“Where the hell is the dog?!”

I yelled while strangling the collar of some crook we had just chased down at a park. Aspen stood there behind me as backup in case things got out of hand. I couldn’t kill this guy legally since there’s no contract on his head, which would land me in prison with my license revoked. It was hot and the heat was beginning to get to me and Aspen after we’ve been searching for that lady's lost dog the whole day.

“I’m telling you man, I have no idea what you’re talking about.”

I could see it in his eyes that he was telling the truth. The only reason we are where we are now is because we caught this guy trying to untie a dog's leash to a pole.

“Then why were you trying to steal that dog?”

“I wasn’t stealing him… I… I was trying to save him.”

Now I was just confused.

“Huh?”

“Yeah… I… I saw that same dog tied to the pole the other day, and he was still there today, he looked hungry and maybe even could’ve used some water, so I decided to untie him.”

“Oh.”

Well now Aspen and I looked just plain old stupid.

I let the man go and we apologized to him sincerely. We decided it was probably best to cool off so we walked over to a popsicle stand that was under some shade, we both bought a blue Iceberry popsicle and sat down on a park bench that was right by the vendor. We licked away at our popsicles that were already beginning to melt.

“What now?” Aspen questioned curiously. Finding a dog with no lead was just a pointless case, no pun intended. The lady gave us a small description of the guy so we know what to look for, which was no help at all, and a photo of her dog. Basically us finding the guy would be by plain chance. It had already been a day so who knows where it is by now.

We sat and enjoyed our popsicles for a little while longer under the shade of an oak wood tree, while thinking of our next move. Our contract we signed with the lady gave us four days, which is a good amount of time, but within a day or two that dog could be moved out of the country and it won’t matter how long we have.

“Let’s head back to the agency and look at records of dog thieves within the area.”

I suggested.

We both nodded our heads in agreeance and walked from the park to the agency.

Inside of the agency's intelligence room was a giant computer system that looked like a thick round table with a large Ipad placed inside of its center. The system’s called the I-D, which stands for intellectual database.

We began our search through the database and thinned out the suspects in order to make it easier for the database to give us a smaller group of suspects for us to look through. It processed the details we gave it and it gave us twenty-four different suspects that have been arrested for dognapping and have a golden chain around their neck with a dog pendant attached. Yeah that was basically the only detail our client gave us, she said “His pendant was so pretty I couldn’t help but stare at it.”

We searched for about 10 minutes evaluating each suspect thoroughly. They mainly all wore either tank tops or hoodies, some had chains on, some had tattoos, and some of them looked like they weren’t even criminals. I guess you don’t have to be that tough to be in the dognapping business. As we got to the twenty-second suspect he seemed different from the rest, he wasn’t like the others at all. He wore a yellow Hawaiian shirt and had a different vibe to him, his smile was more bright then rest, even though he was caught he didn’t seem to care.

We looked around his neck and even though it appeared he had a chain it still wasn’t the one with the dog pendant.

“Maybe our guy is one of the last two suspects.”

Aspen said, trying to cheer the both of us up. We weren’t sad but beginning to feel discouraged. Just as Aspen was about to move the image to the next suspect I stopped him.

“Wait.”

Aspen looked at me wide eyed with excitement waiting to hear what was so important.

“Zoom in on the opening between his two top buttons.”

Aspen zoomed in and to no surprise I was right. He hid his pendant from the photo, but since he’s wearing such a loose Hawaiian shirt part of the dogs head can be seen through window between his two buttons.

He had no address, so we gathered all of the info we could on this guy and made a bold assumption of where he could be next.

Rajai Wilkins

Age: 34

Height: 6’2

Crime: Grand Theft.

Profession: Dognapper.

It was a hot, but beautiful sunny day. We whipped the sweat off of our foreheads as we waited for our target to come by. Since he’s a professional dognapper we figured the most obvious place for him to be is in the pet market district. The road was full of open garage shops with animals trapped in cages of all sorts, birds, cats, dogs, and even wild exotic ones like baby leopards and such. The law to sell wild or exotic animals was to sell them as babies not adults which most people follow because the babies are easier to tame anyways, though some have their problems, they’re wild animals after all.

We continued walking down the district until we heard a dog barking wildly.

WOOF! WOOF!

WOOF! WOOF!

We walked over to see what the problem was and to our surprise there he was, Rajai Wilkins holding the shopkeeper at gunpoint while trying to steal one of his dogs.

“You keep your hands nice and high and I won’t blow off that old head of yours.”

“WOOF!”

“That goes for you too, mister.”

The dog stopped barking.

“Please don’t hurt me.”

The shopkeeper pleaded.

“That’s not the plan, old man.”

Rajai grabbed the cage in one hand and kept hold of his gun in the other.

Yes he’s our target and we should shoot him, but we still have no clue where the dog is which is part of the contract.

Aspen turned the corner with his sword unsheathed and ready.

“STOP there, and drop your weapon!”

Rajai raised his eyebrow and smiled mischievously, I don’t think he really cared to hear what Aspen had to say.

BAM!

BAM!

Rajai fired off two shots that made ASPEN have to activate his ring shield. The bullets deflected off the shield, but it was enough for Rajai to make his getaway from the shop. He ran off with the caged dog which wasn’t a huge cage so it didn’t affect his speed drastically but it still made him slower then what he could’ve been.

Rajai continued to fire bullets back at us each time we got closer to him in order to slow us down and make us take cover. Actually it didn’t really affect Aspen since he had his ring shield, which the agency provides only to swordsmen after graduation, which is unfair since us gunslinger didn’t get anything besides a pack of smokes and a congratulations card.

There was a little bike shop up ahead with motorcycles for rent parked in a line out front. Rajai hopped onto one of the motorcycles and held the cage on his lap between him and the handlebars. In order to keep up in our pursuit Aspen and I hopped onto a pair of bikes and rode off.

“Sorry!”

Aspen yelled back to the bike shopkeeper as we rode off. To be fair it wasn’t too smart leaving keys in the motorcycles ignition even if they are just for rent.

We followed down the road, driving recklessly through stop signs and red lights, weaving through oncoming traffic trying to avoid being knocked off of our motorcycles. Even while on motorcycles Rajai still insisted on shooting at us, not only were we weaving cars, but bullets as well.

Aspen rode right next to Rajai and began to swing his blade, Rajai was some sort of acrobat the way he dodged Aspen’s blade. Rajai ducked underneath the blade, then stood on the seat of the motorcycle jumping over the blade this time. As Rajai seated himself again, Aspen swung his blade over head hoping to get a powerful slash on Rajai, but Rajai held up the dog's metal cage as his shield. Aspen held his slash back knowing that he was strong enough to slash through the cage and possibly kill an innocent dog. Besides it wouldn’t have been worth it, Aspen wasn’t trying to kill Rajai the goal was to just injure him off his bike.

I was starting to get pissed off, Aspen lectured me not to shoot at him just in case I missed, as we waited for Rajai earlier. But now I needed to help, Rajai wasn't scared of Aspen or his slashed, in fact he seemed to be having a blast as he laughed away with excitement. Rajai aimed his pistol at Aspen while focusing on the road ahead of him just as his finger was slightly about to pull the trigger back. I pulled out one of my pistols and aimed it at the tire of Rajai’s motorcycle.

BANG!

PFFFFF!

Rajai’s tired squealed out air as it began to flatten. He lost control of his bike and began to swerve out, flying off and landing onto the ground. As we drove up it was nice to see that the dog’s cage had safely landed on top of Rajai who took the impact for both him and the dog.

How many more times would I have to save this I wondered. This was already the second time I've saved his ass.

Aspen and I both got off of our bikes and walked up to Rajai who had been laying down minor pain.

“Ugh… Don’t you two have more important shit to do then hunt down a dognapper, or has the assassin agency gone soft.”

Even though this guy was a pain in the ass to catch, and a bad dude all around, I still agreed with him on that at least.

Aspen pointed the tip of his blade at Rajai’s neck and began to question him.

“The dog…Where is he?”

“You got to be a little more specific than that, I’m a dognapper after all, I don't just steal a dog and call it quits after one job.”

“You stole a dog from an important client, she wore a fur coat when you took the dog from her.”

“Doesn’t ring a bell.”

Aspen was starting to get frustrated but at the same time kept his cool.

I pulled out the picture of the dog from my pocket and showed it to Rajai as he sat up.

“Oh that little mutt.”

Rajai showed a bite mark on his forearm.

“So you recognize him.”

“Yeah…Yeah I do, one of the most annoying ones yet, bit me at least two more times in an area that I’m not willing to disclose. He’s probably dead by now anyways.”

Aspen pressed the tip of the blade against him a little harder. A droplet of blood began to smoothly run down his neck.

“Alright…Alright. If the dog’s still alive he should be down over at Aldeen's pet supply back in the pet district.”

“Why would you sell a pet to a pet supply store?”

“It’s not the store, it’s what’s underneath.”

What was underneath, I began to wonder?

“Well?”

“At first it might look like a humble pet store, but in the basement is a whole different world. Down there is where they hold an event called dog wars. They starve the dogs and turn them into mad hungry savages and then put two of them in an arena to decide who gets to eat. The audience is full of rich and classy people who have a thirst for brutal entertainment, they gamble on the show and pay top dollar, which is why I steal and provide their entertainment.

That was everything we needed from him.

I turned my back to him and began to walk away. I pulled a cigarette out of it’s pack and adjusted it between my lips, while walking off. It still wasn’t time for me to ever light one yet.

As I continued to walk away looking off down the road I could hear a slash and then a plop. Aspen caught up to me and whipped his bloodied sword off and put it back in his sheath with grace and honor.

Aspen looked down and could see I was holding the dog's cage that had been stolen, he smiled as we continued towards our next battle.