When Perry felt up to it, he left Terry's office and went back to his own. He still had a throbbing headache and he knew it wouldn't go away for a long time. He lay back in his chair and hoped for a bit of sleep.

Instead, the emergency siren rang.

…

Oliver freed Georgia and Portia and cautiously opened the prison door. There were no guards out there. All three of them felt confused by this but they certainly weren't going to look a gift horse in the mouth.

Portia led the way through the office floor and towards the front door. They didn't meet any agents at all on their way there, which thoroughly confused them. They had been expecting some kind of struggle or fight, but there wasn't even anyone in sight. When Portia opened the front door, they saw why.

All of OWCA agents were embroiled in a massive battle outside on the grass. From the looks of things, they were fighting ARCHANGEL operatives; Portia spotted Leslie the Lemur tussling with an orange turtle a little way ahead of them, the ARCHANGEL wings brand on her back clearly visible.

"Guys, the security gate is open!" hissed Georgia.

Portia looked. It was true. The gate was indeed open, and with the massive battle going on, they would be able to slip out of the gate undetected.

Oliver took his friends' paws and pulled them along towards the gate. Just as they reached it, Portia dug her heels in and wrenched her hand out of Oliver's grip. The ocelot swung round to see why and found her staring at Lily the Lioness, who had pinned down a familiar teal platypus. "Perry…" Georgia heard Portia whisper. "He needs help."

"Leave him!" Oliver snarled. "He betrayed all of us. He broke your heart three times!"

"He needs help," Portia said, a bit louder. "I can't leave him. I-I love him."

"You still love him after everything he's done to you?" Oliver demanded. "He's made you hurt emotionally more than Kirk's made you hurt physically."

Portia turned to Oliver and displayed a determined face. "Everybody hurts," she said.

With that, she turned and ran towards the battle. Oliver and Georgia exchanged a look, torn. They needed to help their friend, but at the same time they knew they had to go now or they wouldn't have another chance. They stared after Portia, who made a flapping gesture with her paw as she ran, clearly indicating for them to go.

"Come on," Georgia said, pulling on Oliver's paw. "She can handle herself." She ran out of the gate.

Oliver took a bit longer; gazing at one the people—arguably the person—he cared most about. He didn't want to leave her but she obviously wanted him to be free. "I hope you know what you're doing," he muttered, before he turned and ran after Georgia.

On the other side of the field, Perry could feel the life slowly being squeezed out of him by this lioness. She had one heavy paw on his lower stomach and one on his neck. She was flexing her claws on the latter paw, and that meant every few seconds Perry would get a sharp sting of a claw on his neck. He knew she was playing with him simply because she could; his head was still throbbing far too hard for him to fight back. It was the whole reason Perry had even been overpowered by her in the first place.

His vision was slowly going fuzzy. He tried to force his way up but his limbs would not work anymore. He closed his eyes and prepared for the end.

Until suddenly, the massive weight was lifted off him. Her claws on his neck had been digging into his skin so when the weight disappeared, that caused a small cut to be made in Perry's neck. He struggled into a sitting position, the roars and scuffling sounds of battle returning to his ears. He turned round and spotted a familiar darker teal platypus wrestling with the lioness.

"P-Portia?!" he spluttered.

The thing that unfroze him was Portia's shriek of pain. Perry quickly darted forwards, ignoring the pain in his head, and kicked the lioness as hard as he could in the head, just as Portia had done to him in their first battle. The lioness collapsed to the ground, unconscious.

Perry turned to Portia and helped her up, making the darker teal platypus to let out a wince of pain. Perry saw three bloodied claw marks in her side. "Are you okay?"

Portia nodded, her breathing a bit too shallow for Perry's liking. "Yeah, I'm fine."

"Okay, good." Perry suddenly took a step back. "Hold on, how did you get out?"

Portia thought about not telling him but then she reasoned that Oliver and Georgia were probably halfway, if not all the way, to ARCHANGEL by now. "Oliver managed to free himself and then he freed Georgia and me," she replied.

"And where are Georgia and Oliver now?"

Perry's head turned and spotted the open security gate even as Portia replied, "They went back to ARCHANGEL."

Perry turned back to Portia in alarm. "But you said the new penalty for getting captured is execution!"

Portia had a sad look on her face. "I know. But they still believe that ARCHANGEL is good."

Perry felt his heart leap. "And…you don't?"

Portia glared at Perry. "I still don't trust you," she said. "I don't know if I ever will again, but…OWCA is definitely better than ARCHANGEL. I thought the punishments we were given in ARCHANGEL were deserved by all of us. But now I see that punishing Taskers—or agents—is not the way to enforce obedience."

Perry shook his head. "It's really not." He ducked as an eagle flew over his head.

Whoa, déjà vu.

"We need to finish this battle," he said.

Portia grinned and brought out a gun-shaped item from her fur pocket. "Then it's lucky I stopped off at the armoury and got this dart gun, isn't it?"

Perry shook his head in wonder. "You really are one of a kind."

Perry and Portia ran together about the battlefield; the former calling out the animals who needed to be darted by the latter, since some agents may have lost their fedoras in the battle, like Peter the Panda, who almost got darted by Portia until Perry quickly stopped her.

They didn't have to dart everyone. Some of the agents were able to drive their opponents out of the gate and into the woods. When the battle was over, everyone's attention was diverted to Perry and Portia, the latter of whom was jumped on by at least five different agents who recognised that she should have been in a prison cell.

As Portia was carried away by Ellie the Eagle, not resisting, Perry gave Portia a determined look, telling her that he was going to get her out.

She had single-handedly swung the battle in their favour just with sheer determination and a dart gun. There was no way Perry was going to allow her to rot in a prison cell any longer.

However, he knew that this was her second—third, if Perry was being technical—escape attempt, and Major Monogram might not be very lenient…

…

PORTIA HELPED PERRY! She still doesn't trust him, understandably, but she still helped Perry!

Also: what of Oliver and Georgia? WILL they be executed? *shrugs* Who knows? Well, I do XD

Also also: THAT "Everybody hurts" LINE!