[5] The Final Ten

[Friend or Foe]

Kaden
Piper

Zena
Ares
Juno
Sophia

Sage
Ashe

Rose

Wizard

The time was dawn.

The location was Olde Town, a western ghost town in the sandtrap. There, Balrog had made it his base of operations. He was a buffoon, but he did do as he was told which made him very valuable to Kai. In the Olde Town Hotel, which was pretty trashed after the fighting in it, was Kaden and Piper, tied up and heavily guarded.

To the north was the group consisting of Zena, Ares, Juno and Sophia, leaving the cave system and wondering why all of a sudden, the soldiers chasing them had retreated.

To the south as Ashe and Sage, now alone after Rose abandoned them, and losing Kazuya and Wizard, assuming them dead.

To the east was Rose, who was lost in the sandtrap, heading towards the latest noise, which had been gunfire.

And to the southwest was Wizard, Jackson Pride and the dog known as Champ. Jackson had lost a fair fight to Wizard, and his life was spared. He had seen first hand the horrors that Kai had subjected his people to, and was planning on going with Oliver Nash to ensure he got the answers he wanted. Jackson had some questions of his own.


All of them were heading to the same location, unwittingly. Kai Demolic smirked from his monitor room as he flipped between cameras, watching all the groups. He smirked and looked back to find none of his lieutenants behind him. He was alone.

Kai Demolic wasn't a bad man. Not really. He donated to charity, took care of his parents, and volunteered his time to the less fortunate. But there was always that dark side to the man. He was, after all, the smartest man in the world. As people called him that, he began to believe it. He started to really think he could get away with anything.

And hey, nothing was proving him wrong so far.

"Jackson is with Nash," someone said behind him. He nodded, signalling he knew. "What are you going to do about it?"

"Nothing, Sebastian," Kai said. "Jackson is a man of honor. He doesn't believe in what we're trying to accomplish here."

Sebastian had to ask, but he knew the answer. "What happens if Jackson does bring him to us?"

Demolic didn't answer. He had too much history with the man who had saved his life in the Frost War to talk about the horrible things he would have to do to him. Kai hoped it didn't come to that.

"So what now?" The lanky man behind Kai asked.

The map came up on screen again. All of the dots were heading towards the center two dots, which marked Kaden and Piper. Soon, they would all meet.

"Now, my friend," Kai told him, "We watch the show. Balrog is going to have his hands full as soon as the ten fighters, including Jackson, show up on his doorstep. I hope he can handle them."


















(Don't roleplay Kai, Trisha, Rosemary or Sebastian. I'll be roleplaying periodically as Jackson, but probably not in any order. You can roleplay Balrog as you see fit.

Kaden and Piper are in Olde Town, locked up. Balrog doesn't know it, but Kai has set it up so everybody will show up in Olde Town, and obviously hell could, and should, break loose.

You have creative control to do as you wish, but please stay in Olde Town for this round, because I have a pre-determined finish to this. Please note that survivors of this round have made it half-way through the game, so I'll have a big development at the end of it.)

[Juno]

Daylight peeked through just ahead, and when Juno—who was currently leading the pack of warriors through the tunnels—spotted it, he had to stop in sheer disbelief. The other three adventurers all slowed to a halt, as well, in something which resembled a domino effect.

“What is it?” Sophia asked, taking a step forward where she was standing beside Juno. At that point, she saw it too. “Oh, God,” she sighed, taking a relieved step backwards.

“We’ve made it, guys,” Juno sighed. “The tunnel ends just ahead. We can see the light!” The Saiyan turned to his other two companions to watch smiles creep across their faces. Then, the group grinned in unison and took off in a giddy run. They all knew that it wasn’t over just because they’d made it out of the tunnels—but after several hours down there, they were extremely pleased to catch some sunlight on their skin.

The quartet practically leapt through the exit, tumbling into the sunlight; it washed over them, and they felt a heavenly heat. Juno looked to the sun, which was now slipping over the eastern horizon. Was it really dawn? Had the ragtag band of warriors really been in the caves throughout the night?

“It seems those soldiers stopped chasing us,” Zena—or whoever she was—noted. Juno looked up in alarm. He’d almost forgotten about the soldiers. He peered into the cave, but no sign of them seemed to be appearing. Why had they just stopped their chase all of a sudden? Another question that needed an answer. He’d been getting a lot of those lately.

A tiny whistle came from overhead. The hybrid looked up, and his eyes widened as he spotted a miniature missile boring down on them. He stumbled to his feet, rushing towards the closest of the three. “Holy sh—” was all he had time to say before the torpedo pummeled the ground with an outrageously loud BOOM.

The foursome was sent flying—Juno and Sophia, the one he had grabbed onto, sailed in one direction, while Zena and Ares were sent careening back towards the cave entrance.

The smoke cleared, and Juno’s eyes flickered open. A blurry image was presented to him, but when it came into focus, he could clearly see Sophia’s impatient face. “Oh, sorry,” he apologized awkwardly, rolling off of her. He stood up and brushed himself off while the priestess looked around. “Where’d Zena and Ares go?” he asked.

“Not sure,” Sophia replied, looking around. For the first time, they got a good glimpse of their surroundings. Juno felt as if he was in one of those old spaghetti western movies—that, of course, just happened to have missiles coming out of nowhere—as he looked at the ghost town.

A vision flashed through his mind, and he looked behind him. He quickly brought his palm up and shot a blast of energy through the cracked window of what looked to be the town’s saloon, and heard the pained cry of someone inside. He rushed into the building, and looked at his prey.

He was donned in the same black attire that the soldiers that had been chasing them were in, and his ki rifle lay by his side. The only difference between him and the other soldiers? He now had a gaping hole in his abdomen, following Juno’s attack. He writhed in pain, squealing pitifully. Sophia hurried inside behind Juno.

“Where are we?” Juno demanded, grabbing the dying man by his collar and hoisting him up to eye level. The soldier spat out blood onto Juno’s black jumpsuit.

“You’re in Olde Town,” he coughed. Juno lifted an eyebrow—Olde Town? What in God’s name was Olde Town? “Watch out, boy—and girl,” he choked, noticing Sophia, “Balrog’s here, and he isn’t going to play nice.” Juno was now even more confused.

“Balrog?” he posed.

“Balrog Tast—one of the boss’s lieutenants,” the soldier spat. “He’s not going to let you get out as easily as you think you will, you arrogant… little… ba…” However, the first syllable of that expletive was also the soldier’s last syllable—his head flopped back, and his pulse slowed. Juno checked it, and soon it morphed from a lethargic beating of the heart to a nonexistant one—the boy was dead.

Sophia stepped back, still unsure about all this killing. Juno stood, and turned to see her fearful expression emblazoned painfully upon her face. She began to tear up, wailing quietly. “Come on, now,” he soothed, “It was necessary. He tried to kill us, Soph, I was just returning the favor.” He grabbed her wrist, and felt her tense up slightly.

Was he going to try and kill her? She knew he’d been putting on an act; she knew it! And now, he had her alone, no one would know, he would say it was the soldier. He pulled her closer and placed a hand on her neck. She tensed up, prepared to fight back if he even tried anything stupid. But suddenly, her suspicions were dissolved when he leaned in and kissed her lightly on the cheek.

“I told you,” he reminded her, “I won’t let anything hurt you.”

Sophia pulled away, slightly embarrassed. Juno ignored her reluctance, feeling a small victory, and stepped past her, opening the door and waltzing back out into the fresh air, finding Zena and Ares standing in the middle of the western-style dirt street.

“Well, well, well,” Ares chuckled, “What have you two been doing since we've been gone?” he asked suggestively, laughing.

Juno scoffed. “Saving our hides and finding out what the heck’s going on, for your information,” the hybrid informed the full-blood. “We’re looking for a guy named Tast. Balrog Tast. He seems to be the head of whatever operation we’ve gotten ourselves involved in here.”

“Well then, let’s go,” the self-claimed real Zena barked.

[Piper Juunanagou]

Orion was dead.

Piper and Kaden had watched the one-eyed warrior walk away from the kill. They watched him spare a life, something neither of them thought the seemingly cruel man was capable of. They watched him turn his cheek and be the better man.

And then they watched as he was gunned down right in front of their eyes.

The last thing Piper remembered before being bludgeoned in the back of the head was the sight of that man’s bloody smirk as he collapsed.

***

Amidst the darkness of her unconscious, rough images began to take shape—swirling and churning like murky water until the redhead found herself sitting on an old bench in the middle of a small park. Even as the images grew sharper, the color of the surrounding world remained a drab tone of sepia, akin to an old photograph.

The tiny park that had formed around the mildly startled woman was nothing more than a large stone fountain and a few benches built at the fork of a large, cobblestone road. A few patches of grass peaked up through the dirt, but for the most part, the ground was dry and barren. Looking up, Piper noted the dozens of small, two- or three-story buildings that lined both sides of the street. As she noted the lack of cars and streetlights, the woman felt the familiar feeling of déjà vu befalling her.

Even more bizarre than any of the scenery, however, was the throngs of people casually meandering up and down the sidewalks. The woman all wore long dresses and billowy blouses, and the majority of the men genuinely looked like cowboys, all the way down to the revolvers and spurs.

Rising from the bench, Piper slowly made her way down the center of the cobblestone street. None of the town’s inhabitants paid any notice to the woman, and when the redhead took a moment to look at a nearby building, she realized why.

“Sheriff’s Office,” she mumbled as her eyes scanned the familiar wooden sign that hung over the multi-story structure. Walking—quite literally—through the small group of people hanging outside the wooden building, Piper ascended the front stairs and made her way into the building.

“Beautiful,” she muttered as she surveyed the room. Unlike the present, all the furniture and decorations were in pristine condition. The paintings of former city officials that hung on the walls were clean and coherent, unlike their tattered, torn contemporaries. Unlike the dark, mildly terrifying room of the present, the old Sheriff’s Office was abuzz with life. Everyone was skirting around, busying themselves with paperwork or enjoying some water next what looked like a barrel.

“Water cooler talk’s a lot more antiquated than I thought,” Piper muttered sarcastically as screams suddenly filled the air. Spinning around, the redhead drew her pistol from the backside of her jeans. By the time she could discern what was going on, a trio of men in dark hats pushed their way through a frightened crowd of civilians. Drawing six shooters from their waists, the men began to mow down the numerous deputies and secretarial staff. One of the bullets passed through Piper’s forehead, and just like that, she was someplace new.

With a faint yelp of shock, the woman was suddenly in the foyer of the Olde Town Hotel. Taking a few steps forward, she put a hand to her head and tapped her forehead, as if she was expecting there to be a bullet hole. Letting her hand fall back down to her side, she moved toward the massive staircase that dominated the hotel’s grandiose foyer. At the base of the stairs, she turned around and tried to enjoy the majesty that the hotel had fostered during its heyday.

Just like in the Sheriff’s Office, the building was abuzz with life. People were enjoying meals at several small tables positioned next to the large windows that dominated three of the room’s four walls. Like bees in a hive, the members of the hotel staff scurried around, always looking for something to do or someone to help. It was astonishing to see that a place that looked so dead and decayed could have at one point been the nexus of such life.

Unfortunately for Olde Town, most stories don’t have a happy ending.

As Piper looked on, a gang of men in black hats poured into the hotel’s extravagant lobby. It wasn’t until they began to systematically execute everyone in sight that the throng of people panicked. The medic’s eyes went wide as the defenseless civilians began to topple like dominos amidst the flurry of bullets. The redhead clenched her teeth as she moved forward—her face determined to do something to avert this horrible massacre.

“Piper…” a familiar voice called out, prompting the woman to come to a grinding halt. Spinning around, she found herself staring at the young courier, who was—oddly enough—dressed in period garb. He had a confused look on his face as he stared at her. “Piper…wake up!” He shouted as the hotel suddenly began to melt away around Piper.

“No,” she muttered as everything around her started to run together like a beautiful painting doused in turpentine. Turning around, Piper watched as the massacre faded into obscurity and then to blackness.

***

“No!” Piper screamed as her eyes snapped open. With haggard breaths, the woman lifted her head and found herself still in the Olde Town Hotel. Only this wasn’t the gorgeous building it had been in decades passed. This was the derelict that had nearly been consumed in the fires of the siege Kai’s thugs had brought upon the ghost town.

Groaning softly, the redhead tried to move her hands only to find that they were bound behind her back. For the second time in less than a day, Piper was once again a prisoner of one of Kai Demolic’s cronies.

“Piper,” turning her head, the woman saw her young companion, who was chained just as she was. “Are you okay? It sounded like you were choking or something.”

“I’m fine,” the redhead muttered despondently as she let her head hang forward. It was a complete and utter lie, and part of Piper knew that her lethargic tone made that point rather evident. At this point, the redhead lacked the stoicism to mask the depression. She was used to people dying on the battlefield, but this was... different.


"Orion didn't deserve that," she muttered as she tilted her head to look over at Kaden. "He chose to be the better man, and he paid the ultimate price," she added softly as the courier nodded his head. "We have to finish what Szar began...we need to bring the bastard behind all of this to justice," Piper rasped before falling silent.

[Sage]

The two girls had ran, madly sprinting through the obfuscating darkness that had fallen over the main floor of the facility. The glass double-doors they were racing toward let the sun through, carving the light into a long, square pillar, like the light at the end of the tunnel. They ran for it, oblivious to the fact that there were no more goblins, or even that they were running exactly toward where Kai wanted them to go. They burst through the doors.

Ashe and Sage had ran out into the open desert, and kept on running until Sage ultimately fell to her knees, her chest tight and burning. Not this again... She groaned softly as the pink haired girl helped her back to her feet, sweat pouring from her suddenly feverish face. Ashe wore a look of obvious concern.

“Sage, you’re-”

“I’m-” the azure haired girl winced. “I’m... okay. Just... asthma...” she took in a deep breath, fighting back the coughing fit that crept up in her throat. She took a few more deep breaths and exhaled slowly, before she nodded to the younger girl.

They continued, walking now, each enduring an awkward silence. Sage took this time to think, which seemed to only make things worse. “I wonder if we should wait for...” she paused, unable to recall the name. “The... um... ninja?” she hesitantly guessed.

Ashe stopped, prompting Sage to do the same. She thought for a moment, “I... don’t think so. She told us to get going, so we can’t be sure she’s not planning something. It might be dangerous to go back.”

“I know, I just...” the coral eyed girl sighed. “I can’t help but, um, can’t help but feel like we’re abandoning her. ...And that old man,” she frowned, suddenly realizing she was being selfish. “I’m... I’m sorry your sister left you behind like that-”

Ashe raised an eyebrow, but she already knew Sage was referring to Rose. “She’s not my sister,” came the reply, laced with a hint of coldness, which garnered a look of surprise from the blue haired girl. “We’re not related.”

“Oh... I, um, ...sorry,” was the meek response. She’d apparently reverted to her timid persona once again. “I just... assumed-”

“Don’t worry about it,”

“Okay-”

“I can’t believe she bailed on me like that. I thought-” Ashe cut herself off. “Maybe I don’t know... maybe I can’t really blame her. Maybe I would have done the same thing...”

Sage knew she couldn’t blame Rose. She, herself, had left Nash and Kazuya behind, not even looking over her shoulder to see if maybe they were chasing after her. They could be dead now, all because she and Ashe had chosen to run away like Rose, rather than to stay and fight like Kazuya had done. And Sage had been suspicious of the purple haired warrior! The girl suddenly felt sick. Her chin fell close to her chest, and she hugged herself.

“I... feel like... like we betrayed them...” she softly declared. “I don’t...” Sage pulled the plasma pistol from her jean pocket, and stared hard at it, turning it over a few times. “...I don’t want to keep playing this game,” she admitted, not taking her eyes off the gun.

Ashe placed a hand on top of the pistol, and pushed Sage’s hand down, until the weapon fell at her side. “Nobody does,” she retorted, catching the girl’s gaze with her own. Sage hesitated for a moment, then nodded, and pocketed the weapon once again.

The addict and the high schooler walked through the sand in silence for a while, with Sage constantly checking the sands for any sign that they might be shifting. The last thing she wanted was to come face to face with any more scorpions.

Ashe was right, though. Sage had made her choice, and now she had to live with it.

“Hey, um,” surprisingly, it was the princess that broke the silence. “When I... was... um...” she grimaced, unsure how to phrase her thoughts. “...Dealing... with you in the, uh, elevator... you have a really strange...”

The pink haired girl knew where this was going. “It’s a birthmark. I’ve had it... basically forever, I guess.”

Sage’s eyes narrowed. “But... it was glowing.”

For a long time they walked in silence, until, finally, Ashe spoke up. “Well,” she paused for a moment. “I don’t know what to say about that. I really have no idea...”

The hybrid could see the discomfort on Ashe’s face, so she said nothing. It was probably best to just let it go, despite the many questions that raced through her head about it. Conveniently - too conveniently, actually, just like everything else on this island - the flat horizon was suddenly broken by tiny black squares against the sun. Ashe pointed and Sage nodded. It seemed they had a destination, now, though both of them silently shared the fear that a town in the middle of the desert was probably too good to be true. But there was nowhere to go, except back to the waterways. Sage cringed at the thought.

“Hey, Ashe,”

“Yeah?”

“I just, um, wanted to say... whatever happens...” she considered herself for a moment. “Thanks.”

“For what?”

“For... for being my friend.”

[Kaden]

It was truly astounding. So far, Kaden had done nothing but astonish himself time and again. Unfortunately, these neigh-unbelievable feats were not things he would be bragging about any time in the near future. There must be some sick, sadistic, masochistic demon lurking within the depths of his mind, reaching out to take control when the courier least expected it; scenes replayed themselves in his head, in case there was any doubt.

Sneaking into Kai's mansion wasn't really the smartest way to start off this little game, but it ended up with Kaden trying to help a copy bring down a criminal. A noble endeavor. When confronted with that criminal, however, instead of coming to the aid of his allies, or trying to subdue Kai, Kaden had decided to leap out a window. While not the least rational choice he could have made at the time, it actually made the courier feel as pathetic as it sounded.

The chase into the dessert had quickly followed. Though it was, again, a noble effort on Kaden's part, it hadn't exactly ended well. While both Piper and Szar had been freed from Trisha's proverbial clutches, they had been attacked by giant scorpions almost immediately. Kaden should have been able to detect Balrog's approach. He should have been able to warn Szar of the threat that closed in upon them. Instead, Kaden proved again that he was neither experienced nor capable enough to help the people he considered his allies.

Just before coming into Olde Town, Kaden displayed his inability to be of use. His best asset in a situation like this was his sixth sense, his ability to feel when other people were approaching. That certainly didn't stop the bad guys from demolishing their SUV with a Rocket-Propelled Grenade, and taking out Dimitri the same way they had taken out Szar.

And what happened after that? They had escaped into Olde Town and Kaden had launched into a rhetorical onslaught about the sancity of life. A lot of good that had done. If Orion had just killed Balrog, if he had done what he had probably planned on doing, they might not be in the situation they were in now. But nooooo. He had listened to Kaden.

Who was Kaden to be preaching to anyone? He had turned out to be just another hypocritical idealist, spouting the kind of nonsense that belonged in class-rooms or the dorm commons. It wasn't until Piper spoke that Kaden broke out of his download spiral of self-loathing.

"Orion didn't deserve that," the medic began "He chose to be the better man, and he paid the ultimate price. We have to finish what Szar began...we need to bring the bastard behind all of this to justice."

"You're right," Kaden replied.

It was simple and straight-forward. A price had been paid for Kaden's naievette, but Orion had been the one to pay it. A price had been paid for Kaden's lack of focus, but it had fallen upon Szar. A price had also been paid for Kaden's inexperience, but he didn't even know the name of the man who had paid.

There was still an immeasurable amount of pain and anguish inside of Kaden. The life he had so quickly ended was something that would weigh on his conscious for a long time. Unfortunately, he would have to put that on hold. There were other things to worry about and the courier needed to turn his mind to them before worrying about his own psychological scarring.

It was almost disturbing how easily Kaden pushed back his feelings of guilt and remorse. A familiar sense of apathy washed across his psyche like a cool breeze. He knew the feelings weren't gone, he knew there were issues to be resolved, but they were becoming nothing more than a speck on the horizon.

Knowing that right there, right then, nothing mattered was almost reassuring to the courier. Regardless of the future consequences, Kaden almost considered it a strength that he could simply detach himself from a situation like that. In truth, he had to consider it a strength. To call it what it was -- cowardly, weak, pathetic -- would bring down walls that Kaden would never be able to put back up.

"Piper," Kaden turned his head towards the woman as he spoke. "I'm, uh... I'm sorry. I've been pretty pathetic so far." Piper opened her mouth to say something, but Kaden shook his head and continued. "I just mean that you were right. There will be time for beating myself up later. I'm ok now." Kaden tried to bring his hand up to his head, but they were safely fastened behind his head. "I mean... I'm not ok. I, uh, I just killed someone. But I mean I, uh..." With a sigh, Kaden simply gave up.

"It's alright," Piper smiled at the courier. "I understand."

"Hey!"

Kicking open the front door to the Olde Town Hotel, one of the thugs marched towards Kaden and Piper. The two Hunters had been bound and left sitting in front of the main desk in the hotel's lobby. Other than the sound of distant boots on the old creaking floors of the hotel, there hadn't been any sign sign of guards watching over the captives. Sadly, it didn't stay that way.

"What're you two talking about?" the guard growled as he stopped towards Kaden.

"Apartheid," Kaden responded simply.

An awkward kind of tension slowly crept into the hotel lobby as the gun-totting goon glared from Kaden to Piper and back to Kaden. Piper's eyes darted along a similar route, moving between Kaden and the guard. She let out a gasp as guard took another step forward.

Kaden expected some kind of violent retort, but he had also expected it to be verbal. His eyes widened in realization as the guard's boot slammed straight into his face. Kaden's head snapped backwards, hitting front desk he had been leaning against with a sickening crack. The courier let out a low moan as he head slumped forward.

"Smartass..." the guard mumbled as he turned and walked back towards the front door.

"Are you ok?" Piper whispered once the door had closed behind the guard.

"I just got a boot in the face," Kaden growled. "I've been better." Almost instantly the courier cursed at himself. He shook his head -- immediately regretting the action -- and turned his body towards Piper. "I'm ok, Piper." Kaden tried to convey his sincerity -- mixed with a little regret -- as he spoke. "Thanks for asking."

Nodding in reponse, Piper seemed to turn her attention towards the chains that bound her wrists. She seemed to be contemplating the same problem Kaden was. Their ankles were also bound, but that seemed much less significant. Kaden was quite confident that if they managed to free their hands, freeing their legs would be a simple task.

A thought suddenly occured to Kaden. These thugs definitely didn't seem like they were choosen for their outstanding intellects, so the courier entertained the thought they might not have taken Trisha's dagger from him. Unfortauntely, he wasn't really in any position to check.

"Piper," the courier whispered. "Is that dagger still tucked, uh... do you see that dagger I had?"

As best as he could, Kaden pulled up the edge of his shirt. It was an awkward endeavor with both of his hands behind his back. Kaden had tucked the weapon into the waist of his pants and mostly forgotten about it. Using a bladed weapon didn't seem like the best choice for someone trying to not kill others. It was an awkward several seconds as Piper scanned the waist of the courier's pants.

"Yeah, I see it. Hold still a second."

The soft shuffling of the two Hunters filled the lobby as Piper turned her back to Kaden and managed to retrieve the dagger. In short order, she drawn the curved blade and instructed Kaden to turn around. It was several seconds before the courier complied.

Despite his mental fortitude -- as Kaden liked to think of it -- in pushing back the emotions that raged inside of him, his body was not so well trained. Kaden had been somewhat thankful that his hands were bound behind his back, since they had been shaking almost non-stop since he had killed. The last thing he wanted was for Piper to see his trepidation after assuring her he would be alright.

"Ok, hold still," Piper instructed as she backed towards Kaden. The dagger was gripped awkwardly in her hands and her neck was craned at an obviously uncomfortable angle as she brought the blade towards Kaden's restraints.

Ordinarily, there was no way a little knife would be able to severe the chains that bound Kaden and Piper. Trisha's blade, as Kaden had noticed back in the mansion, was able to channel the energy of the person who held. In anyone else's hand it would be a potent weapon in combat; to Kaden, it was just a really sharp pocket knife.

"Almost got it," Piper lowered the blade. She tightened her grip on the blade and drove it into Kaden's chains.

"Gah!" the courier suddenly cried out in pain.

Whirling about, Piper's eyes widened as he saw Kaden gripping his wrist and grimacing in pain. Kaden's dagger dropped the floor beside the chains that had previously restrained the courier as Piper urged Kaden to let her see his wrist. Shakily, the courier lifted his wrist and removed his hand. Piper's eyes darted across Kaden's forearm.

"I was just messing with ya," the courier grinned.

"You..." Piper glared at Kaden as he picked the dagger up off the ground. "Jerk," she finally settled on.

In the next few seconds, the two of them had been freed from their restraints and Kaden had tucked his weapon back into his pants. They needed to figure out what they were going to do, and they needed to figure it out fast. There were only two real options from the lobby: either they could head upstairs, or they could try to use the front door. Given their previous rooftop activity, Kaden preferred the latter.

"So how many people are out there?" Piper whispered as they approached the front door.

"Only one, right now," Kaden responded, his eyes glowing dimly. "But a handful of others have been walking all around town."

Piper nodded and reached for the door, but Kaden caught her wrist. He made it clear that he wanted to be the one to head out first, to which Piper simply nodded and took a step backwards. Taking in a deep breath, Kaden pulled the door open.

It had been the courier's hope that the door would open relatively quitely, but the weather-beaten door would have none of that. At the sound of the groaning hinges, the guard turned towards Kaden. Or tried to. Having mentally braced himself, Kaden was able to react faster than he had over the course of this stupid reality show.

The guard froze in place as Kaden's pointer and middle finger jabbed against the side of his neck. Wasting no time, the courier twisted his hand at the wrist, turning his fingers as one might a key. A small burst of light shone from the courier's finger tips, but faded almost immediately. The guard had time to look towards Kaden before his eyes rolled back into his head and he collapsed onto the wooden porch of the hotel.

"He should be out for a few minutes," Kaden told Piper as she stepped over the unconscious body and started down the main road of Olde Town.

Before joining her, Kaden dropped his eyes to the guard he had incapacitated. Scowling at the man he lifted his foot and returned the kick he had received. With that taken care of, he quickly joined up with Piper.

The two exchanged whispered ideas of what their next course of action should be. It was clear that they bought thought they needed to get off the main street and find somewhere to lay low. With that thought in mind, the two of them ducked into an alley across from the hotel. Before they could decide what to do next, though, Kaden motioned for Piper to stay silent.

From the other end of the alley, Kaden could distinctly see two figured about to round the corner. He held up two fingers and pointed in the direction ofthe incoming guards. Piper nodded in acknowledgement and started moving. Before Kaden could so much as open his mouth, the medic was positioned to ambush the thugs.

As the first black-clad minion of Kai stepped into the alley, Piper cocked her first and took aim. Just as she began throwing her punch, however, a bolt of blue light struck her arm. Energy rushed into Piper's body as her fist slammed against the guard's face. The thug was lifted off his feet and propelled several yards in the direction he had just come from.

Seeing Piper's assault, the next attacker had time to prepare. Unfortunately, it wouldn't make a difference. Hopping into the air, Piper caught sight of Kaden hurling another bolt of energy in her direction. The wave of ki crashed against her leg this time. With a quick spin, Piper dispatched the second thug with a powerful kick.

"Nicely done," Kaden said as he jogged up to Piper. He looked from one unconscious guard to the other and then turned his attention to Piper.

"You too," she returned the compliment with a smile.

Before any more thugs showed up, Piper and Kaden made their way through the closest door they could find. The "Hunters" found themselves in the backroom of some kind of shop. Kaden illuminated the small place with an orb of ki, but put it out at Piper's recommendation.

"We need to make it back to Kai's mansion," Piper reminded Kaden in a whispered tone.

"I haven't seen these guys driving any kind of vehicles," Kaden mused. "Which means we're either pretty close to the mansion itself, or we're pretty close to somewhere that has some kind of transportation."

"Yeah," Piper nodded in agreement. "But either way, we're going to have to make our way through some amount of dessert. We'll be better off doing that while it's still dark out. So, any idea which way we should be headed?"

Kaden had anticipated that that would be the next line of questioning and had already closed his mind and turned his focus to sensing the people around him. Though he wouldn't be able to tell where the mansion was, if he could pick out a definitely flow of traffic he could extrpolate from there.

Focusing on his sixth sense turned out to be a bit more difficult than Kaden had hoped. While he had certainly been trying to put on a calm, collected face, visions of him striking down the thug and Orion being shot in the back still drifted through his consciousness. At the very least, trying to ignore those thoughts gave Kaden something to actively distract himself with while he sensed outwards.

"I think... I think there are some people approaching the town," Kaden finally told his comrade.

"Which direction are they coming from?" Piper inquired.

"From that direction." Kaden pointed almost straight-forward; unknowingly he almost jabbed Piper as he did so.

"Let's get moving, then."

Hopping to her feet, Piper waited for Kaden to do the same before starting out the door into the back road of Olde Town. Off of the main road, there wasn't much to the town. In either direction Piper and Kaden were faced with the backs of buildings. Various crates and barrels littered the ground, along with an occassional post for tethering animals. It definitely gave the derelict town a creepier feeling.

It would have been helpful for Kaden to know which they were headed. With all of the running for their lives and being attacked, both of the Hunters had lost just about any sense of direction their once had, and the buildings of Olde Town were too weathered to be useful as landmarks. Kaden would probably be able to identify the Sherrif's Office or the Hotel if he were on the main street, but that didn't do a whole lot of good.

After several minutes of slow progress and relative silence, Kaden's sixth sense flared up. His hand shot forward and clasped Piper's wrist, pulling her to a stop before she passed by the next alley. Whirling about, Piper opened her mouth to ask Kaden what he was doing, but stopped when he motioned for silence. The courier began walking backwards, pulling Piper along as he did. When they had backtracked at least a full building's width, Kaden spoke in a very hushed tone.

"The people I mentioned earlier? They're in that alleyway," Kaden explained.

Piper turned her head towards the alley, considering Kaden's words. As she replied, Kaden was actually sure whether she was whispering or communicating telepathically. Kaden only suspected that Piper possessed such an ability, though, so he assumed she was using the more conventional method.

"How many of them are there?" she asked.

"Uh.." Kaden squinted his glowing eyes. He could make out the flow of light, but trying to distinguish shapes in it was proving quite difficult. "I'm not really sure. One or two, I think. Maybe three. Well... there could be four, I guess." Kaden ran a frustrated hand through his hair. "This isn't really an exact science," he added.

Piper stifled a chuckle and nodded to Kaden. Without saying anything else, she began moving back towards the alley. The way she was crouched, Kaden could only assume she planned to get past them one way or another. Before that, though, Kaden stopped her once more.

"I don't think they're Kai's goons," Kaden informed her.

"No?" Piper arched an eyebrow at her ally.

"Well... I can't be a hundred percent sure," Kaden tried not to sound as dejected as he felt.

"Any idea who it might be?" Piper followed up.

"Not really. I mean... what if there are other people like us?" the courier posed. "Hunters, I mean. Or even the people Orion and Ares had been going after."

For several seconds, Piper eyed Kaden, obviously skeptical. Kaden couldn't really blame her. It was crazy to think that other people with crazy abilities had made their way through a dessert and stumbled onto, for lack of a better term, a ghost town just as Piper and Kaden were trying to escape. Despite the irrationality of it, Kaden held firm.

"It's hard to explain," he began. "I just don't think they're with Kai. It doesn't feel right."

While Piper considered her ally's words, Kaden stepped past her and approached the opening to the alley. He took a deep breath and tried to steady himself. He was taking a leap of faith based on a feeling he had from an ability that was unreliable at best. Despite that, Kaden straightened himself up and stepped around the corner.

"Hey," he said with a wave.

[James]

Plums of black smoke bellowed up contrasting that of the dust beginning to settle above where a scorched plot of earth gradually became visible where the ground had intercepted the missile. The fierce thrust of force from the explosion had sent the Saiyan wheeling back; twisting onto his side he skidded towards wince he had came with an arm before his face shielding himself from the shock, dragging his fingers through the sand in order to slow his speed.

Over the dunes a waning rumble quaked the sky, declining to the distant whistle of the coursing wind tracing grains of sand over the halfling. Growling he stood, hawking a fine mud mixture from between his lips. That was far too careless of him, with three heads of bounty at hand it would a loss to lose even one at the price of a brief overlook of the surroundings.

Nearby he caught sight of the princess, or Zasha, who ever she was recovering from the impact, appearing to have survived unscathed from the sudden attack.

"You okay?" he asked, not particularly caring for an answer as his attention wavered to the rising rooftops over a dune's peak. With two other missing from the group it was probably safe to assume that had been their route for cover within the decrepit buildings. "Come on." without waiting for a response he strode forward into the dusty streets not at all a stranger to this era of human history.

Stepping lightly they entered, observing the new surroundings sprawling with potential barriers and beautiful sniping points that, if more soldiers were here at all, would most likely be taking advantage of.

From inside one of the nearby buildings echoed out that of the familiar gender combination that had been lost from group. The two emerged from within, behind them the huddled body of a man lay peacefully on the floor that didn't attract that much interest.

“Well, well, well - What have you two been doing since we've been gone?” Ares smirked catching the familiar rush of blood draining from Sophia's cheeks as she exited behind Juno. They explained the situation, verifying Ares' assumption of the town's occupation by the gunmen who had most likely been tracking them through the caves.

“Well then, let’s go,” Zena exclaimed.

"Go?" the halfling answered to the mysterious new Zena still unsure of her true nature and relation. "Best bet would be somewhere central that this Balrog will be dug in."

"How are we going to know where that is? We don't even know where we are." Sophia noted. Laughing slightly to himself, the Saiyan shrugged already formulating how this could be made a little more interesting.

"Well, a base has to have a significant supply of able-bodied soldiers. That's a given. But create a scenario demanding that number to thin and you not only can diminish the potential that stronghold has against a full-on assault but also discover where it might lie from where the cannon fodder is coming from." Ares explaining while strolling out into the middle of the street surveying the line of buildings.

Curiously Juno raised an eyebrow watching as a thin veil of dust began swirling about the fiery warrior's feet, suspicious till his pupils widened in realization of what was about to happen. Lifting an arm, the mercenary's palm rippled as his energy began gaining intensity, centralizing itself as more fresh ki was piled on.

"Are you fucking insane!" but it was too late; Ares had tossed the sphere with as much strength as he could muster into what looked like an old drug store. The resulting eruption sent planks of wood, dirt and smoke high into the sky as if a bomb had gone off inside.

Turning, the Saiyan wasted no time in launching two more blasts down the street taking out two more structures that blew into flames upon contact with the heated blasts of spiritual energy. Feeling the rush of adrenaline was too much... the nearby fire-heated air licking across his face, the sound of destruction of the explosions, all of it bringing a malicious grin that spread across his lips so serenely it was almost as though it belonged.

As predicted the sound of yells in the distance ensued, encroaching on their position in what sounded like a good numbered squad all most likely armed with the essentials. Uncharacteristically an excited laughter lifted from Ares' throat as if he had been waiting for this moment to cause a bit of true chaos opposed to this petty little child's play he'd been subjected to.

He breathed deep, the scent of burning wood hung heavy in the desert winds. The sun blazed in glory above in a clear, cloudless sky- deep blue, graced with fleets of dark smoke withering away in attempts to reach what couldn't be touched. In the distance the soldiers rounded the corner, taking aim with their rifles before pulling their triggers not much unlike that of a firing squad.

Instantly the group ducked behind the cover of anything nailed down in protection against the marksmen, Shopia and Juno diving back where the boy's latest kill lay while the princess took hold in the surprisingly bulky remains of the building Ares had taken out. As for the hybrid, he found solace in a turned over horse-drawn coach that provided little if any cover against the charged shots raining down on their positions.

Grinning, he whipped an arm around the side of his barricade, sending several blasts down the way at the attackers. Still chuckling under his breath, Ares called out across the way to the others. "Least if we don't survive it's sure a Hell of a good day to die!"

[Kappa]

WARNING: This post is a flashback and will not count.

Oh, how the mighty had fallen. Like a deck of cards… ‘Yeah, if each card weighed a ton and was packed with dynamite,’ he quipped to himself. Oliver took heavy breaths, his heart worn out. The blood loss was starting to go to his head, invoking a spell of vertigo. He was gazing across the stretch at the felled God—of whom, he was seeing doubles ... or maybe even triples.

The warrior, Jackson Pride, struggled to get to his feet but his foundations were failing him. The force of Wizard’s Shocking First Bullet had torn apart his Achilles tendon and crushed his ankle to dust. The remaining leg worked but it was heavily fractured. He wouldn’t be throwing any more of those kicks. Not now … not for a while.

“G-good, you’re finally showing your true colors. I—ergh—knew you were the one…” Pride had said, grunting through the pain, “…but don’t think I’m done. W..we will shock the stars yet, Oliver Nash. Give me a warrior’s death. FIGHT.”

Such tenacity should have awed, and maybe even inspired the Wizard. But for some reason, it enraged him. Looking at the giant fighter who was now collecting energy in his paws, readying himself for another round, Oliver saw himself. A broken mirror image of himself… of the damned man he had become in this place. Twisted and manipulated, for purposes most foul. But by what, he asked. Or rather, whom? He would get his answers; even if it meant breaking his promise to the man.

“No. You are not worthy.”

Jackson’s eyes went wide; bloodshot, angry. “What? You will not deny me this, Wizard!” His ignited fists came together, fusing to create a wall of crimson energy. It moved at a remarkable pace, too quick to avoid. The veteran ate the full force of Pride’s magic and was thrust into a wall. Smoke arose from the bloody mark where it had struck, not far from Oliver’s Godmark.

He stepped out of the newly-made imprint in the wall, to once again face the crippled—but powerful—fighter.

“You’re honor system is broken. A fair fight is what you want to kill you? Ha!” Oliver spat, along with some blood. “And why do you deserve that, boy? Fair… Ba-baha, hahahaha!” The Wizard’s maw was open, laughing hysterically. “Do you think what happened in the Sandtraps was fair? A man was killed by your boss’ pets, skewered on display for all the cameras to see. A young girl’s mind is slowly being shattered, for your god damned amusement; and that is fair? And Tempo was just a teenager, you son a bitch! A fucking virgin! Was his death fair? Is this the honor you fight for?!”

“You talk in crazed circles, old man. This is my dest—“

“No,” interrupted the Wizard, uttering the word a second time.

He gazed off to the side, contemplating the character before him. The domino pieces were set up; awaiting his revelation. All his investigative side had to do was tap the first brick.

…

Tap.

“No. You believe in honor, on the battlefield and off. It courses through your veins and defines who you are … but you.” Oliver paused.

Jackson ground his teeth together, on the verge of letting loose his final attack: the Chouginga.

“You are not a killer, just a good soldier, which is why it didn’t add up - at first. But there is one thing a human soldier values as much as honor and pride: loyalty. And that’s when it occurred to me. The brain, the overseer of this Friend or Foe, must have had some stock in you. You were loyal to him, for whatever reason and he knew he could use that for his little game; because that’s all you know, that’s all you’ve ever known. And like a good soldier, you carried out his orders … which brought you here.”

“Face it. What you lack in wit, you make up for in strength, and your master counted on that because it made it easier … easier to maneuver you like a blunt chest piece. He moved you across his game board, just like any other contestant, despite whatever comradeship you might share. He used you to operate his death machine. And he counted on one of us dying here today because it was a win-win for him. Whichever one of us died would no longer a threat … and the one that lived would suffer enough damage that he could sweep them off the board with relative easy. Either way, he wants us both dead.”

The broken titan scowled, bitterly defying his mental defeat, despite embracing his physical one. “Bastard, you don’t know what you’re on about.”

“That’s where you’re wrong.” The Wizard declared and he walked away, toward an open passage to the lab below. “And I guess I have you to thank for that. Enjoy spending the rest of your days rotting in this Hell, Jackson Pride. Mine will be spent beating this game.”

[Ashe]

The sun burned down on them as the two young girls chatted about everything that they could think of to pass the time. They quite literally discussed everything under the sun, from touch and go topics like the mark upon Ashe’s chest to deeper opinions on the world as a whole. Their situation was a repeated revisitation while family seemed to be a topic a bit touchier and unexplored.

“I can’t really tell you much about Rose,” Ashe began, taking a deep breath to continue past the unpleasant memory of the girl’s departure. Sage looked to the side at her and frowned, ready to interrupt Ashe to tell her that she didn’t have to talk about something that she didn’t want to, but Ashe verbally pushed past her. “What I can talk about is my real sister. Terra,” she proceeded, giving her friend a smile to comfort her.

Sage gave a small smile of her own before holstering her gun again, trying to listen to Ashe’s words and fight off the nightmares that were assaulting her. Taking this as a sign that this was a conversation that Sage would appreciate hearing, the girl continued. “Terra Branford is quite a woman. Hah, she’d argue with you about that, but she’s a very fierce person. My sister tends to be a bit of a carefree, somewhat independent girl who cares very strongly for those close to her and won’t hesitate to kick someone’s ass if she thinks they are in need of it,” she finished, laughing.

“She’s won a lot of rewards for her work, but I don’t really know much of the specifics since she changes around her exact duties a lot. I know she has some friends that run some bar on Kajin Rala, but she’s supposed to be involved with some lab or doctor’s type work as well. I think she’s in some internship or something,” Ashe trailed off, scratching her head for a moment at a random pimple or scab that the heat had caused. “I guess I should probably pay more attention to it, but when someone has left you long behind in describing something, you tend to nod your head and smile.”

Sage chose that moment to look back up at Ashe and smile, nodding for her to continue. “Sounds like your sister is a wonderful girl,” she offered in encouragement before returning back to her study of their future footsteps.

“Yeah. She tried to keep me from making the same mistakes that she did in school and all, but I never really understood that since she grew up on that utopian planet while it was being developed around them - terraforming or something, she called it - and I can’t really picture the same type of jerks I dealt with being there. I mean, they are all doctors kids, though I guess I am too.”

“Your parents are doctors?”

The pink haired girl nodded. “Yeah, more government work though, I can’t really say exactly what it is they do.” She looked down for a moment and then stopped, sitting down spontaneously. “I know it sounds like I don’t give a crap about my family, but that’s not really true!” she suddenly defended, catching Sage’s attention enough for the girl to come back and sit down uncomfortably while looking around for any moving sand.

“I don’t think I said that…” she trailed off. “Verbally or… in my thoughts.”

Ashe took a swallow of her water from her bottle and placed the bottle back in her bag to try to keep it cool. “Yeah, I know,” she continued after her parched throat had some of their sparse liquid rations on it. “I guess its an internal guilt I have. I’m just trying to live my life, be who I am, without being expected to fulfill the footsteps of my parents or sister. I mean, they are awesome, but I’m not really sure that’s what I want to do with my life, ya know?”

Sage took this moment to offer another nod, drinking from her own bottle to avoid an expectation of any response.

“I think they’ve got some big plan for me. More than I even realized…” she trailed off, looking up into the sunstained sky for a moment. “But I’m me. A person. Important future plans for government or medical work don’t really seem to have room for what I might want to do with my life.”

“Ok,” Sage ventured, attempting to take part in the discussion. “Then… what is it you do want to do with your life?”

Ashe’s fingers drew in the sand for a moment, creating all forms of shapes and signs before finally erasing them. “I don’t… really know,” she admitted. “I’m just finishing school, and everyone else has everything all planned out. Like everyone wants to be a doctor or lawyer. Don’t get me wrong, I have nothing but respect for the people that do that sort of thing!” she frantically added, realizing that she might be making Sage feel uncomfortable. “But I don’t know if that’s me. Or even if it isn’t me. I even considered some type of career in music, but I doubt being fairly decent on a guitar can land me any kind of career.”

“Well, start at the basics, then, Ashe. What do you want to do? I don’t really know how to offer advice here, but I think you are trying to decide between final decisions before figuring out where you want to start,” she tried.

She got another nod in response. “Yeah, that’s what my career counselor told me.” She looked at Sage for a moment, deliberating as the girl started looking away uncomfortably, thinking she had offended Ashe. “I think…” she said after a moment, deep in thought. “I want to do something for people. I want to possibly entertain, or offer something to the world. I want to help people. Even if I don’t have a specific dream, I’d like to help lead people to their own, whether its by giving them hope for their future and helping them through hard times by awesome music, art, anything… Or I could do something else. I don’t know if I have the skills for medicine, since I seem to screw up a lot, but I want to do something where people know that you don’t have to be perfect to succeed.

‘I want to inspire. I help the people that feel lost in this world and lead them to something better.” She picked up a clod of dirt and tossed it forward into the sands. “Maybe even deal with bastards like the people that kidnapped us and left us here to rot in a desert,” she added grimly. Turning to Sage, she climbed to her feet from the break before helping her friend up as well. “You know, its totally bogus that we are even here. We aren’t fighters. We aren’t warriors. We aren’t some type of killer! This entire game is stupid.”

Sage said nothing, her fingers touching her gun again in thought.

“But,” Ashe continued, squeezing her wrist. “We can’t sit around depressed and all super emotional about it. If I ever want to help people, I need to start by helping myself. And you, Sage. We both need to stay strong for ourselves, and for our sisters.” Sage looked up, a mixture of sadness and worry crossing her face. “That’s why we have to play this game,” Ashe continued, looking her in the eyes. “If we don’t, then we are going to be the next dead. I don’t care what your morals are, if it comes down to having no choice other than me or the bastards that kidnapped us, I’m going to live to fly home on a long flight of misery and guilt.”

“I don’t even know if my sister is ok,” Sage voiced her thoughts aloud.

“She’s here? I’m sure she’s ok, if she’s anything like you.”

The girl shrugged. “Yeah, well, I’m not really sure if Zena is here or not, but if she isn’t, then maybe they kidnapped me by mistake and are now looking for her!”

Ashe caught the name for a moment and ran back through her mind trying to recall where she recognized her from. “Wait,” she finally said, grabbing Sage by the arm and spinning her around a bit rougher than she meant to. “Your sister is Zena???” she exclaimed. “The Saiyan Princess?”

Sage blushed slightly at the title and confirmed Ashe’s question. “Yes…” she spoke softly. “How do you… know of her?”

Ashe shook her head, trying to decide how exactly to handle this information. So far, up until now, she hadn’t liked Saiyans. They were like running across a homeless guy after dark while hanging out downtown. Every now and then, one would come across you that was full of wisdom and good advice, good intentions. But a majority of the time, you either grabbed your belongings and moved to a more populated area, or you took a risk of ending up on the morning news as being found in a dumpster.

This was Sage, however. While she wasn’t exactly a homeless guy in the dark, she was full of wisdom and good advice, good intentions. Sage had stuck by her so far, even when Ashe’s genetic code turned out to betray her own humanity and left her questioning if she was who she thought she was. Perhaps she had simply encountered the wrong type of Saiyan, although everything she had heard was that they were ruthless and cold mercenaries, living for the fight, unable to be counted on if there was trouble.

She looked up and swallowed, wiping a bit of sweat off her brow with the hoody that she now carried. Rose. Rose had been all excited for the fight, despite how friendly and well meaning she was, and still ran when they were in trouble. Ashe couldn’t even blame her. They were still kids, as far as the world was concerned, and regardless of how many physical tricks Rose had learned, she was still an eighteen year old girl on the inside, dealing with things that none of them were experienced enough to try to handle correctly. And Sage, despite her racial heritage, despite her lack of fighting skills, had opened a can of proverbial whoop-ass on the enormous walking mouth that had tried to make friends with her.

“Yeah, Sage,” she finally answered, deciding to keep her concerns to herself. Sage was counting on her for support, so when it boiled down to it, Zena’s self centeredness and all around prima donna attitude was pretty much Ashe’s problem to just deal with. “Last I saw, she was fine. She had a large group of… friends with her, I think,” she added, trying to avoid sounding absolutely sure about herself. If anything, she did not want to lie to Sage. Even for her comfort.

“I’m glad!” she burst with energy, throwing her arms around Ashe. “You have no idea how comforting that is,” she breathed past her ear before Ashe stiffly returned the embrace. Taking advantage of the moment, Ashe moved her hands down lower… Sage pulled back suddenly and looked at Ashe strangely. “Did you just squeeze my…” she began, then blushed, turning around. “Nevermind,” she added hastily, not wanting to make an accusation.

“Oh, uh, no!” Ashe fumbled. “Sorry, my hand slipped from all this sweat, stupid heat,” she added, hoping she didn’t freak Sage out too much. “But uh… Your sister seems to be making herself quite popular,” she finished. It worked like a charm, Sage’s mind immediately went back to pleasant thoughts of her sister.

No tail.

---

“There they are,” one of the men in the dune buggy called, setting down his binoculars for a moment. “Those are the two easy ones from what the boss says.”

Another darker haired man slid a tranquilizer dart into one of the barrels of his shotgun to accompany the other dart. “Then let’s get moving and catch these broads.”

The first man immediately pressed the gas, the tires digging into the fiery sand a moment and throwing it back before it finally gained traction, sending them hurtling towards the girls. “Wonder if we’ll be able to have a little fun with these two when we get to Olde Towne. They look too young to have had their cherries popped already.”

“Just drive, dumbass.”

---

“Wait, Sage,” Ashe stopped, looking around in the sun but having trouble seeing anything through the heat waves coming off the dunes. “I think I hear something.” She tried to cover her eyes with her jacket, sopping up some of the moisture in the process, but she still couldn’t see anything until- “There! Something’s coming!”

The watery haired girl saw Ashe stepping back slowly and looked in the direction she had been pointed. “Do you think its… help?” she asked, taking Ashe’s cue to get ready to run.

Ashe’s eyes widened, shaking her head frantically. “No, no, I don’t think it is. Sage, run!” she suddenly yelled, pushing the girl in front of her and grabbing her bag from the sands. The two girls put their feet to the earth in an attempt to escape their pursuers as Ashe slowly outpaced the girl.

POW!

The gunshot exploded behind them and Ashe heard a noise in the sand behind her, not turning to see what it was. “Come one, Sage, just a bit further,” she panted, locking her eyes on the buildings in the distance. “Just a bit-” she reassured, taking a look over her shoulder to see Sage had hit the ground with a dart from her neck. “No!” she cried out, sliding to a stop.

The man in the car was taking aim at her slowly, so she had to make her decision fast. She could possibly make it, if she surprised them. She was a fairly good runner. She might even be able to make one of them swallow their teeth if she kicked at them, provided they missed with their dart. She could get away…

“Sage,” she cried, throwing her arms around the girl at the ground as tears slowly crept down her cheeks. “Come on, girl, wake up,” she whispered as the men pulled up in their jeep. She looked up angrily at the pair of them as the dark haired man slowly lowered his rifle, realizing he had no need to waste the dart.

“Get them in the fucking truck,” he instructed as he jumped down from the vehicle, throwing a net over her to prevent any rebellion. The man immediately grabbed Ashe’s wrists from around Sage, prying them off of her friend before snapping them painfully behind her back, clamping a thick pair of metal bindings over her arms before forcing her to the ground. Her tears mingled with her sweat before she was finally lifted up and thrown into the truck next to Sage, who’s unfocused eyes stared into the distance while she mouthed the unspoken.

[Piper Juunanagou]

As her blonde companion made his way into the opening of the alley, the redheaded medic wore a tense expression on her pallid visage.

“Hey,” the courier declared as he waved his hands toward the group of people in the alleyway. Due to her current location, Piper lacked the angle needed to see the group that Kaden had stumbled upon, but when she saw the warm smile fade from the courier’s face, she immediately knew that their twosome had just struck another bit out foul luck.

“Hands in the air,” someone from around the wall growled. The man’s voice was slightly muffled, as if he was talking through a mask or helmet. “Now,” the same man growled, and that’s when Piper heard the trio of soft, mechanical clicks. The woman recognized the noise—it was the sound of those damn energy rifles being activated.

“Hey, now,” Kaden shot back as he slowly raised his hands in compliance with the armed grunts. “No reason to wave the guns at me,” he added as he began to shuffle out of the alley. His movements were subtle enough that his aggressors couldn’t notice, but Piper knew exactly what he was trying to do.

Is he trying to give me an opening? Piper pondered as the courier crept backwards toward the relative openness of the street. For a moment, it seemed that Kaden would simply be able to sidestep away from the gun-totting thugs, but that was before another of Kai’s grunts spoke up.

“Stop moving,” the second voice replied. From what Piper could discern, the speaker was a female, although it was hard to tell through whatever gear they were wearing to protect their heads. With a frown, Kaden edged back one last time before glancing toward Piper with only his sad eyes. It was then that the medic knew that this little tryst was not going to end well.

“I’m sorry,” Kaden replied. Piper couldn’t tell if he was speaking to her or toward his aggressors. Either way, the courier quickly followed up his remark by whipping one of his hands toward the group of thugs.

“Not a chance,” Piper gasped as she ducked her head and charged toward her ally. With a grunt, she slammed all her weight and all her strength into Kaden. The courier let out a surprised yelp as he was sent careening to the street. Piper and Kaden’s eyes met for a moment right before the startled blonde slammed onto the ground and was carried down the road by the momentum.

In the immediate background, the redhead heard the pneumatic rattle of the energy rifles.

Adrenaline began to course through the woman’s bloodstream as she spun to face the three armed thugs. A fourth lay one the ground—seemingly unconscious as a result of Kaden’s skill with his hands. Biting her lower lip, Piper tried to move out of the path of the oncoming projectiles. Despite the fact that she was becoming faster and stronger each day, she was still no superhuman. The redhead managed to dip around the first volley of ki bullets, but as she tried to move around the next succession of bullets, her reflexes failed her.

Piper let out a scream as two bullets grazed her left arm and shoulder. The next round, however, found its mark right above her hip. The impact caused the woman to collapse to her knees. A few yards away, the trio of armed thugs lowered their weapons, as if they expected the woman to die right then and there from her wounds.

Lifting her head up, the injured medic turned her attention toward a nearby wooden crate. With a wave of her hand, Piper sent the object sailing toward the threesome. Like startled fish, they broke apart as the crate slammed into the wall of an adjacent structure. Grimacing in lieu of the pain radiating from her bleeding shoulder, Piper sized up a nearby rock and used it to nail on the thugs in the exposed back of their head.

At this point, the two remaining grunts had regained their bearings and were turning to finish the woman. With a weak smile, Piper used her powers to dislodge one of the supports for a small balcony above the soldiers’ heads. Unable to support its weight, the aged balcony came screaming down to the ground. One of the thugs managed to dive out of the way before their comrade was buried beneath the wood and brick.

“You bitch,” the remaining thug—the female-sounding one—screamed as she lifted her weapon. Glaring down the woman, Piper telekinetically drew her own firearm and fired off two rounds at the woman. The woman let out a weak, desperate cry as she collapsed. Before the redhead could fire off another shot, a recovered (and rather horrified) Kaden sprang forward and disarmed his injured companion.

“She’s …dead,” the young courier stammered as he tossed Piper’s handgun to the side.

“What?” Piper muttered as she painfully rose to her feet. “She’s not dead, I didn’t aim for anything important,” she reasoned as she lurched over to Kaden, who was kneeling over the bleeding, unconscious woman. The young courier seemed to be shaking once more as he pointed to the two holes on the woman’s chest: One was near the center of her abdomen and the other was almost over her heart.

“Did you even aim at all?” Kaden accused as he turned to face the now mortified Piper. The courier looked just as he had when he had accidentally claimed a life earlier—hurt, mildly traumatized, and slightly erratic. “You hit her almost square in the chest!” He blamed as he moved up away from the dying woman and took a few steps down the alley. The young man ran both of his hands through his hair as he walked toward the other unconscious soldiers.

“But she shot me…” Piper mumbled as she fell to her knees next to the woman. Kaden was right, the redhead hadn’t taken the time to aim—she had been too caught up in the rage and adrenaline. And because of that, this woman was bleeding to death in a lonely alley in a deserted town. “I’m sorry, I’m so sorry,” Piper whispered as she lifted the woman’s visor up from her face. The woman beneath the mask was probably in her mid-twenties…just out of military training.

Just then, a gasp escaped the unconscious soldier as her eyes shot open. Before Piper could utter even the slightest noise, the injured woman clasped her fingers around the redhead’s wrist.

In that moment, the medic saw the fallen soldier’s entire life flash before her eyes. Piper saw the soldier graduate school, she saw her finish boot camp, and then she saw her wedding to her childhood sweetheart. The dying woman had it all—loving parents, straight A’s through school, all the friends someone could ever want. She had the life Piper could only dream of having.

The last memory force-fed into Piper’s head was of the woman’s two young children—cute, adorable, and completely innocent. They were loved and adored by their almost overly loving parents, and now their mother was dying. Those two children would never have a normal life ever again, and their father would be deeply scarred for the rest of his days.

…And it was all because of Piper.

“No!” Piper wailed as the woman’s memories faded and her body once again went limp. The redhead continued to mumble incoherently to herself as she began to fish through her small side pack for something—anything—to help the woman. Unfortunately, all that was left was scraps of gauze, Piper’s prescription medication, and an empty bottle or two of morphine.

“No!” Piper repeated as she wrapped her good arm around the dying woman and pulled the body up onto her lap. The redhead closed her eyes and hugged the body close to her, despite the fact that the woman’s blood was pooling out onto her.

Having verified that Piper hadn’t killed the other soldiers, Kaden watched her complete and utter breakdown in silence from a few yards away. He wore a heavy sadness on his face as his companion, already shaken from being shot, cradled the dying woman in her arms. Beneath her labored breath and her uncontrollable sobs, the medic continued to mutter ‘I’ll save you, I’ll save you.’

“What’s going on?” A new voice asked, prompting Kaden to turn to face the newcomers. What he saw was a young man with a tail and a tall, blonde woman.

[Juno]

“No day is a good day to die, you idiot!” Juno screamed over the ruckus Ares was making. He and Sophia ducked down on the porch of the saloon, watching as Ares waited for whatever was coming. Juno surmised that keeping company with this boy probably wasn’t exactly the best idea for their safety right now, and decided it was time to take action. “Come on, Sophia!” he beckoned to his companion, grabbing her arm and dragging her inside the saloon.

The pair rushed through the building, passing the dead man without even taking note of him. Right now, adrenaline was governing their actions, which meant that nothing but their objective—get to safety—was flashing through their brains right now. Bursting out the back door, the hybrid and the blonde broke into a sprint, hearing the new sounds of ki rifles dislodge their shots in the distance.

Through alleys and streets they ran, soon escaping the sounds of gunshots that consistently reminded them of the companions that they had abandoned. Juno thought back on it—Ares, he could care less for, but Zena hadn’t been an idiot. She didn’t deserve what Ares had brought her. He stopped, and looked back, prompting Sophia to do the same. He couldn’t believe that for once, it had been him to think of others before she had; she grabbed his arm. “What’s wrong?”

Juno deliberated for a split second—the Saiyan princess was strong, and could probably handle herself, but could he really abandon her like that? Deciding that for now the selfish path was the way to turn, he replied: “Uh, nothing… it’s nothing. Let’s keep moving.” With that, they turned to run once more, weaving in and out through the streets.

At last activity seemed to dawn once more upon them. In the distance, Juno heard gunshots, and screams of the people who obviously were hit by those shots. Juno grabbed Sophia—who was currently ahead of him—and pulled her behind a wall, listening for something; anything. There was a crash, and then some muffled speaking—and then two more gunshots, and the sounds of an armored woman collapsing.

Juno’s mind sparked—could there be more people here? Sage or Wizard perhaps? Even Tempo would be a welcome sight. He turned the corner, briefly watching as a tall, blonde man stood over a redhead who cradled in her arms a female soldier. Confused, Juno stepped further towards them—why was the woman crying? There was no reason to care for this woman. She was a soldier of this game; her life had been condemned when she had enlisted in whatever arm recruited for it.

“What’s going on?” he asked, and the attention of the two looked up to him. Sophia had just exited from the corner, her eyes still adjusting to the blurriness caused by the bright sun on the wide street. The blonde man ahead, however, seemed to recognize her—upon seeing her, he squinted. Piper looked to him, noticing his recognition.

“Sophia?”

[Kappa]

“During the Frost War, Kai and I were in the same unit: the 48th RRF.”

“Ah, the Dire Wolves,” Oliver remarked. If his legs were fully functional, the surprise might have put Jackson back a few paces. Instead, he just cocked a brow. Either the old man was an amateur historian or a telepath, the giant thought. “You boys had quite the reputation,” he continued, rather mysteriously. Maybe he really was a ‘Wizard’.

“How did you…?”

The once-detective of Central City flashed a broken grin. “2nd Autonomous,” he explained, “…mechanized.” He flipped over his limp arm to expose his ink-touched wrist. The tattoo had faded a bit since the war; a monoeyed skull, crossed with a bone. Though barely visible, the handwriting below read ‘Cyclops Squadron’.

From the titan’s maw came a deep, thunderous laughter. “And I thought Frost killed most of you metalheads. Guess we underestimated you.”

The two lost themselves to hard-capped stories of the frontlines, trapped in war nostalgia. It was fitting too as the pair looked as though they'd just been through a war. The Wizard’s left arm was now appropriately placed in a sling, while bandages from the laboratory stopped the bleeding from his chest-wound. Jackson too, was looking like a broken action figure. He had re-set his fractured leg but the other was beyond saving for now. Once he got off the island, he would need a good doctor and a better physiotherapist. But for now, a wooden staff (borrowed from a tree) would have to suffice. Despite their menacing appearances, they carried on like old acquaintances at a pub, for a good fourty minutes.

Until it came into sight: Olde Town.

“We’re here.”

Oliver rolled his eyes. ‘Why the hell does everyone say that?’

The pair advanced at a staggered pace, toward what looked to be a Ghost Town. They kept their eyes sharp, and their ears open; not sure what to anticipate from the ominously dead location.

Quite suddenly, though, the abandoned city lit up like the fourth of July; and the warriors were bathed in an orange hue from the distant explosion. “Looks like they started the party without us,” the old man muttered; half-eager, half-exhausted. “And y’said my friends’ll be here?”

Jackson nodded.

The FoF contestant squinted at the battered buildings, trying to see some figures through the smoke and debris. If that party of misfits was still alive—and he had a hunch they were—then that meant they had gone on without him, leaving him to die in the collapsing water processing plant. The Wizard should have been sore about this, but he wasn’t. Oddly, he smiled.

---

The grinding of tires against gravel caught their attention, as they moved closer the city. It was coming from … behind them? Yes, but a little more to the east, Oliver observed. It was a combat jeep. There was a long barrel on top of the vehicle that looked like it could be mounted. Sitting on a recoil-absorption pad, it looked like … “A coilgun. Fuck.” Oliver knew that neither of them were in the condition to dodge rail shells. He looked to his newfound comrade, Jackson Pride.

“Don’t worry, I know them,” the larger man assured him, “Let me talk to them. Maybe we can get some intel on what’s going on here.”

The Wizard gazed at the armored car with a furrowed brow. His gut instinct was telling him this was a bad idea, but he trusted the human tank at his right. If Pride thought it okay to approach these blokes then it meant Kai was keeping his footmen uninformed. “One of us should be dead, Pride, and you better hope they don’t know that. Otherwise, that machine gun might turn us into ground beef.”

“If that happens, I won’t get my rematch.... and there’s no way in HELL I’m letting that happen.” He replied, massive teeth exposed in a grin. He snapped his fingers, sending his four-legged friend away, as he approached the vehicle.

"Hey, over here!" the giant roared, waving the driver over.

Little did they know, these guards had some baggage, and their names were Ashe and Sage...

[Jesper]

“Sophia?”

“What?”

Sophia blushed and shook her head, hoping to squeeze the blindness out of her by closing her eyes tightly. It was to be expected that her pupils would have trouble adjusting to sunlight after having been stuffed inside that cave for so long. Another quick shake, and her eyes cleared to the image of Kaden, the last person she would have expected to see in this kind of scenario. It was him who had saved her from the brink of death; him who had brought her back to her home. He was so calm and collected back then, just as he was now. She couldn’t help but feel confused at suddenly laying eyes on his visage once more.

“…what do you mean, ‘what’?” Kaden’s eyes wandered to the side a bit before focusing back on her. “Am I that forgettable?”

“No…no, it’s not that,” Sophia’s widened eyes spoke truer to her emotions than words ever could. “Just…temporary blindness. And slight shock.”

Kaden scratched his head sheepishly. “Yeah, I’m surprised to see you here, too.” He looked around, then at Piper, and back at Sophia. The priestess raised an eyebrow and turned to the redhead; someone she hadn’t paid much heed to until now. The woman looked horrified, and Sophia couldn’t blame her—she was covered in blood, and it was hard to tell what blood was hers and what was…she looked around for a possible source. Kaden seemed to be alright; he just carried himself with a few minor scrapes here and there. There was a rather large wound on her arm and shoulder, but that didn’t account for the massive amounts of blood on the front of her dress. A brief glance down showed her what should have been obvious in the first place—the dead body of some sort of guard. The large wound in her chest was probably fatal.

“You’re…bleeding,” was all Sophia mustered initially.

Piper looked down and sighed. “Most of it…isn’t mine.”

“Right…well…you’re still wounded,” the healer pointed at her shoulder. “The guards must have clipped you when they fired, right? Kaden’s still tip-top shape, though. You have a knack for getting out of dangerous situations unharmed—I guess you haven’t changed in such little time.”

“Heh…no, I guess I haven’t,” Kaden shrugged, a slight grin on his face. The pair shared the laugh of two formal associates that had just reunited. It was an awkward laugh, even to Sophia, and when it ceased, there was just…silence. Sophia coughed and looked back at the redhead.

“Well, how is your arm…oh, I’m so sorry! I haven’t gotten your name yet,” Sophia smiled apologetically.

“…Piper,” she whispered, glancing up at her through tear-soaked eyes. Sophia sighed and looked up at Kaden and Juno as the red-haired maiden began to sob quietly. The priestess reached out a hesitant hand, unsure of what to do. Regardless of whether or not she wanted medical attention—or if she even felt the wound, for that matter—Sophia wouldn’t feel right if she just allowed the poor girl to sit there and bleed. Grasping her shoulder lightly, the healer shushed Piper warm-heartedly and transferred some of her ki into the wound. She quickly began to feel dizzy, but the feeling quickly began to subside shortly after the skin started to regenerate.

“Just…leave me alone for a bit,” Piper shrugged Sophia’s hand off of her shoulder.

The priestess nodded. “O…okay, well…I healed your wound most of the way. I’m guessing the adrenaline from your little…encounter with the soldier dulled the pain, but…you’ll thank me when it starts to thin out. It’ll still sting a bit, but believe me, it’s better than it could have been.”

Piper said nothing, but merely began cradling her head in her hands. Sophia smiled at her once more and stood up, fighting off the urge to sigh lightly. Kaden and Juno, whom the healer had briefly forgotten about in the midst of her “patient,” were standing about, looking around. Sophia tilted her head a bit and walked into the open space between the two men.

“What’s…going on?” she asked hesitantly.

“The kid thought he heard something,” Kaden answered simply.

“It’s Juno,” he rolled his eyes. “And I know I heard something, but I…just don’t know where it came from.”

“…wait, I see something,” the courier pointed, though he knew nobody would see anything initially.

Juno scoffed. “I don’t see anything.”

“Well, I can. My sight’s…different. I don’t know how to explain it…” Kaden sighed irritably and shook his head. “Sophia knows.”

“Oh, that,” Sophia resounded with mild interest. “Is it a person?”

“Yep,” he nodded. “Coming right this way.”

“Around that corner?”

Juno didn’t even wait for a response and ran towards the aforementioned corner. As the glowing light that Kaden had seen—which, upon further inspection, was significantly duller than the light that Juno possessed—neared, the tailed boy stood ready, like he was about to pounce. The tip of the barrel of a ki rifle came just into the sight of Juno.

“Alright, freeze, you prick—ahh!” his supposed threat was cut short as Juno seized his weapon suddenly, ripping it from the soldier’s grasp. Sophia watched on as the tailed boy crashed the butt of the weapon into the soldier’s head before he could even respond. As the boy readied the rifle and began putting pressure on the trigger, a sudden protest rang through the air.

“Stop!” Piper’s voice was more forceful than when Sophia had first met her. “Please…no more killing. Please!”

“There’s…no reason to kill the man,” the courier spoke in agreement. Juno furrowed his brow and looked at Sophia, who nodded in kind. The tailed boy obviously had doubts about leaving such an enemy alive, as was signaled by his slight shaking. However, he abided to his new ally’s wishes and tossed the gun aside.

“Darn thing’s broken, anyway,” Juno sighed. Sophia looked at the weapon now lying in the ground—he was right, Juno had bent the carbine.

“Well…” the priestess spoke up, blushing a bit as she struggled to find something to say. “We can’t stay here forever. Juno and I are looking for someone named…oh, what was it, Juno?”

“Balrog.”

“Right. Ring any bells?”

[Celena]

Zena felt as if she was trapped in a gun scene from a crime movie, with both sides firing at one another. The only difference was that her weapon was a source from her own energy and the advantages of ki orbs were that they did not require brief periods of time outs in order to reload, and they were more powerful than bullets. She would have to get used to firearms if she hoped to become a successful assassin. Assassin, she realised with a frown. It was a hired gunman who had killed Zasha. The death of someone valuable to her, close to her, was enough to make her re-examine her new profession. Right now, even though her conscience was screaming ‘fuck assassins!’ she had to see what Aztec Corps were really about, specifically, the kind of people they went after. Eliminating criminals would not be a problem for her, but innocent figureheads for example, people who have no part business in corruption, she would never resort to terminating them.

Zena, inside a broken down store, thanks to the hunter Ares, crouched behind a candy stand. Candy, she realised and before she knew it, she was scanning the sweets, even while bullets flew into the broken windows and through the area, which used to be the entrance door of the grocery store. Her reluctance to retaliate right now was a testament to how much she loved candy. Her blue eyes caught sight of a range of magnificence, her favourite sweets, and every flavour of skittles. She reached for the best among them, her hand grasping onto five tropical flavour packets, one managing to unfortunately drop to the floor.

“We’re moving in,” she heard from the voice of one of Kai’s small fish, outside.

“Oh know you’re not,” she said quietly. The hybrid, who was used to a lavish lifestyle, had remarkably survived so long on filthy bread and water, and now that she had finally found luxury in candy, she was not about to let anyone deprive her of it, not when she could almost ‘taste the rainbow’.

The sound of explosions elsewhere hopefully meant that the boys, Ares and Juno were busy taking care of soldiers elsewhere, while the innocent looking, ‘miss butter wouldn’t melt’ Sophia, was probably hiding somewhere behind Juno. While many of the people on the island Zena had come across had proved to be useful, Sophia, who ironically had great abilities, hardly had anything to contribute in the battle against Kai’s minions. Even with her healing power, the damn, incompetent woman had failed to do a simple job in order to save Zasha.

The shuffling of feet, which grew ever so louder as they got nearer, caused the princess to act quickly, shoving the four packets of skittles, as well as some original and sour flavour skittles into her rucksack, before placing the bag against her back once more. She grabbed a hold of three more tropical packets from the shelf. “I’m sorry,” she said to them before teleporting a little to her right and then throwing the packets into the air, far over the stand. That should do it, she was sure, before boldly teleporting from behind the stand.

It had worked; they had all fallen for her diversion. During the instantaneous moment she had taken to teleport from behind the stand, their eyes were fixed on the packets of skittles scattered across the floor in front of them. By the time they had spun around, two ki orbs rested in her palms. “Bon appetite,” she said, launching the orb in her left hand towards the nearest soldier’s midsection. It managed to rip its way through his torso and travel towards the others. The good news was that the one attack had taken them all out like a bowling ball completing a strike. The bad news was that she had been too close for comfort and as a result of being too close to the explosion, which had occurred; she was sent backwards across the shops floor in a careened motion. Despite this, she displayed impressive agility, launching the ki orb, which had been patiently yearning to be released, into the eastern wall of the shop. It tore a large hole through it and at the same time, providing a rugged passageway for the young woman’s body to exit. Her back bled from a lot of grazes and although her body bled in new places, her injuries were not severe. Gazing from an upside down position, she managed to catch sight of Ares, who was still concealed behind a horse carriage, which had taken a lot of abuse from bullets. During the short time Zena had spent observing her surroundings; she saw no sign of Juno and Sophia.

“Move it!” Ares yelled to her from a few yards away, fearing the worst for the girl in her vulnerable state. “I’ll cover you.”

Of course she did not plan on remaining on the ground, not when she had finally decided how Kai would perish. Thanks to the vile inspiration she had received from Ares disfiguring a soldier back in the cave earlier, she confirmed that she would upstage him by literally ripping Kai Demolic’s heart out of his chest. Zena had to accomplish that before she could think about dying. Thinking about his death brought her back 7 years into the past, when she had justifiably killed someone for the first time.

Shutting the past out, she quickly picked herself off of her feet, running towards the carriage as fast as she could, moving to the pace of the sounds of metal projectiles, skimming past her and then colliding with the concrete and through the windows and walls of broken buildings nearby. As much as Zena would have adored destroying every last sons of bitches who worked for Kai, realistically, she knew it would be virtually impossible to pull off. “What on earth is a horse carriage doing here?” she wondered, launching a ki orb over from her position.

"Don't ask me," he replied.

I woudn't put anything past that whack job, she thought, refering to Kai.

Zena could not help but grow with concern as more bullets entered the carriage, causing it to rock backwards. This caused her to creep away from it.

“Where are you going?” Ares asked.

“To find a safer shelter before I end up eating bullets. You’d be none the wiser to do the same,” she finished. It was an insult and at the same time, advice. He had covered her during her sprint to the shelter, so now she considered them even.

[Sage]

“Sage, Run!” a violent push, a stumble, a flurry of feet. They pounded down on the sand, the older girl operating in response to the younger, a spooked deer. Game. Nothing more. That’s what the burly men in the truck thought, anyway. She didn’t even feel it stick into her neck. Some kind of protest? Blackness.

- - - - -

“There isn’t any time...” the bodyguard murmured, having intended for Sage not to hear it. She looked up at him, quizzically. Her curious expression changed to a look of concern when his visage darkened. His eyes suddenly burned with malice, and he-

And he... struck her. She held her cheek, more horrified than in pain. For four years he’d been one of the most amicable people Sage had ever met, and had become one of her best friends. “What-!?”

Aurelius interrupted her with a savage punch to the face, sending her crashing into her desk, shattering the sturdy mahogany furniture as though it had been made from toothpicks. Sage was dumbstruck. Was this a test?

“Aurry!” the girl angrily protested, pushing herself to her feet. She brushed off the debris, ignoring the various cuts on her arms. She was much more irate about the damage to her clothing than to her skin. “What’d you hit me for!?” the thirteen-year-old glared at the massive bodyguard, no longer concerned about his sinister gaze.

“This woulda been a lot easier if this were your sister,” Aurelius grumbled to himself, looking the blue haired girl over. “Not that you’re going to be difficult, exactly.”

Sage didn’t know who this person was. This wasn’t the friendly guardian who carried her around on his shoulder when she was nine, or the man who taught her and her sister how to build an igloo - he insisted it was for survival purposes, even though Sage never felt more comfortable than she did in the frigid wastes of the north. “What are you doing, Aurelius?” she never called him that anymore.

In a flash, his hair was upturned and gold. His cold, beryl eyes suddenly soulless, appraising the slight frame of the girl before him. He suddenly winked out of existence, and a muscular arm snaked around her throat, constricting her airway. Sage gagged as the arm constricted, unable to breathe.

“Let me go!” she wanted to say it. All she managed was a pathetic, wheezing, unintelligible mess. She squirmed and kicked for a moment. Her vision began to fade - Aurelius wasn’t going to let go.

Glancing down at her hand, she focused as best she could under the circumstances, watching as condensation began to swirl as mist in her palm. Soon, it formed a vicious spike of ice, rapidly solidifying, harder than steel. Without a word, or grunt, or scream, she hammered the icy spear over her shoulder, right into Aurelius’ eye. The mighty super saiyan recoiled away from the girl, grasping at his bloody visage as Sage scurried to the opposite side of the room, watching in fear as a former friend writhed and lashed about, an icicle jammed in his left eye.

Blood had splattered onto Sage’s hair and shoulders, onto the floor. Onto Aurelius’ chest. It oozed all over his face. The girl began to shake, mortified at the gruesome scene as the red fluid found itself all over the room. There was so much of it.

So much blood.

With a primal shriek, he grasped onto the ice with both hands and wrenched it from his socket. There was no eye left to identify, so badly pulverized by Sage’s weapon. He wasted no time, now, phasing out of sight and reappearing right in front of her.

Aurelius threw a savage blow to her temple, his overwhelming strength knocking her out in an instant. He wanted to finish the job, but he shook his head. There was a method to this madness, after all.

Though he wanted to kill the precocious little whelp, he had made a deal. Reaching into his pocket, he withdrew a little electronic device - a cloaking field, and at the push of a button, he and Sage vanished, and the invisible traitor hefted the azure haired girl over his shoulder, before casually strolling out of the bloodstained bedroom.

- - - -

Something was shaking her. It was dark and had its damn hands on her shoulders. It shook her again. “Wha-Where am I!?” she weakly demanded. “Why did you do it, Aurry? Why did you- I’m sorry... I didn’t mean to... I didn’t-”

“Sage!” came a shout.

That’s weird, Sage thought, projecting her thoughts for all to hear. Why does Aurry sound like a girl?

“Sage, wake up. You have to wake up,” the voice ordered. It came in clearer this time. The crystal haired girl jerked upright, her vacant eyes staring right through the girl in front of her. The girl holding her shoulders.

“Ashe?” she hazarded. A nod, but Sage didn’t see it. “Ashe, I- I can’t... see.”

A pause. “It’s just the dart,” another pause. “It’ll wear off soon.”

Truth be told, Ashe had no idea what she was talking about, but this was not the time or place for a panic attack. The fact that the truck was suddenly braking - hard - seemed to emphasize that point. She was right, though. A few moments passed and Sage visibly relaxed, her pupils contracting appropriately to the light.

There was some kind of argument. A lot of noise. The truck shook. Gunfire. Ashe and Sage exchanged glances, but neither could figure out what was going on from the windowless box on the back of the dune buggy. Suddenly, the rear door was thrown open to reveal a horribly bloody and battered-

“Y-You’re-” Sage gasped, blanching as though she’d seen a ghost. She looked around, to see the four former operators of the dune buggy messily dispatched on the sand. The blood and gore silenced her.

“Alive? Yeah,” Nash retorted, opening the other door. “We’d best get going we want to stay that way.”

The girls clambered out of the vehicle and Ashe immediately threw out an arm to block Sage, her eyes focusing on Jackson. “Who’s he?” she immediately demanded.

Nash just shrugged. “That’s Jackson. He’s with me.”

“Neither of you are in any shape to be out here,” the coral eyed girl scolded, tossing a capsule onto the sandy ground. It burst, revealing Sage’s stark white med-kit. “I’m not about to let you two wander around all bloody and broken like that. You’ll make things worse. Sit down,” she gestured to the back of the buggy, already retrieving several items from the kit. Wizard and Jackson both tried to protest, only to find themselves shouted down by the surprisingly forceful girl. Oliver was bewildered - was this the same girl he’d been separated from in the waterways?

“Now, I don’t really have much to spare,” Sage frowned, her kit had been stretched thin - a horrible auto accident and the whole of this tournament really had left little to spare, but she had enough gauze and disinfectant to properly treat most of the wounds of the two men, anyway. She had wanted to suture a nasty cut on Wizard’s shoulder but he angrily refused. So much for professional courtesy, Sage grumbled. She fashioned a crude splint for Jackson’s damaged leg, wrapped in the last of her gauze. Finally, she administered a morphine injection to each, and then packed her kit away. “Sorry I can’t... do more for you, Jackson,” she frowned.

Before anyone could say anything else, the ground just in front of Sage exploded, eliciting a sharp shriek from the girl. In the distance, three jeeps, all with mounted rail guns, were racing toward them, firing as they went. Explosions lit up all around them, and suddenly, the four were plunged into a war zone.

“Get in the buggy!” Nash roared, and the four of them leapt into the vehicle, with the battered Nash behind the wheel. He gunned it, the rear tires spinning futilely against the sand until finally they caught traction. The featherweight vehicle took off like a shot, barreling toward Olde Town at breakneck speed with three weaponized jeeps giving chase.

[Kaden]

Fatigue was a funny thing. There were times when it was a simple task to go a night without sleep. There were times when simply staying awake for five or six hours was an exercise in masochism. And there were also times when the best thing to do was to simply not think about it. Like so many other things in his life, Kaden had been able to push past his fatigue by just pushing it to the back of his mind. His mind, however, was getting fed up with that crap.

To his left, Kaden watched Piper shift her weight uncomfortably; a moan of pain escaped her lips as she applied pressure to the wound in her hip. Turning his attention to his right, Kaden was still trying to wrap his brain around the fact that Sophia, a priestess, was involved in this psychotic game. The kid -- Juno. Sorry, the courier thought to himself -- that was with her seemed to be watching everyone in the party with varying degrees of interest.

It was at that moment that the last couple of days decided to catch up with Kaden. His body had been so full of adrenaline, and his mind so focused on just staying alive, that even when idle, Kaden felt full of energy. Things had turned so quickly that he wasn't really prepared to deal with it. It was all the courier could do to try mask the more phsyical symptoms.

There was no doubt that Sophia could, at least to Kaden, be a huge help in bringing down Kai. Juno, if his little demonstration was to be believed, was capable in his own rights as well. Simply the idea of having another person around who wasn't a complete stranger would be comforting to Kaden's nerves. Before they could do anything, though, they needed to deal with their situation.

With a short sigh, the courier brought his hand to the top of his head and let it sit there as he thought, his fingers unconsciously rifling through his hair. Piper needed to be healed. Sophia could heal her, but if Kaden's sense was to be trusted -- and he wasn't sure it was -- just mending Piper's shoulder had been taxing enough. Regardless, the medic didn't seem like she was in a state to just nod along with complete strangers. On top of everything, Kaden was intrigued by Sophia's search for this 'Balrog' character.

Action definitely needed to be taken, but there were too many to take. Kaden needed to stay calm, or as calm as he could, and prioritize. Despite the tangled web of thoughts that the courier had been able to weave himself, only a second or two had passed since Sophia had last spoke.

"Balrog?" the courier scrunched his face in thought. "I don't thinks so. But we haven't really been in the loop around here," he admitted. A sob from Piper interrupted Kaden's next though. She had quieted down a bit, but was still visibly upset. "Hey Juno," Kaden turned towards the hybrid. "Can you gimme a hand?"

With a cocked eyebrow, Juno watched as Kaden approached the soldier that Piper had killed. Reaching down, the courier hooked his hands under the fallen woman's arms and turned his head towards Juno expectantly. With a shrug, the hybrid approached the woman's legs and hiked them up off the ground. With a nod, Kaden motioned for Juno to follow. The two of them carried the body out of the alley -- giving Piper as wide a berth as the space would allow -- and dropped it next to the thug Juno had dispatched. It was sufficiently out of sight for Kaden.

As they turned to walk back towards Sophia and Piper, Kaden stopped the hybrid with a hand on his shoulder. Juno's head snapped to Kaden's hand almost instinctively. Taking in a breath, the tailed youth turned to face Kaden, obviously expecting to know what he wanted.

"You mind waiting here for a second?" Kaden asked. "I just want to talk to Piper for a minute."

"Sure," Juno said with a shrug.

"But could you and Soph, uh, stick around?" Kaden had no idea why he decided that right then was the best time to shorten Sophia's name. "I wanted to ask you a couple things about this Balrog guy."

"Uh," Juno's eyes moved from Kaden to the alley, where they lingered. "Fine," he finally settled on.

"Thanks, man. Appreciate it." Kaden smiled and gave Juno a quick pat before withdrawing his hand from the hybrid's shoulder.

Making his way back into the alleyway, Kaden approached Sophia; the priestess had maintained a comfortable distance from Piper. Beckoning to Sophia, Kaden stopped at the entrance to the alley.

"Can you gimme a minute with Piper?" he asked.

"Oh?" Sophia arched an eyebrow as she looked from Kaden to Piper and back again. The courier wasn't sure if there was genuine intrigue or if she was just being cute. "Yeah."

With a light nod, Kaden stepped past her and approached Piper. The medic definitely seemed more collected than she had been only a few minutes ago, but that didn't stop Kaden. Lowering himself to the ground, the courier took a seat beside Piper and turned his head towards her.

"You ok?"

It was a stupid question to lead with, but Kaden had to start somewhere. In response, Piper simply inclined her head towards the courier. It was an awkward angle, so he couldn't be sure, but Kaden thought he saw signs of a glare as well.

"Ok," he nodded, trying desperately to remove the sneaker from his mouth. "So that wasn't the smartest question I've ever asked. I, uh... I think I owe you an apology. I was probably a little... harsher than I shoulda been. For what it's worth, I am glad that you're not... the one that... y'know..."

"Kaden..." Piper was slow to respond. "She... she had so much."

There was no way for Kaden to know the true meaning behind those words. He couldn't know that Piper had seen the woman's life. He couldn't know what it would feel like to have such a vision forced upon him as he held person, dying, in his arms. He did know that, for Piper, there was a great deal of weight behind those words. The woman sobbed once more as the memories flared in her mind.

There was nothing Kaden could say. He couldn't just tell Piper it would be all right and hope she would cheer up. Hesitating for only a second, Kaden reached out and put his arm around Piper. With the gentlest touch he could manage, Kaden pulled Piper towards him. The woman's body slumped lightly against his.

Though he had barely been aware of it at the time, Piper had been there for Kaden in a way he couldn't have expected. He smiled as he brought his hand to her head and ran it slowly through her hair. As the sound of her breath, the sound of her light sobs, reached his ears the courier had to fight back tears. The anguish he had pushed back, the weight that rested so comfortably on his conscious, threatened to spill over as his body finally had a moment to relax.

Shutting his eyes tightly, Kaden shook his head and pushed everything back. It was as though his body was physically holding everything in place, the atlus to his mind's world. Weariness and fatigue were things he simply could not afford. Not right there. Not right then.

"People like us," Kaden began. His voice was low and gentle. "Well... it sucks to be people like us. There are people out there who are just... shut off. People that don't have to worry about anything or anyone else." Kaden had to set aside the hypocracy of such a statement for Piper's benefit. "But I pity people like that. They're not the ones that know what it really means to live... what life is really about."

It would be so simple, and so easy, if everything could just be over. They had defied death more times in the past couple of days than most people would in their whole lives. For both Piper and Kaden a toll had been taken that they wouldn't be able to simply sleep off. In spite of all of that, they had to stand up and keep going. Kaden knew it, and he knew that, somewhere, Piper knew it as well.

"It isn't fair," Kaden said, though it was more musing aloud than anything else. To his surprise, though, he could feel Piper nodding in agreement.

"Nothing about this is fair," she practically whispered.

"No. Not to you, or me, or Orion, or Dmitri, or Szar. Or any of the people that we've had to hurt. But none of this is over, Piper. Just like you said, we have to make sure that Kai answers for what he's done here." Kaden grinned as he recalled Piper's words. "I promise to let you beat yourself all you want once we're outta this hellhole," the courier misquoted.

Much to Kaden's delight, Piper let out the tiniest of chuckles. She sniffed back her tears and cleared her throat. Kaden was definitely glad to see that he hadn't simply wasted his breath.

"We still need to get Kai, and for that I definitely need your help," Kaden said. "I mean, hell, I can't even count the number of times you've saved my ass so far. I'm sure you'll get plenty more chances before all's said and done." Again, Piper gave a small laugh in response. "But we need to get you cleaned up first. Can't go leaping from rooftop to rooftop with a hole in your leg."

"Yeah..." Piper straightened herself and slowly leaned away from Kaden; the courier thought there was some hesitation to do so, on her part, but passed it off as his imagination. "We, uh, can probably find some medical supplies somewhere."

Definitely not what Kaden had intended. It was no surprise that Piper's first thought was to treat herself, though.

"Piper," Kaden turned his upper body to face hers. "Do you trust me?" Almost immediately, the courier shook his head. "You don't have to answer that. Lemme start over." Kaden made a show of clearing his throat. "Piper. I want you to trust me. I think it would be faster and safest to let Sophia treat your wound. She's a good person, and someone I trust."

Not surprisingly, Piper seemed hesitant. Her eyes shifted from Kaden to the mouth of the alleyway. Presumably, Sophia and Juno were standing just out of their line of sight. Finally, Piper's eyes shifted back to Kaden. She took in a deep breath and wiped her eyes. With a simple nod, she consented.

"Alright. I'll go get her."

Hopping to his feet, Kaden brushed himself off and was about to head out of the alley when Piper's voice stopped him. Already turned towards Sophia's location, Kaden craned his neck over his shoulder.

"Kaden..." Piper began. Before she could continue, though, Kaden turned to face her fully and cut her off with a wave of his hand.

"Don't worry about it," Kaden replied with a smile. "I'm sure we'll have plenty of other things to worry over."

Without waiting for a response, Kaden turned and trotted out of the alleyway. As he came into their line-of-sight, both Juno and Sophia turned to face Kaden. Before saying anything, though, Kaden sidestepped out of Piper's field of vision and slumped against the outer wall of the nearby building.

Just a couple of breathes to steady himself, that's all what Kaden thought he needed. Quickly, though, he found his own eyes threatening to spill over with tears. Before they could, though, the courier gave his head a quick shake and pushed everything back. Just in, time, too since Sophia had taken the initiative in approaching him.

"Hey," the priestess began. "You ok?"

"Me?" Kaden didn't try to hide the sadness in his smile. "I'm alright. Definitely helps that I didn't get shot in the hip."

"Piper?" Sophia asked, her eyes darting towards the alley for a second.

"Yeah. Think you could heal her up?" Kaden looked more than a little apologetic for having to ask.

"I would, but..." Sophia hesitated for a moment. "Is she going to be ok with it?"

"Yeah, I think it'll be fine," Kaden nodded. He guessed that wasn't the only reason the priestess was hesitant. He didn't expect Sophia to use what energy she had left on a stranger, and Kaden wasn't about to ask that of her.

"It's just that..."

"Runnin' on empty?" Kaden smiled as he asked. When Sophia arched an eyebrow in surprise, the courier tapped a finger next to his eyes. "I see all. I don't think it'll be a problem, though. Hold up your hand."

With a quizical expression on her face, Sophia held up her hand, her open palm facing Kaden. Reaching out, the courier placed his hand against hers, interlacing his fingers as he did so. Slowly, energy spread through his body, creeping out his arm and into Sophia's. It didn't take too long for understanding to dawn on Sophia's face.

"Well this is a neat little trick," she said with a nod.

"Well y'know... I do what I can." Kaden grinned. For reasons that Kaden could only guess at, channeling his energy was proving more difficult than it should. Awkward silence, however, wasn't something Kaden was interested in. "So how have things been at the temple?"

"Well," Sophia considered the question for a second. "They're fine. I mean, they're definitely better than the last time you were there."

"Yeah, I bet. Oh!" Kaden rolled his eyes at his own forgetfulness. "I wanted to thank you again for that address you gave me."

When last he had left her, Sophia had given Kaden an address procured from a thief locked in her temple's basement. At the time, Kaden had only suspected that a woman he had been looking for had been involved in a raid that had taken place on Sophia's temple the night before. The lead Sophia had given him had been more fruitfull than Kaden ever could have hoped for.

"It was nothing," the priestess tried to brush it off.

"Hardly! A favor is as a great as the results it produces." Those words hung in their air for several seconds before Kaden sighed and ran his free hand through his hair. "Ok... that sounds kinda weird. It's true though."

"Alright," Sophia nodded along with a smile. "Whatever happened with that?" In this case, changing the topic of conversation would be the more modest course of action.

"Oh right. So the woman I was looking for, she was definitely at the address you gave me. She went to your temple with those bandits because she thought there was some kind of... artifact or something there. She's looking for a way to get back a power she lost." Sophia nodded along as Kaden spoke, seemingly interested. "She, uh, used to be able to see things like I do."

"Oh yeah? You seem a bit more comfortable with that, by the way."

"Yeah, well, she's a lot better at it than I am. Gave me a few pointers."

"She..." Sophia tilted her head at Kaden. "Wait. You hunt her down and then she turns around and gives you tips?"

"Hahahaha," Kaden couldn't help but laugh. "It's, uh, complicated."

Letting go of Sophia's hand, Kaden let his own fall back to his side. Stepping aside, Kaden let Sophia head into the alley to, hopefully, take of Piper's wounds. If things went well -- something that Kaden was reluctant to count on -- Piper should be back on her feet in no time and they would be able to move on to the main event. Kai.

"So," Juno approached Kaden. "Catching up?"

"With Sophia?" Kaden shrugged. "I guess. Not really the place for a heart-to-heart."

"Hmmm..." Juno looked Kaden up and down. "I guess not, no."

"Actually," Kaden began.

"Questions about Balrog, right?" Juno nodded. "What did you want to know?"

"Who Balrog is, pretty much. I definitely owe Sophia. If she's looking for this Balrog, I'd like to do what I can to help."

"Well, we don't know a whole lot. Balrog Tast is the man's name. He's a lieutenant, or some such, and is supposed to be somewhere around here. Apparently we're supposed to be afraid of him." Juno scoffed at the last statement.

Kaden, on the other hand, didn't find this revelation the least bit humorous. Kaden hadn't known the name's name, but if he had to pick someone in Olde Town to be a "lieutenant" it would be the man that had killed Orion. The man that had killed Dimitri. The man that had killed Szar.

"... Yeah," Kaden replied after several seconds of silence. His voice was devoid of any emotion. "I think I know who you're looking for."

"Who're they looking for?" came Piper's voice. Both Kaden and Juno turned to see Sophia and Piper come around the corner. Kaden met Piper's eyes with a meaningful stare.

"Balrog," he replied. "The man that killed Orion."

It was clear that Piper understood the reason for Kaden's emotionless expression, but that would quickly be put on hold. Olde Town seemed to erupt, suddenly and violently, to life. A cacophony of explosions and gunfire echoed through the alleys surrounding the Piper, Sophia, Juno, and Kaden.

"It's Ares..." Juno said with a sigh.

"Ares is here?" Kaden exchanged a surprised look with Piper.

"What, you know him too?" Juno shook his head. "That guy's got a death wish."

"He thought it would be a good idea to start a firefight," Sophia elaborated.

"A firefight?" Kaden ran a hand through his head as he turned the idea over in his head.

It was remarkably similar to Orion's modus operandi. Attention drawing, however, wasn't what they needed. In truth, Ares might be providing them with the perfect cover to find Balrog. And, at that moment, Kaden was very interested in finding Balrog.

"We should get moving. We've been standing around too long." Piper was the one who spoke up first. She had already begun moving away from the sounds of explosions.

Juno, Sophia, and Kaden quickly fell in-line behind Piper as she darted between buildings. In very short order, the foursome found themselves standing on a fairly wide road. If Kaden's sense of direction could be trusted, it ran perpendicular to the main road of Olde Town. Before they could continue their venture, though, Juno's eye caught something.

"Something's coming this way," he informed his companions.

The humans followed Juno's finger as it pointed into the desert. Not too far off, and closing in quickly, was a quartet of cars. More surprisingly, though, was that all the vehicles seemed to be equipped with weaponery. The front-most car seemed to be taking fire from the other three.

As the cars approached, Kaden squinted to see if any details could be made out. As the leading car came into focus, the courier could see an old man behind the wheel with a woman sitting in the seat next to him. That neither of them were dressed in the same garb as the rest of Kai's shoulder was a great relief. It was dangerous to make such assumptions, but Kaden had a good idea of who was doing the chasing.

The four buggies barreled towards Olde Town at reckless speeds. Piper, Juno, and Sophia shuffled backwards into the alley they had just come from. Kaden, on the other hand, only moved to the side of the road. Someone called his name, urging him to get out of the way, but the courier wasn't paying attention. While Kaden's dumb plans had fairly mixed results so far, he was willing to give them one more chance.

Digging his heels into the dirt road, Kaden began summoning up energy. He could feel the ki circulating through his body, obeying his whim as it began to focus itself around his hands. The courier's fists began to glow with a cerulean light. The first car shot past Kaden with only a foot or so to spare. The second one wouldn't be so lucky.

"Haaa!"

Even in the growing light of dawn, the flash of light that escaped Kaden's hands illuminated his surroundings in a brilliant blue hue. Just as the second vehicle would have passed, a powerful wave of ki crashed into it. The car was thrown up onto two wheels and sent sliding across the road. Before it could right itself, the vehicles crashed into one of Olde Town's more dilapidated buildings.

While Kaden would've liked to take more time to watch his handiwork, he wasn't given the chance. By the back of his shirt, the courier felt himself being pulled forcefully into the alley he had just exited. No sooner had Kaden moved than blasts from the third vehicle's mounted weapon slammed against the dirt road he had been standing on.

"Trying to get yourself killed?" came Juno's voice.

"What can I say?" Kaden looked over his shoulder in mild surprise. "Seemed like a good idea at the time."

As the third and fourth vehicles shot past the alleyway, the sound of a second crash sounded through Olde Town. With the vehicles past, Kaden darted back out into the road. He was soon accompanied by Piper, Sophia, and Juno.

Not too far in the distance, the first vehicle had plowed into a storefront. Given the skid marks dug into the road, Kaden held out hope that they hadn't crashed with too much force. There was still a good chance, at least in the courier's mind, that the people that car were more likely to be allies then enemies. The third and fourth cars were skidding to a stop a short distance from their prey.

There had been no movement from the car that Kaden had derailed. While the occupants were likely injured, Kaden convinced himself that the crash was unlikely to actually take any lives.

"So," Kaden turned to his comrades, "should we see what's going on?"

[Ashe]

“Get ready to bail! Thing’s nearly impossible to control!” Nash called back to the wide eyed girls in the back. He ground his teeth together as he fought to counter the blown tires of the decimated vehicle. His foot slammed repeatedly onto the brake with absolutely no response. “Dammit!” he cursed, slamming his foot down once more, earning himself a hole in the bottom of the floorboard where a pedal used to be.

Their pursuers had seemed to no end to their limitless ammo as they cranked away, the bullets wizzing dangerously close overhead. In the back of the truck, Ashe and Sage cowered low to the bed with nothing more than hope that the gate at the rear didn’t fail to absorb or deflect some of the ammunition. Sage had awoken by now and the two just crouched, tensed up in preparation of whatever was to come.

Another shot from the chasing vehicles hit a wheel, and that was the moment that Nash lost control entirely. “We’re…” he trailed off, apparently losing his train of thought or changing his mind. Pride had said nothing the entire time, instead focusing on firing back at the others and occasionally attempting to bring down imaginary helicopters overhead as well.

“-gonna crash,” Wizard suddenly continued, jerked out of his thoughts as his eyes focused on a small group of people in the near distance.

Ashe leaned up at his words, looking around and risking gunfire to get a grasp of the situation. Time seemed to slow down as they nearly struck a man with shining eyes beneath greasy hair and a pair of equally glowing fists. Directly behind him was a small group of individuals. Victims, just like them, she assumed. The man’s hand pressed forward and he cried out as a massive wave of energy ripped through his body and exploded out towards the vehicles behind them.

It was then that Ashe lost sight of the man. It was then that Nash called back to them to get ready to jump over a bridge. It was then… that they crashed directly through an old western style wall.

The pair in the back was immediately ejected, careening through the air wildly. Ashe’s body flashed for a moment, a bubble of energy surrounding the two without their notice, protecting them as they slammed through a wall and rolled within it to a stop against the rear of the store. The bubble popped the moment the girl tried to focus on the situation, leaving her to sit forward and rub her head with a groan.

“Ashe?” Sage mustered, sitting up painfully to brush the dirt from her arms.

Ashe reached up and pulled against a shelf to get herself to her feet before helping the other girl to hers’. “Yeah, I’m ok. Somehow,” she added, looking around at the rubble surrounding them. They were practically uninjured and Ashe couldn’t find fault in their luck.

Her companion stepped carefully onto a fallen block of roofing and looked forward through the mess, seeking out the two men and the dog that had been in the truck with them. “Do you see-” she began, suddenly feeling Ashe grab her by the arm and snatching her away moments before another slab of the roof fell directly before her. She jumped in surprise before Ashe cried out.

“Its coming down!” Her voice was barely audible over the monolithic groaning of the building’s foundation shattering beneath its unstable weight. The pink haired student snatched up a slab of concrete from the ground beneath her and turned, throwing it through a window with power. The glass sprayed out as the newly created exit exploded, leaving the pair of girls just seconds to dive through it into the dirty sand street behind it.

“Nash!” Sage cried out, flipping over quickly to her rear while sliding back away from the building. “They might have been in there!” she protested at Ashe.

The girl looked to the ground a moment in sadness and her gaze hardened. “Its likely, but the chances of them surviving-”

“-are more than enough!”

Ashe nodded, taking note of how slim their own chances had been and how they’d survived. The men inside were extremely resourceful and able to take care of themselves, but that was no reason to abandon them unless necessary. The two were also pretty much tripping balls on morphine leaving them likely unable to clearly distinguish the events that were happening.

“You’re right, let’s g-”

“Go one more step and we’ll shoot you both,” a rough voice warned them as the guns pressed quickly into their backs. The girls tensed up without looking back as they were snatched to their feet and quickly bound with rope once more. “The boss is about to pretty much burn this place to the ground and anyone left inside of it.”

As if by summons, a number of men came out from hiding atop the buildings and stepped to the edges, aiming various weaponry towards not only the girls, but other directions at distant specs down the road. A large black man with a bodybuilder’s form stepped forward between the two girls, ignoring them entirely before smiling and turning to face them. “You kids should have just played the game,” he gloated.

He walked over to Sage’s panicking form and ran a hand up her cheek, watching her shy away and close her eyes. “What’s the matter, girl? Never been touched by a man before?” A cold icy breeze rolled in on them, chilling those nearby to the bone as the doctor shook, half in anger, half in fear. Ashe watched her, getting the impression that Sage was going to do something stupid and decided to use that moment to pull against her captor, catching Balrog’s attention.

He glanced at her for a moment as her eyes turned defiantly towards him, the guns still pressed into her back. “Is this person important to you?” he asked, looking back at Sage with a large grin.

“You’re missing a few teeth there,” Ashe taunted at him.

Promptly, the man’s face grew serious and he closed his mouth, striding away from Sage and back towards Ashe. He allowed a moment to pass before his fist shattered against her cheek, a large spray of blood erupting from the other side of her mouth into the dirty sand at their feet. “If you want to keep yours, I’d recommend shutting the hell up,” he warned her.

Ashe hadn’t even heard him. She was still reeling from that strike. Her plan had been successful at pulling the fire off Sage - something said that if she didn’t, then they were all likely to be in trouble - but even with preparation, the man’s enormous structure shattered through her tensed muscles. The lights were exceedingly bright as she went limp in her handler’s arms, fighting for both breath and to clear her mouth of the crimson liquid that had poured into it.

Her hearing was nothing more than a high pitched squeel and when she finally came to her senses, the two were being dragged along the street by a rope by the titan. She felt every rock cut down her backside, complimenting the throbbing in her cheek and the glaring sun. A large unit of men were marching behind them with vehicles in the rear, ready to unleash like cavalry at the first sign of an insurgent.

A large explosion happened near one of the buildings that prompted the large man to send a group of his men in that direction. Ashe was nearly shutting down when she felt his boot slam into her side. “Old Balrog’s about to teach you kids about pain and suffering,” he called down, watching her double over on the ground to recover her breath. Her pained cries were giving him a rush. “That’s right, keep crying out,” he instructed her, looking around the town in every direction. “We’re in the middle of town now. Keep crying out… I want you to bring all your little friends here to me,” he repeated.

Sage was in an equal state of semi-conciousness, unable to distinguish reality from nightmare as the pair of girls were hoisted up to be hung from a large wooden structure in the middle of town. Ashe’s vision could not distinguish all the men that were in the area, but she knew that most of the buildings had massive artillery and gunmen adorning each of them. Balrog’s gargantuan form intentionally came to obscure her sights as he cracked his knuckles against one another. “Since you are the girl with the pretty mouth, I guess I’ll start my work on you,” he warned her, giving her just enough time to look up from her bonds into his eyes as the blood poured down her lips.

“Go… to hell,” she managed, understanding the futility of their situation. In most circumstances, she wouldn’t have pressed her luck, but what was the point now? Her only hope was that she could keep Balrog’s attention and spare Sage the majority of the pain before someone managed to somehow intervene.

The man only laughed a moment before grabbing slamming his fist into her stomach. She doubled over once more, feeling the agonizing burning rush through her as her unprepared stomach muscles were assaulting by his toned fist. “That’s where we are, girl, that’s where we are,” he responded, taking the moment to grab her by the throat and lift her back into his view. “For everything I do to you, I’m going to also do to her.”

Ashe’s eyes seethed at him for a moment as it seemed that he wasn’t going to let her plan come to pass. To her horror, he followed through on his word, his first coming into contact with the girl’s abdomen with little realization on her part. There was a cough. Some blood. Seconds pressed into minutes. The two girls were enduring pain on a level that neither had experienced in years, under the bright and burning sun.

Their screams of pain shattered the serenity of the war zone.

[Juno]

A team is only as strong as its weakest players. And right now, in this game, he needed a strong team—but no one could be strong if they refused to kill the enemy. This was a war, and wasn’t that what war was about? Killing the enemy, saving your hide, and those you fought for? Nothing was going to come do the job for them.

Death was necessary, and if they wouldn’t do it, then he would.

Loud noises once again broke the silence, the sounds of ki rifles shooting off endless barrages with the gentle accompaniment of the occasional explosion. “It’s Ares,” Juno sighed.

“Ares is here?” Kaden piped up, glancing at the redheaded woman. Juno cocked an eyebrow—was everything and everyone here interconnected, or did Kaden just happen to know everyone who was in this decrepit place with them? Sophia, Piper, Ares—he seemed to know them all.

“Wait, you know him too?” Juno voiced his concerns. Kaden nodded, and Juno continued: “The guy’s got a death wish.”

“He thought it would be a good idea to start a firefight,” Sophia informed the pair, and they nodded—obviously, his personality gave way to what Juno liked to think of as his weak mental state. Or, he’d pulled something like this when he was traveling with them, too.

“A firefight?” Kaden repeated, as if he was in disbelief. Juno scoffed, turning away from the group and staring at the unconscious soldier. The bent carbine lay in a huddled mass next to him, and the young boy could see his fingers twitching. It wasn’t exactly easing to his soul.

“We should get moving,” Piper urged, “We’ve been standing around too long.” She began to dart towards the alley opposite of the man, and though normally Juno would’ve been inclined to agree on the matter of changing their position, this was a special occasion. He turned to the three that had already started off.

“You guys go ahead,” he told them. “I ‘see’ something, Soph, and I just want to check it out.” Soph nodded, and turned. Kaden’s eyebrow rose questioningly. “I see things too, Kaden,” he informed him. “Probably in a different way, but I see things too.”

His lie bought him some sweet time. While the trio turned to leave, Juno walked menacingly back towards the soldier. He stepped on the foot of the female as he walked, and heard some of her bones crack beneath his feet. Blood spilled all over the ground, and he made a careful attempt not to soak his bare feet in it. It would give him away.

Standing over the body, he knelt down. Slapping the man on the cheek, he heard him squeal slightly as he was woken from his slumber. The halfling stared at his enemy with increasing ferocity, his tail flickering.

The soldier looked up at him. “What—what are you doing here?” he asked pitifully. Juno smirked almost evilly, looking down at the man who deserved to die. The man who had tried to kill him, and Piper, and Sophia, and Kaden, and yet was spared. The man who deserved no mercy.

“I’m here to kill you,” the seer stated with brevity. The soldier grew pale, but Juno didn’t care to watch his fear. He slammed him against the wall and placed one hand firmly around his throat. The man squirmed violently, but the boy in the black jumpsuit wouldn’t budge. No clemency at all would be awarded to this man.

And then, without a second thought, Juno pressed down on his neck.

Gasping, the soldier’s breaths grew shorter and shorter, quicker and quicker, weaker and weaker, until finally—there was no breath at all escaping his lungs. His fingers stiffened, and his eyes rolled out of their pupils. His skin grew cold, and his heart silent. He was dead.

Satisfied, Juno reached down and lifted the man up, holding him almost like a cradled child in his arms. He sighed. “You deserved to die,” he reassured himself, and turned towards the well in the middle of the alley from whence the soldier had come; it was sans rope, or bucket, and water, and thus, was the perfect grave.

Feeling sadly emotionless, the tailed boy lowered the body out of his arms and let it fall limply to the bottom of the well. After hearing a loud thump from below, Juno sighed, and turned back towards the other side of the road, where his group had gone off to.

He raced across the open street and dove into the alley, weaving through a couple of twists and turns before finally catching up to them. The quartet looked back. “What took so long?” Kaden asked, raising an eyebrow, as if he knew something was wrong. Juno chuckled slightly, brushing off his comment nonchalantly.

“Just checking things out, making absolutely sure we had the all clear,” he lied, and Kaden slowed his walk, letting Piper and Sophia get a ways ahead, where they wouldn’t be able to hear.

“Hey,” Kaden whispered to Juno, grabbing his shoulder, “I know you went back and killed that guy. I can’t see him anymore.” Juno squinted his eyes, scoffed, and brushed Kaden off, moving ahead. Kaden sighed, defeated, and followed reluctantly. This kid was a piece of work.

The quartet moved ahead, Kaden still eyeing Juno carefully and Sophia and Piper blissfully ignorant of Juno’s actions. Shortly, however, the foursome found themselves on yet another wide, sunlit road. They scoped the area, looking for something, anything.

A surge blasted through Juno’s mind, and he saw a jeep coming towards them at breakneck speeds, with three others of its kind chasing them. Juno couldn’t make out the faces that sat inside, but they looked familiar, nonetheless. Blurs of blue and pink and grey—blue? Blue hair? Juno shook his head. It couldn’t be.

“Something’s coming this way,” he noted, pointing in the direction he had seen the jeeps coming from. The others followed his gesture, and sure enough, the vehicles turned the corner, just as Juno had seen them.

Juno, Piper, and Sophia headed back for the alley, but Juno halted when he saw Kaden still remained in the middle of the road, gathering energy. “Always got to try to be the hero?” Juno called, but Kaden was too focused to hear him. He shot a gargantuan blast of blue ki forth from his palms, and one of the vehicles was ripped to shreds.

A vision flickered through Juno’s mind of the occupants of that vehicle lying dead and torn apart. Even if it was just his hopes and dreams playing tricks on him, he had good reason to believe that Kaden had killed those people in the jeep. Wonderful.

But that wasn’t important right now—no, right now, Juno had to get the stupid man out of the road. So he reached and pulled Kaden by the back of his shirt into the alley just as the third vehicle in the convoy moved past them. The hybrid sighed, letting go of the blonde-haired human. “Trying to get yourself killed?” he laughed.

“What can I say? Seemed like a good idea at the time,” Kaden replied, and Juno nodded, smirking out of whatever evil desire he had for Kaden to kill those people. A loud crash rung out from just ahead and the quartet ran out to see that the first buggy had crashed into a storefront. “So, should we see what’s going on?” Kaden asked.

Juno, however, was more focused on the image he had seen in his vision. Blue hair—could it be? And the buggy with her in it had just crashed. “Sophia,” he said urgently, tugging on the sleeve of the priestess. “It’s Sage—Sage is in that car.”

“What?” Sophia replied, squinting her eyes, trying to see the girl’s traditional blue hair to no avail. “Oh, my God—you saw this in a vision? That’s how you know it was her?” Juno nodded, and tugged on her hand. “Well, then we can’t just stand around; Kaden, Piper, come on, we’ve got to help them.”

The quartet ran towards the rubble, quickly reaching their destination. However, things must’ve moved fast, as by the time they got there, everyone was gone, and shortly before they reached the store, it had exploded, much to the horror of Juno and Sophia.

Searching through the rubble, the group found nothing, so they took to searching behind the building. And, as they looked around the alley that ran behind what had once been the shop, they heard one of the most earsplitting screams that had ever echoed forth from the mouth of any being, anywhere. Juno’s head whipped towards the noise, and almost immediately, he knew what caused it.

Balrog had them.

[Kappa]

The giant’s conversation had gone south. Really south. The Wizard wasn’t caught off guard, though. In fact he had already taken a few steps to prepare for the worse, thinking it obvious that they knew of Pride’s betrayal. Afterall, the entire island was being filmed at all times. But even still, the huge veteran had managed to stall them with argument for a good thirteen seconds, and in that time Oliver had managed to scan the situation in explicit detail.

When the metaphorical ‘shit’ hit the fan, Oliver pounced; carefully fringing the coilgun’s range of fire, as he had noted it to have a rotational arc of 50 degrees. Sliding across the sandy road, he summoned what energy he had left. The white ‘magic’ was projectile-vomited all over the quartet of armed assailants, out from his chest. The chi-shotgun hit its marks … well, two of them. They fell over, unconscious, as Jackson leapt over their dead bodies.

Darting toward a guard like a horizontal lightning bolt, the titan through a jab and it connected like a sledgehammer, while the last guard made for the railcannon. With the stricken guard slouched over his arm, it was easy to use him as a human-sized projectile. The body flew—fwoosh—through the air, and landed on the femme fatale just as she climbed the side of the buggy. Jackson smirked at the results, brushing himself off.

“So much for your plan, ya big lug,” came Oliver’s commentary, “buttt… we’re alive, and that’s what mat—Huh … you’re kidding.“ It was the appearance of the girls that had interrupted his dialogue. Finally, something had caught him by surprise. Walking out from the vehicle were Sage and Ashe. The crystalline-haired girl stopped dead in her tracks. ‘She’s alive…’ Oliver thought to himself, and maybe she could hear him. ‘…maybe this isn’t Hell after all.’

---

It wasn’t ten minutes later that Oliver, Jackson, Sage, and Ashe were barreling through Olde Town in the combat jeep. Since then, the amateur doctor had managed to do some serious work on the pair of juggernauts. Even though they were struck with euphoria, their pain was going away and they were starting to feel alive again. “Hey.. er… girl!” Oliver yelled over the noise of explosions, all the while maneuvering the vehicle violently out of the way of enemy gunshots. “Uh… thanks.” He said, as genuine as he could manage.

Sage was only just processing the comment when the driver took a hard right around a corner. She bumped her head into a window and Oliver cursed. It was a one way street and they were going to fast to…

“We’re—,“ he started, succumbing to the inevitable, “—gonna crash.” And he was just feeling better too.

---

When Oliver came to he could taste drywall. In his attempt to sit up, he pushed a few hundred pounds of splintered plywood off. Simultaneous with his awakening, was Jackson’s own, who had more obstacles to blast away before he could clear the damage. That crash hadn’t gone as smoothly as planned, Wizard admitted. But he could hear their voices. The others… had they made it out okay?

Oliver moved toward the light. Not far from him, the large ebony man beating on the two women. He had moved his attention to Sage, to bust up her ‘pretty mouth’, when the Wizard stepped out from the collapsed building. The old man’s eyes lit up like those of a western gunslinger and fell upon the mighty Balrog. Rage boiled through his biceps, bulging blue and violet veins out of aging white skin. His vision was a little hazy from the morphine, but good enough to make his mark. The targeting axis fell on the Lieutenant.

---

Meanwhile, Zena and Ares stormed through the streets; drawn out of their shelter and toward the cries. The quarter-saiyan warrioress thought she recognized one of the howls. She cringed at the thought, as her jogging made the transition into a full-blown sprint. “If it’s her … if she’s being hurt.”

They turned a corner towards the commotion and everything popped out at them, like some sadistic children’s book. Bullets were flying about, and energy attacks too. There was a miniature war taking place in Olde Town and they were missing it. Ashe licked his lips at the sight, eager to take in some action; but something … someone had given Zena some pause. A chill ran up her spine, chilling her to the core. It was her: Sage.

It took a few seconds to register, but when it did, it was like throwing a match in an oil pool. There, not too far from where she stood, a giant of a man was beating down on her poor little sister. Sage was helpless it seemed, weeping as she took blow after blow. Anger consumed every inch of Zena, the aspiring hashshashin, and she didn’t let this image set in another instant. With a battlecry, she blasted down the block, arms slung back ready-to-strike.

---

Without hesitation, Oliver kicked off from a pile of debris toward the black hulk. He would strike him down before he could do anymore damage.

“Nash, wait! That won’t work on him, he’s too powerf—,” informed the tanned Hercules that had taken Wizard’s side. But it was too late…

“Shocking... first… BULLET!”

A geyser of energy burst forth from the man’s backside, projecting the white-haired Wizard toward his sadistic enemy. He travelled with uncanny precision, like a homing missile, fist thrust forward to conquer Balrog, when…

…he caught it.

The old man stopped mid-air, and was held a few above the ground by the monstrous Lieutenant, with his fist caught in the beast’s clutches. There was a sickening crunch as he applied pressure. Afterwards he spun around like a tornado and tossed Oliver Nash into the sky. A quick wave of energy succeeded this action, hammering the veteran in the chest, so hard that it took him further skyward.

So high, that he flew out of sight.

---

The enraged Zena continued onward with unwavering resolve. Not only was he hurting her sister, but she was still feeling his rocket launcher. And nothing was more powerful than a woman scorned.
“Face me and die you bastard!”
It only took her a few more seconds to reach the man, whom—distracted by his ordeal with Nash—was caught unawares … by a sharp kick to the head. It knocked him back a few feet, and he would be lying if he said he wasn’t surprised. His eyes were wide at the strength of this weak female. Perhaps it had been a fluke? He tested this when he lunged to strike her. She answered with a flurry of fists and kicks, which shook his iron stance.

“Z-Zena!” Sage called out, tears welling up in her eyes. “You’re…”

“Go, damnit! Get out and take her with you.”

“But—“

“GO!”

Bitter and frustrated, but obedient, she took Ashe’s hand and the two got some distance from Balrog and the girl. Sage knew that her sister knew best, despite her instinct to protest. If Zena died fighting for her, she wouldn’t know what to-- … she turned around, breaking free of the pink-haired woman’s grip. “Sister, I can’t!”

---

Oliver found himself in a pearl room, and he was almost blinded by the light that surrounded him.

“Back again, are you?”

He looked up, confused … angry … but mostly confused. There he saw that persistent son of a bitch, the ‘man in white’, all glamorously clad in a vanilla-cream tuxedo as if constantly at a Governor’s Ball. He was smirking, as always, his face familiarly hidden under a veil of shadow. He sat at a glass table, upon which was a board-game: Chess. Thoughtfully, he moved the White Queen against the Black Rook.

“What was it this time, saving a damsel in distress? Give me a break. You pull more stunts like that, you and me are going to be spending a hell-of-a lot more time together…” he explained, “and believe me, you’re too ugly to be my butler. Therefore, I think this decision is best-left with the cards, don’t you?”

He pulled from his pocket a deck of cards, which we scattered across the table, knocking over the chess pieces.

“Who…?”

“Who am I? Hah, that should be obvious by now. I’m Death, Oliver. Come on, detective, I’m sure you have a better question up your sleeve.”

He pulled two cards from the pile. The first was the Magician, upright.

“Why?” he queried, “Why do you keep saving me?”

“Ah, there you have it. The million dollar question…” he dragged on, mysteriously, “…quite a mystery, indeed.”

He flipped the second card. Death, upright.

“Oh, the luck you have, Mr. Nash! Until next time—“

---

Light. White light. And then … blue skies?

Oliver’s eyes were pried open by forces unknown, salvaging him once again. He looked around and the sight was phenomenal. He was so high, that he was touching the clouds; and it wasn’t just the morphine! Birds cawed not fifty feet from where he soared, while his body still steamed from the impact. Colors filled the atmosphere in a way that just wasn’t possible. Until, something interrupted his euphoria…

GRAVITY.

In an instant, the force that had initially been driving him upwards had lost momentum, giving way to the forces of nature and gravity. There was a heavy pull on his body that felt like it might tear him apart; comparable to if his legs were chain-linked to transports. He yelled at the top of his lungs, not that many or any could hear it up here, as he was driven downwards. His cheeks flapped at the G-forces and his eyelids were bulled back. Oliver could have sworn his skin was catching on fire as he embraced the air resistance.

Even though his body was aching, and his bones were quaking, he could start to see an island. And then … Olde Town; though he couldn’t make out anything specific. They were on an island? He tried to put his analytical mind to use but something was in the way.

That’s when he felt that familiar fire, the unnatural kind, welling up inside him. The rage that had been shut down by the one they called ‘Balrog’. He remembered what had made him so angry. The man was beating on a girl, no older than twenty. Her name was Sage and she had saved him once. Now, it was time to save her.

He could still feel it: his mark on the man. Despite the planetary forces that were fighting him now, he still had a score to settle, and that’s what provoked the arm moment. Gravity protested, but he managed to cock it back, getting ready to fire.

A rare shade of spring green burst from his back in a fountain of energy, much like it had before. There was a hiccup of sound, launching him downward.

While others caught a glimpse of Oliver Nash before impact, Kaden had sensed him far earlier. He rushed past Balrog in a flash of cerulean, grabbing the fighter—Zena—and her sister too. He summoned all the speed his legs could muster to take them outside the bullseye. Catching on, the mighty Lieutenant tiled his head upward, just in time for…

“Annihilatingsecondbullet!”


K A B O O O M

[Sage]

She was strung up to some kind of wooden framework by her wrists, which left her toes just barely on the platform she had been placed on. Her terrorized eyes watched, agonized, as a massive fist plunged into Ashe’s gut. The girl cried out in pain and Sage gasped, sharing her pain. Leave her alone, she silently pleaded, but the man’s filthy paw wrapped around the pink haired girl’s throat, and he raised her face to look her in the eyes. He said something. She couldn’t hear it but it didn’t matter. He walked over to Sage.

Suddenly everything blurred. Vision, logic, awareness, pain swirled through all of it and she couldn’t breathe. Balrog. That was his name. He hit her. Punched her in the stomach, just he’d done to Ashe. She wheezed, but no air came. For a long moment she felt as though she balanced on the equinox of life and death. Her face twisted away from Balrog, but she watched him through the corners of her eyes, unable to defend herself. To reach the gun tucked in the belt of her jeans.

“So,” he grinned, flashing his gap-ridden, hillbilly smile. “You must mean a lot to her,” he jerked his head in Ashe’s direction. “For her to take punches for you. But it looks to me like it’ll hurt her more,” at this his grin went wide, and he leaned in close, to whisper to the azure haired hybrid. “To hurt you instead,”

Another punch to the gut, and then a hook to the face. Blood sprayed from Sage’s lip, but Balrog didn’t relent. He hit her again, this time nearer the eye. The girl went limp, her head lolling about, crimson falling from her nose and mouth. The hulking warrior suddenly seemed irate. “You’re supposed to scream!” he punctuated this by backhanding the girl across the face, but received only a short yelp of pain in response. Even in agony, Sage was reserved.

“Stop it!!” Ashe shouted, struggling against her bonds. Balrog spun on his heel, and smashed his fist into her nose in response. She cried out sharply, much more satisfyingly. He struck her again, and then turned away for a moment, cracking his neck.

He turned back and looked his two subjects over. They were both covered in a slick of blood, sweat, and grime. The blue haired one was shaking, her breathing sounding unsteady. A sudden, vicious punch to her side caused Sage to shriek in shock and pain, and she shuddered more furiously.

Balrog took the girl’s chin in his hand and forced her to look at him. His eyes weren’t dead, like she’d expected. No, they danced. He was enjoying this. Doing horrible things to total strangers.

“What’s the matter, kid? You scared?”

“She’s-” Ashe struggled, spitting out blood to talk, fighting through the pain. “You son of a-” She gave up. She desperately wanted to speak; the words needed to be said but she just couldn’t say them. For Ashe and Sage, the only language were the screams of pain that Balrog extracted from them.

What felt like an era of anguish passed, and it seemed another would follow, when suddenly, Balrog jerked around, and froze in mid-turn. There was some kind of struggle, and suddenly he hurled something skyward, unleashing a blast of energy after it.

“Oliver...?”

And then a bone-on-bone crack rank out, and Balrog stumbled. Suddenly, the hulking lieutenant had been thrown into battle with a furious blond warrior, who matched him blow for blow, raining vicious strikes onto him with an audible fury.

A blonde... Sage stared for a while, convinced her eyes were playing tricks on her. This woman-

No, it was impossible. This was just a memory. False hope. Another kick lashed out, catching Balrog just under the ear, he stumbled backward, brushing against Sage. You couldn’t feel memories.

Could you?

“Z-Zena!” she suddenly exclaimed, reaching out despite her trepidation, her speech slurred from her swelling lips. Tears tumbled from her weary eyes. “You’re-”

“Go, dammit!” Zena growled, with a flick of her wrists firing a pair of ki bolts that effortlessly slashed through the ropes binding the girls to the beam above them. “Get out and take her with you!”

“But-”

“GO!”

What could she do? She didn’t want to lose Zena, not now, not after they just came together again. But... she sighed, trying to hide the fear and guilt and her objections, and she grabbed Ashe’s arm despite her bound hands and ran to shelter in a nearby alley. They paused, and the pink haired girl worked off her bonds, and then helped Sage with hers, before Ashe took her wrist and pulled her farther down the alley, but, to the teen’s shock, the addict broke free of her grip and spun on her heel.

“Sister, I can’t!” she exclaimed, not expecting Ashe to follow her as she doubled back, exiting the alley just as an enormous flash of light consumed the town, followed by a thunderous bang! The powerful winds bowled Sage over, and she found herself somewhat surprised to find Ashe at her side, helping her to her feet.

Sage’s eyes frantically swept the battleground, and settled on Zena, who broke free of some blonde man’s grip. A word was exchanged, and she turned back to the fading light. There was Oliver, on one knee, and Balrog on the ground before him.

Impossible! Sage protested, her telepathic voice broadcasting for all to hear. Sage might not have been able to use ki, but she knew what is was! Balrog should have been consumed by that explosion.

More people converged around the fallen lieutenant, she suddenly noticed. Footfalls thundered to her right, and she turned to face them. She smiled, or she wanted to, at the sight of Juno and Sophia sprinting toward her. She wanted to say something but instead just fell forward, into the arms of the saiyan boy.

There were others, still. A lady with red hair by the blonde man, and there were still the sounds of a pitched battle in the background, so someone else must have been fighting somewhere close. “Ashe,” she breathed, and Juno strained to listen.

“What?”

“Ashe,” Sage insisted, trying to speak as clearly as she could through the blood and the swelling and the fatigue. Her frail hand grasped onto his shirt, collecting the fabric in a clump. “Help Ashe.”

Sophia made her way to the other horribly battered girl, the one she decided must be who Sage was talking about. The hybrid relaxed somewhat. And suddenly, she burst into tears, shaking against a bewildered Juno, who just held her for a moment.

Her tears were not of pain or sadness or even anger. She just cried because she didn’t know what else she could do but cry in the face of the absurdity of her situation. Realization had struck her as she imagined a bullet might.

Despite the sheer hell Kai Demolic had put her through, despite the suffering and the horror and the loss, Sage - hopeless, fearful, sullen Sage - had found a glimmer of hope despite all the horrible game had to offer.

Her sister, somewhere at the forefront. She owed Zena her life, her whole life. Everything she was, she did, she could do, it was because of her sister, and her sister had not abandoned her. She had found her, somehow.

Oliver was there, too, the grizzled old man who hadn’t offered a kind word, except the one in the jeep, and yet seemed... oddly different from the cruel and judgmental people of everyday life. And Sophia and Juno had come, and...

Sage rolled her head, peering at the pink haired girl, who seemed uncomfortable despite the priestess’ soothing words.

Ashe.

Maybe the others didn’t have a chance, but Ashe had done so much for Sage. If not for her, then she would be- the hybrid chased away the thought. She didn’t know if the pink haired girl shared the feeling, but Sage felt a strange kind of closeness with her that she hadn’t shared with anyone else. How many times had Ashe risked herself for Sage?

Sage felt a kind of connection for their shared circumstances. They were separate, marginalized from the world around them, she, psychologically, and Ashe genetically. For Sage, the differences in cause didn’t matter if the effect was the same.

And now that Zena was here, things would be better. She stopped crying; the worst was over. Her sister would set things right, and they would leave this horrible place, and go back to work trying to establish themselves in their new lives. She smiled, the thought of that dingy hostel never seemed so appealing.

And then, as if just to shatter Sage’s brief moment of happiness, Balrog leapt to his feet, catching Nash on the chin with a savage uppercut on his way up. With surprising speed, his hand lashed out, catching Zena around the throat. He hoisted her off her feet, crushing her airway while he hurled punches at her with his free hand.

“Zena!” she choked, struggling with Juno, who feared she would collapse. “L-Let me- let me go!”

Breaking away from the dark haired man, Sage stumbled wildly about, withdrawing her pistol and leveling it at the head of her twin’s assailant. She tried to steady her aim, but her hands refused, and she fell to one knee. Resting her elbow on her knee, she was able to line up a shot, but she hesitated.

What’s the matter, girl? Never been touched by a man before?

Fury struck across her visage, and she pulled the trigger. The glob of vibrant green energy shot through the void between her and the beast, and it slammed into Balrog’s elbow. The sharp sting broke his grip on Zena’s throat, and she instantly threw an elbow of her own into his face.

Others in the group seemed to swarm the lieutenant, while Sage flopped forward and collapsed on the ground, her gun still firmly within her grip. And then she heard the clicks of guns all around her.

Though she couldn’t see it, Balrog’s goons emerged from every direction, from buildings, from side streets and alleys, on top of roofs, all of them with their menacing weapons drawn. At least to them Sage looked dead.

The gathered warriors didn’t take long to realize they were going to have to fight Balrog and a slew of lesser murderers at the same time. Many of them didn’t know one another, which was probably somehow one of the machinations of Kai’s devious game, but they would have to work together in order to repel the forces of their mutual enemy, and to do that they would have to put their suspicions aside. In only seconds, they would truly have to decide between friend or foe.

[Piper Juunanagou]

Clusterfuck.

It was the prettiest of words, but it was the best word that Piper could think of to describe the situation in Olde Town. In a matter of a few minutes, the once elegant, slightly decadent town had been reduced from rows of condemned buildings to one massive bonfire.

The antiquated structures had gone up like dead trees---their entirely wooden frames easily fueling the collateral damage of the skirmish. The dirt and cobblestone roads had been ripped up and haphazardly strewn across the ruins like those damn ink blots the therapists would show Piper during sessions.

Worst of all, however, was how little the woman could do amidst the insanity. If the battle royale had taken place just ten minutes prior, there would have been no doubt that Piper would have been right there in the middle of it. Unfortunately, the cruel intricacies of Kai’s little game had castrated the woman right at the penultimate moment. As the town teetered on the edge—gazing down into the black hole welling up to devour it—Piper took herself out of the action…

The soldier’s blood was still on her hands. It was the woman whose name she would never know, and the woman whose hopes and dreams had been smothered with a flick of Piper’s wrist and a squeeze of the trigger.

Kaden had been helpful. He’d showed the woman something she’d rarely got from men—compassion. As the man had cradled her against his chest, Piper knew that the reading she had got from him was the truth, plain and simple. But now Kaden was off with the others, trying his hardest to curb the madness and inject a little reason and order to the slaughter and destruction gorging itself on the deserted ghost town.

At the whim of Juno, they’d all run off to save some people familiar to them, but Piper had stayed behind. Fortunately, they hadn’t noticed—they were all too driven by their own inner workings to notice Piper slowly fall behind. Even Kaden, who was usually always so aware of things around him, was too caught up in the moment to notice his redheaded companion slip around the corner of an ally and find her spot against the burned-out ruins.

As the others had drawn further away, Piper had let out a faint sigh and slumped down to the street. She had neither the fortitude nor the state of mind to jump into the fray. She didn’t trust herself to operate under the circumstances… She didn’t want to risk hurting anyone else and alienating the only companion she had left.

Or maybe you’re just afraid of yourself. Piper’s inner voice rang clear like a gunshot through the anarchy of her mind, but the redhead lacked the fortitude to listen.

As cinders rained from the heavens like a portent of the apocalypse, Piper stood cradled behind what remained of a smoldered brick foundation. Her hands were quivering slightly, but it wasn’t from the gunshot wounds. The strange blonde woman had made sure to numb her pain, and she’d done so without gauze or morphine. Whoever that woman was, she was a far better medic than Piper could ever be.

Stop beating yourself up. Fresh tears began to well up in the corners of the woman’s eyes. You promised yourself after you got here that you would start anew…that you would be a new person. A strong person.

“I’m trying,” Piper sobbed aloud as she whipped away the tears with one of her bloody sleeves. “I didn’t want any of this.”

But this is what you got. Remember what Kaden said: You’ll have time to beat yourself up after you get out of this hellhole. Stifling her sobs, Piper sucked in a deep breath of air as she tried to compose herself. People—good people—are dying out there on both sides. You have to end this. You have to finish was Szar began.

“…I have to bring Kai to justice,” Piper spoke softly, her voice a soft whisper as she responded to herself.

Go save some lives. Piper’s voice of reason spoke as a faint smile spread across the medic’s wearied features.

Standing up from the heavily disturbed ground, the redhead reached into her side pack. As casually as possible, she downed the rest of her pills and discarded both the bottle and the accessory bag. After all, there was nothing left in there that would do her any good—all her supplies and ammunition had dried up like the desert that surrounding the dying ghost town.

“No gun,” Piper muttered as she craned her neck and shoulders to look down at the small of her back. Following the incident a few blocks over, she hadn’t bothered to recover the weapon. Fortunately, at this point the woman figured it probably wouldn’t do her any good to wield a tool with such simple sway over life and death. “Have to make due,” she noted as she clenched her fists and quickly began toward the epicenter of the carnage. As she walked, she casually brushed the dust and soot from her fatigues.

Piper’s recent inhuman capabilities brought her to the forefront of the mayhem within the minute, and as she stood in the shadows between two ruined buildings, she didn’t see many faces she recalled. The woman who could heal wounds with just her hands was standing off to the side, her expression one of mild apprehension as she tried to avoid getting killed in the flurry of gunshots and energy bolts.

Unable to see Kaden, the redhead found herself staring at the young man with the tail. Was his name Juno? Either way, the boy was having his fill of the insanity—his eyes were wide with a vibrant passion and he quite literally tore and blasted his way through a squad of Kai’s soldiers. When Juno emerged from the back of the former group of soldiers, he found himself staring right into the angry green eyes of Piper Juunanagou.

“What took you so long?” The boy demanded as Piper scanned the broken, bloodied bodies that lie behind him.

Without uttering a single reply, the redhead jolted forward and brought the full force of her knee up into Juno’s crotch. He let out a slightly embarrassing yelp as he reeled back in pain, but before he could react, Piper drilled him square in the chest with enough force to send him skidding down the remnants of the cobblestone road.

“What are you doing?” Piper turned to see Sophia standing just a few feet from her.

“No one deserves to die,” the redhead replied as she took another moment to glance down at the slain soldiers. With nothing else to say, Piper walked away from the healer and continued down the middle of the road. Just a block or so ahead of her, she could see Kaden and a few other men and women fighting against a pack of grunts led by the assailant who had slain Szar, Orion, and the adolescent.

“Balrog,” the woman muttered beneath her breath as she began to jog toward the small brawl.

“Stop!” Piper’s body tensed up as she dug her boots into the loose dirt and pivoted to face the small squad of soldiers. There were three of them—all armored and all with their guns trained on the woman.

“Friend or foe?” The one in the middle declared as he jabbed his gun toward the redhead. Obviously they had seen the inflamed woman lash out against Juno, and Piper really didn’t blame them for confusing her allegiances. And although they didn’t deserve to die, the medic couldn’t deny the fact that they were fighting in the name of a very malicious man.

“Neither,” Piper muttered, prompting all three of the soldiers to arm their weapons. “I’m just Piper,” she added complacently as she vanished in a swirl of vibrant lights.

A split-second later, the redhead rematerialized behind the small team of soldiers. With a series of quick, graceful maneuvers, she disarmed the trio and proceeded to incapacitate each of them with a sturdy chop to the back of the head. As Kai’s hired guns collapsed into unconscious heaps, Piper began to sprint toward Kaden, Balrog, and all the other amalgamated warriors.

Wasting absolutely no time, the redhead made her presence known by leaping through the air and drilling the heel of her right boot into Balrog’s chest. The large, hulking warrior let out a simple grunt and stumbled backwards as the woman backflipped off his chest and landed next to her blonde-haired companion.

“Nice to see you again,” Kaden spoke softly as the group of Friend or Foe ‘contestants’ scattered in a frantic attempt to avoid behind ripped apart by the energized hail of machinegun bullets.