((OOC:  Thanks, guys.  I missed all of you.  Okay, on with the posting!  I was unable to get much done during work today, so if I lag behind the aforementioned 1 AM GMT time, please devour me gently?<img alt=":mrgreen:" src="./images/smilies/icon_mrgreen.gif" title="Mr. Green"/>))<br/><br/>The guards in the chapel were holding their ground, firing crossbows at the rescue team from behind doorways and pews.  Halvorson and O'Toole deafened them with the noise of their guns, and once or twice a bullet would catch a guard in an exposed spot, causing him or her to fall backwards onto the floor, dive out of sight behind a pew, or retreat back around a doorway.  Feign's bolts were finding marks among the visible guards, but O'Toole soon took up a new tactic.<br/><br/>Some guards were trying to make their way across the chapel, using pews for cover.  The pews were wooden, and it took only a moment for O'Toole to realize the potential of the big, loud gun in her hands.  Splinters flew as she shot at guards that thought they were safe from her.<br/><br/>Halvorson looked at Mad, pulling back around the stone doorway to reload.  "Don't worry 'bout the Bitch - we got her tied up.  Same friends up top that were gonna extract you have the job of distracting her."  He clicked the fresh clip into place and swiveled his body around the pillar of the doorway, opening fire yet again.  As he did so, he drew up by Feign, speaking to him between shots.  "And don't you worry none about fuckin' up their electronics.  Our boys on the roof got that covered, too."  Inwardly, though, Halvorson's doubts about Feign began to resurface.  What kind of slave had access to an EMP device?<br/><br/>All at once, the guards across the chapel began to pull back.  Suddenly, all three doors were slammed shut, and heavy bars could be heard slamming into place on the opposite sides.<br/><br/>Halvorson chuckled.  "They can't beat us, so they're just gonna try and stop us."  He looked at Baz.  "Now might be the time for some good old-fashioned kabooms, fella."<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>Alarms began to sound, a little belatedly, throughout the Palace.  Alhanda finished strapping on the last plate of her armor and her hand began to reach for her blade, her magnificent shimmering<a class="postlink" href="https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Makhaira">makhaira</a>-- when a thump sounded from her balcony.<br/><br/>Her eyes darted up.  There, on the balcony, across the length of her bedroom and beyond the armored double-doors, was Chiro Day, his silvery scales gleaming in the morning light, his fangs bared in a grin of vengeance, his stomach bulging with perhaps the remains of some of her guards.  Her heart nearly stopped.<br/><br/>And then, all at once, the platinum-titanium halfbreed was lunging at her.  His cry rang in her ears: "Alhanda!  I've come for you!"<br/><br/>Her heart reeled into an adrenaline rush.  Her mind cleared, the fear changing to calculating rage as she sized up her opponent.  Her claws ached to tear into his scales and she leapt for the makhaira, pulling it free of its wall mount and whipping off its scabbard, whirling to face the oncoming reptilian.  As Chiro drew near, she noticed the exotic blade he was carrying, the Highlander designs on its hilt.  Raising her own blade to fend off the dragon, she cried, "Then come and die, half-breed!"  She darted forth, the thick blade of the makhaira singing at it swung powerfully downward.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>Up on the roof, the stairwell down into the Palace was burning powerfully from Chiro's plasma blast, and the helicopter stood with its tail partially ruined by Chiro's claws.<br/><br/>Arget, however, had already dove into the newly-opened vent and was in the process of lowering himself down.  For a good while, the heat was the most apparent thing about the vent shaft - obviously the Palace's air conditioning vented up through here, and the blowing torridity was enough to make even Arget's furry ears become sopping with sweat in little time.  He had to find a way out soon or he'd be roasted.<br/><br/>The vent ledge atop the roof was a universal exhaust for several dozen vent shafts opening into the floor of the narrow passage he now lay in.  All of them led downwards.  The closest, directly below his face, dropped perhaps ten feet before branching into another horizontal shaft going forward and behind.  In the forward direction, there was a hint of light gleaming off the metallic sides of the shaft.  To the rear, darkess.  Arget couldn't be sure, but it was probable that all the vent openings in the ledge led to similar things.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>The two men had quickly retreated from Maeve's devastated bedroom, heading across the flat roof and down the stairs.  For the first time, Dreamer could hear total silence reigning on the farm.  Even the sounds of laughter or talk from outside and below had stopped.  Somewhere, birds twittered.<br/><br/>Maeve looked up at Dreamer.  "I knew you couldn't have meant all that you said," she whispered.<br/><br/><span style="font-style: italic">Kitten nodded towards Dreamer. "Hey, uh... I think it might be a good idea to take all of the bullets out of the guns I can't keep ahold of, but I still don't know much about them. Mind showing me again?" </span><br/><br/>Silence still reigned, but it was doubtless things were going on below them.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>The sound of distant gunshots carried over the gentle wind to the place where Sherra and Feldana were crouching in the grain.  It was undoubtedly from the direction of the farm, but it was very faint and was so brief it could have been something else.  Feldana didn't seem to know how to react, despite having heard guns many times already that day.<br/><br/>-----<br/><br/>The five guards holding Bachera at bay in Crown Park were surprised as the great wolf knelt, raising his hands above his head.  In his powerful voice he growled, "I am under mind control.  Heretic is on my head.  I am no longer an enemy."  They were even more surprised when a palm-sized anthro-fox stood up, revealing himself from his place beside the wolf's ear.<br/><br/>"Five Gods!" said one of the privates.<br/><br/>"We need an officer over here!" the sergeant called.  A lieutenant, recently released from Iln's care, heard the call and came over.  After a brief exchange of words, the lieutenant called out for Colonel Merelli.<br/><br/>Raice had just emerged into the daylight again.  Iln had just finished taking Emiko into herself.  In both of their minds, something twitched.  It was that feral realization that someone, a member of one's pack, was in danger or hurt.  Iln felt it because of the years she and Merelli had spent together in their youth, and the twitch was of urgent necessity.  Raice also felt it because of the blood-kinship he now shared with Iln, but it was nothing more than a puzzling tension in the back of his head, almost tugging him back into the dark building from which he emerged.