Part 4
The door to the Anti-Cur Resistance base hissed open and Fuzzball tried to step through. Unfortunately, the mass of high-powered weaponry the snarf carried overbalanced him and he fell forward. A shot rang out, making everybody duck. Spark squeaked in alarm while Thunderwolf reached up and felt the new part his mane had suddenly sprouted.
"Aw hell," Fuzzy groused as he righted himself. "Place needed freshend up anyway. Smells like a candy fruit orchard in here."
The snarf moved on, and in next bounded Thundera Tiger. The tigress looked around for a few moments, still not totally convinced this wasn't some kind of elaborate trap set by RD Rivero. But when she saw the others, and more importantly, saw the milk and cookies, the ravenous feline was prepared to set aside all suspicions.
Next came Fianna. Instantly Thunderwolf was on his feet.
"Boys, boys, no fighting in here," Fluffy chastened as the two eyed each other warily. "If you wanna brawl, take it outside. Of course, if you do, you're both dead meat, so let's all try to get along, okay?"
Thunderwolf's eyes narrowed. "Nobody cans my boyfriend and lives," he growled.
"Fish sticks," Fianna said with a suicidal grin. "Besides TW, we're on the same team this time. I see a beautiful friendship in our future."
"I see a wheelchair in yours," Thunderwolf said evenly, but the caninoid ignored him and joined Thundera Tiger in raiding the buffet.
Last came Axelle, whom Thunderwolf greeted with a broad smile and warm hug. "Nice to see they let you off your leash this time."
"I get out once in a while," Axe replied. "'Assassin' is kind of a narrow job description."
"Okay people, listen up!" Fuzzy barked. The snarf directed his remote control at an empty wall, which slid open to reveal a large viewscreen. The dark panel suddenly came alight with green lines and multicolored splotches, which moved through the lines like rats in a maze.
"The dogs have been wrecking my cameras, but they don't seem to recognize the Anti-Tygra thermal imagers I've installed. As you can see, we got something on the order of sixty caninoids loose in the base right now."
"Down here is the prisoner bay, and you can see the concentration of activity where the captives have been dumped. We got two here that show up on the motion sensors, but not on the thermals. One I assume is Tatiana, since being undead would have that effect. The other I don't recognize."
*******
Tatiana leaned against the bars of her cell, her head resting against the metal, watching the dog troops run by. There was a shuffle beside her, and she turned to look at her roommate.
The Dodo looked up at her and smiled broadly, revealing a double-set of jagged yellow-brown teeth. One of the weasel's eyeballs popped out and rested on it's cheek.
"You're pretty," the weasel said admiringly.
"Hello?!" Tatiana sceamed at the scampering guards. "Could one of you please stop for a moment?! Just long enough to KILL ME?!!"
********
"Over here," Fuzzy said, directing their attention to another section of the screen. "Is Rivero's secret, heh, yeh, my ass, ahem, laboratory. You'll notice that there are several dogs patrolling and sign from four authors. This is where it gets real interesting."
"Why's that, Fuzzy?" Thundera Tiger asked.
"Because by our estimate, there should only be three authors," Fuzzball replied. "Lady Thundera and Lucifer Daimou were with RD in the lab at the time the dogs appeared. Going strictly by headcount, we have picked up another writer from somewhere. So, I took the time to run a pattern match on the newcomer and check him against known author profiles, just on the possibility JD had gotten back inside. The result was an eighty-percent positive on a certain big green nincompoop."
Everyone turned to look at Fianna. The caninoid looked up, cheeks bulging with cookies and a milk mustache on the end of his snout, and said, "Huh? Shorry, I washn't wishning."
********
Plans were made, then dismissed. Priorities were addressed, then haggled over. In the end it was decided to split the group up. Axelle, Fluffy, Kam and Spark were to head for the cell blocks and try to liberate the captive authors. Meanwhile Thunderwolf, Fuzzy, Thundera Tiger and Fianna would march on the laboratory and confront the menace directly. When Axe's team had succeeded, they were to high-tail it to the lab and provide backup.
With their plans laid, the units separated and marched to their fates.
********
Team Fluffy moved through the ducts for as long as possible. Finally they were forced out when the way became too narrow for the humans to squeeze by any longer. Fluffy took the lead, poking her head carefully out of the grate hole before hopping to the floor below. Axe slid out into a graceful handstand and flipped to her feet. Spark fell forward and rolled upright in one smooth movement, looking very proud of herself.
If they can do it, so can I, Kam thought. He tumbled out, but misjudged his angle, landing flat on his back and knocking the wind out of himself.
"You're going to have to do better than that if you want to be an assassin," Axelle said, shaking her head.
"I'm not an assassin, I'm..."
"Adam Ant?" Fluffy asked
"I AM NOT ADAM ANT!!!" Kamanchee screamed.
From the end of the hall came a series of harsh bays, then the sound of running feet.
"Way to go, Adam," Axe snapped.
"This way!" Fluffy shouted and bolted down a side passage, the other females close behind.
"But the prison block is this way!" Kam protested, pointing towards the end of the corridor, where the barking was growing rapidly louder.
"Stick around, Kam! I bet the dogs will take you right to it!" Fluffy yelled back.
"Oh, right, carry on then," he replied and ran after them.
The companions ran desparately, dodging and turning as they tried to slip the curs, but the barking only grew closer and closer. At last they came to a large chamber with a door at either end, and Axelle called a stop.
"This far," the assassin panted, turning to face the door they'd entered. She reached into her jacket and produced a pair of tanto fighting knives. "This far, no further."
Spark turned and ran back to Axelle. "But there are more of them and bigger and stronger!"
"But we are better," Axe snarled as the first caninoid appeared in the door.
********
Team Fuzzy moved boldly up the corridor, making no attempt at concealment. The secret lab was indicated by arrow-shaped red signs at each intersection proclaiming "Secret Lab".
"Funny," Thunderwolf growled. "Seems like we'd have been challenged by now."
Fianna nodded, then pricked up his ears. He looked at Tiger and saw alarm register on her face as well.
"I think we just got a diversion," Fianna said. "And by the sounds of it, they're in big trouble. Fuzzy..." he began to say, when he noticed the snarf was already gone.
"They'll be alright," Thunderwolf said. "C'mon, let's take advantage of it and get in there before they realize they left the way clear." With that, the unit continued on.
********
A pit bull snapped at her hand, but the hand was already gone. The small, brutal caninoid took a full three seconds to realize it's throat had been laid open, but then it politely collapsed and died.
Before it fell, two more succumbed to Axelle's deadly dance. The assassin spun out of the way of a lunging cur, ramming her right blade through it's temple as it charged by. The blade stuck in the monster's skull, forcing her to release it. She ducked below a savage swipe from a German Sheppard, then rose up and drove her left dagger into the creature's heart. Before the dog dropped, she was moving again.
The floor was slick with spilled blood, and while Axelle glided like a lethal wraith through the mass of dogs, using the confined quarters and her enemies' size against them, Spark lacked that level of training and experience. She killed two dogs with her obsidian dagger before a black lab drove in over her guard with a powerful right cross. Spark's head snapped backwards and she collapsed, her knife falling to the floor and shattering.
Kamanchee gamely waded in and began slugging, but having neither a weapon nor any particular skill, he was soon overcome, the dogs bearing him to the wall and beating him mercilessly.
Fluffy dropped four dogs with the 9mm pistol Fuzzball had insisted she take, but when her ammo ran out, she realized that a snarf's body was not particularly suited to physical combat. As a massive Golden Retriever snatched her into the air and opened it's jaws, she suffered a terrible realization; that in the food chain, she was about to become the weakest link.
Fluffy's scream of terror alerted Axe, who whipped her remaining dagger at the dog attacking her friend. The blade penetrated the vertebrae at the base of it's skull, killing it instantly. But this left Axelle weaponless and distracted, a deadly combination. A huge Sheppard wrapped it's arms around her from behind, pinning her own arms to her sides and hauling her into the air.
Axe drove her foot down along the front of the creature's thigh, connecting with the kneecap and shoving it to mid-shin. The dog bayed in agony and released her, but three more were on her in an instant. She killed one with a straight punch to the windpipe before the next caught her right arm and twisted it savagely. Axe cried out as she felt her forearm snap, then was driven to her knees by a cuff to the head.
She looked up to see a Sheppard she had taken an eye from earlier glaring down at her with it's remaining orb. The creature grabbed her throat, opened it's mouth wide and lunged at her face.
Then the air filled with an incredible roar and the head of the dog vanished in a gout of blood. Everywhere all around the team dogs fell where they stood, bleeding and dying amidst bays of pain and fear.
"MOTHERFUCKERS!!" Fuzzball bellowed as he sprayed leaden death in all directions. The dogs were defenseless before the onslaught and in seconds the curs retreated, scrambling over the dead and dying to reach the far door.
Fuzzy ceased fire as the last cur disappeared and immediately screamed, "FLUFFY! ARE YOU OKAY?! WHERE--". The snarf's panicked cries were interuppted as his beloved threw herself into his arms and began peppering him with kisses.
Axelle got to her feet carefully to avoid jarring her broken arm. She looked at the snarfs as Fuzzy tenderly caressed the back of Fluffy's head.
"Didn't I tell you I'd always be here for you?" he asked her. Fluffy beamed at him and nodded.
Axe checked on Spark, found her coming around. The Aztec would have a bruise the size of a softball to brag about when they got home, but was otherwise unharmed. Kam was lying in the corner groaning. Axe knelt beside him.
"How are you doing?" she asked.
Kam rolled over to face her and yelled, "The little sod shot me in the foot!"
Axe looked at Fuzzy and raised an eyebrow. "Whoops," the snarf said with a shrug.
She pulled the wounded Englishman up onto his good foot and passed him over to Spark, then collected her weapons.
"What now?" Spark asked.
Axe looked at the snarfs. Fluffy pulled away from Fuzzball, accepted a kiss and two more clips for her automatic, then turned to face her team as Fuzzball left.
"What now?" Fluffy said. "Now we finish our mission!"
TBC