for a moment, then looked back down at herself and quickly remembered why that was relevant. One "Yipe!" later she was tightly hugging herself and blushing redder than ever. "You weren't supposed to see that!" she interjected. She wasn't sure why she considered her image to be of more importance than how exactly Madelyn got this far into the Quantum without anybody noticing, but instinct got the better of her.

No response came, as the narrowed, shocked eyes of Madelyn conveyed every single one of her thoughts at the time: that her world, and everything she knew about her beloved Mr. Orangetail, had been completely demolished and obliterated. "I...I..." was as close as she came to speaking.

"Look, Maddie..." the vixen tried to relate to the shattered youngster. "Why don't you just take a deep breath and..."

"Just fall down already!" Sythe yelled, frustrated that his particular course of attack was taking so long to execute. Sasha was still very lively, bucking and thrashing like a bull at a rodeo, refusing to succumb to his lack of oxygen intake.

Evals peered up at the two wolves and then back down at the explosive, unsure of which one to tend to first. Then back up to Sythe, then back to the bomb. Sythe. The bomb.

He dug a coin out of his pocket.

"Evals, do you mind?" Sythe exclaimed, starting to lose his grip on The Fang's member.

Evals peered up at the two wolves and then back down at the coin, unsure of whose advice to go by. Then back up to Sythe, then back to the coin. Sythe. The coin.

He went for another one.

"Evals!" Sythe screamed.

That seemed to have made up the dog's mind, as he sprinted towards Sasha at full speed. As the larger wolf's hands were fully engaged with the diplomat, Evals had a clean, free shot at him. He pulled a fist back, and using the momentum from his run up, jammed it into the agent's lungs.

Sasha prematurely exhaled and stuttered, just long enough for Sythe to reset his grip on the other wolf's neck. Sasha felt it tighten, and he finally began to struggle for breath...

One last grunt was all he could manage before going to his knees, and finally his face. Sythe sighed with relief as he finally relinquished the unconscious agent, and glared at Evals as he stood himself up. "You're an idiot, you know that?"

"Don't look at me like that! I seriously had to make a decision there! It was either you or..."

"Uh, the bomb?!" Michelle called attention to the obvious problem in a panic, sprinting over to the parcel with Madelyn following shortly behind. Evals dashed over to it as well, picking it up in his hands. The crystal pulsated at an alarmingly, dangerously fast frequency.

"Alright, Mikey," Evals woofed, handing the explosive to the vixen. "Go ahead and do it."

"Do what?" Michelle barked, pushing it back to the dog. "You're the one with the mana. You dispel it!"

"I gave it to you, remember?" Evals replied, forcing it back.

"I gave it to you so you could do this to me!" Michelle exclaimed.

Evals looked back up at her with realization. "Oh yeah, and that was the whole bank, wasn't it?"

"You moron!"

"Give me that thing!" Sythe snatched the parcel out of the bickering canine's hands as he opened up one of the portholes.

"What's Mr. Woofypants doing?" Madelyn innocently asked.

"If you can't disarm it, just do this!" he shouted in frustration as he hurled the package out of the porthole, sending it spinning into the air like a frisbee. He glared at the two incompetent sailors, his only movement being his left ear perking as the bomb landed into the ocean with a small splash noise.

"Problem! Solved!" he boomed, pointing at the submerged bomb as it finally detonated. The cargo hold shook violently for a moment as a gigantic waterspout shot out of the harbor and at least twenty meters into the sky. A small tidal wave crashed onto the docks, drenching a small patrol of nearby guards as it passed. Apart from that, however, and likely the inevitable flood of questions that would probably be coming their way as a direct consequence, the damage seemed to be minimal.

Sythe huffed as the explosion subsided, still trying to vent out any excess anger and stress from this little panic. The other three passengers were either sighing with relief, as Michelle was doing, panting for air, like Evals, or just looking between the two parties still unsure of what entirely was going on, much like Madelyn.

"You two...are freaking idiots," Sythe seethed, still puffing in decompression. A few more seconds passed until the wolf finally dropped his arm back to his side and finally regained the composure he needed to relax himself.

His visage did the same, and Evals could have sworn he saw Sythe actually smiling slightly as he finished his thought. "But you're my idiots."

Chapter 30

"Head left here. The Fang's building should be straight ahead."

Natani's eyes jumped to the other side of the street, to the other set of rooftops. There was only a relatively narrow alley to cross, and she managed just fine with one well-timed bound off the edge of the building she was currently on, landing onto the soft wooden surface with little to no noise.

Her partner, however, wasn't quite as graceful, and Clovis crashed onto the roof, balled up like he had just been ejected from a window. Natani slid to a halt as she heard the half-fox drop, and ran back over to get him up again.

"You don't do a lot of running, do you?" she teased, grabbing his arm and yanking on it.

"Oh, shut up. Everyone has their faults," Clovis spat as he scrambled to his feet, then inspected his cloak in a fluster, checking for damages. "Nah, it's fine."

"You have, like, ten of those things at home, foxboy. I think you can manage with just nine," Natani blankly replied, motioning for Clovis to keep moving. The wolf ran in front of him, and the duo got back to their initial pace across the capital's rooftops.

The nighttime lights blurred and rushed past the hybrid's eyes, streaks of yellow and red tearing through the blue night air. It felt chilled slightly, but not cold enough to warrant anything heavier than what he was wearing. Clovis sighed to himself. If he wasn't on the brink of catching Domino, this would have been extraordinary walking weather, and he was remiss to pass this opportunity up. Priorities came first, however. There would be more nights like this one in all likelihood. But this was the only chance he had at pulling the rug out from under The Fang, and he was not about to lose it.

"Let me ask you a question, Clovis," Natani called back to him as they sprinted across the line of rooftops, towards The Fang's headquarters. "Why do you care about this?"

Clovis glanced over at the wolf off to his left side. "How do you mean?" he responded, though he was fairly certain he knew what she meant.

"The Fang's off your back, really. Your spies are safe. So why are you still helping us?" Natani clarified.

Clovis returned his stare forward. "I made a deal with your brother. If he found and eliminated the threat to my values, I'd find and eliminate the threat to his. We both found it, now we just happen to be working on the second part together."

Natani made sure she wouldn't slip on or trip over anything ahead before she looked back over at Clovis. "Since when do you start returning favors?"

"I never said that I was," the half-fox corrected. "This is just me fulfilling my half of the contract. You can say what you will about me personally, Natani." He peered back up at the assassin, grinning that toothy, crooked grin he loved sporting so much.

"But even for someone who hates me as much as you do, you have to realize, I've always been a man of my word."

Natani saw where Clovis was going with his speech, and he did get the point across, but since he practically opened the door for criticism...

"I still think you're a prick," she pointed out.

"And at times, I can be."

"You're a cheat who loves taking the easy roles on jobs."

"Save for this one, I'll take that on the chin."

"You like to think you're a purebred wolf, even though we both know you aren't."

"That was a tad harsh, but true."

"And above everything else, you're a greedy, cocky, snobby jerk who I can't possibly stand and I'm only working with because everyone else is busy."

"I most certainly am," Clovis cackled, reveling in every ounce of mud the wolf slung his way. "But you know what you didn't say anything about?"

Natani continued to glare at the smirking spymaster, but not disdainfully. That little rant against him actually felt quite satisfying. "What did I miss, foxboy?" she shouted over the rushing wind of her sprint.

Clovis chuckled a bit as he replied. "You didn't say anything about not trusting me."

"Zen, how does this thing work again?" Kayle inquired, swiping her fingers across the viewing orb every way she could think of. She was receiving plenty of blurred shots of Natani and Clovis dashing past the orb's range, but really needed to fix its view on top of them, or at the very least fix it somewhere that wouldn't give her motion sickness.

The wolf brought over two cups of coffee, hoping that it would prepare both him and Kayle for a long night, and took a seat next to her at his kitchen table. He watched Kayle play with the medium-sized magical ball for a few more moments, seeing if she couldn't solve her problem by experimentation, but finally set the mugs down and reached over to it.

"So if I want to watch one particular person," Zen explained as he enlarged the picture slightly. "Let's say I want to check on Natani. I just pan over to him, tap him twice..." he instructed, performing each of the directions as he narrated them. The orb finally stopped zipping around and came to a stable bird's eye view above the younger assassin as she ran towards The Fang's building.

"And there you go," he proudly displayed his results, like a professor demonstrating an intricate mathematics proof.

Kayle smiled, grateful that the issue was finally resolved. "Sorry if I'm new to this."

"No need to be. We were all new at one point," Zen said through a sip of coffee, pointing at the vixen's mug. "You might want to put some of that down as well. This probably won't end until late."

Kayle laughed. "Zen, I work at a tavern. I'm used to staying up this late."

The wolf shrugged. "Well, it doesn't hurt to be careful."

"Should we really be drinking while this is going on?" Kayle asked.

Zen smirked. "If Clovis can get away with sitting in his mansion sipping wine while your uncle and I are out doing all the dirty work, then he shouldn't have any problems with us having coffee here while we're watching his back."

He raised his mug towards the vixen. "So on that note, if you'd join me..."

Kayle wasn't sure what Zen was doing, and felt slightly stupid once she picked up on the fact that he was performing the universal sign for a toast. She gently picked up her mug by the handle and raised it in front of her as well. "To messing with Clovis, then?"

Zen almost lost it, and had to bury his muzzle into his arm to prevent any of his coffee from sloshing out during his laugh. He did manage to irk out a cheer though his laughter. "To messing with Clovis. Sing it," he ebulliently nodded as he tapped the rim of his mug with Kayle's.

The vixen happily took a small sip out of her mug, sampling the brew Zen had prepared. Zen actually had to think about when was the last time he saw Kayle not smiling, and he didn't like to count that incident at the bar. There was something...seamless about her, the way she was always on the bright side of problems. It was that incessant optimism that she always brought; it counterbalanced her uncle and, as reluctant as Zen was to admit it, Natani's grounded realism. Zen liked that. It was one of those traits he kind of wished Natani would show every once in a while, just some sort of genuine, constant happiness that Kayle seemed to find everywhere she went.

He avoided getting too hung up about the vixen at the moment, since although they were the farthest from the fight, their role at the house was still critical to the operation. He set the mug down and made himself as comfortable as he could manage, staring at the viewing orb, with his brother and the spymaster continuing to dash across the rooftops.

Kayle peered over at him, and lowered her mug. "Are you worried about him?" she warmly asked, almost perfectly piercing the calm, collected facade Zen had put up.

The wolf sighed, continuing to stare at the orb. "He knows what he's doing, and he can definitely hold his own in a fight," he replied, then glanced up at the vixen. "I don't know, Kayle. It's our first time back together in a while and already it feels like he's back out the door again. Can't really say I'm not worried about him."

She giggled sweetly and took another sip of her coffee. "That sounds a lot like Uncle Blitz. Did he ever tell you how he lost his eye?"

Zen rubbed the side of his head, near the socket, cringing. "It was a crossbow, right? Punctured the optic nerve?"

She hummed affirmatively. "And for the next few weeks after that, I couldn't trust him going out anywhere else. I honestly thought something else was going to happen to him for some reason. Did some really weird things too."

"Try me."

"Like, for the first couple of days after he recovered, whenever he got a job from Clovis and ran out to do it, I seriously would drop everything I was doing, and just sit on one of the barstools and stare at the door. Nothing else, just sitting on that stool waiting for him to come back into the pub."

The wolf tilted his head slightly. "Did anything else happen to him?"

"He got into a few fights and would get banged up every once in a while, but otherwise he was fine all the time," Kayle smiled. "So it's alright you're worried about your brother, Zen. It just means you care about him, and you want him to do well. And I'm sure that he will, if he's anything like you!"

The room went silent again, apart from Zen slurping the still hot coffee. Count on Kayle to always find some way to get you to relax. He raised an eyebrow in agreement, as Natani and Clovis slowed their paces down, presumably arriving at the location. Zen sighed and pounded the mug back onto the table. He was still slightly irked by the fact that he was too far out of the way to assist physically with the job. He would have much rather liked to be by his brother's side, sneaking, fighting, succeeding. But no, Clovis and his overly bloated ego had to go with Natani instead. Which meant that, instead of Zen fighting to the death and running to exhaustion at a time that had to be close to midnight if not past it already, he was instead relegated to his warm, comfortable, familiar home, watching the action unfold firsthand with a good drink and an even better companion...

Zen slowly realized that he was complaining about nothing and immediately ceased to think any more on the subject.

Kayle's tail suddenly bushed up as an unusual vibrating feeling bit her on the right leg. She immediately dug the magenta communication crystal out of her side pocket, firmly holding it to stifle any more errant movements from it. "I think I'm supposed to tap it to turn it on?" she recited Clovis' instructions from earlier.

"That's how it works," Zen affirmed, and Kayle acted accordingly, flicking the crystal two or three times and then setting it gently down on the table, in front of the viewing orb. The crystal hummed loudly for a moment as its brightness reached the apex of its crescendo, and then the noise died down to something more intelligible.

"Zen, do you have that crystal up and running yet?" Natani asked him through the mental link, even though her voice could be heard perfectly clear through the newly activated channel.

"I don't know, Blitz, can you hear us?" Zen asked back.

"How's she doing so far?" the Polar Fox chimed in.

"She's doing marvelously," Zen assured him, motioning at the crystal, coaxing Kayle to give it a shot.

The vixen leaned forward slightly, giving her inaugural statement across the link a little more clarity. "The viewing orb looks good, Uncle. I think everything's ready."

"Most excellent," came the half-fox's voice, followed by a strangely timed moment of silence, as everybody else waited for him to keep talking.

He finally did, but not before it attained an awkwardly long duration. "Oh, does anybody else want a drink?"

Both the wolf and the vixen's ears drooped, not sure if Clovis was trying to be funny or if he actually had a wine glass to be within arm's reach where he was currently seated. Surprisingly, judging from the way the moonlight was reflecting off of his hand...

"Why would you ever need a spell to teleport in a bottle of wine?" Natani demanded, while covering her face, judging by how muffled the question came out.

"Well I'm sorry for getting thirsty after sprinting halfway across town on unstable ground, Natani!" Clovis defensively and sarcastically snapped back, going for another swig of his favorite drink.

Zen heard his younger sibling sigh as she let Clovis finish his drink, as inopportune as it was. "Blitz, you're in position, right?"

"I'm coming out of the alley, second one from your left. I just need you and Clovis to watch me as I get the door open."

"Provided of course he could be bothered to watch," Natani grumbled. Clovis finished depleting the glass, and then tossed it over his shoulder. Zen wasn't sure why he would do that, until he saw the glass dissolve into a shower of blue sparks, indicating that it had left the vicinity and would likely be tended to with a dustpan back at the half-fox's manor.

"Very well then, Blitz," Clovis replied. Zen couldn't tell what he was doing from behind the hood, but if he had to guess...

"Let's begin our game."

Blitz waited for a few minutes at the mouth of the alley, checking both directions of the street before slipping the black facemask over his mouth and stepping out nonchalantly towards the Dead Man's Tavern. Whatever traffic may have been coming through the city at this hour, none of it was passing by here. Blitz hypothetically could have outright sprinted towards the front door and been just as stealthy as he was currently. Regardless, he took his time crossing to the mercenary barracks. Even if he didn't necessarily have to blend in, it still helped.

Blitz walked down the narrow paved pathway to the front door, the sign squealing on rusted hinges as it swayed in the light breeze. He gave the knob a quick, authoritative tug, and noticed to his slight but expected disappointment that it was locked. Once more, the Polar Fox peered over his shoulders, and then after confirming nobody was behind him, he reached into the small pouch attached to his belt and tossed a lockpick up into the air, catching it between his first two fingers. He slipped the pick into the upper half of the keyhole, wedging it just so that he could leave it in the lock without it falling out. He then gently pulled out his beloved knife, flicking it open and spinning it around in and over his hand for a few playful moments before finally securing it in its open position. He examined it reverently for another second, like an art critic inspecting a portrait, before begrudgingly sighing at what he was about to put it through.

"I wouldn't do this to you if I didn't have to, beautiful," he apologized as he knelt down to the lock and slipped the blade into the lower part of the lock. Still holding the blade in his right hand, he gripped the pick with his left and jiggled it a little, trying to locate the tumbler. He didn't expect it to be simple, and if the lock was making any noise as he probed around its interior, it was far from audible. Blitz planted an ear against the wood of the door, next to the lock, seeing if that would help out at all.

The next noise he heard wasn't the sound of the pick scraping against the tumbler, but instead the distinct, crisp click of a firearm being engaged off to his left side. Smart of the assailant, to approach from the only spot he had difficulty seeing.

"I can't let you do that, fox," Alexei sneered with superiority. "Up you go," he directed, flicking the barrel upwards emphatically.

"When did he get there?" Natani barked, her longbow drawn from her perch on the rooftops.

"Must have slipped in from the side. If he teleported in, we'd have known it," Clovis observed from behind her.

Natani huffed and reached behind her for an arrow. "I'm getting rid of him," she informed Clovis as she nocked it and drew it back. She rotated the bow perpendicularly as well, finding that it helped her accuracy for jobs where she was supposed to keep quiet.

Clovis gently pressed down on the bow in protest, as Natani let her arms lower it to the shingled roof. "Hold it for now," the half-fox instructed. "Let's just see what Blitz does."

The wolf reluctantly obeyed, and disengaged the arrow, letting the drawstring slide back to its rest position, and watched the scene unfold with semi-boredom.

Blitz raised his hands slowly and extended his legs, raising himself to a full foot if not more over the wolf. That single blue eye glistened under the bright moonlight, like it threatened to bisect Alexei if he focused hard enough.

"And I'm shooting the moment you move for that eye patch, so don't try to put anything over me," Alexei crooned, the gun still trained on the fox's head with impunity even as his target towered over him in a similar manner. "We all know you're a one-trick horse with that thing."

"So what do you think I am without it?" Blitz coolly replied.

"Someone who I'm about to kill. Someone who's won't stop me and Dom from making a ton of gold. I have a list, if we need it."

"You really think I'm that powerless without my eye, huh mate?"

"Well, you can't reach it without me shooting you, and that knife of yours is stuck in our door. This probably doesn't end well for you."

Blitz glanced up and to his right, at the nearby building, at two silhouettes that Alexei was yet to notice.

"Probably," he repeated back.

"What is that fox up to?" Zen asked, like it needed to be stated.

Natani didn't have a definitive answer either, but at least she could speculate. "Stalling for time, if I had to guess," she responded, slipping the arrow back onto the string. "Clovis, I have a shot. Just let me take it."

"Please, Natani," the half-fox insisted. "I understand that the General means a lot to you and you want to get to him as quickly as possible, but let's leave Blitz to his own devices."

Natani motioned down at Clovis' hire, who had just been commanded to get to his knees. "He's going to get himself shot, you know."

"I assure you, he's not," Clovis replied with a faint smile. "That fox is a lot smarter than you think he is."

The wolf let out a disbelieving puff of air. "I'd love to see how he plans to..."

"That wolf is also making a gigantic mistake," Clovis continued. That was the sentence that grabbed Natani's attention again.

"What is he doing wrong?"

Now Clovis' expression expanded into the famed crooked grin territory. "You'll see in a second."

"You are damn pathetic," Alexei spat as Blitz locked his hands behind his head and knelt down. "You got me good that day, with that sneaky little arms dealer trick, but I'm the one in control now."

He took one small step forward to Blitz, the gun barrel oppressively held directly in front of the fox's forehead. "And now you're going to die because of it."

Blitz calmly looked back up at the monologue-spewing wolf, almost pitifully in a way. "Then why haven't you killed me yet?"

Alexei scoffed. "You're helpless, Blitz. You can't do a single thing right now. I have all the time in the world, and I intend to enjoy every moment of it."

"I strongly disagree with that middle part, mate."

"You're not in a position to disagree."

"I'm not helpless. You haven't bound me, you haven't incapacitated me at all, the only reason I'm playing along is because you're pointing a gun two inches from my head. I'm still free to do what I want, I just..."

"Skip to the point!" Alexei shouted, tempted to just shoot Blitz right here and now.

Blitz sighed, frustrated at how short sighted this wolf was. "The point is, you're a freaking idiot," he sharply retorted. Alexei didn't have much time to let that verbal attack sink in, because Blitz wasted no time in beginning his physical one, by disobediently removing his hands from his head, grabbing the wolf's wrist and turning it away from him, then ramming an elbow into his jaw. He then dropped it onto Alexei's shooting arm, causing it to bend completely perpendicular to way an arm generally bends. The wolf yelped as the pistol clattered out of his hand, allowing Blitz to kick it back into the street, well out of his adversary's reach.

The fox rammed a fist into Alexei's stomach, then grabbed his foe's shirt and slammed him against the tavern's front wall, just next to the door. Blitz eyed his knife, still sticking out of the lock, almost beckoning him to use it here. He pinned Alexei against the wall, pressing his left arm against his rib cage, as he swiftly sidestepped to yank his trusty blade out from the keyhole. He thought best to end this fight quickly, and made a sharp, quick slash at the wolf's throat.

The acute ting of colliding steel was his meager reward, as he noticed Alexei had just pulled out his own short blade, a very small, curved dagger of sorts, and had blocked the incoming flick. He held it strong against the fox's knife, and raised an cocky eyebrow as the two agents struggled.

"You take me for granted, then," the wolf smirked.

"Never mind, then," Natani sighed, preparing to replace the arrow in the quiver.

Clovis noticed the arrow come loose, and raised a hand. "Don't get complacent yet. He's yet to win this fight."

"Hey, Nat, if you're waiting for this to end, I made you a present."

Natani's ears perked. "When did that happen?"

"I slipped it into your bag right before you and Clovis left. I think you'll like it."

She flipped the bag off of her shoulders and around to her front, loosening the rope knot at the mouth. She stuck an arm in and rummaged around, then stopped as soon as she felt the coldness of a hollow, metal, cylindrical shell, something that she was certain she didn't put in herself.

Uncertain of what this could possibly be, Natani grabbed it lengthwise and yanked the object out of the bag...

She was hit by both confusion and sentiment simultaneously, the resulting feeling becoming an uneasy amalgamation that made her stomach churn. "It's your blade," Natani softly observed, the bracer resting in both of her hands.

The link went silent, not for long, but long enough for the assassin to know her brother didn't have an immediate response. "Thought it might be helpful," he confessed. "I mean, it won't do anything for me right now. I'm here. You're there. Thought it'd be good luck for you to use it for me."

Natani hesitantly slid the plate piece over her right hand, tugging at the two leather strips to secure it to her well-muscled lower arm, the velvet interior gently hugging its new master.

"The trigger near the thumb..."

"I know how it works," Natani interrupted her brother, popping the blade out from under the wrist with ease. "I'm the one that got it for you to begin with."

"Well I'm not regifting it to you, if that's the concern. Just think of it as on loan, alright? Once you find Domino, I'll be right there with you."

"Thank you, Zen," she softly called back, before giving the blade an affectionate lick and retracting it. She admired her brother's choice of weapon for a few more moments, holding it at different angles in the moonlight, seeing what kinds of patterns she could make with the various scratches and engravings it had contracted over its use.

At least, until Clovis abruptly inserted himself in the wolf's nostalgia trip. "Um, Natani, I'm sure that's very touching, but shouldn't you be watching Blitz right now?"

Natani sighed reminiscently, as she picked her bow back up, set her sack off to the side, and retrained her aim at the brawl down below. Meanwhile, Kayle's voice drifted over the channel, a nice, calming tone that Natani could easily focus through. "Then what were we doing upstairs? You know, with the herbs and whatnot?"

"Aw, Zen. You made me some poisons too, didn't you?" Natani smiled, peering at the bag off to the side. Clovis moved towards it instead, pointing a finger back at the fight.

"I got a little bored while you were away on the island, so I thought I'd have a little fun and reload our potion supply," Zen explained before Kayle audibly cleared her throat. "And Kayle helped me with a few of them too," he quickly appended.

Clovis sunk an arm into the bag, rifling about in it until he encountered what seemed to be a smaller one, nested in off to the side. This one felt like silk, an easily verified observation once he actually got it out of the main part of the backpack. Inside, the muffled sound of clinking glass indicated that Zen had indeed been hard at work at his alchemy table again.

But probably the most stunning thing about the smaller bag itself was its mass. Despite its meager dimensions, Zen must have filled it as high as possible with vials of every sort of concoction he could think up. Clovis had to hold the bag with two hands, as there was not enough material at the mouth to grip it with just one. "You think we'll have enough?" he pondered.

"I'm just covering all of our bases, foxboy. There's something in there for everything."

Clovis found that statement of quality amusing. "Perhaps we could sample some of your work?"

"There should be a deep blue vial in there somewhere." Clovis unstrung the bag, not looking forward to searching the swamp of glass lurking inside, but was pleasantly surprised to notice that exact potion lying on the top.

"What do you have there?" Natani asked over her shoulder, still watching the fox and wolf battle.

"Zen wants us to do a little experiment," Clovis grinned, tossing the vial to her. Natani tracked it out of the corner of her eye, and reached a hand out to catch it. "Shall we begin?"

"Love to," Natani agreed, placing the tip of her arrow into the vial and upturning both of them.

Alexei cackled again, parrying away each one of the fox's strikes with expertise and precision. Blitz had made the fatal error of encountering Alexei before, even if it was under pretense, and that meant he knew exactly what Blitz liked to do. He was sneaky, clever, would try the unexpected. And right now the wolf had it to a science. He knew where Blitz liked to strike, what his fighting style was, where the weaknesses were.

Though there was one thing that bothered him. "What's wrong with your eye, Blitz?" Alexei taunted, scraping away another strike. "Don't feel up to using it?"

"I don't like to control people who don't deserve it," the fox growled, taking a stab towards Alexei's ribs. Once more it was knocked away.

"I see," Alexei smirked, giving his dagger a quick spin in his left hand before making his reply to Blitz's attack. "So I must have become a more formidable opponent, then?"

"Don't get your hopes up," Blitz grumbled, dodging a blow for his right shoulder. "I got the drop on you last time. Doing the eye trick right now, it wouldn't be fair."

Alexei sliced at Blitz's right arm, succeeding in cutting only a few white and black hairs off of it as Blitz dodged again. "Always the sportsman, aren't you?"

"And why are you talking during a fight anyways?" Blitz interjected as he started to counterattack. "I thought that was your cousin's thing."

"Well, now it's mine!" Alexei exclaimed, parrying away each successive strike from the fox. "And if you're playing fairly, I should as well."

Blitz actually paused when Alexei said that, and he wasn't sure if that was out of shock that he was trying to be honorable in something as dirty as a knife fight, or if he just would have felt bad striking an opponent who was trying to even the playing field. He permitted the wolf a step backward, but nothing more. "What does that mean, 'play fairly'?" he demanded, holding his knife out to his side.

"Well, I shouldn't be handicapping myself if we want a good fight," Alexei shrugged, as he threw his dagger into the air, over to his other side. "For starters, I'm not left aaargh!"

Blitz's shoulders relaxed, and for a moment he had no clue what in the world just happened. But then he saw Alexei's left hand spring to his right arm, near the elbow, then his dagger clang onto the floor, and he had a pretty good idea of what the deal was. Alexei went to his knees, doubled over in pain, alternating between "Aah," "Ooh," and "Dammit," as he cringed and groveled over his wounded arm.

Blitz let this go on for a few seconds, a few, long, embarrassing seconds, before he finally spoke back up. "Yeah, I broke that arm earlier, didn't I?" he questioned. Instead of a response, he received a roaring river of gibberish and swears, as the wolf continued to unsuccessfully cope with his wounded arm.

Natani looked over at Clovis, still holding the poisoned and knocked arrow back and ready to fire. She had seen the entire spectacle, and was looking at the half-fox like he had dragged her to a concert only he was enjoying.

Only this clearly wasn't the case, as Clovis was slowly shaking his head, his hand plastered over his eyes in shame.

"Now can I shoot him?" Natani asked rhetorically.

"You probably should," Clovis sighed. Natani didn't even have to check her aim again, and just stared at Clovis in disappointment as she let the arrow fly to Alexei.

Blitz shuddered slightly as the arrow buried itself into the upper half of Alexei's good arm, prompting yet another howl of pain as the wolf stumbled to the right in recoil. He cringed and glared at his left arm, wishing that he had a way to pull the arrow out.

But for some reason, that didn't concern him. In fact, this wasn't even distressing at all. It...felt kind of good now, come to think of it, like the arrow was pleasantly filling him with calmness and ease of mind. He could even feel his body becoming less massive, on the verge of simply floating right off of the ground. Alexei gradually shut his eyes with exhilaration, permitting himself be taken away to wherever this wonderful arrow was directing him...

Blitz just watched Alexei fall to the ground, likely banging his head on the concrete near the end. He didn't do much more than stare at Alexei for a few seconds, his mind still unable to discern the absurdity that had befallen the past few minutes.

Natani raised an eyebrow, befuddled but impressed by her brother's work. "That shot should not have killed him," she told herself as she flipped the bow over her shoulder and stood back up.

"It didn't. You just put him to sleep. Let him have a moment," Zen clarified.

Clovis' ear popped up as it caught a faint wind of Alexei snoring, if that was what it was. "Good he's enjoying himself, I suppose."

"Is this the part where I say 'all clear?'" Blitz asked.

Clovis pressed two fingers to his head. "Yes, we're on our way down," he responded, standing up and shaking the grit out of his cloak. Meanwhile, Natani began poking through the bag of poisons, seeing what else her big brother had prepared for her. She was tempted just to take the whole thing with her, and she probably would have if she could have fit it onto her person. So instead she just grabbed whatever potions she could identify by inspection: Invisibility, Enhanced Vision, Instant Death, and of course the one sleep poison she had just seen firsthand.

She slipped the vials into her pocket and curiously looked around the rooftops for a way down. "We can probably use that rain gutter to get to the blacksmith's there," she began to describe her plan as Clovis sealed the potion bag and replaced it in his backpack. "Then we'll swing over to the signpost, and then..."

"Or, alternatively," the spymaster proposed as he pressed the two crystals together in his hands. "Pervolito," he said to them, and Natani would have jumped in fright as the spell took hold on her. Except that was becoming more difficult to do, seeing as how she was being lifted off of the ground at the moment. True, it was a slow ascent, and she couldn't have been more than six inches in the air, but that didn't make the thought any more unsettling.

And Clovis' hearty laughter at her expense definitely was not helping things either. "Have you really never been levitated before, Natani?" he chortled, crossing his arms and proudly smiling at the assassin, his feet floating above the roof in a similar manner.

"Not by somebody else, no!" Natani crossly snapped back as she came to terms with the spell's effects. "And what does this do anyways? We're still stuck up here!"

"Very poor use of the word 'stuck' there," the half-fox scoffed as he hovered his way behind Natani and placed a hand on her back.

"Off you go!" he called, as he shoved the weightless wolf off of the rooftop.

Chapter 31

"Good Gods, you do a lot of screaming," Clovis mumbled as he continued to glide with Natani down to The Fang's main entrance. The descent was taking its time; they were barely at the halfway point right now, and despite the fact that they were taking it at a nice steady pace, that didn't keep Natani from still blowing a fuse at the fact that they were still falling off of a building.

"Don't do that to me again!" she yelled up at the smirking spymaster, who was lying down on his stomach, head resting on his hands, feet crossed in the air, silently but pleasantly enjoying the ride down. She would have taken a good slash right across his face as well if he wasn't well out of arm's reach and five feet behind her at present.

"C'mon, little brother, lighten up! Levitating is some of the best fun you can have with magic!"

"Zen, you are not helping," Natani retorted, still glaring at the half-fox floating above her.

Clovis pointed a finger in the direction Natani was gliding, with just a hint of concern. "You might want to look out for that, by the way," he advised.

The glare intensified. "Look out for...?" Natani said before the top part of a wooden street lantern jammed itself right onto the wolf's ribcage, immediately halting her descent to the ground.

"The lamppost, my dear girl," Clovis chuckled as he lackadaisically drifted his way past the assassin. Natani felt herself grinding down the rest of the post, like a piece of sandpaper, and kicked herself off of it to get some distance.

I hate you so much, she silently snarled as her fall finally came to a close, her feet still hovering a few inches above the ground. Up the street, Clovis stood himself back up from the start of the pathway, snapped his fingers to drop both him and Natani back to the ground, and the two proceeded to the front porch, where Blitz had gotten back to work on the lock.

"Damn wolf blunted my knife," Blitz murmured as he cranked on the lock again. "It'll be a miracle if I get this open."

"Uh, Uncle?" a voice reverberated from the crystal in the front pouch of his shirt.

The fox's ears perked. "What's up, Kayle?"

"There's about fifteen people on the other side of the door. I don't think subtlety is going to be too big of an issue."

He shrugged. "Well, I'm picking this thing anyways," he replied, resetting the knife and twisting the pick slightly to the right.

"Just get Natani or someone to open it. It'd be easier with magic, right?"

Blitz rotated the knife again, refusing to be bested by a piece of machinery. "It's the principle, sweetheart. You won't ever get better at something if you don't..."

The pick bent under the conflicting forces of the lock and the keyhole and fractured, leaving the agent with a sharp but useless strip of metal. "...try."

"Need a hand there, oh master of locks?" came a playfully condescending voice behind him.

"Like you can do any better, boss," Blitz responded as he removed his knife from the keyhole and stepped aside, almost perfectly predicting the half-fox's next move.

"I'm positive that I can," Clovis crooned, reaching into his pocket for another crystal. He flipped it over his fingers as he pushed his hand back against his head. "How many are in there again, Zen?"

"Kayle said fifteen, but there's one more in the basement. Five gold says that's Domino."

Natani took a deep breath as that name ran its way through her mind. Clovis focused up as well. It was the endgame. The finishing moves. The time to decide who was the better man. He flipped the crystal into the air, drawing the power out of it as it rose into a medium-sized fireball.

He was determined to win this fight. He would be better.

"Incaendo!" he hollered, firing the blast that would unhinge the wooden door to the Dead Man's Tavern.

He waited for the dust to settle inside. Judging from the moaning, some of the mercenaries lying in wait were either slammed by the door debris or scorched by the explosion. Either way, he proudly marched inside, Blitz and Natani flanking him from behind, eyes intently focused on the backroom door.

He glanced to his left and right, and mentally shuddered. He thought his entrance would be bombastic enough for him to march straight through with his colleagues with minimal resistance, but he admittedly should have expected better from an organization like The Fang. These soldiers were sturdy, and even after being on the receiving end of a blast as spectacular as that one, most of them were still standing, swords drawn and prepared to fight. Clovis didn't like that.

"Evening, gents," he courteously stated, masking his actual reaction to their well-being. He hated improvising, but this would have to be an exception. He swiftly pulled out two more crystals, pressed them between his palms and then pushed his palms out and to the side, like he was trying to swim. "Murus igniras!" he yelled, and a line of fire erupted from his feet, bolting towards the door on the far end of the tavern. The mercenaries quickly jumped out of the way as the river of flame cut its path, then it jumped up to at least seven feet and parted down the middle, forcing the mercenaries off to the side, lest they risk being barbecued by the spell. The result was a neat, flaming aisle down the middle of the tavern, leading directly to the backroom.

"Natani, I think your friend's waiting downstairs for you," Clovis loudly spoke over his shoulder, holding his hands outward to maintain his channel.

"You're not coming with me?" the wolf yelled, brushing the spymaster aside.

"I can't! Someone has to keep these guys back!" Clovis yelled. He felt his pocket getting lighter as he continued to suck his reserve dry.

"Natani," Blitz put a hand to her shoulder. "This is our shot to end it. Let Clovis and I clean up here. You go get Domino."

The wolf glanced at the back door, patiently waiting for someone to come through it. Domino would be behind it, waiting for her. Keith would be behind it, waiting for her. The fate of the world would be behind it, waiting for the result.

She was reluctant to go in by herself, but she did not have much of an option. Clovis would be exposed as soon as the wall dropped, and Blitz would have to support him. Natani, however, was open, and now she had a clean route to the heart of The Fang.

The wall wavered a bit, thirsty for more of the magical fuel. "A decision sometime soon would be lovely!" Clovis called back to her, the channel becoming increasingly harder to hold up.

Natani glared up at Blitz, a determinedly fiery spark behind her eyes. "I'll let you know when it's done," she stated, then turned back to fully face Clovis.

"Foxboy, if you die here, I'm going to kill you."

"How delightful. You're going to kill a dead man," the half-fox chortled. "I'll make it a point not to."

Natani snorted air out through her nose, and then sprinted through the aisle of fire, the images of panicked, angry mercenaries blurring past her as she closed in on the door. She didn't even bother twisting the handle, and instead just plowed straight through, though how the door remained intact was a mystery that nobody had time to think on.

Clovis dropped the walls of fire, permitting the mercenaries to explore the room once more, but immediately regretted that decision as soon as he saw them eyeing the backroom door and starting runs towards it. He pointed at the door, and prayed that he had the mana for his next act.

The answer was a resounding yes, as the door slammed itself shut and was then put upon by a large blue seal. A couple of the mercenaries tried pushing on the door in fruitless attempts to open it. Others tried to bash it in with their weapons, only succeeding in voiding the warranty on them as they were obstinately repelled by the magical lock.

Clovis admired his work for a few moments, then turned around to Blitz. "I'll let you handle the mooks. I'm going to find some friends."

"Since when do you make friends?" the fox asked, as he started to flip his knife around once more.

"It's quite easy when you're after the same thing," the hybrid replied, exiting out the empty doorway. "I should be back before long."

Blitz nodded, not minding a little bit that he was outnumbered by an amazing margin. Clovis exited back into the azure night, while Blitz ventured over to the bar. His walk went surprisingly uncontested. Apparently, Clovis' lock was so spectacular that it required all of the attention of the fifteen mercenaries in the pub right now.

Wow, you all deserve this one, he said to himself as he mantled his way on top of the bar. He stood up, shook for a second to find his balance, then raised his arms into the air, like a street herald shouting news to passersby. "Gentlemen, can I get your attention?"

All fifteen of the agents spun to look at the fox towering over them. If there was ever a tournament for synchronized instruction following, then The Fang was assuredly one of the top contenders.

Blitz actually needed a brief moment to let that sink in before he remembered he needed to pull away his eye patches. "Wow, that was easy," he remarked, firing up the hidden, hypnotic emerald once more.

She could only guess she was in the map room, down in the musty old cellar that The Fang loved to use for their operations. Even her night vision had issues discerning the objects down here, the absolute lightlessness that had engulfed her as soon as she set foot onto the chilled stone floor. Even the illumination from the upturned hatch above helped minimally, only managing to chase away the dark in about a five-meter radius around the stairs, where she stood.

She inhaled deeply, searching for scents. A moment passed to process the sample, and she detected two distinct ones. The first one came like an island. A slightly bloodied one at that, but an island nonetheless. Keith, most likely. The second was a urban stench, with a hint of pine and a similar bloody aftertaste.

Domino.

She slowly reached into her pocket for a vial, and ejected the steel blade out of her wrist again. She examined the vessel meticulously under the remnants of her light. A toxic, rusty green liquid laid within, and she identified the poison straight away. She hoped it wouldn't have to come to this, but she could not take any chances at all. If she were to meet her end, the least she could do was take Domino down with her.

She bit the cork out of the vial and spat it out, the blackness consuming it instantly. She tipped her brother's blade into the mouth of the vial, took another deep breath, and then drenched the weapon in the venom, coating it with the lethal toxin.

She perked her ears, waiting for her brother to object in some fashion. Silence. She tossed the vial away, sending the glass tinkling somewhere off to her right.

She shut her eyes, cleared her head. This was it. No, this wasn't it. There was no need to be worked up. Domino was just another mark in the end. Another target for a reward. Another adornment for her wall. She will find him.

Another deep, heavy breath, and the wolf patted herself down, trying to remember where she put her mana reserve. The left breast pocket was the answer, and after some effort, she liberated a crystal from the tight pocket. She gripped it tightly in her hand, squeezing every drop of power she could out of it.

She put her muzzle to her fist and whispered the word "Luminos." A small but powerful white light began to work through the cracks between her fingers, and she slowly reopened her hand, letting the magical light shoo away the blinding black of the basement.

She slowly crept her way into the unexplored regions, watching her feet for anything she might stumble over. In front of her was the meeting table, and on the back wall the enormous continental map, with pins and strings of various colors connecting different points along it. Interesting, and could be useful once Domino was found and in good hands, but that was not of any matter at the moment. She turned left and continued to search the dank underground area.

Zen's voice crackled into her head as she paced about. "Natani, if I remember correctly, there's some guest rooms up ahead. If Keith's down here..."

"Then that's where he is," she finished. She moved the light further in front of her, and indeed, a new hallway was unveiled, directly in front of her. She proceeded onward.

The doors were wooden and solid, allowing only a small, barred window near the top for any illumination from outside. But that also permitted the wolf to look inside as well, as she approached the first door on her right. She angled the ball of light just so for it to bounce off of the interior of the cell. Vacant.

She about faced and tried the one behind her. Again, nobody there. She continued down the black corridor, on the look for anything that could possibly tip her off.

She froze as a dim blue light snuck into sight from the second door on her right, and she immediately dismissed the light in her hand. Now freed, she put it to her head, transmitting her thoughts to her brother.

Zen, you see what I'm seeing?

"Yeah, I see it," Zen quietly replied, the tension in the hallway starting to affect even him. "I think Keith's there too."

Natani crouched down and put her right hand out to feel for the wall. She had to turn it strangely to allow for the blade beneath her wrist, the poison dripping off of it as the steady tapping on the floor indicated. She finally felt the icy brick crawl up her arm and she shuffled across the wall accordingly. A few seconds passed, and the rough texture of the wall then swiftly receded to a slightly warmer and softer feel. The door. Natani peered up to confirm the blue light was still present.

She felt around for the latch and found it after a few unsuccessful attempts, her first two fingers wrapping around the handle to remember the spot. With her free hand, she patted herself down for another crystal and transferred it to her other hand. "Recludo," she commanded, and was rewarded with the lock sliding back on the door.

She examined the blue glow above her again. She wasn't sure what it could have been. Worst case, it was dreadroot torches, which meant she didn't have a lot of time before her sight and hearing would start to go bad in there. She decided to play around it.

But not at the risk of giving herself away. Zen, is there anybody down here?

"Nobody that's showing up. They might be..."

Natani didn't wait for her brother's qualification, and she opened the door, limiting how much she breathed in. Just as she feared, two dreadroot torches hung on either side of the adjacent walls, generating that signature, soft, eerie blue light. And between them, tied off to the chair, a small trickle of blood forming from the corner of his mouth...

"Keith!" Natani called for him, quickly pacing into the room to free him.

The Basitin looked at his companion, the gaze glazed but happily relieved, but then jumped alive with alert as something shifted in the dark corner of the room. "Natani, don't..." he tried to warn, his voice scratchy and inaudible.

Then two things happened at once. The cell door inexplicably slammed shut, and then a sharp, stinging, powerful pang of pain stabbed its way into the lower right quadrant of Natani's back. She would have yelled, but her mouth was immediately covered up by a white cloth, a pungent deep purple liquid splashed onto the center. She recognized the concoction immediately, even through the pain. More dreadroot extract. She tried to steady her breathing, but her wound wouldn't let her, forcing her to take shallow breath after shallow breath of the elixir, her vision growing fuzzier by the moment.

"Nat!" Zen yelled, as Natani could do nothing more but wheeze in more and more of the fumes. She expected Zen to speak more, but either he was not saying anything or her mind was already starting to become clouded by the weed's side effects. The call was silent. Instead, Zen was replaced by a soothing, distorted voice, one familiar to the wolf even through the dreadroot.

"Hello again, Natani," Domino softly greeted from behind a cloth facemask. Already her green undershirt began to stain red as the blood began to trickle onto the floor, creating a sickening pitter patter as it splashed onto the stonework.

He yanked the knife out of her back, releasing yet another bolt of pain as the wolf dropped to her knees and finally onto her chest. Domino crossed in front of her, and for a second her lowered field of view only managed to catch his ankles down. He was definitely facing her, by the way his feet were oriented, but as to whatever else he was doing at the time, the wolf was clueless. Clueless and starting to bleed out.

Domino twisted his body, presumably peering around the room. The red stained knife dripped some of Natani's blood as he twirled around. "This..." he pensively stated. "This was a fun game. Wouldn't you guys agree?"

He knelt down, allowing himself to get fully within view of the downed assassin. "I mean, admit it. You were skeptical at first. Heck, I was skeptical at first. But, oh man, this ending. This was tremendous!" He pumped a fist enthusiastically.

"And you two, especially you, Natani!" he praised, thrusting a hand onto the wolf's shoulder. "This was a really, really fun night, and it was all thanks to you two."

"Zen..." Natani uttered under her breath. "...Zen..."

A female voice returned instead. "He ran away upstairs! I'm trying to contact Uncle Blitz now!"

"Hey, hey Natani," Domino whispered playfully, digging underneath his shirt. He revealed a necklace, constructed out of multiple deep purple mana crystals and some basic twine, and removed it over his head. "Check this out," he urged, looping the necklace over hers and gently tightening it.

"Uncle, it's Natani. He's..." And then the signal went dark in her head. Not even a hint of the mental link or the communication crystal remained. Natani's mind was now completely blank.

"What do you think? I call it a jammer," Domino elaborated. "I'd normally do that little trick where I take one of those crystals and release the magic in them, but hey, efficiency prevails."

He stood back up menacingly, and turned back to the roped Basitin. "And on the topic of efficiency, General, I think we need to determine how this game ends," he chided. He reached behind him for the pistol holster attached to his belt. He smirked wickedly as he drew it out and armed it, pressing it against the Basitin's temple.

"Let's just do a quick recap, shall we? There are five players currently against me. Two of them aren't even here, the third is stuck upstairs behind that lock spell he doesn't know how to disarm, the fourth decided to run away, and the fifth..." He waggled the gun at the downed wolf. "Well, you can probably tell what's up here, right? Even if you can't see that well, you know the story."

Nat, I'm ready.

You sure this will work?

We've done this before, haven't we?

I don't know. I've...lost a lot of blood.

Don't think about that right now.

"So, with that in mind, there's not really a ton of reason to keep you around anymore, is there?" Domino asked, retraining the gun at Keith's head. "I mean, I think I won. So, I say, time for my prize, right?"

He's...going to kill Keith.

Then hurry it up!

OPEN YOUR MIND!

Domino started to squeeze the trigger, ready to start his war with a bang. He smiled deviously gleefully, knowing that there would be no more complications now...

A rustling of clothes bounced in from his side, and he turned his head curiously. He raised an eyebrow as he observed what had to be the most unusual thing he had ever seen out of his best friend up to this point.

Even after losing all of that blood, even after being drugged with a nearly lethal amount of dreadroot, even after being disabled by the jamming necklace, the wolf staggered back to her feet, limply but willfully. Her head held heavy as she regained her strength, shakily, unstably holding the wrist blade off to the side.

Domino sighed with frustration and removed the pistol off of the Basitin's head. "Why can't you just stay down like a good person who just lost? I was in the middle of something," he complained.

"Don't...you dare..." the wolf rumbled, and Domino was actually surprised for once to hear Natani speak. Nobody else was present in the room, and he hadn't seen her cast anything while she was on the ground, but for some reason her voice sounded like someone was speaking over her, copying her words and tone exactly as she said them.

Her head jumped upwards to look Domino directly, teeth bared and fists clenched. Yet another surprise for the mercenary. It was those eyes. Those inexplicable, glowing yellow eyes that Natani now somehow had. How in the world someone like her could have drawn forth this sort of power...

Domino tilted his head interestedly at an image flickering behind Natani, off to the side slightly. It looked almost exactly like her, albeit with a much brighter tint of fur color and much shorter hair. He finally caught onto the trick. The two brothers were, after all, sharing the same soul. It was only fair that one brother could lend his share to the other. Domino grinned, enthused at this newly discovered twist.

The game wasn't over yet. Far from it, in fact.

"Don't you lay a finger on him!" the combined souls of Natani and Zen roared, as they yanked the necklace off and discarded it to the side, then thrust the poisoned blade at the mercenary. Domino's eyes jumped open, alerted by how swiftly the strike was thrown, and barely had the time to knock it away with the dagger in his left hand. He flicked the pistol back up, trying to line up a quick shot, but the target almost seemed precognizant, like it knew that he would try for the gun, and ducked below the barrel. Another sweeping strike came at Domino's ankles, which he nimbly hurdled. Seeing a nearly perfect opportunity, he dropped the pistol's aim, having an immaculately clear shot at the wolf's back.

Again, it was like they had foreseen the fight, knowing when the mercenary would throw each move when. Instead of trying dodge or roll out of the way, the two brothers landed a clean slice on Domino's wrist, causing his feet to stagger backwards and his shooting arm to waver wildly. He glanced at the blade he'd been cut with, and was mildly shocked to see the green poison gleaming off of it in the torchlight. It wasn't much of a concern at the moment, seeing as how the underside of his arm was wounded and the toxin wouldn't have had a chance to get into his body from there. But anything more critical than that...

Two more stabs came his way, forcing him to dodge left and then right to evade. The assassins never allowed Domino a window of attack, and backed him further and further against the cell wall. Another sweep at his midsection caused him to jump backwards.

Perfect pistol distance, and Domino's eyes lit up as the saw the opportunity before him. He raised his right hand again, this time already prepared to take the shot. His aim was akin to him being fully intoxicated, but at this kind of distance, the shot was sure to land. He readied his hand at the trigger...

And then one second later, the pistol had disappeared out of his hand. Domino didn't panic often, but now he was genuinely distressed at how that could have possibly happened. His eyes darted everywhere across the room, thinking that if it had jumped somewhere it couldn't have been too far away.

The grinding sound of metal on metal then gave him the crucial hint he needed. "It's ours now," the brothers snarled, as they spun the pistol about its trigger guard, using the wrist blade as the apex. They must have slipped the blade in between Domino's finger and the metal ring around the trigger, and then pulled back to disarm him. That was the only explanation Domino could think of at the time, and the thought of being left with just a knife in this situation did not please him at all.

"You're usually more talkative," the assassins flatly remarked. The blade flipped up to the ceiling, launching the firearm up into the air, and then expertly catching it in the left hand. They didn't fire it yet and instead forced Domino to parry their next attack with the blade. Domino didn't quite understand at first, but then he had the idea that maybe, as rage and adrenaline fueled as his opponents were, they didn't want to waste the one shot that was loaded.

But if he wanted even a close fight, with these odds, then his weapon was in a terrible position. He quickly tried to transfer his knife, still moist with Natani's blood, over to his good hand. The assassins noticed the purpose of this move almost straightaway, and made one more swing at his head. This one came dangerously close to landing, and Domino was thankful that he still had the energy to get out of the way.

His objective was complete, however, and with the correct hand equipped, he tried to regain the momentum. Not before another strike came for his side, though, which he knocked away with a graceful circular parry. He took a slash towards his opponents' left shoulder, more than ready to begin the counterattack.

It was blocked, which was not horribly surprising. It was the manner in which it was blocked that got his attention. Instead of simply being brushed to the side like one would normally do, the assassin's didn't seem content with just doing that, and instead caught the slender tip of Domino's dagger in the barrel of the pistol. Stunned, he tried to disengage his blade from the firearm, but the assassin wouldn't let him without fully retracting his arm and putting him back on the defense. Domino refused to let that happen again.

So the brothers helped him, and swatted at the stuck knife with the wrist blade. The swift, downward force knocked it free from the shocked mercenary's hand, and sent it spinning down to the ground. The clank as it impacted the brick floor was drowned out by the assassins' roaring as they grabbed Domino and rushed him against the wall. Air hastily exited his lungs on impact, and he could have sworn the wall he was thrown into cracked a bit as the brothers prevented any sort of escape for him. The pistol was oppressively pushed against his left cheekbone, and the glistening poisoned blade was precariously pressed to his neck.

That didn't stop Domino from smugly grinning and talking, however. "Well?" he whispered menacingly, like he had more tricks up his sleeve. "You aren't going to kill me?"

The assassin menacingly growled, and pushed both weapons closer to his head. Domino forced up a laugh. "I told you that I knew everything about you. About your past, about your job. But I lied. I want to know more."

I'm going to kill this bastard!

Nat, leave him! He's not your problem! Keith needs him!

"Don't think you won't get any pleasure out of killing me right here and now, Natani. We both know you would love to be my end. And I would not have it any other way. It would be nothing short of an honor to see my pistol on your wall, and all you need to do to make it reality is give this," Domino crooned as he raised his right hand, gently wrapped it around the brothers' left, and placed his forefinger on theirs, at the trigger.

"One, small, gentle pull," he finished, with an esteemed smile.

He's playing with you Natani. He doesn't need to die.

We both know he wants to.

Don't do it!

This one's for Keith.

"Nat," Keith's voice rasped from behind her. He coughed through the fumes, ejecting a few more droplets of blood from his mouth. "You don't have to do this."

The wolf huffed. Her finger was getting itchy, and Domino was more than willing to help her scratch it. His grin widened.

"For me," Keith whispered, trying his best to look at his friend at the eyes over his shoulder. The wolf turned to her left, her intense yellow eyes locking with the softness of Keith's.

"Please."

Domino's visage bordered on crazed, his smile reaching levels of lunacy that would make one would go insane for just thinking about. The wolf glared at him again, and he pulled the gun even closer to him, ramming the barrel right against the side of his head. "I'm ready when you are, girl!" he yelled, snickering through closed teeth, waiting for his fate to be decided.

The gun retracted, and the snickers died down as it was. The brothers retracted the blade back into the gauntlet and took a cautious step backwards, the gun still pointed at Domino, but not nearly as threateningly. This felt more like dissuasion, and Domino did not like that.

"Do it, Natani!" he barked madly. "Shoot me!"

"Walk," the wolf commanded, pointing at the cell's door.

Domino opened the backroom door by himself, his pistol aimed at the direct center of his back, as he gradually proceeded into the main area of the pub. Two half-plate sporting palace guards rushed in from the front door to greet him, and took him by both arms. As they applied the shackles to his wrists, Natani retreated back to the basement, slipping the pistol into her back pocket as she went back down the stairs.

Domino did not resist at all. He always played by the rules of his games. He looked around the rest of the pub. Even more guards were in the room, searching and arresting his men in an orderly line. Likely they would be charged with conspiracy, and himself with that plus a few murder charges as well. At least he couldn't say he didn't try.

The guards escorted him to the front doorway, where Clovis and Rammstein were standing and conversing off to the side. Domino found that relation intriguing just from the premise alone: a crime lord and master spy casually talking to the one person who had been hounding him ever since he heard his name. He had problems believing that Clovis could have tipped off the city watch to this degree, but he supposed it wasn't impossible.

He picked up fragments of their conversation as he was slowly walked in their direction. "...understand this doesn't get you off the hook."

"Well aware, Your Highness. But what would you have done if I hadn't?"

"A fair point. You're still a criminal by definition, however. And we will see that this matter is handled accordingly."

"I'm perfectly content with you just letting me go and us continuing to play cat and mouse."

"That will not happen, as much as you want it to," Rammstein argued, then noticed the mercenary approaching out of the corner of his glasses. "We'll continue this later," he firmly asserted as he turned to Domino.

The captured wolf peered up at the royal, a indiscernible calmness behind the dull grey eyes. "I guess this is one way to meet you in person, Your Majesty," he grinned with mellowness.

Rammstein's visage did not move far from the stern, intense glare he'd borne ever since Clovis barged into his keep with the news. "I think we could have been quite good friends had it not been for this," he remarked, arms crossed, glasses fogging slightly as the chilled air swept into the bar.

Domino scoffed and nodded, his thoughts mirroring his king's precisely. "So what happens now?"

"We take you back to the Basidian Isles. We'll have you stand trial for your transgressions against both of our nations, and decide your fate as well as The Fang's."

The mercenary exhaled, acknowledging the coming procedures. "What are my odds?"

Rammstein put it as bluntly as he could. "You're probably going to prison," he replied. "For a very, very long time."

"Only probably," Domino pointed out. Rammstein's glare intensified slightly, but did not last long, as a guard watching the back jogged up to him.

"Sir, Natani is back," he informed, crisply saluting his king. "General Keiser is with him."

"Are they injured?"

"Both are suffering from dreadroot inhalation, and Natani has been stabbed. General Keiser's a little roughed up as well."

Rammstein nodded. "I'd best check on them then," he noted, and turned to the two guards holding Domino. "Get him to the carriage. He talks to nobody."

Clovis raised a hand in protest. "Actually, Your Majesty, might I talk to him before he's turned over?"

The royal peered over at Clovis, thinking on the question for a second. "Very well," he agreed before taking his leave to the backroom. Clovis paced around to Domino, hands behind him. He wasn't smiling like he normally was. He was taking his victory seriously for once, not basking in any of its glory.

He leered at Domino, and the mercenary smiled back at him. "We never got in our chess game, did we?" he asked, sorrowfully.

Clovis reached into his red cloak, and drew out the pistol that was left on his desk the night before. Both of the guards jumped, expecting a shot, but the half-fox instead flipped it around in his hand, holding it by the barrel.

"You know," he responded, pensively. "I'd say that this came rather close to a proper match by itself." He handed the pistol over to the guard on the right.

"Checkmate," Clovis declared. And at that, the two guards took Domino out the front door, with no more dialogue exchanged.

With three wolves now out of the building, two foxes and another wolf took their place. "Boss, Zen and Kayle are here," Blitz said from the doorway, his arm wrapped around assassin.

The half-fox cursorily inspected Zen and noticed the same. "What happened to him?"

"He's a little worn out from that soul meld thing he did earlier," Kayle added, adjusting Zen's arm on top of her shoulder.

The wolf still had the strength to speak, even if his legs were beyond faulty at the moment. "Where's Nat?"

Clovis finally caved and gave that crooked, toothy grin of his a quick flash. "Follow me," he instructed, marching to the back door, the drained assassin being helped along by the two foxes.

The backroom was cramped enough with the booze needed to run the bar, but with the entire company, Keith, Rammstein, and the five or so medics stuffed inside as well, the concept of personal space was deemed much less compulsory than it would have been otherwise. Against the wall, Natani was being bandaged for her recent backstabbing. Next to her, Keith was given a small cup of water, in which his medic had sprinkled just a few grams of clearveil and other various remedies.

Natani's eyes lit up as she caught sight of her brother, and she would have sprung up to meet him at the doorway if she wasn't currently receiving treatment. Instead, she went with a forced but triumphant smile, returned almost immediately by her sibling.

"Thank you, Natani," Keith called to his friend. Natani glanced over at the Basitin, not turning her head or moving more than she had to. The medic seemed to be having enough problems patching her up without her fidgeting.

"You really need to find a less dangerous job," she replied, sternly, but in a friendly manner.

"I'm a diplomat; you'd think my jobs would be more low key," the Basitin griped.

"Hey, it isn't too late to see if Adelaide has any other positions for you."

Keith snickered at that proposition. "I wouldn't have this any other way, Nat. This is exactly why I'm here. We stopped a war today. And it's all thanks to you and your friends."

Natani peered over at the entourage of Keidran in front of her. Zen, Clovis, the two foxes, Rammstein. Sythe, even Mike and Evals back over on the island. Her and Keith would have to teleport back there and explain what had transpired at some point. But everything hinged on that one thing, and she was thankful as well. Thankful for her brother, who kept her alive and found out everything she needed. Thankful for the foxes, who kept him and her from feeling alone. Thankful for the spymaster, who kept her faith alive.

"So what are you going to do?" Keith asked.

Natani's ears perked as she looked back over to the general. "About what?"

"I mean, after this, Adelaide has to put me on leave for a little bit, and you'll probably want to rest up too."

"Yeah, no kidding," the wolf agreed.

"And then I'm probably going to get shot right out again to break up something else."

"And you think you'll need another escort, huh?"

Keith looked over at the wolf and took a quick sip of the water. "I understand if you need some downtime after this. Your brother probably wants you to stay as well, get some more work done with the bounty hunting business."

"What's all this about me?" Zen chimed in as he paced over to Natani and stood on her other side.

"Keith's trying to sucker me into working for him again," Natani explained, jocularly.

"Just for a little bit," Keith clarified. "I get it if you say no. You two haven't been together for a while."

Natani looked up at Zen, almost asking for his input on the matter. Zen shrugged back. "It's your call, little brother. Like I said," he responded, tapping the side of his head. "I'm always with you."

Natani took another second to think about her decision. Then smiled again and looked back over at Keith. "As long as you try to pick up an assignment that's a little less dangerous this time, alright?"

The Basitin returned the grin. "Yeah, I'll try," he replied. "No promises, though."