((OOC:  Hey, you know what?  That thing I said about the Palace walls being lead-lined?  Forget that.  Not only is it unfeasible, it totally fucks with how Mad was able to communicate with the Slayers, and how could the furs keep their command and control center in the Palace with lead walls?  Stupid.  My apologies.  But Baz's message to Jania was still garbled as it was, since Baz is underground and all.))<br/><br/>Janus and Fenson waited for Heretic and Iln to finish speaking.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>Dreamer found that the padlock was intact, and the shed was undamaged, apparently ignored by the rebellion.  Once he tore the lock off and went inside, he would find the gasoline cans, as well as various other pieces of farm equipment, undisturbed.<br/><br/><br/>Feldana stirred in Sherra's arms.  One little eye opened slightly, and when she caught sight of Kitten, she almost immediately came awake.  "You're back!" she exclaimed, loud enough to wake Sherra.<br/><br/><br/>In the car, Maeve looked at the SMG Dreamer had left with her.  A thought took root in her mind, the kind of dangerous thought that can easily take root in someone's mind when virtually everything they've ever known and loved has been destroyed.  Maeve picked the SMG up.  She had never handled a weapon before the rebellion, and now she knew what it was like to hold one. It was heavy, slick, and cold.<br/><br/>She studied the gun's surfaces, the trigger, the stock... it was a functional machine made for killing.  She'd heard the noises of similar weapons, seen the muzzle flashes from a distance.  To actually fire one of these, to be right next to the sound and light of it, had to take a lot of courage and stamina.<br/><br/>And to do that, while risking your own life and another's to penetrate into a stronghold of evil, took even more courage and stamina.  Dreamer had done all that to save her.  She put the gun down on the floor of the car.  She could find a way to move on.  Dreamer deserved that.  Lakran deserved that.  And her dear Guinness did as well.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Raice's chain wrapped taut over its chest, looping over without the Kukri attached this time. One hard yank, and the silhouette toppled just out of arms reach of Merelli, onto the floor a yard away. </span><br/><br/>The figure sputtered and coughed, trying to lift itself from the floor with its arms.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Marice slowly stood to her feet, holding her head. "Okay... what the hell just happened...?"</span><br/><br/>"You won," came the raspy voice again, this time definitely from the figure beside Merelli.  "We fought, you won.  Now I am dying." Jenten could see the figure dragging itself over to Merelli's head, its hands gripping the wooden floor as it slid inch by inch to the prone figure. "My prize..." the voice groaned.  "I didn't think you cared so much for each other."  The figure stopped, its head lowering to rest on the floor.  It heaved two gurgling breaths.  "Well?" it hissed.  "Aren't you going to question me?  I haven't got much time left."  Its tone was sarcastic, the self-deprecating humor of the doomed.  Its hands weakly scratched at the floor in front of it.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>Alhanda jumped as Mag fired at her.  Clearly her control over the naga was slipping.  It would have to be put down.  She whirled to follow her guards as she saw Chiro making a break for the hatch.<br/><br/>Before her guards could take aim at Chiro, he launched two balls of flame in their direction, blocking their path and their vision.  Alhanda roared, rushing back into the seating area.  "MAG!  AFTER HIM!"  She kicked a chair over in fury.<br/><br/><br/>Chiro's progress downstairs was halted as he heard voices and footsteps running downwards from far below, obviously heading toward the dungeons.  Upwards, he could hear no one, not in this stairwell anyway.  Immediately below him the stairs were empty, but he didn't know the layout of the Palace, and he would be running blind into any sort of situation on the other sides of the doors.  Upwards was the roof and the hang-glider.  He had to meet there with Arget so they could make their escape.  The radio Lentan had given him dangled from his cloak, shorted out by the water from the sprinklers.  He had no way of reaching Arget.<br/><br/>So now he was trapped in the Palace of the Wolf, pursued by guards and a cybernetic naga, with the fury of the Fanged Lady motivating them.  All he had was the weapon he'd been tasked to steal, his claws and fangs, the Slayer sword, and the tail of the Lady herself.  Things were not looking good.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>The Palace of the Wolf was at the north end of Shenzai Square, surrounded by a one-story stone wall that butted up to the square's edge, twenty yards out from the Palace itself.  The main gates of the wall opened outward, and were forged from solid steel.  They were closed, as they usually were.  Further guard outposts were situated around Shenzai Square and on the Palace's flanks on the riverbank.  The rear of the Palace faced Lake Kassemar, and the wall came around the back, totally enclosing the Palace and butting up to the edge of the small, steep incline that dropped into the water.<br/><br/>The fire that had blocked guards from getting to the roof was being fought from inside the Palace, and it was only a matter of time before roof access was restored.  For now, though, Jania was protected from sharp-shooter strikes.  The outer wall, however, was bristling with cameras, and it wouldn't take much time for the guard commander to send out reinforcements.<br/><br/>Jania had come at the Palace from the Square, taking out the guard detail that stood watch there, as well as shooting down those that stood watch on the outer wall.  A Kazmer Army platoon had been stationed in the square earlier that day, as the fighting had begun, and now Jania was hacking her way through a ferocious swath of heavily-armed furs.<br/><br/>But they still held to the notion that combat was honorable when done face-to-face, with blade and brawn.  They swarmed about Jania, surprised and angered by the sudden assault, and circled about her as she did her dance of destruction.  Some of them shot up with Berserker Juice as they stood back from the fracas, hoping to match her fury.<br/><br/>Frantic radio reports came to the guard commander, and he siphoned some guards away from the press into the dungeons to deal with Jania.  He told them to take firearms - it was no use fighting a dishonorable enemy with honorable weapons.  In the dungeon, the flow of the enemy had been stemmed, but those guards actively engaged in fighting Halvorson's team remained.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>"<span style="font-style: italic">Can yae fight?" Baz offers the man a revolver. "Yae got the body of a youngster, but the eyes of an old warrior. Why, I must be three times your age at least."</span><br/><br/>Halvorson shuffled through the set of keys, trying to find the right one to unlock the old man's shackles.  He looked back over his shoulder for a moment at Baz, blinking as he wondered about the rat's age.  He shook the thought away and went back to the keys.  The old man's head lolled to the side, his swollen tongue protruding from his cracked lips.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">"Yae seen a lottae shit, Karogen. Probably almost as much as me, an' I'm a Slayer"</span><br/><br/>Halvorson paused.  Initially he had been unimpressed with Karogen because of his age, but there had been something else there, something Baz had obviously caught on to.  The key he was trying clicked in the shackle, turning and opening them, letting the old man's limp arm drop to the stone floor.  Rapidly Halvorson went about opening the others<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Karogen frowns, taking the pistol. ... "I can't be of much help as far as showing you guys any easier way out... I wasn't exactly in an observant state of mind when I was brought down here."</span><br/><br/>"Don't you worry none about that, fella," Halvorson muttered over his shoulder.  "We got an escape plan all worked out."  Just how successful it was going to be was anyone's guess, but Halvorson didn't mention that.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">He looked over towards Halvorson and the old man, frowning. "The old man's long lost his mind... probably the same state I'd be in before long if you guy's hadn't rescued me... thank you."</span><br/><br/>"No problem," Halvorson said, lifting the old man off the ground and hefting his frail body over one shoulder.  "The Commander's pretty well bent on gettin' you outta here, and me and Baz here are pretty sorry sons-of-bitches to begin with, so we figured we might as well come.  Nobody does what we do better, anyway."  He smiled at Baz, then headed out the cell door.  "Come on, let's go."<br/><br/><br/>The guard on the other side of the pillar poked his gun and eyes around one side, looking for the medic.  Seeing no one, he motioned for a few of his nearby fellow to flank him, and they took up station behind pillars to Feign and Sara's left and right, unable to see them just yet.  Then they poked their heads around their pillars--<br/><br/>--one of them, the one to the left, past Sara, spotted Feign.  His gun came up, his trigger finger squeezing...<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>Arget was tied to the med table and deprived of all of his possessions, even his clothes.  Then he was left alone, as the doctors' attentions were turned to members of the Palace Guard that needed treatment.  One guard, the one that had called in Arget's capture, was sat down near him to make sure he didn't escape.