ANIMAL CONTROL - PART IV

“Your report is a little hazy on the details, man...” Janus hovers about the room, his anxiety palpable, while Chris reads over my submission, “...so, like, what happened?”

The Head of HR leans back in his chair, but the Roman deity stops stock still behind him so that he is forced to sit up properly, as his Recruitment peer seems to inspect ceiling tiles.

“Well, at first it was pretty manageable,” like two pet owners crossing paths on a walk, their territorial little creatures pulling at respective leashes and yelling ‘come and have a go if you think you’re hard enough’ at each other, “until it wasn’t.”

I was just about able to cling onto Nya’lah as one does a struggling cat trying to get free of being held. All violence and razors.

The guard captain, initially trying to calm his steed from the saddle, dropped to the floor and clung about the mechanical mongrel’s neck as a child attempts to keep back a friend twice their size.

Once the other horse hounds got scent of the catgirl, her pheromonal messaging turned from the seduction of myself to murderous intent, it was all over.

“To be fair, they started it.” The wardogs bucked their riders and sprang for us, “Nya’lah just ended it.”

As soon as the first canine got loose, the warrior broke free from me like she’d only been putting on a show that I could even contain her.

Her strength factors above anything I could muster.

The Heads of Human Resources and Recruitment are transfixed, needing to hear more in their official capacities – and as people merely enjoying the heroism Nya’lah displayed – while simultaneously not wanting to hear any of it, despairing at the paperwork to come.

“She just slid out of my arms and took them all on...” it was impressive honestly.

Her graceful movements, twisting out of danger, arcing through the air to counter or manoeuvrer, a sight to behold.

“The pack were working to have her surrounded, and the guards finally cottoned on that something was wrong.” That’s when they rushed me, so I fled. Diving over tables, flipping chairs, throwing plates and cups.

I’m not the most athletic, but I’ve got decent enough stamina from doing long days of cycling as a delivery rider, hence running.

I wasn’t there to fight either, and I didn’t want to leave some ‘legend of the lanky people who butchered a township’, so couldn't resort to beating them all up like an infuriating bunch of kids... no matter how many times I was tempted to do so as Bonky and how cathartic it might have been to vent such trauma.

We were just wandering minstrels that got into a drunken brawl with the guard. At least, that’s how I was trying to keep the optics on things.

“I kept the locals busy, while Nya’lah singled out our target.” or more specifically, they tried to divide and conquer us, but she was too powerful for anyone to handle.

I saw at least two of the dogs snap at her limbs, only for her to disappear. Almost too fast to see.

They’d bite down on their own teeth, stunned, and then be elbowed or kneed in the jaw at the moment of contact. Doubling the impact; breaking bone. A third, she simply tripped with such force it was like when a soccer player is tackled while trying to kick the ball. Its shin cracked audibly, wrapping around her far more muscular limb. The rest she played cat and mouse with. At first one way to disorientate them, then reclaiming her rightful place as hunter. Terrifying the hounds as they tried to flee.

“You could smell the fear off those wardogs...” a terrible stink of sweat and terror, “the only issue was our target.”

Its brain augmented to feel no fear.

No pheromone secretors from which to discern its actions.

Even bit of body language more artificial, enhanced and precise, rather than full of the wasted motions and hesitations normal to the flesh.

“We got separated, you see. Can’t say the city guard don’t know what to do with trouble makers.” I laughed awkwardly, recalling how by the time Nya’lah had already made it through half her assailants, I’d only tripped one monkey-man badly enough to be out of the game.

Basically slide tackled a child from behind, buckling his ankle, and banging his head against a table on the way down. I felt terrible for it, even though he was a fully grown adult.

Plus, they had weapons and armour.

I took to the alleyways around the square, trying to lose them in the warren. Honestly forgetting that, as the local law, they know their damn turf better than some outsider.

I’d snatch glimpses of the battle within, “Talk about fighting like cats and dogs!”

My managers snort at the comment, but as quickly brush it off to try and remain serious.

I watched a zoetrope of Nya’lah’s prowess.

She leapt high above the pack, cut off the escape of one, landing on all fours and bearing her fangs.

Tides turned and the hounds knew they had lost.

The robot-dog attempted to rally its cohort, but at the sight of a large black dog diving for the catgirl – her meeting it midway, gripping its snout, and tearing those jaws apart, muscles bulging at the exertion – they balked and scattered.

“I lost sight of her for a bit… bit distracted with the guards,” but next I saw she was hunched, steam rising from her ripped and blood stained clothes, only our target remained. “Honestly, a lot of my escape was luck,” as the pack fled, one shot between the buildings and knocked down a couple of my pursuers, “some near misses though.”

I took a barrel lid as a shield, deflected rocks and spears, and kept running.

Some still skimmed past my extremities though. One javelin pinning my floppy hat to the beam of a house. I had to waste a moment to retrieve it, to leave no evidence behind.

Tiring stuff having to sprint AND defend yourself.

Eventually, though, the remaining guard and my own fatigue turned the tide yet again.

I could hear the cries of battle from the other side of the buildings I’d ended up behind, but had not seen how the battle between Nya’lah and the mecha-mutt progressed for some time.

Panting, I crept to a corner, but... “The Captain had gotten ahead of me,” he met my eye with the tip of his blade, “and the remains of his men came down the alley behind.” All I could do was sit back in the dirt and have faith that the catgirl warrior would be victorious, then save me.

That, and, I can’t really report willingly surrendering to my superiors – just because I had a stitch – without them risking an aneurysm.

Chris is enjoying the yarn enough, filling in the blanks of my report, but Janus has that all too familiar vibration going.

His anxiety bubbling away and threatening to send him further into despair. The beginnings of a noose shaping in his hands.

Should maybe put his mind at ease.

“When the town guards tried to corner me, it wasn’t too hard to escape again...” It was impossible, but I’m not saying that.

I gulped and knelt and put my hands above my head.

The Captain was pissed and threatened stocks at least for my having given them the run around. A public example needed to be set.

However, my companion, “That woman! That monster!” he shook with fear and fury, “Death!”

For one, he knew they couldn’t take her and needed reinforcements, the entire standing army potentially. Yet none of his men had been dispatched to call for back up. They were either out for the count or tending to their comrades.

“Look, this is all a big misunderstanding! Your war hounds went mad and attacked us first! You couldn’t control them, so we’ve just been defending ourselves...” I tried to explain, but I’d misjudged his temperament.

He was too worked up, and probably needed someone to blame for the incident to his higher ups, that wasn’t them.

I didn’t want to take my eyes off the man in front of me, but I bowed my head to sneak a peek into the square.

Nya’lah had the robot-dog in a headlock.

They tussled and swung each other about in a test of strength.

Her flesh versus its steel. As I began to smile at my confidence in her...

K’YAAAAAAA!!!

...catastrophe!

Her opponent struck out with a back leg, as a normal dog may scratch at a flea about its ear, knocking her forward.

It capitalized, pinning her to the floor with a fore paw, and took a moment to seemingly gloat.

Jaws hovering above its prize, ready to snap shut on command.

Her neck exposed below.

Nya’lah tried to push herself up from the slick cobbles, but her hands slipped, her body crashing down, her head nearly bouncing off the stone.

We were too far apart me to be sure, but it felt like our eyes met, and there was resignation in them.

I gave up.

The Captain kept me at sword point, checked how his horse hound was doing, and mocked us for our resistance as if this was an inevitable outcome. He signalled to his men to form up and take us both into custody, but then...

“The kids I’d pissed off the day before emptied a couple of chamber pots out their attic window,” completely drenched the guardsmen in effluence, which in turn set them about puking.

The giggling from overhead drawing a snicker from myself as well. “Seemingly, the distraction was enough,” the Captain, his attention taken from the robot-dog mid order, turned up his face at the scene in the alley. Barely holding back his own retching.

I took my chance, grabbed at his wrists, and stood in one movement.

It felt like playing with a child.

Even in full armour he was light.

It would've been this easy all along?!.

As he dangled, and we both blinked in confusion, there came a low thunder.

“He was torn from hands and my vision replaced with...” Nya’lah had somehow slid herself out from under the pneumatic paw, twisted her body atop the beast, and commanded it to charge. Smashing into the Captain, then halting before me only from the impact, she grabbed my wrist, set off at high speed, and whipped me atop the robot-dog behind her “...I clung on for dear life, calling in an extraction on the orb, and...”

 “And that’s when the incident happened.”

Chris pipes up and nods with greater understanding of the context: why we’d come barrelling into the warp-gate room, riding our target like a bat out of hell, and knocking an unsuspecting Meganie unconscious in the process.

“I’m a bit uncertain on the details myself.” I scratched at my head.

I’m not lying either.

It was an emergency, I thought it was pretty obvious we were coming in hot, but as soon as we made it through the portal, there was Meganie just standing in the middle of the chamber.

“Guess we’ll have to wait until she wakes up.” though I do have my own guesses as to why she was there like that.

Janus wobbles on the edge of a chair, climbing to the rafters.

The Head of HR stands with great effort, slaps a post-it on his colleague’s forehead with ‘NO’ written on it, “Could you, like… calm down already?” then closes the binder on his desk.

He really is way too dramatic... but what was with the bikini?!.