--------------------------
Timeless Chapter 1:
Camaraderie.
--------------------------


The man tried to get as comfortable as one can in a grave.

Even though he had done this several times now, there was always a nagging worry in the back of his head.

Immortal?

The man coughed up a few laughs.

If only they knew the half of it.

Lying in the shallow hole he had dug for himself, the man watched his blood leak from several wounds and form a pool around him.

“Giving up on me again are you?” The man spoke to himself in a chiding tone.

“I apologize, but I am going to have to trade you in for a newer model.”

Clutched in his hand, he slowly positioned a needle over a main artery in his arm; the sharp little point glinted in the moonlight, almost as if it were excited for its chance to unload a lethal dose of morphine.

The man looked at his little executioner’s sharp point and paused momentarily, every time it was a risk.

Will I be the same, or is this it?

He took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

The only thing he could hear was his heartbeat pounding inside his skull.

“One… Two… Three…”

He plunged the needle into his artery and emptied the syringe.

For the first time in centuries, he felt fear; not for himself, but for those who were counting on him... the thought that he might not be able to help them was the most terrifying.

Darkness overtook him slowly as the pool of blood began to engulf his body.



* * *


A young teenage girl sprinted into a dark room covered with television screens.

"Has it started yet?"

A huge man sitting in front of an intricate set of controls glanced at the time.

10:59pm

"It's about to." He replied in a deep baritone voice.

The girl checked all of the video feeds.

"Looks like everyone is in place..."

She couldn't help herself as her gaze fell on an attractive blond haired man portrayed on one of the screens.

"Do you think he is going to do well?"

The man gestured for her to sit down and glanced at the screen.

"We'll see."

11:00pm

He engaged a mic.

“The operation begins now.”

The girl stared deeply into the eyes of the blond man as he brought a radio up to his mouth.

“Affirmative…”


* * *


11:05pm

Standing on the ramparts of a desert-mountain stronghold, a sentry surveyed the surrounding area with a viewfinder.

He noticed a small blur of motion advancing quickly towards the base.

“Target confirmed,” the sentry reported. "Moving into position."

The blur of motion began to move even faster, at its current speed it was almost impossible for a normal human to see it, let alone try to catch it.

“Twins, you have been spotted.” A radio-transmitted voice crackled to the blur.

“Roger.”

The blur took a few big leaps and plastered itself against the bottom of the stronghold wall.

At a standstill it became apparent why the mysterious figure was so hard to see; a cloaking device revealed nothing but an outline, like an ocean ripple all that could be seen was a distortion of its current surroundings.

“Beginning ascent,” reported the figure as it turned and looked up at the mountain base.

In quick agile jumps the figure began to scale the wall. Grasping onto cracks in the sandstone, only a moment of calculation was used between leaps; howling gusts of wind accompanied the silent figure up to the walls rampart.

At the top it cautiously rolled over the edge and froze into a crouch – without moving the cloaking was optimized and the figure became completely untraceable. Battered by the wind the figure slowly scanned the facility, searching up and down the rampart for motion; satisfied, its gaze steadied upon a large double-door entrance.

Suddenly a knife flew out of the darkness towards the blur.

The blade split the air with a high-pitched shriek -- the amount of electricity resonating off of it was deadly.

Hearing this at the last moment the blur attempted to dodge, but it was too slow for the well-thrown knife and a grazing hit landed; A loud crackling sound erupted and the camouflage of the mysterious figure began to wear off.

“How did you see me?” asked the blur.

The sleek, shapely body of a woman slowly revealed itself as the cloaking malfunctioned. Snake-like, a skin tight suit covered her from head to toe. Several tight coils of metal wrapped around her forearms and calves started to hum quietly.

“It was simple really,” the sentry smirked as he emerged from a shadowy corner. “the sand carried by the wind flowed around your body and gave away your position.”

He peeled off his cloak and let the wind rip it away. The sun had almost retired completely beyond the horizon, and in stealthy black garb, only the sentries’ eyes and sword could be seen gleaming in the dimming light.

“A mistake caused by inexperience,” he reprimanded. “I expected more of you Heidi… or is it Paige?”

The woman pulled the face-portion of the suit up-over her head and down to her shoulders, revealing long blonde hair and piercing green eyes. A devilish playfulness lit up her face.

“I have some bad news for you,” She grinned. “It’s both.”

At that moment, the woman clenched her fists and the metal rings around her limbs lit up her surroundings with a fierce emerald green light; an electric charge pulsated through the metal, causing an ear-splitting wail.

It was hard to tell what was brighter, the emerald light, or the murderous glimmer in her eyes.

“Fantastic,” boasted the sentry. “I can teach you both a lesson.”

He raised his sword and pointed it towards her, the blade turned dark as night and a sinister low hum emanated menacingly -- like a black hole it seemed to draw in all light around it.

“Big words,” she replied. “First let’s see if you can last long enough to move.”

In an instant she was on him, leg sweeping down at his face in a screaming arc of green.

With his sword the sentry deflected the kick and swung around for a stomach-ripping horizontal slash.

Startled by his speed, the woman barely brought down her arms in time to block the savage attack.

Stuck in a deadlock for a moment, the sentries’ sword began to absorb the rings’ emerald current; noticing her weapons starting to weaken, the woman pushed off and retreated several steps.

“Lesson one,” the sentry grinned. “never underestimate your opponent.”

The woman laughed.

“pay attention now Asuma, we are about to teach you a lesson.”

Clasping her hands together the woman began to concentrate deeply, the emerald-aura from the rings on her wrists started to pulsate and with each wave the intensity of light became greater.

“Always showing off,” the sentry chided as he took a defensive position.

A blinding explosion of light erupted from the woman, however, quite uncharacteristically of light, the emerald photons gathered beside her and began forming a human-like shape.

An exact replica of the woman materialized, flesh, clothing, everything looked the same, all except for the eyes... they were violet instead of emerald.

"Hi sis," the voice of the materialized woman was surprisingly sultry.

"It's been awhile."

Heidi and Paige, the twins, took an aggressive stance and turned towards their foe.

The sentry, Azuma, knew what was about to happen.

BOOOOOOOOOM!!!

A huge missile narrowly missed the twins and destroyed a large portion of the rampart wall behind them. Chunks of debris created a dust cloud that covered the rampart in seconds, this made normal vision even more difficult in the darkening conditions.

A figure hidden in the mountain range overlooking the base quickly switched a still-smoking rocket launcher for a deadly looking sniper rifle and repositioned it towards the wall rampart.

“Keep shooting Fargus,” Azuma spoke to the mysterious person through a mic. “I’m going in.”

Thinking that the explosion would have distracted the twins long enough to leave an opening for him to attack, Azuma dashed into the dust cloud to finish them off.

Crackling red bullets whizzed through the air as Azuma swung deftly at the emerald green aura’s emanating from the twin’s hands and feet; despite his best efforts however, he never seemed to make contact with anything but air.

Suddenly, as if the Twins had enough of the dancing game, all Azuma could see in the dust cloud was little clusters of emerald green light coming at him from all directions -- now he was the one on the defensive.

The metal rings on the twin’s arms and legs began to emit an ear-piercing wail, and every time a fist would fly past his face the hearing in his ears would go and a frightening glimpse of the Twins faces could be seen.

Azuma retreated into the open air and opted to wait for his foes to make the first move.

The twins emerged and walked calmly towards Azuma in synchronization, they were all business.

On the mountain range, the sniper Fargus took careful aim at one of the twin’s heads and fired a perfect shot.

Flying straight and true the bullet should have taken a one way trip through Paige’s skull, but instead it stopped inches from her temple and dropped harmlessly to the ground.

She tried her best not to be startled by the closeness of the bullet.

“thanks for the help guys…” She spoke into a mic to an unknown source.

“but next time try to stop it a bit farther away from my face.”

Several miles away from the mountain base two men in a dune buggy raced towards the rampart walls; a rather fat and older man sat meditating in the passenger seat while a young man drove with a radio pressed up against his cheek.

“I apologize for that Paige.” The young man replied and glanced towards his passenger.

“Gino is doing the best he can while compensating for my poor driving, our ETA is 5 minutes, good luck.”

“Roger.” Both the twins replied as they once again prepared to pounce on Azuma and tear him to pieces.

Sensing the dire situation, Fargus emptied an entire clip at the twins.

The bullets met the same fate as their previous companion and all were successfully stopped by the mysterious barrier created by the dune buggy’s rotund passenger Gino &#150.

This time stopping several feet away from the twins before falling to the ground.

Convinced that his attacks were no longer of use, in a flash he disappeared from the sniper spot leaving no trace except for the pungent smell of gun powder.

“Two is better than one you say?” Azuma slipped a smaller replica of his jet black katana into his off-hand; it seemed as if the last remaining sunlight was being sucked into the blades and the low pitched hum they were emitting became deeper and more ominous.

The twins came from both sides.

“No…” Paige spun a devastating roundhouse kick at Azuma’s face.

“More…” Heidi threw an organ rupturing punch at his mid section.

“TRICKS!”

The twins screaming metal bands clashed again and again with Azuma’s dark blades as he tried desperately to block the onslaught.

At first it seemed the flurry of attacks would overwhelm Azuma, however after each electrified report of the respective weapons clashing, the darkness of the blades seemed to suck the life out of the emerald green rings encircling the twin’s limbs.

The speed of the twins attacks slowly dropped and their weapons seemed to begin to stick to the atmosphere itself -- the energies collected by Azuma’s blades were beginning to create voids in space!

“I’m sorry but…”

Azuma momentarily let go of his sword handles and, moving twice the speed the twins were currently experiencing, hit them both in the sternum with a crunching open palm thrust, sending them almost over the rampart’s edge to the desert below. “

"There are always tricks.”

The blades were left floating in midair, he tapped the edges with his finger and sent them rotating in place.

Heidi’s body began to slowly dissolve and break apart into fragments of violet light.

“Well sis, it was fun while it lasted.” She smiled as her face slowly disintegrated.

The floating particles collected and started to reabsorb into Paige’s bracelets.

Paige took a deep breath and exhaled slowly.

“I can’t believe it has come to this…”

She engaged her mic.

“Brax… I need your help.”

Azuma began to laugh uncontrollably.

“I can’t believe you are actually going to use that idiot.” He grinned. “Although I have been looking forward to this for some time now.”

Paige said nothing as she collected herself; with Heidi now back in the bracelets the emerald aura around her shone fiercely.

A deep rumbling vibrated the entire rampart, almost as if an earthquake was ripping through the area; loose stones from the missile impact shook and fell into the desert night.

It was quite evident that a large person, or thing, was unabashedly running up the near-vertical wall.

An evil grin lit up Azuma’s face.

“Here he comes.” Gleeful anticipation danced in his eyes.

“AZUUUUUUUUMAAAAAAAAAAA!!!!!”

A huge man appeared and leapt high off the lip of the rampart. His muscular body was very noticeable, mainly because of a lack in nearly all clothing, and in both hands he wielded a gigantic piece of azure-coated steel over his head. With the raucous entrance, loud bellow, and ridiculous clothing choice, he was not hard to miss.

Dropping out of the sky like a rock, the man ever-so-slowly swung the huge “sword” in the general direction of Azuma.

“Ah Brax,” Azuma sidestepped slowly out of the attack radius, “Always so --”

Brax brought the enormous slab of metal to the ground in an overly telegraphed manner. Absolute chaos followed as the azure “thing” touched down; a linear shockwave of immense proportion ripped the ground to shreds as it missed Azuma by a significant margin and crumpled one of the wall’s sentry towers in a matter of seconds.

“-- Subtle.”

Brax, the self-proclaimed “destroyer of cities,” stood as tall as he could, and with a significant amount of effort (that he tried to hide), lifted the “sword” over his shoulder and pointed menacingly at Azuma.

“I am going to RIP YOU to PIECES!”

“Remember what happened last time?” Azuma jeered. “I don’t think you w-a-”

An invisible, and well placed, kick to the face stopped him short.

Using Brax’s attack as cover, Paige had activated enough of the malfunctioning cloaking system to sneak behind Azuma and catch him off guard.

He stumbled backwards and tried to shake the stars out of his eyes.

"THIS TIME..." Brax rushed at Azuma and swung the sword in a sweeping horizontal arc; Azuma reacted just in time and jumped above the attack.

"IT'S DIFFERENT!" Another invisible kick from Paige knocked the wind out of Azuma and sent him crashing to the ground.

Before Azuma could get up, Brax was there with another of his city-crumbling overhead attacks. As the blade came down to perform all sorts of hurt on Azuma, a smirk spread across his face.

POOOOOOOF!

Azuma was gone, a smoke-grenade in his place; and shortly after Brax's blade came in contact with the ground, another sentry tower had disappeared as well.

"SHIT!" Brax proceeded to string an impressive set of curses together. "WHERE THE HELL DID YOU GO YOU PUSSY?"

"Easy Brax." Paige restrained him from doing any more damage as she materialized into view. "He went in there." She pointed towards a large double-door entrance, it was cracked open slightly.

Paige engaged her mic.

"Layne, we are going to need you and Gino... we couldn't take down Azuma.

"So they are all in there waiting for us?" The young man from the dune buggy responded.

"Yes."

"This is going to make things a whole lot more difficult."


* * *


The man's vocal chords were destroyed.

Five years of being tortured would do that to you.

He had almost died a few times... those were the good days.

"YOU KILLED HER!" A bone would be broken.

"YOU KILLED HER!" An electric shock.

"YOU KILLED HER!" A tendon cut.

This was the daily routine.

The doctor loved routine.

Once, the man had gone into cardiac arrest and the doctor kindly brought him back from the brink of death.

The doctor was good at saving lives.

There were many close calls... the doctor hated waiting for the healing process, but he found a way to make the best of the situation.

Every day the doctor would come for a visit and tell the man all the things he was going to do to him once his body had recovered.

It was during this length of time that the man began to cry, he had never cried before.

He was sorry, sorry that he killed her.

He told this to the doctor every day.

It didn't matter.

"YOU KILLED HER!"

"YOU KILLED HER!"

"YOU KILLED HER!"

The doctor loved routine...


* * *


Back at the mountain base, Brax and Paige approached a long hallway.

Carefully moving from room to room in the mountain base they had crept along cautiously, spending a considerable amount of time looking out for an ambush.

Paige spoke into her mic.

"Layne... how much time do we have left?"

"Fifty-seven minutes..." The young man from the dune-buggy, Layne, responded in a hushed voice. "Not the ideal amount of time to complete the mission... with them at full strength and a lack of time on our side, the chance of success is now down to 57%."

"How would you like us to proceed?"

"You are on the basement level of the building now, spend no more than 30 minutes getting down to the lab." He answered quickly, "Azuma and Fargus will most likely ambush you somewhere between the where you are now and the stairwell down, and in the last room it is highly probable that she will be guarding the target... we will meet up with you there and help you take her down."

"Roger." Paige signed off and she looked at Brax, "We are so screwed."

Brax grinned.

"If you like we can ditch this mission right now and really do some screwing."

The color of Paige's eyes changed from emerald to violet and she slapped Brax savagely across the face.

"YOU KNOW WHAT YOU CAN DO IS FUCK OFF AND GET SERIOUS!"

"Ah-hah-oww." Brax grimaced, "Hello to you too Heidi."

The personality of Heidi had overtaken that of Paige's, the metal bands around her arms and legs also changed color to match the deep purple of her eyes.

"You know I love a good screw from time to time Brax-ey." She stroked his face gently, "But right now we have a mission to accomplish, ok?" Nails were added to the stroke and it wasn't so gentle anymore.

Brax laughed nervously and swatted her hands away, he knew what she was capable of.

"Ok, ok, I was just joking!" he said apologetically. "Let's get down to business."

"As in... the mission... r-i-g-h-t?" Heidi cocked her hand back.

"YES, YES!" "No pun intended." "I swear!"

"Good... lets get this show on the road."

Heidi began to sprint through the building, her approach to the mission was quite a bit different than Paige's; Brax struggled to keep up, his enormous sword barely fit through the small doorways of the base... a couple times he had to make his own way through the wall.

"Heidi! Wait!" Brax gasped as they approached the last room on the second floor.

She stopped and whirled around.

"WHAT IS IT?"

"I think we should slow down, its just that Layne told us to be careful because Azuma and Farg--".

"I KNOW what he said you idiot I was there." She snapped, "What does he know anyhow? He's just a rookie!"

"But... boss will be angry if you don't follow orders..."

"He won't if we get the job done." She pointed at the long path of destruction that lay behind them, "Look how much time we just saved, you and Paige would have taken way too long to get to this point."

"It could have compromised the whole mis--"

"Look, remember the briefing? She interrupted, "If you had any brains you would have figured out that the best place to ambush us would be in this last room up ahead."

"What? How did you figure that out?"

"The schematics of the building show that it is a large room with pillars... now, who do you know that needs a lot of room to swing his ridiculous sword?"

"Ah, hah... I see... so what should we do?"

"Come closer you dumbass and I will tell you how we are going to get through them."

* * *

Sure enough, in the large room with pillars, Azuma and Fargus waited patiently for the pair to arrive. Fargus had concealed himself at the far end of the room near the stairwell to the lab, and Azuma had pushed himself up against one of the pillars in the middle.

The rumbling of walls being broken through had stopped and now only nervous tension filled the air.

Azuma looked back to where Fargus was hiding and mouthed the words, "They are here."

A hand shot out of the darkness and Fargus gave a thumbs up, as he did so his sleeve slid back and revealed a fully robotic arm -- no one knew for sure how much of him was android, and since he never spoke, it never made any sense to ask.

The sound of metal screeching broke the silence; Brax came barreling into the room at full speed, sword dragging behind him to fit through the pillars.

As the footsteps came closer Azuma readied both of his blades and a fearsome grin spread across his face.

The footsteps stopped.

Why did he stop? Azuma was confused, but didn't want to miss the opportunity to catch him off guard; he signaled Fargus to start firing and lept out from hiding.

An entire round of bullets hit Brax in the chest and Azuma buried both of the katanas into his gut.

"Oh... --" Azuma groaned, his eyes widened.

Emerald light began to leak from the puncture wounds.

"-- Shit."

He heard bullets hitting metal at the back of the room and he whipped his head around to see what was happening, there was another Brax blocking Fargus's shots with his sword. But what was Fargus trying to shoot at?

Out of the corner of his eye an arm covered in violet light materialized out of thin air and swung towards him, it was the last thing he saw.


* * *


Brax was dancing over top Azuma's lifeless body.

"HAHAHA, not so cocky now are you little bitch?" He gloated.

"Would you cut that out?" Heidi had been checking over Fargus for signs of life; he wore an old grey cowboy hat pulled down low and masking the rest of his face a large pair of goggles held a red handkerchief in place. She reached towards his head ... her hand stopped.

Scared to go too close, she decided that the lack of red glow shining through his goggles was proof enough that he was out of commission. That and the fact that his body lay in two pieces on the floor, courtesy of Brax's hand to hand combat skills.

"HEY!" Heidi jumped as Brax yelled from across the room, her eyes changed from violet to emerald as the scare triggered a personality change in her.

"The plan you had worked out great! That illusion Paige created of me turned out well but I think I could have used a bit more muscle." He kicked Azuma in the side, "You're pretty lucky to have nano-machines that repair your suit."

"Yeah..." Paige looked down at the ground and bit her lip, "It was a great plan."

"What was that?" Brax was now standing on Azuma fully absorbed in enjoying the moment.

"Nothing." She responded and turned to look at him, "We should get going."

Brax noticed the aura around her bracelets had changed, "Oh hi Paige, you have no idea how glad I am to see you!"

"Yeah?" She smiled and couldn't help but laugh, "Was Heidi rough on you?"

"Ha, that's an understatement." He jumped off Azuma and started walking towards her, "Couldn't you see, or, uhh... hear, what was going on?"

"Sometimes I can..." The smile dropped off her face, "But... most of the time its just darkness..." Her eyes lost their shine.

An awkward silence followed as Brax came closer.

"Hey..." He gently put one of his massive hands on her shoulder, "I would much rather finish this mission with you, ok? Her frame was much smaller than he had imagined, "Your sister is good at some things, but you are great at others."

She looked into his eyes and saw uncharacteristic kindness, or perhaps... could it be... compassion?

He grinned stupidly and whatever his eyes were portraying disappeared quickly, "So lets go kick some ass together ok?" He patted her shoulder, probably a little rougher than he had planned on, and walked towards the staircase that lead down to the lab.

He always knows how to make me feel better.

"Hey Brax..."

"Yup?" He looked at her and smiled warmly.

"HELLO!?!" The sound of Layne calling out loudly on her mic scared her.

"You two are late! We need you here now!" He stated feverishly, "We've only got 20 minutes left to get the target and get out of here!"

"Holy FUCK rookie, try not to blow your load alright?" She snapped back.

A chagrined look passed over Brax's face.

Paige was gone.

"I don't know what my sister and this idiot were doing, but we will be up there in two minutes," She turned off the mic and shot Brax a menacing look, "Lets go retard."

As Heidi rushed past him the violet light from her bracelets illuminated the dim stairwell. Brax followed her to the first step and stopped for a moment, he glanced at his hand gripping the rail, it was the same one that had been on Paige's shoulder.

He closed his eyes and tried to imagine the darkness.

"HEY!" Heidi yelled up at him.

"COMING!" He shouted back.

He sighed and took a deep breath before bounding down the stairs to meet up with Layne and Gino.

As Brax left the room, the body of Fargus started to pull itself back together.

Red glow returned to the goggles as the two halves came together.

Fargus stood up.

Mechanically, he walked over to his companion's still frame.

He placed a hand on Azuma's chest and after scanning it for a second, he adjusted some knobs on the back of his wrist.

An electric shock ripped through the lifeless body on the floor.

Azuma's eyes opened.

* * *

The doctor must have been well into his 60's by now.

The man tried to figure out how old that would have made him... somewhere in the late twenties perhaps?

No matter.

One of them was going to die soon and that was all the he needed to know.

Even though the doctor had done his best to keep "the boy" as he liked to call him, alive, there was only so much that feeding tubes and medicine could do to combat the constant torture.

After a particularly close call with death, the man woke up from the blackness of a coma feeling like he was hanging onto life by a thread.

It was time for a last ditch effort.

The doctor shuffled slowly into the cell and sat down on a stool beside the man, his hair was completely white and age-spots dotted his face.

"Well my boy." He leaned forward to check the chains and mask that kept the man subdued, "You almost got away on me last week." He smiled darkly, "Aren't you glad you survived for some more fun?"

A fit of coughing struck him suddenly and it took a few minutes for him to compose himself.

"It seems the tests I performed on myself back in the day are catching up to me." The doctor laughed, "Oh how my colleagues must be rolling in their graves with laughter right now."

The man stared blankly at the ceiling.

"Nothing to say hmm?" The doctor pulled a large notepad covered in messy writing from his pocket, "Lets see what exciting new adventures we are going to have together shall we?"

The man chuckled.

"My boy, my boy... this is not the time to have a case of the giggles."

"Remember what happened last time you interrupted me."

The laughter did not stop.

Ferocity swept over the doctors face, "STOP!!" He gripped the mans jaw with his claw-like hands.

The man whispered something that caught the full attention of the doctor.

"WHAT DID YOU SAY?!"

"SAY IT AGAIN!"

"SAY IT!" The doctor began to dig his nails into the man's face.

"She... hated... you." The man coughed and smiled.

"No!" The doctor pushed his thumbs into the mans throat and started choking him.

"She loved ME!"

"She loved ME!" He slammed the mans head against the table.

Shaking his head and mouthing the words "No." The man continued to shake with silent laughter.

"AAAAHHHHHH!" The doctor gripped as tight as he could, wanting to kill the man once and for all.

It's working!

The man was excited to finally die.

Blackness washed over him, the hell that his life had become was soon going to be over.

It was the most he could do to not smile.

The grip loosened.

NO!

KILL ME! KILL ME! KILL ME!

He heard a gasp of pain.

The doctor had crumpled to the ground.

* * *

"Alright, this is what we are going to do."

Crouched around a rolled out floor-plan of the base, Layne demonstrated to the others how they were going to get to the target.

"This amphitheater room is where she is going to be."

Heidi interjected, "Give us the short version kid, we are running out of time." She was only half listening to what he had to say.

Layne ignored her, "Heidi and Brax, you two will try to flank her, while I will attack from the front and Gino provides some protection.

"Do NOT, let her hit me with one of her warping blasts, got it Gino?" Brax said, a hint of fear in his voice.

Gino smiled warmly, "I will do my best young man." He wiped the sweat off of his balding head and folded his hands into the priest robes he was wearing, "I hope you will reciprocate the favor."

"Same for me tubs." Heidi added. A dark look came over her face, "You didn't do the most fantastic job keeping me and Brax safe last time."

"Ok enough!" Layne rolled up the floor-plan and stood up, he was wearing a desert travelers tunic with all sorts of bags and pouches attached to it. Blond with blue eyes, he would have looked older had it not been for his lack of facial hair. "Two minutes to take her down, one minute to get the target, and five minutes to get out of here."

"Let's move out."

The group made their way quietly over to a metal door; built into the frame there was a small peek hole that gave a view of the adjacent room.

"Heidi..." Layne whispered, "Cloak and check it out."

Turning her camouflage on, Heidi stepped up to the door and looked through the hole.

"She's waiting for us."

In the middle of the amphitheater, a young and innocent looking brunette woman was floating in the air. Wearing a colorful sundress and floppy straw hat, she sat cross legged examining her fingernails.

The young woman looked directly at Heidi and waved.

Ah, Shit.

"Ok. Heidi, Brax..." Layne grabbed the door handle, "Go on three."

"One..."

Heidi took a few steps back.

"Two..."

Brax readied his sword to the side.

"THREE!"

Layne flung the door open and the two rushed into the room.


* * *


"Excuse me doctor?"

A pair of military officials knocked on the window of examination room 3.

Startled by the sound, a pale middle-aged man turned around quickly.

The room was filled with cages of rats, most of them were alive.

He put the syringe he was holding down on the table and let the officials in.

"Well, well. What did I do to get the honor of a visit from the board?" The doctor inquired.

An awkward silence followed.

"Larry," The doctor turned to one of the men, "Don't tell me bill A31 passed."

"I'm sorry Jim, but what did you expect?"

"God dammit!" The doctor exclaimed, "The tests have almost been completed, why would they shut us down now?"

"Look..." The other military official jumped in, "The funding is drying up and there are other sections that are more important than yours."

"MORE --" The doctor belted out a fake laugh, "More important?"

"Do you know what I have sacrificed for this?" He shouted, "This is my LIFE, I HAVE nothing else!"

The man named Larry tried to calm him down, "Easy Jim, easy." He put a hand on the doctors shoulder. "We all know how much you put into this, but it just isn't feasible anymore." "Just think," he grinned warmly. "With the salary you've been getting paid and the money from the severance package you should be able to retire early."

The doctor brushed Larry's hand off of him, "I want to be the next Einstein, not some senile lawn-bowling champion for fuck's sake."

"Ok," Larry said, "I understand." He took a deep breath and looked around the room, it appeared pristine from the outside but it smelled like shit close up, "What about a transfer."

"Transfer... to where?"

"LPD, Life Preservation Development."

"Fuck that."

"Look Jim!" Larry was getting angry, "I'm doing you a favor h--"

"A favor?" The doctor interrupted, "I'm a god damn human combat genetics specialist, what the hell am I going to do in LPD!?"

"Just LISTEN!" Larry snapped. "You can keep your lab and do your own research from time to time... but for technicalities sake, you will have to work in LPD alright?" He rubbed his temples, the migraine was starting to come back. "As far as the President and his posse know, section 12 will be shutting down."

The doctor leaned back on the table and gazed at one of his rat subjects, it's muscle mass was overdeveloped and the skin was about to rip apart.

"Alright fine." He grumbled and turned back to the two. "I knew a black president was going to be trouble.

The officials were glad the interchange was coming to a close.

"Hah, didn't we all? Peace and love... who ever thought he would actually push for it."

The two quickly said their goodbye's and left the doctor to his devices; more than a little disturbed by the strange man and his experiments, they exchanged looks of disbelief once out of the room.

"Didn't I tell you that guy was fucking crazy?"

"No kidding, what a nut-job."

"We won't have to deal with him for long, this is just the first step in the board's plan to get rid of him."

"Thank god... I just hope I am not the one who has to kick him out."

"Hah, don't we all."

The doctor picked the syringe back up and tried to find a suitable test subject.

"Peace..." He let out a chuckle. "Not if I have anything to do with it."

Grabbing a rat by the tail, he lifted it out of the cage.

"War is where the money is."

Pinning it down, he inserted the needle into its neck.

"More importantly."

He emptied the contents of the syringe into the rat.

"War is where people become famous."


* * *


A large ball of energy came flying at Layne's face.

"GINO! 2 o'clock!" He yelled.

Gino deflected the shot with a barrier, sending it whizzing into the wall.

Brax and Heidi stood back to back on top of the medical table in the middle of the room, the woman was nowhere to be seen.

Layne crouched beside Gino near the entrance and spoke quietly into his mic to the team, "We are going to have to make a guess where she will show up next." He scanned the amphitheater with an assault rifle, "Brax go to the east side, Heidi to the w--"

In a crackling explosion of light, the woman reappeared over top of Heidi and Brax and sent two blasts towards them; the amorphous masses emerged from her hands and traveled quickly at the two.

Heidi and Brax lept out of the way.

Whoosh!

The table twisted out of shape and disappeared as the balls of energy came into contact with it.

Layne fired a round of bullets at the woman, but before they could hit her she was gone.

"This is going NOWHERE Layne!" Heidi growled into her mic, "We don't have enough time to attack before she teleports."

"Alright..." Layne sighed, "let's try backup plan S."

Brax and Heidi looked at each other in dismay.

"Aw shit, ok." Heidi responded and began the process to bring Paige out.

Gino turned to him, "What is the chance of success on that?"

"12 percent."

"Oh boy."

"Yep..." An intense look came over Layne's face, "It's our best chance though..."

5 minutes left.

Paige materialized beside Heidi and immediately cloaked.

"Alright lets move!"

Brax and Heidi started sprinting for the door that lead to the target.

Layne readied his rifle and watched the two reach the door through his sights.

Why hasn't she shown up yet?

Just as Brax touched the door handle, a voice whispered.

"So sorry."

The woman reappeared above them and before they could move she tapped them both lightly on the back.

Their bodies twisted in strange ways and in a blink they were gone, warped into another dimension.

Brax's sword came crashing down.

The woman turned towards Layne and Gino, "Looks like we have won this ti--"

Before she could finish her sentence, Paige uncloaked and savagely round-house kicked her in the temple; the emerald charge from the bracelets on Paige's legs ripped through the woman and left her sizzling on the ground. She wasn't getting up.

Paige glanced at Brax's sword, "Oh Brax," She shook her head and grinned, "I'm going to hear about this later."

"Paige get the target!" Layne reminded her of the task at hand, "We will meet you outside!"

Layne and Gino started heading for the exit while Paige stepped into the next room.

A small orb rested on a makeshift pedestal made out of scrap iron, Paige picked it up and observed it in her hand; it looked like a big white marble.

So much effort for this stupid little thing, why couldn't it be money?

She shrugged.

Guess I'll bring it up with the boss.

Clasping the orb tight she ran to meet up with Gino and Layne.


* * *


Just outside the mountain base, Layne and Gino were waiting for Paige in the dune buggy.

2 minutes left

"Ok here she comes!" Layne told Gino as he spotted Paige jumping off of the rampart wall.

"We have to be 1 mile away from the base for the mission to be a success?" Gino asked.

"Yep."

Paige landed gracefully in the back of the dune buggy.

"I've got it!" She exclaimed, "Pin it!"

Layne hit the gas and they were off.

It was the most they could do to keep their eyes off the clock ticking down, the seconds were slipping away much too fast for any of their likings.

Gino turned to Paige, "Great work back there! I didn't think she was going to fall for it."

"Thank you!" She smiled at him, "I was worried that Heidi was going to steal the spotlight again."

"That is her all-time favorite thing!" Gino laughed, "I wonder how her and Brax are doing right now... I wouldn't want to be in their situation."

She thought back to the kind words Brax had said to her, "WAIT!" She said suddenly in a panicked voice. "Did you see Azuma and Fargus's bodies on the way back?" She gripped the roll bars of the dune buggy, "In the big room with the pillars?" She looked at Layne, "I dont remember seeing them when I ran through there!"

Layne's eyes opened wide, "Oh SHIT!"

An explosion ripped through the front of the vehicle and sent it flipping through the air; Layne and the others were flung into the black desert night.

1 minute left.

As he shook the stars from his eyes Layne frantically checked for his comrades; to his left Paige's emerald light illuminated the crash scene and he could see the unmistakable lump of Gino's large unconscious body in the distance.

Paige slowly got up and looked towards him, "Look out behi--"

Her sentence was cut short as crackling red bullets ripped through her.

Layne realized what she had been trying to tell him and looked to the right.

A low humming sound and a glimpse of Azuma's pupils was the last thing he saw before the blade slashed him across the back.

"Welcome to the team rookie."