A Dragon, Fox, and Raccoon all walk into a Pyramid....

0903 Local Time1

Cairo, Egypt2

26th December 20103

-------------------------------------------------------------------4

The jet-black Land Rover cruised through the Valley of Kings, occasionally hopping due to the unstable sand in the area. Four Anthro’s sat in the vehicle, looking out the tinted windows,5

“Who’dve thought that a place as old as this would be a source of terrorism...I’m surprised the local forces haven’t done anything about it...” a Fox muttered, a G36-C resting against his shin,6

“Probably a bitch to find, you know what terrorist are like, they crawl out of the fuckin’ woodwork” A racon muttered, his thick Irish accent making him difficult to understand,7

“Ewan, Adamska, we don’t know what these guys are like, knowing the governments around here, it could be some warlord’s army, and that could mess us up pretty bad...” the wolf driving said, Ewan laughed,8

“Ah, we could do it, just give me a couple of drinks, and I’ll show them old fashioned Irish fightin’...” he called out. Adamska smiled and shook his head, and laughter came from the front passenger seat, belonging to a young, lithe dragon, 9

“What? You’d defeat an entire army of starving, angry Africans in a bar fight?” he said,10

“Of course”11

“I have to agree with you” the dragon said. 12

The group was hired by the local government as a “Black-Ops” Operation to remove the terrorist group in Cairo; the local military wouldn’t do anything as the group had won most of the military’s support. They government had wished the job be done ‘inconspicuously’ but any loud damages could be blamed on the terrorists. The wolf driving stopped outside of one of the great pyramids,13

“Jemoth, how should we go about this?” he asked, the dragon stretched and got out of the Rover, resting his gun on his shoulder,14

“Well, we’ll start by checking around and inside the pyramids for any signs of hostiles, and then we’ll call the government to bring in that back-up they promised...” he said, a little flatly “Of course, they’re humans, so we can’t exactly trust them, which is why I may have brought some extra guys along with a Ka-50...” he held up a radio, shaking it in emphasis, and walked towards the Pyramid. Adamska eyed Jemoth’s gun; he had never seen him with it before,15

“Hey, I know people in our mercenary company like different weapons, but why do you go with that old thing?” he asked, Jemoth looked at the H&K G3A4 resting on his shoulder. Made in 1959, the G3 was an assault rifle made for accuracy and power, sporting 7.62 rounds it could punch holes easily in body armour, and in the right hands, it could be used efficiently in scenario. Jemoth chuckled and kept walking,16

“Same reason we all choose our guns; it fires…well, except maybe that French stuff” The wolf glared at him,17

“My Grandparents are French!” he said,18

“We know Jase, it’s just funny to watch your fur spike up when you get angry” Adamska muttered, Jason groaned and just started walking.19

The four mercenaries walked towards the entrance of one of the great pyramids, growing slightly cautious as they approached; the terrorists were known to use guerrilla tactics, and could strike at any time. Jemoth whistled,20

“Alright, Jason, patrol around outside, and radio us if you find anything, Ewan and Adam’ll come with me into here...” he muttered, the echo in the hallway, causing a small amount of dust to fall from the ceiling. With a few quick nods, the team broke up, with Jemoth and the two other entering the ancient structure, happy to leave the desert heat. A musty smell wafted into their nostrils as the daylight slowly crept away behind them. Jemoth grabbed a flashlight and started looking around, hieroglyphs covered the walls like a swarm of beetles, mainly depicting the rules of pharaohs in the ancient country. 21

“Be careful of traps, if you guys know about Egypt, you should know they liked their dead safe....” Jemoth said, looking around, Ewan sighed,22

“Well, I want to know: if these things are so laden with traps, then why the hell would dust-munchers hide in here? It’s so cramped, and there’s barely any living space...” he said, kicking a small loose stone. It clacked down the hallway, the echoes keeping in rhythm with every bit of contact to the floor, until it stopped, a resounding ‘bong’ vibrating through the hallway. There was a door at the end of it.23

A metal door.24

Jemoth grabbed his radio,25

“Hey Jase, we may have found them...Jase?”26

There was a flood of static over the radio, Jemoth growled,27

“Forgot that since there’s so much damn rock between us and outside that radio signals can’t get out...” he looked at the door, “A blast door...if we used anything bigger than C2 this place would collapse on us...so, what could we do?” he said. C2 was a plastic explosive, used to blow rubble off of artefacts without truly damaging them. Unfortunately, it wasn’t made for demolishing thick steel plate doors in sensitive areas. Ewan growled with frustration28

”So, what do we do, sit around and wait for the humans to arrive an’ do nuthin?” he said, flicking his tail in annoyance, “Christ, we’re mercenaries, we should be able to do sumthin!” It was common for Anthros to show disgust towards humans as they were normally not accepted into society, even with the Anthromorphic Discrimination Act of 2007. Jemoth ran over a few thoughts in his head: Should they blow up a national monument? Or should they just knock politely and get shot to hell? Never in his career had he experienced something as strange and peculiar as a blast door inside a thousand year old over-glorified rock. He turned around and began to walk away, resting his G3 on his shoulder,29

“Come on, we can’t do anything…let’s go”30

“Wait” a voice came from behind him, the echo in the hallway making it sound extremely authorative, it was Adamska, “Blast doors don’t have hinges…” he levelled the barrel of his Spaz 12 to the hinge and fired. The resounding bang flowed down the confines of the pyramid, and a smaller ‘clang’ followed it as the bolt hit the floor, shouting could be heard from behind the door. Jemoth grinned, getting his gun ready, Ewan cheered loudly and cocked his Tavor assault rifle, the curved gun resting easily in his paws. 31

Adamska grabbed a small grenade on his chest, flicking out the pin and holding the handle down, aiming the shotgun at the lower hinge. It was an M-67 Fragmentation Grenade, with a killing radius of 5 metres, it was incredibly effective in small rooms. Jemoth and Ewan began to move back as they saw it, knowing what would happen. They picked up the pace as the second bang went through the hall, and Adamska kicked the door forwards, tossing the grenade high through the small gap as the door made it’s quickening decent, before turning around and sprinting. Random yells in Arabic came from behind the door, before a deafening ‘boom’ sounded throughout the massive structure, dust unsettling from it's resting places. Adamska ducked as his comrades fired, hearing the bullets whizz past his ears, and the thuds that came from any pursuers that survived the blast. Sunlight blasted into the trio’s eyes as the burst out into the heat of the desert, noticing a small blood trail which led over to the Land Rover. Jason was leaning against the far side of the vehicle, a bandage hastily wrapped around his right knee; a wound gained from a fox who seemed to just appear out of the sand. The fox met an untimely death of three 9mm rounds to his forehead from a Colt 1911A1, but not before he could fire a few rounds at Jason. Jemoth run up to him,32

“You think you can drive?”33

“Are terrorists fanatical assholes?”34

“I’ll take that as a yes” Jemoth said, getting into the backseat, flicking the switch with his tail that opens the sunroof, while Jason hobbled painfully to the driver’s seat. Ewan was still running backwards, firing small bursts at the small trickle of men that emerged from the entrance of the pyramid. Adamska sprinted past him, nearly ripping the door off of the black vehicle and getting in, yelling in surprise as Ewan leapt in after him,35

“Drive, drive, drive ya bastard!” he yelled, breathing heavily. Dirt span up under the tires as the vehicle struggled to gain traction, before lurching into a speedy retreat as numerous rusted dune buggies began to give chase to the mercenaries. 36

Jemoth looked down his ACOG scope, eyeing the terrorist carefully, 37

“Jase, get us into Cairo, there should be some back-up there, or at least keep driving till we can get Phoenix in…” he called back, changing his fire mode to semi-automatic. Hearing the AK-47’s fire, the rounds came dangerously close to hitting him,38

“Calm down ya bastards…” he muttered, lining up one of the drivers,39

Crack!40

He fired, grinning as a splash of blood hit the wolf’s chest as the round pierced his heart and caused the vehicle to veer dangerously into another one and tumble, killing the 6 occupants of both vehicles. Left and right he kept firing, either narrowly missing or hitting the terrorists in the shoulders, until he suddenly felt a burning sensation in his abdomen.41

One of them got lucky.42

Jemoth groaned and clutched the bleeding area; he chose to only wear a light Kevlar vest, but the bullet had hit just underneath it. His vision blurred slightly from the shock that had gone over his body, causing him to slide back into the back of the car, Ewan looked at the wounded dragon and growled, noticing a buggy come up beside him. He rolled the window down, poking his Tavor out of the gap and held down the trigger, and angry volley of bullets peppering the vehicle. The driver and one of the gunners in the vehicle had wounds explode all over their bodies, their clothing offering no protection against the assault, and their bodies fell out of the vehicle. Adamska grew a little nervous: considering that there was no backup to be seen, and they were horribly outnumbered, he turned on the radio, ‘Helicopter’ by Bloc Party came on. Ewan’s ear twitched as he heard the fast paced music,43

“Can ya please turn off the British Rock ya Mingebag? I’m trying to kill stuff here…” he said annoyed, Adamska took the spare M-16 sitting in the front passenger seat and poked it out of his window,44

“It’s helping ME kill…” he muttered, listening to the lyrics,45

North to South, empty, running on Bravado46

He fired at a human on a motorbike, who had a TNT vest strapped to his chest. A bullet hit the front tire, causing the bike to swerve and roll, the human unfortunately clung onto it, and it came into course with another buggy.47

A large explosion occurred, and yet the 4 remaining vehicles seemed unphased by the death of their allies. Jemoth checked to see that his wound was patched up okay and stood up, resuming his original position.48

Are you hoping for a miracle? Are you hoping for a miracle?49

Ewan reloaded his Tavor hastily, getting ready to punch the radio,50

“Goddamn Brits and coincidental music…” he muttered, firing at one of the buggy, ducking as an assault of AK rounds hammered the window and side of the black Land Rover. Jase wiped the sweat on his forehead, feeling his stomach lurch as the vehicle hit a lump in the road, sending it up in the air. 51

“Where the fuck is the air support!?” Jase called out, ducking as a bullet shot past his head, Jemoth ducked back in and reloaded, ignoring the bleeding wound in his shoulder. He sighed,52

“It should come soon...”53

Three out of Five, Three out of Five (It’s not enough)54

A quiet thumping noise could be heard in the distance, and the shouting from the terrorists seemed to stop. Their heads seemed to swivel around at the growing object in the distance. The Ka-50 “Black Shark” was an attack helicopter used by Russian Military Forces, and armed with 12 Vikhr anti-tank missiles and a 30mm cannon, it was a deadly adversary. Jemoth laughed and waved his gun,55

“Where the hell have you guys been!?”56

It’s not my fault, it’s not my fault57

“Hey, we came as fast as we could, sheesh, a hawk can’t get any good sleep around here” the pilots voice came over the radio, “So, I see a few annoyances, want me to remove them?” he muttered, Ewan snapped Jemoth’s radio, basically screaming into it,58

“Ya better fuckin do sumthin! Or I’m comin up there to kick your ass!”59

The helicopter seemed to pickup speed, positioning itself so it was in range of the 4 remaining vehicles, the pilot rubbed the cross around his neck as he began to get a lock on one of the buggies,60

“And God spoke onto the people and he said...”61

Target Lock.62

“Fuck you” the hawk pressed his thumb down on the joystick, watching the trail of smoke come out from under the helicopter. The missile slammed into the small vehicle, exploding and causing the wreckage to fly through the air, the pilot swore as he saw bullets ricocheting off the reinforced hull,63

“Hey, stop it, this is worth more than all of Africa put together!”64

Jemoth watched the mayhem being wreaked outside, and grinned,65

“Only three more...” he grabbed something hanging off of Adamska’s belt, who looked surprised at Jemoth,66

“You are seriously not going to throw that at them” he said. It was a Tritonal 80/20 charge, useful if you want to demolish something like a tank or a small house, and since it was made for demolition, it had an “Arm/Disarm” system. He set the timer for 10 seconds, stood up and threw it at the closest vehicle, which had the other two vehicles moving closer for a final assault. The buggy’s driver tried to move out of the way, but wound up bumping into another vehicle,67

3 seconds.68

He became more erratic, pushing his foot down as hard as possible,69

2 seconds.70

The driver next to him started yelling abuse, the Tritonal charge landed in his lap.71

1 second. 72

Cue Scream.73

The charge went of, causing a massive shockwave, tearing up sand from the desert. The middle buggy had been completely removed, the one he was bumping into was torn apart, and the final one was flung about 10 metres in a deadly roll, the frame crumpling from the trauma.74

The Land Rover soon came to a stop, riddled with bullet holes and a smoking engine, Jason breathed heavily, Jemoth sat down, trying to ignore Ewan’s cheers. He relaxed, before noticing the land amount of Egyptian military vehicles surrounding his own, guns aimed at him, and the terrorist insignia on their uniforms. He groaned,75

“Well, this sucks”76