((OOC:  Guh.  Another massive post.  Sorry fellas!  Hope it's worth it.))<br/><br/>Merelli sat on a nearby chair and smiled at Jania.  "I do remember one story," he said.  "I am sure you have heard the story of Alain McGinnis."  He looked at the angle of the sun and thought for a moment before speaking again.  "I can shorten it.  It was the first story my uncle told me."<br/><br/>He leaned forward.  "Alain McGinnis was an old dog-fur, a distant relation of Clan McGinnis' chieftain.  Alain had sworn an oath to the McGinnis Chieftain that he would protect his gardens.  It was a task that others saw as a bit low or demeaning.  After all, Alain had been a valued warrior and companion to the Chieftain, he deserved more in his retirement.  But Alain was content to tend the gardens and protect them from thieves."<br/><br/>"Well, Alain died in the gardens, and was not missed for nearly a month..."  Merelli stopped for a moment.  "Oh!  I nearly forgot.  The whole time he was trying to keep a nest of rabbits from pillaging the gardens.  But he would not kill the rabbits because they were innocent.  Then he died.  I think he fell down a hole."  He shook his head.  "This was far more interesting as a young one, I assure you," he apologized.  Then he went on.  "Naturally, the rabbits began eating the garden.  The Chieftain had gone off to war or something.  When he came back a month later, his whole garden had been eaten up by the rabbits or stolen by thieves.  He couldn't find Alain anywhere, so he cursed him to become a Slayer, saying he had broken his oath to his Chieftain."<br/><br/>"A group of Slayers were passing through the lands of Clan McGinnis and went to the Chieftain, asking to pick up their new member, Alain.  They heard of the oath he had broken.  When they went to the gardens, they found him in the hole, dead for quite some time.  They buried him in the garden.  Then, in the night, they planted the garden full of flowers and vegetables.  They found the rabbits, and with a nest so near to the gardens they knew Alain must have known about them, but had not killed them.  So the Slayers put the rabbits in bags, keeping them alive.  Then they built a strong fence around the garden, and left on their travels, letting the rabbits go in a new home."<br/><br/>Merelli smirked.  "That summer, the Chieftain looked out his window, surprised to find the name 'Alain' growing in his garden, made up of flowers and vegetables."  He stopped.  "That's all I remember."<br/><br/>As he was telling his story, Janus watched Chiro leave the gravesites and sat down in the grass next to where Collins had been laid, coming to grips with real death for the first time in his life.  Other men around him kept a respectful distance as he wept silently into his hands.<br/><br/>O'Toole cocked her head to the side, looking at Colonel Merelli.  "So... they kept the old dog's name alive?"<br/><br/>Merelli nodded.  "Not only that.  They had nothing to do with what had happened there, but they knew that Alain did not deserve their curse, not even in death.  So they paid his due to his Chief and honored his own wishes also by keeping the rabbits alive."  He looked at Jania and Sara.  "That story had a strong effect on me when I was young.  It showed me just how honorable and trustworthy some people could be.  There were other stories," he looked beyond them, "but we don't have the time for them now."<br/><br/>A large green car had pulled up to the park's entrance.  Hastily painted on its side in white was the symbol of the Resistance, along with the word "Kazmer."  From inside the car, a half-dozen men emerged.  The driver was a young man, a private by the look of his rank insignia.  One of the five others was a tall, thin man in a long white coat, with the words "Science Division" sewn into the lapels of it.  This man was almost immediately taken aside by Bane, who was now calling himself Arget.  Three of the remaining four men from the car were big, strong soldiers, obviously specially chosen for the defense of an important person.<br/><br/>The final man to emerge from the car was of medium height but thin build.  His deep blue tunic and pants were bulked up by a thick black overcoat, every pocket of it holding something.  His eyes were blue and bright with an inner force of some kind - anger or sheer force of life, it was hard to tell.  His brown hair was cut close to the scalp and it lay flat, outlining the contours of his skull beneath.  His young, boyish face was shaved clean.  He moved with a precise, gentle quality the humans around him didn't match.  There was something more to this man than first met the eye.  Any fur could spot it in an instant, though.  This man had fur blood in him.  However slight an influence, it was there, and most certainly that of a feline, though his appearance was entirely human.  At his side he wore a gun holster carrying a powerful assault handgun.  A dagger in a sheath was tied nearby.  A dark-colored sack hung from the other side of his waist, its contents unknown.<br/><br/>Colonel Merelli and all the human soldiers in the area rose and looked at this man, raising their hands to their heads in salute.  The man approached Merelli and Halvorson's group with a measured pace, stopping short of them and looking them all over.  He regarded each non-human with an equal amount of focus and time, sizing them up in his mind, it seemed.  He looked at the salutes being given him and waved his hand, dismissing them.  The hands lowered, but the eyes did not leave him.  The man looked at Merelli with a slight smile.<br/><br/>"Colonel," he said.  "Am I seeing what I think I am?"<br/><br/>"Yes, Commander, you are," said Merelli.  "These are sympathizers that have joined our cause."  He gestured to them, then to the man.  "My friends, allow me to introduce the Commander of the Resistance in Kazmer."  He stopped short of naming him.<br/><br/>"I'm Eric Lentan," he said.  "You probably figured that out by now.  So..." said Lentan, looking over the group.  "Names?  Ranks?  Reasons for being here?" He almost was amused, but knew how time was short.<br/><br/>Janus had noticed all the attention being given to the gazebo, and pulled himself together quickly enough to rejoin his comrades, surprised to see a man wearing the rank badge of the Commander talking to them.  Halvorson came over to Lentan.  "We're what's left of the First Platoon, sir," he said.  "I'm Sergeant Halvorson.  That's Sergeant O'Toole, that's -"<br/><br/>"Sergeant?" Lentan interrupted.  "No lieutenant or first sergeant?"<br/><br/>"No sir," said Halvorson.  "They both were killed."<br/><br/>"Well, who's been in command?" said Lentan.  O'Toole smiled and pointed at Halvorson, who sighed in embarrassment and looked at the ground.  Lentan put a hand on his shoulder.  "Guess what?  You're a lieutenant now."  He reached into a pocket of his overcoat and took out the rank insignia of a lieutenant, giving it to Halvorson.  "Find time to put it on, lieutenant."  Halvorson shook his head, then nodded, then mumbled his thanks.<br/><br/>Lentan moved right past him to O'Toole.  "You like bugging him, it seems," he said, pulling out a First Sergeant's insignia and handing it to her.  "Have fun doing it for a living."  As she mimed the word "yes" to herself and worked on replacing her old rank badge, Lentan looked at the others.  "I'm in a good mood, people.  Why?  Because I heard some of you have proof that my best friend is still alive.  Not only that, but there's apparently a whole other group working to free humanity that I've never heard of until today.  Which ones of you represent that group?"  He looked, waiting patiently.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>The First Sergeant enjoyed watching Emiko get the S.E.M. people up and moving.  He decided to adopt her story and told his men to keep reinforcing it in the minds of the protesters.  He made sure to keep his eye always on the foxboy named Faust, unsure of what danger he might pose but not willing to find out.<br/><br/>Very soon the whole group was passing through the boulevards of the city on their way to Crown Park.  The building around them were largely dark and silent as the dawn continued to break, catching the tops of distant skyscrapers with its reddish light.  The First Sergeant didn't know what was going on in Crown Park - it was largely overgrown and abandoned from what he could remember.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>In the dank dungeon cell Karogen was occupying, the old man cackled.  "Heehee!  Just as I thought!"  He sounded very pleased with himself.  "Well, there's no way I'm gonna talk to you now!  I'm not talking... EVER!"  The silence that filled the cell a moment later seemed to prove that point.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>House Blotar was quickly coming to a bitter end.  The humans, led by Shark, had started piling wood and debris into the moat, filling it in with anything they could find to walk across.  With that done, and covered by their fellows on the shore, groups of humans piled explosives looted from a nearby armory against the closed metal drawbridge.  The pile was nearly a quarter of the way up the 50-foot drawbridge when Shark, apparently tired of waiting, hurled a lit dynamite stick into it, causing all the humans on the debris-bridge to run away in terror.<br/><br/>Three tense seconds passed.<br/><br/>Then, with a noise unlike any ever sounded in the realm, the drawbridge vanished in a blinding flash.  The whole of Fort Blotar shuddered, cracks forming in nearby walls.  All of the guards nearby were either incinerated by the blast, pulverized by the explosion, or, if they were stationed farther away, fell to their backs from the shock.  When the smoke and debris of the explosion cleared, the drawbridge had been rent open with one of its hinges utterly vaporized.  It hung away from the castle wall at an angle.  Behind it, the massive wooden doors had been splintered and blown apart, leaving only shards hanging from their hinges.<br/><br/>With a feral roar, the human pillagers rushed across the filled-in moat and into the castle, piling in almost in a stampede, with Shark at their head.  The slaughter that followed inside the building was almost unimaginable.<br/><br/>It came down to the Blotar family holing themselves up in the Baron's bedchambers, blocking off the door with a heavy armoire and a sofa.  The Baron, Baroness, and his five true daughters were desperately clawing at the stained-glass windows, trying to open them and rush to escape.  The Baroness hurled a chair at one, shattering it outwards, but the drop to the moat below was almost three stories.  Hastily, she and her daughters began tying the Baron's bedsheets into a rope, trying to lessen the drop at least.  The Baron himself was useless, standing in the middle of the room, blubbing and wringing his hands.<br/><br/>There was pounding at the door.  The armoire shuddered.  The Baron shouted.  His wife and daughters redoubled their efforts.  More pounding.  Then the armoire burst, showering fragments of wood into the room.  The Baron was caught in the head by a board and fell to the floor unconscious.  The Baroness nearly threw her youngest daughter at the window, telling her to grab the rope and not let go.  As she lowered her, her other daughters braced what remained of the armoire and sofa against the shattered door.  A human holding a rocket launcher and some others were sneering at them through the hole they had made.  Others came forward, hacking at the wood with axes.<br/><br/>The rope ran out.  The Baroness told the daughter to jump and swim away.  The daughter was crying - she was barely five years old.  She wouldn't let go.  The Baroness was screaming now, telling her to save herself.  But the child didn't understand - she wanted her mommy.<br/><br/>The door was gone.  Humans clamored over the shattered armoire and swarmed into the room, assaulting the Baroness and her children.  The Baroness let the rope go.  Her daughter fell nearly two stories into the castle's moat, spalshing and spluttering, doing her best to swim to the shore in her royal bedclothes.  The weight of the water threatened to pull her down and drown her.  When she reached the shore, it was to her a cliff so high she could not reach.  Frantically, she treaded water and shouted, trying to kick herself up and grab the edge of the land.<br/><br/>In the castle, the Baron was nearly crushed underfoot but was still alive.  The Baroness and her four remaining daughters were savagely beaten before Shark made it into the room and bid them to stop.<br/><br/>With a dark smile on his face, he looked all the bovines over and said, "Dinnertime."