Carmelita felt very, very aware of every twig she broke.

She knew she had gotten lucky so far. She knew she would need to keep getting lucky. Hugo may have proven to be a coward, but only because she had the good fortune of isolating him. She would need to repeat that trick, over and over again, for every single hostile in the area. She wasn't optimistic.

"Oof, yeah… I know I make it look easy, but that's because I have someone in my ear I know I can rely on. You really were alone out there, weren't you?"

"Independence. Just like I wanted." She sighs. "I had been gunning for solo work…"

"And now, there you were. Ouch."

She had no time to dwell on ironies… or her abysmally low odds. If she stopped moving, she invited death. So she clutched her laughable little baton and kept going.

Carmelita always had a firm belief in justice. The idea that the world would eventually make sense, morally, and if it didn't, it was up to people like her to make it so. That was the main thought in her mind, driving her forward.

If that all proved to be a lie… Well, given the stakes, it wouldn't matter to her for too long.

El Diablo's men were dangerous, but they were complacent. Used to running this stretch of jungle without serious opposition. That was one of the few things in her favour. And if the stealthy approach failed, and one of the monkeys actually saw her before she closed the distance, they weren't expecting a lone woman in ruined jeans and a simple tank top.

They didn't notice the baton until it cracked into their head.

Carmelita was meticulous. One by one, she pounced on her pursuers. Maybe they would have been more organised if Hector was still leading them. She made them all regret breaking into small groups… fully cognisant that, if they hadn't, she would stand no chance.

From her shaky understanding of the area, gleaned partly from the ride in Hugo's helicopter, she was getting closer to that old mining village. Since they weren't using the mine itself as a base, that was the next most likely spot. Aside from the orphanage, there weren't many buildings in the area in the first place.

The closer she got, the more guards she encountered. That would have been incentive for a sensible woman to turn around, but Carmelita was not trying to be sensible. She intended to clear a path for Rosa to get clear of this whole mess, and ensure none of those inconvenient orphans got hurt. She had one plan to achieve these things.

It was a bad plan, sure, but it wasn't like there were a lot of alternatives.

Voices drifted toward her. Few of the search parties she had encountered so far had been chatting amongst themselves, but these certainly didn't sound like tourists, either. Keeping low in the underbrush, she made a cautious approach, until she was crouched next to a large clearing.

Carmelita was looking at something she would have begrudgingly called a 'camp'. Anything could be construed as a camp if it included a campfire, as this did, but otherwise, there wasn't much to speak of. A shipping container dominated the space, with a few chairs and workbenches scattered around it.

There were also crates of what looked worryingly like weapons. Assorted, free-range weapons.

If they had been shipped here in containers, quietly packed for anonymity, they had evidently been torn out of their original wrapping for inspection. Now they lay loosely in open boxes, waiting for one of El Diablo's men to come by and make a selection. Carmelita did not enjoy the notion of deadly weaponry being handled with all the tactful consideration of a breakfast buffet.

Four monkeys stood around, smoking and talking in low voices. She made herself acknowledge them, count them, orient them in the space. Considering all the weaponry here, she had to treat each one of them as a credible threat. A single bullet could end her life in an instant, and it didn't take a trained soldier to aim and pull a trigger.

That said, all her instincts were pulling her attention in one direction. Rafael was even bigger in person.

He stood at the centre of the campsite, pawing through a box that by any metric wasn't small, yet was still dwarfed in his hands. Carmelita recognised the same distinctively thin snout Rosa sported - another local Orinoco crocodile. She had heard they were rare, but demographic trivia wasn't high on her list of priorities right now. She was more concerned by the fact he could easily lift her by the neck and throw her like a frisbee, one-handed.

It wasn't her style, but she would need to stick to stealth.

Her baton felt much too light in her hands. It had gotten her this far, but even with the element of surprise, she very much doubted it could do any real damage to someone like Rafael. She considered trying to steal something from the unsecured crates, but rejected the idea immediately. She had no idea what could be in there, and that went against everything she had learned about the paramount (if paradoxical) idea of weapon safety.

More of the same, then.

One of the monkeys wandered away from his colleagues, and Carmelita was moving before she had fully formed a plan. He drifted closer to the trees and she stayed downwind, closing in as much as she dared, wondering how she could get his attention without alerting the others-

And then Rafael let out a roar of a laugh at something he'd found, and all four monkeys turned to look at him for a moment, and in that moment Carmelita leapt out, one hand on her target's mouth and the other pulling him off his unready feet, and by the time anyone might have looked back in that direction they were both out of sight.

She managed to disarm, gag, and restrain him in record time, moving with desperate instinct. It went so well, in fact, that she soon found herself moving quickly through the trees, intent on bursting in from another angle. She kept one ear cocked, ready for the slightest change in the atmosphere. If they noticed one of their number was missing…

They didn't. Not immediately, at least. But knowing they could at any second kept her moving, kept driving her forward, until in a blur she crashed into another enemy-

-loudly enough for everyone else to turn.

Carmelita recovered as well as possible, namely by grabbing the monkey she had tackled and hurling him directly at another. She almost had time to be proud of that before the fourth monkey raised his gun.

And fired.

She dove, and went from that dive into a desperate, low run, and somehow managed to catch him around the waist before he managed to fell her with a single well-placed bullet. They crashed to the ground together, as the other two similarly struggled to regain their balance somewhere behind her.

One thing at a time. Carmelita's baton flashed out and cracked into the man under her. He yelled in pain, and she threw his gun away. Staggering back to her feet, she checked on the two monkeys behind her - still on the ground, still groaning, but trying to rally - and then turned back just in time to almost have her head knocked off by a huge, scaly fist.

Rafael could move faster than his large frame implied.

With an undignified yelp, she managed to dodge his strike and scrabble backwards. He roared and came for her, thundering down on her like a freight train. Whether through luck or intentional subconscious tactics, Carmelita aimed her retreat between the two remaining monkeys, who had gotten to their feet just in time to be tossed aside by their much larger colleague.

From the sounds they both made, it was just her and Rafael left. The thought failed to comfort her.

Carmelita tried to stand her ground. She twisted around and planted her boots in the dirt, baton at the ready. He swung for her again, and she slipped to the side, bringing her baton down as hard as she could on his head.

It damn near bounced off.

It wasn't wholly down to his natural strength - he had seen it coming, and rolled with her blow - but it was also immediately clear that her luck had run out. This stupid little weapon had taken her surprisingly far against untrained monkeys. Rafael was tougher in every way.

Despite its failure, she still resisted, in vain, as he snatched at her wrist and pried the baton out of her hand. With a triumphant grunt, he flung it away with such easy strength that she lost sight of it immediately. In an instant, it was a useless black speck against the sky. Then it was gone entirely.

"Hola," he said, and headbutted her.

Carmelita probably would have been knocked off her feet if he hadn't still been gripping her arm. Stars briefly danced in her vision, and only her sheer stubbornness kept her from crying out in pain.

"What do we have here, eh? A survivor?" Rafael's expression was more interrogative than she was expecting. "You look half-feral… Maybe I should just put you out of your misery, eh?"

As the wave of pain crested through her, Carmelita found room for a scrap of anger. Feral? Who was he calling feral?! Just because she was covered in mud and a noticeable amount of blood, mostly her own, badly contained by an increasingly tattered tanktop and jeans, was no grounds for a comment like that. Baseless! She was a lady. An officer of the law.

She bit him.

His skin was thick, something she found out first-hand, but his fingers had as many nerves as anyone else's. He yelped in pain and surprise, his powerful arm flailing with sudden uncertainty. It only made her cling on tighter.

Her element of surprise didn't last. Rafael soon remembered he had another hand, which promptly closed around her throat. Carmelita instinctively gasped for breath, and the moment she did, he was flinging her away.

"You little freak! I'm going to kill you slowly, now!"

Carmelita tried to hit the ground with a roll, the way she was trained to, but Rafael had hit her too hard for her reflexes to fully kick in correctly. Instead, she sloppily managed to get to her feet just in time for him to grab her again. He stomped toward her and kept coming, implacable like a truck. A truck she had angered. By biting it.

Seconds later, he slammed her against his workbench.

"Cops!" His voice filled her entire world. "I'm sick of cops! You ruined my family, so I'll ruin you!"

He loomed over her, utterly filling her vision. She did her best to drive her boots into his legs, or stomach, but he ignored her entirely.

Carmelita had gotten much further than she had any right to, skulking through unfamiliar territory armed with nothing but a sad little stick. But her luck had surely run out here. Rafael was too strong, too furious, and he had her pinned to the workbench in an inescapable grip.

Her legs never stopped moving, kicking him uselessly. But it wasn't enough for the nervous energy building through her body. Her arms struggled and strained too, unable to claw at his face but equally unable to remain still.

She dropped them both with a painful impact - and realised that she wasn't the only thing on this workbench. One hand could only feel loose parts, but the other… Her fingers closed around something. A grip. A stock. A trigger-guard, and of course-!

Not knowing what she had grabbed but painfully aware she would only have one chance to use it, Carmelita gripped it as hard as she could, twisted her arm around to aim at Rafael's head, and fired.

What came out of the pistol was so blindingly bright that for a moment it was all she could see.

It was a brief window, with only a second between the shot leaving the barrel and exploding against the side of Rafael's head. But there was no mistaking what, exactly, had struck him with enough force to not only break his grip, but fling the much larger animal into the jungle mud. At speed.

Whatever this thing was, apparently it fired large, powerful blasts of concentrated electricity.

"Carmelita!"

Her focus is abruptly broken. "Huh? What?"

"I asked you!" He's almost yelling. "I explicitly, directly asked for the cool Carmelita Fox origin story, and you said there wasn't one-"

"Yes?"

"And now you tell me that this whole time, you've been telling me about where you got your shock pistol?! The definitive Carmelita Fox accessory!"

She pauses. "Well," she says finally, "yeah."

"And under such dramatic circumstances, too… Coming to your hand just at the moment you needed it, like a magic sword or something…"

"Okay, now you're overselling it. I needed a weapon. I reached out and found one. That's all there is to it."

"And the pathways of my nervous system would never be the same… I wonder what shape my body would be in if you had beaten off this guy with a water pistol instead."

"Are you done?"

"Not sure. I could probably keep going for a while."

"Would you prefer to shut up and let me tell you more about the pistol?"

"When you put it so sweetly," smiles Sly, "yes."

Constable Fox caught her breath as her eyes first took in Rafael - unmoving, unresponsive, lightly smoking - and then the terrifying contraption still in her hand.

On one hand, she was thankful that - despite not receiving the same treatment in return - she had been able to subdue her attacker non-lethally.

On the other, did this really qualify as a 'non-lethal' weapon?!

It was surprisingly light in her grip. She had no idea how it produced those bolts of energy, but there was no apparent slot for a magazine of ammunition. The reaction must have been created by some arcane combination of surging circuits, more than the sum of its parts.

"See? You're loving this. This is more detail than literally anything else you have described so far."

"It was… a memorable first meeting, I suppose."

However it worked, it was light-weight enough to take with her, and heavy enough ordinance to maybe give her a fighting chance. For the first time since setting foot in that mine, Carmelita felt something like hope.

She still had a large and unconscious criminal to deal with.

Rafael didn't rouse as she hefted him out of the mud. It was difficult, but Rosa had only been slightly lighter. She was bringing this crocodile a much shorter distance, just pulling him alongside the nearby shipping container. It would be difficult to keep him restrained when (if…?) he came to, so her priority was to secure him as tightly as possible to something nice and sturdy. Preferably out of reach of any of these damn weapons.

She propped Rafael's limp body against the metal of the container, and soon discovered a length of chain that looked like it could withstand even his strength. She wasted no time in binding his wrists together, tying them both to a gap in the steel clearly intended for some industrial machine or another to move the container on or off a ship. Her work was quick, focused, and hopefully sufficient.

The monkeys Rafael had been with received similar treatment. When she was finished, Carmelita decided that she could benefit from keeping some of these chains. If she really did succeed at beating El Diablo in a fight, something her streak so far and her new weapon were dangerously close to convincing her was possible, she would need similarly strong material.

Trying to gather the chains, however, made her realise that they weren't all loose. One strand wound its way around the handles of the main container, combined with a heavyset lock to keep it closed.

The boxes littering the area had piles of loose, unsecured weapons. What did this group think warranted actually locking up? And so firmly?

Carmelita needed to keep moving, but she also needed all the information she could get. She had time to check this. After pulling the chain loose, she turned her attention to the lock. Rafael may have had a key somewhere on his person… but, as she soon discovered, her shock pistol made short work of it too. With a point-blank blast, the door was opened.

Out of the container spilled Hugo.

Carmelita needed a second to parse the sight, but there was no denying it - the wings unspooling clumsily were the same shade of black as the vulture she had last seen lounging in the pilot's seat. Unfortunately, there was nothing relaxing about his demeanour any more.

When he spat onto ground, staining the soil red, she realised it had been literally beaten out of him.

His first, desperate priority was to get out of that tiny metal box. It took him a few moments to recognise his rescuer. "…The Interpol girl? You got out of the mine?"

"Hugo, you're-!" She caught herself before saying anything meaningless. The bird looked bad, but no doubt felt even worse. "Y…yes. I was caught under some rubble, but I managed to get loose. I was able to get Rosa out, too."

"And no-one else."

The bluntness of his words surprised her. His sudden laugh, even more.

"I'm not… ngh… throwing stones. Ugh, not the best phrase… I wasn't much help myself, was I? Maybe the others are still alive down there, but unless we get a rescue team to them fast, it'd probably be better if they weren't…"

That was the exact kind of thought Carmelita had been trying to avoid thinking. This bitter momentum, this moronic insistence on pushing herself into combat, had been working remarkably well on that front. Being faced with one of Ramírez's surviving team members was quickly blowing that apart.

Hugo took a deep breath, unsteady but unhurried. Uninterrupted. "Well, you got this far, Miss Interpol. Thanks for getting me out of that box, I wasn't kidding earlier about enclosed spaces…"

"Uh - of course." She urged herself to talk tactics. She could do that much, at least. "Rosa is back down the path, at an isolated orphanage…"

"Yeah. Yeah, think I know the one. Spotted it on an earlier flight. Pretty close to the mine, right?"

"Too close. I'm trying to contain this situation quickly, before the children there are put in worse danger."

Hugo grunted, his eyes wandering to where Rafael sat limply, still smoking. "Seems like you've got a handle on things so far…"

He took a moment to help ensure the restraints were secure. If he had objections to her commitment to making arrests, he didn't voice them. In fact, he was oddly insistent that Rafael be dragged back to civilisation for trial. Carmelita tried to compliment his integrity, making a proper arrest for a man who had captured and beaten him, but Hugo had laughed her off and changed the subject.

"So, then… next step is to get out of here." He frowned. "Didn't see what they did with my bird once they dragged me away… Is it still at the mine?"

Carmelita cringed. "Um… Well…"

Before she could bring herself to answer him, he waved her off with a sigh. "Right, right… Too much to hope for, I guess. Don't give me the details. I'll need a comfortable chair and a stiff drink to hear them."

"Did he ever hear the whole truth?"

"I fully intended to tell him, once the timing was better."

"And…?"

"…"

"Oh, no! You'll definitely be danged to heck at this rate, Carmelita!"

"I'm revoking your right to make interruptions."

"Understandable. Please, all you!"

"Well, anyway… As much as I'll miss that crappy thing, the good news is that I don't actually need it."

"What?"

"There's a reason I ended up a pilot, you know. I prefer having a windscreen to keep the bugs off, but…"

"You can fly under your own power?"

He stretched his bruised wings out with a grimace. "Usually."

"Out of the question." She was amazed at how certain her voice sounded. Not amazed enough to interrupt herself, though. "You're in bad shape as it is. If you think I'm going to let you fly off by yourself, through compromised territory-"

"What's the alternative, exactly? I stay here, in compromised territory? I hobble back to that orphanage and take a nap next to Rosa, hoping nobody follows me? You said you wanted to keep those kids out of danger."

She had. That had completely conflicted with her other prerogative to keep her fellow officers safe. It was clear which group should have priority, but that didn't make it easier for her to swallow.

She watched as Hugo continued to stretch himself out. His wings looked intact, to her untrained eye. That wasn't good enough for her. "Interpol regulations are very clear on this! We've invested in so many vehicles for a reason. Asking an agent to fly under their own power-"

"Slow down a second, would you? You forget I'm not with Interpol. I'm a local cop on a mission that is very definitely not going to plan. You can write me up if you want, but I'd like to be alive in one piece for the reprimand."

Carmelita struggled to reply to that, her face caught on a fierce order that couldn't quite leave her mouth. It stuck in her teeth, her righteous anger stalled. Hugo gave her a look of pity and sighed.

"Don't get me wrong, that goes for you too. Did you seriously think you were going to take on thirty hardened criminals by yourself?"

She almost recovered her voice in time to point out her undeniable progress so far.

"I need to get word to someone about all this. There's a higher-up Ramírez trusted, the guy he told us to go to if…" He trailed off, gesturing vaguely. "You know. This happened, more or less."

"You could contact Interpol as well. El Diablo has shown that he is even more dangerous than previously thought." She scoffed. "I don't know what he was thinking, brazenly trying to kill an entire team… Interpol will hunt him to the ends of the Earth for a stunt like that."

"Mmh. I was kinda thinking about that myself. In the shipping container, y'know."

Hugo's voice was superficially breezy, an impression of the jocular man she had met earlier. She couldn't help but notice he was avoiding her gaze, though.

"You're right. Making a move like that… It's not something you do unless you're damn sure of your exit strategy. Or you don't care about having one in the first place."

"Any theories?"

"Didn't get that far. Was a little too focused on keeping blood out of my beak. But either El Diablo is planning to relocate, and thought he'd try to take us all down on his way out…" Hugo's eyes finally met her own. "Or he just thinks he's untouchable."

"That doesn't change anything." Carmelita's voice was steady. "If he's leaving, I'll catch him before he does. If he's not, and he seriously thinks he's above any consequences, I would be very happy to prove him wrong. Either way, I need to keep pressing forward before he leaves."

"You think he's nearby?"

"Both his lieutenants seemed to think so." Carmelita leaned to the side, gesturing to the still unmoving Rafael. "Hector's, uh, back in the trees somewhere…"

Hugo let out a low whistle. "Alright, Constable, maybe I was wrong. Maybe you can take down thirty criminals by yourself. If it's all the same to you, though, I think I'd prefer to stick with my own plan…"

She sighed. "I'd prefer if you kept yourself out of danger, but I can't argue with your reasoning. We need help to contain this situation, and heading back to your precinct is honestly no more or less risky than anything else you do from here… Are you completely certain this officer Ramírez mentioned can help?"

The vulture paused for a long moment before replying. "…Sure as I can be, I guess."

There was no doubt in Carmelita's mind about what he was really talking about. "They knew we were coming. No-one we were looking for was at that mine, and once we were deep enough inside it…"

"I know."

"Just how long has Francisco been working in El Diablo's gang?"

"Too long, apparently."

There was no trace of humour in Hugo's voice now. This, more than anything else that had happened to him, made his words turn to ash.

He clearly didn't want to dwell on it, either, judging from how he went right back to stretching his wings. "Okay, we've wasted enough time. I'm going to get back to headquarters as quick and quiet as I can. I'd offer to take you with me, but, uh…"

"I wouldn't, even if that was an option. I need to stay in the area to make sure that orphanage is secure." Her voice darkened. "The best way of doing that is to keep pushing forward."

He shook his head. "I wouldn't, if I were you… but I got dragged out of my helicopter by a couple of dumb thugs, while you pulled yourself and Rosa out of a collapsed mine, so clearly I'm not you. I'm not sure I could even carry you, and you're a hell of a lot smaller than a crocodile…"

"I'll be fine." If she said it firmly enough, maybe it would come true. "If you're going to go, go now, before more of those 'dumb thugs' notice you."

"Don't have to tell me twice. Good luck, Constable - hopefully I'll see you again soon."

The words 'or at all' passed unspoken between them. Both of them were thinking it, so neither bothered to vocalise the thought. Instead, Hugo turned away and began to sprint. After a wobble or two, he turned his momentum into a running start, pushing off the ground and just about clearing the tree-line.

Carmelita watched him go. Sometimes she was a little jealous of people who could fly. But clearly, she had her own talents.

She turned around - and locked eyes with Rafael. He sat where she had left him, watching her with a grim expression.

"You had your eyes closed just a moment ago." She felt an initial stab of fear, of course she did, but the fact he wasn't breaking loose of her chains meant she was still in charge and she had to act like it. "Were you faking? How much of that did you hear?"

"Enough."

He didn't seem so boisterous any more. Carmelita attributed this, incorrectly, to how badly she had beaten him.

"Was that true? What he said about the mine?"

Carmelita wasn't sure what his angle was. He had not struck her, so far, as the kind of criminal good at verbal manipulation. "…Yes. It is. What part are you confused by? Am I supposed to believe you're surprised that your boss would do something like that?"

"No," he said. "Not that part. I…"

He trailed off for a moment. Carmelita stood above him, eyes narrowed, debating with herself what to do next.

"Where did you say Rosa was?"

"Hah!" She bore her fangs. "I'm not letting anything slip in front of a killer like you. Don't bother thinking about any of my colleagues - I'm the only person you, and El Diablo, should be concerned with."

She stepped closer, trying to press the advantage - keeping her new pistol trained on his face, just to be safe.

"Instead of trying to get information out of me, why don't you make yourself useful and do the reverse?" She leaned down, an intimidation tactic probably undermined by how she was very clearly staying out of range of his jaws. "Your friend Hector didn't offer me a lot of details. Maybe you'll be smarter, huh?"

Carmelita wasn't sure how to project herself around people at the best of times. She got the impression that around most audiences - civilians, co-workers, children, potential dates - she came off as much, much too scary. And yet, when she needed to intimidate a perp, that sharp energy didn't leave her so much as suddenly prove completely useless.

So she was more disappointed than surprised when Rafael just ignored her, his eyes sinking to the ground. He looked dejected. That was not a word that often applied to men like this, but it was the only one springing to her mind as she examined his face.

"Fine," he said finally. "Why not? You want the boss, keep heading into town. He's been waiting there."

"Waiting? What for?"

"This," grunted Rafael. "He wanted you all dead. He thought that one of you might've crawled out. Now here you are."

He was still avoiding her gaze. There was something more at play here. Carmelita knew that much.

She also knew that whatever was going through this man's head was not her priority.

"Here I am," she agreed, her voice cold as steel. "You, meanwhile, are going to stay right here. A full team of police will arrive soon to make arrests, and you and your monkey friends are going to go with them quietly. Is that clear?"

"Fine," he said, which was not what she was expecting.

She also wasn't expecting him to lapse into crushing silence, his eyes returning to the ground. With a growl, she wrote the whole thing off as some kind of half-baked psychological trick. She had no time to sympathise with men like this.

She was focused on the source.