Infiltration Vacation

The gentle lapping of distant waves was the only thing skunk assassin Lavender Amethyst heard as she sat alone on a mat in her cell, the narrow space reaching up into a shaft that opened into a plexiglass skylight high above. She was dressed in her familiar electric blue gi and sweatpants, but days without access to a change of outfit made her clothes feel scratchy and worn. Looking up, she saw the bright crescent glow against the night sky from Concentra’s ice moon, Cryo. Where it was shrouded in darkness, flecks of lights emitted from an unreachable city, before the low tide receded, the waters of the Rift Ocean flooding the skylight and leaving Lavender in shadow once more.

Her tongue felt around inside her mouth, stopping on a molar to the right of her jaw. Something loose wiggled ever so slightly. Reaching in with her paw, she pressed a finger to the tooth, keeping the gem she had hidden there firmly embedded. It wasn’t much of an idea keeping it, she knew, but it was the only hope she had at someone finding her.

Ahead of her, a beep resounded and a green light flicked on, before the stainless steel door to her cell slid open, revealing a red fox with auburn fur and striking yellow eyes magnified by roundrimmed glasses, dressed in a blond blouse and white shirt. Behind her were two Authorities, the police force of the Northern Empire. They were both gray wolves, wearing standard carbon grip breastplates over saltwater blue undershirts and slacks, their steely gazes hidden behind wraparound visors. The fox clutched something underneath what appeared to be a bath towel.

“Lavender Amethyst,” she breathed in a whispery, gentle voice. “It’s been quite some time since we last encountered a Water Elemental. We are so fortunate Harvest has given us custody of you.” The fox’s posture straightened before she continued. “My name is Dr. Brandi Bayfox, and I will be conducting the tests for Ms. Clawsen.”

“I don’t know who the hell that is,” Lavender spat darkly, her cyan eyes narrowing in suspicion.

“She manages this facility,” Dr. Bayfox explained simply. “Among other things. Now,” she paused taking a step towards the skunk. Kneeling down, she stared right at Lavender as the Authorities took positions on either side of her, a bit too close, Lavender thought. Brandi unveiled what was under the towel, an ornate silver crystal carved in the shape of a dragon’s skull.

“Elementals always have such colorful memories,” Brandi said, placing a paw directly on the skull’s forehead. Lavender’s brow furrowed as she looked directly into the crystal’s eyes. The longer she stared, the more a rainbow swirled inside the relic, tendrils of color rotating out in bands like a hurricane or spiral galaxy. Brandi’s nose flared, her whiskers twitching as she spoke, the door to the cell closing with a whoosh.

“Let’s see what your memories have to say.”

---

It was late the next morning when Rosa Amaranth, a pink clouded leopard, sat at the central table on the lower deck of the houseboat owned by her cheetah friend Hunter Pantone. She stared intently at her phone, which showed a graphical map of the Northern Empire’s southeastern coast. On the cushioned bench against the far wall of the boat was the arctic fox Cerulean Azura, who was lost in a drawing on his laptop. Rosa was startled from her stupor as she heard laughter from above. A moment later, Hunter stepped in, followed by her boyfriend, a kangaroo named Vert Greene.

“Home early,” Rosa said, shutting her phone screen off. Vert cocked a smile at her.

“I got fired from the bank,” he said.

“You did?” Cerulean asked, glancing up from his computer. “Won’t your parents be upset?”

“Yeah,” Vert shrugged, “but fuck that place. Besides, Brighton knows I work there, I’m too much of an easy target.”

“Why not just quit?” the fox pressed.

“It means I don’t have to hear Mr. Mince pleading for me to stay. He demanded I get out as fast as I could after what Hunter did.”

“I told you,” Hunter said, crossing his arms. “No one can catch a cheetah.”

“I deserve a consolatory beer,” Vert finished, heading towards the kitchen.

Rosa sighed, standing up from the table, looking over at Hunter with worry on her face.

“Doing alright, Rosa?” Hunter asked.

“We shouldn’t have let Lavender do that,” she said quietly. Hunter’s shoulders slumped for a brief moment, his gaze falling from the leopard to the porthole.

“Believe me when I say I regret how things went down at Dagrsrift, but she made her choice so we could get away.”

“She’s still out there! We owe her!”

Hunter took a step towards the wall of the houseboat, leaning against it and feeling the cold plastic on his fur. “For what I’ve put Lavender through what I could do now would never be enough to pay her back,” he said solemnly.

“That doesn’t mean we give up on her entirely!” Rosa snapped. Hunter blinked at her, his expression stern but not harsh.

“Lavender fell off my boat in a thundering blizzard and turned up a year later completely fine,” he explained. “She’s more resourceful and durable than you’d think. How would you even find her if you wanted to?”

Rosa turned her phone back on and thrusted the screen in Hunter’s face. “Back during the fight with the drones,” she began, “I lost one of my stars. Each star is chipped with a tracker Maron helped me set up back at the Academy. And look.” Hunter glanced at the phone, where a signal pinged somewhere off the coast. “That’s not Dagrsrift. Someone moved it. And Lavender knows I can track them.”

“Rosa,” Hunter said gently, “you have to admit this is wishful thinking. For all we know they cleaned up all that crap we left behind in the battle and dumped it into the ocean. We don’t know that Lavender found your missing shuriken amidst the wreckage.”

“We escaped from Dagrsrift five days ago,” Rosa explained. “And I’ve been watching this since we left, on the drive home. The star moved from the arena to where they kept us before the battle. It stayed there for three more days until yesterday when it moved again, and now it’s here, right off the coast.”

“And you want to sail this boat down there and look?” Hunter asked.

“It can’t hurt to try.”

Hunter sighed again. “Rosa, as much as I’d want you to be right about this, we have more important things to do right now. Lavender made her choice. We can lament her loss, but if she’s okay, she’ll find a way back. She knew when she gave herself up for us that we probably couldn’t come back for her.”

“What could be more important?” Rosa asked, her brow furrowing and her lips pursing like a child who’d been denied candy. Hunter pushed himself off the wall.

“Those Complacency Drones are gonna be crawling all over this city soon, and my boat isn’t exactly the best place for a resistance base. My father’s old bar has more space and provides a strategic location to watch their movements. Plus with it being abandoned for almost a decade we won’t have to worry about rent. I got some buddies I want to reconnect with who can help us fight back if we need to. I just gotta talk to them. Vert and I are going, you’re more than welcome to come. I’d say get some fresh air, but the Powder District’s not for that.”

“I’d be too distracted to be any help, I think,” Rosa said flatly. Hunter tilted his head over at Cerulean. The fox’s ears went back with guilt.

“I, uh, don’t really wanna go to the Powder District,” he said sheepishly.

“Suit yourself.” The cheetah stood up and adjusted his leather jacket, checking to make sure his golden sword was still sheathed at his hip. “Vert we’re leaving, I know for a fact you don’t have anything going on for the rest of the day. Put the beer down dammit.”

Moments later, Hunter and Vert were out the door, on their way to the Powder District, leaving the houseboat in silence once more. Rosa sat in frustration at the table, glancing over at Cerulean, who’d gone back to working on his laptop. Her ear twitched at him, the movement catching in the corner of his eye.

“Are you mad at me?” Cerulean asked.

“Don’t you care about Lavender?” Rosa said bluntly.

“Yeah, I mean, she was really cool. A little scary, but I think she was okay with me.”

“She saved you before any of us,” the leopard reminded. The fox scratched the back of his head, running his paw through his thick royal blue hair.

“Yeah well, she needed to figure out something.”

“You don’t have to be vague, you know.”

Cerulean closed his eyes in a wince briefly, before sliding himself off the bench. “I’ve, uh, got my own reasons for wanting Lavender back, to be honest.”

“Oh?” Rosa said, tilting her head. Cerulean let out a deep sigh, gesturing for Rosa to follow him as he made his way outside to the top deck.

Even with the summer sun beating down on the entire city, the shade from the pier far above the houseboat kept the air cool. Next to the bow, a long rope ladder hung down to allow the four of them to reach the dock. Cerulean stopped at the metal railing, Rosa joining him shortly after.

“Okay, so like, do you remember Lavender’s Elemental powers?” Cerulean asked.

“I thought Brighton said that was Dagrsrift,” Rosa said. “The energy left over from the dragons let her manipulate the lake.”

“Dagrsrift was more like an Elemental enhancer. Lavender could do all that on her own whenever she wanted if she knew how. Anyway, she got me away from Harvest first because I was the only other one.”

“Only other what?”

Cerulean winced again, gritting his teeth and clenching his paw before grasping the railing, glancing back at Rosa. “So like, Hunter told me to not tell anyone this, but seeing as I already showed Lavender, it couldn’t hurt to tell you. But you gotta drop it after this, okay?” Rosa nodded. “Alright well I’m, uh, I’m an Elemental too.”

“Are you pulling my tail or something?” Rosa asked, not understanding.

“No, no look.” Cerulean turned and held out his left paw. And within seconds, a perfect snowball formed in the fox’s palm. Rosa stood on the deck of the boat, bewildered, a slight smile curling up at the edge of her mouth. Her eyes were practically lighting up in wonder.

“How long have you been able to do that?” she asked loudly.

“Do you remember back when we met Hunter up in the icy fields?”

“The Fjord Reaches,” Rosa corrected.

“Yeah there, well that’s where I got this cloak right, and at the same time I put on the cloak—”

“You’ve been a Water Elemental for over a year and didn’t say anything!?”

“Technically Ice Elemental. But yeah, since Hunter said that if the Empire found out I was an Elemental they would hunt me down, I’ve been too terrified of even practicing how to use this.”

“So at Dagrsrift, Lavender must have sensed that you were an Elemental too.”

“I need Lavender to teach me how to use this power. I’m worried if I start experimenting on my own things could get out of hand.” The smile on Rosa’s face had grown wide.

“So you’re coming with me to get her back?”

“Where is she exactly?” Cerulean said, skepticism in his voice. Rosa whipped her phone out again and zoomed in on the satellite map.

“Right here, off the coast of a city called Lapis Lagoon.”

Cerulean breathed out a heavy, unsure sigh. “Lapis Lagoon,” he repeated. “Fuck.”

“What?” Rosa asked.

“That’s like, a super vacation destination city in the summer. Super expensive and super crowded. And it’s all artificially made islands. See there, they make sort of a flower budding.”

“Well then, Ceru the Ice Elemental,” Rosa began. “Looks like you and I are going on a vacation. And after last week I’d say we need it.”

“How are we gonna get there, you can’t just book an instant trip to a big ass tourist destination like that.” But Rosa kept smiling at him.

“We know Scarlet now, remember? And she’s rich. I’m sure she can hook us up.” As Rosa turned to head back inside the houseboat, Cerulean spoke up one last time.

“Hunter’s gonna be so mad at us, you know.”

Rosa smiled and waved her paw at him. “We’ll bring him back a souvenir.”