• I kept my ears perked for the most delicate of sounds, perching myself on a branch hidden by the night time brush for merely a second before moving on to the next branch. The cool touch of the breeze was gentle this time, sifting through my fur in a constant manner as I moved from branch to branch.
    A few tree lengths before the wall is where I stopped to observe for openings and threats; near silent thuds from behind told me my comrades were close behind. Or should I say two of them in the very least; flicking my tail simply to display a temporary agitation, I was still rather angered that one of my employees went on ahead. She could jeopardize the entire situation for us, let alone her own life!
    Upon my hesitation, my second in command, Ryioke, went a branch ahead of my own. He too was scooping the area, looking for the slightest disturbances that might render us to be revealed. I returned my attention to the wall, looking up and down it throughout its lengths for unwanted security and possible ruggedness to which would serve as a quick climb.
    Ryioke snapped a peek at me and returned his gaze to a spot on the wall; I followed his gaze further down the wall. A sector seemed to be a common point of entrance, probably for unwanted guest of all sorts, including that of her own. The top of the structure had been chipped away from its once perfected corner, probably from grappling hooks. The wall itself had been scuffed.
    We observed the sector a bit longer to insure there’d be no threats for our entrance. The faintest traces of a nearby guard were heard. It was I who spotted him first; he was hidden in a watchtower a ways away, but still close enough to detect our arrival in the darkness.
    I thought for a moment of what we could do; then extended my wings just slightly enough to remind myself I alone could fly. With a flinch of my left hand, my two comrades hopped near. Another moment of silence, listening to the forest to determine whether we have been detected or not; I turned towards Ryioke, then to Tyius.
    “Want you to follow Ryioke over the wall,” I spoke quickly and quietly before turning to both of them, “I’ll take care of the guard.” They both nodded before Ryioke beckoned for attention.
    “Where do we meet when over?”
    I thought quickly of the old scaled map I had obtained of the Imperial City, then the measurable dimensions from the watchtower to the sector of the wall. My eyes crept up one of the trees in front of me and behind them, tail wavering slightly when trying to figure this out. Then I had come to a conclusion, “Hide in the shadows once you’re over, I’ll find you.”
    Again, they nodded. I looked to both of them to insure they understood what they were doing and saw more certainty in my second command than I had employee. Regardless, I nodded and quickly started to leap through the trees leading up to the watchtower. A half a minute of dodging and aiming through the unpredictable branches, and I was already ducking in hiding nearby the watchtower.
    Luckily and skillfully, I was silent; the proof was in the elven guard’s lack of reaction. I listened carefully, perking my ears up even more so and turning them ever so slightly to pick up the most silent of sounds. I blocked out the natural sounds of the forest and heard no spies in my surrounding area. My gaze remained on the guard, watching and listening to his movements to determine when I could move in. His gaze led into the city, rather than out or along the wall; more than likely a guard who was slacking off.
    As stealthily as I could possibly muster, I began to quickly move closer to the watchtower while still in the trees. My gaze remained with the unsuspecting guard as I hopped to the ground, landing with a near silent thud as I continued my assault. I took flight at the guard’s blind spot, located right at the foot of the tower, and flew vertically upward until I reached just below the minor platform of the upper tower. I grabbed hold of one of the beams so not to make the beating of my wings too noticeable, then waited to listen in.
    “Huh?” I heard the guard murmur; there were a few steady thuds from above. I figured the guard was looking out on the forest now, possibly even looking down to my direction. So I waited, keeping my breath calm and sticking close to the wall. Before long, the guard started to walk seemingly away this time.
    In that matter, I figured one way or the other, I had to get up there. So I took the chance and swung my body forward three times before doing a complete forward flip into the glassless window. The guard turned quickly. I ducked low to the floor, ran light-footedly behind and popped up to deal a jab to a pressure point along his neck. He had no time to react, and soon began to collapse into a faint. I caught him to prevent any noise, then dragged him into a chair where it would just look like he was dozing off on duty.
    My next views were on the way down. I looked out onto the massive city before me and knew for sure it had changed greatly in reference to the map I had studied. My lips pierced back a ways; hopefully the pathway was in the very least similar, otherwise this could be quite troublesome.
    There were a few people in the streets in the distance; below was vacant with the exception to another unconscious guard back near where I left Ryioke and Tyius. Hopefully they hadn’t caused a commotion in the process. Looking nearer toward me, I found a moderately large building that could hide my presence when climbing down to the ground. Then I took a path through the top of the wall to get over there, glimpsing back every now and then to determine whether or not I was caught.
    Before long, I was climbing down to the ground, hopping off at the last few feet so I could pick up speed quickly when I landed. On the ground now, I swerved my footing into the direction of the one sector and stealthily moved in and out of the shadows as I made my way into its direction.
    A few yards after the unconscious guard and I sniffed the air silently for signs of Ryioke’s scent. It wavered and I followed it until I entered a blackened shadow of a building. There I was barely able to make out Ryioke’s and Tyius’ silhouettes, “We’re close to Burgi,” Ryioke whispered ever so silently. I nodded to the streets naming.
    “Good, how did the roofing seem?” I asked.
    “There’s barely enough cover over here. It didn’t get better until around that fountain further down,” Ryioke reported stressfully. I chewed my lower lip for a second as I continued to think of what we could possibly do. The city had increased its security greatly in the past five years, this mission may have something to do with it, I really don’t know. All I knew was that the elves became stricter with allowing other races in. It’s only a matter of time if we don’t figure out our pathway soon.
    “And how about the streets?” I asked, trying to think for myself on how many hiding spots were located on the streets I surpassed. There weren’t many from what I recalled, but at the same time, the road I surpassed was one of the main roads. It was wider, more decorative and open to the public.
    Ryioke released a slight sigh, “We’re in better luck,” he said, “But each with a far stretch in between.” Perhaps the city was purposely aligned this way to keep out intruders. Maybe they had a few problems with outsiders as of these past few years.
    “We’ll follow through on the ground then,” I ordered, “Look for other ways and remember to keep your senses high.”
    I thought they had nodded again, but because I couldn’t see them, I rather had waited for them to speak. It wasn’t a long wait, “Right,” they both said quietly. In response, I released a quietly meaningless murmur and start heading back out towards the edge of the building.
    Again, I perked my ears to detect unnatural sounds; my eyes snapped to the right, catching some of the locations in which Ryioke was speaking of. The gaze flowed naturally to possibilities of how I could get there without detection. To the tree, behind the bush, along the fence, below the windows of a store and at last the alleyway.
    Upon these quick decisions, my body reacted more so on impulse to get to where I needed to go. Tyius was the first to follow, attempting the pathway to the best of his ability before tripping up when ducking beneath the windows. Though he was quick to regain balance and get over to me, the elves may have still heard with their keen hearing. We all waited before Ryioke was to make his dash.
    Ryioke made it over in no time and with no flaws; I looked around the corner of a building and at first attracted my attention to the distant fountain. Around and beyond it were certainly more positions to hide amongst the rooftops, but the goal was getting over there first. So I looked to another hiding spot, a cluster of bushes and trees would serve as another great shelter.
    Again, my eyes looked for the many possible pathways before choosing the shortest that’d keep us hidden. I took a dash for it; soon to follow were Tyius and Ryioke. This had continued up until the sixth stop, where we stopped to take a short breather and figure out our next step in the process.
    We were very close to the fountain now, but the anxiety of being caught had grown unusually strong. I resumed to looking for a way up onto the rooftops that’d lead us to our destination. The noise of the fountain’s flowing water kept attracting me, but I tried to ignore it and found a stack of barrels leaning against a moderately tall building nearby. If we stick to this house size or higher, we’d be practically out of the by passer’s peripheral vision, I thought to myself.
    “Excuse me!” Damn it! I turned around, finding Tyius was quite anxiously hiding behind Ryioke. Ryioke was just as aggravated as I was, possibly even more so to have a skilled bounty hunter hang off of him. We both looked up to the three elven streets guards, more in particular, the one who attracted our attention.
    At first I was quiet, wondering what the Hell would happen now. If rumors were correct, we’d never escape the Elven Empire alive. It was how I lost Camri and Jeff; their mission was to take back our client’s trophy, but they never returned. Though I demanded answers, I’ve only received in return that it was our fault for the intrusion. I could only wonder what happened to them, could only what’d happen to us now.
    “Yes?” I finally responded, standing back up right and retaking the prideful role of a strong leader. Only one of the guards reacted, a mere cringe of the facial expression, telling me that he had heard rumors of me as well.
    But the one who asked for my attention didn’t move a slight bit; he watched us for a moment before continuing, “You snuck into the city as unauthorized guests and continued to sneak around amongst our streets,” he reported our actions, “We’re gonna have to take you three in for questioning.”
    The three of them started walking towards us, pulling out handcuffs as they got closer. All three of us, even Tyius got into a more defensive position; we kept ourselves lower to the ground as if we were to pounce, our legs were spread out so we could move quickly and our arms were leveled a little higher above our waist incase we had to fight. The three guards stopped, while two of the guards prepared for a battle themselves, third one warned, “Any resistance will result in a testimony against you; come quietly or we’ll make you come.”
    Though in any other situation I’d follow through with what they wanted, this was a time when information could not leak. The king of the Dragon Empire warned me that this child was very much the property of the Elven king, despite the abuse. Kidnapping, or in our chosen terms, freeing this child would definitely anger the Elven king. Just hearing the information while still in his custody will surely result in our skinning.
    “That’s quite alright, boys,” came another voice from above. We all looked on top of the roof to my left; we all stood straight up again, us having more reasons than the guards to be surprised. The man who spoke was the Elven Empire’s chief commander, Actinium. Standing beside him though was quite the little shock in itself. It was Ramen, the one employee who decided to sneak off ahead of us. “I’ll take it from here,” Actinium continued before hopping down to the ground with Ramen.
    The guards hesitated, half intimidated by their commanding officer while at the same time wondering what was going on. I figured this Actinium character normally had security around him whenever he exited his home; just having an unauthorized bounty huntress accompanying him was sure to confuse them.
    Actinium eyed them a little stricter and they soon caught the hint that he didn’t want them there. The three elven guards walked off; probably back on patrol of the city. The three of us looked at Actinium and Ramen, even I had to admit it was rather a confusing sight.
    “Is this that old friend of yours you told me about?” I finally spoke up, eying Ramen a bit.
    “Mhmm!” She must’ve caught my evil eye for she responded in a rather cheerfully challenging way. Ramen was always a smart a** one way or another to her superiors.
    “She told me you were here to gather a little girl,” Actinium said. I turned my gaze over to him and nodded once to confirm what she told him. He continued by saying, “I can honestly say that I’ve not heard of these experiments at all.”
    I wondered if what he said were true, surely the Elven king would inform his chief commander, wouldn’t he? I allowed my head to tilt to one side as I spoke, “And I assume you wouldn’t let us to continue even if you did?”
    “On contra,” Actinium fought the assumption away, “I’m willing to help you out.” I was quite speechless. My ears perked in curiosity, surprised to hear that a chief commander would go behind his own leader’s back for a business that’s in the past at times caused trouble for the city. “I’m quite sure you need an update on your zoning, if I’m correct?” He raised an eyebrow towards me, pushing the idea that he insisted on helping us out.
    “Yes, but…” I was still trying to swallow the offer, “Aren’t you worried about losing your job. You’d technically be committing treason.” Actinium put on a small smile, almost as if he were amused by my concern. In reality, I knew he must’ve been concerned about losing his job though. I wonder what this mission meant to him to make such a massive decision in helping us.
    “I wouldn’t worry about it,” he simply responded. Actinium was still looking at me, waiting for my approval, “Suffice to say, I thought these experimental issues were resolved years ago. Whoever is responsible for the continuation, I rather see to it that it stops for good.”
    I was quite willing after hearing his reasoning; both the Dragon king and I agreed that we disliked what was happening to this little girl when we heard about it. But the Dragon king would rather have avoiding a war between his nation and the Elven Nation; he was already in the depths of war with the Human Nation. This is why he came to us; there was a sum of money involved to get us to kidnap this child from the Elven Empire.
    But I still couldn’t fight off the idea that Actinium was sacrificing his career, “Even if it is your king who promoting it?” Actinium nodded, he must’ve figured out by now that his king was behind it.
    “Yes,” he responded simply. Again, I was hesitant. Ryioke was beside me, just as surprised as me, but holding his leadership as well. Tyius was just alarmed to be in the presence of such a high-ranking official. Ramen on the other hand was giving me her puppy dog look, eyes wide and lower lip extended; I was more aggravated by it than I was falling for it.
    “In that case,” I finally said, “I would be grateful for your help, sir.” Actinium nodded and looked down the street from where we came.
    “If you’d follow me,” he urged, twitching his head into the direction of where he wanted to go, “We should do our planning in privacy.” I nodded my head in agreement. Actinium began walking down the street; I followed with Ryioke and Tyius behind. Ramen came up beside me.
    “Sorry for ditching you like that, boss,” she began to apologize, “We were just not prepared and I thought: Hey! Why not Acti here.” I could here Actinium chuckle a tad bit. I myself rolled my eyes; Ramen was full of excuses. But for the most part, her excuses didn’t terrorize the business, just my employees; this was an exception to the rule. It could’ve meant life or death if things took the wrong turn.
    We arrived at Actinium’s house in a very short amount of time; Ryioke and Tyius gapped at the size of the building. Though only two stories, it must’ve contained many, if not large rooms. Naturally, I expected this from high-ranking officials.
    We entered Actinium’s house and he immediately led me into a conference room. “Do you have your map on you, Sunebre?” Actinium asked. I didn’t think it was that noticeable that I contained a map of the city, maybe he figured I’d have one since it was plain obvious that barely any outsider knew the improved structures of the city. Nodding, I reached into my back pouch and pulled out a blueprint of the city’s structure. I unfolded it and laid it out on the table.
    Actinium observed this old map and confirmed that “There have certainly been quite a bit of changes since 1987.” I blinked once and just watched him observe the old city structure. He pointed at a build closer yet to the military headquarters, “The Royal Laboratories has extended its facilities over these three structures,” he explained before tracing his finger along an invisible square around the facility, “And another wall was built to protect it within the boundaries of our headquarters.”
    “How weren’t you able to hear about what was going on if both your fields have collide?” I quite curious to know why Actinium was so oblivious to what was going on. Is he setting a trap for us?
    Actinium looked up at me; he seemed like he wanted to say something but didn’t know how to say it. I waited and he stood up right to face me, perhaps to show his trustworthiness. “The national military doesn’t see to what actually happens at some of the guarded firms. Our king made it known that he wouldn’t say a word about it. His private force, whom I have very little connection to myself, is in charge of the security regulations.”
    “So there’s another chief commander?” Tyius spoke up, quite shocked by his own assumption. Actinium nodded his head slowly.
    “Yes, he’s called our king,” he responded rudely. Tyius shut himself up once he made the connection. I sighed a bit in the arising eerie silence as Actinium continued to study the map.
    Ramen shift onto her other leg and pointed to the exit of the conference room, “I’m going to get a snack, k?” She walked out even before Actinium nodded his head. Ryioke, Tyius and I were wondering how the hospitality worked between Actinium and her. But Actinium interrupted the thoughts quickly.
    “Let me get a better map and my laptop,” he said, looking towards me, “I’ll be right back.” I simply nodded my head again. But as Actinium started to pass by Ryioke, Ryioke released a yawn into his cuffed hand. Actinium looked to him, then back to all three of us. He observed us a bit before saying: “There’s a few guest bedrooms upstairs; you can rest if you like.”
    I shook my head no in resentment; I needed to focus on the mission, “No, that’s quite alright.” But Ryioke and Tyius seemed to disagree.
    “Do you mind if we do, Sunebre?” Ryioke asked me. I looked to him in disapproval; we have a mission to do!
    Actinium turned towards me again. “There have been a lot of changes since 1987, it may take me the whole night to get through the new map with you. Then I’d have to identify which guard is where based off of what information I can access,” he made his point.
    I just looked at him for a moment, figuring that he was indeed right. I looked back to Ryioke and Tyius and said, “Alright…” They nodded gratefully and Actinium again revealed a small smile.
    “If you’d follow me upstairs, I’ll show you where your rooms are,” he said, starting for the staircase nearby the conference room door. Ryioke and Tyius nodded and followed him upstairs. I waited in the conference room alone, wishing to death that this was not a trap, that nothing bad would come of the chief commander’s aid.
    Ramen returned into the conference room and looked around a bit, “Wow, they cleared out,” she said, sipping on her juice box. She looked at me next, “Why are you so tense, boss? Acti’s a good friend of mine, I wouldn’t have been alive to be here if it wasn’t for him.”
    I looked at Ramen, “Still seems rather suspicious that the elven king won’t tell his chief commander what’s going on, don’t you think?” Ramen went back to leaning on her one foot, eyeballing nothing in particular as she continuing to sip on the juice box.
    “Yeah…” she agreed, “But you can’t blame him for it.” She raised a hand as if to touch my shoulder, though we were too far of a distance for her to even touch me. “I think he’s telling the truth.”
    I wasn’t able to respond for Actinium walked back into the conference room with a larger map rolled up in one hand and laptop in the other. Setting the laptop down beside my older map, he rolled out his on top. I looked at the map wide eyed; other than the fact that it was more detailed in every type of way, but the changes in this city have been massive.
    Actinium sat down; inviting me to sit in the chair beside him as he opened his laptop and started it up. He looked to ramen some and said, “Ramen, why don’t you go get some sleep?” Ramen sneered, again challenging authority.
    “I can stay up,” she insisted. But I didn’t want to put up with her during this.
    “Go to bed, Ramen,” I practically ordered. Ramen was about to challenge me as well, but both me and Actinium gave her a look that told her she better listen. She finished her juice box with a roll of the eyes.
    “Fine, fine. I’ll go to bed,” she tossed her juice box in the trash can near the door as she began to head towards the stairs, “But you better fill me in tomorrow.” And she was upstairs.
    Neither Actinium nor I spoke about Ramen’s teenage-like behavior at that instance; rather we got to work immediately. The map he pulled out was laminated and I had noticed he had brought some dry erase marker down with him.
    The first order of business was suggesting about five possible routes and narrowing them down to just two of the best. He drew a line from a starting point to the destination and at one point, brought out another map specifically laying out the different sectors of the Royal Laboratory. We created a path there as well. By the crack of dawn we were just starting on locating where the guards were. He specified four of the guards in particular.
    “These four guards contain the ability to control an element,” he began to label four of the guard routes by the element type, “If we take this route, we may come across the fire elemental.” I nodded without much of a response. I was tired in all honesty, my hours of working were often much longer than anyone else in our facility. Actinium realized this awhile back and continued to insist on my rest.
    “We’re just about done,” he said, “You can rest now, I’ll look up the rest.” I looked at him with a small smile of my own, half thinking: no dumbass, we need to get this done first. But I wouldn’t say this out loud.
    “We can’t move out till nightfall anyways,” I reminded, rubbing the corner of my strained eye with a finger or two, “I’ll sleep during the day.” Actinium nodded a bit, he was worried about my energy level I could tell. So I reversed the situation back on him, “You make sure to get your rest as well. That is if you still want to accompany us?”
    Actinium nodded a little more vigorously, “I do intend to come,” he said, “Don’t you worry about me,” he added on. I shook my head in slight amusement and returned my views to the map, imagining my head slipped off of my hand and onto the tabletop, where I’d fall asleep. But I managed to remain a wake and pay attention to get things down. By tomorrow afternoon, we’d explain the situation to Ramen, Ryioke and Tyius. Then afterwards, we were off to save that little child.