“You got my back, Shadow?”

“Yeah, don’t worry boss!”

The black-haired skunk lowered his mask over his eyes before lighting up the blowtorch again, shoving the thousand-degrees flame against the cold metal of the safe. Behind him, the yellow-furred fox’s submachine guns were rattling bullets over every morcel of the furniture and through the door. Their aim wasn’t necessarily to kill, but just to keep the regular security guards at bay. They had perhaps 6-7 minutes left before the cops would show up, along the SWAT and possibly the secret services. After all, they had sneaked into one of the best-hidden vaults of the government’s shameful dealings, and were about to run off with top-secret documents: Ian didn’t half-ass things when he believed one of his ordered hits was controlled by the shadier parts of The Man.

“Grenade!” Shadow yelled, making the skunk tense and look over his shoulder, just in time to see the fox kicking the explosive device right back through the door, grimacing as the explosion deafened him for a second, even through his miniature earplugs. “Security guards don’t use fucking grenades!” Ian yelled, as Shadow reloaded his guns. “Nopes! But these guys do! Just focus on the safe, boss!”

Ian had caught a glimpse of the scary bunch who had started firing back at the fox. Mercenaries he had already seen in action. Wardogs fuelled by greed that showed less empathy than the common rock. Real jerks, too. The heavy plate of metal fell on the ground with a loud thud, the skunk quickly grabbing everything in the safe and stuffing it in the briefcase he had brought with him. “Let’s book it!”

Shadow and Ian forced their way out of the room, shooting down the killers for hire, decorating every wall in their path with bullets. Suddenly, one of the thugs, armed with a goddamn flamethrower, turned the corner right as Ian was reloading his handgun. Swearing between his clenched teeth, he watched as the cackling maniac pointed his weapon right at him.

And then, in the blink of an eye, the flamethrower-toting mercenary was in 3 pieces, cleanly sliding off each other and right down to the floor. “What the fuck?” Ian heard himself scream, as he saw Stripes standing behind the spot where the mercenary had been, both his blades red with blood and a twisted grin on his striped muzzle. The zebra swirled his dual swords, cracking his neck and smiling at the skunk. “I’ve cleaned up the path back outside. There are a LOT of these fuckers laying all over the place, in varying number of morcels,” he added with a smirk. The skunk stared right at the zebra, who had also slipped into the fishnet and leather coat Ian was known for wearing, like everyone else on the team. “I thought you were just a hacker!” he exclaimed, remembering the last time he had seen the zebra, working 3 keyboards and 7 monitors at the same time. Stripes shrugged some, pointing at the dead thug. “Well shit, what do you call THAT?”

“Hum, guys?” Shadow’s voice came, getting the attention of the skunk and zebra. Ian and Stripes looked in the same direction, where about half a dozen mercenaries were holding them at gunpoint, even one with a bazooka. A wolf with an eyepatch that looked like the leader yelled “STOP FUCKING THERE!” then waited for the dust to settle before taking a few steps, holding a Desert Eagle in one paw and shaking his second one at the trio. “Hand over the documents or we’ll kill you right where you stand,” he threatened. Ian grumbled some before noticing Shadow was smiling, lightly rocking on his feet. “What’s your problem?” he whispered, the fox tilting his head towards the skunk. “Just watch this.”

The large bay window running along the hallway suddenly exploded at the same time as the wolf’s head was transformed in a thick red mist, splattering all across the wall. A single second later, the man holding the bazooka had his face splashed off as well, the fox laughing loudly as he rattled bullets across the room, while forcing Ian and Stripes back towards the corridor the zebra had came from. As they ran away, Shadow put a finger to his ear, still barking in laughter. “Thanks a lot, Roobs!”

In the building across the street, Ruby the turtle grinned as she reloaded her sniper rifle. Lowering the volume of the music in her headphones, she replied: “How many times am I going to have to save your life before you put a ring on me, fox?” She didn’t wait for an answer, already strapping her large gun to her shoulder. She had a single minute to meet with the others at the van.

Two of the thugs had identified their van. Almost at the same time, Stripes vaulted himself off his swords to plant both his hooves in the stomach of one of them, while Ruby slammed the handle of her rifle into the back of the head of the other. Exchanging fist-bumps, they all took a seat, Shadow behind the wheel, Ian in the passenger seat. In the backseat, Stripes had traded his blood-splattered blades for a laptop, while Ruby started stacking C-4. Gently kicking the back of Ian’s seat, she warned him. “Watch out, this is going to be scary.” The skunk cocked an eyebrow, looking at the yellow fox adjusting his mirror. He had been in plenty of car chases before, and was pretty sure he knew what “scary” was. “Don’t worry about me, I’m pretty sure I can handl-aaaaAAAAHHHHH!!!”

Shadow had went from 0 to 100 in 2 seconds, burning his tires as the van bolted down the streets. Quickly enough, several cars were chasing them, causing a panic in the streets as they wavered around traffic, firing bullets at the runaway van. Ian returned the fire with Ruby’s help, even though Shadow’s driving seemed to be able to kill them every single second. How Stripes could be typing so placidly on his laptop was beyond the skunk. The zebra gave directions to the fox who swerved on the limit of reason with every turn.

After half an hour of intense chase, the thugs circled around the abandoned van, about 20 guns pointed at it as they carefully made their way close. When they finally opened the back of it, they were greeted by a light breeze and a metaphorical tumbleweed. The back of the van was empty.

Well, almost empty.

Except for a small stack of taped C-4 and a piece of paper saying “With all of our best FUCKS!”

When the van exploded in a giant fireball that made every other thug car around it explode as well, the quatuor was already walking off calmly along the road. Ian lit a cigarette, his eyes darting left and right to the guys he had teamed up with. He usually worked alone, but he knew he needed some help for this job. Very reluctantly, he had contacted these guys, and apparently, they weren’t half bad. He let off a discrete chuckle before blowing out some smoke.

Maybe he should do it more often.

---

BADASS STORY OF BADASSITUDE BY  stripes
BADASS ART OF BADASSITUDE BY  gnaw at FE 2015!!

Dual SMGs  shadow_fanatic
Sniper  rubytheturtle
Badass cig  gothicskunk
Dual Katanas  stripes


Mature just in case.