Chapter 1: The Summoning

Part 1: Hostage

A/N: A lot of people will notice right off the bat that the characters are a bit OOC, especially Krystal. If so, good: you're smart. However, there are reasons why the characters' personalities are different, reasons that I won't explain... yet. Finding out why the characters have changed so much will be part of the driving force to keep reading, and I can promise, it will be satisfactorily answered. Some of you might even get it right away if you're smart enough. Just had to get that out before everyone started complaining.

Finally, rated M for graphic violence, frequent language, and sexual themes. Strong language no longer censored. Yes, it was before the rating was upped :)

We are not satisfied
We are hungry

Hungry for the visceral
Cathartic
Inspired
Defiant

We are not heroes
Or anti-heroes

We carry only the flag
That is our own

Now is not the time
To look back to see
If anyone is following

Now is the time
To charge forward
Into the unknown

-THE HUNTING PARTY-

She always loved this part.

With the ringing of metal and the flapping of leather, the cerulean vixen clasped a gun belt around her waist and cinched it tight. Her amphibian partner tossed two silver guns across the hangar towards her, which she effortlessly caught. For show, she spun the pistols around her fingers until they whirred and reflected the blinding blue light of the outside world off their barrels. Finally, she stopped their spinning and slapped them down into their holsters. Another sensation she enjoyed; the feeling of a gun slapping into its holster, like a knife or a sword sliding into its sheath. But even greater was the feeling of drawing her weapons.

As she pulled a pair of black, fingerless gloves over her paws, her other counter-part, a tall avian, slid an energy cartridge into his prized laser gun. The hangar room they occupied was mostly shrouded in shadows except for the glow of the sky seeping in through the opened gates, causing sharp accents of light to shine off of a myriad of crates filled to the brim with guns, knives, ammunition, and other assortments of weapons. But most striking of all was the reflection in the eyes of her teammate in the relative dark. Noticing her gaze, her partner asked, "What?"

"Nothing," she replied in voice too mature for her age, "I just like that look in your eyes."

The falcon studied her for a moment. "I don't like that look in yours, either."

"What, because I'm having too much fun?" She smiled slyly. "You should learn to enjoy your line of work, I always say."

"Does an undertaker enjoy collecting dead bodies?"

"Hell yeah he does, Feather-pubes," the vixen said with mock affection.

"Hey, this is the last time I check," the amphibian interrupted, "You all know the plan?"

The avian grunted and slid a parachute over his shoulders. "Krystal will create a diversion while I go after the professor. Simple as that."

"Just how big is this "diversion" you want? Can I blow shit up?" the Cerinian answered with a lustful voice.

"Sure. Whatever you need to do to get everyone's attention. Oh, and... try not to kill anyone you don't have to."

"Aw, why not?" She pouted, sticking out her lower lip. "Are you afraid of a few civilian casualties?"

"Because A: you don't have to, and B: it's not nice."

"But that's not fair! Why does Falco get to kill the professor?"

"Because you can't pull off stealth missions. You weren't made for it."

"Shows what you know," she huffed as she pulled on her own parachute and stepped over to the open hangar doors. The whistling wind caught her fur, giving it the appearance of flickering blue fire.

"And one more question," the frog spoke up.

"Shoot."

"It would be a lot safer and easier to infiltrate the campus from the ground. Why the parachuting thing?"

"Because... why not?" With that, she took a running start and leapt out of the hangar into the open air.

Phoenix's eyes flew open right before he hit the ground.

The golden-furred vulpine desperately thrashed about for a moment before his hands settled back down on his chair's armrests. Once he remembered where he was, his pulse subsided and he was able to calm down. Looking to his right, he spotted a sand cat classmate shaking with silent laughter at his little joke; he had knocked Phoenix's elbow out from under his head and jolted him out of his sleep.

Glaring at his friend, Phoenix bent down to pick up his notepad and pen, which had slipped off of his lap and onto the floor from his sudden start. Once he was all settled again, the faint, droning voice of his economics professor tickled his ears. He and the rest of the class were seated in a large auditorium, looking down onto the center stage. Through drooping eyes, he squinted at the holographic board upon which the billy goat had drawn a complicated bow-tie graph, but was unable to make any sense of it. There were too many new additions since he had fallen asleep.

Well, that's it for this lecture, he thought. Phoenix's problem with any speaker was that he either knew nothing about the subject, he completely disagreed with everything the speaker said, he had slept through half of the lecture by the time he started paying attention to it, or the topic was economics, which usually covered all three.

Figuring he had awoken too late, he fell into his favorite pastime while ignoring lectures; making up stories and situations in his head. Normally he would imagine what he would do if, say, a zombie apocalypse struck in the middle of English, or if a fire broke out during a chemistry lab, or if a serial killer happened to assault their campus.

Yessir, Phoenix thought to himself. Anything would be better than this. Why, I wouldn't mind it if a murderer kicked through that door right now and –

Phoenix's jaw dropped. He couldn't believe it.

Without warning, the auditorium door burst inwards off its hinges, and in jumped a female vulpine grinning from ear to ear. She was dressed in a sleeveless leather jacket opened to expose a white tank top and bare midriff. Her fur was perhaps the most striking feature; it was completely blue, unlike any fox Phoenix had seen before. But his eyes were soon drawn elsewhere. Clasped around the vixen's waist was a brown gun belt with two holsters, but they were both empty; the gleaming silver weapons were already in her outstretched hands.

The entire student body of the auditorium began to panic; students rose to their feet, girls cried out, and the professor stumbled backwards off the stage in fear. The chaos would have continued, but the blue vixen raised one of her pistols above her head and let loose a bullet to get everyone's attention.

"Quiet down, pansies!" She ordered, then fired off another shot. "Everyone just sit down, or I start shooting!" She glared with piercing aquamarine eyes around the room until they alighted upon a security camera mounted on the stage wall. After giving it the finger, she spun her guns around in both hands and loaded it full of bullets, which Phoenix labeled as a bit excessive.

By that time, everyone was covering their heads and cowering behind the row of seats in front of them, including Phoenix.

"I've got nothing against you all, personally, but you won't mind it if I shoot the place up a bit, will you? And, if a stray bullet should happen to hit one of you small fries... well... it can't be helped. Adios."

Screams broke out once again as the psycho began firing carelessly into the crowd, sending pieces of wood and scraps of paper flying everywhere. A student even cried out when her arm was grazed by a stray bullet.

In the midst of the gunshots and screaming, all Phoenix could do was crouch behind the seat in front of him and clench his eyes shut as his mind raced with thoughts. Isn't this what you've always wanted? What happened to all of the heroic things you were planning to do? You can't just cower down here and play dead like a 'possum! Do something!

Well, he finally told himself, at least I won't have to worry about today's economics' assignment. Shakily, he stood up above the other students, then, with more and more confidence, he stepped towards the center aisle and down towards the stage.

His actions did not go unnoticed. The gunman soon laid eyes on him and barked, "Hey! The hell do you think you're doing, lion-heart?" She aimed her gun directly at his head, and Phoenix found himself staring up the barrel of a silver semi-automatic pistol at the killer's narrow eyes. The woman faltered for a moment, however, when she saw him. She stuttered for a moment. "Well, what are you looking at?"

Phoenix swallowed.

"Trying to be the hero, huh? Got some chicks in the class you wanna impress?"

She fired a bullet so close to his head that he felt the wind rush by him in its wake. Truthfully, he had never been so frightened in all of his life; his legs were nearly shaking, his forehead was beaded with cold sweat, and his heart beat like a kick drum, but he couldn't back down now. Not in front of his friends. Not in front of his classmates.

Not in front of those challenging aqua eyes.

The vixen continued to stare down at him for another minute, until she drew her gun up to her mouth and blew away the trail of smoke rising from its barrel, obviously for show. "Well well well, guess you're not so easy to scare after all."

"I... I'm crapping my pants right now."

"At least you're amusing. You got something to say, runt? Spit it out, or next time... I won't miss."

Phoenix gulped again. He had planned this out. He knew what to do.

He began with a faltering voice. "L-look, I don't know what your deal is, if you just enjoy shooting people, or if you came here to make some sort of statement... but you need a way out."

The fox slapped one of her guns back into its holster, unclipped an explosive pack from her belt, and tossed it into the air with her free hand. "Check."

"You need more than an exit. You need insurance, something to keep the bullets away from you."

"Get to the point already," she growled impatiently through clenched teeth.

"You need a hostage. I-I'll be that hostage. Just don't shoot... don't shoot anymore people."

The vixen studied him for another moment, then chuckled. "You've sure got guts. I just might take you up on that off – "

She was interrupted when an armed police force burst through the doorway she herself had entered through, as well as an exit on the opposite side of the stage, effectively surrounding her. "Damn," she cursed as she glanced at her wrist comm.

"FREEZE!" one of the officers ordered, "We have you surrounded!"

"Yeah, no." The blue-furred fox dove into a crouching position behind the podium, drew her other gun, crossed her arms, and fired twice into the opposite groups of police. When they began to return fire, she grabbed onto the podium and nimbly flipped herself over it in a spectacular feat of acrobatics, landing herself at Phoenix's side.

"This better work, lion-heart," she whispered into his ear as she placed a gun to his head. "Drop your weapons... or this poor bastard gets something in that head of his for a change!"

The captain cursed and lowered his gun, gesturing for his force to do the same, at least for the moment. Taking the opportunity to act, she walked with Phoenix still at gunpoint back onto the stage and towards the back wall. She detached one of her explosives and let it slide down her leg until it came to rest at the base of the wall. Stepping away a safe distance and crouching behind the podium with Phoenix, she pressed a button on her watch.

Mere seconds later, the pack detonated and filled the auditorium with a deafening blast and a blinding light. Rushing out from behind the podium and jumping through the gaping hole left behind, she exclaimed, "Later, bitches!"

The police made to pursue, but a grenade flew through the wall and landed at their feet, releasing a thick cloud of smoke into the air. The campus security force fell to their knees, hacking and coughing uncontrollably as their target escaped.

Elsewhere on the campus, a feline professor was far from concerned about the shootings. He knew what was really going on.

Running to his office as fast as he could, the leopard slid to a stop on the overly waxed floors and reached for the door handle.

It was unlocked.

Reaching into his lab-coat pocket, he slid out a small, plastic hand pistol able to pass through metal-detectors unnoticed. He cocked the gun, quietly turned the door handle, then flung the door open with a swift gesture. He stepped into his office, planted his legs, and stared down the sights of his gun.

It was shaking.

As he expected, the room was occupied. The trespasser, a blue falcon, was leaning over the professor's desk, back turned.

"H-hands where I can see them!" The leopard demanded in a less-than-confident voice. "No s-s-sudden movements!"

The avian complied, slowly standing up and raising his wings into the air.

"All the shooting in the auditorium was just the diversion, wasn't it? You're really after the data on my laptop."

"Yes... and no," the avian replied in a cocky voice. "The shooting was a diversion to keep security busy. That way, they couldn't come to your aid in case you were able to alert them. However, those files are only half of what we came to collect, and I just finished downloading them."

The professor's gun faltered. "And the other half?"

The falcon produced a fake, halting laugh. "Ah ha ha haaa... you."

The leopard concluded the conversation had gone on long enough. Making up his mind, he aimed at the trespasser and pulled the trigger. But he had misjudged the situation; his enemy was the one on top. The avian quickly lowered one of his wings, revealing a small metal device he had hidden even with his hands up. Whirling around to face the professor, he activated the tool to produce a large, blue, hexagonal shield that rapidly expanded and reflected the bullet effortlessly.

In a fit of panic, the leopard fired three more shots, each of which were reflected by the avian's shield. Gasping, he stumbled backwards out the door and turned to run down the hall. The falcon drew a laser pistol from his belt and flew out the door in pursuit.

"The fastest creature on land meets the fastest creature in the air. Let's prove which is superior, shall we?"

Phoenix slipped on the floor and fell to his knees, panting from exertion. The vixen didn't give him any time to relax, however, as she dealt him a swift quick to the behind and pulled him along by the back of his collar.

"If you're gonna be my hostage, you better keep up."

"Yeah... wooh... sorry... I've always avoided... gym class... whenever I can."

As they raced down the evacuated hallway, the gunman let go of his shirt and simply trusted him to follow.

"You got a name, lion-heart?"

"Uh, yeah. Phoenix. And yours?"

She gave him a sideways glance, as if she were sizing him up to see if he was worthy.

"Krystal."

Phoenix smirked. "So... it's safe to assume we're already on a first name basis?"

"I don't have a last name. It's all I have."

"Doesn't fit."

Placing her gun to the back of his head, Krystal snarled, "You wanna see if you come back to life after I kill you, huh, is that it?"

Phoenix screamed, "No, no please! I'm sorry! I'm sorry!"

"Then shut the hell up. At least remember who the hostage in this situation is."

At that moment, they rounded a corner and came face to face with a security officer. Krystal swore and pushed Phoenix to the side; it was too late to use him as a shield now. The guard instinctively fired, but Krystal was ready for him. She threw herself down to the floor to escape the laser fire, swept her legs around to knock the guard off his feet, forced him onto the ground, and pressed her gun against his chest.

Sensing what Krystal was about to do, Phoenix desperately intervened. "Wait, stop! You don't have to – "

But it was too late. Krystal pulled the trigger and placed a bullet into his torso at point-blank range, sending a splash of crimson blood into the air. Phoenix fell to his knees beside the body, staring helplessly as the officer coughed and spluttered. "Why... why did you..."

Krystal turned and shot Phoenix a glare with her aquamarine eyes, dancing with fire. "Remember your place. I was just saying, you're the hostage, I'm the killer. Get used to seeing people die, you may have to see a lot more before I'm done with you. If you don't want to join him on the floor with your heart pouring out your chest, you better do as I say."

At first, Phoenix was horrified at the sight of the bleeding guard, but once he looked at Krystal's wrathful face, he knew what true fear really was. All he could do was stare at her, mouth flapping silently like a fish's.

"What's a matter, lion-heart?" Krystal cooed, slowly raising the gun to his head, "Having second thoughts about standing up for everyone and getting some action? We were actually having fun for a moment there."

Phoenix's eyes never once strayed from her face to the gun. "No, I'll... keep going. Just... give me some time – "

"Right, well, I don't have time." Standing, she nudged him with her combat boot. "Now get up. Get up!"

Gut churning and pulse racing, Phoenix rose to his feet with shaking legs. Without looking back, Krystal resumed running down the hallway again, while Phoenix followed.

Raising a wrist comm to her face, she shouted, "Hey, Falco, how's it comin' with the professor?"

"Wait just a second..."

The ensuing pause was followed by the sound of two laser bursts and the terrific scream of a dying mammal.

"Yeah, all done on my end. And yours?"

"Got myself a hostage. Say hi to Falco, Phoenix."

Phoenix spoke with a trembling voice. "Uh... hi?"

"Hey, nice meeting you. Too bad you probably won't be alive much longer."

"Oh, God," Phoenix gasped.

"And sorry... just in case, you know, you happened to know the professor I just killed. I think he taught chemistry. Oops, hold on. Geez, let go of my leg..." his voice lowered to an annoyed mumble as the laser pistol went off once more in the background. "Ahem, uh, sorry... again."

"Falco, where did Slip send the ships?"

"Some open field to the east of the main grounds. I think it borders a lake as well. You'll have to find a car, it's too far to run."

"I'll find my way somehow. Thanks."

As Krystal switched off her radio, Phoenix spoke up. "Did he mean the Heath?"

"Of course, you would know the place." She gestured with her gun. "Come on, take me there."

"Alright, alright, c-careful where you point that!"

Phoenix lead the rest of the way through the building interior, much to Krystal's annoyance, who had to slow her pace to stay behind him.

Phoenix pointed down the hallway, nearly out of breath. "Door's right there... my car's at home, since I live on campus. I don't have any idea how you plan on getting a ride."

Just when it looked like they were going to escape without anymore run-ins, a group of security officers stepped out of a room between them and the door, guns readied and aimed at Krystal.

"Damn," Krystal muttered as she once again locked Phoenix's arms behind him and placed a gun to his head. She should have kept him in that position the whole time. "Don't shoot, or I'll kill him!"

This time, they were not so easily dissuaded. Two of the guards in front fired, missing the pair by inches.

Pulling back with Phoenix still in tow, Krystal whispered into his ear, "Sorry, kid. Guess this is the end for you."

Phoenix began to panic, and his mind raced to figure a way out of being killed. "Wait, look, please! There's another way! Shoot me in the leg!"

At first Krystal was taken aback. "What, really?"

"Let them know you mean business! And, just a flesh wound, if you don't mind."

Krystal purred next to his ear. "Well, you're more daring than I thought, lion-heart." Then, placing her gun against his leg, she pulled the trigger.

"AAAAAHH!" Phoenix screamed, instinctively bending over and clutching his leg as blood flowed through his fingers. If he had to describe the pain, Phoenix would say it felt like having his leg completely blown off, sewed back on, and dipped in lava.

"Put your weapons down, or he gets it in the head next time!" Krystal said, dragging Phoenix forward. "I ain't screwin' around!"

The security force shot each other glances, then lowered their weapons. They got the message.

"Now back away from the door, turn around, and start walking down the hallway!"

The guards uneasily obeyed, sluggishly moving back down the hallway they had come from.

"Faster!" Krystal growled, firing a bullet over their heads.

They quickly complied, and broke into a complete sprint down the empty hallway. As they were leaving, Krystal draped Phoenix's arm across her shoulder and helped him towards the door.

"Ow... goddamnit! Why'd you have to shoot so close to the bone!"

"Hey, quit complaining!" Krystal leaned with Phoenix against the bar that opened to door, and pushed it open. "Be thankful I didn't blow your face off instead. Besides, it only feels like I hit the bone. I only grazed you... I think. It's not my fault you were wearing long pants!"

"Alright, fine, we have to bandage it right away! I don't think I should be losing this much blood... we have to stop!"

"Sorry, lion-heart; we ain't stopping!"

A/N: One last thing you should know; I'm writing this story right after watching Black Lagoon. So, if you notice any similarities between the two, it's not a coincidence. Black Lagoon had a big part in inspiring this story. But I doubt most of you have seen the show, anyway :'(