part 1: https://pastebin.com/E8SekneU

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Chapter 4

 That night was a week ago; barely enough time to work through the couple's combat routines, but they decided it was enough. The current operation was too important to wait, and the danger too close; much too close for the comfort of the Academy's leadership.
 You and your wife (heh, still feels good to say that) were riding in the back of a beat-up pickup through bumfuck nowhere, Kansas, heading to the closest entry point for travel through the Faelands. It wasn't considered windy here until the speeds hit 30 mph, but you were fortunate enough that the evening weather had given you a warm summer's breeze and it carried with it the comforting smell of wet plains flowers and earth.
 The truck pulls to a stop with a jolt next to a small cabin.
 "This here's your stop," the farmer yells from the cabin, "Any further and we'll be takin' a road trip instead."
 Viera leans over and picks up her warhammer and machine gun sitting next to you. The farmer had decided it would be best for his suspension if she and her weapons were on opposite sides. 
 "Thanks for the ride," you say to the driver and grab your pack, hopping off the side to see an old cabin, sticking up out of the flat plains that stretched for miles in every direction. The clean porch had several small pots hanging or sitting absolutely overflowing with green. Little nick-knacks hung on the little fence or on the walls, and on the right side sat a old coyote woman in a nightgown, rocking back and forth in her chair. A little table next to her has a steaming mug of coffee and a small book with a frilly bookmark sticking out of it. You wave a hand to her as the truck turns around in the long driveway and she waves you over.
 "Good evening, Denmother," Viera greets with the machine gun hefted over one shoulder, the ammo box sticking up over her armored head. You had been informed by Incog that weapon had to be modified specifically for her, since it was usually only large enough to mount on tripods or vehicles. She carried two more ammo boxes below her breasts, and while you had seen that she was strong during your couple's combat training, it still amazed you just how strong she must be.
 "My goodness," the old woman responds. Her voice has the distinct sound of an old woman, but with a gravelly undertone. "The situation must really be dire if they're sending a couple as green as you two."
 "I can assure you we are more than capable," Viera says and shifts the gun to hold it with her other hand in front of her.
 The old coyote chuckles and stands up from her chair with a grunt. Even hunched over with age she's still about your height. "Oh, to be young again. Come, come. I'm sure you have things to do and places to be, let's not waste time." She takes her mug and book with her inside and your wife bearly (heh) fits through the door.
 The two of you follow her inside an especially comfy house. Warm colors cover the walls beneath wooden furniture topped with patterned fabric, next to little tables covered in knitted doilies. The scent of strong coffee wafts through the darkened living room and kitchen, and the house is so quiet your steps and your wife's armor sound almost deafening.
 "You'll have to excuse my husband," she explains while hobbling down the hallway to the back of the house, but you can see her wry smirk, "he had to turn in early tonight, because I had to remind him this old beast has still got it!"
 Her rough cackling sufficiently covers your audible shudder.
 You wish your first trip through the Faelands was something a little less rushed so you could enjoy it, but this will have to do. The fading light of the sunset still gives you plenty of light to enjoy the effects, though. Once you pass through the door, the world seems to take on a more vibrant color scheme; deeper reds fading to deep purples and blues, the green and yellow wild grasses, up to your knees, were close to glowing. Even the little bits of wood whittled by the younger coyote waiting for you seemed to float a little longer in the air before they fell onto the small pile at her feet.
 "About time you two got here," she says without even looking over.
 "Be nice, dear," the grandmother scolds, "or you'll never get a husband of your own."
 "Mom!"
 "Pine, these are our guests I told you about, Anonymous and Viera. Dearies, this is my youngest daughter Pine. She'll be your guide tonight."
 "Pleased to meet you, Pine," Viera puts a paw to her chest and slightly bows.
 "Guests? I thought I was getting paid!" Pine stammers.
 "Now calm down, you will," her mother says, "the council will look favorably on helping the Omnis during an emergency, and secure you a nomination. Money can't buy that."
 "Fine, fine," Pine huffs and stands, "Let's get this over with."
 You feel a small, frail paw on your shoulder and turn to look at the Denmother.
 "Before you go, little mister, take this with you," she hands you a large, warm tupperware container that smells like cooked meat, "it wouldn't be good to walk all that way and show up on an empty stomach. I know what kind of food they give you for the road."
 "Thank you, ma'am," you say and open the box. Inside are dozens of pastries stuffed with what smells like the spiced meat.
 "And don't lose your ring in the Faelands, or you'll never be able to leave."
 "Yes ma'am."
 You pick up one of the pastries and bite in. The crisp, flaky crust gushes with grease and spices and overflows with what you think is beef and bacon. It's the best thing you've tasted in years.
 "Viera, don't lose sight of him or one of those harlots stuck in the Old Ways will steal him away."
 "Yes, ma'am," she replies, and you can hear her paw squeak around the weapon's grip as she tightens it.
 "And remember to drink plenty of water."
 "Mom! Stop doting, Daisy's pups are coming over tomorrow, dote then!"
 "Oh fine I guess that's enough for you two," she reaches up and licks her thumb, then rubs off a bit of your food from your chin, "keep him safe, she-bear."
 "I will see to that, ma'am," Viera says, then starts walking forward. 
 You follow at her side shortly after, offering her one of the snacks. She grabs it with a free hand and the small thing disappears in her maw and you see her try to keep up her stoic warrior-face on, but the flare in her nose, the widening of her eyes, and the perking of her round fuzzy ears betray that she likes it too.
 You look back to the coyote girl ahead of you, then the beautiful world around you. The little white and yellow flowers here almost glow between tall grasses, and you can see the twinkling stars in the evening sky as the sun sets. Pine notices immediately. 
 "First time? Try not to focus too much on your surroundings, we'll get there faster."
 "What?" you ask confused.
 "Things work differently here than in the Silence."
 "Well, it's not so silent anymore," you click together the crystals in your glove a couple times, the orange sparks much larger here outside.
 "Yeah, thanks to us."
 "Look behind us, husband," Viera points.
 Far in the distance behind you is the little cabin, poking up just above the flat horizon. You shake your head to clear it. How in the hell did this work?
 "Stop focusing on the walking, think about something else, and the Fae will take you there," Pine continues, "That's why my mom gave you those snacks."
 "It is how the Tribes 'spirit' away human men from their homes and tents," Viera explains, "they would be too nervous, frightened, or confused to notice just where or how far away they were, and before they knew it, they would be so lost in the Faelands they would never find their home again."
 "Exactly," Pine adds, "since they couldn't find their home again, there would be no way for them to get out. Doubly so for you, since you don't live near this one."
 "Faelands also evaporate into the ether without their native tribes," Veira narrows her eyes at the guide.
 "Cool it with the jealousy, bear. My mother would get to me before you if she ever found out I stole a war-husband, so ya don't scare me."
 "Switching topics," you interject, "what can you tell us about what we're walking into?"
 "Don't know much. The territory to the west of us didn't show for our weekly council meeting three days ago. Two days ago we sent a scout party, and they didn't come back, so we called the local HQ for help. Yesterday I guided a lynx and her husband through here and they said they were gonna recon the place. Didn't expect them to actually send an operator team here, though."
 "Yeah, Ley Net disruptions get a lot of attention."
 "What the hell could--well, shit. Globalists?"
 "Probably."
 "I thought the worst we'd be dealing with was another pack of ferals. How'd they get way out here? The border's a hundred miles away."
 "Who knows how they do half the stuff they do?" You knew how they did it, and she probably had heard rumors about it, but you'd been told at the beginning of that particular course that some information is better off as rumors and whispers.
 "We hadn't heard anything about raiding going on over there, so we didn't think it could have been that."
 "It would be a good idea to treat all the food coming through there as tainted, at least until HQ can send an inspection unit over."
 Pine growls. "There goes my next honey shipment."
 "Be glad that absent honey is the worst of your worries, Pine," Viera says, "their whims could have easily wandered to your territory instead."
 "I thought my mom's cooking would have cheered you up. Here we are, entry point is the back door."
 Before you was another small house, but this one looked downright dilapidated. A single screen door with holes stood between the waist-high chain-link fence and a dark house. You look at Pine.
 "Are you sure this is the right place?"
 "Yup. This is the only portal that hasn't been sealed on this border. If they try to take the house, it'll be easy to knock it down."
 You nod. "Makes sense. Thanks for bringing us here."
 "No problem. Leave the tupperware in the kitchen when you're done with it, mom will send me back for it later."
 As soon as you open the screen door to the house and walk into the dark living room, the world's colors go flat again. You can see why the Anthros call it the Silence.
 "Hey," a voice in the dark next to you says, "they're--oof!"
 The barrel of Viera's machine gun makes a dull thud against the chestplate of the wolf when it pushes her away and against the wall. Her face softens from a snarl after her eyes adjust.
 "Do you have a death wish?" Viera growls at her, pulling her weapon back, "Or is that how all wolves greet their friends?"
 The wolf coughs and stands up and a man appears out of thin air in the doorway to the kitchen, holding an arcane staff at the ready. You recognize him as Sgt. Samuel Smith, an arcane mage, from training exercises. As soon as he sees the two of you he relaxes.
 "I'm sorry, you must be the other operator team they sent us.  Dusty, how many time do I have to tell you to stop doing that? You're going to get yourself shot one of these days."
 "Sorry, sorry," she coughs again, "I thought it would be funny."
 "Right. Come on in to the kitchen, you two, let's get you briefed."
 Viera narrows her eyes at the wolf before following you in. The kitchen is lit with a couple candles on the kitchen table, maps spread out across it. There are a few marker-drawn instructions and notes strewn across it, with one site in particular circled.
 "This is the situation, as far as we can tell," he waves his hand over the table, "Once Ash and Pike get back with more details, we'll know exactly how this is going to play out. As far as we know, the local node was overrun by the Globalists. We still don't know how they got through security, but they did, and here we are. All the entry points are sealed right now, and the only intel we got were the dying words of a rabbit not too far from here."
 "Only one person made it out to tell anyone?" You ask, incredulous as you sit the tupperware on the table and open it up for everyone, "how?"
 "Ah, thank you." Smith picks one up and chews on it as he talks. "A few of the globalists' pets made it out after him. Dusty and I cleaned them up before they finally killed him, but his wounds were too severe to fix."
 "Inhuman filth," Dusty spits into the sink and growls, "the rabbit sealed up the entrance behind him, so they couldn't get back in. They were...torturing him, for fun, laughing and hooting..."
 "Strongest rabbit I've ever seen," Smith nods.
 "We're naming our first child Mopsy, Sammy," she tells him with a grim face, "A strong name begets a strong life."
 Smith just nods. "Mopsy was able to tell us the basics before he...passed on: node was hijacked, then they used their twisted magic to bring in a large infantry force, plus a few vehicles, take over the town, set up a perimeter, and a prisoner camp. From what we know of their magic, that means their gate capabilities are limited, but should be strong enough in a few days to open it again and start bringing in heavier forces."
 "What about our guys already stationed there?" you ask.
 "Overrun. Somehow they disabled their vehicles, or destroyed them, but we don't know since we haven't heard a word from anyone else inside."
 "If they brought enough people in to overrun the whole town and take over the entire territory, what do they expect us to be able to do? We need more than just six people."
 Smith looks at you for a moment, narrowing his eyes at you like you've just asked to hunt bird when they're so high up and you're on the ground. 
 "Anon, we're operators. Three operator teams. Orders are to get in, secure the node, and dig in until HQ can send in a proper force to reclaim it."
 "And what about the people stuck inside?"
 "Outside our orders. Save who we can, but the node takes priority. This one serves fourteen others downstream, so if it stays down, we can count on our other sites starving or overrun."
 Someone knocks shave-and-a-haircut on the door to the front, and Dusty pads over to knock back two bits. The rest of you go quiet as the guests are let in: a human, a rabbit, and a lynx. You recognize the first and last as Sgt. Pike and Sgt. Ash, also fresh from training. The smaller anthro rabbit looks shaken and worse for the wear.
 "Hey, gang's all here," Pike says with a southern accent, "get this bunny some water and food before we get to the briefing."
 You pull over a chair for her to sit in and slide over the box of pastries while you hear someone running the water for a glass. Her clothes are filthy and she's twitching, but as far as you know the jumpy little guys (heh) are always twitching. The stories always described them as fast. The stories were also true about how cute they were. She's holding one of the pastries up with two widdle fuzzy paws and eating with very fast and small bites.
 "Speaking of the gang," Pike says as he sets his staff in a corner like a broom, the morning star-style crystal leaving little pits in the pain, "What's with all the newbies? I thought we'd be getting someone with a little more experience than this."
 "Everyone else is upstream," Smith sighs, "nearest node is an eight hour drive from here, and three operator teams, even if they're green, should be able to handle it. If not, they'll need time to assemble a ground force that can actually handle it. At least that's what I got back home."
 "Well we're gonna need both." Pike picks up a marker and begins to draw on the map. "They got a few hundred through their portal before it collapsed, hard to count when they can't do a formation to save their own lives. A shanty-town is already set up around the main town, each tent packed with their goons, trash everywhere, loud noises and occasional gunfire for no reason...basically, the propaganda about globalist cities was right. Dot here," he points, "escaped, and was smart enough to find herself a hole to hide away in until help arrived. She got some prime intel on the way out."
 "What can you tell us, Dot? What happened?" Smith asks.
 She sets down her snack and looks at the floor for a moment before speaking. "P-prison, fences everywhere, they...they took them away and..."
 She covers her eyes and starts to cry, but before any of you can comfort her Viera walks over and picks the little rabbit up in a big fluffy bearhug. In the silence of the abandoned house you can all hear her whispering.
 "Shh, shh, you're safe little one, you're safe," Viera coos and pats the back of Dot's head, which is buried in her neck, "We need you to tell us everything you know so we can go in and make this right."
 Everyone else at the table but you just stares at her for a moment, taken aback from the scene. At least until she scowls back.
 You have to clench at your heart from how sweet it is. You always knew your wife had a side like this buried somewhere inside of her. Deep, deep, *deep* inside her, but still there.
 "Fences and gates," Dot mumbles into Viera's neck before looking at the rest of you. You all do your best to straighten out your faces before she spots your expressions. "And guns. Lots of guns. Everyone has 'em, and big trucks with bigger guns."
 "Yeah, technicals with mounted guns. They do joyrides around the area from time to time," Pike adds.
 "They take the humans and anthros and separate them into different prisons," Dot continues, "and I don't know where the humans go, but I...I can...hear them-" She bursts into tears and buries her face again while Viera tries to calm her down.
 "So we can expect heavy resistance, if they're armed to the teeth. Even if they can't shoot for shit, that many weapons firing at us is bound do hit home."
 "Did you get any readings with that device I gave you?" Smith asks.
 "I carried it around, sure. You didn't tell me to press any buttons, so I didn't, but it glowed from time to time in my pocket."
 "Let me see it, please."
 Pike hands over to Smith a crystal the size of a baseball covered in metal engravings. It looked kinda like the one on the end of your staff.
 "Dot." Smith says without looking up. "Dot, one more question, please."
 "H-huh?" Dot wipes her face then goes back to hugging Viera's neck and looks at Smith, who returns it. You can see his face has paled a little bit, which is saying a lot for someone who's been through the arcane school.
 "Did you see anyone important while you were in there? Anyone decidedly different from the rest, maybe with a staff, or a strange color, or glowing perhaps?"
 "Uh-huh," Dot nods, "a strange human lady with a really loud voice came by from time to time to pick out one of us to take away. She had glowing eyes and looked really sick."
 Shit. 
 The wives in the room share concerned looks.
 "Well, fuck. This device confirms it." Smith sighs and sits down. "An Ascendant. This complicates things."
 Shit!
 "Whoo-wee!" Pike hollers, "Trial by fire boys and girls! We get through this we'll be legends! We'll be a shoe-in for Delta Force for sure!"
 He was definitely right about that. Well, maybe not about Delta.
 "Dot, do you know which building she worked in?" Smith asks.
 "The distribution warehouse. The pushed out all the trucks and live in it now."
 "The warehouse," Smith nods, then starts drawing on the map. "Ok, new plan. We enter the fae, reopen the entry point here. Steal a technical, joyride it back to base, get into the warehouse, seal it up, kill the ascendant, then secure the building. Dot, where were the prisoners kept?"
 "We were kept on the south side, here," she points, "I could hear the humans to the east, so somewhere on the east side."
 "I can get us past the perimeter. Anon, start fires in the camp away from the prisoner camps to distract them once we're past, can't have them swarming the building once we're inside. Pike, when we do make it in, ice the place. Doors, windows, any gaps. Trap them inside until we can deal with the Ascendant, fix the node, contact HQ. Any questions?"
 "What about the prisoners?" you ask, "who knows what those ferals might do once we're stuck inside?"
 "Either we bust open the ice walls long enough to let them in, or Pike here puts up a dome on them too. A few days in an igloo is preferable to whatever the minions can think of. We'll head out a few hours before sunrise when everyone's asleep. The plan will change once we begin, so keep on your toes."
 The room seems to breathe a sigh of relief. Now that a plan was in place, all that was left was to wait. You look down at your hands and relax them from the fists you were making, while the others look around in silence.
 Which was broken by another sniffle from Dot.
 "Dot," Smith starts, "I need you to do something for us, and your friends and family back home."
 "W-what is it?"
 "I need you to take this note and get it back to the academy as fast as possible. They need to know there's an Ascendant here, so there's no telling who in town might be compromised. They need to bring an inspection team and fresh food, plus enough patrols to mop up the stragglers once they disperse. Take it through the Fae out back and get to Pine."
 "B-but I'm not allowed in there."
 "Here," you dump out the tupperware container onto the counter and slap the lid back on, then hand it to her. "This belongs to Pine's mother, she'll be coming back for it, so if anyone asks just say it's an emergency and show this to them. Take it to the Denmother's house and ask for a ride. They'll get you there in time."
 "B-but--"
 "Dot," Viera pats her on the back, "we don't need you to be brave, we just need you to run. Run as far away from here as fast as you can, all the way to the Academy. Your family and friends back home are counting on you to be fast. Can you be fast for them?"
 Dot stares at her for a moment, then wipes her tears on her arm. "I-I can do that."
 "Good," Smith folds it up and hands it over as your wife sets her back on the floor. "Just be fast, don't worry about being quiet. If the anthros there find you, all the better."
 She takes the note and the container and disappears out the screen door. For a while it's quiet, no doubt the rest of them are thinking about what's ahead. Smith gets up and sits down on an old couch in the living room, folding up his legs into a meditative position.
 "Get some sleep while you can," he says with closed eyes, "I'll wake you in a few hours." One of them open when he turns to look specifically at Pike. "Actual sleep, Pike. Rest. Unconsciousness. As in, conserve your energy."
 "I get it, I get it, yoga-man," Pike says and raises his hands in defense, "No hanky-panky. Come on, Ash, time for some shut-eye."
 Viera takes you by the arm and leads you into a corner of the living room. She takes off her equipment and some of her armor and lays on her back, then pats her stomach expectantly.
 You raise an eyebrow. "Are you sure?"
 "I will not roll over in the night," she rolls her eyes, "You should know by now we bears are heavy sleepers. Besides," she pats the spot between her enormous breasts, "these will keep you from rolling off."
 "Can't say no to that," you smile, setting your own equipment down. You position yourself on top of her, stomach-to-stomach, and nestle your head between her furry mounds. Despite walking all this way with a heavy load and sweating a bunch, you don't mind the smell at all...
 "Get some sleep, Anon," she murmurs, and you can tell she's already falling asleep, "we prove our mettle in the morning."
 After all, this is your wife you're smelling, falling asleep with one of her arms over your back.