Loyalist Affairs

It was moody and pale in the city of Yo'Kev. The streets were full of people, walking hurriedly into shops and hotels. Trucks full of supplies moved in and out, delivering and stocking the comerces in rhythm with the movement of the city. The glowing stones glowing faintly at the top of the cave.

On a lone street, a jeep passed by. Zafir sat on it's back, wearing his usual white trenchcoat, pants and vest, with a travelling bag beside him. He was going to check in on a hotel for his stay in this city. 'Such closed spaces...wonder if my wind magic works as good as it did at home.', he thought, admiring his surroundings. It was quite different from his home back in Exanos. He was used to staying in high altitudes, enjoying the breeze. Here, that feeling was lacking, but he could emulate it with his powers.

Suddenly, the jeep came to a stop. The driver, an old dalmatian, said calmly, "We're here. Fare costs 5 bucks...". Zafir smiled, opening a pocket on his traveling bag and picking up a bill, giving it to the driver and hopping off with his bag, waving goodbye. "Thanks for the ride!", he said at the jeep driving off to it's next location.

He entered the Hotel, looking around. He slowly moved towards the balcony, looking around the room, seeing the wolves and dogs talking. Zafir didn't mind the commotion, but he couldn't help but feel he was being watched...

Serif Vjal leaned on a wall, scanning the surroundings. He is in a busy hotel lobby, people buzzing around in their daily lives. He had gotten a letter last night, concerning a aristocratic fennec mage from Exanos. In these trying times, with a world war looming on the horizon, the government was sending him on more and more missions, keeping any possible spies at bay.

He often found that the people he was sent to investigate were not, infact spies. The actual spies, were extremely good. Were.

He looked up at the ceiling. He learned, the hard way, that people don't look up enough. He saw decorative glowing stones being help up in pots handing from the top of the room, and a chandelier comprised of a near rainbow of colored rocks, showering the room in a dim glow that was so characterized by Yo'Kev.
He looked back across the room, and saw a fennec, matching the description, standing out on a small balcony. He immediately averted his eyes, looking out of the corner of his eye to see if the fox was looking back. Once he was sure that the fox had averted his eyes, he turned back. He was sure that this was the man, or at least, a good stunt double. Serif suddenly wished he had brought chloroform or some other non-lethal take-down method, but as it was, he only had his pistol.

He moved up to a point next to the balcony, grabbing a complementary Zykian crescent roll. He nibbled on it nonchalantly while he studied the suspected spy. He was getting hungry smelling them anyways. He determined that the only way he would get forward at this point was to talk to him.

Serif took on a country accent that was common among many eastern Kar'Nah'Kah city's, and walked up, trying to put on a friendly smile.

"Hey there partner! I couldn't help but notice you seem a bit newer around here. I'd assume you're from down-err, up in Exanos? Must be really different underground for ya." He babbled, leaning on the railing of the balcony.

Zafir already talked with the receptionist and was waiting for his room number and key. Meanwhile he made tiny little whirlwinds on his finger, to pass the time. They gave off a small breeze on the fennec's face. He looked up and saw the glowing crystals. 'How many of those are in there?', he thought, paying attention to the amber colored one. Then, he noticed a man walk up to him, a german shepard, to be exact, and immediately turned towards him. He heard him speak in a friendly matter and smiled. Zafir always loved to make new friends. Maybe they'd get along!

After the man finished, he giggled a little and spoke calmly, "Ah, yes, I'm from Exanos...just got here, actually! My name is Zafir Rha. I'm traveling around the world, seeking new things to see. Now, what's your name?". He kept a watchful eye, both on the man in front of him and the receptionist, who was still searching for the key. Seems like they lost it somewhere...

Spice stormed across towards the first Hotel she saw, luckily her 'landing' happened to be just across the street from one. She pushed through the door in a huff, hastily walking to the receptionist. Her fur was a little messed up and her hair all ruffled. Leaning heavily she asked the receptionist for a room for the evening, although the service seemed to be in a muddle. The receptionist quickly told Spice to take a seat while a room was sorted for her. Thanking the staff behind the desk Spice wandered up to the balcony, where a few people stood trading banter.

Taking the far end of the balcony, trying not to draw attention or seem to be ease-dropping, Spice took a moment to tidy and collect herself. After removing the unwanted state from her hair Spice attempted to 'mingle' and blend into a small crowd, the first to catch her attention was the pair across the balcony. But before making an approach, she planned her 'strategy' for escaping this mess she had fallen into.

Serif's smile flickered as he saw another fox enter the room, and immediately turned to the side and backed up from the balcony so he wasn't in the view of anyone outside the building. He was flanked. Didn't his superiors tell the local police not to let any more foxes in? The idiots probably forgot the last encounter with a real spy...

He tried to regain his smile and friendliness and keep the other fox in the corner of his eye. From what he could tell, it was a female red fox. She seemed like she had just been doing some kind of vigorous exercise. After a while, she seemed to try and blend in with the crowd. This only raised Serif's attention. He was trying to stay calm and start another train of mindless banter, when the vixen pointed her muzzle to him.

He threw his hand to his M19.11 handgun and jumped behind Zafir, grabbing him by the neck and pointing his gun at the vixen. At first, silence rippled through the hotel like they just saw...well, a German Shepard grab someone and pull out a gun. Eventually, a scream echoed through the building and all the civilians started rushing out. He steadied his iron sights on the vixen and held the fennec tightly, ready to pull the trigger.

"Stop! On the floor, now!" He commanded, his true gruff Irish accent coming out. "Who are you working for? What do you want?"

Spice slowly approached the pair on the balcony when the German Shepard began a comotion, suddenly moving behind the fennec. Now realizing she is staring down the barrel of cold steel, Spice stopped in her tracks and raised her hands.

"OK, calm down. There is no need to shoot anyone now is there?" She spoke calmly in an attempt to ease the situation, that and she didn't really like the idea of being shot. She lowered herself onto her knees, her hands still above her head, as the dog spoke. 'great i take it i have been mistaken by someone else.' She thought 'now what am i going to do.' Spice watched the gun carefully slowly tracing a circle on the floor with her finger, in the mean time thinking of the right answer to the life or death question before her.

Though time was not something she had a lot of right now, "I...." she quickly decided on an answer, stalling wasn't going to help here "I work for no one. In fact I was meant to be meeting a client here, but it looks like you scared him off. I'm just a freelance delivery girl for crying out loud! Look either of us mean you no harm. please just put the gun down and we can talk this through." She took a breath of hope, praying her little lie brought her enough time.

Zafir started to wonder if this dog had forgotten his name or simply ignored him, since he didn't answer his question. 'So much for friendliness.', he thought. However, when he saw the canine turn around, the smile on the dog's face changed a little, his eyes aiming towards a vixen, while he regained his smile. This...got Zafir a little worried. He was going to ask if something was wrong, but he became quite surprised when, out of nowhere, the German Shepard grabbed him by the neck. Not only him, of course, everyone else in the room was surprised as well.

'This is going to be one of those days...'

As the dog pointed a gun at the vixen and yelled a command at her, he paid attention to the gun. He used to practice with one of those...at least, until he escaped from home. His hands were free, too afraid to hold onto the arm on his neck. He thought quickly and spoke calmly, trying to ease the dog, "Please sir, there is no need for violence...Surely you must have a reason for this...but...Um...shooting first and asking questions later isn't exactly the right way...". He looked at the vixen, and prepared a powerful wind shield in his mind, but not casting it. He was afraid, but he would use it if the canine decided to shoot...

Serif realized that he would get nowhere at this point. He shoved the Fennec in front of him and stepped back, keeping his sights on the two. He wished he could radio in to base, but being under ground didn't help. If anyone would get inside the city, he could contact them, the radiation coming from the crystals was too low to interfere with the radio.

Doubt crept into his mind as he looked into their eyes. He cursed in his head, he was sure they weren't spies at this point. They were too nervous and unsure. He didn't even feel any magic buzzing in the air. Though, he was never good at sensing that stuff...

He opened his mouth and slowly spoke "Alright, keep your hands up. I'm going to call in the cops, and you jus--" But he was cut off as the door to the hotel was burst open and police swarmed in. Serif smiled "Good timing boys."

But something wasn't right. They all pointed their shotguns and pistols at him. One of them yelled "Drop the gun!"

Serif's smile dropped as quickly as the second syllable came out of the police man's mouth. He was sure that dispatch had told the police about this. Right? He looked to the side and saw the table full of foods jutting out into the room. He quickly jumped for it, and turned it over, using it as cover while the police shouted out orders. He reached into his pocket and pulled out a tear gas grenade, and pulled the pin, throwing it to the mass of blue uniformed canines, keeping sight on the foxes.

'This is not good...'

Spice was suddenly startled, not to mention confused, when the fennec was thrown towards her. This Broke her concentration cutting off the circle she was drawing on the floor, She slowly raised up to a standing position, her hands above her head. But the surprises were not done yet, again Spice was startled by the pounding of police flooding into the Hotel.

The confusion also continued to taunt her, at first it appeared help had arrived and not a moment to soon, then it seemed the help was on the wrong side. Only to be reversed yet again further frustrating the vixen. This became more worrying as the vixen began glowing a deep purple, the glow soon radiating from her, like an aura. This was happening as the gunner dove into cover releasing his grenade.

"Look out!" The Vixen shouted surrounding herself and the fennec in a bright purple athaer shield.

The vehicle wasn't exactly… nondescript, being the rugged six axled military truck that it was, painted the stone-on-sand colors of the Air Force, with an enormous Civil Security insignia plastered across both it's sides, sporting a protruding curtain which now encircled one of the many mail drop-off kiosks spread throughout the city. Then again, this was the point of Civil Security. Everyone knew basically what the truck was doing: it was checking the mail for dangerous substances, explosives, encrypted messages, suspicious letters, and so forth. It was one of hundreds of such vehicles which had begun popping up all over Kar'Nah'Kah. People knew what it was doing, so they paid it no real attention.

Of course, the people had been lied to.

Inside the truck, the desert rat Roh'g set hunched over a small, round, cathode ray tube, staring into it's murky, neon-green depths as he had been trained to do. The gerbil K'zer stood nearby, diligently tossing pens at the ceiling to see if he could stick one in the noise-absorbing foam. This often irritated Roh'g, because there was so little room inside the truck. The huge vehicle was packed to overflowing with gismos and machines and glowing tubes and the constant racket of clacking electron-relays. The rat couldn't really blame his cohort, though; he would be doing pretty much the same once they traded places in an hour.

K'zer Palef'Nah clicked his tongue and asked yet again, "anything unusual?"

"No… wait," the rat leaned forward suddenly, "I think I have something!"

The gerbil's pen flew off at an odd trajectory and he rushed over to peer into the screen, "what!? What is it!?"

"I think…" Roh'g started, a pained expression crossing his face.

"Yes?"

"I think…"

"YES!?"

"I think… my ass is asleep again!"

Palef smacked the rat upside the head, "oh fantastic, great. You had me thinking we'd, you know, get to leave this damned truck!" He recovered the stainless steel Air Force-issue pen and took up his leaning position against the forward bulkhead, "I've yet to see this thing actually work, and I trained on it just like you- just like everyone else."

The sand-colored rat grunted, still staring into those harsh green lines. He thought he saw something for a second, but it was just his eyes playing tricks on him. "I heard they want to hide these things inside the mailboxes."

"What, all these wires and gears and electrical things? No way they can fit it all in such a small-"

Roh'g snapped forwards, hands planted on either side of the circular viewer, "wait! I see something!" His hands flew to the radial dials and twisted first one way and then the other, as they'd been trained to do. False readings would be purged from the solenoids. This one- an enormous spike of green protruding from what should have been a 'perfectly' wobbly circle- came right back. He flipped half a dozen switches on the control panel, "looks like… its not far, not far at all. Maybe a mile or so…"

K'zer was into the city charts in a heartbeat, tossing them about until he came to what he was looking for, "there's a hotel not far from here."

"I think this is real, K'zer."

"Right," the gerbil picked up the phone and twisted the dialer a few times. After precisely one ring on the other end, a muffled voice emanated from the speaker, to which K'zer said the single word, "Skylight." He nodded a few times, gave a few affirmatives to the anonymous speaker, and he leaned over the console next to Roh'g, "capacitors charged, yes… solenoids cleared…what are our orders?" He waited a moment, then hung up the phone.

His ratty companion peered intently up at him, half his face awash in the green glow of the readout screen, "well?"

"Put up the aerials, we're messaging the others and going in!" K'zer himself fell upon the encoder wheel, punching keystrokes into it and setting the wheel spinning through the read head. Roh'g threw the radio power breakers- above the truck, four wire antenna lifted from horizontal to vertical and began beaming the encrypted message from the encoder wheel to the rest of the Civil Security trucks in Yo'kev. The two checked things one last time before donning their sidearms, grabbing submachine guns, and ducking out onto the dim street.

****

The police marshal was having one hell of a day. People were already on edge from the tension building here and elsewhere in the world, and now he had to contend with some psycho in a hotel lobby!? Even more aggravating, he *knew* he wasn't being told the whole story here. First he receives a phone call from 'the government' telling him to disregard just such a report in the event that it should happen. Now he has *another* person claiming to be from the government telling him to disregard the previous disregard order. And…

And now Air Force trucks were screaming towards the hotel and his little in-field HQ from every direction!

"What the hell is-"

"Civil Security," the rodent spoke over him. His uniform had a nice little name tag on it. The tag was blank. "Stand down and pull your men out of the building."

****

Roh'g and K'zer were only a mile away, so even on foot, they were first to arrive and assess the situation. The police had the building surrounded. A group had stormed the building. Others were keeping the frazzled previous occupants who'd fled the commotion inside at bay and out of the way.

Hardly a minute had passed when Air Force Civil Security trucks from elsewhere in the city arrived, bombing up the road and skidding to a halt near and even in among the police officers, who were none too pleased. Furs, rodents, dressed in K'zer's own stone-on-grey piled out of the trucks with submachine guns in hand. Another truck disguised quite cleverly as a firetruck pulled up. It even had hoses folded neatly on either side. But it was no fire truck; it was basically an enormous diesel generator on wheels. The furs exiting donned what looked like firefighting gear- gas-masks, air tanks- but the getups were black or nearly so rather than red, and they didn't carry hoses. Instead they carried trident-like staffs hooked via long, unwinding cords to the truck's generators.

"Come on!" K'zer waved to his cohort and ran to join their ranks in repelling the police officers. A puff from within the hotel signaled the detonation of a smoke grenade, but the rodents stormed in anyway, guns drawn, the arc-lance wielding ones following closely behind.

Unfortunately the grenade had not been a smoke grenade. K'zer and Roh'g immediately coughed and teared up in the gas, as did most of their companions. They stumbled into the lobby and found themselves mixed up with the police, who were also reeling from the gas. Roh'g wheezed, "can't see a bloody thing," but it was lost in a commotion of shouts and calls and furs crashing ungracefully into tables or tumbling over chairs. "Fuckin' mess!"

A single gun shot pierced the air, and all hell broke loose. Submachine guns and police shotguns roared at nothing and everything.

K'zer stumbled around, fired his gun wildly at what turned out to be a chandelier, had a backflip over a table forced on him by gravity, and peered up from the floor to see a fennec fox and a second female fox. The female was radiating iridescent purple, surrounding the two with an energetic barrier. "Here!" K'zer hollered through the chaos, "it's here!"

Gas-mask donning faux-firefighters materialized in the tear gas and gun smoke, lances leveled at the foxes. With the flick of a switch, electricity arced across each of the lances' two perpendicular trident heads.

After he was shoved, Zafir immediately put his hands forward to soften the fall. 'Gee, not so rough...', he thought. He stayed there, crouched, not looking back at the dog. Any fast movements might cause him to have a hole impaled on his chest, after all. Just great. Now what he would do?

He took the time to look at the other fox. She...was certainly messy, her fur and all. Wondering what happened exactly, he was going to say a whisper to her. That is, until the police arrived. The dog sounded happy at first, greeting the cops coming in. After seeing those shotguns pointed at him...not so much.

Since he was looking towards the police officers on the door, her was curious why a noise suddenly emerged behind him. Slowly turning around, he saw the table slouched over, presumably that canine was behind it. And then a round object was thrown out of it. A grenade. That was certainly a nice adventure, alright...didn't even start and he would already die, or more optimistically, lose a leg or an arm. Thankfully the other fox evoked a shield to cover them both...but, Zafir had never seen that kind of element before. For some reason, he felt energized and stronger. The grenade was actually a tear gas one, and thus covered the area around the shield with smoke. Hastily looking at his surroundings, he quickly turned his head at the sounds made by the police officers, hearing them fall on chairs, tables and other furniture.

The moment they started wildly shooting, however, startled and panicked him.

He tried to stay as low as possible, even though there was a shield right in front of him. He felt chills down his spine due to the commotion, but he started trembling when he saw the gas-masked men with the rods approached him. He tried to calm down, but the tension was too much in his mind. He quickly stood up, the wind shield spell converted to a different, offensive kind of spell. Desperate, he threw his arms backwards, concentrating intensively, the other fox's shield seemingly empowering him. The smoke and the gas seemed to be drawn in around the hands of the fennec. His coat started to float, dust kicking up around Zafir. The chandelier on the ceiling swaying around slowly...

One might think staying in front of him currently might not be a good idea. And it certainly isn't.

With a scream, Zafir threw his arms forwards, casting his spell. A funnel of wind, strongly resembling a whirlwind, formed in front of him. All the objects and people in the way of it were thrown across the room, some might've even been thrown OUT of the hotel. Although powerful, it is not lethal, but it is strong enough to push anything in front of Zafir a few feet away. The fennec quickly succumbed to the exhaustion after evoking his spell, falling and sitting down. 'Phew...been a while since I used that.', he thought. Looking up, he saw the chandelier, a little beaten up by the shots and his magic. He...got a little worried.

Serif noticed the gas slowly creeping to him. He started to try and form a plan to get out with the spies, but suddenly, what looked like a member of the Kar'Nah'Kah Hazmat team got flung into the wall in front of him, and the gas formed a short whirlwind.

He pushed up the table, trying to keep from breathing, and raised it over the man's head and laid it on his chest, ripping the gas mask off of him and putting it on. Very luckily, it was another dog, but sadly, the dog's muzzle was longer than his own. Serif put it on and tried to keep it tight, but it was over sized and misshapen for his breed, and he could feel little tendrils of gas getting through on the sides.

He pushed it out of his mind and looked back for the two suspected spies. The mere fact that they weren't out of the building already finally convinced Serif that they were innocent magical civilians, under horrible circumstances. They were his responsibility now, and he could already hear gun shots and bullets riddling the walls. He looked for some kind of flare grenade, but he only had room for the tear gas. He didn't expect that Hazmat and who knows what else would burst in the room and start shooting.

He caught sight of the two, mainly because they were glowing purple. He realized they were a bit more capable than he gave them credit for. He was warned a long time ago about Athaer magic, but never saw it in action. He reasoned that if they were both powered with it, as they seemed to be, both glowing purple, that they could survive one or two bullets coming their way, but not forever.

He cursed his lack of gear and decided to do the one thing he still could, without directly killing or at least extremely harming someone. He tapped into what magic he had, a small, low reserve, but still enough to raise some earth. He stomped on the ground and concentrated on the tiles in front of the two foxes, and raised the earth just enough to create a wall that they could crouch behind for cover. His vision immediately got splotchy and his left leg gave out, forcing him to crawl back under his table for a short second, until he gained the ability to stand and walked as fast as he could behind the wall.

He looked behind himself, and saw the stairs up to the rooms, and tried to bark out a order to the two foxes, which ended up being a small mumble as he leaned his body weight on the wall. He trid again, and managed to squeak out over the gun shots "Back, stairs, hide in room 16..." Before he sat down and readied himself for whatever came next.

Spice held the shield steady watching as the hotel around her disappeared in a thick cloud of smoke. She looked down to the fennec, he seemed safe, that was good. However the fact that she couldn't see past her nose; if of course you count a large purple sphere as some context to a nose. But none the less it made it hard to plan ahead. Spice could hear gunshots everywhere, bright glowing purple Athaer now pumping out of her. The shield would soon start to drain her energy if she kept it up for 2 people. Suddenly the fennec stood, raising his arms. Before long everyone had been blown away, literally! His spell seemed to have dispursed the smoke too, but in a strange way Spice wished she was still blind. The gathering of Furs around her position, or rather the ones that weren't on their backs, holding arc-lances in her direction wasn't very friendly looking.

"I guess it's my turn." Spice said holding her arms out to the side, the purple energy began to bend and contort around her creating an almost solid-looking blanket around her. "CATCH!" she called out thrusting her hands into the edge of the shield. This caused the purple sphere to rapidly expand, pushing back anything in it's path before disbursing a few feet from it's caster. The blanket had also disbursed, revealing Spice now wearing a flowing robe complete with a witches hat; the Battle Robe.

Spice could feel the ground shifting underneath her, the floor began rising to create some cover. Quickly ducking out of the firing line Spice caught her breath. All of a sudden the two became three as the dog slumped himself down beside the fennec.
'Back, stairs, hide in room 16...' he spoke just getting his voice over the sound of gunfire. She didn't quite trust him, but there wasn't much choice in this situation. Looking back she saw the stairs behind them, the question was how to get there and how to do it with out getting shot. She quickly searched her person finding a small piece of paper, snapping her fingers while holding it; this caused the paper to catch fire, which in turn allowed Spice to manipulate the flames. Holding it in place above her hand Spice waited for the others to ready themselves. After a few seconds Spice shot up, throwing the bundle of fire in the direction of the gunshots, or at least the most concentrated area and ran to the stairs for dear life.

For Police Chief Bah'b, the situation was becoming more disconcerting by the minute. Not only had they been rounded up like common thugs by these Air Force furs, but- and this really set off the alarms in his head- they were not being allowed to return to the station, or use any radios, or do… well, anything. All their equipment, weapons, and vehicles had been effectively confiscated. All they could do was mill around with stony-faced, submachine gun wielding Civil Security rodents standing to every side.

He could ignore the conspiratorial whispers of his troubled officers no longer. The short, broad-chested canine put on a congenial face and made a big show of strolling nonchalantly up to the senior-most guard, or soldier, or whatever the hell he was. "So… this happen often?"

The lanky rodent was shorter than the canine, but he stood on the fender of a truck and thus proceeded to peer down his nose at the police chief, "who said anything was happening?"

Bah'b huffed, "look, if this ain't official military business I'm going to have to ask you to stand down. If it is, I'm going to need to see some kind of identification-"

The rodent tapped his blank name tag, still looking through the officer like he wasn't there.

"Alright buddy, maybe you have your facts mixed up," the chief growled. He clenched his fists and brought one to his chest, "this is a Civilian matter, and Civilian rights forbid the use of military police within the cities."

"NO, I think you are the mistaken one," the rodent retorted icily, stepping down from the truck and advancing on the canine. The fur was small, but something in his frigid stare compelled the dog to take a step back, "Civilian rights exist only as a subset of Civil Security, to be suspended and appended as deemed necessary by the Air Force of Kar'Nah'Kah."

"Since when!?"

"Your king amended the Treatise on Civilian Rights two nights ago. I suggest you pay more attention to the political whims of y-"

He couldn't finish his sentence: the air was suddenly filled with noise- a clap like thunder burst over them, giving way to shattering windows, the cacophony of glass shards and furniture hitting the streets, and screams. The rodents ducked, turned away, "the hell!?" A Civil Security fur came crashing down on the hood of the police van, behind them. The furs guarding the police were immediately swept up in the commotion of magical attack and countermanding orders coming from half a dozen directions, and they soon bled away from their charges.

Bah'b stood idly, holding a generally harmless expression on his face. He backed slowly toward the rest of the officers and cast a brief glance to them. A few let grins slip out momentarily before regaining self-control as the whole group nonchalantly shuffled back away and to the left of the confused gaggle of rodents.

****

"What the fuck!?" This was K'zer Palef'Nah's highly articulated response to what had just happened. He was across the room by a broken window now, near a balcony. The trip through the air had seemed to pass as if in slow motion- he could have sworn that he could reach out and touch the ceiling, or pluck a crystal from the chandelier on his way past. Of course it never occurred to him to do this, and time had sped right back up just before his collision with the ground.

He found his submachine gun nearby, and also Roh'g's, near the balcony. With a curse he pushed off from the floor and lurched to the railing, whipping his head around to look down to the street below, twisting here and there, looking for his friend.

Something thwacked the back of his head. He leant back and peered up to see the desert rat's boot in his face. "How the hell'd you get up there!?"

Roh'g seemed relatively calm as he hung precariously from the brickwork above. He even freed one hand to make a gesture like a surfboard weaving, smirking "I fell out just right."

K'zer turned back around to lean heavily on the balcony railing, partly from the exertion of it all, partly because he was confounded by it all.

"You see where they went?"

The gerbil turned in time to see the Aetheric fur, their target, release a blast of energy into the crowd, tossing the nearest lance-rats like ragdoll-rats before they even had a chance to deploy their specialized skills and weapons against her. A german shepherd soon joined her, and that blasted fennec fox was with them as well; he could see the tips of its hilariously enormous ears flopping around just above the raised floor barrier. They soon filtered one-by-one to a stairway under cover of fire magic.

Roh'g had climbed closer to the balcony threshold and caught sight of this as well, "You go after them."

"And what are you going to do, just hang around out here?"

The rat winked, "something like that," and reached for his gun, which K'zer handed him with a smirk.

"Right, I'll go up the stairs and get drilled full with bullets. You sneak around like the rat you are!"

"K'zer."

"Yeah?"

Roh'g brought a finger up to his lips, K'zer made a zipper gesture across his mouth with a nod, and they parted ways. His ratty friend begin climbing up and to the left, towards the rooms at the top of the stairway. Palef'Nah skipped and danced across debris and pressed his back against the wall just beyond the stairs. He pulled the clip from his gun, found it about half full, and slid it back in place with a click.

The gerbil took a few long, deep breaths to calm his nerves, thinking happy thoughts about childhood games and the agility they required. Unfortunately he'd had an unfortunate tendency to trip over his elongated hind paws and make an ass of himself in front of all his peers when they played those games. He pictured them all laughing and pointing. "Great, that's helpful." He pushed them out of his mind and peeked around the corner, found the stairs clear, and began inching up the steps.

****

Outside, Roh'g emitted hushed curses, interspersed with grunts of exertion, " 'what are you… going to do… hang around… out here?' No… asshole… I'm going to… climb… the side of a… f-freakin building."

As he came to the first window he slung his submachine gun on his back and gripped the barrel of his pistol in his teeth like a pirate's knife, because 1) he thought it looked cool as hell and 2) it would be easier for him to reach while simultaneously dangling precariously from shoddy brickwork. Having accomplished this, he hoisted himself to just below the sill and lifted his eyes just high enough to peer inside.

Empty. This was probably room two; the even numbers were against this wall of the hotel. He was going to be pissed if their target was in an odd-numbered room. He resolved then and there that, in such an event, he'd just climb inside and approaching from the front with K'zer.

Second window, room 4, was empty as well.

****

K'zer reached the top of the stairs without incident, found a housekeeping cart nearby, and plucked the skeleton key from a compartment. Roh'g would be checking even numbers, so he padded softly to room one, slid the key past the tumblers as quietly as possible, and threw the door open, leveling his gun at… the housekeeper. They stared wide-eyed at each other for a moment. "Ugh…" he stammered, eventually reaching up and tugging once on the brim of his cap with a curt nod, "Ma'am," before leaving and moving on to room 3.