Part 3
Kahn opened the door of the Spotface mob's base and clicked the light on with a swat of his tail. The other two 'nip runners filed in behind the tiger, hanging trenchcoats and hats on the rack by the door.
"I do like these duds," Fianna said, snapping his suspenders againt his white button-down shirt. "People knew how to dress back in the twenties."
"Maybe it's okay for you," Spotface said. "As a cheetah I look pretty silly in a tie. I'd rather have a nice little tail-ring to match my belt.
Fianna opened the small office fridge and removed a can of stout and a bottle of 'nip tea for his employer. He poured the tea into a bowl and set it in lapping range of the cat, then considered her last remark.
"Woodstock?" he said.
Ayanna drank some tea, shot the dog a glare and said, "Snoopy! What's that supposed to mean?"
Fianna grinned and said nothing. The dog began to drink his stout when Kahn's scream echoed through the chamber, making them both spew beverages across the room.
"Kahn!" Spotface yelled, and together they ran down the hall to the back of the base.
"Somebody's gonna pay for this!" Kahn roared. The siberian was in a defensive crouch, his head swiveling, nostrils flaring as he scented the air. Beside him on the ground was Christina Aguilara, dead from a single gunshot to the forehead.
Kahn cast a grieved glance at his blonde back-scratcher and said, "I can't believe she's dead!"
"Neither can I," Fianna muttered quietly to Spotface. "I didn't think there was anything in her head to injure."
Suddenly the bathroom door crashed open, and there stood Fuzzball, armed to the teeth and beyond. "Say goodnight, Gracie!" the law-snarf bellowed and opened up, spraying the room with gunfire.
"Back here!" Fianna yelled, diving behind the couch. The other two cats joined him in an instant. Bullets punched easily through the sofa material, missing them by millimeters.
"'Back here!' he says," Kahn snarled. “Nice cover, biscuit-breath!"
Fianna grimaced as a shell whipped past his nose. He grabbed the bottom of the couch and with his trademark strength threw the heavy piece of furniture away from them, towards Fuzzball.
The snarf cackled madly, blasting away. He was so caught up in the moment that he did not realize immediately that his bullets were going through the sofa, instead of stopping it.
"SHIT!" he yelled and leapt backwards, barely keeping a hundred pounds of Value City's best from landing on top of him.
"THE JIG IS UP! RUN FOR IT!!" Ayanna yelled and bolted out the door. She was halfway down the hall when Shark charged out of an adjoining room and grabbed her up by the nape of the neck.
"The punishment for catnip is death," the icthyoid hissed, smiling as the cheetah thrashed helplessly in his powerful hands. "In this case, by digestion."
Spotface's eyes widened in horror as Shark's face, neck and body began to metamorphose. In seconds the humanoid had lost most of his human features, instead coming to resemble something out of "Street Sharks". He opened his powerful jaws, gripped the thrashing, screaming cheetah with both hands, and slammed her into his mouth.
Ayanna twisted and rolled, putting her back on Shark's tounge while bracing all four feet against the roof of his mouth. But the pressure climbed steadily, inexorably.
Oh God! she thought as her knees started to buckle. Not only am I going to die, I'm gonna have to regenerate from a pile of poop!
Then she was flying through the air as a mighty gust of breath spat her from Shark's maw. The cheetah collided with the opposite wall and hit the floor, shaken but otherwise unhurt. She looked back to see Sher Kahn locked in a deadly struggle with the merman.
Kahn seemed to have the advantage being larger and stronger than Shark even in his hybrid mode. But what he lacked in size, Shark compensated for with pure fury. Even as she watched, Shark braved the tiger's two-inch claws to drive in and clamp his jaws on the feline's shoulders, eliciting a howl of pain from Kahn. As Shark clung to him, Kahn tore at the merman with his hind legs, trying to gut the fish.
Ayanna cast around, looking for some way to help, then heard a crash from the office. Realizing reinforcements were coming, she took the better part of valor and dove through the window and out into the night. As she dashed away she heard Fuzzball yell, "Freeze, sucker! You’ll make lousy drapes with holes all over your ass!"
*******
"How did the raid go, officer Fuzzball? Were all of the objectives met?"
Fuzzball looked at Lady Thundera and snorted. "Kinda. We got Sher Kahn and captured all of the Spotface mob's catnip. And I whacked Christina Aguilara"
LT nodded. "At least we'll be able to sleep tonight. And Spotface herself?"
"She gave us the slip, but don't worry. Without her grow operation she's out of business."
LT considered this, then said quietly, "Fianna?"
Fuzzy looked a little sheepish. "Well, he uh, umm..."
LT began to rub her right fingertips against the desktop. "Did you catch him Fuzzy? Did you kill him?"
"Er, no. He got away."
There was a grinding sound as LT's nails tore strips out of the wood of the desk, but her expression never changed.
"How?" she asked mildly.
"Well, we had Thunderwolf stationed outside specifically in case Fianna ran through a wall to try and escape," he said. "We think he went after Ayanna when she jumped through the window, and that's when Fianna got the drop on him."
"How is he?" LT asked.
"When we found him, he was standing in a patch of moonlight with his underwear on his head singing 'Let Me Call You Sweetheart'," the snarf said. "The fun-gun effect should wear off in about twenty more hours, but until then he's pretty much useless."
LT got up from behind the desk, and looked at her wall-mounted viewscreen. The camera outside was set to provide a simple nature scene, the "window" the Unbearables' underground base was denied.
"What steps shall we take now, Fuzzy?" she asked.
"Personally, I took polaroids," the snarf replied. "You can never have enough blackmail material."
"I mean, steps to finish off this catnip cartel," she said. "To eliminate the Spotface mob completely."
Fuzzy canted his head and grinned. "You mean nail Fianna, don't you? Well Kahn's his buddy, so odds are he's gonna come here to try and rescue him. When he does, we whack him like a trucker running over a cocker spaniel."
"Very well Fuzzy. Carry on," she said mildly, still looking at the sunny day on the viewscreen.
In the anteroom, Shark was waiting. The icthyoid as swathed in bandages from the mauling Kahn gave him.
"How did she take it?" he asked.
********
Inside the office, Lady Thundera opened the bottom right drawer of her desk
and removed a colorful blister-wrap package, emblazoned with the words, "TCATGR,
THE MOVIE". She tore the blister off, removed the contents and set the
item on her desk.
It was a replica of Fianna, an action figure produced by the same company that manufactered the "X-Men" toys. This could be seen readily by the doll's distorted outline, incorrect coloring and ridiculous snarl that looked more constipated than ferocious.
LT removed another object from the drawer, then sat down and contemplated the doll for several moments. Then she swung up a ten-pound baby sledgehammer and smashed it to tiny, tiny fragments with a single blow, cracking the wooden desktop with the impact.
Her eyes were wide, her lips clamped together in a manic, twisted grin. A high nasal giggle seemed to escape through her nostrils. She stared at the fragments a few moments longer, then put her hammer back in the drawer and fished around a few more moments.
She came up with another Fianna doll, an ashtray and a can of lighter fluid.
********
Walking down the hall from the office, Fuzzy and Shark heard the bang of the hammer and jumped.
Fuzzy grinned evilly. "How did she take it?" he repeated Shark's question back to him. "I don't think I'd like to be Fianna just now."
********
Just then, Fianna wasn't very happy being Fianna either.
His confrontation with Thunderwolf had not gone quite as Fuzzball had guessed. The caninoid had indeed crashed through the base wall as soon as Fuzzy stopped firing, and had indeed run straight into Thunderwolf. He'd drawn his fun-gun clear of the holster when TW tagged him in the arm with his mace, knocking the weapon from his hand.
Disarmed, with an insane lion in a baby-blue double-breasted suit chasing him, Fianna had run in frantic circles around the yard, Thunderwolf's mace whipping the air just inches from his head.
Then Ayanna, having come through the window, heard the racket. Feeling guilty about abandoning Kahn to the Unbearables, she'd picked up the fun-gun with her teeth and blasted Thunderwolf as he ran by.
The underwear and song, however, had been entirely Fianna's idea.
"OW!" the dog yelped as Spotface poured a bottle of methiolate over the torn flesh of his upper right arm. "Damn, that stings!"
"Don't be such a puppy," Ayanna scolded. "It's all in your head."
They were hiding out in the Maidens' woods, in the treehouse Kahn and Fianna had shared while Thundera Tiger had been in Mundania. The first-aid kit had yielded the antiseptic, a box of gauze, and some aspirin so old they were furry.
"I remember the first time I heard Metallica's 'Enter Sandman'," Fianna said as he wrapped gauze around the wound. "You know the line, ' in your closet, in your head,'? It never occurred to me what an awful thing that was to say to a little kid."
"You think too much," Spotface said. "It keeps getting you in trouble."
"Right now I think we should rescue Sher Kahn," the caninoid said.
"See? There you go thinking again," Spotface said as she turned three times and settled onto the bare wood floor of the hut.
Fianna chuffed softly. "And I suppose you have another idea?"
"Yep," Ayanna said. "Make...the call."
Fianna, who had been considering gulping the aspirin down despite their condition, jumped slightly and dropped the pills.
"Are you sure, Spotface?" he asked seriously. "Once I make...the call, there's no going back."
"It's out of our hands now," the cheetah said. "The Unbearables are too strong to take on by ourselves."
Fianna nodded and dug out his palmtop. As he fired up the email program, Ayanna thought about the experiences of the day, particularly her discusion with Kahn in the bar.
And suddenly she knew. It all fit too perfectly.
"Fianna," she said, getting the nincompoop's attention. "Finish making...the call, and then get ready to move out!"
"We’re going after Kahn?"
"No! We’re going after the Slinky mob!"
TBC