It was the strangest week she ever had, and even in her waking moments it still felt as if she were in some sort of lucid dream.  Sliding from her bed in only a pair of white panties, Sarah greeted the early morn long before dawn was present as she went to get a shower, the raptor's room opposite of hers still occupied.  Heavy sighs would draw deep from her throat, staggering her way down the stairs with a sluggish gait, blinking eyes with bags deep beneath as she managed to make it to the bathroom without bumping into anything.
Slipping her panties off, she let the hot water rush down her smooth sleek greying body as she pressed her bulbous melon forehead against the cool tiles of the bathroom, feeling everything rush down her back slickening off the fluke of her tail.  Her left leg did not warm up as quickly as the rest of her body as she grabbed her body gel, soaping up her aging body which by all means was doing well to not wrinkle and droop like most women her age.
She appreciated it, despite the slight paunch to her midriff at the skin starting to lose its firmness as she lathered her hands slickening all over her lean legs, sturdy boxing arms and sagging C-cup breasts.  Fingers rubbed her nipples between them before she slightly lifted each mammary to coat the underneath cleanly before making her way towards the darker camel-toed spot between her legs.  A slight gasp at the sensitivity was all she gave before she finished off with her tail, pulling it around to stroke her fingers up and down along the underside hearing a knock at the door.
	"Boss, you in there?"
	"UHHH."
	"Oh, good, I made you breakfast okay?!"
	"Uhhh."
Sarah was still waking up, using all of her mental focus just to clean up before she got out the shower and wrapped a towel round herself perfectly like a robe.  She walked over to the kitchen with a smile at the eggs, bacon and sausages that greeted her.  The kitchen was a standard small rectangular room of yellow floors with all the standard appliances from the fridge in the corner to the oven halfway along the wall and the two large sinks across the room.
Jenny was sitting down opposite her at the small kitchen table next to the only bare wall with her own plate identical to Sarah's.  The doberman was just as naked as her boss with her apron hung up behind her showing the odd splatter of egg fat on it, her breasts smaller than the dolphin's at a tender B-cup as the dolphin sat down still in her towel before asking:
	"Sure you should be eatin' that?"
	"UGH, you always ask this!"
	"I'm just sayin', don't wanna get in trouble with yer mom."
	"It's not pork, it's fungus, except the egg, I'm pretty sure it's fuckin' kosher."
	"Heheheh...I know, I just love to wind you up, we got any OJ?"
	"Yeah you want any?"
She nodded as the doberman got up to the fridge and grabbed a bottle of it, taking two glasses from a cupboard to pour each of them a drink.  The two started to eat, finishing up at least half their plates before the boss asked her assistant:
	"Any new business today?"
	"Ash is wantin' to speak to you around six, Benson needs some restocking at the mart and McClane wants to compare some reports about the fires breaking out in Bridgeport, you'll meet at the usual place around seven."
	"Hmm...I see."
	"...you alright?  You seem kinda out of it."
	"Yeaaaah I just...this whole thing with James coming back is just fucking my head in."
	"I thought you'd be happy."
	"I AM but...he came straight up with me, told me he wasn't plannin' on stayin'."
	"Seriously?  Why?"
	"Found some other life apparently, some place better than this an' he doesn't wanna go wastin' it.  I mean, I can't tell him he's wrong cuz he's not but I can't help but feel-"
	"Insulted?"
Jenny knew the pride her boss had to keep as the dolphin nodded.
	"I get that he...has gone and made another life fer himself an' the way he spoke about it, he spoke like a war veteran wishin' to see his family again, it broke my heart.  But I was angry at 'im, an' I didn't want to be angry, but fuck it I was."
	"Cuz you feel like he's turning his back on everythin' you gave him?"
	"YEAH!  I know I wasn't cut to be a mother, I accepted that.  I know I fucked him up, but I also gave him some warmth an' comfort an' allowed him to see who I really was.  Problem is I got myself confused with who I wanted to be an' who I actually had to be, you know what I mean?"
	"I do.  If it's okay with you, I'd rather not get into all this, this is something goin' between you two, an' you also got to beat the shit out of him so there's that."
	"Heh...yeah that was fun, god he's really changed.  He woulda lunged at me so fierce as a kid when I could kick his ass, but he was much more skilled than I thought.  We'll have to test him."
Sarah drank up half her orange juice, gulping pleasantly before clearing her throat.
	"I'm gonna give you some missions to do with him, help him get all acquainted with the place, everything that's been changin'."
	"Gotcha," said Jenny.
	"He'll follow yer orders, he's not the punk he used to be thank god.  Not that I don't miss the li'l prick but I just wish...hhhhh...I...I jus-I dunno, sumthin' about how he came back all like big an' strong like a proper person an'-"
	"You weren't there to see it."
The doberman drunk up a small quarter of her drink to whet her lips.
	"Is it cuz you weren't there to help him, so you kinda feel like he's outgrown you?"
	"Maybe...god, how the fuck do you do that?"
	"What?"
	"Pinpoint shit like that, you didn't take psychology."
	"Family reunions.  Heh...sharp eyes an' ears give me plenty time to hear what Aunt Dolly's been drinkin' behind Uncle Harold's back."
	"They happen often back home?"
	"Used to, mom's family was always super close, very whole-knit community.  Helps we lived about three miles from a synagogue-slash-community theatre, urgh..."
Jenny pressed two fingers onto her forehead in awkward rememberance.
	"Seein' my cousin Glenn try to be Peter Pan made me wish I wasn't so aware about things."
	"Hmhahaha, awww shit.  You called her right?"
	"I did...kinda glad the Chicago thing doesn't get talked about really often, when that whole Armour Square went down holy fuck, my dad."
Facepalming with both hands gave a slight echo to her groan as Sarah smirked whilst Jenny ranted slightly.
	"He fretted, fuckin' CONSTANTLY, my mom was trying to calm him down an' I'm like 'everything is fine I'm okayyyy dad please' an' he's all like 'my hundchen my little hundchen PLEASE I'll pay for the flight!' an' I'm just like 'nnnngh daaaaad'...hhhhh..."
Despite her own embarrassment she smirked by the end of it chuckling softly.
	"It's nice to hear from them but...you know, family."
	"Yeah I know," said Sarah, "or used to...I was real close to my daddy too, not so much my mom."
	"Yeaaaah she was a real bitch wasn't she?"
	"HMHMAHA, yeah she was, at least yer mom knows how to put her priorities right."
	"Whatcha mean?"
	"You never knew?  She threatened me once."
Liebowitz almost sprayed the table across with a mouth half-full of orange juice, gasping in a sharp gulp.
	"She...WHAT?!"
	"Called me up, one time while you were out, I said you were just doing errands an' I dunno what got into her but I thought it was cute, she said 'if anything happens to my little puppy girl-"
	"Ohhhh god."
	"'I will force both of your arms up so far inside you that you'll be squeezin' eggs fer the rest of your life."
	"PFFFFFFFT...hhhhhhhhohohohohoh my god, oh my FUCKING GOD MOM I am SO sorry!"
	"HHHHhha ha ha, I just took it an' said 'trust me, that ain't gonna happen either way, yer girl is safe with me.  Hell she can handle herself better than I could' an' then we hung up."
	"I am so sorry boss I just-"
	"Heeey hey, come on now, yer not responsible fer your mother's mouth...you do enough fer me helpin' out ever since I got old an' cranky."
	"You've always been old an' cranky!"
	"That's true...but, either way I appreciate you bein' part of this."
She raised up her glass half-full towards Jenny who clinked hers against it.
	"To girl power."
	"To bein' old an' cranky!"
	"Hhhha ha...nnnnnnh god, be thankful you don't feel these aches an' pains."
	"I dunno, I think at least I got the advantage with my fur hidin' most of it."
	"The one thing you'll be thankful for at this age, is the day you stop buyin' tampons finally."
	"Tell me about it."

Jenny murmured this with a snarl under her breath as she drank more of her juice before they were finished with their breakfast.  Sarah went down to the phone room and waited for the expecting call from her contact as she checked her time.  5:40am.  Age had fucked her sleep royally to the point that night-time activities generally became hellish for her to achieve before 10pm.  Not impossible, but the number of nights she had run with less sleep were bordering on unhealthy.
She gazed upon her wall of territorial influence, smaller yet at the same time much greater a distance for how many favours she had to achieve to reach this level of control.  Things became more difficult to operate, and people disappeared every month with the odd death here and there.  She was thankful the phone rang to pull her out from her reverie.
	"Yello?"
	"It's me...wot's yer status?"
	"Welp...mom always told me that there's no monsters here so how about you?"
	"Feelin' pretty groovy thanks.  Lissen, just thought oi'd give you heads up, the nest is crawlin' with activity."
	"Yeah?  What sorta activity?"
	"Hard to say, maybe another hunt bu' oi dunno where...just be on yer toes fer usual."
	"Got it.  Haven't had a chance to tell you, we got a new member of our squad, that missin' kid from years back?  The one who used to work fer me."
	".........yeah?  Wot, just showed up outta nowhere?"
	"Yep pretty much, doin' fine an' everything, not gotten any missions fer him yet but pretty eager to help out."
	"Must be green though."
	"No actually, handled some xenos pretty well but I just wanna test him out, see if he's not scared of things in the dark, or wires at least."
	"Wouldn' moind 'aving 'im around fer the next mission, take 'im under my wing.  Be noice to see 'im again."
	"Sounds good, saves me a lot of hassle thinkin' up new things fer 'im.  He's gonna wanna be part of the big meet."
	"Well of course oi mean wouldn' blame 'im.  You told 'im abou' it yet?"
	"Not yet, just gotta see if he's up to task.  Anything else up?"
	"Nope, that's all oi got.  If they start movin' through the vents oi'll be followin' after don't you worry."
	"Alright.  McClane I'll notify later on today once he gets in, he's gonna wanna know."
	"Hopefully it's not nuthin' big, but oi'll buzz ya if anythin' pops up.  Should be gettin' sum more codes in by next month."
	"Good.  Thank you...you've been the biggest help of this entire operation."
	"Well it 'elps 'avin' sumbody actually know wot they're doin'."
	"And I don't?"
	"You done real great fer a civilian, that's all oi'll say.  Makes me glad oi'm not against you, but there's sum things that are outta yer reach...that's where oi come in."
	"Even if you're not in all this for the sake of decency completely."
	"No...but still, if oi'm gonna take a job to make the world a broighter place, moigh' as well be this one you know wot oi'm sayin'?"
	"Hehe...I'm glad to know there are people outside who actually gave a shit about us.  Thank you, again for all you're helping with.  This is Ripley, signing off."
	"Hail to the king, babe."
With the phone receiver down, Sarah shook her head chuckling as she went upstairs needing another distraction badly before walking back to her room and swiftly put on her clothes.  Shirt, camo pants and thick green jacket with sturdy loafers, she headed back towards the kitchen and saw Jenny washing up the plates still almost naked.
	"I'm gonna go check with Benson at the mart."
	"You need an escort?"
	"Nah I'm good, just gonna get my bearings fer the mornin'."
	"Watch yerself boss, there's only one of you."
	"Heh...thanks.  Hey uh, if James gets up, give 'im that mission we talked about?"
	"The channel-changing?"
	"Yeah, that's a good test fer 'im.  Later."
The bartender left her place through the side exit out onto the backlot, an old disused car park that had seen better days and was frankly unusable for vehicles.  The cracked tarmac made it look fitting for a zombie horror scene along with the bulletholes in the brickwall as she walked her way to the small mini-mart a few blocks away, keeping caution for the cameras.  She needed to check on everyone in the morning regardless as she navigated around the back streets, hearing the rushing sound of air conditioning from every corner of the city with the odd train rustling past the southeast.
She noticed the lack of police sirens in the air.  It was a sound she missed, for what replaced it was even worse.  The sound of something unofficial, unreported and nonexistent.  Making her way through to the back door of the mart where deliveries would be sent, she rapped on the metal shutter in a very specific beat that triggered somebody's attention from within as it rolled up fast.  A wiry nervous red fox in a green company jacket to whom cleanliness was like a firm pressed suit.  Only ever worn in court.
	"H-heyyyy boss."
	"Howsit goin' Charlie?  I heard Benson needed some more supplies."
	"Y-y-yeah.  Um he...he's just through here."
	"Lead the way."
The dolphin walked in up the small ramp as Charlie closed the shutter before leading her through to the offices.  The storage area of the mart simply a wide hallway for boxes to pile up in, the place barely big enough to hold perhaps 70 people squeezed in the aisles and backrooms.  But it was enough for everyone to accommodate to their needs as Sarah saw the open double doors at the other end of the storage hall that showed the interior of the Lucky-5 Mart.  Frozen food, candies, bread, milk, a veritable portion of Faux Foods specials for those lonely night dinners and plenty more in six aisles of white and yellow floors.
	"How's Dharma?" she asked Charlie.
	"G-g-good...um, th-the cyst has gone down."
	"That's good.  Yanno she should take some echinacea, I heard it's good fer the immune system."
	"B-b-but...cysts are c-caused by clogging-"
	"Or infection, I'm just sayin' she might wanna boost her immune system a little."
	"I-i-i guess...sorry...my head's not been right since-"
	"I know.  It's okay."
He nodded sombrely as he stopped at the office door, which was in a sidelining hallway before the double doors into the actual mart itself as Charlie knocked on the dull grey door.
	"Mister Benson?!  Boss is here!"
	"zend her in."
The voice from behind the door was like some sort of machine trying to perfect the nuances of English as Sarah walked in.  Behind a desk and between two filing cabinets on both sides, was a badger of black-and-white head with full black body beneath a suit that looked as if it had been coloured by his sweat.  He pressed a microphone to his throat which created a mechanical voice as he lifted his head up.
	"finally.  waz pizzin myzelf fer twenty hourz.  the fuck have you been?"
	"I actually have other things to do rather than listen to you, Benson."
	"you know thiz plaze, iz important zarah.  how the fuck do you expect me, to keep thiz fucking mart open, when i'm zcraping the bottom of a fucking freezer?"
	"You know you don't sound any more intimidating trying to pepper your fucks, why don't you talk to me like a businessman and not one of your former cronies?"
	"don't you backtalk me.  i ran bridgeport tighter than a muzlim brothel, before you fucking kicked me out."
	"You made your choice.  You have this argument with me at least once every two years, it was either work with me or be rotting out in prison.  You already rotted out your throat 'sampling' some of your produce, so I thought that was enough punishment for you."
	"you call thiz punizhment?"
Benson sneered viciously pointing at his throat.
	"if you really cared about me and what i could earn, you'd give me enough money to pay for a new larynx.  but no, you keep all that zhit to yourzelf, make bigger armz to fuck your puzzy with."
	"I would fist you in the ass with my bigger arms," threatened Sarah, "but frankly your ass is tight enough that you should be able to make diamonds everytime you shit."
	"ha.  ha.  at leazt i would get to reap zome of the benefit from thiz profit of yourz."
	"You DO reap the benefit, by actually having the choice to live here Benson and not be dead while in a prison.  We're all in this together, I tried to find you a doctor but you're the most arrogant prick-"
	"they're not good enough.  they were all human.  fucking hairlezz apez, the onez that were too ztupid to learn how to climb.  they're only good for one thing, and that'z making the world'z mozt boring paint chart out of them."
	"This from the guy who looks like a fucking road crossing."
	"fuck you.  at leazt i'm two-tone, more than a fucking ape.  fucking chrizt, i've zeen ztillbornz have more colour than them."
	"THAT'S ENOUGH!"
Without warning she lunged for him by a vicious strike across the face, grabbing him by the shoulder to slam him down against the desk.
	"You can blame humans all you want for your problems but you're still an asshole.  You are however an asshole that knows how to run a business, and that is why I have you up here handling this mart, HELPING the people and actually making this city BETTER unlike you who fucking poisoned it with drugs.  I could have let you rot away in the fucking sewer where frankly no one would ever bother finding you and if they did they would mistake you for a shitty handbag after I was done with you."
	"do you think i'm afraid of you?  i made grown people cry and beat at their own zadow until they broke their fiztz."
	"That's pathetic."
	"i do it better than you.  becauze if you were better than me, i wouldn't need another reztock of faux foodz, baby productz and zoft drinkz."
	"...you know."
She pulled out her handgun from the holster within her jacket, pressing it inside the left ear of the badger.
	"You can ask me to get you stuff WITHOUT having to insult me like I'm your disappointing son."
	"don't you...fucking talk about my zon, you barren bitch."
	"You sound way less intimidating than most people without a voice."
	"i ztill have handz to choke you with."
	"Why, because yer jealous of my voice?"
The dolphin shoved him hard onto the floor and pointed the revolver down between Benson's stumbling legs, portly as he was and still she managed to miss intentionally with a cracking bang that deafened him.  A small hole was smoking four inches beneath his crotch as he stopped moving to stare at her.
	"Ask me.  Politely."
The mustelid jammed his microphone so tightly against his throat he almost suffocated in order to try and enunciate every word.
	"you can't kill me.  you zaid it yourzelf."
	"I said you were useful, not irrepleaceable, I know plenty of other people that can do this money managing job and they won't be as good as you...but they will be obedient."
Before he could even react, she rushed him with a sudden kick to the face, slamming his neck against the wall with one foot whilst the other stomped fiercely onto his arm to trap him as he struggled to breathe.  He was thankful she wasn't wearing boots but hearing her rotate the chamber of revolver with five clicks made him briefly reconsider.
	"I just realised, you don't actually need ALL your fingers for this job, an' my bullets could proooobably take just one off if I'm good.  But it's going to be two most likely."
	"the fuck are you doing?  what iz thiz fucking yakuza bullzhit you trying to pull on me?"
	"It's called learning to RESPECT who owns you now, and I gave you a chance to be a legitimate businessman.  But if you wanna piss away that chance after I brought you in six years ago, then fine, I got plenty more."
	"don't do it!"
She stepped off from him with a turn-and-point, smiling as she pulled the trigger directly for his head.  He ducked with silent screams harshly whispering from his ruined throat, his mic dropping in fear as he cowered onto the floor.  Click.  Nothing fired.  Benson looked up wondering if deafness had already taken him.
	"See?  That's why you don't rule Bridgeport anymore."
Sarah shook her head with disappointment.
	"Can't even remember I already shot once, I got an empty chamber I rolled it back to, but the other five chambers..."
She pressed on the trigger as the chambers turned, hammer clicking back slowly like a timer on a bomb.
	"Those are allll waiting fer you so let's bring out contestant number two and-"
	"wait!  ztoooop!"
He scrabbled pathetically for his mic as he screamed in monotone panic.
	"alright, alright i'll fucking can it, don't zhoot me!  f-f-fuck...fuck zake."
	"There.  Now, was that so hard?"
The mob leader gently removed her finger from the trigger without incident.
	"We coulda done this without you losin' anymore dignity, now ask politely."
	"c-can i...can i have zome faux foodz, baby productz and zoft drinkz pleaze for our next zhipment?"
	"Yes, you may, I'll send the order out and it'll arrive about a week."
	"okay.  now, leave.  pleaze."
The ruler of Canaryville strode out from the office where Charlie was just seen beside the door listening in with fretful panic, nodding respectfully to Ms. King as she left back out through the back door pulling the shutters open.  One business down, four more to check before she returned home.  Rain started coming down as she put up her coat and walked into the misty dark of dawn in Chicago.

7am was fast approaching as Sarah walked out towards the usual place to meet with the one known as "McClane".  An old bus stop no longer used on an even more desolate route, a road long since abandoned by the world that had gone and disappeared into the ground by a small dip beneath some buildings by structural displacement.  It was a place used only by the unsavoury or desperate to reach another place as Sarah sat upon the bench waiting.  She had not long to wait.
	"Good morning."
The voice of a deep methodical male came from her right, the dolphin not even turning as someone sat next to her.  A beastly lumbering giant that towered over her at a height of 6'8'' wearing a brown coat and his face obscured by a dark blue balaclava.  He wore thick and heavy boots clumping the ground with gentle thuds tapping as he was glad the discreet meeting place had some protection from the weather asking:
	"Sleep well?"
	"Yeah.  You?"
	"Well enough.  Fires have been unsolveable, but we know it's them."
	"They're good at cleaning evidence when they wanna make something a warzone."
	"Hm, like any good dictator.  Is the plan still in effect?"
	"Yep, three months from now, just need to time the cycle right on their security, Ash has got everything set to check on their rotations."
	"Good.  I heard someone was spotted near your bar, a saurian.  I thought they had all disappeared."
	"They did.  But this one came back, James Campbell."
The beast turned his head towards her with slowly softening shock, his lips pursed in surprise at hearing this.
	"...the...your assistant?"
	"Yes."
	"What...after this many years-"
	"Don't."
She rubbed her head with a heavy sigh.
	"I'm...still struggling to take that in myself, but yes, he had a very long journey and it's hard to explain but he...came back."
	"I see.  Was he...involved in any-"
	"No.  I made certain of that, he was never a part of my operations when he was in my care."
	"Hmm...any reason?"
	"He was too green, too young, too eager an' boastful, you saw how he was in prison for one month, you really think that kid wuz gonna be any good to me runnin' dark?"
	"No.  I knew he was troublesome but I never expected you to keep him out of your games."
	"They're not games Thomas.  Games normally don't end up with dead people."
	"My son would argue with that and how many hours he's clocked on Interplanet Strife."
	"Is he STILL playing that?"
The two chuckled to themselves shaking their heads like old fogeys, sighing briefly together as Thomas looked towards the sky.  Nothing was starting to clear up with another day of rain upon them.
	"Ash gave me a heads up," said Sarah calmly, "the nest is getting rather antsy fer somethin'."
	"Really?"
	"Said we better watch out fer any big movements in the next couple of weeks, might have another field exercise."
	"Be impossible to do anything without knowing its location."
	"I know...just be ready."
	"My men are always ready at a moment's notice.  I didn't come just to talk about fires."
He pressed his hands firmly between his legs.
	"I came to reconfirm our...arrangement."
	"Really?  Why?"
	"Because I need to make certain that we are on the same level, miss King.  It won't be something I will ignore after all this is said and done, I cannot ignore what you show yourself to be truly.  You are still a criminal, and one I must confess has been insulting me the way you have worn your mask every year since I have been a part of this city."
	"I know, that's why I trusted you with it.  I'm not looking for any backalley deals, I'm not looking for redemption.  I needed you.  And I'm willing to put myself in the firing line for this because somebody has to."
	"I agree.  If this plan succeeds...and we manage to deal with them, you will have to be dealt with in time but I will see if I cannot waiver some sort of sentence reduction for all your work in-"
	"Not gonna happen."
The dolphin turned glumly towards the unknown visitor.
	"You know as well as I do that this entire operation is going to be illegal as hell, an' the only reason we're not gonna get arrested for it is because nobody wants to execute the heroes."
	"My people are covered by a clause of self-defence according to this scheme...yours however are not."
	"They are, by me, so long as you stick to your deal Thomas.  After all of this is done, you take me in, leave my gang and accept ME as the one instigator.  Everything they have ever done, every murder, every GTA, you take me in fer it alone.  Promise me."
	"I promise on my solemn word...miss King."
The two nodded with respect before looking back towards the withering sky, sighing cautiously.  A few minutes passed simply taking in the cool Chicago rain with barest of poisonous hues within as Sarah could not help but quip:
	"You'll still wear the outfit right?"
	"Of course, I agreed to.  You have your duties to this city and I have mine so long as that bar is still there and the christmas party too."
	"I gave instructions to my assistant.  She'll be good, and she's clean too so don't you worry."
	"Am I supposed to take your word for it?"
	"It's the only word you have.  Regardless of what I did, I never considered you beneath me, I have always respected you.  I know what I did was not good.  I know that there's only one way you an' me are gonna end this partnership.  And that's okay with me, because you are just doing your job."
	"Hmhmhm...I must admit you are the most agreeable criminal I've ever met."
	"I'm not JUST a criminal, I'm the head of the neighbourhood watch."
	"And I can see why," said Thomas, "finally."
	"Hmph...makes a change from some old biddy in the suburbs offerin' cookies fulla dope right?"
	"I was young and foolish, thank Karenn I wasn't suspended for that."
	"We all done stupid shit," replied Sarah, "like this, what we're doing now."
	"Hmmmm yes...hhhmhmhm, we must be getting old to turn like this."
	"Speak for yourself, you don't got any wrinkles on you."
	"If I weren't a married man I would show you where they were."
	"Hohohohhhh that's something I wanted to hear from Mister November 3514!"
The mysterious stranger bit his lip and struggled not to speak or show embarrassment, but clearly had a guilty sense of enjoying such rememberance from long past.  They talked for a good while in reminiscence of olden days back when Chicago was a brighter existence, though not even by much.

Waking up once again in his home city was a stranger feeling than the first night he slept.  The sound of rain was his alarm call as it pounded fiercely upon the window to his room, a singular square cross-fit that gave the view of the skyscrapers studded along the east point, bristling teeth of rotting black against the great waters of Lake Michigan stretching out over the paling cloud horizon.  His eyes felt heavy, feeling the atmosphere and the unclean air weigh heftily down upon him much more than any other place he had been to.
It was the first time he noticed it truly, that most if not all of the worlds he had been to had cleaner air than this, better peaceful existences which only further strengthened his decision to leave once this was all over.  The day after Sarah's initiation ritual by means of a gas station beatdown, he nursed his bruises in bed until he was ready to perform his first duties as an official member of the Fishnet.  What was unexpected was that it wasn't Sarah who woke him up.
	"Rise an' shine big boy, time's a-wasting."
He blinked slowly as he turned his head towards the open doorway, his eye casting across his posters which were much more dated than he ever could imagine to the point of being beyond ironic.  Jenny stood in the doorway wearing only a pair of sweet blue panties as James cocked his head, her breasts a smooth-furred B-cup in chocolate brown and caramel bronze colouring as he asked:
	"Do people just forget bras exist, or is there like a shortage on lingerie?"
	"What you didn't hear about the Brapocalypse?"
	"What?"
	"Pfffft I'm just joshin' ya, I never wear a bra, never found a good fit."
	"...ehh, fair enough."
Slipping out from his bed as he pulled the covers off from his body he realised he was naked and nearly covered himself up before remembering where he was.  He grabbed his jeans from their place on top of the dresser nearby, slipping on the heart-patterned boxers first with Jenny wolf-whistling at him whilst leaning against the door.
	"Niiiice pair, that's real romantic."
	"Heh, they were on sale."
	"Love don't have a price except on February.  I never got a chance to say hi properly so, Jenny Liebowitz."
She offered her hand after which James shook in return once he put his jeans on.
	"James Campbell.  So uh Sarah told me you were second-in-command right?"
	"Yep, sure am so if you need anything an' the boss is not around just holler out for me."
	"Right.  You uh, need me for something?"
	"Sure do, boss has got some orders for ya to help familiarise yourself with the city layout.  Walk with me, it's gonna be rainy outside soooo you might wanna wear a coat."
	"Got a spare?"
	"I do, come on."
Jenny walked away revealing a white glistening ink tattoo on her back which ran across the length of her shoulders saying "HEUT IST MEIN TAG".  James followed up behind downstairs as she handed him a thick dark-blue hooded windbreaker.  It was thin so it was not uncomfortable as he felt the waterproof lining with Jenny grabbing her own, as well as taking with her a small toolbox.
	"You up for some DIY?"
	"Um...maybe, depends on what?"
	"You'll see once we get there."
	"Hey um, what's with that tattoo by the way?"
	"Huh?" asked Jenny.
	"That whole thing on your back."
	"Oh!  Yeah it means 'This Is My Day', it's German.  Makes me feel good everytime I see it in the mirror when I walk out."
	"Um...wouldn't it be reversed?"
	"Yeaaaaah I didn't think that through, but it's there so...hehe, I still like it."
	"You know German or...?"
	"My dad taught me, said it was important to keep the family tongue."
	"Whysat?" asked FG.
	"Heheh...cuz I'm a descendant of one of the original anthros, back in the beginning of it all?  You remember, the whole story?"
	"Ummmmm...the first anthros that came from a lab deep in...Iceland?"
	"Yeah thassit, and you remember the scientist that started the whole thing, Dr. Karennian?  As in, Karenniology?"
	"OHHHHHH riiiiight tha-wait, so you're a Karenniologist?"
	"Nah I'm Jewish.  Well, kinda, see my mom an' dad made a deal to go halfsies on my upbringing, I learn the religion from my mother, my father taught me the history of the anthros.  So to keep both families happy, and since I'm descended from the original canine an' his first language was German, cuz the doctor was German too, we have to honour it an' keep the language going in my family.  It's kinda just to respect the fact of where we came from and to remember the original tongue of our creator...soooo I GUESS that's a little Karenniologist in me too."
	"So is your dad German?"
	"Nah he's American, mom is too, actually it's all been American for the last three hundred years maybe?  Before that I think we were Canadian, I sorta traced my family tree back to around Ottawa an' things crisscross from there."
	"You find a lot of use for German out here?"
	"Nope...not really but hey, you never know when a second language might be useful."
	"Heheh, yeah I guess that could come in handy when ordering some good beer for starters."
She suddenly blinked at him as if he started growing a second head, startled but smiling before replying with a slight accent replacing her American.
	"HAH, hoho-wow!"
	"Huh?"
	"Damn you're full of surprises aren't you?!  You pick up some German on your travels because your accent is pretty good!"
	"What do you mean I ju-...oh...hhheheh yeah um, I did a few years in Germany whilst I was out disappearing across the world."
	"You sound just like a Bavarian."
	"I hope that's a good thing."
	"Hahaha, ehhhh maybe!  Alright, seriously back to English."
	"Right thanks."
This translator trips me up sometimes, thought FG.
	"You're getting your first mission with me," said Jenny firmly, "you have to learn about all the new shit that's popped up in this city since you've been gone."
	"Right, got it."
	"Before we get out there I need to make sure you know the big two rules.  Firstly, all activities and operations no matter how small must be cleared by either me or Sarah.  Secondly, all wireless technology is prohibited within our sector."
	"Cuz 'the Armee' can trace it?"
	"Yes.  No one here's rich enough to earn a cellphone or even have a videophone so instead we all got these old landline telephones they used in the past.  Nobody bothers hacking into them cuz why the hell would you wanna tap in on the poor people?"
	"So you can jerk off on their tears?"
	"Pffffft...ohhhh I like you."
Jenny swung her arm around him with a devilish grin.
	"You know where it counts.  But yeah, basically we keep this whole thing locked down so nobody uses wireless except the A.R.M.E in this area.  The only ones who come round here are either patrol routes or anyone practicing their routine training by orchestrating any 'potential incidents'."
Fingerquotes were used with utmost severity as James nodded understanding.
	"And what sort of incidents do they use to achieve their quota?"
	"The odd drug placement really, it's easy to plant a bag on somebody, hell I done it even."
	"Really?"
	"Yeaaah just old routine, we had some guy who was pushing some serious nasty stuff on our streets so we planted some of his own produce on him when he got found.  Police had a nice day fer that."
	"Those guards from the night before," asked FG, "do those sort of raids happen often?"
	"Not as much as you think," said Jenny firmly, "but it's easy to have them go 'missing' thanks to our friends in the plumbing industry.  The van they brought out fer transport when they tried to raid us, we also took that too to repurpose into spare parts."
	"Doesn't 'the Armee' just call out more dudes to come down and find who's missing?"
	"Nope, cuz all of this is secret, they can't actually report any of this because all of their rotas are secret.  When there's no body, no proof, an' having their own rotas so tightly guarded, it's sort of impossible to make appeals and give details without revealing their movements.  If they had to report publicly on anyone's disappearance, they'd have to explain how an' why an' if they brought more people down well, there's some stuff even the rich people can't ignore.  So it's all clandestine."
	"What's that mean?"
	"You know, secret."
	"Right.  I mean Sarah told me about the Armor Square happening."
	"Yeah, that...that took six months fer 'the Armee to cover up an' just wait fer social media to all just peter out of existence from it, I mean it's still OUT there on the net but yanno, news passes, other tragedies happen, you can't focus on one thing."
	"Gotcha."
	"Okay let's go."
Heading out into the rain-slick morning of Chicago, James found himself not more than twenty minutes later on the long-exposed roofs of the city's South Side, around 7:15am.  It wasn't the rain that would disturb him most so much as the wind buffeting him across the face in small whistling slaps, his body mostly protected by the windbreaker streaking off in thick lines from every pounding miniature gust.  Jenny stood before him stretching out her arms as if about to run the marathon with sport shoes in jet black.
	"Nice mornin' huh?!"
	"I've seen worse!" said FG above the wind.  "Not like a desert storm I faced once."
	"Well I hope you can keep up!  Just follow me an' I'll show you all you the places to look out for!"
The doberman ran across the roof, a solid near-square blacktop with only one exit in the form of a door to his left in a rectangular jutting.  Occasionally he saw pipes and air conditioning fans guarded over as he raced towards her watching Jenny leap across the small distance between roofs.  This was going to be easy for him and his superior agility, at least that's what he thought.  The rain only made it more interesting a challenge to hop over the small flights of byways and narrow streets down below between buildings, but his claws kept a good grip across the rooftops.
Heading along the row of buildings that lined South Halsted Street, Jenny stopped to point out the occasional CCTV camera in the area down beneath, forcing James to remember the exact street and location point that they were at.  She would repeat this procedure for the next seventeen places that they would stop at, focusing mainly around Canaryville itself as James did everything he could to memorise the right places whilst jumping over the widening gaps.  At one point they had to jump towards a lower building forcing them to roll fiercely to diffuse their landing and not damage their legs.
Thunder was on the horizon, dull but trembling as a distant sound that lit up the sky briefly.  But it was enough to bring the sense of despairing pressure heavy upon the city as the two raced across the roofs.  The sound of feet and shoes slapping wetly across the firm blacktop in sequence, occasionally stopped by a jump between before slapping down even more harshly upon the next building.  James had missed doing this, having had little opportunity to do real parkour for many years as Jenny kept encouraging him onwards until they reached two miles away from the bar in a northwesterly direction.
Cutting along West Exchange Street, they soon reached South Racine Avenue where they headed north until stopping at the intersection with West 35th Street before them.  The South Fork Chicago River spanned the length of the land to their left as they took a break, panting slightly despite the wind billowing strongly by raw gusts that made them stagger slightly as Jenny kept smiling with James next to her.
	"Been a while huh old timer?!"
	"What you mean old?!  I'm not THAT much older, how old are you?!"
	"Thirty-four...you?"
	"Thirty-six...apparently, I mean if...that's two years I was off when I was thinking, that means...wait......fuck."
	"What?"
	"That means Koopin's like SIX years younger than me, hah...wow, he's gonna love hearing this."
	"Whosat?"
	"Boyfriend."
	"Oh, cool, so uh...right hold up, we gotta problem here."
	"Hmm?"
	"Look over there."

She pointed out towards a lone figure in full black around three rooftops away.  The well-armoured person had a much more technological outwards appearance than other members of the judicial squad that James had seen, this one almost resembling a robotic shell of a human being that glistened in the soft rain.  Steel limbs and black helmet gave a smooth intimidating appearance as he stood watching like a gargoyle across the land.
	"Signallers," explained Jenny.  "They're like living antennas for 'the Armee', watchin' out fer people."
	"Living antennas?"
	"They're like seventy-percent machine, got all replaced, mostly just people that barely survive gettin' blown to pieces an' manage to survive with at least a head an' body."
	"So it's basically a cyborg?"
	"Yeah, 'cept um, he's keepin' an eye out on the streets fer any suspicious people, which I guess means anyone not bein' poor an' filthy."
	"Or anyone that's scaly."
	"Right," said the doberman, "yer wanted, so you gotta lay low an' keep out of sight, cuz if they see one whiff of you, yer gonna find out where every other reptile went to before they do what they want with you."
	"So do we kill him?"
	"Fuck no, that guy's nasty, he's made outta steel an' he got signals hittin' back towards the main office.  If we try to fight him well, that's like walkin' into a police station with yer guns out an' they're all wearing SWAT armor, not a bright move."
	"Right."
	"Plus they can hit HARD, the last guy I saw fight one of those went into a coma.  Two years ago.  He died ten months ago, complications."
	"Fuck.  So what's he doing here?"
	"Mainly his reason for bein' there is to amplify the signals of the CCTV by using the tech in his body, which is why we gotta break the signal an' not the signaller."
	"I don't quite get what you mean."
	"Just follow me."
Taking caution, Jenny went down towards a fire escape out of sight in the backlots of a dreadful little neighbourhood, the barren weeds of its little garden enclosed by three apartment blocks of filth-coloured brown.  The two ducked inside an old abandoned room with not even a stained mattress to call it a home to be in as Liebowitz began to sneak through the old corridors.  Peeling white studded with the decrepit beneath the worn enamel, James followed her through the small unwelcome halls of former residences showint at least four doors people had once lived in.
Eventually they navigated towards the basement of the place, heading down the rotting stairways into the dark and dampest part of the entire building block.  Despite the initial hallway into the most filth-entrenched hovel, the biggest room of the subterrane was kept surprisingly clean from any mildew that would threaten the large humming generator that stood before them as James asked:
	"What's this?"
	"Generator," said Jenny, "The signallers got a wifi connector they need to place on the CCTV's generator, so they can sync up each other's signals.  We take out the wifi, we disrupt them for a bit."
	"Do we just rip it off?"
	"No, cuz if they see it's been vandalised, they'll bring out more friends and even fortify the generator to make it impossible to break into."
	"So why not just break the generator itself?"
	"Because this generator is not JUST for CCTV, they're siphoning power off from it, the generator is connected to other parts of the streets, houses, lighting an' so forth."
	"Damn, sneaky...soooo where-"
	"You see that white stick?"
She pointed towards a rather clean-looking white module the size of a rifle fitted into the side of the generator which was usually hidden from view.
	"That's the wifi, they got it all attached and we COULD break it but they'll just replace it with a better one and also put security up here soooo I got an idea.  There's a pawn shop about nine streets back the way we came, I want you to get me three CRT televisions and a bag of mortar.  You have to go through the streets and remember where all the cameras are."
	"Can I not just go over the roofs?"
	"Do you REALLY wanna jump between roofs carrying old TVs, do you know how heavy those things are?"
	"Oh come on they're just flat boards with wireless stuff in-"
	"Not these ones," said the doberman, "they're OLD, like super old, we are talking about stuff chockful of bad power supplies.  Now you head over to Skliva's over down south on the corner of South Morgan and West 43rd, take those TVs an' DON'T drop them, you got it?"
	"South Morgan and West 43rd, got it."
	"If you have to make a few trips then do it, cuz it's more important you get here safe, then you get here fast an' watch out for vultures.  Yer a high-priority target so..."
	"Okay, I'm on it."
He headed back out into the rain as he navigated through the streets, keeping a careful eye out for any CCTV that were hidden in the alleways and walls of the buildings he had passed overhead.  The different perspective made things difficult as he headed back south, keeping in mind the address in his head whilst dodging through the narrow passages.  He also had to beware of noise since the CCTV also had audio receptors, essentially acting as full-on one-way videophones as the raptor latched onto walls before kicking swiftly off and above piles of trash heaps, moulded mattresses and crumbling boxes.
With patience he managed to remember every camera on the way back, ducking underneath or watching where they turned before briskly moving outside their movement just in time for almost none of them were exposed in broad daylight.  All of them were either in permanent shade so they were impossible to see until up close and too late, or hidden within the actual architecture as nothing more than a rotating lens attached to a solar battery, to offer a simple but effective wireless feed operating on a higher bandwidth beyond most conventional electronics.
James soon found the pawnshop at the corner as indicated, dodging his way in to find a smouldering black-haired chimpanzee wearing only cargo shorts surrounded by worthless junk.  The double doors behind him kept the rain and wind dull from his hearing as he stepped into the warmth of the hanging light, the owner sitting behind a barricaded window with six shelves full of ancient technology.
	"Uh, hello?"
	"Ahhhh...right on schedule."
The primate slowly sat up, currently in the middle of reading a book.
	"I was just enjoying the hopeful opportunity for some teen-appropriate murder."
	"Huh?"
	"The book."
He showed his book which was entitled "Point Horror: The Baby-Sitter" before stretching his arms out.
	"You here for the TVs?"
	"Yeah, I need three CRTs and a bag of mortar."
	"I gotcha covered."
Slowly he leaned back to press a button on the wall behind him, which seemed to do nothing except send a panicked sound from the other side of the wall before a human came bursting through the back door.  Young brunette hair and blue eyes from his sandy skin, the boy was perhaps just barely in his 20s in white shirt and black shorts as the chimpanzee began making very specific gestures with his hands precisely.  The human signed back to him in turn with a nod and went back into the room before returning with one old clunky blockheaded TV that James had not seen since Sarah's movies.
	"There ya go," said Skliva, "my boy's grabbin' the second one for ya, yer boss already paid."
	"That...is a dumb TV," replied FG.
	"It's CRT, what you expect, this shit's ancient.  All wires an' ready to leak its power supply onto your signals.  Now uh let me just get that wrapped for ya."
	"Okay."
	"Hhheheheheh."
	"...what?"
	"I didn' think Sarah was bein' real with me, but...here you are.  The last reptile in this city."
	"Yeah that's...not really good to hear, could we maybe NOT talk about that so much?"
	"Alrigh', sorry just...you be careful now.  Come on back fer the rest, I'll be here."
Soon James was back outside on the streets with one old TV wrapped in tarp, the other having to wait back at the shop for being quite awkward to carry as he navigated back along to where Jenny was waiting.  Placing down the first TV without being caught, he saw that Liebowitz was currently pulling out the bricks of the wall behind the generator, carefully to not make any noise as she weakened the mortar.
When he retrieved the second old TV, she had finished making a hole in the wall as her toolbox revealed several screwdrivers, a mortar hook, a hand drill, a trowel, a hammer, pliers and a wire cutter along with safety goggles she now wore.  By the time he had also retrieved the third TV and the bag of mortar, she had made a mess of the basement with three new holes to the left, right and behind the generator with her arms covered in flakes of brick dust.
	"Alright, hand me the first one."
	"What exactly are you doing?"
	"Old devices like these fuck up signals causin' interference.  An ol' thing like this'll knock out every camera in a two-mile-radius, so it's like having yer own EMP constantly screwin' with the wifi.  So if I just put three of 'em in the same room-"
	"You fuck with their signal without damaging the beacon."
	"Riiiiight, but they won't know just WHAT is causin' the signal so they'll think it's the beacon havin' problems, so they'll take it away an' get it replaced, but it STILL won't work cuz of the TVs I'll be buryin' in the walls."
	"Won't they hear them?" asked FG.  "And why three?"
	"Not if I removed the speakers which Skliva already did.  Also if it was one, they'd pinpoint the right wall an' find out someone was causin' trouble, so if I put three then all the signals bounce off of each other an' make it impossible."
	"Huh...wow, Sarah was not kidding about this low-tech."
	"Just keep an eye out for any guards an' warn me if anybody comes."
He nodded and went straight to the entrance of the basement to keep watch as Jenny worked.  Setting the batteries on a timer to activate, she punctured the power supplies of the televisions to leak after placing each and every one in the different holes of the room.  She swiftly sealed up the walls once again with the mortar paste and trowel putting the bricks back in place, making sure that nothing stood out of place or looked recent in their reconstruction.  Once she was done she grabbed all her tools and called out to James:
	"HEY, take the bag we're leaving!"
	"Alrighty, we're clear!"
Dashing straight out after grabbing their things, they left the old apartment blocks via the streets and waited for the moment when everything would come to fruition.  Jenny motioned with her fingers the countdown to success and soon there came a metallic screech from the rooftops.
	"G-GA-A-A-AAAAAAARGH!"
Both of them grinned with a feverish excitement at the sound of the "living antenna" struggling to deal with the problem they made as the human cried out:
	"CONTROL!  S-S-S-SYSTEM!  U-UPSILON SECTOR, INTERFERENCE!  GOD JESUS MAKE IT STOP!"
The sad silhouette of a cyborg bashing his own head to try and pull off his helmet before stumbling his way down into the stairwell to try and make sense of what was happening.  He barely managed to get halfway down before passing out from sheer sensory overload as Jenny cackled sadistically.
	"Hhmha ha HA!  Alright, we're done here, I think we can call that a success."
	"Is he...gonna be dead or somethi-"
	"Naaaah he'll live, it's just like bein' trapped in a roomful of airhorns for about thirty minutes never stoppin'...except they're all going directly inside his head."
	"Jeez...hah, that's pretty rough."
	"Small price to pay to make this whoooole area completely free of vultures, now that the CCTV's down for a good few days we might as well just walk home."
	"Or yanno...run just to get out of the rain."
The doberman grinned at him with a chuckle as she boldly walked out into the middle of the street.
	"Betcha can't get back to the bar before me."
	"Awww that's not fair you're younger than me."
	"You handled the rooftops pretty well.  Buuuut if yer that worried about it I'll slow down a li'l-h-hey HEY!  YOU FUCKIN' CHEAT!"

He ran off just as she was starting to reconsider as she cackled with mocking outrage.  She chased after him through the early morning streets as businesses were just setting up their opening times for new people to come in as they smiled and waved at FG and Jenny.  The word was soon spread that the cameras were off for a good while as slowly the citizens began to relax with some small sense of freedom knowing by the brief carefree joy of a reptilian running down the streets with the Fishnet leader's second-in-command in a race back to the tavern.
The further he ran the more happy he became briefly, simply letting all his worries drift to behind him in the bracing wind and searing rain across his cheeks.  The doberman was coming up behind him doggedly with pounding feet as they rushed straight home to Sarah's place, the sudden sense of freedom as the oppressive state was blinded, the children of a classroom without its teacher as they ended right back at the small dead-end street.
Gasping harshly as they staggered against the bar's rear entrance, they piled in after checking to see no one was watching truly before they flopped down onto the sofa, whipping off their raincoats with Jenny panting:
	"HOOOOH!  Ohhh man...good JOB there Rex."
	"Heheh, thanks...hhhh...didn't know you knew how to take apart walls."
	"Just...gotta read up at the library...hhhhh...n-not that the library's there anymore, we got our own."
	"They got rid of the library?"
	"Gotta...get rid of knowledge so the public can't use it."
	"Fuck...so where's this library now?"
	"Sanderson's, two blocks from here, he kept all the books before they 'relocated' it.  Sarah's not back so I guess we can kill some time, nice to finally see the prodigal son return, I remember when you left."
	"Wait...you did?"
The raptor turned his head towards her.
	"You were here back then?"
	"Yeah, you don't remember?!" cried Jenny.  "I just started around the time you left."
	"Huh...yeah I don't...sorry, I was just all messed up."
	"Heheh, it's alright.  Last thing I remember of you was walkin' in naked as fuck, you told yer story about gettin' picked up an' then Sarah took you back to hear the whole thing."
	"I remember that...god, I feel ancient."
	"You should say that in front of Sarah, I'm sure she'll appreciate it."
	"Already did."
The voice of Sarah came from downstairs as the sound of footsteps came slowly up from the basement.  The dolphin leaned against the door smiling with long toothy snout.
	"How'd it go?"
	"Success," said Jenny, "Operation Change The Channel went down perfect, we knocked out their signaller."
	"You sure it won't be found out?"
	"I covered up the mortar, Rex here got back an' forth with all the tools and not even trip a single vulture out."
	"Good.  Good good, glad to hear it all went without a hitch.  You two should shower, wanna get all that sweat off you."
	"What together?" asked FG.  "Sorry but I'm taken."
	"And I just met him," said the doberman, "I don't show my tits the first date."
	"You showed them to me when I woke up."
	"That wasn't a date!"
	"What, so showers are dates?  Where do YOU go to pick up guys, the swimming pool?"
	"Firstly, men never look good in a pair of speedos and secondly I hate getting my fur wet cuz some people don't like the smell of a wet dog."
	"So is that a yes?"
	"No!"
	"Alright cool it," said the boss, "christ you really are like kids to me."
	"Bullshit," said FG, "you never paid me for college."
	"You didn't even finish high school don't you fuckin' sass me on your education."
	"Okay, you never paid me for high school."
	"No wonder you work in a bar," said Jenny cackling.
	"You work here too," said Sarah.
	"Yeah but I'm a student so I'm doing this ironically to be part of the working masses.  Look at me I took a lit class, hashtag triggered!"
	"What does that MEAN?" asked FG.
Both women turned their head towards the raptor before Jenny shook her head.
	"Oh...hhmhmhmhmy god look at this maven here."
	"Even I know what that means," said Sarah.
	"I knew he was old but-"
	"Hey-ey-ey don't you 'old' me!" cried James.  "I can kick your ass!"
	"Then the boss'll kick your ass for ya."
	"I already kicked her ass I'll kick all your asses!  I'll kick my own ass if I have to!"
	"THAT I would like to see."
Sarah chuckled with a genuine smirk, seeing her two most trusted people getting along well moreso than she expected.  The raptor let Jenny go first into the shower as he waited on the sofa to relax a little, taking in the new updates on TV concerning the world media.  It only took ten minutes before she was done and so he managed to wash up before Sarah needed him as she gave him his next assignment.
Since Sarah's fight to test him, he spent three days obeying orders during which she had sent him out to do various duties of much greater importance than he used to.  No more was he the bartender's assistant, but now he was engaging in the true criminal element of running between people, organising events and introducing himself to the locals.  Most of them knew who he was still despite the length of time and they also reconfirmed that he was perhaps the last reptilian person in Chicago left.
The very fact sent his heartrate up to a permanent curve of a few beats per minute as there came that constant everloving fear of being found and caught, one he had felt briefly in his journey but never as much as this.  James learnt all the rules now rewritten in the wake of the A.R.M.E's control over Chicago through a constant state of secret martial law.  He learnt to memorise where every hidden CCTV camera was, began to watch out for curfew instinctively without ever needing a watch, used the byways and alleyways as well as roofs to hide and keep track of guard movements.
Thankfully it was easy to know who was friend or foe, 'the Armee' never utilising any rogue traitors due to becoming so secure in their technological providence to not need any such ground tactics.  Anyone not of the judicial squads were usually friends, but not all were of the Fishnet.  Some were ordinary civilians or staunch police struggling to keep the old guard strong.  But even the police station was seeing better days with a lack of refurbishment and in greater poverty with the rest of Chicago's central sector.
The further south and west one went, the greater the desolation of urban destitute, with only three colours to ever see whilst the long north and east showed the greater empire of the last struggling companies amongst the windy city.  The I-90 served as an essential dividing line between the rich and poor, but even that was a stretch.  Only four businesses were considered wealthy, one of them being of course the Advanced Research Militaristic Enterprises themselves based around Madison Street.  James occasionally saw the hovercars on the other side of the city, bringing even more a stark difference between both sides.
They never flew high into the air for they were not capable of actual jet-powered flight.  Instead they floated along the road via some form of magnetic repulsion that forced the entire vehicle constantly away from the ground as a safer means to travel, according to some statistics.  Not that James understood how but the very privilege of owning one was a mark of class and sleekness, with everyone else having to ground themselves with wheels.  He started to realise just then how incredibly shit his world was in literally everything.  Even the technology was schizophrenic and out of date.
He began to miss the Citadel with its perfect space advancement, he began to miss Ivalice for its refined intrinsic magical prowess, and most especially he missed the Mushroom Kingdom for every single thing.  He did all he could to shake his head free of happy far-off places as it started to turn into a week later after his return.  During this time he had performed several missions for her involving subterfuge and breakage of signals, along with the execution and exposure of any patrol units moving out of their usual paths to infiltrate the South Side in secret.
He also showed his abilities to Sarah in secret to demonstrate what he could do with sculptings of ice, fire, wind and water as well as some other skills such as his arm-cannon and the oddly-specific means of creating ammunition.  Unfortunately, he could not make ammo for every kind of weapon and what he could create was in fact largely useless to the mobster.  But she could not help feeling rather impressed if not estranged by his skills as she lead him down into the basement one desolate muddy Tuesday, with Sarah saying to him:
	"Yer gettin' good at your stealth infiltration techniques."
	"I never was much for stealth," replied FG, "but I can kill pretty quickly."
	"Heheh...I can tell from all the blastin' you do with yer weird cannon-arm stuff."
	"It's hard to break through their armour, plus my scissors tend to go pretty badly in tight narrow spaces."
	"It works out either way, you were good muscle on those channel changing jobs."
	"Really?  I wasn't expecting to do some masonry work and hauling TVs all over the streets."
	"Still important, that sets 'the Armee' back by a week, maybe two if they have to recalibrate the wifi's bandwidth setting.  You saw how everybody was a little happier right?"
	"Yeah...heh, it's weird.  I was expecting a lot more charging and shooting and killing but uh, this has all been pretty low-key.  I like it, shows there's a lot more you're doing besides your mob routine."
	"This is my mob routine.  I just don't have to shoot as much as I used to."
	"Like when you fired at me?"
	"Yes."
She smiled shaking her head towards him with a soft little chuckle.
	"I'm kinda glad you charged at me when I ran outta blanks."
	"Whysat?"
	"Cuz I can still kill ya if I put them against yer face, it's still a buncha compressed air locked tight into a cylinder punching out into yer skull.  Trust me I wasn't gonna."
	"Heh...so what's the stupidest thing you've seen someone do with a gun?"
	"Well...there was this Spanish movie I saw when I was still living at home, had this one moment where this cop was cleaning his gun...while it was loaded."
	"Wait...really!?"
	"Yep."
	"That is so fucking retarded."
	"Hahah yeah, my dad always got pissed off with that movie just fer that, always started an argument with mom who'd be all wailing about her heritage and how he was dissing it, like how the hell is a cop who's too stupid to not empty his gun related to your fuckin' heritage!?!"
	"Man...what a bitch."
	"Hhhehehe.  So..."
Her hand slapped down on his shoulder rather strongly enough to make it wince.
	"Are you ready fer me to tell you about the big plan?"
	"I sure hope so," said FG, "I mean I wanna help."
	"Well yer gonna be a big one fer this.  See after you disappeared I got a lot of time to myself, brought up everything again, had to rebuild the Fishnet, fully tethered this time, much more toughened up, an' we expanded ourselves basically all over the South Side and I've been making a plan fer YEARS that'll finally take them down."
	"What plan exactly?"
	"Oh come on...you don't remember?  Lemme cast yer mind back, the christmas before you left, right after the party was over we went to watch a movie.  Remember what we talked about?"
James thought for a moment as he scanned his mind back to that last christmas.  He remembered the old police commissioner dressed as Santa, the presents they exchanged before his eyes started twitching.
	"Woah woah woah...you don't mean...Operation Nakatomi do ya?"
	"Yep."

The raptor's eyes widened with shock.  It had been a crazy fantasy she once had, something she made up on the fly after breaking down and deconstructing a movie from the old world.  But this was the first time he had ever heard her so serious about it without even cracking a grin.
	"You...you're saying you made a whole plan of it?  For real?!?"
	"Why don't I just show ya?"
She walked past the telephone room before reaching a doorway that had been closed off with a keypad, inputting a combination as it opened up with a gentle swing of its steel hinge unlocked.  It was a place the raptor had not seen in his entire life as he gasped in awe at such detail.  Schematics, blueprints, a variety of weapons with ammo along with spare pieces of armour, all neatly stored with extreme prejudice in various racks and steel cabinet lockers with one single large table spread out in the middle of the room with six chairs.
	"Holy...is...is THIS-all this for the big operation?"
	"Mmmyep.  Sit down, lemme explain."
James placed himself down on a seat as she begin her explanation.  The dolphin bartender walked over to the various schematics, all of varying floors of a certain building that he knew along with the streets outside its front.
	"Operation Nakatomi is a desperate plan if poorly executed at first, but with the combination of a mighty force, any plan can work.  Half precision, half brutality, that's how we do things an' this one is gonna be no different.  The building itself is well protected on, of course, military level security.  I had to compensate for all of the security detail they had to make this plan kinda different from what I originally had but, it's still the same."
	"It's been a while since I watched that movie, what happened in it again?"
	"Hans Gruber walks into the Nakatomi Plaza to teach the company a lesson in greed, making out to be terrorists at first.  But in truth they actually don't give a shit about this cuz they wanna hoard six-hundred-and-forty million dollars in bearer bonds.  A lone plucky cop in the wrong place at the wrong time fucks all this up royally, and it becomes the greatest Christmas movie ever made."
	"I'm pretty sure it's NOT-"
	"Don't fuckin' start this again, it takes place on Christmas it's a Christmas movie now please."
	"Alright alright...that was a good movie though, you know it actually might be my favourite from here, I liked that one scene where the terrorist dude fakes an American accent, that was so lame."
	"Hhhhhmhmhahaha, ohhh yeah that was cute.  Anyways, the plan is not EXACTLY that, it's actually a lot more complicated.  We got three parts of the building to deal with and that's firstly-"
She pressed a finger to the lowest point of the building.
	"The ground level, which we consider the basement and also floors one to fifteen.  The upper floors which is floor sixteen up to floor forty.  And lastly the aerial support which we call from floors forty-one to seventy as well as the sky around the building.  These three places have separate security rotas and protocols that the other sections do not know about, except for very distinguished security officers.  Now."
The dolphin pulled out some small action figures in the shapes of various action heroes and heroines of classic movie history.  There also was a small white helicopter and several police cars in diecast metal as she placed them at various parts.
	"Ground floor, we're gonna have an all-out assault as a diversion an' take out the foot soldiers.  Upper floors will be handled by our elite team to take down their security and blind the aerial troops, which we gotta be quick about or else they'll get their shit together an' gun down the ground troops."
	"How the hell is this gonna work?"
	"Glad you asked.  I've been real busy making contacts and building a huge case against 'the Armee'.  And since the courts won't do anything, the streets will."
	"Really?!"
	"And it's not just us.  Everywhere in Chicago, the people haven't been enjoying this secret martial law we're under.  Even the police are on our side."
	".....wait, the police?  Seriously!?!"
	"The police.  They're gonna help us."
	"Wh-...but you...you're not, do they KNOW about you?"
	"No, but they know I have a great influence on this neighbourhood, that I'm essentially the voice of the community unofficially.  I may not be the oldest, I may not be the most well-earning but I am definitely the wisest person according to them.  I'm the one they come to if they wanna ask about local activities, I'm the one that knows everybody by name because everybody uses my bar, and I'm the one that became best friends with the police commissioner to help with the Christmas party every year."
	"That...that's true but-"
	"Believe it or not James, not all authority falls under the one roof of black and white.  The police have been really tense with 'the Armee' fer a long time now, an' some of those cops even served in the REAL army, the proper US Military an' find the whole thing disrespectful beyond belief.  That, an' all the crooked police went an' gone an' joined the A.R.M.E fer higher pay, so as I said previously, the whole police station is poor but completely clean which essentially gives us a free army to fight with."
	"I bet."
	"So, after a long while, we've been having secret plans.  Lemme tell ya, you ever heard of a guy called Pablo Escobar?"
	"No, should I?"
	"Long ago, wayyyy back in the 20th century, there was this huge huge druglord who controlled almost the entire world's drug supply, cocaine mostly.  Hell he had 80% of the WORLD'S cocaine in his control at one point.  He did a lotta crazy shit and while half the time he was helping his city, he was killing the world and the people too, as well as the people in his own city.  Eventually the US Army, SEALs and the Colombian police teamed up together, along with some vigilantes to kill this one guy.  And they did.  They chased him down through the streets and gunned his fat coked-up ass down on the rooftops."
	"Hah, awesome."
	"And that's what we're gonna do, the same thing here an' now after I read up on ideas from all the library stuff we kept an' recovered.  The police are gonna team up with us, I even got proof of 'the Armee's' many crimes and after this, the only time we hear of that word is when we talk about the real US Army, not those fucking impostors over at the Assault Republics Militarised Enterprise are trying to be."
	"Alright.  Okay, I'm on board with this, just tell me how you'll plan this."
	"First, we have a news chopper."
Sarah placed said chopper in the sky of blue next to the building.
	"The aerial support around 'the Armee' building has to target an' intercept anyone who comes flyin' into their airspace, so we basically have this chopper around to distract them away from the action, by simulating a car chase round the city which the news chopper will be covering."
	"Simulating?" asked FG.
	"One cop car and one normal car will be just driving around one area at a good speed, handled by our best drivers on both sides.  The chopper will be flown by an actual news team that we recruited who we promised would be the first in line for the big news story."
	"They're not gonna blab about it beforehand?"
	"They're against 'the Armee' too," said Sarah, "almost everybody is.  When the coast is clear, the chopper'll give us the signal on local bandwidth an' then we raid the front."
	"How do we get in?"
	"While the fighting goes on at the front area, our operative elites down below will get down to the basement as quickly as possible before they start shutting things down.  All the power to the building is inside there, we shut them down, they'll be in the dark literally, the lifts, the lighting, electronic doors, all closed."
	"Does that shut off their security?"
	"No, the security is on another circuit, it'll still be operational so we gotta to do this quick.  It WILL however knock into half their wifi signals so their communications will be wrecked and they can't report anything fast enough.  Once that's done, me an' a special group of operatives will break into the side of the building somewhere around floors twenty to thirty an' climb upwards with the stairwell."
	"Wait, how are you gonna break in like that?"
	"Well, I got a few ideas but that depends on...you."
	"Me?" asked FG.
	"Later though," said Sarah, "once we get into the middle floors we start ascending to find the security room, which I know for a fact is somewhere around floors forty to fifty.  Once we crash into there, we grab all the data from their computers, take over the security mainframe and completely wipe out their comms.  The REAL stuff however is concealed in the labs themselves."
	"What you mean real stuff?"
	"All the top secret shit...including the experiment on you, we think."
	"Damn...so how do we get in?"
	"The scientists.  We force them to comply and they'll do it for us, we know there's a lotta innocents in the place so we operate on an unarmed-surrender rule.  They don't got a weapon, we don't shoot, they comply with us an' everything'll be okay."
	"What about the choppers?  I mean they're gonna find out eventually what's going on."
	"We managed to scrounge together some EMP bombs.  Problem is they have a HUGE radius, they'll fry the mainframes in the basement too if they're not closed, and they won't be when our plan is going well.  So we have to get all the data we want, THEN set off the EMP bomb.  The top secret mainframe on the upper floor however is protected at all times from any electronic disturbance with a field damper built specifically to maintain it, so it won't be destroyed."
	"EMP?  ...uhm...listen I better tell you now that if I'm anywhere near that..."
	"What?"
James rubbed the back of his neck nervously with apologetic look.
	"Well, my nanos, the EMP is gonna fuck them bad...maybe even kill me."
	"...hmm...in that case, better find a safe place for you then.  If you get up to to the secret mainframe and hide behind its doors you'll be safe from the blast."
	"Okay so...run that by me again, there's a fake police chase to distract the choppers, then we have a riot at the front door, then a small group breaks into the side of the building somehow, that group then goes up-"
	"We raid the offices.  They'll be packed to the nines in there so it's no mercy when we step in for anyone who's armed.  Anyone without a gun is safe an' will be taken prisoner.  There's a security monitoring room around the thirtieth floor which I'll handle and coordinate you guys with to warn anyone comin' through.  The five of us, me an' the other four, will all have code names they know."
	"Hah, really?  What's their names?"
	"McClane, Callahan, Hunt and Ash."
	"...really?"
	"Yep.  McClane an' Callahan are our police contacts, Hunt is our security expert and Ash is our mutual unofficial friend."
	"Mutual friend?"
	"Someone who knows you, apparently, not sure how but he's been a reaaaal big help, it was thanks to him I managed to get all this to a proper level an' get the codes to infiltrate the place."
	"What's his name?"
	"Ash...his name was pretty similar to a nickname I wanted to give so we went with that, you'll be seein' him soon.  He's proper military as well, so we got a real advantage for some interior knowledge of paramilitary stuff."
	"Woah woah wait, you have an actual dude from the military with you?"
	"Yep, special ops, him an' about five other people in his unit.  Turns out we got heard in the pipeline overseas an' some peeps in the higher ups wanted to take down this company much as we do, call it assisting the guerrilla force in an urban rebellion.  Honestly, I was expecting another two year at least until this plan could but he managed to cut it down to maybe a few months from now so we can get to rolling out."
	"But...how does he know me?"
	"No idea, ask him when he gets back, he's been scoutin' out on some missions fer us so...you'll see him rather sooner than you think."
	"Okaaaay so, what about a code name for you?"
	"I'm Ripley."
	"Ahhh huh...so...where do I fit into this?"
The big question he had been wanting to ask for a while as Sarah pondered over it.
	"I have to admit, your abilities really would help make this a lot easier if you can fight this good an' you got a lot of variety.  Yer not the strongest or the smartest-"
	"Heeey."
	"I mean compared to my strategist an' my criminal hacker yanno, but you DO got the most flexibility so I'll tell ya what.  IF you end up bein' part of Nakatomi, an' most likely you will...why don't you pick one code name fer yourself?  But not any that start with M, C, H, R or A, so Rex is out...actually yanno what, can I call you Jones?"
	"...wwwwhy?"
	"Heh, no reason, sorry."
	"Yeah I don't think so," said James.  "How about FG?"
	"FG?"
	"Just a li'l nickname I picked up in my travels."
	"Hmm, alright then, FG it is, short and sweet that's perfect.  Now the operation starts in about four months or so an' I seen plenty of what you can do.  I think I know where you could fit in but let's get things sorted first, I'm gonna have a word with the other guys an' see if we can't do a test for ya."
	"A test?"
	"Just...why don't you take this?"
She pulled out a small key before tossing it lightly towards FG.
	"Go check out the storage lot, Row 2, Set A-7, see what you make of what's in there."
	"Um...okay?  Sure, like now?"
	"Yeah yeah, go to it, I don't got anythin' fer ya until a new mission comes in so go see what you can do."

James shrugged confused before he went back outside being thankful it wasn't raining as he kept watch for any potential CCTV in the area.  At this point he now remembered every street within a 2-mile radius as he slowly navigated around towards the storage lots in the east.  Hearing the trains rumble on past his head perhaps not more than a thousand yards from the area, there was simply but a rectangular space filled with four rows of small garages neatly lined with white flecked paint and reddish doors before James found his one.
What he saw inside made his eyes glint with sudden youthful enthusiasm, the same joy and hope that children would feel on Christmas receiving a gift they never asked for or ever wanted, but was still incredibly cool and big all the same.  Sitting in perfect condition with not a single scratch upon its smooth silver sheen, was his old motorbike unnamed, the Triumph Speed Triple.  Black coating, registration WE9 IG4 as his hands reached out towards it by an instinct magnetising his claws against its cold firm exterior.
	"Ohh...o-ohhhh my god.  You're all...all clean and perfect my baby......even if you got me into trouble."
The last time he had ridden this was the day it had all changed for him.  Riding out along the Lincoln Highway exit far to the south of Sarah's bar, almost reaching the city's limits, he found himself caught up in everything.  His hands glided gently across the sleeping beast with a sympathetic look, his snout's reflection swollen to a thick smear upon its surface.
	"It's okay baby...I don't blame you for anything, I just never looked where I was going.  Always was my problem, heh...hhhhhh...I won't be staying here long enough to make you feel warm again to ride out like old days.  I don't even know why I talk to you like this...hmmm..."
James examined over every inch, peering along from the muffler to the handlebars finding it to be completely intact in every way like it was only yesterday.  In fact better than before once he noted someone had finally fixed the muffler to its integral fullest.
	"Maybe when I'm gone someone else should take good care of you.  Nothing to do with you sweetie, it's...it's all because of me.  I never did manage to give you a name.  Hmmmm...I always wanted to give you one, just so you would...feel complete, you always were at my side, you could roar like a wildcat and purr like a cutie...not strong but feisty, flighty, always ready for something and never shied away from anyone............yeah.  I've got it."
Slowly he nodded as he crossed his arms with a smile upon his lips.
	"I know what to call you...someone who always managed to guide me through the strangest cold unfamiliar places but always kept me going with everything that we got.  Let's go get some airbrushing for ya...as well as somebody that actually knows how to airbrush."
With a sudden zest for creativity planted in his mind he headed back towards the bar to ask around for anyone that could help.  Most days the bar was only full around 6pm truly with the odd straggler and morning crawler in by 12pm and onwards.  The curfew at least gave a time to close which was around 7:45pm in order to give people time to get back home and avoid the cameras from catching them after hours but he saw some locals had come in for a good drink.  At least twenty people of various species as Jenny was serving out drinks alongside Sarah.
He had to admit that he missed this atmosphere despite what he said to Sarah previously concerning the raucousness and violence dwelling underneath the criminality of the city.  There was an odd familiarity he could not help but embrace himself within as he watched people discuss the latest football results or debate on the best time of day to gulp a full pint glass.  The sound of the constant chatter was soothing him more than he expected as he wrapped his arms around Sarah happily.
	"Thank you for keeping my bike safe."
	"Heh...s'alright."
	"You didn't have to, I mean really."
	"I didn't have to keep yer room intact too but I did.  I'm just glad you came back, so you like it?"
	"It's perfect...I think I know what to finally call her now."
	"Ohhhh?"
	"But, does anyone know how to airbrush in this place?"
	"......MANNY!  HEY MANNY!"
Sarah shouted out over the bar noise towards a particular hyena with the chest build of a quarterback, black short hair and dirt-brown patches of his fur whilst wearing the smooth blue uniform of a police officer.  James tried not to step back by his instincts kicking in as the dolphin beckoned him over.
	"Rex wants some airbrushing for his bike."
	"That right?" said the officer.  "Got an idea fer whut you want?"
	"Uhhh yeah," simpered James awkwardly, "but um...a-aren't you on duty, I wouldn't wanna distract you-"
	"I'm on my break, don' worry.  Heard you came back, musta been a real scare for yer boss here."
	"Hahaaaa yeah um, it's, a long story, can you help me out with this?"
	"Sure, not now though, I'll bring my tools round to where yer bike is."
	"Okay, it's um, the storage area out back, the end of the street."
	"Gotcha.  May wanna have some references handy if it's any bodies, an' I don't do bats, birds or dragons.  Can't handle wings at all."
	"No worries, this is a person."
	"Alrighty.  Hey can I have some malibu, straight shot?"
	"Sure."
He took himself another drink from the bar after James poured it for him, before heading back to his seat with a nod and a wink as James turned towards Sarah.
	"Who is that?"
	"That's Manny, he's a good cop, worked in advertising doing art but that fell through so he ended up doin' airbrushing fer old illegal street circuits back in the day.  Got out once a cop told him to pick a better career an' not waste his talent."
	"So what's he do now?"
	"Beat work mainly, but he's also the sketch artist at the station and uh, pretty much has that permanent for how good his skill is."
	"Huh, that's cool.  So uh, you need help with the bar at all?"
	"Sure, puts me off my feet fer a bit thanks."
The bartender walked back inside towards the living room to relax as James briskly stepped back into his role at the counter serving drinks.  Perhaps the one time he felt like an honest citizen was with a row of alcohol at his back waiting to be served as customers sluggishly dragged themselves up towards the seats asking for their special.  Everytime he did so at least.  People came and went over the course of another 40 minutes, the raptor working alongside Jenny as they poured out and received change from all walks of life.
He had to admire at how Sarah managed to put police, citizens and criminals in the same place sharing and drinking together in harmony.  Maybe they already knew what each other did and were just keeping peace for the real ruler of the city's underground.  But there was a wonderful sense of camaraderie he had not felt since Ivalice, men and women of every species singing, laughing, talking and consoling each other over various things.  His peaceful rumination was soon broken by Sarah bursting through from the back.
	"MANNYYYY!"
The hyena shot up seeing the urgent beckoning of Sarah who pulled him close over the bar counter.
	"We got a situation.  Field exercise in Chicago Ridge Mall."
	"What?!"
	"Tell your boss, get police down there, anyone you can spare, Ash is already tracking them, he just called me on the phone."
	"Fuck...a-alright, I'll get into position."
Manny excused himself before heading out into the backroom and down the stairs to the phone room as FG asked the two remaining:
	"What's going on?"
	"Those fuckin' fascists are gonna shoot up the mall," said Jenny growling.
	"WHAT?!"
	"Keep yer voice down, fuck's sake, don't wanna cause panic!"
	"S-sorry but...why would they do that?!"
	"Training exercise," said Sarah, "gotta test out their new hardware an' prototypes, see how long it takes to clear a place out effectively...surprisingly easy to cover it up an' call it a terrorist attack, the public'll believe anything."
	"Oh that's fucking bullshit, we gotta help!"
	"McClane's gonna get on this, so will Ash.  He asked you to join in on this."
	"What, who?"
	"Ash.  Says he wants to meet you, see how yer skills are so I got a mission fer you.  Go get yer bike."
	"Seriously?  You want me to do this?"
	"Get yer bike, escort Manny, he'll take a bit to report in to his boss so you got time.  Follow his instructions, yer still green in my group so I want you to follow anything that him, McClane or Ash tell you to, that clear?"
	"Gotcha."
With no time to waste, he ran back to the storage lot and grabbed his bike seeing it was perfectly maintained enough to get up and go with fuel in the tank.  Bracing himself for more trouble, he revved the engine as that old familiar growl of the silver black beast came purring back to his ears.
	"Ohhhhh fuck yes...I missed hearing you baby."
Pride surged through him as he felt his old senses coming back to him for the need to race, tearing up the tarmac as he went roaring down the road back towards the Two By Two.  Manny's police car was outside still and soon enough the hyena was out walking from the bar to climb into it as he called out at FG.
	"Sarah told me you were coming!"
	"I'll follow you, what you want me to do?!"
	"We can't report this on our local police radio, 'the Armee' scan that shit an' if we report about the shooting they'll know about us keeping steps ahead."
	"Right, where's this mall?"
	"It's further south in a place caleld Hometown, we gotta stay off the highway best we can or they'll see us so follow me an' keep up to avoid the CCTV."
	"Got it."
The police car revved into life but did not put its signals flashing as it roared through the smaller streets, chased after by FG on his Triumph Speed Triple.  The car was something of a modified Dodge model more built for strength and durability than actual speed as the raptor kept a steady pace, trying not to let the speed consume him with its daredevil sense of flair.  The two came skidding out of Sarah's territory by turning south, then west, then south, then west again until reaching West 47th street to twist and navigate through the lesser-monitored streets.
Hitting the southernmost points of the South Side, Manny tore a corner fiercely hitting St. Loomis Boulevard before another violent screech back west onto West 51st.  James kept up, turning the corners much more easily than the boxy car could as the motorcycle screamed itself across the tarmac, leaving but a single black smear behind the double track of Manny's vehicle.  James kept his eye on the police vehicle driving fast, keeping a low profile as he pulled back slightly to allow his reaction time to see when he had to turn.
CCTV had expanded all across Chicago right out to the suburbs as the police officer started to turn and twist less once they came out of the inner streets, moving from the desolate wastes of urban ruin and soon hitting more green pastures.  Barely more green.  His scissors glinted in the darkened sky on his back, the raptor having only ever taken them off when he went to sleep and despite their bizarre appearance nobody questioned it.  The mood of the city was down and dismal enough that they would accept anything, except a dimensional traveller according to Sarah.
West 63rd, South Western Avenue, West Columbus Avenue.  The more distant Chicago was made behind them, the longer the stretch of road they took once the buildings started to thin themselves out.  With less structures to hide their security feeds within they took full liberties of the road as Manny suddenly rushed forwards with a blinding speed forcing James to hurry up.  He chased after him with the wind shrieking across his chest, that wonderful familiar cold feeling hammering against his lungs as he relished the sensation.
It was a most wonderful pain to breathe, one he had missed for several years as the clouded pollution of Illinois' sky weighed down upon him.  West Columbus Avenue stretched towards infinity as suddenly Manny slowed down to take a blinding turn directly towards the west.  The raptor followed as they re-entered another town, turning cautious despite this place being beyond Sarah's reach, and possibly that of the A.R.M.E in turn.  But in truth he had no idea of how far their reach could be as he kept watch on the vehicle in front of him, passing by another car occasionally.
He kept chase among the narrowing streets, breaking free perhaps four minutes after a turning tributary through the oddly-named Hometown before reaching west once more as Manny sped up straight along Oak Lawn which was a risky move being a major roadway as James kept follow at top speed.  Screaming past the world around him, he started to wonder if Manny wasn't just the guy painting street cars and perhaps might have been the one also driving them as the cop soon began to gently slow his pace in time to reach the area of the mall.
Almost every inch of the mall's territory was nothing but spacious car parking around the fortress-sized building of Chicago Ridge, the raptor parking a few spaces from the cop as he kicked his stand down and stepped off.  Seeing only a few rusted old bangers that were typical of the poorer populace of America, he hoped at the very least it was an off day with not many people about as he stood beside Manny's vehicle waiting to hear any sounds of violence from within.
It was the middle of the day, and plenty of people were out and about moving back and forth from every doorway that went in through one of the many stores into the actual mall itself such as the supermarket, the bathroom store and a restaurant for Mexican food.  James felt nervous as he turned towards the police officer keeping a cautious eye out for any suspicious activity, his eyes trained with intent as FG asked:
	"See anything?"
	"Not yet...'Armee' boys tend to arrive in big trucks, unmarked, white...make it look like they're offloading supplies."
	"What if it's on the other side of the mall?"
	"That's what worries me.  You know how to shoot?"
	"Yeah, why?"
	"Take this."
The cop gave him a thick beretta handgun along with two ammo clips before realising that James had no place to hide his weapon so Manny gave him also a thick jacket to cover his entire body, including the scissors.
	"Wear this on you, you go in first and I'll follow in after you."
	"Okay...why?"
	"If I showed up on the scene without following after someone suspicious, then I'M suspicious.  You're gonna be my lead into this place."
	"You're dressing me up like a criminal in order to get in, by giving me a gun to walk into a mall?"
	"Yes.  I know that's really shitty, I'm sorry but...if we wanna stop these A.R.M.E punks then-"
	"No no, that's...that's fine, might as well play the shitscale for this."
	"Nobody saw us so, just walk along and away from my car and go in the front door.  Don't go through the other doors, they have security scanners but the front door doesn't."
	"That's a little stupid."
	"Yes it is.  Also, I know this is going to hurt...but don't warn anyone.  You will want to, trust me...but you can't tell anyone what's going to come down, and take this too."
One last thing the hyena gave him was a walkie talkie that he put into his pocket.
	"Use this when no one can see you, the bathroom or something.  When you see any military types or a white unmarked truck at the other exits, let me know, this thing has a local signal so 'the Armee's not gonna pick up on that."
	"Alright.  Hhhhh...shit.  I'll call you."

The raptor nodded as he hiked up his new coat, a thick ragged thing that presumably was used to disguise an officer for field work as James moved far away as he could from the vehicle by the cover of trees and bushes.  Slowly walking out from another area he entered the mall itself with hands in his pockets as he kept an eye out for anyone of particularly military descript.  The sound of voices washed over him as he walked in, warm lights, people frolicking to and fro on big shopping days in mid-week as he wandered through the large spacious halls.
Most of the people it seemed were local from Hometown, clean shirted and without the ragged look of the inner city that he knew.  He tried not to think of what could happen next seeing families and couples of various species, some mixed, some not.  The food court central to the entire building, one of three in the mall itself was bustling with activity having food from three different parts of the world and an abundant coffee shop.  Constant tannoys and murmurings from every corner of the yellow-spackled tiles of the center threatened to make him sick with worry as he cautiously walked to another exit.
No white truck from the west parking lot.  He walked back across the mall interior and headed towards the south, keeping an eye out for any mall cops knowing they were also on the lookout for trouble.  Most of them being retired police or those who never quite got past the exams but still had the heart and a little too much zest for security jobs.  But regardless they were going to be useful allies hopefully if he didn't make wrong of them as he made his way past gift shops and ice cream vendors on rolling carts.
Heading out the south exit between a sports store and a women's clothing emporium, he soon found his fears confirmed.  A nondescript white 18-wheeler truck with people of a delivery outfit he did not recognise hauling crates out of the loader.  The jackets were too bulky to just be simple coats, and he was certain they had body armour underneath but soon they were putting on balaclavas of various sizes.  He snuck back in and hid behind a pillar with a plant as he radio'd in.
	"It's me, they're at the south exit."
	"Good.  I just walked in, gotta warn the mall cops first of what's going down so they can call security on their feed, also to not shoot you when things are going down."
	"What why, what should I do?"
	"Keep hidden.  When I give the signal, start firing off at things and make some noise."
	"What?!"
	"Fire off inside the building, cause panic from the south side, that'll get people moving out before their big plan goes down.  Try not to hurt anyone, Sarah told me to trust you."
	"I thought we didn't wanna cause panic!"
	"It's gonna be impossible, but if we get people out early, that'll at least minimise casualties."
	"Alright...I'll uh...just, any news from this McClane or Ash?"
	"I already told McClane on the phone, Ash'll be following up soon so they'll be arriving discreet.  Out."
James focused as best he could to not tremble with the upcoming "terrorist siege" simulation that was about to occur, his hatred rising against them in outrage at such a scene.  Were things really this bad in his home city that such corruption could exist and be hidden afterwards?  He already knew the answer to his question as he kept hidden next to the sports store waiting for his signal.  What he saw coming into the mall next was not what he expected.
Crunching its feet into the stone tiles as the doors slid open automatically, was a well-armoured beast of reptilian body outfitted in a repainted shoddy colour, a tyrannosaurian with broad flat snout and a deep green texture.  His eyes were cruel and he had not even the dignity to hide the modified combat shotgun which was strapped to his back, complete with an ammo clip one would see on a machine gun.  His friends followed in behind him, eight of them only, a small operation with body armour beneath false delivery jackets as James heard his radio vibrate.
	"We're ready.  Fire."
He had never been more thankful for a signal in his life as he searched for someone specific, something rather to start the noise as he allowed his inner anarchist through.  Then he saw it, right at the other side of the sports store.  A kindly young dalmatian serving ice cream in a white and pink outfit, wagging his tail happily at the raptor who walked up to his small mobile stand.
	"Hi there, would you like something?"
	"Yes.  I would like..."
The raptor pulled out his gun.
	"For you to get the fuck down."
In that moment, 47 people saw him as the world slowed down just briefly.  The dalmatian blinked in that one second not comprehending the beretta in his face as he suddenly twitched with what he felt like his entire life whispering across his ears before he would die.  Then he screamed, and the moment he did James shoved him hard downwards onto the floor before grabbing his ice cream cart, and ran pushing it towards the south exit with a mighty heave.
	"WUUUULD!"
Blasting a frenzied wind furiously towards the cart, he managed to send it slaloming with the force of a car hitting two of the A.R.M.E's disguised members as they crashed brilliantly into the women's clothing store.  Crashing through the sturdy windows hard enough to rip through their throats and shatter part of their limbs, the raptor fired his gun into the air as people screamed with fright.  Everyone ran.  Food smeared itself underfoot and across tables as he pointed at the hulking rex, firing a few more shots as he suddenly became aware of what was happening.
	"HEY!  FUCKASAURUS!"
The shots pinged off his armour uselessly but the beast was wakened, pulling out his shotgun to fire a sudden blast of three buckshot loads with breaknecking speed as the raptor grabbed the dalmatian and dodged with a bursting breeze from his nanos.  Half the sports store windows crashed inwards as screams cried out from those within, blood festooned across the sport equipment as people fell shrieking with agony.  The dalmatian behind James was sobbing as he frantically pleaded for his life.
	"NO, NO, NOOOOOOOOO-A-AAAAAAAAAAAAGH!"
	"SHUT UP!"
He tossed him into a nearby bathroom with a snarling breath of desperation.
	"Stay here, do NOT leave, or else you will die, understand?"
	"A-a-aah...I-i-i just...I-i-i have a son please, GOD PLEASE!"
	"DON'T.  Leave.  I'm sorry."
The raptor closed the door and came straight back into the hail of gunfire that tore across the mall, windows shattering and people desperately struggling to leave the mall as fast as they could.  The mall's security were soon in like a flash, somewhat out of shape but still willing to put up a fight as they opened fire across the hall.  Two of them were killed instantly, stomachs shredded wide by the rex's auto shotgun which, even over a longer distance, had a fiercely tight chokehold on its spread, turning it lethal at thirty feet.
James watched the beastly reptilian reload his weapon by a disturbingly familiar process, his left hand glowing with the shimmering of nanos swirling to recreate something.  A perfect replica of the shotgun's modified ammo clip that he replaced with a hefty clacking shunk before instantly murdering a third member of security, head exploding with his sternum from the tight-fisted spread.
Four of the remaining 'Armee' guards behind the rex, all human, were scoping out the stores around them to prevent any unwanted surprises like gun owners or heroic stupidity, whilst the other two stayed close to their pet project.  Those who had not escaped were now desperately trying to hide amongst clothesracks and storage rooms.  The raptor got himself into a good covering spot behind an open sushi bar and began firing again to get their attention, pointing towards the closest A.R.M.E goon with a shot to the head.
He was thankful they had to forego helmets for their clandestine operation allowing them to be killed much more easily.  But the Tyrannosaur was a much bigger problem as he began drawing their fire, blasting buckshot crumpling the side of the sushi bar like the fist of an elephant punched through it halfway.  It gave enough time for the security guards to flee and pull back whilst carrying one of their wounded friends, hurriedly bleeding out the side of his waist as they went screaming down the security feed.
People were managing to escape for the most part, but that didn't stop the rex from staying still as he had his less-armoured friends take care of the raptor whilst thundering through the halls to rack up more for his killcount.  The monstrous armoured beast blasted a shocking forceful wind from his nanos to instantly tear through the hall faster than people could run, as James swiftly turned on the intercom hiding as sushi plates clattered shattering all around him.
	"MANNY, WATCH OUT THERE'S A HUGE BASTARD T-REX COMING DOWN TO THE FOOD COURT!"
	"I just saw security pull back, how many?!"
	"Five, maybe six, they're on my ass but they don't got as much armour so maybe some assistance!"
	"I'll tell Ash to get down to you, we'll try to hold off the gian-SHIT, FUCKIN' SHIT!"
Shotguns pierced the air from the walkie talkie and echoinng down the hall as Manny was cut off, the raptor forced to go it alone with occasional peeks and blind firing to keep the enemy back.  The rest of the goons had assault rifles to pepper across the air with, keeping a constant rain of fire from three directions upon FG's position and trapping him rather neatly.  He only had to peek twice to see where the next enemy was before the third time he could pop out after another volley of fire.  Crawling towards his left unseen by the enemy, he managed to pull up and fire wounding one of them in the shoulder fast.
With one direction clear of gunfire by the wounded ex-soldier, the raptor rushed out of cover with the speed of lightning as a blinding gale tore from his nanos before he cracked his elbow right into the guard's face.  The force was powerful enough to snap his neck completely and break backwards into a stuttering gurgled scream before James grabbed at his assault rifle.  Firing back in a strafing run, he ducked into the sports store after leaping into the broken window seeing the crumpled bleeding forms of twelve people within.  Seven of them were most certainly dead.
With only three enemies left in the south hall of the shopping center, James braced himself for a standoff as he kept underneath the window, making certain nobody tried to strafe round to get inside with him.  One operative moved in as he fired a small burst to keep him back, but one of his friends was easily covering him and point-fired a firm spread raking bullets across shoulder.
	"SHIT!"
Most of them grazed past his skin but one had raked across his face terrifying him briefly at the prospect of a quick death.  Both his arms were too occupied with the rifle to cover himself with the gauntlet as he made one last spreading shot managing to wound two of them, one in the leg to be forced limping and the other taking a few slugs in the chest staggering his armoured body.  He threw the empty rifle away and went back to his handgun with his hand free to create a shielded gauntlet to cover his face with.
Peering through the holes of his tetra shield, he managed to take out another 'Armee' goon with several shots to the face, emptying half a clip with as precise a shot as he could whilst bullets pinged mercilessly off his gauntlet.  It stung his fingers from their ruthless vibration but after holding out against them enough he finally received some assistance as someone came roaring from the south exit.
Jackhammer-firing sounds that came from single shot high-caliber rifles cracked off to a deafening blow across the hall as the last two guards were killed, shot through the face in a splattering shredded ichor that tore the skin off their cheeks.  Crumpling to fall head-on into a puddle of their own blood, they did not even get the chance to see who had taken them down as someone's heavy footsteps thudded brutally across the plaza.  The raptor did not even get a chance to see who it was other than the fact it was two strangers in all black with balaclavas.  But they did not appear to be with the A.R.M.E.

With no other enemies in the vicinity, James quickly grabbed the two assault rifles from the first two men that were killed, crushed by his ice cream cart since they were closest to him and had full clips without even getting a chance to fire.  Racing towards the centre of the mall he came upon a most gruesome sight.  The rex of the A.R.M.E stood at the centre of the food court surrounded by the bodies of civilians, red like christmas decorations draped across every step.
He stood at a height of almost eight feet, toting his hefty auto-shotgun as James watched the two black-armoured newcomers suddenly take position.  The rex however saw James and grinned darkly before pointing his weapon at him, speaking with a deep bass.
	"Identify yourself."
James had his rifle up and ready trying to ignore the desolation of the food court, the faces of two dozen people staring up at him from the ages of 3 to 62.
	"I SAID...identify yourself."
	"You don't deserve to know my name."
	"This training exercise was authorised only to me.  You have no place here."
	"You call THIS an exercise?  This is a FUCKING MASSACRE!"
	"Simulation four-five-one, the mass eradication of an enemy camp in a known territory that is open with several exits.  The intent of this exercise is to clear as many operatives as possible with the fewest number of those surviving.  A living agent that escapes can reorganise, structure, forewarn future enemies of our movements and cause further exacerbation.  This simulation was a failure due to unforeseen intervention, namely...you."
	"Who the FUCK are you?!"
	"My name is not for you to know.  You have disrupted this exercise and for that you shall be taken in...for interrogation."
	"What are you gonna do, shoot my legs off?"
	"No."
From behind one of the upended tables next to him, the rex pulled up the blood-drenched body of a still-living anthro female, a young teenage feline in a yellow smock from one of the restaurants.  She was shaking in fear with the beast gripping her arm tightly enough to hurt as she sobbed in silent tears with the shotgun slowly placed against her head.
	"I am going to turn your weakness against you.  Either you surrender, or else you will suffer the guilt of death on your hands."
	"Why are you doing this?  Wh-what...what the fuck is wrong with you?"
	"There is nothing wrong with me.  The fact you hesitate shows that you are weak, your compassion is but undoing.  I have been trained beyond that to be a perfect soldier.  Unflinching.  Unfeeling.  Tactical."
	"That's not being a soldier, that's being a sociopath.  No fucking soldier should ever be like this, NOBODY should be this."
	"A-AAAAAAAAARGH!  PLEAAAAAASE H-HEEEELP MEEEEE!"
The fist turned tighter on the girl's arm as she screamed feeling the claws squeeze her bone.
	"The two operatives that are hiding to my left and right should also show yourselves or else this girl will also be on your hands."
	"STOP IT!" roared James.  "WHAT ARE YOU TRYING TO PROVE WITH THIS HUH!?  You're not in the fucking army, you're just a fucking terrorist wannabe in some private bullshit corporation!"
	"I may not be a conventional soldier.  But that is why I shall be the first of the new generation of a new army that will not be tortured, not be manipulated, nothing more than an intelligent weapon."
	"Are you fucking brainwashed, you SICK FUCK?!"
	"No.  I am perfectly capable of my own decisions to protect my people.  Now...surrender...or else."
Before he had the chance to pull his trigger temptatiously, something landed at his feet small and clattering.  Explosive smoke burst in his face harmlessly, clouding the food court in a thickening smog as one of the unknown operatives ran in to grab the girl, just before something came crunching down on top of the T-rex by a shattering glass rain.  Someone came  from the roof above breaking through the skylight, a black mass falling with sharp daggers all around him like wings clipped of an angel's feathers.
Crushing the A.R.M.E goon with his sheer weight, a giant punching swing threw the shotgun out of the saurian's hands, clattering off across the floor.  A huge beast of 7'3'', only a few inches shorter than the T-rex, wearing a gas mask that covered his entire large face.  The smoke soon cleared as the rex swiftly got up into a lunging charge at the newcomer, roaring fiercely as the two fell across one of the stone benches of the court.  The girl was hastily taken to one side, sobbing in fearful relief by the other two operatives one of whom went to grab James.
	"L-LET GO!"
	"COME ON, LET'S GO!"
	"I'M NOT WOUNDED, I CAN STILL FIGHT!"
	"THIS AIN'T YOUR FIGHT NOW SON!"
	"...HIM!"
The raptor pointed over towards the seated form of Manny, the police officer who was gasping with a splotch of blood on the lower right of his uniform.  The battle raged behind them as the two giants
	"TAKE HIM, HE NEEDS HELP!"
	"Alright, fine but YOU gotta help, come with me!"
	"Fine!  Manny, you alright?!"
	"Y-y-yeah," winced the police hyena, "I'm alright, I can move.  Come on, let's get out whilst this shit's going."
	"Wh-what about that fucker, who the hell's fighting him?!"
	"Don't worry...that's Ash, he'll keep him busy."
	"THAT'S Ash?!  He's fucking huge!"
	"I told you he'd come, now come on help me up."
James hoisted Manny up with one shoulder whilst the operative took the other as they carried him to the exit.  People were running to their cars or back to the safety of their homes as the police had arrived in full force with screaming sirens and the constant red-and-blue.  Ambulances were soon arriving to assist as Manny was handed over to paramedics but in the chaos that ensued trying to get everyone contained together, he rushed back into the mall as he followed the two black operatives that also ran back in turn.
Back in the food court, the rex was brawling with the unknown giant known as Ash who swung back in perfect counterance, blocking the massive scaled fist with his own thick hand of grey wrinkled skin before a ruthless second fist cracked hard into the rex's face.  Smacking his jaw hard with bruising pains, he staggered slightly but not enough to be taken down as he elbowed violently into Ash's stomach who forcefully bent over gasping in pain.  A hammerfist from above he managed to dodge and strafe, stepping fast to his right before a massive haymaker that sent the rex flying.
Stumbling to the ground, the saurian grabbed a table by its bottom rung and swung it fierce like a baseball bat towards Ash, the unknown operative ducking beneath the forceful sweep and rugby tackling the beast hard in his stomach.  Slamming him down onto the food court, he straddled the rex and slammed his grey fists down upon the monstrous snout repeatedly, vicious punching strikes like a gangland beating until the rex grabbed his fist after the fifth punch to his bruised swelting face.
Ignoring the pain mounting up in his skull, he pulled Ash's arm close and headbutted straight through his gas mask, crushing the hard plastic shell with a snapping crack as the fighter groaned staggering off of him.  The rex got up with a sudden swinging uppercut, smacking the mask brutally to send dull painful vibrations through Ash's face before a second thrust-jab slammed him to the floor.  Lying amongst the corpses of civilians, he saw something shining in a woman's pocket as he grasped for it desperately before the rex slammed his knees onto his chest.
Gasping with a harsh wheeze underneath his mask, he swiped out with his closed fist and suddenly stabbed the saurian in the face with a set of car keys from the dead woman, thrusting the keys with surprising dexterity through between his knuckles.  The monstrous fiend screamed with his right eye bleeding before Ash grabbed a nearby chair by the leg and whammed it forwards like an axe straight into the Tyrannosaur's bloodied face.
He refused to move off of Ash as he pulled back a fist that suddenly became wrapped within burning nanofused flames surging through his synthetic veins before crunching fiercely into the granite floor.  The fighter dodged with his head leaning fiercely to one side before rolling fast to grab at the outstretched arm, slamming his elbow violently sharp into the rex's crumpled jaw.  He staggered back slightly, and it was the perfect opportunity for Ash to grab something that had fallen from a table next to him.
Grasping tightly with his fist, he gripped a small salt shaker which he shoved with open palm hard enough to break against the saurian's face, crushing glass and sodium chloride into the bleeding wound of his eye sending ungodly pain through his system.  The monstrous killer screeched with reddened eye feeling salted glass twist and suck into his freshest wounds raw before Ash forced him straight off by an upwards kick.  Falling hard onto his back from being upended, the rex struggled to get back up with his vision now compromised as he charged lumbering towards Ash.
For a beast so big, the operative managed to dodgeroll smoothly out of the way like a giant boulder as he raced towards the shotgun still on the floor.  The rex saw his plan and began to throw tables across the hall with great ease, the operative either dodging or simply punching them away from his face before he managed to grab the gun.  Rushing back towards the saurian killer, he fired perfectly resisting the immense recoil which was strong enough to break a child's arms completely by its power alone as the T-rex dodged into a Mexican restaurant.
Ash gave chase, but what he had not expected was that the rex had torn off one of the fridge doors with his brutal improved strength and by a sudden gust of wind charged fiercely like a bull.  Knocking the operative down fast with a painful thud that cracked the floor tiles underneath, he grabbed for his shotgun desperately as Ash tightly kept it close with one arm wrapped deathly round it, his other hand rummaging into his armoured pockets.  The rex raised one of his fists to suddenly ignite with burning frenzy, forcing Ash to dodge fast from the burnt smear of the floor now appearing next to him before he pulled out a knife.
A foot-long blade that slammed straight into the rex's blazing fist puncturing straight through the solid bone impaling to the wrist.  The saurian screamed roaring with insufferable agony at his fingers being violently stuck to his own wrist, struggling not to punch forwards and further destroy his own hand as the knife pulling out swiftly by Ash's hand.  But not before the rex grabbed at the shotgun's ammo clip and emptied the weapon fully rendering it useless.  But it still made a hefty club that the operative whallopped the rex across the face with cracking his jaw almost out of place.
Staggering off of his next victim, the beast grabbed the fridge door that he had used like a shield and swung it powerfully, breaking Ash's mask off completely.  At that moment, the other two operatives had arrived as backup and fired openly on the T-rex whose armour was starting to tear and crumple from the fistfight.  Bullets pinged across his guarded back as he turned and blocked himself with the fridge door acting as a riot shield before he charged towards them, bellowing a mighty war cry as both of them dodged out the way.  But he had not seen the velociraptor hiding behind the doorway to a gift shop from his right who opened fire with an entire clip from his assault rifle.
It was close enough he managed to pump half of it straight into the monster's flesh, the beastly militia male roaring with sudden hot piercing anguish that tore into his arms and legs, turning with bloodied streaks down his limbs as he lunged towards FG.  He dodged suddenly as there came a crashing explosion of useless tat and glass trinkets covering all over the gruesome killer, half-starting to tire out from his eventual loss of blood before he came staggering out of the shop doorway dripping with red.
With eyes piercing upon FG, he swung with violent haymakers three in a row as he spun his body like a typhoon, the air from it alone to send FG almost off his feet by such ruthless force until he waited for his opportunity to strike.  Burning his fist raw with nanostrength, he slammed upwards into a vicious uppercut of true Shoryuken strength, cracking the jaw completely through to suddenly unhinge and twist as the giant rex screamed from bursts of agony.
It was enough to cause him to stagger back right before another force of terror came upon the T-rex, crushing him by a sudden bullcharge as Ash came back into the fray.  Slamming his entire weight against the rex to force him against the wall, his hands grabbed at the beastly broken jaw as there came a bone-shattering sound in succession.  The rex began to spasm and shudder in deep gasping breaths, bones snapping in his large throat as Ash forced his fingers deeper within the flesh to break and sever every inch until he reached the spine itself.
KRAKK.  The killer soon stopped resisting and fell to the floor crumpling in a sudden heap, eyes turned glassy with blood trickling from his neck twisted like a bathroom towel.  The giant operative heaved with a stretch of his limbs as he slowly turned towards the raptor.
	"Next toime...leave it to the professionals Jim."
	"Wha.........no."
The mask had broken almost completely to reveal huge white tusks covered by fibres within to protect the elephantine head from ear to sweeping ear, with pendulous trunk hanging down to be fitted snugly against his sternum by its air filter at the end of it.  Glistening round sockets from the eyes showed a strange kindly smirk as he kept it on his face, half-torn but still obscuring enough as he said:
	"Get to the truck."
	"H-huh?!"
	"Oi know wot yer thinkin', we'll talk later, get in the truck those 'Armee' fucks came in, we're nickin' that fer ourselves."
	"I-i-i-i just...no...n-no it...it sounds, YOU sound exactly-"
	"Oi."
He pulled his 12-inch blade ruthlessly towards FG before snarling in a cold voice:
	"You got toime fer reminiscin' later, now get in the fuckin' truck 'fore we get spotted, alroigh'?"
	"U-U-UM...I...o-o-okay?"

James was completely thrown off by the series of events within a hectic forty minutes of fighting and massacre, but he did what he was told to dumbly nodding as he headed to the south exit once again watching the black-armoured operatives moving everything the A.R.M.E had brought with them.  Carrying also the weapons and bodies of the paramilitary terrorists, including the gargantuan rex that took Ash and two other men to carry between them, they soon drove off inside the truck with three people in the driver's front.  James sat along with every weapon, body and three other operatives including the one named Ash.
The raptor had to let this all sink in as the elephant slowly put his hands behind him as the truck rumbled onwards, sitting opposite of each other on top of crates.  The elephant smiled from his broken gas mask, peering with firm cheeky brown eyes.
	"You alroigh'?"
Saying nothing, James tried to find the right words as the operative gave him time whilst nobody else said anything.  He was only woken into speaking again after the walkie talkie he still had suddenly burst into life with Manny's weakened voice.
	"James?  You alright?"
	"Um...y-yeah.  I'm here with...Ash, I think?"
Ash nodded patiently.
	"We're just leaving the mall now."
	"That's...good.  I'm alright too, doctor says I'm gonna be alright, just took a nasty hit above the kidney.  I'll be out in hospital but...good work for all you did, we managed to avoid most casualties...not all, but most.  Oh and...don't worry about your bike, one of our men's taken it back to its home, so uh...see you soon."
The walkie clicked in the raptor's hand before staring at the elephant.
	"Ash.  That's...that's you, isn't it?"
	"Yep, only name anyone ever knew me with."
	"......that..it can't be.  It can't be you, this...that's impossible."
	"More impossible than wot 'appened jus' today?  Oi think you an' me both know that nuthin's impossible.  Except maybe..."
He took his mask off.
	"You fergot my full name."
It took James a few minutes to recognise him, mostly from the shock of seeing a rather long-forgotten face.  The penny finally dropped as the older pachyderm smiled with wrinkled slack jaw and slight bags around his eyes with skin greatly torn up by the many scars he had suffered.  His trunk lifted itself gently in a greeting gesture as James quivered in disbelief.
	"No...n-n-noooohohohoooo it can't be!  It fuckin' CAN'T, THIS IS-"
	"Come off it Jim...yanno who always got yer back no matter where you are."
	"A-...A-A-A-ASHWIN!?  HOLY SHIT!"
	"WHU-'EY!"
Enthusiasm consumed him briefly as he suddenly launched himself up to hug him tightly, squeezing fiercely around his chest with his head only just reaching up to the elephant's armpit.  The other two operatives in the carriage pulled their rifles out by instinct but Ash put his hand up to instantly bade them still.  Smiling happily in turn, Ashwin clutched James with both arms and trunk wrapping round his neck as the raptor whimpered:
	"I...I-i-i...this...this can't be-h-how the fuck are you-...HOW?!  H-how are you f-fuckin-...HOW?!"
	"If you jus' let me explain afore you get off me...hhheheh...least you took my advice not to let anyone fuck wit' you."
	"I just...hhhhh...I...god I...I almost forgot about you."
	"Oi never did.  Heh...you were loik a li'l brother to me, you know that?"
	"Yeah...you...you really just...god."
The two gently parted from the embrace and sat down beside each other in the confines of the truck, continuing on through the streets unknown as Ashwin smiled softly.  The rogueish look was still there faintly as he replied:
	"You still look loik shit."
	"HAHA, and you're still a huge asshole."
	"Hahahaha, oi, watch it, oi could put YOU in solitary now with me own proper authority."
	"How...I mean...I jus-...h-how are you HERE of all places, this is like, what...I mean-"
	"Why not wait until we're alone eh?  Then oi'll explain everythin', relax why don't you?  We need to get all this disposed of, yer boss' orders.  Then we can 'ave a noice chat eh Jim?"
	"...yeah...okay."
As the truck rolled onwards to the northeast, James finally allowed himself to relax from the sheer adrenaline that had been punching through his body before he slumped beside Ashwin's body.  The raptor sighed in a state of tense exhaustion as the elephant hugged him tightly against his body, slowly heaving a deep sense of relief in turn.  It took twenty-seven minutes for the truck unlisted to reach its destination, an old abandoned warehouse by the docks where all of the bodies were stripped of any useful armour before being dumped into a chemical treatage pool to dissolve their remains.
The rex was a particular case due to his internal synthetic veins and nanoprocessing unit, which James decided not to look at feeling most uncomfortable at something so similar to his own anatomy become disintegrated by what Ashwin was calling the "strip an' dip".  Once every trace of the bodies had been erased, he addressed his five fellow troops with a disturbing sense of command.
	"Alroigh', toim to get back to our nest.  Daniels, Mortenssen."
	"Sir?" said one of them female.
	"Scout out the path ahead an' clear a route fer us to get back to, then get back to ground zero with a layout fer us, best to move to another position."
	"Yes sir."
	"Harolds, Murphy, Miller, you lot get back on the patrol routes, there should be done comin' round on McKinley Park in..."
He checked his watch underneath his black ops sleeve.
	"Twenty minutes, South Archer Avenue, be there."
	"Yessir," said one of them male.
	"Keep a trace on 'em then once they get back, ground zero back to me, that clear?  Move out."
	"Yes sir!"
The five operatives dispersed leaving Ashwin and James alone in a warehouse with nine rotting bodies and a truckful of military equipment.  The moment they were out of shot he wrapped his arm around FG in a familiar buddy hug as he noogie'd him.
	"Hahahaaaaaaa...still a li'l tosser you are."
	"H-h-hey, q-quit it you fat fuck!"
	"OI, I'm not fat anymore, single digits in me mate."
	"Hhhhahah...god just...Sarah told me about the whole big...operation and a guy named...I thought she was all on her movie references."
	"She wuz, jus' had to pick a name that wuz loik moine, not a coincidence.  Told her who oi wuz, she gave me the name."
	"I can't...believe that...firstly, YOU got in the military?!  Fuckin' you of all people?!"
	"Yeah, why no'?!  S'a job innit?!"
	"Okay...okay, firstly.  Why are you here?"
	"Well lessee...the situation in Chicago wuz turning rather bad, but the military officially didn't want to involve itself into what may well be an interior fighting situation due to the fact we got plenty of military and ex-military lads up in there.  So they sent us in...the S.A.S to help out YOU people, the guerrilla force."
	"...w-wait...S.A.S?  Are you...are you seriously in the special ops, like BRITISH special ops!?"
	"Mmhmm, that's why oi got sent in."
The elephant crossed his arms rippling underneath the black cloth on top of armoured padding.
	"We were brought in to unofficially help with wotever resistance is going down 'ere against certain individuals that misuse the name of a military presence.  Now officially we can't go waddlin' in argy-bargy loik but...that's where WE come in.  We never exist.  That's the mark of a real special forces operative so, if anythin' 'appens to us, we were never 'ere, we don' exist, we got no records you can access an' fer all you know, we were just a buncha rogue operatives acting on no one's orders.  We die 'ere, we die withou' names.  Addin' to the fact oi'm an orphan well...that makes me just a li'l bit more special to be part of this."
	"But...this isn't Britain, you...you actually-h-how are you in this squad in the first place holy shit Ashwin th-this is a...a lot to...god it's been fucking years how even...what happened to you?  I mean last I saw you, you weren't even that much taller than me."
	"Oi grew up.  Loik anyone else Jim, 'cept no one adopted me.  Got too old to stay in the orphanage so oi looked up me choices.  Get cast out onto the street 'omeless or end up workin' at the orphanage meself.  Oi thought 'fuck that', went into the army.  Only place oi could be, they gave me a home.  Food.  Friends loik family to me an' all oi gotta do is be ready to die fer me country at any moment.  Heh.  Not loik I gave a shit abou' anythin' else, an' look at me now."
He spread out his arms as he stood up to his full stature before his friend, a stridant walking obelisk of a beast with thick grey muscles underneath a terrifying dark visage of special operations clothing as James staggered back taking him all in.
	"This is...um, this...this has to be one hell of a coincidence that you got called out here, you know to me."
	"It's not.  Oi read up on the mission details an' personally requested to be a part of it.  One of the things they noted wuz that all the reptiles 'ad been disappearing from the city...an' your name wuz roigh' there so oi thought 'wait, 'ang about that's gotta be 'im, description matches down to the fuckin' purple stroipes you got'...so oi personally requested to be in there loik a shot."
	"Personally?  How high up are you cuz I'm pretty sure you can't just ask to join a mission."
	"Hoigh enough."
The pachyderm winked with a two-finger salute from his wide grey head.
	"That's all you ever need to know, oi jus' wanted to find you again.  Call it ol' habits but, when oi saw you on the missin' persons as one of the victims...well...let's just say oi made it personal."
	"I thought you guys had to be all about nonpersonal issues, no bias and such.  Even I heard about the S.A.S when I was growing up, best of the best, secret special ops, only thing we know about you is that you exist and that's it."
	"We are.  Still requested to be part o' the mission, show me willingness, trained meself fer urban combat situations anyway.  Oi can't 'andle the jungle me, fuckin' sweat loik a curryhouse in Madrid, know wot oi mean?"
	"Hahahaha, yeah, I guess, but...thanks.  I can't believe you came back."
	"Don' ever say oi did nuttin' fer you.  You got sum good friends round 'ere, helped us settle in noicely."
	"They did a lot better without me, I wasn't really part of all this group."
	"Hm.  Yeah, thought not, you don' have the balls after all, literally."
	"Shut up Asswind."
	"Hahaha!  'ey um, lissen, you can call me that when we're alone bu' when oi'm with me squadron you call me captain or sir, alroigh'?"
	"Whatever you say...captain."
	"Ha ha ha...'m glad that yer alroigh'.  Looks loik that's one par' o' me mission over."
	"What's the other part?"
	"The secret part."
He tapped his finger to the base of his trunk whilst the end of his trunk tapped the side of his head in unison.
	"Far as you know, oi'm just another merc, nuthin' else.  Anythin' oi tell you is off the record an' if you repeat any of this stuff to anyone outside this operation...you're gonna make me have a very difficult choice when oi'll be forced to make YOU disappear...forever.  Understood?"
	"...perfectly."
The threat was even more effective coming from his old friend who spoke with utmost severity, but his smile returned back to the pachyderm's face as he chuckled.
	"Roigh', now that oi properly spooked you up, lemme tell you abou' us.  Few years back, we got a bit o' chatter on our foreign signallers hearin' talk after the Armor Square Massacre.  Naturally we knew that shit wuzn't gonna go down easy so we monitored the situation.  That's when we found out from local chatter, sendin' a few operatives in to be out among the streets an' found that, well, the population wuz bein' quietly executed an' abducted wot with all the reptiles gone missin' fer starters.  Wot really pissed off my superiors wuz the fact that the A.R.M.E were behind it all, most definitely."
	"Because they didn't like someone making a bad name of the military?"
	"Roigh'," said Ashwin, "so we informed quietly the actual U.S. Military who in turn unofficially assisted us, off the record you understand-"
	"Got it," replied FG arms crossing.
	"They've also got a real stick up their arse about sum of these odd experiments an' money they poured into, but because there's a lotta investors an' actual military names involved...we wouldn't wanna cause a huge incident cuz next thing you know, the REAL military are gonna get all the blame fer bein' clueless about fuckin' experiments that they most certainly did not authorise."
	"So you're here to clean up this mess."
	"Exactly.  Put up meself with name forward, captain of a small unit to assist the local forces.  Found out miss Sarah King wuz the big kingpin around 'ere, haha, so oi reached out fer 'elp.  She wuzn't sure of me at first but once oi came out with half the codes fer the security rotas of 'the Armee'...well...she came round to me eventually."
	"Half the codes for what?"
	"Because the security system is all pretty toight up at their HQ, they're gonna be operatin' on military standards an' for most part, they got their own systems an' passwords.  Luckily, all systems got a weakness, an' now we don' really acknowledge this...bu' there are holes in military security."
	"Like what?"
	"Never you moind."
He bopped the raptor's nose with his trunk before he ended the conversation with:
	"Let's get back to yer ol' boss shall we?  Can' wait to 'ear sum of yer stories on where you been sunshoine."
	"Hahaha, trust me...you're not gonna believe where the hell I've been."
	"Well...try me."
	"Alright.  But, just so you know, if you tell anyone...nobody's gonna believe you."
	"Oi already told you.  Oi don't exist, so wot difference does it make?"