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"Everyone ready?"

The masked, cloaked and well-armed figures around him, himself included, all gave a silent thumbs-up to their squad leader.

"Then we go."

The bear pushed open the doors of the van they were in, he and his comrades smoothly and readily following him out, rushing toward the nondescript building they'd been carefully spying on for the past few weeks, alongside that of another squad disembarking from another van. Their target's plain facade was, of course, fooling nobody as to what was hiding behind its walls.

The heavy-set ursine led the way, pushing through the flimsy front doors, and ordering any of the conversion clinic's staff he saw to get down on the ground, pointing the barrel of his assault rifle just to get them to comply a little more quickly.

The bear signalled to one of his comrades (Asha, a female lynx), who promptly got to work tying up their hostages, with another stepping in to help her. A black-furred rabbit, Martin, his name was.

The rest of their squad continued down the clinic's halls, splitting up when the corridors did to cover more rooms. Dennis, meanwhile, stayed with his sergeant, as he was supposed to, along with one of his buddies, Tom.

They reached the last room for this particular hall, after clearing all the others, and the bear nodded at him and Tom to stand guard outside. That was fine with Dennis. He'd never liked being in one of those "wards", and Tommy was fine company anyway.

Idly standing by, watching an empty hallway with nothing better to do, the tiger started talking to Tom.

"So, how're Asher and Jake doing? I noticed they got pulled off the rotation."

The grey-furred goat glanced at him for a moment, before answering, "Well, Asher's been overly glued to the side of that cougar we extracted a while back, who's still recovering, by the way, and Jake's been watching over his brother... you know, as brothers do."

"Right, right."

Tommy continued, "Apparently, that cougar was Asher's boyfriend... Ezekiel, I think his name was, and the damned hyena's been doing his level best to stick with him while he gets better. Jake's just making sure Asher's taking care of himself... and to make sure nobody disturbs him at the wrong time."

"Boyfriend, huh?" Dennis grunted. The tiger may have considered himself bisexual, but he'd never had a boyfriend... or a brother for that matter. "Well, I hope that cougar of his gets better soon; it's weird not having those two around for this. Too quiet, somehow."

Tom had just grunted his assent on Asher and Jacob's absence when the door to the room they were guarding opened again, revealing their bear sergeant, carrying a limp brown-furred striped shorthair in his arms.

On his face was an expression of... confusion, and surprise, which was already surprising in and of itself. What came out of his mouth, however...

"New orders from the Boss, boys," the ursine rather grimly stated. "They want us to... bring some of the senior-most staff with us. And to... make an example of the rest of the zealots here."

"...Bring them... back? With us?" Dennis questioned incredulously. "And what do they mean by "making an example of the rest", sir?"

"...Okay, they said they wanted them for some... "questioning", specifically the ones who... worked on... this guy," the bear hefted the unconscious cat for emphasis, "...And to make the rest of the zealots pay. They specified using the... special molotovs for that."

Stunned silence filled the corridor at that statement.

The Boss was the troopers' name for the overall leader of their whole organisation. No one, at least anyone among the rebel troopers, knew anything about the enigmatic figure. Not their species, their gender, their real voice, their name, not even a cursory background! Whenever they did address them, their figure was always deliberately covered in deep silhouette, a dark mask covering their face, a solid screen behind them, their voice run through a voice changer, wearing loose clothes that covered up any clues about what species they could be.

Of course, given their nature as an underground resistance leader that was operating against a relentlessly ruthless theocratic dictatorship, whose heinous actions upon those they considered "traitors" and "heretics" was incredibly infamous, one couldn't be too paranoid when it came to this sort of thing.

As a result of all the (necessary) subterfuge, many theories, rumours and speculations were thrown around as to the identity of "The Boss", ranging from the simple (a factory worker turned revolutionary guerilla fighter) to the outright absurd (the head of the Devout States' Homeland Security Agency). Dennis, for his part, didn't give a damn about who The Boss really was; all that mattered was that he got shit done, and done well.

This latest order from The Boss, however... it didn't fit with what Dennis, or any of the troopers, knew of their mysterious leader. The Boss hadn't struck them as someone to be overly cruel or vindictive; just ruthlessly, coldly efficient in removing any obstacles as soon as they could. At least, until now.

"B-but why, though, sir?" Tom asked the question that had been on Dennis's mind out loud.

"Beats me," their sergeant shrugged. "I was just checking through all the beds when I heard them tell me to stop and take a second look at this particular "patient"." The bear gestured to his earpiece, then at the body cam he was wearing, and finally at the cat he was carrying. The first two things were just like the ones everyone else in the squad wore, the former allowing the Boss to directly speak into their ears (with voice changer on, of course), and the latter they knew was currently livestreaming everything it saw back to... wherever the Boss was right now.

That was one of the Boss's eccentricities; they liked to have a live view of any operations they had, and the ability to quickly jump in and issue orders themselves if need be, and so had whatever squads were headed out on a certain mission wear the body cams and earpieces, down to the last fur. These missions, in particular, were usually conversion clinic raids... like this one.

As for the cat...

"When I let the Boss have a good look at him, even I could tell how... angry they were when they spoke again, even with the voice changer," their ursine squad lead went on. "It was... more than a little frightening to listen to, I can tell you that."

There was a further silence in the hallway, as all three rebel troopers digested the implications of the Boss's reaction to seeing this particular cat inside a conversion clinic.

In the end, it was Dennis the tiger that broke it. "Well, if it came from the Boss, I see no reason to not follow that order. If they want to enact some sweet vengeance, who are we to say no? They can have it! The bastards they're targeting probably deserve it anyway."

Neither Tom nor the sergeant had anything to say about that, so they went on with their mission, the new order in mind.

After regrouping with the rest of the squad, as well as the other squad, along with all their liberated patients and hostages, some conscious, and others not, their squad lead relayed the Boss's new orders to everyone. Though there were expressions of surprise, no one looked particularly upset or disturbed at the prospect of carrying out what the Boss had wanted done. After all, they all hated the Devout States and their more fanatic, zealous minions. They wouldn't have joined the organisation in the first place otherwise.

Dennis, Tom and the others all went about, sorting through all the staff members they'd caught. The guns they were toting were certainly good at speeding up the process of questioning who was who, and who had worked on who, considering they had a time limit before someone outside the building got suspicious enough to call the cops on them (they'd cut the building's power beforehand, and sabotaged the backup generators while clearing the building out).

Once they'd separated the Boss's "targets", the poorer, less enthusiastic workers just there to get paid and go home, and the rest of the high-ranking and fanatical staff from each other, Dennis's squad, went to work, evacuating both the wage slaves, their patients, and the doctors and nurses being taken in for "questioning" by the Boss.

As for everyone else, both from the squad, including Dennis, Tom and their squad lead, and the deplorably fanatic staff members, they got started on heaving them into the nearest room as crates of their special molotov cocktails were carried in, their "hostages" screaming all the while, mostly about how God or the authorities were going to make them regret what they were doing. Having been through this whole song and dance before (minus the arson and... immolation they were about to commit), Dennis instinctively tuned out all the Biblical-based threats and propaganda they were trying to spew at him. At least, until...

"You'll burn in Hell for this, you traitorous deviants! Burn! Satan will have your soul, and make you suffer for all eternity!"

At the word "burn", Dennis couldn't help but smile and retort, "Oh, sure, I'm definitely going to Hell for the things I've done... but, something tells me you're going to burn first."

Having successfully stunned the screeching fur with his statement, Dennis unceremoniously tossed her in, before turning around and finding she had been the last of them. Where the zealous staff had been before, there were now a few crates of molotov cocktails.

They weren't just any molotov cocktails, though; these ones had had magnesium strips and powder added to them, to produce fires that were far more intense and far more difficult to put out with water and regular fire extinguishers. Clearly, the Boss was going for broke on this one.

"...Are we ready?" their sergeant asked, once they had thrown all their "hostages" into the room, his voice heavy with what he was about to do. Dennis, Tom and their other squadmates present, for their part, all nodded an affirmative. Besides, it wasn't like the zealots were making it any easier to not hate their guts. Even now, they were still yelling obnoxiously about the holy, divine and state-based retribution that was surely about to fall upon their heads for this. Dennis managed to avoid rolling his eyes, though only just.

"Fire alarms and suppression systems?"

"Completely disabled, sir." Asha spoke up.

"Explosives?"

"Completely set up; Isaac has the detonator, sir."

"Alright, good, good..." For a few moments, the bear stood there, his head bowed down, surely reflecting on the consequences of the action he was about to take. Sighing deeply, he looked back up, his eyes now stony. "Take the bottles, light them, and throw them in. Close the door once we're finished."

Dennis couldn't imagine what was going through the sergeant's mind as he grabbed a cocktail and lit up the wick. The chains of command sure weighed heavily on the bear, though, as far as he could tell, both now, and before. It made him highly certain he didn't want to become an officer in their ragtag rebel army, at the very least.

Still, the tiger couldn't say he felt guilty for what he was about to do. Nor could he say that of any of his squadmates; they'd all lost something or someone dear or important to the Devout States, to the Revenant Party, also known as the "Revs", "Devs", "Devies" or "Revies". They had no sympathy at all for the people who supported such a despicable group and their equally sickening actions so wholeheartedly and fiercely as the clinic's staff, and certainly had no qualms in doing what had been ordered be done to them, especially when those orders came from the very top.

Needless to say, Dennis doubted he was the only one who felt a slight bit of catharsis as he tossed the lit molotov into the room of zealous conversion clinic staff, the fuel in the bottles rapidly spreading and igniting all over the floor. The screams were a little off-putting, but the tiger was quick to remind himself just who those screams were coming from. It became easier to ignore them after that.

After throwing in as many flaming bottles in as they could without the fires spilling out of the room, the ursine sergeant quickly ordered the room's door be shut. If Dennis strained his ears a little, he thought he could still hear the muffled sounds of the staff screaming. Still, the tiger refused to let it bother him in the slightest.

In another time, in another world, even, the tiger might've felt disturbed or horrified. However, this was here, and this was now, and Dennis DeSilva had gone through too much shit at the hands of zealots like the ones burning behind the door he'd just closed to care much about how they were feeling. They would all be dead soon, anyway, and he'd be able to forget them that much sooner.

They moved out, got back into their vans, now loaded full to the brim with the "extracted" patients, and closed the doors behind them. Dennis quickly noticed the brown shorthair that had been the apparent reason the Boss became so uncharacteristically enraged.

As they drove off, away from the building that had housed a conversion clinic, that would surely have just burned down on its own if they hadn't rigged it to explode, the tiger stared contemplatively at the still unconscious tabby, wondering what about him had driven the Boss to give them an order that was unusually un-Boss-like , in such an... un-Boss-like manner.

In the end, Dennis shook his head, and decided it wasn't his place to speculate on or ask questions about the connection between this cat they'd rescued, and the Boss. That was business for only the Boss and this mysterious feline. It would be rude to try and butt in or spread rumours, especially considering he was just a lowly trooper.

So, instead of trying to suss out the Boss's deal with the cat, Dennis simply closed his eyes and listened to the idle sounds of breathing from the people around him, and the van's soft but still audible engine. A few minutes of driving later, he thought he could make out the sound of a dull boom, far in the distance.

Mission success.