((OOC:  AWGH!  UGH!  BLUH!  Oh, please don't get me started.  JUST when I think my connection problems are solved, BLAM.  No Internet.  Right when I went to post this - LAST WEEK - my computer informed me that I had lost my Internet connection.  Luckily, I'd saved a copy in a text file.  But in the resulting week of non-Internet... why does it take so damn long for the technicians to show up? ...I was unable to post.  I was waiting, shitting bricks, and hanging onto this text file like a damned gold bar.  Now it finally seems my Internet is back to normal.  Thought I could wait another full night before I posted, but... nope.  The urge... Well, this whole fiasco serves me right for supporting local business, I guess.  Ugh.  Messy story; again, don't get me started.  SO!  FINALLY!  A FREAKIN' MONTH AND A HALF LATER!  LET'S DO THIS!))<br/><br/>((On a lighter note, I love you all for sticking it out these past arduous weeks.  Sappy but true.  If you see me on MSN, you can expect me to drop you a line if you don't drop one to me first.  The next installment of Halvorson's back-story should be up by the weekend.  If the Sun shines and the creeks don't rise, of course.))<br/><br/>((Further note - I will visit the Portal nightly and post as soon as it is my turn unless the Apocalypse arrives.  Now's the time to spring into high gear, and I seriously mean it this time!))<br/><br/>Halvorson jumped, biting the end off his cigar in surprise as he whirled to look at Mad.  He came dangerously close to smashing O'Toole's head open on the wall, but only just.  He listened to Mad, and his left eye twitched as his flashlight illuminated the patch of tunnel where, indeed, the young medic named Brown had just been standing.  Further back, he saw a dark hole on the party's left.<br/><br/>Then the sound began, gentle at first, reaching only the sensitive ears of the furs in the group first before it leaked into Halvorson's and Karogen's.  Sucking, slurping sounds, accompanied by the crunching of bones and the squelching of moistened flesh.  Halvorson shot forward, barging Karogen and Mad aside to sweep his flashlight around the corner into the smaller tunnel.  His eyes fell open, glowing hazel in the dim reflection of light off of what he saw.<br/><br/>Brown was waist-deep in a tentacled horror Halvorson could never have met in the worst of his nightmares.  Everything was sickly green-black muscle and slime.  A ghostly green eye glowed out at him, and as the tentacles worked, contracting ever so tightly around Brown's limp, still form, a disgusting crunch rose into the air.<br/><br/>"Baz... hump it," he said through the tight lips that held his cigar.  "Take the kid and keep going, I've got your back."  He handed O'Toole off to Mad Adam brusquely, confident she could deal with both the muscular First Sergeant's weight and Feign's for the moment.  "Just got a little something to do here..."<br/><br/>His assault rifle dropped into his palms and he massaged it, wanting desperately to bring it to life in a rattling cacophony.  But that was sure to alert every fur in range on the surface to their presence.  At this point, Halvorson wished he didn't have to give a single stinking shit who heard.<br/><br/>But he let his gun hang from its strap again and eased forward into the narrower tunnel.  The Sludge Freak was grumbling, almost cooing around the meal it had snagged.  Brown had been an all right guy.  Quiet, not very personable, but cool under pressure and good at what he did.  If he remembered correctly, the least he could do for the guy now was retrieve something from his back pocket.  His hand stretched out towards it, slowly, trying not to make the thing edgy.  It was feeding, it ought to have been content with its kill.<br/><br/>He turned out to be wrong.  Halvorson's arm was wrapped by three tentacles, which squeezed hard and pulled at him.  He grunted, still trying to keep quiet, and pulled back.  The damned thing was STRONG.  Its tentacles had attached to his flesh, little suckers filled with teeth chewing into him.  He grit his own teeth, grinding up his cigar between them, and his free hand darted for his long sword, which swished up, slicing clean through the tentacles.  A howl bubbled out of the thing, around Brown's crushed ribcage.  For a moment, Halvorson felt sick.  He darted his hand in again and ripped the pocket clean open, a folded piece of paper fluttering out into the air.  He snagged it and heaved back as a half-dozen tentacles again whipped out at him.  His sword came up in defiance and he rolled in the sewer's moisture to get out of the thing's range.  He got to his knees, lunged to his feet, and ordered everyone, "Move!"<br/><br/>He stuck his sword back through the cords wrapped around his waist and pulled the severed tentacles, still attached to his flesh, off him one by one.  "Go.  Go," he muttered, ushering everyone forward.  They passed the floodgate Sara had torched herself to disable.  They were getting back.  Couldn't be far now.  He held the scrap of paper he'd taken from Brown's body up before his eyes.<br/><br/>"To Ellis," it read, "Win it for me, and all of us.  From the enemy that loves you - Fiona."<br/><br/>Halvorson lowered the paper.  He pocketed it and held an arm out to Mad.  "I'll take her back now," he muttered, indicating O'Toole.  Baz could recognize the layout up ahead.  A few dozen more paces and they'd be back at the manhole they'd used to get in.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>The wolf facing Jania, who only moments before had been calm and cocky, was now suddenly a panicked, blood-soaked animal shaking in trepidation.  He didn't hesitate a moment and simply turned and ran, bits of his weaponry falling off in the vigor of his retreat.<br/><br/>Jania was clear of obstacles in her ascension to the roof of the hotel beside her, but upon her entry to the lobby she would find the elevators to be smashed to pieces.  The only way up was the stairs - and that would take a while.<br/><br/>Outside, though, she could pick up a familiar scent... part fox, part human.  Even when it was obscured by the blood of the dead around her, she knew that smell.  Arget was near.  She was downwind of him, so he could be anywhere between her and the river - a distance of several blocks - but she could definitely tell it was him.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/><blockquote><div><cite>KavenBach wrote:</cite>"Master!!" She shrieked at the top of her lungs, staggering toward the edge of the roof. She stretched out one arm beseechingly, and had the other hand clamped over her wound. "Master, no, don't leave me! I can't fly like this! Don't leave me!!"</div></blockquote><br/><br/>The lupine's swiped left and right as he landed partially on the edge of the roof-access shed, bent at the waist.  No one.  But the voice had come from directly ahead, past the abandoned, high-powered sniper rifle he was now facing.  He pulled himself completely up and stood on the shed, looking down.<br/><br/>Her white wings flexing lightly behind her as she begged her retreating owner, the mostly-nude avian woman was definitely a surprise.  The brown, downy feathers of her body were only marred by the mostly bald patch on her head.  He knew the pattern - acid scarring.  She was a vore slave; and that meant she had to be at least part human.  A pureblood avian like her wouldn't be in that position.  Either way, he's found the owner of the dress.<br/><br/>And her owner was getting away.  He jumped down off the shed and landed to her right, his sword-arm shoving her carelessly aside as he thrust his head over the edge of the roof, looking down and all around, trying to spot him.  It had been just seconds - he couldn't be that far.<br/><br/>Nothing.  He spun to the bird-girl, his blade outstretched at her.  "Nice fucking try.  I don't see any 'Master.'"<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>The feline woman looked him over weakly.  "W-water?  There's a cooler inside..." she murmured, her eyes glazing as they followed Mag's trail.  It took her a moment before she got enough composure about herself again to rush inside to get him some, her heels clacking on the pavement.  She was back out in another moment, holding a small paper cup full of soothingly cool water, which she held timidly out to him.  "I... I just came to work this morning, same as always.  I'd heard the news about the war when I woke up, but my neighborhood was fine.  I live up north, past the airport, and I thought... you know... I should still go to work, coz the Lady's got it under control."  She toed the ground a bit with her left shoe.  "I work for Lord Arkit; I'm his secretary."  Though not clearly marked, Arget could find the logo on the glass doors of the building behind her: Sasa Bank, owned and run by Arkit Sasa.  He had ATMs all over the city.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>Yuri's eyes flicked left and right in anxiety.  It was hard to put together everything this strange man had just told him.  He didn't really know how to react.<br/><br/>One man to Yuri's left spoke up.  "Fuck me..." he whispered.  It wasn't what Yuri was hoping for.<br/><br/>To his right, another man spoke.  "No fucking way.  A cyborg?  He's working for the Bitch, Yuri, he's got to be!"<br/><br/>"What?" Yuri asked incredulously, his eyes not leaving Dreamer.<br/><br/>"Yeah, she's the one that keeps coming out with those secret weapons," said the second man.  "She made this guy to waste Lanner!"<br/><br/>"Now he's going back to get his reward," said the first.  It made sense to Yuri.  If Lady Alhanda took out Lanner, she'd have an opening to send her army in and wipe out Shark's Resistance.  Even if the leadership had changed, Shark's men were still Resistance.  Decades of planning still came into play in their minds, and old fears were hard to break.  The biggest fear of the House Blotar Resistance had always been either Kazmer or House Javier invading the farmlands to restore order and expand their empires.<br/><br/>His eyes, as he'd been putting this all together, had flicked to the near-distant station wagon, in which he saw the skinny form of Kitten.  If he was a cyborg too, Yuri and his men were at a severe disadvantage.  Still, there was something Dreamer had said that hadn't sounded totally unattractive: <i>the rebellion has lost sight of its noble goals</i>.  It didn't quite click with Yuri's idea of a fur-built killing machine.<br/><br/>"Doesn't make sense," he said after a long pause.  He articulated his words slowly, delicately.  "If he was from the Bitch we'd be dead by now.  He would've blown us away as soon as we got out of the car."  He kept going.  If he let Dreamer speak again, he was afraid of what he'd hear.  By talking, Yuri prolonged his own life.  So he kept his lips moving.  "He wouldn't have told us he killed Lanner either.  He's telling the truth.  Get back in the car.  Back it off the road.  Now, guys."<br/><br/>"What?" asked one.<br/><br/>"Shut the fuck up and do it!" Yuri shouted.  He kept his gun pointed downward.  "Move!  Get in and get off the road."  The three others shuffled hastily to the sedan and pulled the doors open, sliding inside, their faces etched with disbelief.  Yuri remained outside, looking at Dreamer's steel-gray eyes, and wondering if they also were made of metal.  "We get out of your way, you leave us alone, huh?"  He started backing away from Dreamer, towards the side of the road, as the sedan's engine whined into gear and backed away with him.  "Go on and get going."  He kept his hands low, palms facing Dreamer, his gun still aimed at nothing.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>Janus heard Heretic's ideas through his giggling fit, and he started to calm down.  Heretic was acting like a soldier now, and not a rogue.  It was fascinating, and Janus found himself admiring the fox for it.  But his eyes drifted toward the sounds of cheers coming from a building across the way.  He and Fenson eyed the structure curiously... until Iln's lightning cracked out in the still air.  Janus jumped and stumbled away from the dragoness, and Fenson shielded his eyes.  Everyone felt the charge put their hair into rigid spikes.<br/><br/>The aftereffects weren't what Janus had hoped for.  Now the SEM members were pushing against the Resistance troops set to guard them, or climbing out through the window shattered by Iln's lightning.  This didn't look good.<br/><br/>Nobody was in command.  Janus could see Emiko, Jenten, and Marice looking around for someone to get orders from. And frankly, Janus didn't feel up to it - he still, deep down, knew that he was just a kid.  An angry kid.<br/><br/>But Fenson had the right idea.  "Hey fella," he said to Heretic, nudging the fox and nodding at the SEM.  "Looks like we've got a problem right here, right now."<br/><br/>"Yeah," Janus added.  "Got an idea how to handle that?"  It wasn't a sarcastic question - a rarity for Janus.  Then he glanced over at Emiko.  He knew she was pretty important to the SEM...<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>The city flowed by Mag, Fwiin, and Chiro, but their journey out into the desert, the added weight of both Fwiin and Chiro on Mag, and the necessity for stealth all slowed down their progress.  Not only this, but the further south they went, the louder and nearer the sounds of battle became.  It would be a long while - perhaps a half-hour or more - before they would be safely past the frontlines and at Crown Park.<br/><br/>Riposte was heading in the same direction, from a different locale.  Her progress would be similarly slow and perilous the further south she went.