It didn't take Janus long to put two and four together to make six.  A zerked-out Tazmanian Devil was on his way.  And there he was, stuck with a seven-foot silver serpent-morph, an anthro-fox of questionable disposition, and his best friend clinging to the melting edge of life.  Janus nearly went off when he heard the click of a shotgun nearby.  Whirling, he saw the Highlander rat in the doorway of the deli.  His day was just NOT getting any easier.<br/><br/>He almost whined as he raised his hands above his head and dropped the switchblade.  "Well, you're no Tazmanian Devil, but you got me," he said, trying to look defiant.  All of his angry, cocky demeanor was gone.  He was so far out of his league he had regressed to his early days in the Resistance, a scared little teenager with no friends and no safe haven.  He eyed the short rat and his big, big weapon.  "You gonna blast me or eat me?"<br/><br/>Out in the street, Sergeant Halvorson desperately tried to scratch together some backup for Bane.  He found a lone soldier in a nearby alley, just finishing pulling a dart from her arm as she stood over a dead anthro-bear.  The metal quarterstaff in her hands dripped with blood.  The sergeant grabbed her by the shoulder.  "Come on, private..." he began.<br/><br/>"Private?!  Check my fuckin' rank badge, sir!" the woman protested in a husky voice.  The sergeant sized her up.  She was short, maybe five feet at most, but built like a brick bomb shelter.  Her long red hair gave way to piercing green eyes and a face many men would reject, but that the sergeant found... powerful.  Her arms and legs were almost unreal - she must have come from the hard-labor factories in the industrial quarter, they were bulging with muscle.  He checked her rank badge, which she had conspicuously pinned to her chest, and that was a good idea; with that kind of endowment most men would look there first.  "I'm a sergeant.  Sergeant Maggie O'Toole, Squad Four."<br/><br/>Squad Four?  Halvorson wondered why he'd never run into her.  No more time to think.  "Come on, Sergeant," he said.  "We got an HQ to take back."  She followed him, cleaning off her quarterstaff as she did so.  "Where's your squad, Sergeant?"<br/><br/>"Gone.  Our post got hit by one fur.  ONE FUCKING FUR.  Some crazy-ass Tazmanian Devil.  He ripped two of my men in half.  Must've been zerked out," she replied.<br/><br/>"You got anybody?  We need to retake the HQ."<br/><br/>"No, but I saw someone back here..." O'Toole ducked back into the alley and Halvorson followed her.  There she found two men.  "You men!" she called to them.  "What squad?"<br/><br/>"Two, ma'am," said one.  "Our sarge left to get a report from HQ and ain't been back."<br/><br/>"Fall in, HQ's under siege," she ordered.  Halvorson led the three of them to the building directly across from the hotel.<br/><br/>"We wait here for my man to..." he began.<br/><br/>"To what?" asked O'Toole.<br/><br/>"Uh..."  Just then, Halvorson spotted Bane atop the cafe next to the hotel.  He had a bag on his back and was winding up, getting ready to run...  "Mother of the Five Gods..." Halvorson breathed, as Bane leapt from the higher roof of the cafe onto the roof of the hotel.<br/><br/>Inside the hotel, there was a thud from above.  Collins, soaked in fur-blood, looked up, as if that would give him a hint as to what was up there.  That gave a leopard-fur time to charge up the stairs and slam him into the wall.  He hacked into the leopard's neck with his machete...