Weatherworn and bleached by the scorching sun, bombed-out husks of once-great structures rose from the dunes like the skeletons of giants. From the sheer size and number of the titanic hulks, it bore the marks of a city with few equals. Now, all that was left were the crumbling bricks and rusting girders.

Just because the metropolis was destroyed and buried in the Dust, did not mean nothing moved.

A red fox stood surrounded by five snarling wolves, all threatening him with makeshift machetes and knives. The much smaller canine held his paws up, glancing nervously at the jagged, rusty blades.

"Guys, hey! Fellas! What's going on?! You know me! I have a trading contract with you!"

The wolves laughed and jeered, causing the fox's ears and tail to wilt in dismay.

A sharp whistle instantly quieted the horde. They stood to attention, and two wolves stepped back to open a hole in the circle, admitting a sixth wolf, a rather handsome specimen with pure white fur.

The fox turned to the alpha with his best charming smile.

"Well, if it isn't my favorite Picker: Gary! Oh, am I ever glad to see you. Would you mind calling off your, uh, friends?"

The wolf stood with a cold stare made even colder by his ice-blue eyes, silently rubbing the knuckles of his right paw with his left. The quiet dragged on, steadily increasing in length from uncomfortable to downright chilling. Just as the fox opened his mouth to break the silence, the wolf interrupted.

"How many a' my boys d'you see here?"

Mouth closing with a click, the fox swept his gaze around before turning back to Gary. Licking his dry lips, he answered.

"Uh, fi-five?"

"Tha's right," the wolf said, voice as frigid as his eyes. "How many ya saw last time?"

The fox had to swallow twice before he could answer. "Eight."

Gary reached into a pouch on his hip and threw the contents on the ground at the fox's feet. It was a dead rat.

"This slick plugger snuck in my circle two days ago. I didn't hear him, which, ya know, fine. Rats er' quiet. No, what bothers me real bad is I didn't smell him. Now, why do you think that is?"

The cracks in the fox's charming facade continued to grow as his lips began to tremble and his breathing hitched.

"N-now, hang on. There's obviously been some mistake! You know, now that I think about it, I recently lost some product-"

A white-furred fist crashed into his jaw, throwing him to the ground and silencing his rambling.

"Ya know what I think?" the wolf asked rhetorically as he returned to rubbing his knuckles. "I think you sold that soap you're so scrappin' proud of to tha enemy. And I never seen that poison before neither, so I think that you sold them that, too. Hell, I think you sold them our meeting place, so they'd know where to look. Ratchety pelt like you, ever'thing's for sale, right?"

The fox pushed himself to his knees while Gary talked, and he held up a paw in denial.

"Now, hang on," he said as blood trickled from the corner of his mouth, "we have a contract-"

Gary whistled again. One of his cronies stepped forward, dragged the fox up, and then Gary punched him back into the dirt.

"Not no more," the wolf said.

Elsewhere, another pack of hunters were chasing their own prey.

A lone jeep raced through the rubble-strewn streets. The vehicle swerved around the worst of the debris, and jerked and jolted as it jumped the rest. Behind it, six mammals wearing short, ragged red capes chased after on dirt bikes, screaming and hollering, harrying the jeep like ancient savage lions wearing down a bison before going for the kill.

In the jeep's cabin, a rabbit was methodically digging through a box of weapons while a weasel quailed behind the wheel.

"It's not my fault!" the weasel wailed. "Lackies aren't supposed to be here! This is Picker territory!"

"Just drive, Weaselton," the rabbit spoke calmly as she shouldered a quiver with three iron darts and hefted a spiked chain in her other paw. Standing, she climbed the seat to the roof, then pushed back the iron hatch that had replaced the sunroof. She stuck her head through, only to duck back as two iron-tipped bolts flew by. She jumped back up, rolled over the lip of the hatch and off the roof to land firmly on the hood of the jeep, a golden banner with three swords painted beneath her feet.

Spinning the chain, she waited for one of the attackers to approach. One took the bait, screaming as he hefted his spear and opened the throttle, motor howling as his bike shot forward. From around the corner of the windshield, the rabbit watched him approach until he was just outside the spear's range. With a shout, she hurled the chain. It caught the bike's leading tire, which tore apart in a cloud of shredded rubber and shattered steel. The rider was thrown to the ground under the jeep's wheels and the vehicle jumped slightly as it crushed his skull.

Reaching over her shoulder, she grabbed one of the darts from her quiver, spun toward the other side of the vehicle, and flung it. The spike slammed home into the shoulder of the Lacky that had tried to sneak up on her. The shot he'd been lining up with his bolt gun went wide, and the distraction cost him as his bike hit a pile of debris, throwing him to the ground in an eruption of dust and broken parts.

A bloodstained paw balled into a fist came down, striking across the fox's jaw, knocking him back to the ground. As he huffed blood into the dirt, the five wolves surrounding him all laughed and jeered. Gary was the only one to maintain his composure, just rubbing his knuckles again.

"Why don't you just tell me where your stash is?"

"'Cause you'll kill me when I do, Gary," the now thoroughly beaten fox grunted as he pushed himself onto his side.

The wolf rolled his eyes upwards and shrugged his shoulders in a silent 'hey, what can you do?' kind of gesture.

"Get him up."

A slightly taller wolf with gray fur stepped forward and stooped, grabbing the fox by the shoulder and dragging him up to his knees. Gary raised his fist for another blow.

The wolf froze midswing, ears twitching. He jerked his head to the side, prompting his cronies to do the same. They all stared at the approaching dust cloud, first in confusion, then mounting fury as they saw the red capes.

Below their line of sight, the fox glanced up, his one unswollen green eye flashing as he saw his opportunity. A dark-furred paw disappeared into a hidden fold of his clothes.

The gray wolf that still held the fox snarled, "Are those Lackies!? What are they doing-!?"

Bang!

A bullet punched through the bottom of the gray wolf's jaw out the top of his skull in a spray of gore. Shocked, the surviving wolves jumped and lurched, looking around frantically for their attacker.

As the corpse slumped to the dirt, there was the fox, still on his knees, a shiny pistol held above his head. The crony wolves moved to mob him, but the fox lowered his gun to aim at Gary, freezing them all in place.

"Now, just everybody hang on, or your boss gets it between the eyes."

The jeep swerved back and forth in the narrow street, desperately trying to keep the chasing Lackies from either pulling up alongside or giving them a chance to mount from behind. One particularly brave jackal stood in his seat, gunned his throttle, ran his bike straight at the rear of the vehicle, and jumped.

The rabbit's head popped up over the edge of the roof and, snarling, she let loose another dart. It flew right between the jackal's teeth, punched through the roof of his mouth, and embedded itself into his brain. Momentum carried the corpse forward, which fell through the open roof hatch right onto Weaselton.

Shrieking in surprised terror, the weasel lost control of the vehicle, which swerved right into a girder that was sticking out of the dirt. The vehicle stopped cold, and the unprepared rabbit was thrown from the hood.

Gun still held aloft, staring his tormenter in the eye, the fox grimaced as he forced himself to his feet.

"Now, sorry about your friends and all, but-"

Something crashed into his side. The gun in his paw went off, but the fox had no idea what he hit as he was flung sideways to land on his back a couple yards away.

"What the hell…" he wheezed. He glanced down at whatever had knocked him down, which was still on top of him, if his aching ribs were to be believed.

Eyes were looking back at him, the most striking shade of violet he'd ever seen, and for an instant, they froze him solid.

Straddling the fox, the rabbit stared back into his own green eyes, as shocked as he was.

Then the Lackies came screaming through the dust cloud thrown up by the jeep.

Caught unawares, the first Lacky through the dust crashed his dirt bike right into one of the wolves, and both fell. Unluckily for the Picker, the Lacky had been holding his spear out, and it caught him right in the chest. The downed Lacky fared no better, as the three remaining wolves fell on him in a fury, their machetes hacking him to death in seconds.

A second Lacky appeared on his bike, and the fox was forced to roll to the side to avoid being run over, which pinned the rabbit beneath his larger frame. The rider drew a bead with his crossbow and fired as he zoomed past, dropping a wolf to the dirt with blood gurgling around the bolt in his throat.

The third and last Lacky tried to spear one of the two uninjured wolves as he passed, but the Picker managed to smack the point to the side with his blade.

The fox yelped as he was thrown off the rabbit, then again as he landed on his back, the breath knocked out of him.

"HUH- OOF!"

Now unburdened, the rabbit bolted up, eyes shooting about as she took in the situation. Just behind her, a dust cloud receded into the distance as the surviving Lackies abandoned their hunt. To her left- two wolves in matching Pickers' jackets. Straight ahead was her jeep, barely visible through the white steam that billowed from under the hood. And to her right, a beat-up red fox holding a shiny pistol.

Violet eyes widened as they locked on the firearm, and then she lunged for it.

The fox noticed the movement too late. He tried to bring his weapon to bear, but the rabbit landed on his arm, pinning it between her legs as she attacked his paw, trying to pry his fingers off the grip.

The scuffle attracted the attention of the Pickers still only a few yards away. Snarling, the two wolves jumped toward them.

The sound drew the rabbit's attention, and the fox took the opportunity to grab the back of her clothes and yank her off his arm, tossing her bodily away. Now free, his pistol-wielding paw jumped up, fired twice, readjusted aim, and fired twice more. The wolves flinched and collapsed, dead before they hit the ground at the fox's feet.

The whole ordeal took only seconds, but the rabbit was already on him again, this time leading with a flying knee to his already aching jaw, and damn if it didn't hurt even more than getting punched by a wolf. As the larger mammal laid stunned, the smaller lunged again for the pistol. Gripping the end of the barrel with both paws, she yanked back, twisting it out of the fox's grip.

When the black spots cleared, the fox's one unswollen green eye blinked in surprise as he found himself staring into the barrel of his own gun. Looking past it into his attacker's pretty purple eyes, a cocky, devil-may-care smile spread across his muzzle, bloodied teeth on full display.

The rabbit pulled the trigger. With a resounding click, nothing happened.

One black paw grabbed the gun, and the other crashed into her chest with enough force to throw her off her feet. She landed on her back, clutching her chest as she wheezed.

Seeing the fox begin to rise, she rallied through the pain enough to shove herself to her feet. Her paw disappeared into her wraps, and then reappeared with a small, curved blade. She crouched into a ready stance, her trusty skinning knife held ready at her side.

The fox, now upright, took his pistol in a proper grip, thumbed a switch on the side, and took aim.

BANG!

The small blade exploded, and the handle went flying from the rabbit's paw. She fell to one knee with a scream, clutching her arm to her chest as her palm throbbed and stung unbearably. Jaw clenched against the pain, she forced her gaze back to her enemy.

The fox stood steady, his firearm held at the ready, his good eye locked on her just over the iron sights. There was no doubt: he could kill her at any moment.

The rabbit dropped her head, and her long ears fell down her back. Slowly, she raised her paws in surrender.

There was a long moment of stillness where the two stood panting as they caught their breath. They eyed each other, taking in everything they had missed before. The rabbit observed a red fox tod with ears, paws, feet, and tail tipped with dark fur, his form mostly hidden in simple brown robes cinched about his shoulders and waist with matching scarves. The fox saw a young rabbit doe, gray-furred with black highlights similar to his own, with healthy, athletic curves visible through her simple beige wraps.

Suddenly, the fox looked around, seemingly counting the bodies. The rabbit's excellent hearing caught him cursing under his breath.

"That gorram Gary is gone- Hey! That your ride?" he called to her, jutting his chin at the jeep.

The rabbit nodded mutely.

"Good. Get in. We need to leave before more Pickers show up, and you're driving."

End Chapter

Author's Note: After six months, five drafts and three start from scratch rewrites, this chapter is finally complete. I hope you enjoyed reading it very much.

Big shout out to Classyrogue for encouraging me and drafting the awesome map that is now the banner for this work of fiction. You can find their work under she_dies_at_the_ end. Great stuff, I highly recommend all of it.

Next big shout out to TheoreticallyEva, who did the heavy lifting for this chapter, editing wise. Her notes were vital for that last layer of polish that really made it shine.

I'd also like to mention QueenAmaranthus, The Unaccomplished Writer, Upplet, and StarfangsSecrets for their time and encouragement. I really appreciate you all.

Before anyone asks, the next story to get an update will probably be Year of Discovery. Then probably We are Doku. Electric Eldritch Eidolon, while not dead, is going to take longer than the rest while I "take it back to formula", to borrow a phrase.

See you all soon, I hope.

-ADM