The night ligts of the Montrose illuminate corner stores, small resturants, and homes in various stages of repair and disrepair. One such home, painted a bit of an off-white and a particularly older, nicer home, is the next on your list. One of the few that has a backyard. Surrounded as it is with a high and thick fence, it seems a likely suspect.

Yi circles through the shadows, keeping the recently fallen night's cover nearly wrapped around her. No use of gifts for now, as getting around just seems easier without having to worry about people staring. She's just a girl walking. The no-moon checks her list twice, and spots the house from the front. It looks like it's possible. Given a moment, she looks around to see if there are other people expressly nearby. Witnesses, and such.

None such appear to be near, even in this more bohemian part of town, people tend not to hang around at night unless they are in groups. That is, except for the homeless, of which there are plenty. They panhandle, they push shopping carts with filled trashbags in them... but they do it far from Yi.

Yi looks around again, as just reassurance before sidestepping to the side of the high-fenced backyard's exterior. She goes to check the height of the fence, as well as some sort of later escape route she can take. If there is a latch with a lock or a door of some sort, even better.

Approaching the fence it appears to be nice and waist-height around the front of the house. When you get further back however, the fencetop is over your head, and the wooden panels so close together, peering between them in impossible. As a side effect, you're unseen by any who might be inside the backyard as well. A car alarm is set off about two blocks away, as far as that is, it is still an inconvenience in hearing if there is anything occuring inside the fence. There are, no suprise I'm sure, not gates or doors into the backyard... it appears the only way in is from the house, or over the fence.

Yi has to think to herself. Did she see any lights on when she was peering in from the front? Waist-height shouldn't be too difficult to jump, but the first thing to do - make sure no one's home.

Seemed like faint light in the front, but if that was from street light reflecting off of windows, or lights from deeper in the house... it is difficult to tell.

Almost like stealing chickens in the cartoons, Yi slinks along back to the high section of the backyard fence. There, she glances around for a shaded spot to which to shift. To the wolf-dog form, she goes if there is an all-clear, concentrating to make it quick, subtle, and fairly unobtrusive. To further the hidden value, the Gnawer crouches while shifting down.

((Long distance to BennyGM: Yi shifts to lupus with 1 Rage point. Hopefully, no one's got their eyes out. :}
BennyGM pages: One of the neighbors happens to be leaving her house next door, but no problem... you rolled well and are stealthy like the badass Ragabash you are.
Long distance to BennyGM: Yi whews. o.O
BennyGM pages: They rolled a botch on a perception check, you rolled two 10s on your stealth check. All good. What are you doing now.))

Three-Blades, once in a more scent-sensitive form, takes another moment to listen in with keener ears. More than that, she sniffs around the fence area. If there is fox, there must be some kind of residual scent. Even in the city, right? Depends.

The scent here is quite vulgar. Feces, piss, gasoline, sulfur, and other pleasant scents of the city. Hearing however is made a bit easier. Directing your ears towards the backyard, you hear a faint yipping sound. Yes, that is a fox... hard to tell why it seems so quiet however. This low to the ground, you notice the bottom of the fence is indeed a bit off of the ground, and peering underneath maybe possible.

Three-Blades snorts a few times to get that ick-scent out of her system. Or at least, as best she can. Hearing the yipping though, makes her ears stick up like twin satellite dishes. Hey! she whuffs quietly, Be quiet in there, or you'll wake the human. The Gnawer doesn't expect the fox to even understand her, but seeing the fence having a slight opening at the bottom, the ragabash takes some advantage of this. She pads over to the spot nearest the fence where the fox's yipping is, lies down, twisting her head around, craning to see is she can make out what is going on inside the fence.

Inside the fence is an odd view. You can see clearly for a few feet, then a long and thick hedge blocks your view. A bit further down the hedge seems to cut off, but if it finishes there or just turns, it is impossible to see from here.

Curses. Just her luck to get stuck with someone who has a garden too. The ragabash rolls back up to her paws, padding around the yard fence, back towards the lower bit. Still sticking to whatever long shadows there may be, her ears swivel to catch any sounds of approaching footsteps and to make sure the fox is still around. And, she gauges the height of the fence again to see if it is jumpable.

The front gate would be easy to leap. The rear fence... Jumpable?... no, but a well controlled leap would make clambering over in lupine form quite easy. There are no sounds of approaching foot steps, but in the well cut grass inside the fence, it is difficult to tell.

A dilemma presents itself. To take the high road, or the low road, that is the enigma. The Gnawer, after a short period of decision, decides to take the low road. It would require speed, and some luck in not being spotted, but it's better than thumping against the fence and scrabbling with claws. That might excite the fox too much. The Gnawer slinks down, now taking a moment to look for observers. When the coast clears, she does the blind leap of faith. Hopefully, the human with a well groomed garden doesn't leap gardening tools on the other side.

Up in the air the Gnawer goes and an outdoor light goes on at the front of the house as soon as she lands on the other side. Running by she notices that the area between the fence and the side of the house is a tight squeeze, but manageable easily in her lupus form.

Good Gaia! Damn the motion sensor lights. It was unexpected, but given that there is a hole to hide in, the Gnawer clamps her jaws and scuttles for the shadows. Squeeze, Yi, Squeeze! She pauses once at the middle of the way towards the back of the house, crouched and waiting, expecting someone to appear.

Yi, squeezed into her hiding place with less then a little comfort, waits. And waiting is returned with the sound of an opening door, and soon a faint clicking sound. To the Gnawer's ears it is perhaps the drawing back of a hammer on a handgun. Almost a minute passes, during which the sounds of feet trampling on well cut grass is heard. That full minute later however, a muttering voice followed by the door slamming is heard. Another ten seconds or so and the light at the front of the house dies away.

Gaia's teeth. A gun? Well, a man with a gun is not really her main concern. She dares to breathe again when the light turns off, and then stalks her way towards the backyard. This time, she makes a point to look up, watching any motion-activated lights, before poking her head around the side of the building to assess where the fox is.

In the rear, there are no lights to speak of that are easily noticed or that activate when Three-Blades steps to the backyard. However, the Gnawer does for the first time see an odd sight. A maze. Yes, a hedge maze in the backyard. Starting at a sliding glass door leading from the rear of the house and moving through various twists, turns, and forks in the passage till at the other end is what looks like a doghouse. The height of the maze seems to be pretty decent, a little over four feet perhaps.

Three-Blades snorts, and blinks with surprise. What in the thousand hells is this? From a lupine level, it must be more or less difficult to discern which is the quickest path. She flicks her tail, a bit annoyed, and a bit suspicious now. Ok then. Now to figure out how to get around this obstacle. Feeling much like a labrat put into an experimental arena, the Gnawer crouches, looks through the sliding door to see if anyone is coming in or able to see her, hidden though she is.

The sliding door is clear... but, hey, is that a camera watching over the maze? Yes, it is. The place seems to be a rather large lab experiment. A moment passes and the scent of Fox hits your nose, and it seems you have been noticed too, as the faint yipping of the fox appears again down at the doghouse.

Three-Blades peers up at the camera. What the...? The Gnawer knew there were nutzoids in St. Claire, but this. This almost takes the cake. It almost takes the whole bakery, in fact. She watches, to see if the camera moves too. Heck, might as well make -everything- motion sensored. For the briefest of moments, she considers barging in through the backfence instead. No, no that's probably not the greatest of plans. Hm. The Gnawer shakes herself to calm off the nerves. Concentrate now. Every camera has blindspots. The question is, is there more than one?

Moving around, one notices the camera does not move. In fact, it appears to be just watching the interior of the maze and there is only one camera. Here, outside of it, one seems safe from being viewed, but its difficult to be sure. The doghouse door leads right into the maze without a break between the walls of the doghouse and the hedge maze. However, the other walls of the small house for the fox, which starts whining as Yi nears it, lay outside the hedges of the maze.

Three-Blades slips her way around the hedgemaze once she's found there is an opening between it and the fence. The wolfdog keeps low, stalking along the outside until she comes to the edge of the doghouse.

Easily, and quickly, you are next to the doghouse. Which is just that, a homemade doghouse. Well constructed, but with whatever wood was available to the man, a poor quality ash wood in this case.

As you near, the whining turns to whimpering, and scratching at the walls from the inside of the doghouse can be heard.

Three-Blades scrapes once at the side of the doghouse, testing out the ash wood's quality. Perhaps it would be easy to gnaw through. The Gnawer tries her teeth out on a corner plank.

Claws seem to do little but make little scratches, but a recent rain assists in chewing away pieces of the wood easily and quietly enough. As you do so however, the fox inside seems to be getting more excited and louder. It is hard to gauge how loud it is to human ears, but its growing harsh to the Gnawer currently in the lupus form.

Three-Blades chews, spits, gnaws, tears, generally hurries as much as possible now that she's got her target. Damn fox, be quiet! she growls at the smaller canid, brooking little argument. When it gets to a point where she could better tear away pieces with hands, the Gnawer turns to slink to the unchewed side, shifting back to her breed form. She sprawls out against the ground, keeping her body low as possible. Maybe the sudden scent of human will get the fox to be quiet.

Not exactly quiet, but submissive, yes. As the smell of human hits the fox it starts whimpering once more... fear this time more evident. The pieces of wood pry away after a good amount of pulling. Eventually, the corner has been opened up into a hole large enough for a lupus to climb in through. About this moment, the sound of the sliding glass door opening is heard and someone steps out into the backyard, followed by the sounds of someone climbing over the hedges out of the maze, then trodding around the outside towards the doghouse rather then walk through the maze.

Yi scrunches back to a crouch, biting back an urge to curse. She looks into the fairly large hole. Should be large enough to stick her arms in and grab the fox, if the canine's cooperative. If the fox is tied, she'll have to work to release it. Or. The Gnawer has a look. Maybe, with the gift of Open Seal, it will work faster. Gently, she lowers a hand in to extract the fox from the doghouse.

Looking in, the Fox doesn't appear to be tied, however it is wearing a secured muzzle. It does turn and run from Yi, scratching at the door leading into the maze to try getting away from the Gnawer while yipping maddly. "What is going on, Argo?" the man calls out in a delicate and educated voice as he gets near to walking around the back of the maze. All in all, reaching in to grip the fox from here seems to be futile.

((You paged BennyGM with 'How big is this doghouse?'.
BennyGM pages: Large enough for a 'big dog'. Not made for the smaller size of the fox definatly.
You paged BennyGM with 'The hole's not big enough to reach into and grab the fox?'.
BennyGM pages: It's big enough to reach into, but the distance is too big to get a grip on the fox. It's tail is nearly in reach if you want to try and yank the poor thing out by that.
Long distance to BennyGM: Yi grfs.
BennyGM pages to the room: Tough situation, many solutions, some better then others.))

Yi then decides that this is not the time for stealth. Cunning, perhaps. Trickery. Quickly, she's back to shifting and like hell she's going to be caught trying to steal someone's pet fox. The Gnawer slides to lupus, hoping, just hoping, she can get into the form and speed down towards the front yard to set off the lights.

The suddenly lupine Gnawer breaks from the doghouse towards the front... oddly enough, following behind is the fox... then suddenly behind the fox is the human who has 'claimed' the fox trying to aim a gun at what appears to be a big dog on his property while running towards it, making aiming difficult.

Three-Blades flips her ears back to listen, hearing the fox and the man, likely the irate man, following after. Then she's making for the lowest part of the fence again, faking, and then leaping for the fence. Foxes better damn well be as agile as she is when it comes to jumping around.

The fox wasn't very strong. But Agile? Hell yes, the fox is past the Gnawer and with a leap is climbing over the fence as Yi makes her jump. The man with the gun curses loudly in some foreign language, but doesn't fire his gun out here in the open. Once out of the fence, the fox tries to run past Yi and head east down the sidewalk.

Three-Blades lands lightly, but barks at the fox once on the other side. Hey! The Gnawer follows, pounding pavement and hoping to steer the fox down a shadowy side of St. Claire. Or, maybe she can catch the thing by grabbing for the muzzle.

Almost like an arrow, Three-Blade's teeth snap forward faster then a camera could catch and grip into the muzzle keeping the Fox's mouth closed, jerking the animal off the ground. This done, Yi runs across the street to slip into an alleyway by the small stores and resturants found there.

Three-Blades carries this 'package' swiftly, and as gently as possible. No sense in hurting the creature that almost got her shot. But, the rewards can very well be worth it, as she slips into a very dark alley. For a moment, she checks with her ears, listening for footsteps, or someone possibly sleeping in the passageway.

No, this isn't the part of town where the homeless actually sleep. It's too nice for that, but not too nice for them to at least hang out and panhandle, fortunatly... they can't do that in alleyways. Yi looks to be home free with her prize.

Three-Blades checks around still, and then shifts to crinos first for a set of hands. Then when she's got a better grip that's not using her mouth, she slips down to breed form. The action at least should give her back some clothes. And her jacket. Which, in a case such as this, she slips off while attempting to hold a possibly squirmy fox, and wrapping it around the bugger to restrain and calm the guy. Poor Argo. Poor Argo indeed, the little guy has been flailing about crazily since this started, and doesn't slow except to be restricted in movement by the jacket. The little guy doesn't approve of his current situation anymore then his last one it appears.

Yi finally, once she's got the fox secured, takes a moment to just breathe. "(Great gods what a rush,)" she murmurs to herself in Cantonese. Now, to get this guy out to WWNP. And the faster, the better. She'll take a chance now, and hail a taxi (are there taxi's in this town?) to get her out there.

((Long distance to the room: Yi ees at the time. That was insane. XD Thanks so much Ben.
BennyGM pages to the room: No problem, Taxi's run through town usually getting from Point A to Point B, not to pick up customers really. But, you manage to grab one that is passing by eventually who speaks very little english and so doesn't ask very many questions. And no problem. I was afraid I was being too harsh on you. The other choice you had was to let the Fox out into the maze and follow him into and through the house.
Long distance to the room: Yi my gods, that would've been a funhouse. If this guy's got cameras, a gun and a hedgemaze, who knows what Roger-tendencies he's got inside. You paged the room with 'So, perhaps tomorrow the spirit-talk and such? Or Friday, to give you a chance for rest. :}'.
BennyGM pages to the room: But this worked as well. The guy used to own a big German Sheppard for about 7 years, but the poor thing eventually died. When he heard that a local had a fox for sale he thought it would be a great pet and that he had a great playland in the back for it... unfortunatly it was a mostly wild-raised fox and so he had no idea how to take care of it.
BennyGM pages to the room: Tomorrow perhaps, we'll see. :) I'll definatly be around to do this very soon, if not tomorrow night.
Long distance to the room: Yi aws for the guy. But yah. Ok, you sleep now. :}
BennyGM pages to the room: Yes sleep now. The Camera was just for 'home movies'. :)
BennyGM pages to the room: *snugs* Good night.
Long distance to the room: Yi laughs and hugs. Thanks so much again!))