Story (c) Hikage Stinkdawg 2004

"Please be alright Tireal." He whispered to himself. "For the love of the gods, please be alright."

The Hyena rounded a corner to find himself staring into the barrels of two rifles. His instincts kicked in and he quickly calculated in his head.

The guns fired.

Quint moved slightly to his left and returned fire, the metal projectiles clipping off fur from his cheek with their close proximity. The Hyena’s shots disarmed the startled rat soldiers and Quint took full advantage of their momentarily stunned state, violently connecting his fists with each of their heads and knocking both unconscious before the hyena’s feet hit the ground.

Quint ran on.

Quint followed the twisting hallways for what seemed like an eternity, never slowing his pace as his heart continued to pound in his chest. He hoped that Tireal hadn’t come to any harm. He hoped to any god above that the small otter would be all right. It was true, Quint had a space in his heart for the otter, but it was more of a brotherly love or the love a father gives to his son.

Quint skidded to a halt in front of a closed door.

The door was locked.

His ears perked up at the sound of rapid footsteps behind him.

This would be interesting.

The unclothed hyena slowly turned around to see five rats rounding the same bend and lifting their rifles towards him. Quint smiled and brushed his sweat-matted headfur from before his eyes. He kept very still, just watching the rats with interest and a very smug smile on his muzzle.

The rat dressed in a royal robe watched the hyena in the glowing screen from his seat at the conference table. He raised an eyebrow at Quint’s behavior and looked around the table at the other smartly dressed rats who sat there.

"What is he doing?" one of the rats asked. "Surely he knows the soldiers have instructions to shoot to kill by now."

The royal rat rested his chin on his fist idly.

"You put too much faith in our guards, senator Charr." He said. "This bounty hunter’s reputation is beyond compare, just watch."

Quint lifted his right arm slowly, beckoning to the rat soldiers as if to say, bring it on. The rats looked at each other and shrugged, aiming their rifles at the brazen hyena before them. Quint closed his eyes.

"What the hell??" another rat at the table shouted in disbelief.

The royal rat smirked and watched.

Quint heard the rifle's fire, but he was already moving. The hyena leapt into the air and time seemed to slow down while he twisted his body in mid flight to avoid all of the bullets around him. As he rotated through the steel projectiles his pistol hand leveled itself at the rats. It only took five shots and all of the rats yelped as their guns exploded in their hands. Quint hissed in alarm, one of the bullets catching his thigh as his perception of time returned to normal and he collided with the floor. The hyena leapt to his feet and winced slightly, blood dripping down his leg from the fresh graze wound. He grimaced and approached the five rats slowly, gun pointed at them.

"Which one of you has the key?" Quint gestured to the door.

The rats shook their heads negatively as the royal looking rat at the table pushed a button next to his chair. Quint heard a click behind him and backed towards the door, watching the rat soldiers carefully. The hyena felt the door handle in his palm and opened the door, slipping inside the dark room as he closed and locked the door behind him.

"You see, gentlemen?" The royal rat spoke softly. "He is perfect for our cause."

The other rats nodded in agreement and one voice their collective opinions.

"General Zas, he is a prime specimen, but what of the otter? That creature seems next to useless. Why do we need both of them?"

Zas smiled. "We need both of them because without one, the other can not function. I will demonstrate this fact for you now."

All of the rats turned to look at the glowing screen with interest.

***

Quint found himself in darkness and snorted.

"This is getting old." He thought as his hand felt for a wall or something to gauge his position by.

His paw reached behind him and he felt the door. Well that was a start. He cautiously felt along the door to the door jam and from there to the stone wall. As he touched the wall, he heard footsteps in the darkness. Then a voice that sounded all too familiar.

"We meet again, Bounty Hunter." Light suddenly flooded into the room as all of the torches lit themselves at once.

Quint was blinded for a moment and held a paw in front of his eyes, waiting for them to adjust to the brightness. He heard a gun fire, and he instinctively dove to the left. They hyena gasped as his vision was restored and he saw the female rat soldier below him, gun raised and smoking. It was only then that Quint felt the pain digging into his right side as her bullet connected with his body, just below the ribs. The hyena sailed over her and landed in a heap on the floor, shuddering from the pain. The rat leapt to her feet and laughed at the hyena.

"What’s the matter?" She asked. "Can’t fight without your eyes?"

Quint gritted his teeth and slowly stood, leveling his rifle at her. He spat on the floor and glared.

"Blow me." He growled.

"No thanks," she replied. "You’re really not my type."

Quint let the rifle go on fully automatic fire as the rat dove behind some conveniently placed cover. The hyena heard her reloading her pistol and he started to limp around the over- turned table that hid her from his view. He only had three shots remaining in his left-hand pistol, his other pistol having run out of ammo some time ago. Quint gritted his teeth against the pain in his side as he leapt around the table, aiming his pistol at the female rodent. She returned the favor and both weapons fired at once.

***

Tireal groggily came to his senses.

His head hurt.

The otter groaned as he looked up at the ceiling from where he lay, lifting a hand to his throbbing head. It felt like someone had been hammering at his skull for a while now. Tireal slowly sat up, wincing from the pain in his head.

Something was different.

The otter wasn’t in the same place he had passed out in before. There was no fire, and he wasn’t in a strange hallway. The domed ceiling arced away from him in a brilliant blue color to the other side of the room. Stars glittered in the blue expanse of the ceiling. Tireal marveled at the beauty of it all and let his eyes scan the room. The walls were grey stone, as was the floor and various torches lit the large arena-like room.

"Hello?" The otter called out across the room. "…Is anyone there?"

Tireal heard his own voice answer him, making his head throb painfully. The otter got to his feet shakily, walking slowly to the center of the room. He looked straight up into the middle of the blue ceiling and then lowered his head again as a painful wave shot through it. Tireal whimpered. Why did his head hurt so much? And why was he in this room? There had to be a way out somewhere.

The otter turned around and grinned. There was a door in the far wall, back from whence he came. Tireal walked back to the door and felt the surface cautiously as he remembered what happened the last time he opened a door without thinking. The wood felt cool to the touch and the otter grasped the handle, pulling the door open. His smile faded at what he saw. A metal gate was set into the doorway, barring his exit to the room, a hallway stretched away from him behind the gate. Tireal slammed the door in frustration, suddenly wishing he hadn’t as the loud noise reverberated painfully in his skull. The otter collapsed onto the cool stone floor in tears, waiting for the noise to leave his throbbing brain alone. There was no exit to the room, he was trapped. Tireal curled up on the floor sadly, wondering what he was going to do.

***

Quint yelped in alarm and pain as the rodent’s bullet cut into his shoulder. The pain stabbed his body again as he landed on that shoulder, sliding a few feet and leaving a small red streak behind him on the floor. The female’s gun flew through the air, landing behind her with a metallic clatter. She drew a small Derringer pistol from her right boot and approached the prone hyena on the cold stone. Quint gulped air, his wounded shoulder clearly dislocated and bleeding onto the floor as he struggled to raise his rifle towards the rat. She stepped on the barrel, preventing Quint from moving as she pushed the business end of her pistol into his naked crotch and leaned onto his knee. Quint clenched his teeth and closed his eyes as he felt his body throb painfully with the rodent’s weight upon him.

"Well this looks familiar," she said as she trailed the barrel up the hyena’s body to his throat. "As I recall, the last duel we had ended similarly."

Quint swallowed and opened his left eye. "You had a slight advantage this round. What do you want from me?"

She chuckled. "I’m just doing my job, nothing more."

Quint winced. "…oh? And what… does that entail?" The hyena, in excruciating pain as it was, bled from the wound in his shoulder, side, and thigh. All of his acrobatics during the firefights had opened a few old, not fully healed scars, the tattoo the dragon had branded into his chest dripping blood in places. The rodent leaned her muzzle close to his face, pushing the barrel of the gun into his lower jaw.

"That’s none of your business." She lifted her nose to his forehead and kissed him gently before licking along his half ear.

Quint tried not to gag and figured that this was his only chance. The hyena’s knee lifted violently, sending the female rodent over his head. Her pistol fired and Quint made himself move. He rolled sideways and behind one of the pillars that held up the ceiling as the metal slug pinged off of the stone floor. Quint relocated his shoulder against the hard stone of the pillar, wincing and grinding his teeth against the pain. The hyena then checked his ammo. He only had two bullets left in his pistol and his rifle wasn’t fairing too well in ammunition either. This was it, it was either win now, or die trying. He heard the rat approaching his cover and decided to take her by surprise. The female crept up on the pillar slowly, crouching on the opposite side of it as the hyena.

"You’re only making this harder on yourself, why not give up and die?" She called out.

There was silence for only a moment.

Quint, having moved to the side of the pillar, dove into the rodent’s line of fire, rifle and pistol raised. Before the rodent could react, Quint unloaded the rifle at her, landing on his good shoulder as the female dove sideways and avoided all of the projectiles from the rifle. Quint followed her with his pistol and fired a single shot.

***

Tireal heard faint gunfire. He was having trouble remembering things. Had he been in this room before? He thought the blue domed ceiling should have been familiar, but he couldn’t recall where he was or why he was here. The otter’s head hurt, though. Had he damaged it somehow? He lifted his paw to his head and felt for bruises and a single sore spot. Finding nothing, he gave up, figuring his head hurt for a reason, but he would discover what that reason was later. Tireal looked around the room again. Why was the ceiling blue? The otter paced around the room until he spotted the door in the wall. A door… Was he being kept here or had he come here on purpose? If there was a reason for his coming here, he couldn’t remember it. There didn’t seem to be anything of importance in the room, so he decided to leave. He walked over to the door and opened it.

Zas smiled. So far, everything was going exactly as he had planned. The rats sitting around the table were fixed to the two floating images of Quint and Tireal before them, watching what the two did in reaction to their surroundings.

Zas lifted a hand, waving it to end the image of Quint. He looked up at the moving Tireal and spoke: "As you can plainly see, gentlemen, my magicists have altered the otter’s mind slightly. We shall see how this affects our two bounty hunters very shortly."

Another wave of his hand brought back the image of Quint.

***

The hyena’s bullet shot into the barrel of the rat’s Derringer, destroying the small weapon and leaving the female unarmed. She angrily threw down the damaged firearm as Quint slowly stood. He barely had time to lift his fist in defense as her foot swung towards his head. The kick glanced off of his arm, but her fist connected with his left cheek, the force making him stagger backwards from her blow. She pulled his pistol from its holster at his hip and planted the barrel on his chest, over his heart.

"Time to end this for good," she growled as Quint’s heart thudded in his chest and she pulled the trigger.

…

…

…

The pistol clicked.

She pulled the trigger again.

Click.

She snarled and pulled it four more times.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Click.

Quint smiled weakly and held up the only remaining bullet in his possession, dropping it into his mouth. His throat gulped and the female rodent shrieked in rage, throwing his pistol on the floor and slamming her fist into his gut. Quint groaned in pain as he reached behind him for anything to fight with. He grabbed a small chair, pushing her away from him with his free hand and bringing the chair over his head with the other. The rat squeaked softly as the piece of furniture rendered her unconscious. Quint gasped and bent over to pick up his pistol, spitting the bullet back into his paw. He reloaded the remaining slug into the gun and slid the projectile into line with the chamber. The heavy pistol dangled from his paw as he limped to the other side of the room and the door that he hadn’t been through yet. Quint reached the door and it opened in front of him.

The hyena was speechless.

"Tireal..!?" was all he could say.

The otter looked at the hyena with a puzzled expression on his face and then to the gun in the canine’s hand. Tireal cried out in alarm and, on impulse, shot a ball of fire from his hands at Quint. The hyena yelped and sidestepped the projectile, pressing his back to the stone wall.

"Who the hell are you?" Tireal asked as he poked his head into the room.

Quint felt as if a heavy weight had fallen onto his shoulders.

"You… you don’t remember me?" he asked.

Tireal shook his head.

"No… is there some reason you’re holding a gun and bleeding in so many places?"

Quint fought back the tears welling in his eyes.

"Tireal… we… we used to be best friends…" Quint started to say, but he never finished.

The otter’s eyes seemed to glaze over when Quint uttered the word friends and Tireal let loose another jet of fire in Quint’s direction. The hyena dove out of the way, letting the tears flow, now.

"Please Tireal… I don’t want to have to hurt you…" Quint landed on his bad shoulder and yelped in pain. The hyena slowly lifted himself onto all fours and sobbed softly as he heard Tireal approaching. Quint rolled over, gun lifted towards his latrine companion. The otter kept advancing, electricity crackling between his fingers as he walked.

A single tear slid down Quint’s cheek. "Tireal… I’m… I’m sorry."

The hyena had to make a decision.

It was a binary choice:

Shoot or be killed.

…

Tireal took another step,

And Quint pulled the trigger.

END?