A Few Points to Ponder, My Friends...

Ahh, I do love it when you have an agenda.

But you gotta know Colonel Victory doesn't go down that easy. hehe Then again, neither does the Big Bug.

The wind came in off the bay and wound through the shanties that had been put up by those Paragon City had forgotten. Homeless men and women huddled inside their make-shift shelters as the wind moaned outside, its questing fingers plucking at the corrugated metal and plywood, trying to worm past cloths stuck in holes, in order to pinch and nip at those inside.

Here and there fires were lit, and people huddled about them. The flickering flames cast strange shadows, making those who clustered around them appear to be inhuman, their features twisted, but it was more than the flames. The Lost guarded their camp carefully, alert for any incursion by the Freakshow, trying to keep out those who would prey upon the people inside their encampment.

Nobody asked where someone else had come from, or how they had ended up in the shanty-town. The Rikti Wars had left thousands homeless, and the uncaring bureaucracy of Paragon City had just let them slip through the cracks as far as the residents of the "Posi-Town" was concerned.

A cloaked figure moved through the night, short in stature, but with wide shoulders and a stride that did not speak of hopelessness. Even the voluminous folds of the cloak did not hide that its wearer was female, and even though females ran certian... risks... within a Posi-Town, nobody left the comfort of the fires or the shadows to approach her as she walked through the packed dirt streets with solid deliberate steps.

Eyes watched her, however, even if nobody made any move to accost her, some eyes fearful of what a stranger might bring, some flat and hopeless, others calculating, and still others just hungry for some unknowable thing. The figure approached the twisted and altered forms of one of the holy Pariah Prelates, stopping a few paces from the inhuman form and giving a curtsy, head bowed in respect.

The Prelate reached one clawed, inhuman hand forward and rested it on the woman's head for a moment. Silence, broken only by moans of misery, coughing, and muttering, stretched on for a long moment before the Prelate turned away and led the cloaked woman to a large shanty.

Once inside, the woman drug the corrugated steel door closed, shutting out the night and the fires, and turned to the Prelate slowly. The Prelate was tossing refuse into the firepit in the center of the shelter, intending on warming the inside of the shelter.

"Let me, Dave." The woman said, extending one hand from the sleeve of the cloak. A ball of fire appeared in her hand, and she dropped the fire into the pit, igniting the contents.

The Prelate sighed as the warmth washed over him. "I no longer go by that name. I'm known as Contemplation of Strife now."

"You'll always be Dave to me." The woman said sadly, moving around the fire to take one of the inhuman hands in her own and squeezing gently.

"Thank you for the food. Many who would have gone hungry sleep tonight with full bellies." The Prelate changed the subject. "I was surprised that you would 'stoop' to robbery to gain it."

"Yeah, well, things aren't exactly normal right now, are they?" The woman answered. "If a few Longbow officers go hungry or have to actually buy their own food, it's no skin off of my nose." Her tone was bitter and full of rage. "There's children here, Dave. I couldn't just stand by and watch children starve."

"No, you couldn't have." The Prelate agreed. "I have spoken to the others, and they have all agreed, you may stay here as long as you need."

The woman rolled her shoulders, emphasizing their breadth. "We won't stay long, Dave. We don't want to bring any more suffering down on your people than they're already living with." She sat down on the floor, folding her legs.

"The Prelate Council is willing to extend you the hand that should have been offered to us." The Prelate told her, mimicing her movements. "Ant of Atlas himself said he will lend his strength to yours, and has pledged the might of all of of the Paragon Prelates should you desire it."

"Thanks, Dave. Tell Ant that means a lot to me, but this isn't just brawling with Arachnos or some two bit villain out to make a name for himself." The woman said, reaching out to take the Lost's hand again. She sat silent for a long moment, the fire reflected in her eyes. "This is big, and I've already lost too many to ask you to fight."

Silence stretched again, broken by the clang of buoys and a ships horn calling out. The Prelate sat with the woman, her small hand warm in his large clawed hand.

"They buried you today, in Striga Island." The Prelate broke the silence. "Many of the brethren watched from the woods." He chuckled. "Blast of Hollows commented that your coffin was tiny."

The woman chuckled and squeezed the Prelate's hand. "Compared to Blast, everyone is tiny."

"You could join us, you know." The Prelate said softly. "We would welcome a champion like yourself to our ranks. The Paragon Prelates think that Strength of Striga would suit you."

"Tell them I am honored by their thought, but I have people to avenge." The woman answered him, and the temperature went up in the small space quickly. "They've taken almost everyone I care about. Now it looks like they're trying to drag everyone else into a war for God knows what reason."

"So you have not surrendered? You will leave the safety of our encampment and go forth to continue your war?"

"When the moon rises tonight I will go to Dark Astoria and gather up my sole remaining ally." The woman leaned against the Prelate's shoulder. "Thank Slag of Skyway for taking my friend to the Dark Astoria graveyard."

"He was glad to do it." The Prelate shrugged. "To be truthful, I would have carried your companion on my back. He's...."

"Creepy?" The woman suggested.

"Yes, that fits him. He does not see the world we see." The Prelate shuddered. "Looking into his red eyes, I could see my grandmother, hear the words of my mother. He made many uneasy, and those who slept near where we had concealed his cold flesh shell talked of nightmares that plagued them."

"Yeah, he's kind of like that." The woman said.

The door to the shack creaked open, and a man carrying a shotgun that was better kept than the rags he wore poked his head in.

"Honored Prelate, the moon is rising." the man said.

"Thank you, neophyte." The Prelate said as the man withdrew. He released the woman's hand and got to his feet, towering over the woman.

"Good luck, my friend. You will always have Contemplation of Strife as a friend." He said as he moved to the door.

"And to you. May you eat well." The woman said, moving to the door. She stopped just outside the door, reaching one hand to cup the side of the Prelate's face. "You will always have Inertia Flare as a friend, Dave."

The Prelate watched the woman walk away, his face still warm from where his little sister's hand had touched him. A child coughed, breaking the spell, and he turned from where he had been watching the night that she had disappeared into to see if anyone had any medicine for the young one.

"TELL ME!" The voice was full of rage and fury, and brick dust puffed out as the Longbow Warden was driven into the side of the building. He choked as the fist tightened around his throat and he was pulled out of the dent in the wall that was shaped like his head and upper body.

"TELL ME!" The voice roared again, and the Warden was slammed back against the wall.

"I don't know..." The Warden's voice was weak as he ineffectually clawed at the gauntlet around his throat.

The fist slammed into his face, shattering his nose. The Warden lost where he was for a moment, his thoughts skittering about.

"TELL ME!" The voice roared again, and the Warden felt himself pulled forward and slammed back against the wall.

"I don't know..." The Warden sobbed, his vision too blurred to allow him to see anything more than just a red blur in front of him.

This time the fist hit him in the mouth, pulping his lips, shattering his teeth, and sending the broken roots through what was left of his lips. He choked for a second on a broken tooth, and vomited up blood and teeth, the blood splashing across the arm of the figure that held him.

"TELL ME!" The arm drew the Warden back again, and slammed him against the wall. A brick fell from above, shattering on the red, demonic looking helmet without notice.

"Please... stop..." The Warden managed to sob. "Please... no more..." The spines he normally used to attack his foes had all been torn out by the roots or snapped away savagely, and the repeated impacts against the wall had driven the roots of the broken spikes deep into his body.

"Who did you work for in 2002?" The red armored figured snarled, the grip on the Warden's throat easing up slightly.

"Longbow." The Warden gasped. The hand lifted him up again, drew back, and slammed him against the wall again.

"TELL ME!" The voice was screamed from inside the armor, the volume causing a shrieking feedback. A fist crashed into the Warden's stomach, and he felt something tear and twist inside of him.

"Major Bobson..." The Warden moaned weakly. "I worked for Major Bobson." The hand pulled him forward, and the Warden began to kick feebly. "No! Please! I don't know who he worked for."

"That doesn't matter." The figure snarled, slamming the Warden to the ground. The helmet loomed forward.

"I have a family... please..."

"SO DID SHE!" The voice roared again, picking the Warden up slightly and slamming him down onto the alley floor.

"She was 22. She fought to defend her new Motherland." The figure tore open the front of the Warden's uniform. "She fought Arachnos, she fought the Rikti to defend her new home. She made me believe again." The last sentence was delivered with a harsh fury that was all the more terrible for the cold tone.

The figure pulled the Warden forward, close enough that he could see his own reflection in the plasteel visor, see the blood running down from his nose and destroyed mouth.

"She had two cats named George and Abraham. She liked to play Bingo at the old folk's dacha." The figure inside the helmet snarled. "She carried the groceries for the old lady in the apartment next to her."

The hand around his throat forced the Warden back down against the cold and slimy bricks of the alley.

"And you grabbed her off the street." The other hand pressed cold fingertips against the Warden's chest.

"You tortured her." The Warden began to scream as the fingers began putting heavy pressure on his skin.

"You beat her." He could feel the skin indent, then tear, the fingers shove aside his ribs.

"You abused her as a woman." The fingers pushed inside the Warden.

"You tore her heart out." The Warden screamed, a long bubbling sound of animal agony.

"And left her body in this alley. Right here." The figure finished. Blackness enveloped the Warden.

Sinister Vanadium stood up from the dead body, the man's heart in his blood covered gauntlet. With a spasmodic twitch, the villain crushed the man's heart and threw the sodden mass of tissue onto the alley's stones.

(Author's Note: The following takes place before The Bounty Hunter's War: Part II Arc 318122, Mission One)

The two figures were a mismatched pair, one tall and bulky, the other short and slender. Both were puffing on cigars and drinking out of the same bottle of whiskey while they looked out of the broken window and over the lush vegetation of Perez Park from the abandoned tenth story apartment. The sun was setting, and both knew that soon the Vahzilok would be emerging from their hiding places to hunt for victims that were stupid or brave enough to journey into the park at night.

There was a newspaper between the two, the front page showing a large color photo of a flag draped coffin being lowered into the ground and the legend "VICTORY LAID TO REST" in huge bold letters above the picture. The picture showed a fairly large crowd gathered, and one of the smaller pictures that clustered near the bottom of the larger picture like children around their mother's ankles showed Statesman laying a wreath on the grave.

They sat silently until it grew dark and the lights of fires lit by those trying to stay warm and magic by those committing foul dead began to twinkle within the huge park.

"Got close, didn't it, Big Bug?" The woman broke the silence, her voice soft and silibant. There was a long pause before her companion finally answered her, and then it was just with a monosyllabic grunt.

"We can't do this by ourselves. Not with October and Victory dead." She continued. "This is bigger than both of us. Without Inertia Flare or Zuka, we've got no heavier backup than just you."

The larger shadow chuckled.

"Yeah, you're a lot of backup, Big Bug, but you got me used to working with a team." Global Betty said, reaching out and picking up the whiskey bottle to pour herself a drink.

"I've been thinking..." The larger shadow snorted, and Betty smiled. "Yeah, well, I have been." She took a long sip off of her drink. "Anyone we bring into this is running that risk." She tapped one finger on the newspaper.

"True." The Male Mantid rumbled.

"Maybe we ought to get ahold of some mercs from my old freelancer days." Betty finished.

"That may be a good idea." Mantid replied. "I too have been thinking."

"Uh-oh." Betty grinned.

"That article, they mentioned that they have our bodies, and that the human military took them away from Longbow, correct?" Mantid asked, picking up the bottle and dribbling alcohol onto a cupcake. He set the bottle down and picked up the alcohol soaked cupcake and took a bite while Global Betty watched amused.

"Yup." She smiled.

"What if that is not Colonel Victory they are burying?" He asked, and Betty's smile froze. "They did not get us, who is to say that they have killed Colonel Victory?"

"Damn, you're right. I didn't even consider that." Betty grumbled, taking another sip out of her glass while Mantid daintily nibbled on the cupcake. She sat for a long time, staring off into the darkness.

"I've got some mercs I can trust. They're already hip deep in this, so they might as well get a chance to fight their way out too." Betty said.

"The ones who attacked the fake Longbow station in Dark Astoria?"

"The same. This job will be tougher, but if you aren't the best, you don't advertise to work with the best." Betty finished. "You gonna be OK in here while I'm gone, Big Bug?"

"Providing no females show up, I should be adequate." The Male Mantid answered. "I fear, however, should a female of my kind show up, I am at a disadvantage." He waved on hand at his heavily bandaged leg.

Betty laughed, patted her friend on the head, and left.

It was time to start fighting back, time to start making their shadowy, unseen foe react to their plans, instead of just letting their foe yank them back and forth.

(Author's Note: The following takes place during The Bounty Hunter's War: Part II Arc 318122, Mission One)

"Move." The single word came out like stone crashing together.

The Freakshow Tank Smasher stared down at the small figure in front of him, wrapped in a cloak, and laughed, throwing back his head. The two others like him joined him, their cobbled together sound systems crackling and buzzing as all three of them laughed.

"Or what?" The Tank that had started laughing first asked, putting his hands on his hips and looking down at the diminutive figure in front of him. "You're in our turf now."

The figure shook her head under the hood.

"Last chance before you end up eating your meals through a straw." The woman's voice was still harsh.

"Look what we have here, boys, a comedian!" One of the other Tanks crowed. All three joined in the laughter. "Tell us a little joke." They started snickering.

"Three Freakshow go to ICU..." The woman said, dropping a heavy flanged mace into her hand. Before any of them could react she slammed the mace into the ground, sending all three of them tumbling to the pavement. The mace crushed faces, upheld hands trying to shield or plead, knees, and in each case, smashed out from teeth and shattered jaws.

One of the Freakshow Tanks started to push himself to his feet, his onboard medical systems pumping him full of adrenaline, endorphins, and, or course, superdyne. A quick upswing of the mace took care of him, flipping him in mid-air so he landed on his face.

"You guys suck." The woman grunted. "I didn't even need to bring up my shields, losers." One of the Freakshow moaned and tried to roll over, and she skipped forward and kicked him behind the ear.

There was a small group of Freaks across the street, who had actually started moving toward her, but stopped when they got a look at her face.

Her eyes were narrowed and full of fire, her jawline set, her teeth gritted, and the expression told the Freaks that she'd like nothing more than to pound on them until they broke. Not went down. Not went unconscious. But until they were left in the street as little broken pieces. The leader, with two Tesla rods on his back, waved the others back and followed them back across the street, keeping one eye on the young woman to make sure she didn't charge across the street and murder them all.

The woman kept walking, her mace tucked carefully away into the robe she wore, and she merged seamlessly with the crowds on the sidewalks of Talos Island. The crowd thinned out on the west side, where the freeway that led to Dark Astoria was pretty much deserted.

A park bench and a bag of popcorn bought from a cart kept anyone from looking at her too closely as the sun went down, and the woman waited until dark until she got up, brushed off her hands, tossed the empty popcorn bag in the trashcan, and headed toward the Dark Astoria freeway.

She kept walking, hands in the pockets of her robes, down the freeway. She kept a sharp eye about her, but didn't see any traffic on the long bridge, foot or vehicular. The tunnel through the War Wall loomed above her all to soon, but she just squared her shoulders and walked into it.

Before long she was walking through the mist laden streets of Dark Astoria, watching paper blow by and keeping a sharp eye out for the walking dead in the service of the Banished Pantheon.

Once she approached the massive graveyard, she stopped next to the first gravestone by the gate. There she took off the robe, revealing a costume of red and orange, as well as her freckled face with her upturned nose. A heavy flanged mace hung from her waist, and she pulled it free.

A slight frown of concentration, and she was wrapped in fire, the light pushing back the darkness of the night and the mist.

As she moved deeper into the graveyard only one of the Dry Husks in command of the Banished Pantheon shamans approached her, moaning "Lughebu" repeatedly until her mace crushed its skull and left it in a dusty heap.

A pair of shamans saw her, recognised her, and faded back bowing. That battle had been fought years ago, and the Banished knew they had nothing to gain and too much to loose by taking on someone who was capable of reducing their Tiki Totems to flinders and ash.

The corridor into the crypts below the graveyard was just as damp and depressing as she remembered, but at least the torches were lit, providing feeble light that struggled to hold back the creeping darkness.

She stopped at Zuka's crypt and did not bother with knocking, just pressed on the two moldly skulls that decorated the door and pushed it open.

Inside Zuka lay on the stone bier, still and unmoving, the red eyes dim and almost empty. His shield was attached to his left arm, the wildebeast skull's eyes empty, while the ancient and bloodstained sledgehammer was held in his right hand.

Inertia moved up close and laid her hand on his chest, closing her eyes and trying to feel anything beyond the singing black gulf that had surrounded him since they had managed to break free of the ambush that had jumped them after they'd escaped from the base.

She felt nothing, just a vast black void.

Sighing, she moved back, sitting down in a massive stone chair and looking at Zuka's prone form. On the table behind her was a Paragon Times, open to the story about Major Frost AKA October Octogenarian being buried in Arlington Cemetery. There was a magnifying glass laying beside the paper, and each face of the gathered mourners was circled and crossed out.

There was a faint scraping noise, and Inertia Flare leapt to her feet, moving around Zuka to put her body between the door and his prone "corpse". Her fire leapt up, sheathing her in multicolored flames, and she hefted her mace, waiting.

The door opened slightly, not much, and a long thin purple arm moved in, clad above the elbow in a greenish colored trenchcoat. Inertia didn't relax, waiting until she watched the violet skinned woman slide her way into the tomb. Before she could bring in the hand that Inertia knew had ahold of the rifle, she stepped forward and pressed her boot to the door, pinning the violet-skinned woman's arm between the doorway and the frame.

"Ow! Dammit, Zuka!" the woman snarled, trying to look behind her. "It's me."

"Prove it." Inertia growled back, shoving harder on the door.

"Let off the door, you flame crotched little hairless ape, or I'll rip your face off." The violet skinned woman snarled, trying to pull her arm free. Her arm moved a few inches, and Inertia could see a long scrape where the pressure of the door had abraded the skin.

"Good enough." Inertia said, stepping back and letting Betty pull her arm into the room. Betty snarled at the other woman, showing a mouth full of shark's teeth, but Inertia just shrugged and kicked the door shut.

"You're looking pretty good for a corpse." Inertia observed.

"Same for you too." Betty said, patting the pockets of her trenchcoat, the heavy rifle falling to hang from its sling. Her face lit up and she pulled out a slightly crooked and battered cigar. She ripped it in half, dropped half into her pocket, and then stuck the remainder in her mouth.

"Learn anything new?" Inertia asked as she watched the other woman snap her fingers and light the cigar with a puff of flame.

"No." Betty admitted, shrugging. "I'm thinking about hiring some mercenaries though."

"How about you?" Betty asked, taking a long puff of the cigar and blowing the smoke toward the ceiling.

"Not much." Inertia admitted. "Apparently Sinister Vanadium is on a rampage in the Rogue Isles, killing Longbow right and left." The woman shrugged. "Still no word on Tachyon Hammer, I'm starting to think she might be dead."

"I tracked her to Pocket-D, but she basically disappeared." Betty admitted. "She supposedly had a hot date, but nobody knows who or what might have happened."

"How's Big Bug?" Inertia asked, staring at the smoke ring that Betty blew up into the air.

"Who?" Betty asked.

Inertia swung with both hands, the strike coming from somewhere down around her ankles, the mace impacting on the rifle and blowing it into splinter, continuing through the ruined rifle to hit Global Betty in the ribs. The crackling sound of shattering ribs filled the tomb, and Inertia used the momentum after Betty's body was flung hard against the wall to swing the mace around and smash it into the base of Betty's spine.

Betty screamed then, falling off of the wall, and Inertia brought the mace up over her head and slammed it into Betty's shoulder, pulverizing it with enough force that the skin split open to reveal torn meat and splintered bone. Another mace strike destroyed the other shoulder, and Inertia drove a knee into Betty's gut to drive the breath out of the other woman, then smashed the butt of the mace into her mouth, breaking off teeth at the gumline through all three rows.

"Who are you?" Inertia growled, dropping her mace and grabbing the other woman's long hair.

"Inertia... why?" Betty asked, spitting out blood and triangular teeth.

Inertia brought her hand around to the side of Betty's face, her fire roaring, and laid her palm across the other woman's cheek. The smell of roasting meat filled the crypt. Betty gurgled out a scream, blood filling her mouth from her shattered teeth.

"Who are you?" She asked, pulling her hand away, ignoring the fact that liquified fat left long strings between her hand and the woman's cheek.

"Please, Inertia, stop..." Betty begged. Inertia Flare saw two of the crystal skulls on one of the top shelves of the begin to glow a deep scarlet, and she backhanded Betty then grabbed the base of her nose, pinching hard. Betty screamed again, and Inertia grabbed her hair and pulled her head up. The skulls began growing brighter, and the runes around the crypt began to flicker.

"Tell me who you are!" Inertia yelled.

Betty gurgled a laugh, staring at Inertia with metallic green colored eyes. Inertia could see the green glow start to envelope Betty, and grabbed her mace off of the floor.

She stood up as Betty's laughter, her body's glow, and the skull's light both grew.

Gritting her teeth, she slammed her mace down in the center of Betty's chest. The laughter stopped, the mouth went into an O of shock, and while Inertia watched a blood bubble grew from Betty's mouth, then popped.

When it did, the light faded from the body and the skulls, and Betty's body slumped down on the floor.

"Damn." Inertia said into the darkness of the crypt.

(Author's Note: The following takes place before The Bounty Hunter's War: Part II Arc 318122, Mission Two)

The cell was brightly lit, but cold. The lights dimmed and brightened randomly, the temperature dropped to below freezing then skyrocketed back up before dropping again. Sometimes the sounds of sirens, white noise, or loud music filled the cell, changing randomly from a near-whisper to tooth rattling. Freezing or scalding water often poured from the sprinklers on the ceiling. The sole bunk often retracted back into the wall, sometimes prior to water cascading down, other times just to roll the cell's single occupant off the bunk and onto the floor. The steel toilet sometimes heated up to scalding temperatures or became cold enough to stick sensitive flesh to it, as well as occasionally overflowed and spilled water all the floor. The cell had brushed steel walls, the light came from a set of panels set into the ceiling more than ten feet up, and only a grill covered drain marred the floor.

Currently an air raid siren was howling, frost covered the walls, and the lights were strobing in a deliberately random cycle.

None of it seemed to bother the man resting on the floor, tapping on the the steel with one combat boot. He was dressed in a torn and stained blue and red outfit with a screaming eagle on the chest and stars on the legs.

After a little bit, he pressed his boot against the toilet and waited, obviously concentrating on something. The sound turned to animal screams, the lights went dark, and the temperature plummeted to freezing, and the man stayed still until he suddenly began laughing, then started tapping on the toilet again. After a few minutes, he stopped, his foot resting on the toilet, and he started laughing again, seemingly oblivious to his captivity or the untreated injuries that he had sustained.

The door began to rattle as the heavy bolts were undone, and the man tapped his foot against the toilet in rapid succession and got to his feet. The door was thrown open and four men in Longbow uniforms stood in front of him, two with submachine guns, two with electric prods. One of the ones with the prods tossed a set of handcuffs into the cell.

"Put them on, old man." The man sneered at the cell's occupant, who just toed them with his boot and stood silently.

"Dammit, old man, why do we have to go through the same thing every time?" The Longbow trooper asked, walking into the cell. When the trooper began putting the handcuffs onto the older man, the older man pushed his arms forward, tensing his muscles.

"Stop that!" The trooper yelled, yanking the handcuffs back down to the man's wrists, but the old man folded his thumbs and pulled his hands free. The trooper growled at the old man and carefully put on each bracelet of the handcuffs. Satisfied they were secured, he stepped back and motioned at the door. "Let's go."

The old man just stood there, his eyes hard, not even grunting when the shock prod was pressed into his side.

"Your mother scratches harder than that behind the dumpsters in King's Row if you give her three dollars." The old man said conversationally.

"You..." The trooper lifted his baton, and only stopped when another yelled at him from the doorway. Red faced, the trooper in the cell grabbed the handcuffs and pulled. "Let's go old man."

The man fell as if he had suddenly suffered a heart attack, lying on the floor, the movement pulling his handcuffs from the troopers grasp. The trooper grabbed the chain and tried to pull the limp man up, gave up after a few moments, and began to drag him from the cell.

"Every... damn... time..." The trooper grunted as he got the prisoner out into the hallway. Once out in the hallway the prisoner rolled to the right, getting his legs tangled up in the legs of the guard with the SMG and dragging the man down to the ground, where the prisoner began kneeing the guard in the face and kicking him in the stomach.

The guard with the baton began beating the old man in the chest and face with the baton while the other guard armed with a submachinegun pulled the downed one to his feet.

"I hate dealing with the two old guys." The one that had been drug to the floor complained, wiping the blood off of his lip. He kicked the limp old man hard in the thigh. "I'm going to enjoy burying you in a shallow grave somewhere, old man."

"Then who's gonna sell your sister to Freakshow to buy you a larger..." the old man started to say, but was interrupted by the one with the bloody lip kicking him in the jaw and knocking him out.

"Aw man. Let's hope they can wake him up in interrogation." The one dragging the prisoner said. "I keep telling you guys, stop knocking them out, it's what they want."

"The other one is worse. Those power dampeners we have to put on him make him weigh a ton." The one dragging the old man agreed. "Yesterday they weren't secured properly, and he kept covering everything in ice, freezing people to the floor, or casing people in ice. And to top it off, we didn't notice he froze the damn pipes under the floor till the barracks showers backed up."

The group took a side corridor, rather than the wide main corridor, when they reached yellow construction warning tape. Jackhammers could be heard from further down the corridor.

"That other old b*****d filled everything under the floor with solid ice, they're still trying to get it all out." The same one continued as they moved down the corridor.

"Be glad you weren't here when Tommy opened this guy's cell the first day and he decided to make a break for it. This one put about 8 guys in the infirmary." The one with the bloody lip said, bending down and picking up the old man's legs to help carry him.

As the group passed through a room full of computers, the old man suddenly began convulsing, his legs kicking and arms jerking. Before the one carrying his legs could react, the old man kicked him in the stomach and sent him reeling back, holding onto his gut and cursing. As soon as his legs hit the ground, the old man kicked off, ramming his head into the back of the one holding his arms, causing the man to swear and drop the old man's arm.

The old man lashed out with a flurry of kicks, smashing one of the SMG's against the wall so that it shattered. An alarm began to blare as the old man picked up one of the SMG's and began shooting at the computers, picking his shots carefully to avoid hitting the scrambling and screaming technicians. When the magazine ran out, he pulled the other magazine out of the wreckage of the other SMG and swapped them out, throwing the expended magazine hard enough to shatter a huge plasma monitor. The old man began shooting at pipes, causing steam and worse to spew out of them, then ran forward and using the butt of the SMG to batter at computer equipment when the weapon ran dry.

He had just finished jamming the weapon into the intake fans of a large generator when a shock prod hit him in the kidney, causing him to drop to the floor, and the Longbow troops around him fell to kicking him until he was lying bloody, unconscious, spared only by a Warden screaming at the troops not to kill him and to get back.

The Warden looked at the unconscious body of old man and shook his head.

"Take him to interrogation, we'll have an empath heal him up." The Warden ordered.

"Uhhh, sir..." A Longbow trooper with a fat lip started.

"Uh nothing, take him to interrogation." The Warden ordered. "Surely a 100 year old man isn't too much for you, is he?"

"No, sir." The man said, reaching down and grabbing one of the old man's legs. Three others grabbed a limb and hoisted the old man up, staggering as they carried him.

"Aw man, he weighs a ton." One of them complained.

"Be glad he's out again." The one with the puffy lip complained. "Him and the other old guy are pains in the butt."

They finally reached a door guarded by two Longbow Wardens, both of the guards looking at the disheveled appearance of the troops carrying the old man.

"Jeez, can't you guys handle one old man?" the one on the left asked.

"Shut the hell up." The trooper with the fat lip snarled as the group stopped at the door and waited for the Wardens to punch in the code to open the door.

"He's over a hundred years old, for God's sake." The right hand Warden sneered. "How much trouble could the old codger be?"

"Screw you guys." A trooper with a swelling eye snarled, dropping the leg he was holding. "You carry him in for interrogation."

The rest of the group all nodded, dropping the old man to the metal floor and turning to walk a short distance away. They would have all preferred to go back to their barracks, but they knew they'd be called upon to "escort" the old man back once he'd been interrogated.

"Hey, you guys need to take him in there!" The left hand Warden yelled.

"Get back here." The right hand one yelled.

"You carry him!" A trooper with a bruise on his cheek yelled back. "How hard could it be, he's over a hundred years old!"

Grumbling, the two Wardens bent down and picked the old man up. One turned to punch in the code on the door as the old man's eye opened and glanced around real quick before shutting. As the two Wardens juggled him trying to get a good grip, he moaned in a thin old voice.

"Geraldine? Is that you, dear?" The old man asked in a feeble voice.

"Yeah, real tough." One of the Warden's snickered.

"Don't be foolish, he's just playing with you." The trooper with the split lip warned.

"Let's take the carriage into town and buy a new rooster, Geraldine." The old man wheezed.

"Don't. Be. A Fool." Another trooper warned, his voice full of malice directed at the old man.

"Bah, he's just an old man." The Warden holding the legs snickered. "See, this is why we're Wardens, and your just gun toters."

"Hey, bite me." The one with the swelling eye said. "He's faking it!"

"Yeah, yeah, whatever, tough guys." The two Wardens snickered as they carried the man inside.

"I'm going to beat that guy to death in the showers tonight." One of the troopers grated, clenching his fists, as the door shut behind the Wardens and the old man.

Inside the room, the two Wardens carried the groaning old man to a chair and strapped him in, laughing when he asked them if it was time for pudding yet, and left still chuckling, fully intent on making fun of the troopers waiting to take him back to his cell.

Aside from the chair, there was electronic equipment, surgical instruments, and A/V recording devices. A man dressed in a surgical gown and mask stood by the instruments, a living breathing cliche, while a young female Warden crossed the room with a look of cold arrogance on her face and another female Warden leaned against a table full of instruments and watched with an amused look on her face.

"They beat him unconscious again, my dear. Can you ensure he will be able to answer my questions." The man asked, holding up his gloved hands, completely unaware of the caricature he was.

"Yes, sir." The Warden said, smiling. Her powers of healing came from inflicting pain on those she healed, the tissues reknitting painfully and her powers pulling from the victim's very life force. She reached down, grabbed the old's man head, and took at a look at his barely open and rolling eyes. "He doesn't even know where he is right now." She snorted.

She bent down, laid her hands on his stomach, and drew in her power. When she released it, a blackish red aura surrounded the old man, and his eyes snapped open, narrowing to slits as his jaw muscles bunched with the pain. She giggled to herself at the agony she knew he was feeling, then screamed as the man's head came down and his strong white teeth completely enveloped her ear. She tried to pull away as the man began shaking his head back and forth, a wrong decision that led to her tearing her ear away, blood and strings of tissue hanging down the side of her head.

The old man laughed, spitting the ear into the woman's face. The woman vomited on the man's lap, and when she drew back, spitting and gasping, the old man leaned forward again, grabbing the flesh above her cheekbone with his teeth and shaking his head again, tearing the flesh and ripping open her face. The woman screamed again, her hands going to her face as the old man spit the bloody gobbet out and leaned forward to grab her thumb in his mouth, wrenching his head and tearing it clean away. She scrambled away before he could bite again, and the old man spit the thumb at her, laughing and staring at her with cold eyes and a blood smeared mouth.

The man shook his head as the woman fled the chamber, holding onto her face and sobbing. The Warden leaning on the table stood up and walked to stand in front of the old man.

"Let's see how funny you think it all is in a few minutes, you old b*****d." She smiled. She looked at the man, who waved at her.

"Go ahead, my dear. Psionic interrogation, while not as pleasing, is often more reliable." He told her. "Skim his surface thoughts, where his fears should lie, and perhaps his thoughts will tell us things we will enjoy."

The old man looked at the woman, the fearful expression not touching his hard, cold brown eyes. The woman laughed when he tried to flinch back from the fingers she pressed to her forehead. She closed her eyes, humming to herself, as she immersed herself in the surface thoughts and memories that were the easiest to reach.

The man in the gown watched as the woman smiled, her back arching and breathing quickening.

"He is full of fear. His thoughts are fragmented, but he's trying to hide something, something that is important to him." She murmured. "Something that he isn't hiding very..."

The man watched as the woman started screaming, her eyes flying open. She was staring at something he couldn't see as she screamed so loud it drove her hoarse by the second one. Her hands flew to her face, and in front of the gowned man, she reached up and clawed out her own eyes. She kept screaming, stumbling away from the old man, who had begun laughing again. Cold, hard, mocking laughter.

The man pressed a button at his waist as the woman fell to her hands and knees and began beating her head against the floor. Several Wardens rushed in through the door that the previous woman had stumbled through, and at the motion from the gowned man, bustled the screaming, thrashing woman off.

"Got any more like her you'd like to lose?" The old man asked, the smile on his face staying away from his eyes.

"What did you do? There is no record of psionic abilities in your file." The gowned man snarled, slapping the old man, who let his head roll with the slap to rob the blow of its power.

"She wanted to see something, I showed her something." The man smiled. "Apparently she didn't appreciate the view from the World War One trenches when artillery buries you and your squad under the mud and body parts and you have to claw your way out to the blister agent filled air." The man laughed, harsh and mocking. "Really, is she the best you can do?"

"Let us see how funny you think things are in a few moments." The man shouted, slapping the old man again, and then hooking up IV tubes to him. The man held up a syringe and showed it to the old man strapped in the chair. "This is a derivative of nerve agent. It causes the nerves to think they are dying, while causing no physical damage."

"This is my weapon, this is my gun, this is for killing, you wanna..." The old man's sneering response was cut short by another slap.

The gowned man injected the fluid into the IV, then waited. It only took a few moments before the old man was gritting his teeth and jerking back and forth in the chair, held tight by the straps. After a few minutes, it subsided, and the old man sagged in the chair, sweat dripping down his face.

"You hit like a girl." The old man said, looking up. "I take that back, you hit like a little girl's pet kitten."

"Who else knows about the plan Code Vatnya told you about on that beach?" The gowned man asked, picking up another syringe.

"Drummond, Thomas, Colonel, US Army, 3342212." The old man answered, and spit blood from where he had bitten through his tongue.

"Where were you born?" The gowned man asked.

"Drummond, Thomas, Colonel, US Army, 3342212." was the answer.

"Who else were you working worth." The gowned man's voice became tinged with irritation.

The old man spit out more blood, looked the gowned man in the eye, and repeated the same thing.

"Think you are tough, old man?" The gowned man injected more into the IV, and watched as the strapped down old man shook and growled in pain. Once the convulsions eased up, he walked around and faced the old man again.

"Who are members of your vigilante group?" The gowned man asked. "It will be easier if you just tell me."

"Drummond, Thomas, Colonel, US Army, 3342212." was the only answer.

"The next injection I give you will be almost enough to kill you, old man." The gowned man warned. "It is enough to drive men mad."

"You're wife's butt is enough to drive men mad with fear." The old man sneered, spitting blood on the floor.

With a snarl, the gowned man injected more fluid into the IV, watching with ill disguised pleasure as the old man was wracked with pain driven convulsions, even losing control of his bladder.

"Oh dear, it appears the old man has wet himself." The gowned man sneered when the old man had quit shaking and gasping.

"Just giving you something to lick up after I'm gone." The old man answered, lifting up his head to stare defiantly at the gowned man. "Why is it that you thing you're scary?"

"What?" The gowned man was obviously thrown off the apparent non-sequitor.

"I was a prisoner of the Nazi's for a month before I escaped. The North Koreans for two months before I escaped." The man sneered. "What makes you think I'm scared of you, you little jumped punk? If the best couldn't break me, some mongoloid in a bathrobe and a mask he stole off the set of M*A*S*H isn't going to scare me." The old man began laughing. "Hey, Hawkeye, aren't you due for surgery?"

The prisoner began laughing harder, still looking at the gowned man. "Hey, maybe you should try on Klinger's dress, you'd probably be more comfortable in it." Fresh tears were in his eyes as he watched the gowned man's face grow red. "Better watch out, Hawkeye, Major Burns will get for this."

"STOP LAUGHING AT ME!" the gowned man shouted, stepping forward and punching the old man in the face. The old man just laughed harder, and the gowned man reached out, his eyes mad with rage, grabbing a scalpel and slashed the old man in the chest. He hauled back to stab the old man in the throat, his eyes clearing as he realized the old man had stopped laughing.

"No. It's what you want." The gowned man spat. He walked to the door, opened it, and waved the Wardens in. "Take him back to his cell, let's see how a few more days by himself do."

The Wardens came in, looking at the old man, who looked at them through rheumy eyes, and at the gowned man, who was red faced and shaking.

"Call the doctor, Geraldine, the horse done kicked me." The old man said, and the two Wardens looked at one another, unstrapping the old man. They guided him up gently, and he looked at them blearily.

"Is it time to go back to my room, nurse?" He asked.

"Watch him, he's faking it." The gowned man warned, turning away. The two Wardens looked at each other and snickered, leading him out into the hallway.

"You guys got him?" The Wardens asked, standing on either side of the old man.

"I don't like that nurse, he pinches me." The old man complained when the group of eight Longbow troopers approached. The Wardens laughed as the troopers carefully took his arms and led him away.

"Yeah, watch out, he's obviously a criminal mastermind!" One of the Wardens shouted as the group turned the corner, and the other burst out laughing.

As soon as they were out of sight of the two door Wardens, the old man suddenly collapsed on the ground, almost dragging one of the troopers down with him.

"Aw man. Every. Damn. Time." One of the troopers swore. Two men grabbed his wrists and started dragging him down the corridor, while the old man kept limp and unresisting, except to hook his boot onto every available corner, chair, cable, pipe or other protrusion.

When they got him to his cell, they drug him inside, bent down and removed the handcuffs, careful to have control of his arms before they did so.

"I swear to God, I'm beating that smarmy Warden to death tonight." The trooper with the fat lip swore as they left the cell.

After a few long minutes, the old man scooted over next to the toilet and began tapping on it with his boot. He paused, keeping the side of his boot against the scorching metal, and burst out laughing after a few minutes.

Colonel Victory tapped out what had just happened against the toilet, grinning to himself as he did so. When the October Octogenarian tapped out another joke, he began laughing again.

For those interested....

World War II Tap Code

...1 2 .3 4 .5
1 A B C D E
2 F G H .I .J
3 L M N O P
4 Q R S T U
5 V W X Y Z

..... .. . . .... .... . ..... .... ..
(5,2)(1,1)(4,4) (1,5) (4,2)
W A T E R

(Author's Note: The following takes place after The Bounty Hunter's War: Part II Arc 318122, Mission Two)

The locks to the door of the abandoned apartment began to click open one at a time, and the large insect in the kitchen reached out and grabbed the side of the refrigerator, his claws sinking into it. His multi-faceted eyes stared at the door above the half finished cigar clutched between his mandibles.

At his feet, a purple skinned woman lay dead, her neck twisted around so violently that she stared at the ceiling with open eyes despite lying on her stomach. A battered rifle was held in her right hand, the barrel bent and twisted.

The door swung open, and a twin of the dead woman looked into the room. Leaning against the wall behind her was an old man in a trenchcoat, and leaning against her was an old man in a blue and red superhero outfit. Both old men were bruised, swollen, and had untreated wounds.

"Will you help me, Big Bug, instead of sitting there and..." The woman's eyes fixed on the corpse at the insect warrior's feet. "What the hell is that?"

"It thought to be you." The bug rasped, still unmoving. "Give me a reason not to kill you."

"Ummm..." The woman stared.

"Dang nabbit, I'm too old to be standing out here. Watch out, missy." The trenchcoat wearing man muttered, pushing by the violet skinned woman.

"Go no further, old one." The Male Mantid rasped. "I am not satisfied you are who you claim to be."

"I was there in the Cavern of Transcendence with you, Big Bug, back before you began smoking cigars." The violet woman said.

"I helped rescue you from Code Vatnya after that botched rescue last year. He coated your antenna with synthetic queen pheromones so that you would not struggle and did not even have to be restrained." The man in blue and red stated.

"You can't see the AE VR correctly because of the way your eyes are designed and require goggles, otherwise all you see is blobs of rainbow prisms." The trenchcoat man said, leaning against the wall. "You had them made by RayBan and when the mail came, I accidently left them on top of the TV and Tachyon Hammer stole them and lost them about a week later during one of her weekend benders."

The insect warrior waved one large fist.

"Come in, my friends." His voice was soft.

Global Betty reached out and flicked the light with the arm that wasn't supporting Colonel Victory when the October Octogenarian pushed himself away from the wall and began to stumble toward one of the shadow covered couches. The light from the frontroom of the apartment washed into the kitchen, and Global Betty got a good look at the Male Mantid for the first time since she'd opened the door.

His chest was covered in sticky yellow resin, insect carapace shard jutted out of the resin, and each breath he took caused small bubbles to appear and pop in the resin. The majority of his chest was covered in the resin, and his breathing came harsh and ragged.

"BUG!" Betty cried out, dropping Colonel Victory completely oblivious to the man's groan of pain as his injured knees took his full weight. Betty rushed forward, her hands outstretched, and she feel to her knees in front of her friend, unaware that her knees were on the lower back of the corpse at his feet.

"Oh Nameless Ones, what happened, Bug?" Betty asked, her trembling fingers feeling the yellow substance. It had firmed up, but was still sticky, and smelled strongly of folic acid.

"You shot me." Male Mantid chuckled, then groaned.

"Oh, Bug." Betty said, laying her head on his massive thigh. "Oh, Bug."

Male Mantid reached down to stroke her long hair, and coughed again. "It's OK. It doesn't hurt too badly."

Betty looked up, her face smeared with dark trails as oily tears ran down her face. "Is there anything we can do?"

Colonel Victory staggered over to the couch and dropped into it, sighing gratefully. The escape had been close, and he felt ashamed that he had not been able to help the mercenaries that rescued him. He'd been too close to death. Starved, weak from bloodloss, and battered from abuse by his captors.

October had moved into the kitchen, pretending not to notice the byplay between his two friends.

"Time, Betty. I will either live or die, as the Great Egg decides." Male Mantid rasped. "See to the others, perhaps you can help them."

Betty stood up, smoothing her trenchcoat. She nodded at her friend and went over to Colonel Victory, pulling out a small scanner and running it over him. She then moved over and checked October, who had pulled out the ice tray and was chewing on the ice cubers, trying to slake the thirst that blood loss brings. She ignored the blood toxin warning, all the members of the Patriot Brigade had it, it was whatever it was that the human military had injected them with almost a century ago. She shuddered at the damage she saw.

Internal injuries, cracked or broken bones, malnutrition, Victory had a collapsed lung and broken jaw, October had a skull fracture and a ruptured spleen.

If it wasn't for the Forever Formula, they'd both be dead already.

She injected both with nanites, knowing that the Male Mantid's alien immune system would attack and destroy them so not even bothering with them.

"You three need food. I'll be back." Betty said, picking up her rifle and heading for the door.

"Trust no one, old friend." Mantid rasped the warning from the kitchen.

Betty nodded to him, and slipped out the door.

------------

The lab was an absolute wreck. Energy weapon fire, explosives, and kinetic energy rounds had all served to destroy equipment and walls, and the floor held bloodstains soaked into the metal to give mute witness to the ferocity of combat that had taken place.

Inertia Flare moved carefully, keeping a sharp eye out for any defenses that might be online somehow. She knew she was in a lot of danger, but she had no choice if she wanted answers.

She passed by a dummy clothed in the dress uniform of a Soviet Union officer, carefully skirting it. The man who had built this base was well known for his skill in robotics, animatronics, and cybernetics. Inertia Flare knew perfectly well that the dummy could suddenly sprouts blades and weapons and leap into the attack.

She had her fire shielding pulled deep inside her, and had dropped her body heat to the ambient temperature of the air in the base. It made her want to shiver, made her feel like she was covered in ice, but it would keep any functioning heat sensors from picking her up.

Pausing every now and then before changing direction with any of the light breezes that slowly wound through the destruction, she hoped to spoof any motion detectors into thinking she was little more than a breeze, or a piece of debris moved by the breeze.

Destroyed androids littered the base, many still holding onto the pulse rifles they had fought with. All of them wore old Soviet Spetznas uniforms, and the same 12 faces, scars, and body types repeated over and over again on them.

I never realized before that these must have been living men at one time. Inertia mused. I wonder if anyone has bothered seeing why these 12 men were so important to him that he immortalized them?

A spiderbot scampered across the floor, and Inertia changed direction to follow it, watching it pick its way across the rubble to an empty section of wall that Inertia had noticed and ignored.

A few feet from the wall, the bot vanished, even though Inertia could hear its minute servos still whirring and its little feet clicking against the brushed steel floor.

Cloaking device! The initial raid must have missed it! Inertia thought, moving slowly up toward before suddenly freezing. Or it was added afterward.

Inertia began to move again, slowly, inch by inch, taking nearly a half hour to cross only 20 feet. The spiderbot reappeared about halfway through, scampering away, even crawling across her leg. She saw that the little drone had a vicious little set of needlelike fangs folded up in front of its head under its eyes.

It may have been painted black and decorated like an Arachnos device, but Inertia knew that it wasn't a piece of Arachnos equipment. It moved wrong. Arachnos liked to make sure their devices and robotic spiders moved like, well, spiders. This thing moved in the most efficient manner, keeping low slung, and she could feel a feral little intelligence in its eyes.

Finally, long after the tiny robot had vanished back toward the entrance to the small lab, Inertia got close enough that the cloaking field no longer hid what she was looking at.

It looked like an Arachnos computer, with the standard scrolling datafiles that most Arachnos computers displayed, but Inertia could see the small dataports down at the base. Almost invisible, they were definitely not part of a standard issue Arachnos mainframe.

Inertia knew her limitations. That when it came to computers, she was a gifted amateur, and the person she suspected of setting the computer up was a genius way out on the bleeding edge of that kind of technology. She knew that trying to access the system was a recipe for failure.

So she hefted her mace and knocked the thing clear away from the way, tearing free the fiberoptic line behind it, disconnecting it from the base's power plant.

Alarms began to howl as she leaned down and grabbed the small, yet powerful, mainframe. She threw it over one shoulder so her upper back too its weight and began running.

She hoped that her Lost costume held up for any security video feeds as she rushed out of the base, carrying her prize.

It was time to find out if the person walking around was really Code Vatnya or a tribute to the Mad Russian's skills.

(Author's Note: The following takes place during The Bounty Hunter's War: Part II Arc 318122, Mission Three)

Tachyon Hammer could hear the sound of a drill as she approached the workshop of Code Vatnya, the Mad Russian, as well as the chattering noise of a high-torque impact wrench. The unblinking red stare of the targeting optics of the base's flame throwers watched her, the muzzles of the weapons tracking her, as she walked down the hallway toward the sounds.

She felt proud of herself. She'd managed to get past the Russian's guard during practice the day before, catching the older man square in the face and bloodying his nose with a satisfying crunch.

Of course, he'd retaliated with a kick to the crotch that made her almost pass out from the pain as the toe of his boot lifted and separated things that were supposed to be treated a little more gently.

Still, she'd managed to hit him, managed to slip past his guard and land a good solid blow, and even the fact that her crotch was still sore the next day wasn't enough to lessen her feeling of victory. The Mad Russian wasn't known for his hand to hand skills, and most people probably didn't even know that the legendary supervillain even knew how to throw a punch, but Tach had learned there was more to the man than even the legend hinted at. She shook her head, running her hand through her short cropped hair, and waved at one of the automated weapon systems as she turned to the hallway toward the work shop.

"Can you hand me that actuator?" She heard Code Vatnya ask in Russian as she approached the entryway to the huge laboratory. She smiled, knowing that the older man had a habit of talking to his robotic minions. It wasn't uncommon to find one of them reading a book, juggling tennis balls, or dancing in odd places of the base. Code Vatnya claimed that it was just odd fragments of code that made them do such things, but Tach suspected he programmed his robots to do things like that just to throw off visitors and spies.

"This one?" She heard Code Vatnya answer himself, still in Russian, and frowned.

"Da, be careful with it."

Is he talking to himself? Tach wondered, stepping around the doorway to look into the lab, her eyes immediately picking out the Russian.

He was standing by the chassis of one of his heavy assault robots, the armor on the right hand side of the torso removed and the access panels swung open. He was wearing his old style urban combat battle dress uniform, complete with shined boots, and she could see a smear of grease across his forehead. He was holding an impact wrench in one hand and Tach arrived just in time to see him catch a heavy duty actuator in the other hand.

Code Vatnya was also standing next to a suit of power armor that was old and dented, scarred with mute evidence of battles fought. The right forearm access panel was open, and Tach could see that the focusing array for the force bolt weapon system was half removed. He was wearing a beat up black trenchcoat and an old Spetsnaz uniform, with a gray beret perched on his head.

Both men turned to look at her, then turned and looked at each other, and in the moment before they turned back to look at her, she could feel something pass between them. She stood stock still, barely risking breathing, as her senses told her that neither of the men were an android, neither carried the bio-electric signature of a clone, that both men were flesh and blood. Their bio-electric signatures were not identical, close to one another, yes, but not identical. The Code Vatnya by the assault robot sported steel front teeth, the Code Vatnya by the power armor had a patch of scar tissue on his forehead that Tach knew was from the edge of a broken helmet cutting into him. They weren't identical, but they were damn close.

"This is the point where I've found out too much to be allowed to live, isn't it?" Tach broke the silence, surprised at the calm and steadiness in her voice. "So are you twins?" She took a deep breath and smiled. "This is the point where you, as a nefarious supervillian, launch into a monologue that explains why there are two of you, right before you toss me into a crappily conceived death trap so I can escape." She laughed nervously, "Or knowing you, just shoot me in the face."

Both men laughed at that, setting down the tools they had been using. The Code Vatnya who had been standing on the ladder climbed down carefully, and both men moved around the table to sit down.

"Not exactly." The beret wearing one started. "I am not from this world, and I am the one that saved you, fixed you, and have been training you, I came here fleeing the version of Statesman of my world, a version that does not bother trying to conceal his crimes behind a thin veneer of righteousness."

"And I have been busy salvaging some equipment from an old base off the coast of Saint Martial." The other one shrugged, his steel teeth flashing as he spoke. "I'm the Code Vatnya everyone here knows and fears."

"You're a Praetorian." Tach guessed, and both men nodded.

"I told you she was intelligent as well as beautiful." The beret wearing one said.

"Da, you were right, brother." The other answered.

"So do you both go by the name of Code Vatnya?" Tach asked.

"Da." The Praetorian answered, "Although I wanted to be called Mihkeal Six Gun." He grinned suddenly, and Tachyon noticed that it made him looks years younger. "I always enjoyed the spaghetti westerns staring Clint Eastwood." His hand dropped to his hip, to the holster that Tachyon Hammer knew that the Code Vatnya everyone else was familiar with carried a Skorpian machine pistol, and the Praetorian drew an old engraved six-gun, showing it to her briefly, and then reholstered the ivory gripped 'shooting iron' with a smile.

A beeping noise interrupted the conversation, and both men lifted their hands and cocked their wrists at the same time, both of them typing in complex codes before the screens lit up. Tachyon Hammer moved around behind the beret wearing Vatnya, putting her hands on his shoulders and squeezing as she watched the screen go from arcane and mysterious computer coding to video links.

The video showed a ruined base, and people searching it, fighting androids that sought to protect the ruined stronghold.

"Longbow mercs?" Tachyon asked, "Or some of Coyote's hirelings?"

"No, these ones are professional mercenaries, some of the best." The man Tachyon Hammer held on to stated. "They aren't Longbow lackeys, they pretty much work for whoever can cross their palms with enough rubles."

"Then what are they doing there?" Tach asked. "Who would be hiring mercs to check out your old bases?"

"They are seeking to confirm whether or not we are dead." The other man stated. "Look at how they are examining every blood stain, every body, and taking samples."

"This base is the one that Longbow claimed they killed me in." Vatnya said from between gritted steel teeth. "Someone is seeking to discover whether or not I still live."

"Kill them?" The Praetorian asked.

"Nyet, confuse them, but let them live." Vatnya answered.

Tach saw both men smile.

(Author's Note: The following takes place after The Bounty Hunter's War: Part II Arc 318122, Mission Three)

Inertia Flare sat next on the torn and stained couch, watching as the inhuman form of a Lost Prelate enter the room, sitting cross legged with her mace held in her lap. The Prelate was wrapped in bandages, his leathery skin completely hidden except for his hands, but the concealment of the cloth did nothing to hide his inhuman form. His legs and arms were too long, jointed strangely, his body too thin, and his forehead bulged weirdly. He moved wrong somehow, his very stride shouting out that he was no longer fully part of the human race, but instead, something different. The rags that covered him were dirty, not from any aversion to cleanliness, but rather due to soul crushing poverty and the hardships of being on the bottom rung of society.

Being in a Lost encampment was something that always made Inertia Flare melancholy. Outside of those encampments, away from places like Boomtown, Dark Astoria, and Perez Park, it was easy to see Paragon City as a bright future-opolis, a place where utopia had nearly been reached. Inside those encampments, or in the shattered sections of the city, the reality of living in a city full of super-powered beings was brought home.

Outside the camp Boomtown still smoldered, and weapons fire could be heard at all hours. Recently the Fifth Column and the Penumbra Council had began attacking one another out in the open, each trying to prove who was the better fascist. Boomtown had been dangerous enough before, with clockwork scavenging through the wreckage for more metal, but now anyone skulking through the rubble ran the chance of getting caught between the two fascist groups as they duked it out, or even worse, getting captured by either side. Those who were captured disappeared, only occasionally turning up amid the rubble.

But the Boomtown Lost encampment had something that most of the other encampments did not.

Electricity and internet.

One of the Lost, months ago, had led the others into an old superhero base that had been long abandoned, hooking back up the power with an illegal tap, splicing into the fiber-optic trunk at a splitter, in order to provide some medical attention for any of the Lost who had been wounded by over-zealous police officers, Longbow agents, heroes, or just bad luck.

But with the Fifth Columnists and the Council goons slugging it out in the streets, the base had been abandoned, deemed too dangerous to use, too dangerous to risk bringing pregnant women or the injured too.

Pregnant women who were captured by either of the fascist groups were never seen again, and the wounded were often executed on the spot. Some victims were devoured by the Vampyrs or Warwolves, some were hunted for sport, and others, particularly the women, were abused before being murdered and left in small, pathetic, rag wrapped huddled masses.

"I appreciate this, Dave." Inertia Flare said, standing up and crossing the room to enfold the Prelate in her arms and hug the alien looking figure. "You know this is going to be risky."

"Despite what some may believe, the Mad Russian is not the boogie-man to those of us who are cast off and have nothing that he is to those who have much and are still embraced." The bitterness in the figure's tone could curdle milk, but all Inertia did was hug him tighter for a moment before letting him go.

"Can I stay in here, or would he be more comfortable if I went and waited in another section of the base?" She asked, glancing at the entrance room of the base. She could see a figure's glowing red eyes within the darkness, and make out a twisted form, but instead of trying to peer at the figure, she looked up at the Prelate.

"I told him that you often act as our champion when none else will." The Prelate said, waving the other figure forward. "Although he is in great pain from The Change, he will help you."

The figure that entered was rail thin, moving in the jerky way that Inertia was familiar with. She could see the muscles spasming as the creature moved, could see the malformed and twisted bone structure and muscles.

"I thank you for this." Inertia said gravely, bowing slightly to the other creature.

"As you help us, I shall help you." The figure said, sitting down in the battered and worn chair that Inertia Flare had dug out of the rubble and carried to the base. He stared at the computer in front of him, cocking his head as he studied it.

"This is not an Arachnos computer." He said slowly. "The case is from an Arachnos mainframe, the data on the screen is common to Arachnos standby displays, but what lies within this pulses and crackles with menace."

He turned in the chair and stared at Inertia, who stared back impassively.

"You were warned that this computer was in the possession of the Mad Russian." The Prelate reminded the other creature. The other creature nodded jerkily, and turned back to the computer, long thin fingers reaching forward to caress the keyboard that was attached to the machine.

"The keyboard is a trap. Any input into it would result in this system self-destructing. There is a Rikti implosion charge built into it." Inertia Flare saw the creature's eyes open wide. "The breadboard that the circuitry is built into is some kind of explosive resin designed to insure the total destruction of this device."

"But can you access it, young one?" The Prelate asked.

"Yes, Holy One, I can." The creature answered, standing up and pushing back the chair. He crouched down, running his fingers over the casings, peering into thin cracks or almost invisible dents, until he finally straightened up. He cocked his wrists at an odd angle, and a glittering holographic keyboard appeared in mid-air, obviously generated by the computer. Satisfied, he began typing quickly, and Inertia was amused by the fact that computer added in clicking sounds to go with the typing. It was a small thing, a sign of an affectation, but it amused her all the same.

Long moments passed, Inertia Flare standing next to the Lost Prelate she called Dave, as the other Lost continued typing, often cocking his head as if listening to something while he paused at typing, before launching into another flurry of keystrokes.

Inertia reached out and grasped the Prelate's hand in hers, interlacing their fingers, and she felt the Prelate squeeze slightly.

"I believe I have disabled the security and managed to decrypt most of the files. The machine is full of many things, from nanite construction instructional coding, to video footage of Paragon City, to intercepted communications." He turned his head to look at the Prelate, saw that the two were holding hands, but managed to keep his shock out of his face. "There are even pirated MediCom transmissions."

"I wish one simple answer." Inertia said, tugging her hand free, aware but not commenting on the fact that the Prelate tried to hold onto her small hand for a moment.

"Is Code Vatnya alive?"

(Author's Note: The following takes place before The Bounty Hunter's War: Part II Arc 318122, Mission Four)

The gulls cried out as they drifted on the cold wind coming in off the ocean, circling the small town of Cimerora, on the lookout for any returning fishing vessels, or any refuse they could feed from. Below them people in togas walked the cobblestone streets, their sandals slapping as they went about their daily lives, often staring at the strangely garbed beings with the powers of gods that often talked to a few important people, who rumor said defended the small village from attacks from the renegade legionnaires who sought to overthrow the rightful rule.

Many walked down The Street of the Gods, where temples were dedicated to various dieties. Stalls set up by those hawking sacrifices or charms were plentiful on the street, despite the disapproving stares of the priests and priestesses of the various temples. Statues lined the street, of Gods and Goddesses, some strange and foreign, brought by the strange Nubians, or Egyptians who had brought spices and luxuries to the small port village.

One temple was devoted to a minor demi-god by the name of Mythus. A warrior's god that the Roman Empire had adopted when his worshipers were conquered by Rome's endless legions, the demi-god was adopted by many legionnaires, not only for his battlefield and combat values that appealed to warriors, but for the "benefits" that the priestesses provided, as well as the priests, when Amazons from strange lands visited the temples. While many warrior diety's temples were full of iron and steel, Mythus insisted that his temple be filled with song, flowers, silky cushions, and all manners of delights to be offered to his worshipers, as a promise to what awaited the faithful in the afterlife.

Within the temple, beyond where the prayers were held and the sacrifices were made, a small room held a stone bier upon which a woman lay. Her ivory skin was a wonder to the priestess, and her honey colored hair was spread out beneath her head. Her bare hands were folded onto her bare breasts, and she lay, totally nude, on the stone. Only a laurel wreath made of beaten copper adorned her, and her body had been washed with scented oils and blessed water.

She had arrived over over a week ago, appearing in a crackling snarl of golden lightning before the altar, with blessed Mythus' voice ringing out, charging the faithful within the temple of caring for the woman. She had been close to death, garbed in a strange way with wonderous and mysterious cloth.

The priestesses had removed the clothing, using sharpened bronze knives to slice away the cloth, which was strangely resistant to the highly honed edge. Twice the priestesses had to resharpen the knives they used, but when the uniform was removed, they had taken stock of the woman's injuries.

Her alabaster skin, a wondrous and exotic thing, was covered in bruises, and she had many grievous injuries, that even though they were scabbed over, still put her life in danger. Her hair had been filthy, fouled with clotted blood, soot, ash, grime, and dirt, but the priestesses had washed her hair as they had bathed her, combing it out until it shone like honey in the sunlight.

She was always attended by at least two priestesses, who sang praises to Mythus, as well as sang prayers to Hades to stay his hand from this women, pleaded through hymns with the Fates that her strand of life remain uncut. The priestesses had noticed that the strange woman did not wither and waste away, but rather seemed to gain health as time went by. Her cheeks, once so pale, had been found that morning to have a rosy blush to them, and her breathing was soft and easy, no longer harsh and labored.

The High Priestess had come in, rubbing the strange woman's temples with her strong, yet delicate, fingers, declaring that the woman had moved from strange dreams of darkness and was now moving toward the waking world. That her mind, like her body, had made great strides in healing from the injuries that the priestesses had tended to.

Many of the younger priestesses viewed the strange woman jealously, aware that her exotic appearance and classical features would make her attractive to those who came to the temple for comfort. Even the scars that her body bore would merely make her more exotic, more desirable, to the warriors who frequented the temple, and they knew that she would gather much in the way of coin, attention from powerful men, and gifts from powerful admirers. Although it shamed them to admit it, many of the younger priestesses wished that the woman would never wake up, that they would never have to compete with her, and all of those who were jealous prayed for forgiveness each night.

The High Priestess had revealed just that morning that she had been blessed with a dream in which Holy Mythus himself had appeared. In the dream, he had told the High Priestess that the strange woman was vital in a war that was fought in a far off land, as removed from Holy Rome as the lands of the gods themselves. He had told her that she would be strange in her ways, and might be afraid when she first woke up, but the High Priestess was to copy down the runes that Mythus drew in the air with golden lightning, and show the runes to the strange woman when she awoke.

Not if. When.

Mythus had charged all within the temple of teaching the woman the ways of the temple, how to speak the language spoken by civilized people who lived in the modern world, and to protect her until she had regained their strength.

When the High Priestess had awoke, she had known that the dream was not merely the fancy of a slumbering mind, but a vision from Mythus himself by the way the runes still hung in her vision until she had laboriously inscribed them onto expensive parchment with squid ink. She had then told the other priests and priestesses, and the stranger, who had become almost blase, had suddenly gained a renewed interest.

As the sun climbed higher in the sky, a young priestess entered the room, approaching the naked woman where she lay on the carved stone bier. She carried a bowl of chilled water, blessed by the priests, and a clean cloth. She stopped at the woman's head, dunking the cloth into the water and then handing the bowl of beaten copper, painted with sigils praising Mythus, to a neophyte priestess.

She carefully folded the cloth, and laid it on the strange woman's head.

And Miss Moral opened her eyes.

I'd like to take this time to thank the following people:

The Dev's, for creating a timeline which can lead to different interpretations of what went on, and providing such a rich backdrop for the story. Plus, I'd like the thank them for the AE system, which provided a way to let readers experience part of the story.

Rangy-Lil, for allowing me to use her signature characters.

GMSupremeSteve, for the same.

Heather-Dawn, for her characters and input.

Wolvorine, for acting as sounding board and providing his input, as well as letting me determine the ultimate fate of some of his favorite characters.

Witch Engine, for advice on the story and pointing out a few plot holes.

Finally, to the people who played the AE Arcs and sent me messages suggesting ways to clean up the missions.

Thanks for everything.

The story will still continue.

(Author's Note: The following takes place before The Bounty Hunter's War: Part II Arc 318122, Mission Four)

Inertia Flare, wrapped in heavy rags, followed the Lost Prelate down into one of the many caves that riddled the earth beneath Paragon City. The entrance to this one had been an old mine shaft on a tiny island off of Talos Island, and the tunnels had led deeper and deeper into the earth as the pair descended into the depths. Skeletons lay here and there, some of them clad in superhero outfits from decades before, other clad in the robes of the mystical cult known as the Circle of Thorns.

They moved through an underground chamber where destroyed equipment was scattered about, and the unique skeletons of the Rikti invaders were mixed with that of heroes, a legacy from the First Rikti War. The chamber was one of many scattered all over the world, where the Rikti had used dimensional and spacial portals to bring in reinforcements and resupply for their invasion force. Inertia Flare and the Prelate, Contemplation of Strife to his people, Dave to Inertia Flare, drew closer to one another, memories of the war strengthening the ties that bound them.

They passed through the cavern, slowing only once so that Contemplation of Strife could kneel down, kiss his fingertips, and press them into the earth. That done, the two companions moved through the rubble and left the cavern, heading deeper into the labyrinth beneath Paragon City. Contemplation of Strife led the way, for he had been there once before, taking the one they sought to safety after he had been gravely injured by superpowered vigilantes.

Finally they reached their goal, a massive door, made of iron, covered with brass inlay and runes that sparkled with arcane power. Skeleton lay in front of the door, some wearing the garb of the Circle of Thorns, others wearing the garb of explorers and treasure seekers, and a rare few wearing the colorful outfit of superpowered beings. A few Rikti skeletons lay about, their weapons missing, testimony that other had been there after they had died, but the door is what held their attention.

Contemplation of Strife reached forward, pressing his fingers upon a huge ornate ruby inlay that throbbed with arcane power. For a long moment there was silent, only the large veins on the Prelate's head throbbing in synchronization with the glow of the rune, until the Prelate stepped back and the door separated down a previously invisible seam and slid silently into the walls.

Beyond was a vault, with shelves that held dusty tomes, items of arcane might, weapons that had not seen the light of day for decades or centuries. On the far side of the vault were stacks of books, which were piled high over the bed in the center of them. A single basin of water was in the corner, and a horn had fruit and meat spilling from it.

In the middle of the room stood a Rikti, or what appeared to be one at first glance. His fingers were longer, more delicate, his eyes were burning blue that lit the chamber, and his posture was slumped. He held a staff surmounted by a dark green crystal, graven with strange and glowing glyphs, and he watched the pair warily.

Inertia Flare took three steps into the massive room, going to one knee, her heavy flanged mace upright with the butt of it thumping onto the stones of the floor. She bowed her head, pulled the fire around her into herself, and waited. She felt more than saw Contemplation of Strife do the same, placing his empty hands on the floor of the vault before him, and silence descended on the vault once the door grated shut.

"I recognize you, Strength of Striga." The creature said, his voice holding a soft southern American states accent, the I changed to Ah. "You brought a woman to my side, a healer, to heal my wounds, and spoke kindly of me to assuage her fears at my visage."

"Yes, Holy One, you were gravely injured, and the one next to me told me that he felt your life must be saved." Inertia Flare said, holding still as the figure moved closer, and one hand reached down to touch her hair.

"So much rage, so much anger, for one so young." The figure whispered sadly. "You are caught in a war not of your own making. A war of secrets, of shadows, of lies. You fight bravely, but your soul has already been wounded, a casualty of this war. Friends have fallen, and your heart is wounded, the same heart that went out to me as I lay dying. The same heart that led you to try to protect the innocent of your home city, the same heart that has led you down dark paths in pursuit of what you felt was right."

Inertia Flare did not answer, instead holding silent as the figure's hand left her hand and the figure moved to the Prelate who knelt with her.

"You bring her, but fear for her." The voice was a whisper that could not be ignored. "Your love for her shines like a beacon."

The figure shuffled back, and Inertia Flare heard the creak of bedsprings and a sigh.

"Rise, both of you, and tell me why you have braved these caverns to see a hermit such as I, who has left behind the world to instead dwell within these dusty tomes."

Inertia stood up, slowly hanging her mace on her belt, and stared at the figure in front of her. "I have a comrade who lies near to death, and I need a way to return him to wakefulness, since he has long since passed from life."

"Does your friend have a name, young one?"

"Yes. His name is Zuka Jilipiza, he fights for those who are oppressed, who suffer under the lash of a cruel master, and for those whose spirits cry out for vengeance." Inertia answered.

"I have heard of him, often the void between life and death I have even seen him, and spoken to him in my dreams." The figure said, "He has offered me counsel, as I have offered counsel unto him.

"Is he a casualty of this war?"

"Yes, Holy One. He fell in battle, ensuring that the wounded could escape from a deadly battle, and that innocents were not harmed during the fighting." Inertia answered.

The figure was silent for a long time, and Inertia waited patiently. Staying silent even when the figure got up and began examining books, shuffling through them and shaking his head. It took nearly an hour of silence before the figure looked up, and Inertia had the feeling that he was smiling.

"I believe that there are two artifacts that may work." The figure said, showing Inertia a picture of a rune engraved skull that was streaked with old and clotted blood. It sat on a table with a twisted blood stained knife that Inertia knew the Circle of Thorns favored for ritualistic sacrifices.

"This is the Skull of Sam Harlow, and the followers of the Cult of Baron Zoria often harness its mystical powers to reach beyond the veil of death to retrieve the souls of those of particular importance." The figure said, turning the book around and examining the text beneath the picture. "It will difficult and dangerous to reach, for it will be guarded to the best of the those who dwell within Oranbega."

"Retrieve the skull, use Zuka's sledgehammer to crush it while it sits upon his breast, and it should achieve two goals. Bringing back Zuka to his undying state, and delivering a serious blow to the zealots of Baron Zoria." The figure finished.

"And the second?" Inertia asked.

"The second lies behind the blade of Forlorn Waif, held in the hands and controlled by the will of the Empress of Undeath herself. Her magics, learned in the shadow of powerful creatures such as this world could not bear the footsteps of, would find it a small task to return your friend to his undying state, or even to life." The figure held up a hand, "But to do so would wrap a collar more cruel than iron around his neck, for he would become her creature, to further her goals in our world, and I see nothing but misfortune, sadness, and death, should you try."

There was silence for a long moment, until the figure waved his hand, and the doors slid open, letting the chill air of the caverns sweep back into the room.

"Good luck, Strength of Striga, both in this endeavor, and in your war." the figure told her, waving at the exit.

Together, Inertia Flare and the Prelate left the chamber, pausing as the door slowly ground shut. The looked at one another and both shuddered in unison before beginning their trek retracing their path.

As they passed through the massive cavern where the battle had been fought and forgotten, the Prelate broke the silence.

"We were lucky."

Inertia nodded, keeping an eye out for any surprises.

"Not too many people encounter a full blooded Sorcerer of the Lost, one who was to become one of the first Rikti Magus, and live to tell the tale." The Prelate expanded. "If we had been any other pair, we would lie dead before that door."

Inertia nodded again, and they continued their trek in silence. When they came to the entrance of the original mining shaft they had followed in, they paused before going their separate ways. Inertia gathered up the taller Prelate in a fierce hug, embracing the inhuman figure for a long time before letting go and looking up at him.

"Disappear, Dave. Find one of the Lost encampments you normally stay away from. One buried deep and hidden well. I can't bear to lose you too." Inertia told him.

"You won't, little sister." The Prelate shook his head sadly. "Of the two of us, I am the only one who knows what is to come." He cradled Inertia's face in his hands for a long moment. "But you would not be who you are if there was any other outcome."

They stood there for a long moment, each of them lost in their thoughts of each other, before hugging one last time and returning to their own tasks as the sun set, turning the waters around Talos Island as red as if they had become blood.

(Author's Note: The following takes place during The Bounty Hunter's War: Part II Arc 318122, Mission Four)

"How ya feeling, Big Bug?" Betty asked, sitting down on the couch next to the massive insect warrior and patting his leg.

"Just fine, thanks for asking." Male Mantid said, turning his head to look at her.

"Guess what I found." Betty grinned. When Male Mantid flicked his antenna in curiosity, she held up a brown satchel with alien script on it. Male Mantid reached out and took the satchel, opening it up and digging around in it until he found a spray can. He shook the can for a moment, then handed it to Betty, who had set the satchel on the coffee table in front of the couch. She took the can as Male Mantid leaned back on the couch, then sprayed it across the bubbling yellow resin on his chest. Male Mantid clacked his mandibles and clenched his graspers as she sprayed the clear aerosol across the resin. She carefully sprayed all over the resin, then tucked the can back into the satchel.

"Better, Big Bug?" She asked, as she pulled out a heavy metal tube with a button on one end. He nodded, closing his nictating membranes over his eyes as she pressed on the pebbly plates that covered him until she found the right spot. Satisfied, she pressed the button and the device gave a sharp KLUNK that Betty knew was a heavy duty needle punching through the soft spot of the armor. Male Mantid shuddered as the cocktail of nanites, synthetic hormones, and drugs flooded into his system.

"That should help a bit." Betty said, tossing the empty autoinjector onto the table and rummaging around in Male Mantid's till she found a cigar. She lit it with the muzzle of her rifle's flamethrower, then leaned back, laying her rifle across her lap and puffing on the cigar while the Male Mantid shuddered from the effects of the shot.

"How is he?" Came Colonel Victory's voice from the kitchen. Betty looked over, and saw Colonel Victory closing the refrigerator. He cracked open a beer and stared at her.

"Bad. Real bad. I haven't ever seen him suffer an armor breach like this one." Betty admitted.

"I'm right here..." Male Mantid whispered.

"Indeed you are." Colonel Victory said, taking a drink off the beer. "How do your feel?"

"Not bad." Male Mantid said, taking the cigar from Betty and taking a couple drags before Betty snagged it out of his mandibles with a grin.

Colonel Victory chuckled and saluted Male Mantid by lifting up the beer toward him. "Good to hear it, Mantid." Global Betty grinned at the old human male. Both of the oldsters that her mercenaries had rescued had bounced back within a day and a half, their artificially enhanced metabolisms knitting bone and flesh, repairing cartilage and sinew, in record time. All of the bruises has faded, and both old men had been chafing under the restrictions of hiding out in Perez Park.

"Bring back any weapons?" October Octogenarian asked from where he was sitting by the window where he was watching the street outside. With the exception of Global Betty, nobody in the small apartment was armed. The weapon that the dead copy of Global Betty had been carrying (which was currently laying the bathtub and covered with the shower curtain) had been used to replace the damaged parts in Global Betty's battle rifle and was now a stripped frame.

"No. Looks like someone found the cache, but even though they took the weapons, the cash, and the ammunition, they left the stuff that was marked with Big Bug or my personal insignia." Betty shrugged. "Looked like the Lost found it, Hellions wouldn't have cared about our insignia, or would have urinated all over the cache." Colonel Victory snorted at that, knowing full well the disdain that Global Betty held the Hellions in. She hated them with a burning passion, and felt they were nothing more than vermin that should be stamped out.

It could have had something to do with they were everywhere, caused all kinds of trouble, and the bounty on them wouldn't even cover Betty's ammo costs.

"Dangnabbit." October mumbled, returning to watch the outside street.

Victory moved up and sat down next to Betty, taking another long pull off of the beer bottle, then wiping his mouth. He put his boots on the coffee table, and Global Betty kicked them back off, which brought a grin to his face.

"Think those mercs of you will get that artifact Inertia told you about?" Victory asked.

"They're some of the best, we're talking top drawer, experienced, highly skilled stem-winding headstompers." Betty told him, snagging Mantid's cigar and puffing on it. She gave it back to Mantid and continued. "The people I hired can do it, if anyone can."

"Good, no offense, Mantid, but with you so badly injured, we need Zuka pretty bad." Victory said. Mantid waved away any possible insult, and Victory continued. "They're in pretty deep, any idea how to get them out of it?"

"No. These guys have a lot of allies, and are experts at laying low, and understand they're in this for the long haul." Betty opened her mouth to add more when October interrupted her.

"Get on the clock, I've got five, make that six, Longbow assault craft coming over the War Wall." October said. "They're coming in hot and dropping down to the deck. Looks like the weapons are hot, I can see that the miniguns are up and spinning."

"Dammit." Victory said, draining the beer bottle and standing up. "Think we can take them?" October nodded.

"No, you can't." Betty said, standing up and grabbing Victory's arm. "I need you to get Big Bug out of here. They'll kill him if he goes wading in to take the fight to them."

"I'll be fine. It is a warrior's way to die in battle, we are told the names of those who fell in battle while still in the egg, that it is a glorious end to our lives." Mantid said, struggling to his feet. He stopped, panting, and the viscous yellow resin cracked through the clear covering and leaked from the edges.

"Look at the bigger picture, Bug. If you die, it's more than just your life." Betty snarled, "You can barely stand. Think about strategically, not tactically. Don't be chitin covered moron."

"But..." Mantid began.

"No buts. I'll meet you at Drop-point Papa. If I don't, I'll be meeting the mercs I hired at Point Tango-Two, so send someone to make sure that the package is retrieved." Betty said. She looked at the two male humans. "Get him out of here. I'll hold them for as long as I can, then fight my way out of here."

All three males nodded, knowing that she was telling them that if that she couldn't fight her way out of it, that they had to meet with the mercs and retrieve the Skull of Sam Harlow so that Zuka could be resurrected.

"Get out of here." she snarled, moving to the window and activating her rifle's magnetic acceleration coils. She busted out the window as the three men moved into the kitchen and pulled aside a chunk of the wall, exposing the inside of the apartment building's elevator shaft.

Colonel Victory grabbed the ropes where they had been coiled up on the hook installed in the elevator shaft wall, and dropped them down the shaft. October Octogenarian grabbed the harness made out of cargo straps, and started putting it onto the Male Mantid, careful to avoid the leaking yellow patch on his chest.

"Ready!" Victory said, hooking himself up to the ropes with the D-ring.

Betty sighted through her scope, aiming at the starboard wing of the oncoming Longbow assault craft. The heavy duty Lockhead engine was obviously working at top performance, and Betty aimed at the blurred central hub, exhaling and slowing both of her hearts down. She waited until in between both sets of beats, and pulled the trigger. The magnetic acceleration coils grabbed the iron coated sabot and flung it out of the barrel at hypervelocity speeds, the sabot peeling away from the depleted uranium submunition. The round punched through the hub casing, blowing away the support for the intake fans, and the engine shattered.

Victory strapped the Male Mantid onto the rope, grabbing one of the main main sling loads, throwing it over his shoulder and clipping the end to his belt, then stepped onto the other rope, which had looped footholes. October grabbed the other one, threw it over his shoulder, and clipped the end onto his belt. He reached out, grabbed the other foothold prepared rope, and swung for a second, catching his balance. Out in the apartment, another gunshot sounded, and a muted explosion could be heard.

"Come on, Mantid." Victory said, reaching forward and tugging on Mantid's harness. The massive insect warrior stepped out into the shaft, and both men grunted as they took his weight. Neither rope they stood on so much as popped, and they nodded together as another explosion sounded out.

"We'll take it slow." October reassured him as another shot sounded from inside the apartment.

"I would prefer to stay and fight." Mantid groused.

"And then we would die, and nobody would ever know whether or not Code Vatnya had discovered the truth." Victory said, slowly moving down the rope. The two humans were careful, taking one step after the other had taken one, and lowering the Male Mantid between them slowly and gently. Upstairs the single shot stopped, and they could hear fully automatic weapons fire.

"She fights alone." Mantid said as they reached the basement of the apartment building. "She faces what may be her final fight, with enemies that were brought down on her by my insistence that we hear the words of a supervillain, and I am not there."

"Didn't you say that you learn in the egg that every warriors wins every fight but their last?" Victory asked, undoing the sling. "Did you not say that there is no dishonor in falling battle, if your cause is just?"

"Do not throw the teachings of the Holy Egg into my face, human." Mantid growled, but the threat was robbed by a sudden bubbling wheezing.

"Only reminding you, friend, only reminding you." Victory told him, reaching over and pulling the elevator door open. "Looks clear, let's go." The sounds of bullets smashing into the apartment echoed down the elevator shaft, and Male Mantid looked up, grinding his mandibles and chewing plates.

"If she falls, not even Statesman shall be able to stop my vengeance upon Ms. Liberty." Mantid swore, "I shall tear Longbow down around her fascist ears, and then beat her to death with it."

"Later, right now, we gotta get clear of this building." Colonel Victory reminded the massive insect warrior as they moved through the basement. An explosion's echo rolled down the elevator shaft, the last part of the sound cut off as the elevator doors closed.

The three males moved across the basement, over to where a large couch was against the wall, and Victory helped October move it, revealing a hole that led into the sewers of Paragon City. The three males entered the sewer, pulling the couch back to hide the way. Once in the sewer, Victory popped a red road flare, and October Octogenarian summoned a warrior made entirely out of ice.

"Let's go." Victory said, moving ahead of the two others. "Tell us when you start getting breathless, Mantid. Betty will kill me if you die here."

Darkness closed around them, pushed back only by a sputtering red road flare.

(Author's Note: The following takes place before The Bounty Hunter's War: Part II Arc 318122, Mission Five)

WARNING: This post, while I consider it to be rated PG-13 and no worse than many horror movies, may disturb readers. However, it is important to the story, to the character development, and I attempted to leave a lot of things offscreen. I hope this doesn't offend anyone, but remember, you were warned. If it starts to offend you, skip to the next post.--Tim Willard

It was raining in the Rikti War Zone, the drops sizzling as they struck the war walls and vanishing in little puffs of steam as they were obliterated into their component oxygen and hydrogen. The rain had just barely been going long enough to first thicken the ash layer, then begin to wash it into the refuse clogged streets in long sheets of black liquid. Grenade pins, empty ammunition magazines, armor fragments, all of them joined the black ash as it slowly moved into the gutters. Here and there bone fragments glittered, mute testimony of what made the ash.

The fallen of the Rikti War Zone.

Their bodies had been carbonized by plasma weapons, crushed by gravity fields, and rended apart by other means. The wind that had preceded the rain had blown the scraps of uniforms and banners around to catch on eaves. Now just the ash remained, slowly washing away to end up in the remnants of the sewer system.

Ignorant or uncaring of the rain, taking shelter under the eaves of a long abandoned warehouse, several Longbow troopers stood, smoking cigarettes and keeping watch for any wandering Rikti Monkeys or a cruising strike team. Their red and white suits kept them comfortable, and the rain didn't matter to their carefully oiled assault rifles, providing they cared for them once they got off of guard duty.

The young woman had been watching them for over an hour, contorted to hide herself in the remains of a Vanguard tank, trusting the stealth field she had borrowed to keep her hidden for as long as its power cells held out. She'd watched Longbow teams move in and out of the warehouse, seen them salute a Warden as she'd entered the building, and even watched as one Longbow Squad had drug a dead or unconscious man covered in thick keratin spines into the building while they laughed at him. She had felt the psychic sweeps slide over her, the skills she had attained fighting in the Second Rikti War allowing her to keep herself hidden from mental abilities.

She could feel her thoughts trying to intrude on the puddle of emptiness she projected, could feel her desire for revenge and mayhem trying to cause ripples in the puddle, or to discolor it in such a way that a sweep would pick her up almost immediately, and continued murmuring her mantras. She kept her powers completely suppressed, willing to run the risk of an ambusher catching her flat footed and defenseless over the risk of someone detecting her.

Lightning crackled off in the distance, and she knew that it was dancing across the Rikti pylons that kept the forcefield over the mothership. The Rikti knew that the pylons were in the most danger during lighting storms, so most of their troops were huddled around the pylons, defending them from Terran strike teams as well as repairing the damage the Earth itself did them. If the shield were to drop for long enough, NATO and Vanguard would call in fighter-bombers, A-10 Warthogs, Comanche and Hind helicopters, as well as call in massive artillery batteries and MLRS wagons, all to pound the mothership to scrap.

That meant that they were all alone out here. Just her, Longbow, and what intelligence had whispered in her ear would soon be here.

The target.

She had sabotaged the radio system during the night, using a small specially built robot to slowly move in and slice the grounding wire from the communications array. The robot had been loaded up with stealth features, had used passive sensors only, and the braided copper cable had been sliced by simple sharp blades. The entire robot had been made of Rikti technology, and after it had completed its mission, it had rolled off into the night, looking for and eventually finding a Rikti Monkey pack. Once in the middle of the pack, it had released the death stench of a fallen Rikti Monkey, and the monkeys had been driven mad, pounding the machine into scraps that they carried off to their lair, shrieking their unearthly victory cries.

Thunder rumbled again as a man dressed in Vanguard purple swooped out of the sky, his jet-boots flaring, and landed in front of the building. The Longbow went alert, one covering the Vanguard trooper, the other scanning for any backup he might have nearby, and the young woman went perfectly still, knowing that the rain would have almost entirely eliminated her IR profile.

She cocked her head, activating the directional microphone on the reticle she'd worn since the Rogue Isles Assault a few years prior.

"...stone cold ***** out there tonight." The Vanguard soldier was saying. "Something has the Rikti all stirred up out by the mothership."

"Haven't seen any out here." One of the Longbow troops said. "Sergeant of the Guard says they were expecting you, so go on in." He opened the door, and the Vanguard agent went into the building.

"Say, did you hear about Warden Pews?" The other Longbow trooper asked once the door shut behind the Vanguard agent.

"No, what?"

"Apparently he was found beaten to death in the showers out at facility Lima-Three."

"Really? Good. I hated that smug *******."

"Yeah, they're saying that Victory guy did it before he and that Major Frost guy got broken out by some mercenaries."

"Pfft, my money is on someone from his own platoon. That guy had a serious attitude problem."

The young woman shook her head. They gossip like old rich women. She reached down and picked up a small shielded cellphone that had been heavily modified to lock down total EMCON on it, and punched in a quick code. Here's something for you to talk about.

"Yeah, apparently he mouthed off to one of those Blackstar guys, and I'll bet that guy ripped his lungs out." The original speaker said, hawking and spitting out into the rain. "Those guys don't take crap from nobody, not even Wardens."

Blackstar? The young woman raised an eyebrow.

"Blackstar? No kidding? I didn't think any of them were in Paragon City right now." The second said, stretching.

"Nope, the had some guarding those two old dinosaurs for some reason, I kid you not. I heard they've been pretty much deployed to Litak in order to keep everything stirred up there, but apparently some of them are back here for some reason."

"Probably whatever has Ms. Liberty's panties in a bunch." The second one grinned nastily. "She was screaming at Major Welsh last night."

"Eh, she's been freaked out since those mercs busted those two old relics out of jail." The first one spit again. "Dude, I'm telling you, she's a prime example of why split-tails shouldn't be officers. First sign of trouble, they get all freaked out and start screaming."

Split tail? You just bought a ticket to the morgue, jackass.

Both of them started laughing, and the young woman kept one ear on the conversation, which had moved into unflattering discussion about several of the female Longbow troops they worked with, while she watched the dim screen of the modified cellphone. Six red dots were moving closer, sweeping around the collapsed bridge and through the defunct electricity substation.

The six dots paused, waiting, and the young woman pulled out a radio detonator and clicked it. At the base of the sliced off copper grounding cable a small dime sized piece of equipment activated, gallantly suiciding to complete its purpose. The entire communications array became charged, and less than a second later, a massive bolt of lightning struck it, illuminating the entire area for a split second. The purplish white flare caused the two Longbow to throw up their arm to shield their faces and curse, and the thunder drowned out any sound.

As six combat robots suddenly broke from cover, dropping their stealth fields, and charged the building.

The young woman had designated the one who had made the "split tail" comment as a high priority target, and the man didn't even have a chance to scream as a heavy laser cannon shot hit him mid-body. With the massive transfer of energy, the man's bodily fluids were instantly converted to steam, the cell walls exploding outward, and he was rent apart in a shower of red mist. His fellow guard didn't even get a chance to scream as the heavy assault robot decided that hitting the building he was guarding with 20mm rockets would incidentally kill him with the shrapnel, and a burst of 20 rockets erupted around him. His body was shattered by two missiles that hit him, as well as the backblast of destroyed cinderblock and the shrapnel of exploding missile casings.

Come on, come on, you son of a *****... the woman kept the thought cold, still, a small chunk of ice floating in the calm pool of her mind. Her rage and need for vengeance frozen. Do it... do it...

Particle beams punched technological lightning into the building's structure, the heavy ferrocrete crinderblocks cracking under the sudden energy exchange. Lasers ripped at the ballistic shielding, and missiles blew chunks out of the building's passive defenses.

A second lightning bolt hit the communications array, throwing the parking lot the abandoned factory in stark relief.

The Longbow were reacting with confusion, some exiting the rear of the building, others trying to fire from the prepared positions behind the armor plating that had been hidden behind the glass windows. The woman punched in another code on the EMCON modded cellphone, and smiled viciously to herself as the Longbow saw the laser beam appear in the midst of the group at the back of the building, and reacted by lashing gunfire back up the beam hoping to hit the spotter or sniper, or whatever was lasing them.

They'd just started to scatter when the ERLIX mortar rounds, 4.2" laser guided munitions with proximity fuses that carried 45 anti-personnel submunitions each, erupted into a sheet of flame above the troops. The submunitions dropped to less than 10 meters above the Longbow troops, who were still trying to engage a target that didn't exist, and detonated into ceramic shrapnel that scythed through them. The kinetic energy transfer when the small chunks of hypervelocity shrapnel splashed flesh and bone alike, leaving only one man alive, and that man screaming and holding onto the stumps of his legs, blind and deaf.

What's wrong? Poor widdle Wongbow doesn't wike it when someone else uses tactics? the young woman sneered. Those of you who survive will probably whine how it isn't fair that I didn't come pounding in like some Brute with a too tight helmet and a too small codpiece wrapped around brass balls.

The roof burst open, the concealed Longbow fliers that had been hidden in the warehouse clawing for altitude, their pilots reacting with horror over the fact they were being lashed by radar and lidar before they'd even cleared the roof.

Longbow had known that the Vanguard anti-aircraft missile vehicles were hulks. They had sat there for months, over 5 blocks away, and so no attention was spared to them. They hadn't noticed a pair of Stalkers working on the vehicles, replacing fire control boards, rerunning the control cabling for the missile pods, and they certainly hadn't noticed the fact that all six vehicles had missiles sitting in the tubes smuggled into the US from the civil war in Litak.

They'd known that those vehicles were hulks, and so they'd never paid any attention.

Ten Longbow Chasers clawed for airspace, desperately trying to gain altitude and get away from the radar and lidar that was painting them from the robots. They were concentrating on the robots, who ignored them except to light them up with active targeting, and never saw the missile fire from the vehicles they knew were dead.

Until the first wave of modified Stinger missiles crashed over them.

Five fell from the air in flames, crashing back into the concealed flight bay they had just left. One spun away, the pilot flung free to smash into the street and bounce bonelessly, shedding flight armor and pieces of body in equal measure. One dove for the street, the pilot rolling the throttle all the way back and gunning for it.

He was the lucky one as the followup salvo killed the other three that tried to get clear of the targeting systems.

THERE! The young woman's thought was fierce, and if it had not been for the chaos surrounding the attack, she would have been picked up by the three psychics who normally swept the area around the building.

The Vanguard agent came rocketing out of the flames that were boiling out of where the hidden flight bay had been, orienting himself and shooting for the Vanguard Base in the southeast of the zone.

The young woman rolled out of the hulked tank, shedding the stealth blanket, and kicking on her own rocket boots. She shot up into the air, static electricity crackling around her. The Vanguard agent wasn't even looking, and she sped after him, gaining on him quickly. Her reticle insisted that she was within range of the few ranged attacks she had left, but she held her fire as she rapidly overtook the fleeing Vanguard agent.

The agent dashed rainwater out of his eyes, knowing he was close to panicking, but feeling the need to get out of there. One minute he'd been standing in the flight bay admiring the Longbow Chasers, the next he'd been in the middle of a fiery holocaust. He'd seen men and women flail around, screaming, entirely wreathed in flame. Other men and women torn apart as someone had guided another mortar attack into the launch bay. He'd been right next to a young Warden as she explained how the new cooling system would increase the speed and endurance of the next generation of Longbow Chasers when she'd almost seemed to explode, not even screaming as one of the hydrogen fuel tanks detonated and shredded her.

His arm came back covered with strings of crimson, and he knew he had to be covered in the woman's blood. Normally it didn't bother him, normally he reveled in the spray of blood, but that was when he was doing it, when the blood flew, the bone cracked, and the skin split because he willed it, not because someone else was calling the tune to a dance he hadn't even wanted to go to.

He could see the landing lights on top of the guard towers that surrounded the Green Zone, and felt elation bubble up inside of him. He'd get in there, report to Lady Grey that the Rikti were attacking a Longbow Chaser squadron (and incidentally forget to mention where they had come from), and get rewarded by both Vanguard for acting quickly, and by Longbow for saving any who remained.

The agent was already going over what he was going to say when a crushing weight hit him. A leg looped around his, an arm snaked around his waist, and a hand grabbed his wrist. Before he could do much more than gabble in surprise, whoever it was wrenched his arm around behind his back, pushing his wrist up, past his neck, and he felt his arm go.

Whoever it was let go of the arm, reaching up to grab his helmet and shove it forward, and he realized that whoever was holding onto him was aiming him toward the ground. He tried to kick his legs out to slow himself, but whoever it was had control of one of his legs, and all it caused was for him to go into a flat spin. Whoever it was let go, rolling off of him in mid-air, and still managed to kick him in the side with full throttle jet boots. The pain from the exhaust burning through his armor flared, made it hard for him to get control, made it hard for him to...

The young woman watched the Vanguard agent slam into the ground and bounce into the fence, dropping down to only inches off of the tarmac and following him. Electricity wreathed her body, snarled around her fists, and danced across her teeth that were bared in a murderous grimace. Before the Vanguard agent could recover, the woman hit him in the center of the back with both fists, backed by all the momentum her rocket boots could generate. She arced up, carrying him with her, and looped up while he flapped his one broken arm and tried to scream from the agony in his kidneys.

She suddenly cut the thrust, letting him drop, watching him flail for a moment before regaining control, hugging his broken arm to his chest, and trying to reorient himself on where the Green Zone and the Vanguard Base was. She swooped behind him, cutting off her jet boots and wrapping her legs around his waist, one arm looping under his good arm and her hand grabbing the base of his neck.

Her body bucked as she let the electricity pent up inside of her out with a burst, heard him scream as the amperage rampaged through him. He went limp in her grasp, and she unwrapped her legs and brought the two of them down to the pavement. The agent could see a Rikti Headmaster's skull staring at him as he went through the petit-mal seizures of the aftereffects of a massive dose of voltage.

The woman raised her free hand into the air, and lightning came down from the sky, and she screamed in ecstasy while he screamed in agony as the electricity coursed through both of their bodies. Once, twice, three times she altered her base charge to bring electricity to her, feeling almost painful pleasure rocket through her at both the massive overcharge of amperage and the shrieks of pain from the man whose legs were intertwined with hers, who she held in a half-nelson. She dropped her arm and lay on him for a long moment, panting, while rain pounded down on both of them.

The Vanguard agent began to stir, the pain of his burns and the white hot throbbing in his arm dragging him back into consciousness. He felt the person on him shuddering, and mistook the aftereffects of her pleasure as weakness and tried to roll out of from under her. He only managed to rock slightly to one side before she brought down one half-clenched hand crashing onto the break in his arm like the butt of an axe. He threw his head back and screamed as best as he could with the way she held him.

"I like it when you scream, *****." She crooned in his ear, reaching up with her off hand and tearing away his helmet. She brought her hand down on her arm again, and when he threw back his head to scream again, the tendons in his neck standing out, she ran her tongue along the inside of his ear.

"Remember the last time we met?" She asked softly, almost lovingly, sticking her tongue in his ear. She squeezed her legs tight, the heavy muscles that had earned her the affectionate nickname "Thunder Thighs" from her old team-mates squeezing him like a vise. "It was Saturday." She nibbled on his ear, and let the field of static electricity that surrounded her caress him gently, stimulating his nerves. She heard him groan, not all of it pain, beneath her, and smiled.

"There was music, and dancing." She crooned, and slammed down her fist onto his arm again. When he screamed, she leaned forward and kissed the base of his neck, letting electricity flow from the tongue she had pressed against his skin, voltage tickling his brain.

"God, it makes me so hot when you scream for me, baby." She whispered softly, mockingly, then drove the knife-edge of her hand into the break once, twice again, each time bringing a scream. She raised an arm again, changing her charge to attract another bolt of lightning, and screamed in pleasure as the electricity rocketed through her system. As she hit her peak, she tensed, her legs tightening, the half-nelson grip tightening.

Another lightning bolt hit, and she was over the edge, panting wildly and squeezing with everything she had. The thunder masked the sound of the Vanguard agent's right hip dislocating and his left knee going out, as well as his scream as she rubbed his face into the asphalt, the gravel that the rain had not swept away grinding into the wound.

"Oh God, that's sooooo good, baby." The woman crooned, letting him go and slowly sitting up. "Was it good for you?" She asked cruelly, reaching down to wrap her fingers in his hair. She pulled his head back and took stock of the injuries to his face, the way his nose had been abraded to reveal cartilage, how his eyebrows were gone to expose raw bone.

"It's almost just like the first time we met, when you did me so good." She whispered, leaning forward and sticking her tongue in his ear as she pressed his face ruthlessly against the tarmac. "God, I still remember your moves." She grabbed his hair with both hands. "Remember this, what brought out the stars?"

She pulled his head back till his back crackled, and drove his face into the tarmac.

"Remember this, *****? REMEMBER THIS?" she howled as she slammed his face three times into the tarmac. She stopped, panting, and pressed his head so his swollen and broken cheek was against the pavement. She could see that he had been knocked cold by the force of the blows, but the steady dark blood flowing from his nose and where the skin had been ripped off told her that he was still alive. The rain was pounding hard enough that it washed away the blood, making it seem as if the wounds were almost bloodless.

"No, I didn't give up on you, sweet cakes." She whispered, reaching back behind her to grab between his legs. "Wake up, lover boy." She crooned, and sent a jolt of electricity through her hand. The agent came awake screaming, and the woman on his back laughed.

"God, I remember how you introduced yourself to me with just a touch that I felt deep inside of me." She said after another peal of thunder rolled away. She drew back her fist, snarling electricity wreathing it, and drove it into his kidney, and he screamed again, long and loud, before it was drowned out by another peal of thunder as if the heavens were mocking him.

"Remember me now, baby?" She asked, laying across his back, smoothing his hair, and ignoring his sobs.

"Please..." he burbled, the rainwater, missing teeth, and the blood making his speech almost incomprehensible.

"Oh, baby, you don't think I'm going to leave you hanging, do you?" The young woman mocked the injured man, her voice and laughter harsh. She stood up and grabbed his broken arm, using it to roll him over onto his back and bringing forth another scream. She sat down on his abdomen, squirming up his body and leaning forward until they were face to face.

"I was looking forward to my date, remember?" She whispered, the rain bouncing off the pavement as the storm's fury increased. She kissed the swollen and torn lips, gently, and pushed her tongue into his mouth to toy with his shattered teeth. "You found me, and you took me, right there in the bathroom. You made me yours, remember?" She moved back and looked at his face, where his regeneration abilities were knitting back together the skin.

The agent shook his head. "Please, I'll tell you everything..." he gasped when she leaned back.

"Shhh, we don't need to talk yet." She said, kissing him again. "You thought I wouldn't know what you did." She leaned back and smiled, undoing the belts on her pink leather jacket. She opened her jacket and leaned forward, letting him see that she wore nothing underneath. "The gravel in my skin told the story." She kissed him again, harder, then leaned back. "The bruises and tearing spoke louder than words." Lightning flashed, and the agent saw the merciless depths in her eyes. "It happened out here, didn't it? Out here, where nobody would know." She smiled, sitting up and leaning back, letting the jacket fall open.

"You figured that it couldn't hurt, that nobody would know." She smiled at him, running her tongue across her teeth. "But medical evidence never lies. Your medical records don't lie." She grabbed his arm and wrenched at, bringing another scream, and ran his hand across her torso. "What's wrong, isn't it good for you?" She pouted when he screamed again as she twisted his forearm. She dropped his arm, where it fell limply, and smiled at him. "DNA, DNA, it's relative in a way..." She sung softly, smiling at him.

She squirmed back down him as lighting flashed and thunder roared. He could feel her opening his belt, could see the hunger in her eyes. It was flat, ugly, and belonged to a savage creature of the ocean depths, not the beautiful young woman who sat astride him. The lightning reflected in her eyes was muted by the burning savagery in their depths, and the Vanguard agent felt his bowels and bladder let go.

"Oh, honey, don't worry, it happens to everyone." she cooed when the cold rainwater hit his skin and he flinched.

She held up two fingers, letting him see the electricity arcing between them in the darkness.

"Mama's little helpers." She smiled. "It works on coma victims, it'll work for you, baby."

Thunder drowned out his screams.

(Author's Note: The following takes place before The Bounty Hunter's War: Part II Arc 318122, Mission Five)

"And do you feel better, now that you have your vengeance upon that man?" Vatnya asked, squeezing Tachyon Hammer's hand. She smiled at him, all teeth and cruelty. Her blue hair was wrapped in a green towel, and a pink towel surrounded her torso as she sat at the table with the two men.

"Wouldn't you?" She snarled. "I may be easy, but that doesn't mean someone can come along and take it. It's mine to give, not someone else's to take."

"It was wasteful and childish." Code Vatnya told her coldly, his steel teeth flashing in the harsh fluorescent lighting. His expression was, as always, completely emotionless, his eye empty of humanity, and his voice as noninflected as a poorly programmed speech utility.

"Just because I didn't use a knife to torture it out of him doesn't mean I did not get the information, steel jaw." Tachyon snarled. "What was I supposed to do? Go to Longbow and say 'Gee golly wilikers, Ms. Liberty, this guy there, he might have taken liberties and junk with me while I passed out after he tried to cut my kidneys out and bashed my face in on a sink and all kinds of icky mean stuff!' and expect justice?

"Don't be a steel toothed moron. They would have just taken me out back the courthouse and blown my brains out with a pistol." She finished.

"Do not talk to me that way, child." The steel toothed Code Vatnya warned.

"Then don't talk to me like I'm one of your mechanical minions." Tachyon shot back, her eyes locking with his single one. "I'm not a child, and I have the scars to prove it."

"She has you there, brother." The Praetorian chuckled. When the other glared at him, he waved it away. "Save it, brother, I too am a supervillian, and that look might intimidate heroes, but like you, I watched Tyrant (Statesman to you) tear through the 15th Armor Division in order to intimidate the Soviet Union into giving back American spies."

The steel toothed Code Vatnya glared at the man and woman at the table for a long moment, then his features went back to emotionless. His voice was void of inflection when he continued, "So what did you learn?"

Tachyon Hammer smiled. "Well, first I learned that revenge is hot, sweet, and delicious. Other than that, I learned a lot." She picked up a glass of whiskey and coke and took a sip off of it. "Apparently, not satisfied with Longbow, there's a division of them called the Blackstars. These guys are deniable agents, most of them listed as killed in action, and used for wetwork and other covert operations.

"This group answers only to select members of the Vindicators, Statesman, Ms. Liberty, and that's it. They're the ones responsible for the increase in violence in Litak, they're the ones that assassinated Prime Minister Volinstra last year and blamed it on Arachnos, and a lot of other dirty deals.

"They have access to Longbow, Vanguard, Hero Corps, and Arachnos equipment, as well as are well plugged in to most of the intelligence networks. Apparently they've even managed to take over, refit, and redeploy a lot of old Soviet and American satellites. They've got heavy duty psionic support, most of it highly trained in mind control. All in all, the Blackstar are the bloody knife that Ms. Liberty uses to advance her schemes."

Both men nodded, the Praetorian jotting notes on an electronic notepad.

"The hitter who caught me in the bathroom is a deep cover Blackstar agent who helped with Ms. Liberty's little plan to take over Vanguard earlier this year. He was a fairly high ranking intelligence agent in Vanguard, and has not only been passing information to Longbow, but also to the Rikti." Tach took another drink off of her glass.

"To make Vanguard look ineffective and the UN foolish." the Praetorian nodded.

"Yup. Anyway, after some more questions, we got down to the meat of the whole thing." She sighed and shook her head. When both men looked at her questionably, she shrugged her shoulders. "Give me a minute, the shattering of all my childhood beliefs is pretty rough.

"Apparently, even if Statesman isn't guilty of everything you claim he is," She nodded at the steel jawed Code Vatnya, "He isn't exactly the upstanding guy people thinks he is. Apparently he is planning on invading Praetorian Earth to 'liberate the oppressed people who live there' and doesn't seem to care about the collateral damage."

"He never does." Code Vatnya snarled, his steel teeth flashing, motioning at the base around him. "He destroyed large sections of Paragon City, killed hundreds, left thousands homeless, because he was too arrogant to realize that dropping Rikti assault ships on a populated city might be a bad idea. The capitalist dog thinks with his biceps. He is the ultimate believer in might makes right, and cares nothing for those he..."

"Anyway..." Tachyon Hammer interrupted. "He plans on ramping up the propaganda machine and sending a whole bunch of heroes in to invade Praetoria, and while that is going on, Ms. Liberty will be sending in the Blackstars to do what they do best. Blackstar looks to be Longbow's advance party into Praetoria." She leaned back and folded her arms. "That's pretty much it, with one little itty bitty extra."

"What's that?" the Praetorian asked, setting his hand on her bare knee. Tachyon Hammer smiled at him, reached down, and squeezed his hand.

"I've got the location of one of their main operations and command centers." Tach said. "We'll need to make plans."

Both men smiled.

"Don't look so happy yet, gentlemen." Tach told them, "First of all, we need to go over the data we have, find out where our data has holes in it, figuring out what the enemy knows, and where they are weak or where we can manufacture weaknesses. We need to go over our allies, our enemies, and those we can hire or bribe. We'll need a complete inventory of not only our weaponry and assault equipment, but our spare parts, or repair and medical faculties, and our intelligence sources. Both electronic and HUMINT."

The Praetorian smiled even broader, listening to the young woman who's rough edges he'd worked to file away. She spoke with no hesitation, her eyes clear and focused, and she had obviously thought her way through what she was saying. The Praetorian had been impressed with the operation she'd put together. True, it was a little bit more complicated than he'd like, which was the mark of an amateur who was trying to cover every angle, but still it had been effective.

"Code Vatnya, my first question, is how did you figure out the conspiracy?" She asked, pulling her hand from the Russian's and clasping both hands on the table.

The steel toothed Russian looked as if he wasn't going to answer, his face immobile and expressionless until finally his mouth opened and he began to speak.

"I have had my suspicions that Statesman is not the hero everyone thinks he is for many years." Code Vatnya started. "Here in America, he was considered a hero for invading Russia, killing hundreds of soldiers that stood between him and the legally captured spies who had invaded the Soviet Union's airspace. He destroyed tanks, killed soldiers, shattered towns and farms, and slaughtered civilians during the fight.

"Oh, I've heard all about how if we had not fought so hard, those casualties would have never happened, and it was all our fault." Code Vatnya growled. "Americans seem to be happy when they can blame the dead on others, and love to ignore that it was Statesman's blatantly illegal 'might makes right' attitude that forced us to defend our nation. We had to defend ourselves, or we would have weakened ourselves in the eyes of our many enemies..."

"OK, I understand. You were there, right?" Tachyon asked, and Code Vatnya nodded. "So, after that, when did you suspect that he wasn't the hero that people thought?"

Code Vatnya's expression went cold again, and she gathered his thoughts, visibly pushing back his memories. "It was after the Rikti War. Hero One had not returned, but Statesman had. Hundreds of heroes died in the depths of the earth, but Statesman had emerged covered in glory, hailed as the entire world's hero. None remembered that Hero One and Statesman had been at bitter odds over the last few years, all everyone remembered was Statesman talking about how Hero One was his friend.

"Hero One is the one who caused the nations of the world that mattered to stand back from nuclear war, he was hailed as the hero of the entire tragedy, as he had relied on diplomacy, not strength and a belief that he could do no wrong. Everyone forgot that part."

"All right, I understand, Code, but I need to understand how you put this all together if we're going to figure out how to fight." Tach stated.

"Two things made me go back and look over everything." Code Vatnya finally admitted. "When heroes found those Manticore androids, and when the rumors started of Ms. Liberty and the Vindicators trying to take over Vanguard. It made me go back over everything and start questioning everything. I journeyed to Orobous and convinced them to tell me if anyone had gone back to Afghanistan the year I was maimed." Tachyon Hammer could feel the rage and malevolence rolling off of the steel toothed archvillian. "I found that several Longbow had gone back, with crates of weapons, and that Ms. Liberty had convinced those who dwell between time to allow them to go back in time."

"All right, so after you started investigating, Ms. Liberty sent a strike team armed with modern heavy weapons back to Afghanistan to kill you." Tach nodded.

The steel toothed Code Vatnya nodded. "I was told by those who dwell between time that they had warned her that it would not work, that I had made my mark on the timestream too deeply for her to kill me in the before. She apparently became very angry, but eventually left, furious that she could not go back to before I was ready for her and have her victories the way she was used to, by using other people or by fighting those much weaker than her. Like a true bully, she..."

"Enough." Tach's voice was harsh, and Code Vatnya just looked more cold, but he stopped speaking. Tach nodded, "Better. Continue, please." Tach said more gently.

"After that, Longbow began stepping up its attacks on my bases, reacting quickly to any sighting of my minions, to the extent of ignoring bank robberies, hostage situations, and bombings." Code Vatnya continued. "In the end, I ended up faking my death in order to get some breathing room." Code Vatnya admitted, "I had to abandon many of my secondary bases, all over the world, since even after death she kept up the heat, destroying my automated factories, trying to erase my very existence from the world, like the yellow bellied cur she..."

"I understand." She turned to the Praetorian. "Mihkeal, any comments?"

Code Vatnya stared at Tachyon Hamemr a long moment, and when she didn't flinch, didn't look away, a flicker of respect went through his one good eye and he looked down to his datapad, breaking eye contact first.

The Praetorian talked for long moments about how advanced weaponry kept being smuggled into third world nations, how he had spotted Longbow 'advisors' on both sides, and how both sides had massive funding to wage wars. He spoke about how it was the same tactics that Emperor Cole had used to weaken the nations of Praetorian Earth, so that they could not resist him. He spoke about how he had been more careful, setting up a network of contacts, had tracked weapon shipments, searched out and followed the money trails, and had managed to slowly collect data on where Longbow prison sites, Longbow bases, and Longbow assets were located.

Once they were done talking, Tachyon Hammer stared at both of them for a long time before speaking.

"All right, first things first." Tachyon Hammer told the two men. "We work together, no more lone gunman crap like you two have been doing, and like I did in the War Zone. We choose our targets carefully, and plan together."

She looked at the both for a long moment.

"It's time to take the fight to Longbow."

I figured I'd bump this to let everyone know that I haven't abandoned this thread.

I should be posting more images and story tomorrow. I'll worry about the story first, and the images later.

The plot, I believed, has thickened, and now it is time to sort through the strands and begin to determine the truth of things.

Who will survive? Who will emerge victorious? Who will die (and some will)? And who will lost everything?

Keep reading.

(Author's Note: The following takes place before The Bounty Hunter's War: Part II Arc 318122, Mission Five)

Despite what the media portrayed, Dark Astoria is not empty. Souls walk the streets, still going about their lives as if all living things in the suburb had not vanished one dark day. Cars litter the streets like toys discarded by a giant child who had been called in for lunch. The Banished Pantheon moves about performing unknowable tasks beneath the watching eyes of their ancestor spirits. Penumbra Council soldiers move about in squads, keeping close together, searching the city for things known only to their high command.

Heroes moved about, now and then, but none ever stay. The smell of rust, mold, overturned fresh dirt, and decay fills the fog, making it a thick miasma that sticks to clothing and armor together. Shadows seem to move of their own accord, and it has been said by some that a person's own shadow seems to fill with a malevolent purpose. It is not unheard of for a team of heroes to go into Dark Astoria on a mission, and to come back missing a member that had gotten lost in the fog and never returned.

In the northeast corner of the area a vast cemetery had been constructed, the final resting place for Paragon City's heroes who had fallen in her defense. Beneath a large hill wound catacombs where tomb after silent tomb held the mortal remains of those who fell in defense of the city. While city officials would consult their maps and shake their heads at the fact that there was only a small catacomb section according to official documents and those who had been contracted to build them, but the reality was that it was a large and twisting area that held homes for dead since before the city could have been much more than an English colony, conflicting with the fact that the city had been founded in the early nineteenth century.

The Banished Pantheon Storm Shaman lifted up his head from where his minions were excavating a grave to pull free the casket and saw a bloom of light move through the gate that led to the cemetery. His guards, drawn from beyond the veil of death to serve him, moved up to intercept the intruders with their weapons drawn, but the Shaman waved them back. He recognized that bloom, the way it wrapped around the one who produced it like a shroud, and had no desire to lose the servants he had spent long hours crafting and bending to his will.

Four others followed the bloom, and the Shaman bowed as the one wrapped in flame passed by. The show of respect did not go unnoticed as the small group passed, the flame wrapped one curtsying as she moved, a movement that should have looked stilted and awkward but instead flowed with her movement.

The Shaman could feel the immense arcane power in an object carried by the thin purple woman, and while he would normally order his minions to attack the group in order to gain possession of such an artifact, the Shaman knew that any attack would be futile, and so let the group pass unmolested. Even the powerful spirits that inhabited the lovingly hand crafted wooden masks moved back into the mists rather than risk another devastating confrontation with the four that moved to the catacombs and disappeared within.

Once they had moved into the depths of the earth the Shaman ordered his minions to continue to remove the casket from the grave that was marked with a date from the 17th Century.

The thudding of bootheels echoed through the tunnels of the catacombs, occasionally there was a crackle as the flames wrapping the lead figure incinerated cobwebs that had been lovingly built across the passageway. Deeper and deeper into the catacombs the heroes went, until at long last they arrived at a tomb door decorated with crossed hammers and a tribal shield.

Once the door was opened, the giant figure on the stone bier within was revealed, the flames around the lead figure causing shadows to dance within the crypt. Against the wall, in the far corner, a thin purple corpse lay where it had been tossed, its chest malformed and caved in.

"Another one?" Global Betty asked, pointing at the sprawled corpse with the stub of a cigar.

"Uh-huh." Inertia Flare answered, moving over to the opposite side of the stone slab that the massive unmoving form of Zuka was laid upon.

"Who's going to do this?" Colonel Victory asked, pulling shut the stone door.

"I'll do it." Inertia Flare told the others, reaching out and moving aside the shield and hammer that lay on the massive undead's chest. Betty nodded and reached into the bag she'd collected from her mercenaries. She pulled out the engraved and inlaid skull, the runes burning with an inner fire and the gems that had replaced the eyes glinting with an inner fire. Betty reached forward and placed the skull over Zuka's heart and stepped back.

Inertia twisted her hands on the shaft of the sledgehammer to get a good grip, took a deep breath, and brought the stained and blackened steel head down on the mystical skull. Part of her expected it to bounce away in a shower of arcane sparks, but instead it crashed through the bone and inlay, the skull erupting into a cloud of purple glimmering dust that puffed along the outlines of Zuka's body.

The dust settled, covering Zuka, and the light from it slowly disappated, leaving the massive undead unchanged. For a long moment silence stretched while everyone watched expectantly.

"That's it?" October Octogenarian asked, "What a waste..."

With a roar Zuka sat up, his massive hand stretching out and snatching his hammer from Inertia's grasp.

"Every damn time." October swore, shaking his head. "Everything's gotta be so melodramatic."

Zuka turned and faced October, his burning red eyes amused. "It is the way of magic, you of all should know that."

October shrugged and leaned against the wall, shoving his hands into the pockets of his leather duster. He watched as Zuka stood up and picked up the tribal shield. hefting his hammer and shield, he moved over the undecayed corpse of Global Betty sprawled in the corner, staring sightlessly at the ceiling.

"This one is an empty shell, a husk that has never known the bond of a soul to its flesh." Zuka said, kneeling down and reaching out to touch the corpse's brow with talon-like fingertips. "I sense another behind this husk, someone else who used this husk as another would use a horse."

"Really?" Inertia perked up. "Is there any signature left for you to track?"

"Alas, no. Perhaps Miss Moral can tell us?" Zuka looked around. "Where is the Maiden of Virtue?"

"I'm sorry, Zuka, she's gone." Colonel Victory said, shaking his head. "We went back to the base and checked, but it looks like they captured her." He looked as old as he was, the graven lines on his face deep, "She's listed as deceased in the Longbow databases, and they buried her in an unmarked grave."

"Another fallen." Zuka rumbled, his hand still pressed to the forehead of the "corpse."

The Male Mantid slowly moved over to a broken stone column and sat down, his breathing a heavy wheeze in the oppressive silence of the tomb. The real Global Betty moved over next to him and knelt down, laying her head on his thigh, and watched Zuka with empty eyes. Her friend was dying, and she knew there was nothing she could do to stop it.

The silence stretched for long moments, only broken by the gathered heroes breathing and the bubbling wheeze of the huge insect warrior. Zuka knelt, unmoving, for what seemed to be an eternity, until he stood up and rolled his head, the bones in his neck crackling loud in the silence.

"The one who rode this shell was a woman, she watched through the eyes of this creature, and moved it as a puppet. She had come to discover whether it was true or not that I lay dormant and still." Zuka stated, moving over to the books and other paraphernalia on a massive desk. "One such as I does not die, we merely become torpid until we are called back from our slumber by what binds us to the world of the living.

"Whoever was riding this shell had intended on causing it to explode with an overload of psychic energy. If it had not been for the protections I keep within this chamber, and Inertia Flare killing this shell, it would have exploded with enough force to severely damage my corpreal form and possibly even kill Inertia Flare." Zuka finished.

"How did you know it was me?" Inertia asked, the smell of drier sheets suddenly filling the tomb.

"The scorch marks, the wounds themselves, and the faint traces of your anger and rage." Zuka answered, "We have been comrades for many years, I recognize you in ways more intimate than you understand."

Inertia shivered briefly at the thought and turned away.

"All right, enough with the creepyness." Victory said, stepping forward and pointing at a blank wall with a piece of chalk. "May I?" Zuka nodded, and Colonel Victory moved over to the wall.

"All right. What do we know?" He asked.

"Ever since we listened to the Mad Russian on that Roman beach, we've been hunted." Inertia Flare snarled. Victory nodded and wrote on the wall "Code Vatnya's Speech"

"Longbow seem to be the primary aggressors." October Octogenarian stated. Victory nodded and wrote "Longbow aggression" on the wall.

The small group went through what they knew, which Victory had to admit, wasn't much. They also went through their assets, which wasn't much better. When Global Betty brought up the Lost, Inertia shook her head, telling her friends that this wasn't the Lost's fight, and that dragging them into the fight would serve no other purpose than to kill hundreds of them.

"We don't seem to have many options." Victory stated, stepping back and looking at the wall.

"We have one." Betty said, standing up and puffing on her cigar.

"What? Assault Longbow and hope to shake something loose?" Inertia asked.

"No. Something that nobody would expect." She grinned, the light glinting off of her triangular teeth.

"What? Spit it out." October said.

"Code Vatnya." She smiled at all of them. "We know he's alive. He more than likely knows that we know he is alive, and probably knows that we know that he knows that we know he is alive." Victory shook his head at the old joke.

"We team up with Code Vatnya, and we find out what the hell is going on." Betty smiled.

Tachyon Hammer moved through the base, stopping briefly to rub her fingertips across the molded metal head of one of Code Vatnya's mechanical minions, pushing down an urge to laugh as it purred and pressed against her fingers like a cat. The supervillian had told her that he had not programmed them to do that and acted confused about the little assault drone's actions, but Tach secretly believed that the Praetorian version had done it, it was one of the little things that separated the two men in her mind.

She patted the little drone on the head, her pink polished nails clicking on the battle-steel, and kept walking. She passed by weapons mounted on the walls and other trophies that had been taken over the decades of Code Vatnya's career. Here a US Army M-16A1 taken from Afghanistan; there an plasma rifle from the First Rikti War; objects picked up from all over the globe from a thousand battlefields and fights.

She peeked in the communications center as she moved past and saw it was empty, then moved on to the medical lab and finding it empty. She shrugged and wandered through the lab until she came to the labs. She could hear the sounds of a plasma cutter working on battle-steel before she ever got there, and felt her mouth twitch with the beginnings of a smile.

Mihkeal was busy putting a new armor compound plate onto one of the assault robots, standing on a ladder with the goggles pulled down over his face. She stared for a long time at the image before she walked in and leaned against the table, crossing her table and watching him work for a long time until the Russian finally snapped off the plasma torch, flipped up his goggles and began climbing down the ladder. When he turned around and saw her, he smiled.

"What brings you down to the slave pit?" Mihkeal asked, setting down the torch and goggles.

"I was looking for Steel Jaw." Tach answered.

"He's not in the communication room?" Mihkeal asked.

"No, nobody is."

"That's odd." Mihkeal mused, looking around. He pulled up the VRKeyboard and typed in a few quick commands. "He's still registered on the base, logged into the secure communications terminal."

"I'm telling you, he's not there." Tach said.

"I believe you, little one." Mihkeal said, walking out of the workshop. The keyboard followed him, floating along and beeping out the tune from a popular children's show that Mihkeal liked to sit and watch.

They looked into the communications room, finding it empty except for a little metal figure that spotted the pair and began squeaking excitedly and jumping backflips.

"He's listed by the systems as sitting right here, accessing databases." Mihkeal said.

"Then where the hell is he?" Tach answered, looking around. "It's not like he's a Stalker."

"I don't know." He twiddled the keyboard again for a moment. "According to Little Happy Gus, that little drone that hangs out by the armory, Code Vatnya opened up the armory and grabbed a bunch of stuff before leaving, but according to the mainframe the armory hasn't been opening since you did inventory yesterday."

"What did he take?" Tach asked, bending down and rubbing her finger on the little robot's head when it paused. It squeaked and jumped up and down.

"Gus doesn't know, he's not that smart." Mihkeal answered honestly.

"What did he take and where did he go?" Tach asked.