...And Into The Fire

                            By:

                         Fox Cutter

    Chapter 13

I have to say, after my night of fiddling with a spell, it
felt good to go through the fold. On the other side I found
myself in a long metal hallway. Steven steeped through
behind me, with a shake of his head, he pulled the temp
implants off his ears.

"Your not much for fold-walking are you?" I asked him,
chuckling.

He shook his head. "No, gives me an instant headache."

I shrugged, "You may just be more telepathic then most."

He rolled his eyes a bit. "So, how long do you think we'll
have to wait until Kalie gets here."

I closed my eyes for a second, and did some quick mental
math. "Knowing her, about know."

"Right as always dragon." I heard Kalie say from behind me.

I turned. "Not always, I've been know to be wrong at times."

She grinned. "More then a few." She lowered her eyebrows
when she saw Steven. "Is that one of mine?"

Turning, I could see him blush in his ears, adjusting the
gun's holster a bit, which was clipped to his pants. "Um,
yes. Ken told me to bring it."

She gave me a displeased look. "Your far more qualified to
use a gun then he is, why don't you have one?"

I held up my foreclaw. "Wrong size."

She closed her eyes. "Sorry, I forgot." Open her eyes again,
she started down the hallway. "Come one you two, we have to
go back to the others."

"Others?" Steven asked, followed me as I followed her.

She nodded. "Yes, things have gotten interesting." Then she
started to gives us a run down that lasted until we arrived
in what she said was the Hall's communication center. What
ever it was, it was huge.

I had to admit, I was in quite aw. Though Steven didn't
looked to fazed. I guess a sight like this one where common
in his verse.

Going up a ladder, she walked over to a small room. Then
motioning for us to stay out side, she slipped into the
room. There was a bit of a conversation that I decided to
ignore, then she stuck her head out. "Come on in." she said.

Going inside, I found myself in a small control room.
Sitting in front of one set of controls was a vixen (who,
from Kalie's story, I assume was Rachel). She looked like a
mess, and was clearly favoring her left arm. On the other
side was a thirtyish looking white fox (Marn I guessed) who
looked as bad as the vixen, though he wasn't exactly doing
anything. Both of them where looking at us.

Rachel spoke up. "So you're friends of Fox?"

I nodded. "I'm Ken, and this is Steven."

She paused for a second, then smiled a bit. "The mage?"

I nodded again.

"Fox has told me about you, get in here, it's nice to have
reinforcements."

I moved in, and sat down in one of the chairs, though
sitting backwards, as it wasn't made for my type of tail. I
saw that Kalie did the same. Steven sat down my Marn.

Kalie turn her chair a bit, and held her paw out. "My gun."
she said.

Marn picked up the gun that he been sitting in his lap, and
handed it to her. She quickly checked over it, then reached
around, and put it into a holster on her belt, that was
colours so as to blended into her fur.

She looked over at Rachel. "So, what exactly are you doing?"

"I'm going through all the internal cameras." She explained,
already back at her work. "We're trying to find where the
HammerHeads are working from. I've gone through about three
hundred cameras so far. I never knew this place had some
many hallways!"

She rested her chin in her paw. "Well... where would you
work from?"

Rachel shrugged. "That Council Chamber I would guess."

She leaned forward. "So, can you check there?"

She paused, then punched something into the computer. After
a few seconds the pictures on the screen changed from an
empty hallway to what I assumed was the Council Chambers. It
was empty.

Rachel shrugged. "Well, it was worth a shot." And started to
get onto another camera.

"Wait." I heard Steven say. "Do you see that, down in the
corner."

Instantly, everyone in the room leaned forward. "It looks
like some kind of animal." Rachel said. I agreed, I wasn't
sure exactly what kind of animal it was, but it clearly was
an small animal. The animal moved into the center of the
room, and skampered of screen.

"Now where did she come from?" Marn asked.

Rachel didn't say anything, but watched as two people walked
into view. It looked like a lioness and a human. The human
was where some kind of green jacket that I recognized.

Rachel, Kalie and I all knew who he was at the exact same
time, but only Kalie said who it was. "Fox."