RKMBs Forums .::Important::. Writer's Block Vanguard Europe #4: The House of Smoke and Mirrors

Vanguard Europe field team

• Drake Marshall a.k.a. NightWatch - field leader
• Edmund Gaunt
• Lady Lykopis
• Adem Different
• Icarus Sidewinder
• Ozzy Baxter
• Tommy Foxe
• Victor Reilly

Vanguard Europe support staff

• Dr. William Paragon - president
• Penny Goodweather - secretary
• Dr. Ian McGregor - team medic
• Jym - technical support and services
• Gustave

Tommy Foxe had already been on a few missions with the Vanguard Europe field team... but he still wore his excitement right out there on his sleeve. Never had he been more glad to be a part of such a group. He wasn't sure what it was, but there was something about this team - at this time - that made him proud to be here. He was sure he loved these people...

These people... Victor Reilly thought, his eyes darting around the mahogany meeting room table. Never before had the trained assassin been offered such a unique challenge - seven super-powered beings assembled in one place. Ever since he'd first seen them, his brain had been running dozens of fight simulations per second. The only wildcard... Ozzy Baxter. The allegedly indestructible man. How do you destroy a man who can't be harmed? Reilly's scenarios continued to run almost subconsciously, as he stared daggers through the man. Throw him into a vaccuum... bury him at the center of the earth... jettison him into deep space... into a black hole... or the sun...

"Black hole sun, won't you come... wash it down the drain..." Icarus Sidewinder whispered the song to himself, pounding his index fingers on the table in order to keep beat. "Black hole sun, won't you come... won't you come..." As he sang, he tapped his foot, attempting to keep time...

Time is the fire in which we burn... Edmund Gaunt grunted slightly as he contemplated the extent of his duties. There was so much left to do and, literally, no time accomplish it in. There was the whispers of the nether-entity encroaching upon this reality from the abyss. That would require attention, though likely not immediate attention. Still, other things needed looking into - there was talk of another uprising within the Kqwir'l Continuum, a possible anti-matter breach along the Great Wall of China, and the usual maintenance of the barzakh in order to keep the djinn population in check. And that was only for starters. There was too little time... and simply too much to be done...

Done, Adem Different thought contentedly, closing the covers of his leather-bound Hercule Poirot collector's edition. The book was quite large, to be certain, but Adem enjoyed reading what many on this planet considered the "classics" of mystery. Although some of these so-called mysteries seemed a little far-fetched to him. Perhaps being an alien tainted his perspective. However, it still seemed odd to him that a man would know to kill a man by stabbing him while in a trunk with a dagger...

A dagger. Just a dagger. Lykopis would have to check into the armory before she left for this next mission. She had stayed at Todd's last night and, because of that, was slightly unprepared to be called in. This is something, she decided, that Todd would have to get used to... because there was no way she was going to continue showing up at team meetings without at least her sword. Maybe some other weapons...

Weapons were worthless to Oswald Baxter. The man's one-two punch had laid out more men than he could count. And he would know... Ozzy himself had stopped counting somewhere around 273. However, in his quiet moments - like this one - Ozzy found himself reliving former glories. Pounding the shit out of Hero I... delivering a powerhouse right hook to knock out Tommy "The Machine" Gunn (Stupid name anyway... asshole, Ozzy thought) all those years ago... and even sparring with Lady Lykopis not too long ago. Right now, however, Ozzy was mentally trading punches with Tyler O'Neil at one of B.T. Polford's infamous 'underground' matches. A quick jab to the face followed by a kick to the Adam's apple...

Apples, milk, cookies... uh... detergent... Drake Marshall thought, jotting little notes on a pad he kept with him. Jessica had expected him to pick up a few things on his way home. The only problem was she had read him the list in rapid fire, so the task of remembering was coming a bit difficult. C'mon, Drake, the vigilante formerly known as Nightwatch thought to himself. You've solved murders, hunted criminals, and been in two branches of Vanguard... this should be a walk in the park!

Sadly, Drake's thoughts were interrupted as the meeting hall doors opened, revealing Dr. William Paragon, dressed in his typical neatly-tailored white suit, followed by a tanned man dressed in a neat black suit. The two men could not have looked more like opposites.

"Thank you for coming so quickly," Paragon said as he entered, not wasting any time before starting the briefing. But then... that was Paragon. "Gentlemen... m'lady," he said, making a quick nod to Lykopis, who nodded in return. "May I introduce Special Agent Hernando Alvarez of the... well, the Spanish equivalent of the FBI."

The man stepped forward, nodding to the assembled members of Vanguard Europe. "Thank you, Doctor," he said, nodding to Penny who had followed him into the room. At his signal, the secretary began dropping files in front of every member of the team. "In front of you are casefiles from a case that has caused a lot of disruption in Spain as of late. Thirteen missing people, all ranging from the ages of eighteen to twenty-five. All single and all missing under... mysterious circumstances."

"Care to be more specific, Agent Alvarez?" Drake asked, looking up as he thumbed through the pages before him.

"I wish I could, Sr. Marshall, but I'm afraid I cannot," the Spanish agent shook his head. "It was as though they were taken out of thin air itself."

Adem looked up, a gleam in his eye. "Interesting..." he said, putting his hand to his chin as he had seen detectives do on TV.

"Indeed," Alvarez opened a file himself. "Each person disappeared from a locked room. No noticeable entry or exit points. It was literally as though they simply... disappeared."

The Shadow Chancellor sat back in his seat, contemplating what he was being told. Closing his eyes, he brooded a bit going over in his mind just how many ways he knew for people to 'simply disappear'.

"We have very little evidence at this point and no leads," Alvarez continued solemnly. "However, at the behest of my superiors, I am handing this case over to you. Following what I heard of your escapades from the European media, it is our thought that this case might be right up your alley."

There was a silence in the room as the agent looked over the assembled members of Vanguard Europe.

"Is that it?" Icarus chimed in, having not even opened his briefing notes. "Thirteen people missing, no leads or evidence to speak of, and... you expect us to... what? Find out where all these people are? How do we even know where to start?"

"Madrid," Adem Different piped up, not even raising his head from his notes. "Every disappearance took place in Madrid, Spain. Please, Senor Alvarez, tell me," he continued, shooting a sidelong glance at the agent, "are there any factors that connect these thirteen people, other than their proximity in age?"

Alvarez stiffened a bit. "Well, as I mentioned before, none of them were married or seeing anyone," he said authoritatively. "We also know that they were all deeply religious."

"What faith did they profess?" Gaunt asked ominously.

"Catholicism to the best of my knowledge," Alvarez answered. "Except for one." Alvarez seemed lost in thought for a few moments. Icarus nudged Reilly and made an obscene gesture towards the agent. Reilly grinned humorlously and returned to his briefing information. "Yes, it should be in your packet. One of the men who disappeared - Carlos Oldera - filed 'Other' under religion on his last tax return."

"And the name in the blank?" Gaunt asked.

"La Casa de Humo y Espejos," Alzarez answered, reading from the dossier of Oldera in the notes.

Gaunt's eyes narrowed beneath his dark glasses as Adem Different steepled his fingers. "The House of Smoke and Mirrors," he said.

"Si," Alvarez nodded. "Though I must confess, I know nothing of the religion myself."

"Edmund?" Paragon asked, looking to the Shadow Chancellor expectantly. "Have you heard of them?"

"I am... uncertain," came the reply. "I will have to do some questioning among my... contacts. I have heard nothing as of yet."

"If you come up with anything be sure to let us know," Paragon responded. "Anything else? Lady Lykopis, you've been uncharacteristically silent this meeting."

"Merely thinking of what weapons I shall be packing for this mission," the She-Wolf answered, cracking her knuckles.

"What are we waiting for, then?" Tommy spoke up, a little too anxious to start the mission. "Let's go to Spain!"

"Spain..." Ozzy said, running his hand over his hair. "Geez... never thought I'd be going back there..." Lykopis smirked a bit at this remark, wondering what exactly it was that made Ozzy so uncertain about going there.

"Alright, then," Paragon said, taking control of the briefing once again, "it's settled. Your transport will be leaving at 07:30. That gives you half an hour to prepare. Dismissed."

Victor Reilly stood before his chest of drawers, staring down into the top compartment. To his left an open travel bag sat on his bed.

He didn't have time for the eternal dilemma of black underwear versus blue underwear. So he closed his eyes, thrust a hand into the drawer, and grabbed the first thing he reached. Opening his eyes, he found himself with blue.

Satisfied without being pleased, he threw them in the bag, and zipped it shut. He threw it over his shoulder and stepped out of the door, into the hallway.

Icarus Sidewinder was walking past as Victor exited the room.

"Hey, Vic. You mind if I call you Vic?" Icarus said.

Victor stared at Icarus for a moment, then shrugged. The two kept walking.

"What do you make of this thing in Spain? These people going missing?" Icarus asked.

Victor shrugged again. "Don't know. I guess we'll find out."

"That's what they're paying us for..."

Victor laughed.

"What?" Icarus asked.

"Being paid to save people's lives..." Victor said. "It's new."

"You really killed people for the government?" Icarus asked as they walked.

"Yeah. That's what they made me for..."

"Made you?"

"You know. The strength, the enhanced senses, all that. I wasn't born this way."

"You ever wish you were normal?"

Victor shrugged for the third time in the course of their conversation. "If wishes were chocolate bars I'd be fat."

Icarus paused for a moment, taking this in. "What?" He finally asked.

"I dunno. It sounded wittier in my head," Victor replied.

The two came to a stop outside the doors of an elevator. Icarus pressed the button as he spoke. "Did you volunteer for the powers?"

"Didn't 'volunteer' so much as 'was ordered'."

"Wow," Icarus said. "That sucks."

Victor was nonplussed. "That's how it works in the military."

"You ever hate them for it?"

Victor locked eyes with Icarus. "Hate them? Why?"

"Turning you into a freak."

Victor was silent for a moment. Icarus began to wonder whether those people who always told him to think before he spoke may have been onto something.

"What's to be gained from hating them? Or anyone?"

"A lot of people wouldn't have taken too kindly to being ordered to be a guinea pig," Icarus said.

"They gave me an order. I followed it. Why hate them?"

There was a pause between the two before Victor continued. "For that matter, why hate anyone?"

"Lots of reasons!" Icarus answered, grinning.

"Things happen. People do things. To dwell on it, to hate them for it... doesn't change what happened. And it doesn't change the people. It's just dwelling in the past, letting what's gone before affect what you do next. Pointless."

Icarus nodded as Victor spoke.

"You're oddly zen sometimes, you know that, Victor?"

"Yes, grasshopper," Victor said as the ding of the elevator sounded and the doors slid open.

"Gaunt, what do you think?"

Lykopis was holding a massive mace with a four foot chain. She backed away from Gaunt and swung hard. The small figure of Michealangelo's David standing on the bookcase was smashed to bits.

Gaunt looked slightly amused. "I think that moment has just captured the essence of your personality."

Lykopis looked at the weapon. "You think it is too big?"

The two were in the armory. Some women spend hours trying on different pairs of shoes. True to her nature, Lykopis was trying to figure out what weapons to bring along on this new mission.

"What about that dagger?"

"The one with the green handle amd the snake carving?" Lykopis stuck her tongue out. "Impossible. I stole it from a Chinese witch about twenty-five hundred years ago. She put a curse on it, so I avoid using it whenever possible."

"What's the curse?"

Lykopis winced. "Snakes start spilling out of the mouth."

Gaunt raised an eyebrow. "And that's how they die? Sounds like a decent weapon to me."

Lykopis shook her head. "No, you do not understand. She cursed whoever uses the dagger. I got into a bar fight once and had to hide behind some barrels because I was spitting up cobras and asps."

"I see." Gaunt took another look at the knife. "It's still impressive. I'll take if off your hands, if you want."

Lykopis handed the dagger to Gaunt. He placed it in his sleeve, where it disappeared into the Shadowlands that Edmund Gaunt controlled. "You have no idea how long I have wanted to get rid of that thing." She turned her attention back to the weapons. "Too big...too small...too old..."

Gaunt took a long look at the weapons littered on the floor. "It must be some small comfort that your skills are so diverse."

Lykopis nodded. "Yes. I do wish we have a mission one of these days when we need an archer, though." She laughed to herself for a moment. "Though I suppose they are a little antique for us. Perhaps one of these days I will aquire a laser-guilded crossbow."

"An archer? You prefer the bow?" Lykopis nodded. "I had no idea that's what you liked. You always use swords--"

"Yes. They are, I admit, more practical. And anyways, I have not used a bow in years. I had a bow -- a wonderful bow -- but I lost it years ago. You should have seen it, Edmund. I shattered the skull of an extinct antelope and strung it with the gut. That was back when I believed that weapons made from animals retained the spirit of the animal." Lykopis laughed. "That was a long time ago. Anyways, in one of my journeys, I managed to lose it."

Gaunt picked up a discarded musket and bayonette. "How?"

"I --" Lykopis's face drew a blank. During that skirmish in Arabia? The war in Tibet? While hunting buffalo? When? WHEN? "I...I do not know. I cannot remember." Lykopis turned to Gaunt. "How sad I forgot something so important. The bow meant so much to me."

"Lykopis and Gaunt, you have two minutes," rang Penny's voice over the intercom.

Lykopis realized she was stepping on some of the weapons she had tossed onto the floor. "Hello, what do we have hear?"

Gaunt looked at the items on the floor. "Surely you're not bringing that."

"What? Does it look to flashy? Besides, I wanted somethings small enough to fit under my clothing."

Gaunt was not amused. Or if he was, he was doing a very good job of not showing it. "Still, how, pray, do you expect to fight with a bullwhip and a Bowie knife?"

"...some days I think....I'm fallin' in love....some days I think...I'm drowning..." Ozzy hummed to himself.

His baratone heightened by the tile-acoustics of the locker room, he sat on the middle bench methodically wrapping his knuckles with thin, white tape.

"What's the point?" Adem asked, leaning against his own locker a few feet away.

Baxter continued to hum, looking up at the observing alien.

"I don't know....habit...nostalgia...comfort..." Ozzy shrugged. "...call it what you want..."

"Hm." Adem contemplated. "I wonder what Doctor Huerta would call it...."

"Ha, ha." Baxter droned. "Listen, it makes me feel good, okay? It's centering....familiar..."

"And, yet, pointless." Adem replied. "The first time your fist strikes a surface beyond the natural stress-parameters of what your wrappings were created to withstand, the tape will simply peel away."

"Well, hell, Adem....so will my clothes..." Ozzy frowned. "...what's your damn point?"

"That I find this ritual of yours....amusing." he said with a small smile. "All of you humans cling to a comforting repetition in almost every facet of your culture. Some do it for emotional reasons, others do it for quasi-religious purposes. And still others, like yourself, do things out of....habit...for no reason they can readily explain."

Ozzy paused, looking up at Adem again.

"Are you saying that humans are.....boring?" he asked with a slight grin.

"Predictable, would be a better word." the alien added. "Hopelessly infected with a bizarre cultural romanticism, would be another."

Ozzy thought about this for a moment.

"And why, again, are you here in the locker room?" he finally asked.

Different shrugged, coming to a full stance.

"Everyone comes in here at some point, to get ready, before each mission." he stated casually.

"And?" Baxter chuckled. "It's not like you have to do anything to get prepared. You wear the same clothes all the time..."

Adem's current attire, consisting of a variation on a Naval pilot's jumpsuit, shimmered and melted quickly into a suit of Elizabethian armor.

"Better?" he grinned.

"The point is, Adem...." Baxter sighed, finishing his knuckles. "...you don't really have a reason to be here. You come in the locker room, before every mission, just to...what? Observe humanity?"

"Exactly..."

"Well, what didn't you learn on your first trip, huh?" Baxter asked. "Why keep coming in here?"

"I am simly getting into the role of a human...."

"...by creating a pointless habit for yourself..." Ozzy continued.

"Right."

"Okay..." Ozzy nodded.

Adem frowned a bit, staring at the boxer.

"...were you going somewhere with this?"

"Doesn't look like it...." Ozzy shrugged. "...bet you wish Huerta was here now, don't ya'?"

"Oh, be quiet..." Adem murmured.

Baxter stood up, throwing the roll of tape and bandages into his small locker. Adem looked him up and down, studying the normal white t-shirt and blue jeans.

"You really should buy some different clothes at some point." Adem commented.

"Ah, what's the point?" the man shrugged, closing his locker.

"Nostalgia?"

Ozzy cocked an eye at his friend.

"Shut up."

He passed by Adem, glancing behind him.

"What's in that locker of your, anyway?" he asked.

Adem shrugged, folding his arms.

"Only what I need." he stated.

Ozzy just grunted, and continued on.

Adem paused, opening his locker, and peered in. Peering back was his own visage, reflecting off a small mirror adorning the back of the otherwise empty locker.

The alien smiled quite pleasantly at himself, more than satisfied with what he saw. He then proceeded to stop smiling, and closed the locker.

The small metal cabinet went dark and silent for a moment or so. Then, the door creaked back open, Adem pausing to smile at himself again.

"...there...now I'm a mission ahead...." he commented silently to himself, closing the locker again.

"Ever since I was a young boy, I played the silver ball..."

Tommy Foxe was in a good mood. No, better than good. He was in a great mood. He had job he loved, though frankly happy to have any kind of job at all, and he was getting a free holidy in Spain. Well, technically, it was work, but work with Vanguard Europe was almost as fun as a holiday anyway.

Getting out of the lift, he spied Drake Marshall. Tommy liked Drake, he was funny, and more than slightly henpecked. Tommy loved men who got bossed around by their wives, it made being single seem so much more fun.

"Hey Drake!"

Drake turned, still desperately trying to remember if there was anything he still had to write down. Jessica would not be pleased if he forgot anything. He managed to smile at Tommy as he saw him running towards him.

"Whatcha doing?"

"Just thinking about some shopping Jessica asked me to do before I got home"

"Shopping? You're married to the owner of a major firm and you do your own shopping?"

"Yeah. Apparently Jessica likes that personal touch when buying groceries"

"Well, maybe if you tell them you're Nightwing you can get a special vigilante discount"

Drake couldn't help but grin at Tommy's humour. It wasn't hard to like Tommy, for all he'd yet to really grasp matters such as 'Respect for authority' and 'Not making jokes about Gaunt'.

"I suppose you always get one of those?"

"Nah, I prefer the major businessman discount..."

Drake raised an eyebrow.

"Back on the Siegfried case I wound up impersonating a man named Othello Golpe'. Found that I could get a discount at one or two major stores. Since then I've been doing all my shopping as Mr. Roger McManus, Personal shopper to Mr. Golpe'"

Tommy closed his eyes and shifted forms, into that of a neat, black-haired individual, actually fairly similiar to his usual form if he'd had a good shave and cut his hair.

"Not at all bad..."

The bad thing about taking a smaller jet was the noise. Lykopis was seated near the right engine, so she was partially deaf. Icarus had his iPod playing, so he was deliberatly deaf. Drake and Adem continued going over the papers, organizing the victims. Some of the packets were sprawled out in the little floor space they had, and others were crammed on their laps or between their fingers.

"Five of them were currently students at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid," said Adem.

Drake wrote this information down on his notepad. "Two others had graduated from the Univeristy." Drake went back to the first page of the victim's information packet. "One had a bacholer's in Accounting, and worked for Madrid Banking."

"The other..." said Adem, since he held that victim's packet. "Had a degree in Art History and worked at a Starbucks."

"Man," began Drake, grinning, "they have Starbucks everywhere." He turned back to Adem. "You think any of them knew each other?"

Adem shrugged. "That's one of the things we need to find out."

"So what do you think of this whole 'Smoke and Mirrors' bit?"

Adem leaned back in his chair. "I'm not familar enough with Earth theology to really answer that." He leaned back and looked at Lykopis. Her eyes were half shut in an attempt to drown out the engine noise. "Lykopis, can you come over here?"

Lykopis navigated her way over the victim packets. "You need something." She spoke a little louder than usually, forgetting that her hearing had been messed up. "Sorry. You need my help?"

"'House of Smoke and Mirrors'. Ring any bells?"

Lykopis nodded. "I have been trying to remember when I heard the name before. The thing is, I do not think it is a Spanish term."

"It's Mexican."

Lykopis, Drake, and Adem turned to the rear of the plane. Edmund Gaunt was drumming his fingertips on the armrest. The Amazon raised one jeweled finger, and she smiled smartly. "Aztec, actually. I remember now."

Gaunt nodded to Lykopis and continued. "'Smoking Mirror' is the English translation to 'Tezcatlipoca', one of the gods worshipped by the Aztecs."

Ozzy, half-sleeping, half-spying, felt the urge to speak all of sudden. "How the friggin' hell," he said to Lykopis and Gaunt, "do you know random shit like that?"

Gaunt lips narrowed as he tried to avoid grinning. "I read a lot."

"So," said Drake, trying to get back on topic, "he's some sort of Aztec god? This doesn't explain why the missing people were taken from Spain."

"Not really," said Lykopis. "There is a connection...not a very strong connection, but it is something. The Spainish took Mexico from the Aztecs. There are no more Aztecs living. They were killed centuries ago. Disease, war...take your pick."

"Don't feel too sorry for them, Lady Lykopis," said Gaunt. "Tezcatlipoca was rough, even by their standards. Keep in mind, he wasn't originally an Aztec diety -- he preceeded the Aztecs." Gaunt folded his arms and leaned back in his chair. "He had a mirror that gave off smoke -- that's how he killed his enemies."

"'The House of Smoke and Mirrors'," said Drake. "I think this means we have a lead. Nice job you too."

Lykopis held up her chin with her hand. "One other thing. I remember hearing about this when I was in Mexico looking for gold. He had an animal form. A massive jaguar."

^{45 minutes ago.... Munich}

Ozzy's arms were tensed. His face was beet red. "I ain't gettin' on no plane, Adem!"

"We've been over this," the alien attempted his best passively human sounding tone he could. "Madrid is a long way away, and we need to get there urgently. The subspatial inducers have been used too much lately. Paragon and his team have yet to collect long term data on the effects they have on the fabric of reality. So, to keep absurdly random reality shifts from occuring, we need to scale back our usage of the devices for emergencies only."

"I ain't gettin' on no plane! 'Specially not with that foo' Icarus flyin'! He's crazy!"

Icarus walks by with a cowboy hat and mask he found in the hallway on. "The Lone Stranger rides again!" he yells out as he walks out the door towards the parking garage.

"We don't have time to argue..."

"I ain't gettin' on no plane! I told you a hun'red times! I'm not tellin' you again! Now, we can get in the van; and I'll drive! I drive a helluva fast!" The boxer crossed his arms defiantly.

Drake walks up with a glass of milk in his hand. "Listen, Ozzy. Why don't you calm down a bit and let's talk? Here's a glass of milk to settle your stomach. I'm sure we can reach some sort of compromise."

"I ain't gettin' on no plane," Baxter mumbled before devouring the milk from the glass. "This is not something I'm willing to settle on. I...... ain't.......... get........... tin'.................. on......................... no...," He falls to the ground so hard that it's a damn good thing he's indestructible.

"Alright," Drake said as he tried to kick the broken glass out of his way. "That should have him feeling happy until we hit Madrid. Help me pick him up."

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

^{Now.... Entering Spanish Airspace}

"Aztec, huh?" Drake asked Guant once again expecting an even more detailed answer.

"Yes," the Shadow Chancellor responded.

"Huh," Marshall responded to the response. "In Spain?"

"Hey?" a severly drugged Ozzy said to get Victor's attention. It really didn't take much since the boxer's head was resting on Reilly's shoulder. "I gotta tell you something. You, and I mean this, now. You are one serious dude. Without a doubt. I mean.... yeah! You know?"

"Whatever you gave him better wear off soon if he is to be of any use to us," Lykopis said to Drake.

Marshall waved off the thought. "Don't worry. It's already wearing off. He's just very relaxed right now."

"Maybe a little too relaxed," Tommy interjected as his hand wafted to and fro in front of his nose. Ozzy just began giggling "Hehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehehe" like a chainsaw on nitrous.

Tommy looked over to Drake. "Where did you get that stuff anyway?"

"Same place I get everything else. From my wife."

"A sedative that works on someone with Ozzy's physiology is quite impressive."

"I'll see if she can get you the recipe, Adem. Hey, Lykopis. Just how massive a jaguar are we talking here?"

Lykopis thought a moment. "The rumors were nonspecific. I suppose they thought 'massive' was enough of a description."

"I wonder if there's any relation to the jaguar men I ran into on my first case with Vanguard."

Lykopis raised an eyebrow. "Jaguar men?"

"Yeah, I ran into them around the same place I fought this weird inbred meta family. Sorta morlocks meet deliverance type of thing. We were looking for a map in some tower, Uhm, the tower of Cocoa, no that's not right. The tower of Cucuubao. It was really weird. Anyway, there may be some connection. The tower was located near the Amazon," Drake looks over at Lykopis. "Meaning the river, I wouldn't mind checking it out. It'd give me a chance to drop in on an old friend who lives in the area."

Vanguard Europe departed from the plane. Drake jumped out of the doorway before the airport team could get the stairs ready for him. It felt good to be standing around again. Adem ducked under the doorway and followed. Gaunt and Victor, each apparently trying to outdo the other in the 'bleak' department, marched forward.

There was a pause while the four Vanguard memebers waited for the rest. Icarus burst forth, like a rock star waiting for his teenage fans. Eyeglasses, headphones, pearl-white smile, and cocky eyebrows. He even posed a'la Top Gun. "Have no fear, Sidewinder's here! Keep your hands down, ladies..the party has finally begun!"

It was about that time when Lykopis planted her sharp heel into Icarus's backside. The pilot fell forward, spinning on the stairs until he rolled right at Drake's feet. "Do not worry about Ozzy -- ooomp -- it is not like I need help carrying him..."

Lykopis was walking backwards, carrying Ozzy by the shoulders, his feet dragging behind. Clunk, clunk, clunk went Ozzy's shoes as they hit the stairs. Once that was over, Lykopis simply released her grip on the boxer.

"Ooomp," came out of Ozzy's lungs when he hit the ground. He looked up at the Amazon. "Mommy?"

"We, that is the first time I was called that."

Ozzy blinked hard. Still lying flat on his back, he focused his eyes on Drake. The memory of the glass of milk was fresh in his head. "You poisoned me."

Drake nodded. "Guilty as charged."

"Mr. Marshall?"

Everyone in Vanguard turned around (except for Ozzy, who was slowing getting back on his feet). A short businessman with a clipboard was looking at them. He seemed rather surprised by the lunatics in front of him. At least, that was the impression Victor got, what with the man practically shaking in his polished shoes.

Just behind him was someone Vanguard found familar. It was Agent Alvarez. "Hello again gentlemen. I only arrived about twenty minutes before you. I hope your flight was nice enough. Let me introduce Ricardo Montez." Drake nodded politely. "He works for me, and will be shadowing you during this operation."

"Shadowing?" asked Adem.

"Y-y-y-yes," said Montez. "The Spanish government hired you for this case, and wants to take every precaution --"

"--that we leave the country intact," said Drake bitterly. He turned to Alvarez. "We're not use to having dead weight on our team."

"Oh I don't know," said Gaunt to Lykopis in a low tone. "We let Icarus on the team." Lykopis surpressed a chuckle, and then turned her attention back to Alverez.

"I understand, Mr. Marshall. However, we are worried about the damages you may cause, and would rather err on the side of caution. Besides," he said, grinning. "Mr. Paragon agreed to the terms."

"I do not know how," said Lykopis to Icarus. "But I am sure this is your fault."

"You weren't too collected at our public drinking party yourself."

"Hush, all of you," snapped Drake. He turned to Richardo Montez. The man was young, small-framed, and looked like one strong gust of wind would finish him off. This is what the Spanish send to us? Paragon, I hope you know what you got us into. Drake was tempted to refuse this 'aid', but his rational mind cooled him down. "Er...thanks for the help, Mr. Alverez. We'll get down to the bottom of this case." He turned to Montez. "Don't try to tell any jokes to Gaunt, and don't insult the Amazon. And just stay away from Icarus, and you'll be fine." He turned as if done speaking but then turned around, as if some new idea went off in his head. "Oh, and in case the monsters get you, we'll organize your eulogy."

"Merda," said Montez. How did he get stuck with this job?

Ozzy rubbed his face, wiping his groggy eyes with his palms. He looked around getting his bearings as the group made its way across the tarmac.

"So...this is Angkor Watt..." he sighed.

"This is Spain." Adem corrected.

"This isn't Angkor Watt?"

"Wrong country."

"...I though Angkor Watt was in Spain?"

"Angkor Watt is in Peru..." Icarus spoke up behind them.

Adem sighed.

"Angkor Watt is in Cambodia, Icarus." the alien stated matter-of-factly.

"Cambodia?" Icky frowned.

"Isn't that where MASH was set?" Ozzy asked.

"That's Korea, Ozzy..."

"What does Korea have to do with Spain, then?" Icarus asked.

Adem...still walking...turned his head nearly all the way around to look at Icarus questioningly.

"Are you actually following this conversation, or, just speaking?" Adem asked.

"Just speaking." Icky smiled.

"I'm horrible at geography..." Baxter sighed, stretching his back out.

"Dude!" Tommy half-gasped, stepping up in time to Icarus, staring at Adem's turned head. "That's fucked up, man! How do you turn your head all the way around like that?"

"Can you whistle?" Adem replied in kind.

"Sure."

"How?"

Tommy paused, thinking about it.

"Uh..I don't know. Just do."

"Same here." Different stated, turning his head back around like normal.

Tommy thought about this for a moment, finally turning to Icarus.

"Why doesn't that make sense to me?"

"Cause you're the newbie." he smacked his gum.

"I thought Victor's the newbie?"

"You both are..."

"Well, what does that make you then, eh?" Tommy asked.

"The motherfucking star!" Icarus half-shouted, shoving Tommy out of line with a bit too much playful gusto.

Tommy ran to catch up, grabbing Icarus in a chokehold, even as Sidewinder cackled with the roughousing; each throwing muffled curse words into each other's armpits.

Near the front of the line...

"Lykopis, hurt them please..." Drake commented to the Amazon, who immediately broke formation, falling back step-by-step to the end of the line. Drake could hear the pleas and apologies from Icky and Tommy as soon as she had turned her head.

"So...this is Spain..." Ozzy sighed, Lykopis walking past him towards her prey...

"All right then," Drake began, starting to feel more and more comfortable in the leadership position, "Half of us will go on ahead to the House of Smoke and Mirrors. Lykopis, Adem, Icarus, and Tommy you're on that detail. Alverez will go with you."

"What about you, Drake?" Tommy asked, very annoyed to be on the same team as Icarus, but determined to stick it through.

"Gaunt, Ozzy, and Reilly are with me. We're going to check out this jaguar cult." Marshall answered, as the group divided along the lines he suggested.

Drake and his team watched as Alvarez and the others departed for the House of Smoke and Mirrors.

"You can keep tabs on them through a shadow, right, Gaunt? Gaunt?" Drake asked, looking over at the Shadow Chancellor, who did not respond.

"I. . .I. . ." Gaunt began to stammer a reply.

Quote:

---

It was at this point in time that Mxy himself sneezed, with dire repercussions felt across the Vanguard Universe. . .

---

A ripple of energy washed over the members of Vanguard Europe, Drake Marshall's mind briefly made contact again with Drax, before being snapped back into the present. "What. . ."

Ozzy Baxter felt his body harden and grow soft again, as his musculature attempt to reset it's normal density.

Victor Reilly felt a massive surge of adrenaline pass through his body as his excitement began to grow to levels he couldn't contain. "This is great! I feel fantastic! Did I tell you guys how happy I am to be here?" The gleam in his eyes unnerving his teammates before the moment passed and he returned to his normal sedate self.

And Edmund Gaunt. Edmund Gaunt collapsed upon the ground. "Gaunt!" Drake cried out, rushing over to his fallen teammate. "Are you. . ." Drake paused, turning Gaunt over and noticing his sunglassed fall off his face. Gaunt's eyes stared up at Drake, empty and white. "Marshall. . .I. . .I am no longer connected to the shadows!" Gaunt screamed in what might have been the closest to despair that anyone had ever seen from him.

"Adem, let me kill them."

"We've been over this before." Lykopis grunted as she shifted gears. Adem, meanwhile, continued to try to calm the Amazon down. "We need to just accept their behavior and move on. You can't change them."

"Which is why terminating their lives is the only remaining option."

In order to get to Espejo, Spain, the group needed to rent a vehicle to drive them over the hilly countryside. And the only car they could rent was something resembling an old 1987 Bronco. Lykopis was the only one in the group that remembered a time when cars didn't have automatic transmissions. So, she became the designated driver.

Which left Icarus and Tommy in the back with the unlucky Mr. Montez, who was beginning to think that this entire trip was divine punishment.

"I'm just saying, Batman could totally kick Superman's ass."

"The only thing could for Batman is his brains and kyrptonite. And that's cheating."

"It's not cheating. He's going up against Superman, for God's sake. Define 'cheating' when your opponent has unlimited powers and can withstand bullets?"

Lykopis dodged a pothole in the road. "Will you two shut up?"

Tommy shifted in his seat. "Lykopis...can we stop at the next petrol station? I haven't had a piss since before the flight."

Lykopis turned back to Adem. "I am turning this car around right now."

Adem decided the subject needed to be changed. He opened the glove box and pulled out a map. "Do you know which way you're going? I mean, we've been heading west for a while now."

Lykopis continued looking down the long road and smiled. "Of course I know where we are going. Espejo is about fifteen minutes from here. I have been in Spain before, you know."

Adem noted the small town on the map and put it away. "Point noted. But why Espejo? You told Drake we should head there."

"Simple. I spent a lot of time in Spain when they were at war with England, around the 1520s and later decades. I had this Spanish officer who...well, nevermind the details. It just so happens I heard a lot about a new village forming west of Madrid, closer to the coast. It was called 'Espejo'. Granted, that was centuries ago, but I remember it."

Adem shrugged. "I'm still not following."

Lykopis sped up on the abandoned highway. Montez looked at the speed limit sign, Lykopis's meter, and groaned. "'Espejo' is Spanish for 'Mirror'. Cortez defeated the Aztecs in 1521. Coincidence?" Lykopis winked at Adem. "Hardly. Granted, I never put two-and-two together, but there has to be some sort of a connection."

Elsewhere in Rob's Universe, a little 4th dimensional imp sneezed. And the Earth's axis tilted.

And in a Bronco on the way to Espejo, horrible repercussions were felt by everyone.

Mr. Montez was turned into a native species of lizard. He was not at all happy.

Tommy could not control his shape-shifting. He changed into every Prime Minister between Churchill and Thatcher and then leading characters in Shakespeare plays.

Lykopis spotted the distraction in her review mirror. She turned around. "Bow of Diana, what is going on?" She looked at the lizard, and then at King Lear, and finally at Icarus. "Why did you not tell me what was happening -- where the hell your mouth, Icarus?"

In fact, Icarus's mouth was nowhere to be seen. He could breath and mumble a bit, but for the first time in history, something had finally managed to shut Sidewinder up.

Normally, Lykopis would be as giddy as a schoolgirl to see this sort of event happen, but something bothered her. She faced foawrd again to check her driving and then looked at the side passenger.

Adem was uncommonly tall. Most of the time. Ozzy use to joke about how Adem came from planet Basketball all the time. Lykopis was looking at a three-foot version of Vanguard's alien. It was like looking at a hobbit. An orange-eyed hobbit.

"Something freaky is going on, Adem. I seem to be the only one not affected. I wonder why."

"Oh, I'd say you've been affected," said Lady MacBeth in the back seat of the Bronco. Icarus tried to verbalize his agreement, but all that came out was "Mhherr...muhhhh..."

Lykopis snapped her head back at Adem. "You are looking at me like you have seen a ghost."

Adem looked very small and very nervous. "Funny you should say that..."

Annoyed, Lykopis looked in the mirror to see what all the fuss was about. It was around that time that she began screaming, shouting hysterically, and cursing in about seventeen different extinct languages. Lykopis was bred to be very vain about her looks -- and she was proud of her olive skin, earthy-brown eyes and capachino-colored locks. Which is why the reflection was so surprising. Her long brown hair was tainted with grayish-white streaks, and for the first time in three thousand years, Lykopis remembered that youth is only an illusion...and her illusion was running out.

"I think it makes you look very polished."

"Shut up," snappped Lykopis. They had reached the town of Espego. Adem hopped out of the car. "Why is when men grey they look 'polished' while women just look 'haggard'?"

"Maybe because women complain more." Lykopis snapped her head back to to Tommy (who just swtiched from Benedict to Othello). "I'm kidding, I'm kidding. Please don't kill me." He motioned to the lizard sitting in the car. "What do we do with Senor Montez?"

Lykopis bit her lip. She really had no idea what to do with the Spanish representative. "He was sent to observe us." She shrugged. "Keep him in your pocket."

Icarus look miserable. It was clear he was forced to hold back a plethora of comments on Lykopis's new hairstyle.

"This is the town?" said Adem. "It looks deserted."

"It does look empty." Lykopis had parked the Bronco outside the city's edge so there wouldn't be too much attention. No it was beginning to look like there was no need. "Come on, everyone. Follow me."

Adem could tell Lykopis was hiding her nervousness. She always walked as though each step was planned far in advance, every movement of her legs full of purpose. It was clear now, in the hot Spanish sun. She led the way, trying to reconcile five hundred year-old memories with acute sounds and sights. She tapped the spot on her belt where the Bowie knife was hanging loosely. She was hoping it wouldn't have to be used.

The town of Espego was mostly a collection of sandy brick houses and alleyways. The streets were made of gravel and made a crunch sound as Icarus's boots stepped over the small stones. A faint breeze blew through the streets, lifting up sand into everyone's eyes. Not that the town was that dry. Several clumps of hardy grass had invaded the gravel roads, and birds -- mostly pigeons -- were flying about a well in the center of a primitive courtyard.

It was the courtyard that attracted most of Lykopis's attention. But it was still a long distance away. She looked behind her. Icarus was right next to her, while Tommy was waiting for Adem to walk faster. Adem was use to taking longer strides, and his new height was posing problems.

"So what else do you know about this guy?" asked Adem. He had finally caught up with Lykopis and Icarus. "Gaunt made it sound like this guy isn't Aztec."

"Technically," said Lykopis, getting back into her 'history teacher' mode, "he is not. He comes from this race of warriors called the Toltecs."

"Never heard of them," said Tommy.

"They were extinct before I ever saw the New World. Anyways, the Aztecs incorperated him into their list of gods and goddesses. No god was more fair in the face, no prince more agressive in his warfare."

Tommy winked at Adem. "Sounds like you kind of man."

Lykopis grinned. "Except for the whole 'not real' part." She resumed her academic tone. "He helped his brother, Quetzalcoatl, create the world and all the people who inhabit it. Apparently, he lost one of his feet in the process. His brother later exiles him on a raft of snakes."

"Why did he exile his own brother?"

The Amazon shrugged. "Gods, as a rule, never get along with relatives. But Tezcatlipoca did trick him into getting drunk and raping a priestess. That nmight have affected their relationship." Lykopis reached back into her extensive history knowledge. "He had a few wives, had a few alter ego -- including one that had orgies in his festivals."

Now Icarus really wished he had a mouth again.

"But there is really not that much too it. I had a run in with sevearl priest from one of his wives' temple."

"I hate to ask..." began Adem.

Lykopis patted her knife again. "The temple was said to be littered from floor to roof with gold. Never, never, never trust a Spainard's estimation of wealth. It will only lead to a pack of angry cannibals chasing you. Oh, and gold? There was none."

Lykopis looked bitter. "Apparently, I had been tricked into raiding the temple because they needed a young virgin to sacrifice to Chicomecoatl. Naturally, I objected to the decapication. I will never forget the high priest. He was wearing the skin of the last year's sacrifice, and his face was painted red, and he was so skinny his bones stuck out. But I have never been more frightened of an old man in all my days. I stole a few necklaces, a few weapons, and hopped on the next boat for France." Lykopis looked thoughtful for a moment. "And you know what? Two hundred years later, they wanted to decapitate me."

They had reached the courtyard. It was exactly where Lykopis wanted to go. "I thought we should head into the church. It seems the idea spot to begin an examination."

"What are we looking for?" asked Tommy.

"Anything. Everything. Check the walls. If there is a list of all the baptisms and funerals, I want that book found." She motioned to Adem, who had a small file of the vitim's names and information in one hand. "And if you see anything strange..."

Lykopis didn't finish her sentence. She walked backwards into the church, as if expecting birds or demons to fly from the sky. Adem shrugged and followed her, Icarus and Tommy going in last. Tommy patted his pocket. Montez was still in his pocket.

It was much cooler inside the church, hidden away from the hot sun. But the bright lights had taken their toll on everyone's eyesight, and Lykopis failed to shut the church door.

"That is strange..." said Lykopis.

"What?" asked Adem.

"Drake told me Edmund would keep the two groups connected. So far, no contact." She reached out a hand. "Give me the cell phone. I will give Drake a call."

Lykopis began dialing while everyone else searched the room. "Hello, Drake? I see...you just got off the phone...well I was calling because...yes...yes...yes, we are showing signs of it too...I do not think I need to go into detail..." Here Lykopis brushed back her badger's streak. "Just rest assured all of us have undergone some unpleasent changes. Well call Montag back and have him speak to this...whatever his name is. Just do something about it." Her eyes lit up for a moment. "Although if he cannot find a way to fix Icarus, I will be alright with that...yes, I will keep in touch. Lykopis out."

"Well?"

"Drake has been on the phone with Grissom Montag." Montag seemed to have taken up the leadership role in the original Vanguard group, and he was friends with Drake. "Apparently, that 4th dimensional being that use to be on the team is back. One of his cosmic sneezes has resulted in our current...problem."

"So what's the solution?"

Lykopis shrugged. "Apparently, Grissom is having problems of his own. He will get back to us later." She put the phone away. "So for now, we will just have to learn to be content." Lykopis leaned over the baptismal font and looked at the streaks of white. "Is it wrong of me to be this...vain?"

"I think it's a little to late in the game to change a three-thousand year old habbit," said Adem.

"It is just that I have always enjoyed my young face. It makes people judge me wrong, you see? They always underestimate me. They see big brown eyes and full lips, with no signs of crow's feet or age spots. People always assume I am naive or stupid or weak."

"So you like people to underestimate you?"

Lykopis grinned. "I like the look on people's faces when they find out what I am really like."

Adem could understand this. Anyone who saw Lykopis on the street would just see the designer clothing and the model-like features and dismiss her as just another pretty face. Only at closer inspection of the face did Lykopis reveal her true nature. Her eyes had dimmed over the years to a grayer brown, and her lips were curled a bit, adding a sardonic look to her sculpted features. Adem, being an alien, was not fully aware of those aged eyes and cruel lip, but he was beginning to understand the psychology of the human face. "I think Tommy's found something."

Tommy -- in the form of Henry V -- had pulled something out of a small book out of the tabernacle near the alter. It was a large book, covered in red cloth with beads on it. Lykopis looked at the alter, where the church's Bible was laying. "So it is probably not a copy of the Testaments. That might be the records for baptisms. Hand it over."

Tommy passed the book to Lykopis. She sat on the steps of the alter and flipped through the pages. "Ah ha!"

"What is it?" asked Adem.

"Pass me the papers with the victims names!" Adem did so. Lykopis was grinning. Subconciously she brushed her hair back again, but her mind was racing as she flipped the pages and ran her fingers along the lists of names. "Adem, look at these names..."

"They names in this book are the same as those in the list of victims."

"Exactly! And look at this -- all these people were baptized in this church about a year ago."

It was Adem's turn to make a discovery. "Actually, the dates of the disappearences match up with the dates of the baptisms."

Lykopis grinned. "Yes, but what sort of baptism was it?"

Tommy spoke for himself and Icarus. "What do you mean?"

"Twelve Catholics and one 'The House of Smoke and Mirrors'? Something just does not seem right. How do we know these people are Catholic?"

"The reports say --" began Tommy.

"People lie, Tommy." She turned back to Adem. "There is a dozen senarios running through my head -- a secret cult, a massive kidnapping, group suicides -- we are on the right track, but we need to find out more."

"So what's the next --" began Adem, but then, something bad happened. The two massive doors of the church entrance swayed in the wind, until they swung back and shut themselves. Vanguard Europe was plunged into darkness as the only source of light was taken away from them.

Tommy let out a few curse words. He headed towards the door. "Take a step, Tommy," began Lykopis, "and I will kill you." She spoke slowly, as though annoyed and bitter at something.

"Why can't he move?" asked Adem.

"Because I just felt a snake crawling along my wrist, and I can feel the weight of more snakes at my feet." Indeed, everyone in the room noticed the faint sounds coming from the floor. The sounds of scales scraping against stone. "I think we are surrounded."

"The slightest move could set them off," Lykopis informed the rest of the group.

"Anyone got a flute?" Tommy asked in the form of Mercutio. "We could charm them like they do in India."

Through a clinched jaw, Lykopis responded, "That is just a trick, you fool. Snakes cannot be charmed by a simple instrument."

"Oh, yeah. Snakes are deaf. I forgot."

"What else did you forget?" Adem asked.

"Huh?"

"You're the one with encyclopedic knowledge of every animal you turn into," the alien reminded the shape-shifter. "Think about everything you know about snakes that we could use to our advantage."

Foxe tried to concentrate. He began to rattle off a list as it came to his head. "Um... deaf..... poor vision....... transparent scales over eyes....... cold blooded.."

"Good," Different interrupted. "Icarus, do you have your pack on? Never mind. Of course you do. You don't even go to the bathroom without it." A string of obsceneties were muffled by the pilot's lack of a mouth. "Release your pack's coolant system."

"Mmmmmmmm MMMMMMM mmmmmmm?" Sidewinder asked.

"The coolant system that obviously prevents the heat from your pack burning off your legs and back," Adem replied.

With a bit of work, Icarus Sidewinder expelled a cold gas... from his jetpack. The gas sank and rolled across the floor. The snakes hissed and slithered away as fast as they could. "To the door!" Lykopis yelled. Icarus led the way as the rest followed. The giant wooden doors was locked shut. The Amazon pushed her shoulder into the door with all her might. Though she looked ancient on the outside with her wrinkled skin, the muscles and strength she'd gained over the centuries still remain. Soon, the wood around the lock splintered and the door crashed open. The group shielded their eyes from the blinding sunlight as the tumbled out of the church.

Tommy and Icarus began rubbing their hands along their legs, hoping to warm their limbs again. "A trap," Lykopis said, pointing out the obvious. "It is clear that we are on the right path." She squinted as her eyes readjusted. "Adem!" she almost screamed in shock. "You are taller."

"I know," the alien acknowledged.

"At least five feet."

"Around five and a half, I believe," he said looking off in the distance.

"How?"

"I didn't like being short," he matter-of-factly answered, "so I decided not to be any longer."

"You just decided not to be short?"

"Yes."

"That is just absurd," the Amazon said with a bit of anger in her voice.

"Yet, it seems to be working."

"Can we go home now?" Tommy asked while his body changed into what he considered Julius Ceaser to appear like.

"I believe that we have been stranded here," Adem said pointing to the far end of the village. There, the rental Bronco was engulfed in flames.

"Bloody hell!"

Elsewhere...

Father Hernan Domingo mopped his brow feverishly as he stood outside his parish - La Corazon de la Madonna Bendiga - and he watched nervously as the line leading inside began to grow. Never had their small church gained such attention. He had merely made one phonecall, to another priest in a neighboring town... and the next thing he knew, the global media, representatives from the Vatican, and bewildered locals arrived in droves, all anxious to validate the sight for themselves.

Well, perhaps 'sight' was a bit of a misnomer... 'sound' would have been more appropriate.

La Corazon de la Madonna Bendiga had boasted one of the most ornate statues of the Virgin Mary in all of South America. It had been the pride of Father Domingo and the other members of the church... not to mention the whole community. Such a thing as happened here... well... it wasn't exactly orthodox...

"<Father Domingo?>"

Hernan jumped, gasping suddenly and clutching his rosary. Quickly regaining his composure, he turned around, taking in the pale face of a white-haired man with a clerical collar.

The older man smiled subtly. "<So sorry to have frightened you, Father,>" he said, bowing slightly. "<My name is Father Indigo. I am the special investigator for the Vatican, come to check the divine validity of your... happening.>"

Domingo breathed a heavy sigh. "<Ah, yes,>" he said nervously, still running his fingers over the beads in his hands. "<So glad to meet you.>" Extending his hand, he shook Father Indigo's hand. Indigo noted, with a bit of distaste, that the amount of perspiration on Domingo's hand was... to put it nicely... excessive.

"<Yes,>" Indigo said, clearing his throat. "<Well. Shall we... observe?>"

"<Of course!>" Domingo said, pushing his way past the crowd and into the church doors, beckoning for Indigo to follow him. "<Please... come with me.>"

As soon as Indigo entered the church doors, he stopped suddenly. The words were already reaching his ears... and they shocked him, to say the least.

Domingo looked back over his shoulder. "<You... understand the words?>" he asked. Domingo only spoke Spanish, while Indigo, being a well-travelled representative for the Vatican, spoke many of the languages of the world. And, while the entire conversation didn't seem to make much sense to him, the words coming out of it certainly did...

"Fuck you, you mother fucking alien... fucker!"

Indigo nodded solemnly.

Domingo got a bit excited then. Rushing suddenly to Indigo's side, he gripped the older priest's shoulders. "<What? What does she say? ...and why does she say it in a man's voice? And with that accent?>"

Father Indigo merely nodded, moving closer to the sound of the voice, where it was obvious that many of the locals didn't understand English. Many dozens of people stood around, bowing, crossing themselves, and praying in loud, wailing voices. Above them, the statue of the Virgin stood proudly, clutching her heart and looking down lovingly at her worshippers. Her mouth, however, was not conveying that love.

Instead, a masculine voice with a slight Russian accent was speaking her stead.

"What the fuck is a coolant system? I mean, I know you're from, like, Uranus or something, but at least speak in fucking English!!!"

"Oh, boy..." Indigo muttered to himself. "This is going to be difficult..."

Back at the Bronco...

Icarus mumbled a question - mainly to himself. Somewhere in Paraguay, an elderly priest crossed himself and muttered a prayer, preparing for exorcism.

"You do realize that none of us can understand you, right?" Falstaff asked him.

In an act of desperation, Icarus flipped the man who was Tommy Foxe the bird. Lykopis rolled her eyes.

"Stop being childish, you two!" Lykopis said, sounding oddly like a grandmother. "We must think of a way to get out of this mess... and quickly."

"Give me a minute," Adem said, furrowing his brow... and looking slightly taller everytime they looked at him.

Icarus said that he'd time him, while Nick Bottom glared daggers at the pilot... then sighed heavily.

"I wonder what the others are up to..." he said as his features once again shifted to those of Petruchio.

The darkness. The silence. The void.

A heartbeat....breathing....

A pair of eyes snap open, pupils pulsing open to absorb....no light...

"AHH!" Ozzy shouted, jerking up into a sitting position. His startled breath panted, heavy with the pounding in his chest.

"WHAT...what...where..." he stammered, wide eyes searching through the pitch darkness. His arms moved and flailed invisibly. Like his sight, he reached...searching...grasping for anything...for any hold on the moment.

He paused, the sound of his beating heart clouding his hearing.

"Hello?" he said aloud, the word drifting into the darkness. "HELLO?! Where am I?!"

For a moment, nothingness replied in kind.

Then...

"...Ozzy...?"

His head jerked back and forth for the voice. A familiar voice. A female voice.

"...Lyly?" he replied. "Is that you? Where are you?"

"...I am here..." her voice replied, somewhere near him. "...where are you? Where are we?"

"Lykopis..."

Gaunt.

"Edmund?!" Ozzy yelled. "Gaunt...what's....where are you?"

Ozzy suddenly felt a thin hand grasp his shoulder, causing him to jerk suddenly...

"...here..." the whispery voice of their teammate replied. "...right behind you..."

Ozzy reached up, grasping the hand. But...it wasn't a hand...was it? Something wasn't right. The fingers....they were....hard...thin...almost like...

"............Gaunt.......?" Baxter muttered.

"Yes, Ozzy...it's me...I can see you..." Edmund replied. "Lykopis is to your right..."

Ozzy let go of the hand, reaching out to his right. Sure enough, her worn grasp found his.

"Lyly...you okay?" he asked.

There was no reply for a moment.

"Baxter...." she said. "...your hand...it feels so.......cold..."

Ozzy frowned, opening his mouth to question, when...

"Hello?!"

"Icarus." Lykopis replied. "You are here, too..."

"Yeah...wherever here is..." the voice stated in the darkness. "...who's with you?"

"It's me...and Gaunt..." Ozzy said. ".....do any of you know what the fuck just happened?"

"We were....we were in Spain...right?" Icarus asked.

"Yes. Spain." Lykopis replied. "We were on a mission.......were we not?"

Ozzy frowned, his memory of the previous moments as foggy and unforthcoming as the darkness itself.

"Gaunt." Ozzy began, trying to clear the cobwebs. "This...darkness. Is it you? Can you do something about it?"

"I have nothing to do with this....nor, it seems, can I do anything about it." his normally eery voice replied. "I have been trying to absorb it...to communicate with it...........nothing..."

Suddenly...a noise. Everyone went silent, searching the darkness. The noise stopped. Then, after a moment, it returned. A...gurgling...of sounds. Snaps and clicks, muttering and spitting in rising and falling tones.

It stopped again.

".....o-k-a-y...what was that...?" Baxter began nervously.

Before anyone could reply, a sudden sharp light pierced the darkness. Ozzy's eyes immediatly crunched shut, involuntarily turning from the sudden exposure.

"...oh.......oh my....god..."

It was Icarus. His voice....startled...shaken....what?

Ozzy forcibly pryed his own eyes into an open squint, turning towards the illumination. It was a moment before he could easily make anything out. Shapes, at first. Then, slowly, details started to come.

The light. A soft, white glow. Coming...glowing...from...

"...Icarus?" Lykopis questioned, her now somewhat dim form visible near Ozzy. She started to find her feet, staring with similiarly squinting eyes towards the light.

Ozzy stood as well, shading his own slowly accomadating vision. And what he saw was....confusing, at best.

"...guys...?" Icky asked, staring at his own hand, his voice sad, and small...like a child. "...guys...what's...what's happened? What's going on??"

The glow of light was coming from his own fingertips.

"What's happened to me?!!" he asked, his voice growing into a startled shout.

The light reflected and glinted off thread-like streaks of metal, covering his arms...his hands...his face. It covered him like a spider-web.

Like....circuitry...

Lykopis started to answer, but none was forthcoming. She looked to Ozzy for answers, but, was suddenly taken back with what she saw.

Baxter...noticing her expression...stared for a moment, before looking down at himself.

His skin...the light....the light was reflecting off his skin. Off his........metal....skin....

"...oh...." was all he could say, staring down at grey, metallic hands. The metal seemed to cover his entire physical form. He had seen this before. In that other dimensional place he and the La Perdita team had visited a few years back. That 'dark' dimension.

"Lykopis. Baxter. Sidewinder. Gaunt."

Ozzy and Lykopis turned quickly around. There, standing behind them a few feet away, stood Victor Reilley.

"...I thought I smelled you guys..." he said, his voice calm and even.

Ozzy's horrified expression should have clued Victor into the fact that something was wrong. That is...if Victor could see it.

His eyes....gray and upturned.

He was blind.

"...does anyone have a flare...or a light of some kind?" Victor asked, seemingly clueless to his own impairment.

He was still in the dark.

"{{{{++)<,.}}}}||||\\\|||**0^^=+))*:***" the noise stated suddenly, everyone jerking towards it's origin.

Adem Different walked up to them, a curious expression...as ever...on his face. He looked back and forth at them, pausing on Icarus and Victor.

"}}}|*}}|\\\|||**0^?"

The noise...the screeching, strange gurgling sound...it was coming from him.

He was speaking it...

"}||\_----_*)(?" he said again, curious as to why no one was responding.

"...jesus..." Ozzy stammered. "...what the fuck is going on..."

"My...my hand..." Icarus mumbled, tears in his eyes, caught totally in his own predicament. "...how...how is this..."

"{*()+---?"

"People...what's happening?" Victor asked, oblivious. "Where are we? Can you see something?"

Ozzy and Lykopis turned back and forth between their transformed comrades. Ozzy, paused, looking hard at Lyly's face.

"Lyly...." he began, walking towards her to get a better look. "....that scar..."

She squinted in confusion, even as Ozzy placed a metallic finger up near her left eye. Lykopis reached up, running her fingers along a long, thin scar that ran from her left eyebrow, down across her eyelid, breaking only for the eyeball, and continued well into her cheekbone. She rubbed it back and forth, confusion clouding her vision. What she couldn't feel, however, was the intricate, black tribal tattoo that attempted to cover the scar.

"...your hair...has gotten...longer..." Ozzy stated, noticing her ebony strands, stretching clear down to her backside, expertly braided in intervals.

"{{+__--*!" Adem demanded.

"ADEM, I CAN'T UNDERSTAND YOU!" Ozzy suddenly yelled. He spun towards Icarus. "I HAVE NO IDEA WHAT THE FUCK'S HAPPENED TO YOU EITHER, ICARUS!"

The moment was catching up to him. To all of them.

"AND VICTOR..." he started, spinning towards the man.

"I'm blind." Victor suddenly stated. Very calmly. Very evenly.

Ozzy's mouth was still open, even as the irritated wind drifted out of his lungs.

"....yeah chief....looks that way..." he mumbled.

Victor said nothing. Made no expression one way or another. He simply stood there, absorbed in his own thoughts.

"Ozzy..." Lykopis said in an unusually quiet voice. "...what has happened to us..."

"We all seemed to be....changed..."

Lykopis clenched her jaw, as Gaunt stepped into the dim frame of light. A long, flowing cloak of shadows...seemingly thicker than the lack of light around them...covered a hidden form. But his face....his face was........gone.

A stark, black skeleton stared back at them. The only thing reminescent of the man they knew, his round, black-lensed spectacles, covering what they could only assume were empty sockets.

The Shadow Chancellor studied his skeletal hands briefly, before a small chuckle emanated from a moving jawbone.

"It seems I have lost weight..." his muttered with a black humor.

No one said anything for a moment. Not even Icarus.

"Drake." Ozzy began finally. "Where's Marshall?"

"Drake Marshall is dead."

Everyone turned towards the foreign voice coming from the darkness. Footsteps could be made out, clicking against a hard floor. Coming closer...

"As is Thomas Foxe."

...and closer...

"Who is there?!" Lykopis demanded, immediately reaching for her sword.....which wasn't there.

"No need for arms, my dear..." the voice came closer. "...I'm here to help..."

A figure stepped just into the dimmest perimeter of Icarus' light, hands fumbling with something.

A click of metal, and the thin pop of a small, orange flame briefly appeared.

An inhale.....and then, a small gust of smoke.

Tobacco. Cigarette smoke.

The figure stepped fully into the light...

"...to try and shed a bit of light on your problems..."

Everyone peered back at the bald man, in the worn coat...smoking the cigarette...

"My name is Prometheus." he stated evenly. "Let's bring you all up to speed, shall we?"

"Bullshit!" Ozzy barked, taking another step closer to this bald stranger.

"Oh?" Prometheus asked. "You know something I don't?"

"...an entire year..." Lykopis stated, not quite sure if she believed what she said. "You're saying we're missing...an entire year?"

The bald smoker shrugged casually, gesturing with a subdued dramatic flare.

"Weellll....about eleven-and-a-half months, if you want to be specific..." he said with a nod, smoke snorting from his nostrils.

"We were just in Spain!" Ozzy half-shouted. "Now we're here!"

"No.....you were in Spain...then, something happened. Something...bad. A year passed, and now you're here."

"Did you do this to us?" Icarus finally joined in, eyes etched with shock. "Did you do this to me?!"

"No. I have nothing to do with any of this..." Pro answered honestly. "...save bring you here, of course."

"And where, exactly, is here?"

Pro looked around a bit, studying the darkness that surrounded them.

"Well...funny you should ask...it really has no name. It's a place between places. A dimension between dimensions..."

"A cliche' between a cliche'?" Ozzy retorted, his temper finding a seeming permanent grasp on the situation.

"Clever." Pro smiled. "Call it what you will. I call it 'The Chatroom'. It's a void I use when I need to have private conversations."

"A chatroom? Like...on the internet?" Victor spoke up.

"Well...no, not really..." Pro grimaced, walking up to him with a deep stare at his blind pupils. "...no...I guess I'm just lazy with names, is all..."

He paused, running a hand back and forth in front of Victor's eyes. Reilley's hand suddenly snapped out, grabbing his wrist in a halt.

"Do you mind?" Victor asked.

The bald stranger smiled, Victor releasing the hand.

"Listen...Prometheus..." Lykopis began. "We need some straight answers."

Pro paused, looking at them all.

"One year ago..." he began. "...something rather cosmic happened in your universe. A small something. But, powerful enough to cause a distortion of your reality."

He paced between them, looking down, smoke clenched between his teeth.

"It's first side-effect was this..." he stated, motioning towards Edmund. "...a stripping of his essence...and then...a subtle remolding, if you will..."

Gaunt looked up and down at himself.

"After that...events played out....and played out...and played out...all in myriad forms..." Prometheus continued. "...and all at the same time..."

He took a drag of the smoke again...

"Somewhere...a new team of adventurers with old initials has formed....looks good, too." he began. "Somewhere else...someone with my name is hellbent in his own strategy, leading a team with a rather obtuse name..."

He frowned a bit with the thought.

"...and still, more is happening. Has happened. Will happened. And all the while, you people...you're stuck in your own limbo, aren't you?"

He paused, looking around at the silent group.

"I can see by your faces you don't understand. And I knew you wouldn't..." he sighed, rolling his eyes.

"What happened to bring us here? To do this, to us? Where did this supposed year go? Why do we not remember it?" Lykopis asked.

"Questions, questions, questions....there are always questions with you people..." Prometheus responded, seemingly becoming impatient with the situation.

He walked straight up to Lykopis, looking up into her face.

"You have a beautiful face..." he said very quietly. "....but perhaps, you faced something more beautiful than you could handle?"

He spun towards Icarus.

"...he owns himself, now...his body and his ego, supercharged...upgraded...as one..."

He spun again, towards Adem.

"...perhaps he asked too many questions...and his tongue paid the price?"

Towards Victor.

"...and he saw something....something, perhaps, he shouldn't have..."

Prometheus looked back around at them all.

"Drake Marshall. Thomas Foxe. Both are dead due to the whim of the cosmos...and one being, in particular..."

"Someone killed them?" Ozzy asked. He jaw clenched a bit tighter at the thought of his friends. Dead.

"Well....I don't think he meant to...." Pro shrugged. "...but...yes...it happened because of him..."

"Who?" Lykopis demanded. "Who did this? Why? Please. Tell us."

Prometheus paused, suddenly looking at his watch.

"Time's almost up..." he said. "...I can't keep you here much longer..."

He looked up with a devilish grin.

"I'm really not supposed to be here, you know. My story is over. My time is done."

He took a final drag of his smoke.

"...this all started when your universe decided it was okay to evolve the most powerful metahuman that could ever be conceived....your missing year...your dead comrades...your transformations....those are all things you will have to discover in your own way...your own time...your own making." he said very seriously, and with a hint of sorrow. "As to why it happened?"

Suddenly, a drifting echo of voices...a chorus of minds...spoke up around them, with a baffling phrase...

Quote:

---

It was at this point in time that Mxy himself sneezed, with dire repercussions felt across the Vanguard Universe. . .

---

"Your universe still has alot of potential to explore. It's up to you to set things the way you want. To make life the way it needs to be. After all, I'm simply the narrator..." Prometheus continued.

He flicked his smoke into the darkness, orange embers exploding in a small shower of sparkling light.

"...you're the stars..."

The orange embers never fell. They swirled, and coalesced....swimming around the group...sparkling ever brighter. Prometheus simply turned, beginning to walk away. He paused, looking back at Ozzy...

"...and I'm expecting alot out of you..." he stated with a cocked eyebrow.

He turned, walking into the darkness, even as the embers burst all around them in a now-glorious rainbow of light...

".....................by the way....Chewy says 'Good Luck'..............................."

And like that....

.......they were dropped back into reality....

Time has passed.

Reality has shifted.

The world has changed.

There are only eleven people on the planet who know something is wrong.

Six of them have just learned the terrifying truth...

"Mxy." Lykopis stated with a calm voice.

The crash of waves against the rocky shoreline seemed to echo with the word. The gust of salty breeze dimmed her voice a bit, playing carelessly with the tiny strands of her unbraided bangs.

"What is a....'Mxy'?" she asked, sitting on one of the dark, worn rocks.

"...I don't know..." Ozzy replied, squinting a bit with the early morning sunrise.

Victor stood behind them, arms folded. A black bandana know wrapped across his eyes. If the man felt even the slightest bit of weakness from the sudden handicap, he showed no signs. Razor-sharp senses seemed to tell him everything he needed to know about his surroundings....keeping a new balance to make up for the loss of his sight. But, no matter whether it was his near-inability at long-term emotions, or, his own private pride...he refused to allow any hint of personal loss.

Adem Different stood a few feet away, hands folded in their normal position behind his back. He too remained silent. But, not due to any emotional needs or sorrow. He simply didn't seem to be able to speak their language.

Icarus, on the other hand, was painted by his own sorrow and shock. Constantly staring at the silver and gold bio-circuitry lining his arms, his hands...from what he could tell, every part of his body...he seemed mesmorized by this sudden change.

"I have heard of this name....Mxy." Victor spoke up, Ozzy and Lykopis turning to look at the blind assassin. "In Paragon's files."

"How do you know what Paragon's files say?" Ozzy asked.

"Simple research. Would I blindly...." he paused briefly at the word. "....would I join your team if I was not prepared to know who I was working with?"

"Wait...are you saying that 'Mxy' is a person? That they're a member of Vanguard?" Lykopis asked.

"Oh!" Ozzy's eyes shot wider, Lyly glancing over at him. "Oh, I just remembered...."

"What?"

"...'Mxy'...yeah...I remember...back on the old team...in La Perdita...Grimm mentioned the name a few times....so did Smith....'Mxy'...I mean, I thought they were talking about a rock group, or something..." he explained, eyes wandering in the back of his memory. "...but...no....'Mxy'...it must have been...a teammate of some kind?"

"*^^^{*}**())" Adem commented, taking a few steps closer.

Ozzy and Lykopis looked up at him. Ozzy's face twisted into a slight expression of pity.

"Adem...." he sighed. "...what the hell's happened to you, man..."

Baxter stood up, walking over to his friend.

"I CAN-NOT UN-DER-STAND YOU..." he said a bit louder, and a bit sharper, trying to get through to the alien. He pointed at his own ear a few times, and shrugged accordingly.

Adem stared back with a very flat, very dry expression. Then, simply reached into his coat, and pulled free a small tablet of paper, and a pen. He quickly scribbled something, and then, handed it to Ozzy. Ozzy took the paper, reading it aloud...

"But, I can understand you....so stop talking so loudly..." he read off.

Adem quickly scribbled something else, handing him the paper again.

"...you schmuck..."

Adem drove home the statement with a sharp smack to the back of Ozzy's head.

Different began writing and writing, Ozzy rubbing the back of his head with a small scowl. After a moment, Adem handed the paper to Lykopis.

"Obviously, something or someone has altered the mechanics of my language centers. I am trying to speak English..or any other language for that matter...but only my native tongue comes forward. Still, it has had no effect on my hearing, or comprehension skills. As for this 'Mxy', I would suggest we contact the Munich office, and determine what has happened in the year that has passed. Assuming the Munich office is still there." she read off.

"Wow...you sure can write fast..." Ozzy said to Adem. "Oh! Hey! What about Jym? Can you contact him?"

Adem shook his head 'no', writing again.

"I have tried, but Jym doesn't seem to be linked in with my nanites anymore. Just as baffling, my nanites do not seem to be able to repair my speech pattern. Most curious."

"Okay, I agree with Adem. We should head back up to the castle and see if Gaunt has made any progress..." Lykopis announced.

The group began to trudge up the small embankment of the shore, Lyly pausing to look back...

"Icarus?" she asked.

Sidewinder was still standing there, staring off into the horizon.

"...I can hear..." he muttered, Lykopis walking back to him.

"What is it, Icarus?"

He turned to look at her, the confusion still dominating.

"...I can hear....sounds....words........messages...." he tried to explain. ".....signals..."

Lykopis just stared at him, not quite sure what to make of this.

"...I can understand them, Lyly...." he said again. "....frequencies...radio waves....electromagnetic reflections off the atmosphere........I can understand it....all..."

Lykopis grabbed Icarus by the shoulders, forcing him to look her in the eyes.

"Icarus, I...we...need you to focus. Get a hold of yourself." she stated very evenly. "We have all been changed in some fashion. If we are to figure this out, we need you here...with us. Do you understand me?"

"...Lyly..." he began, eyes wandering again.

"Icarus!" she barked. He suddenly snapped his attention to her, as if waking from a dream. "Do you understand me?!"

He paused, staring straight into her eyes. And, a calm seemed to finally wash over him.

"...yes..." he finally nodded. "...okay, yeah...I'm here....let's do this..."

She held him for another moment, and then, both finally turned and began walking up the embankment.

They crested into a wide plain, with small mountains on the horizon. A ways ahead, the rest of the group were making their way towards what appeared to be a very large, very ancient castle.

"...why..." Icarus began, trying to find a hold on reality again. "...why were we dropped here?"

Lyly shrugged.

"I am uncertain." she replied. "Baxter says this manor is owned by one of the La Perdita employees....a Mr. Montag, I believe..."

Icarus looked over at her.

"Montag? Grissom Montag?"

"Yes, I believe so..."

"THE Grissom Montag? The Sandcrawler?" he asked emphatically, this being the first time his old self seemed to be poking through.

"If you like..." she shrugged.

He looked back at the manor ahead...

"Cool."

The group trudged slowly up into Montag Manor, making their way inside. Once inside, they each briefly parted to reflect upon their conditions.

Lykopis showered, allowing the hot water to pour over every inch of her body. She lingered in the stall, letting the water and steam pour over her body.

Finally, she exited and began to towel off. Walking out into the bedroom she had selected, she began to dry her hair and get dressed.

Pulling on a loose, white blouse she found in a chest of drawers, she finished dressing in a pair of slacks and boots she also found. She would have to return the clothes to Montag at some point. Or, if he was like most of his clan, she would simply have some form of payment sent.

"How long have you been here, Edmund?" She said, lying back on the bed and letting a hand run over the scar on her face.

"Not long, She Wolf." Gaunt emerged from the darkness, beginning to take form. "Although I admire your physical gifts, I am no voyeur." Gaunt stepped forward, his appearance different once more.

Although still covered by the long, shadowy cloak, Gaunt seemed to have filled out again. He looked almost normal. But on closer inspection, his skin seemed dry, cracked in places. Inky, black tendrils of darkness seemed to constantly pour from him. Or was it from the cloak? Lykopis couldn't be sure.

The overall effect was disturbing.

"You have changed again." She offered.

"Sudden mesomorphic transitions are not a new experience for me, I'm afraid. Did you know they tried to kill me during the Spanish Inquisition? It-Ah, but I am off track. You wish to know if I had any luck contacting the others."

"Did you?"

"Yes, William is perhaps the most resourceful of your kind I've ever met. He's sent a craft to pick you up. It will be here in the morning. He felt you could use a night's rest before returning. I think he's right."

Lykopis looked up, her hands reflexively beginning to brand her long strands of hair. "You're not going with us?" she asked a little hesitantly.

"I am not. William and I had an agreement. It is time for that agreement to end now. I am too long derelict in my duties as Shadow Chancellor. Things have crept back into the world that ought not be. And someone has to watch over them. I am that someone. Goodbye, She Wolf."

Leaning in slightly, Gaunt kissed Lykopis on the cheek and pulled back out. "The scar flatters you, my dear." Then he stepped back into the shadows and was gone.

Qayin ben h'Adam

One year ago, thirteen people vanished. Twelve served Him who spared me for my crimes. When I heard, part of me wished to take up the search, but the Dreams had not yet come.

Last night, in the land of Nod, the Dreams came. The Voice spoke to me, as it has for millenia, calling the Sinner to Sacrament. My nephews and nieces, possibly killed by smokes and mirrors. Once more, I am given mandate by Him to partake of that Sin I created, now in Service.

I go to Spain, once more to be my Brothers' Keeper...

"Icky!"

Ozzy Baxter shook the young man's shoulders, evidently finally pulling him out his stupor.

"Wha..?" Icarus seemed... drowsy. Intoxicated. Numb.

"I've been knocking at your door for almost a full half-hour, man," Ozzy said, sitting down on the bed beside Icarus. "What have you been doing in here?"

Icarus shook his head as tears welled up in his eyes. Slowly, deliberately, he pointed toward the mirror sitting opposite the bed. Turning towards it, Ozzy looked... and saw, staring back at him, a man he recognized as himself, but completely covered in some kind of metallic ore. Next to that figure in the mirror sat a disheartened young man. His once long, luxurious head of sleek blonde hair now cropped almost to nothing around his head. His smooth skin now covered in wires, chips, blinking lights, and all manner of technologies. As that figure gazed too, back at Ozzy through the looking glass, the ex-boxer could see that one of his eyes was now a piercing red laser, gazing out.

"Who's gonna wanna fuck me now?!" the pilot groaned to himself. "I'm more machine now than man!"

"...twisted and evil..." Ozzy muttered under his breath, unable to pass up such a brilliant set-up.

"Oh, sure," Icky said, rising from his seat and beginning to pace the room. "Laugh it up! Make jokes at Mr. Roboto's expense! But you don't know, man... you don't know... having everything you ever knew, taken away from you, like that!" Sidewinder snapped to emphasize his point. "...that's, just... the worst feeling in the world."

Ozzy paused, the chinking sound of metal on metal as he ran his hand over his face, preparing for the next words out of his mouth.

"Icarus," Baxter said, completely calmly, "fuck you."

Icarus shot Ozzy a hardened glare. "Excuse me?"

"You heard me," Ozzy said. "Fuck you. Of course everything you've ever known has been taken away from you - because the only thing you've ever known is yourself! And when the time comes for you to be tried... for you to be tested... all you can do is crumple like a coward? Bullshit."

Ozzy rose from the bed, making his way toward where Icky was standing. "Back in my fighting days, there came a point where the realization sinks in - I'm washed up and there's nothing I can do about it. Every boxer wants a final chance... but I never took mine. By the time that realization sank in for me, I was in debt up to my eyebrows and had seven different mobs chasing me down to collect.

"Did you know there was a Hungarian mob?" Ozzy asked. "'Cuz I never did...

"I never took my shot, kid. In fact, it wasn't until Nuriko of the La Perdita branch pulled me outta that gunk that I even realized that life was giving me a chance again, asking nothing in return. Screw karma, man... 'cuz I didn't have any good karma coming to me after some of the crap I went through... but I got another chance.

"And that kinda puts things in perspective, y'know?"

Icarus' head hung in front of him as Ozzy finished. Slowly, the pilot brought his head up and nodded, looking Ozzy in the eyes.

"What the hell are you talking about, man?"

Ozzy sighed heavily. "These... these... things!" Baxter said, motioning toward the cybernetics covering his comrade. "You're looking at them all wrong, man. Maybe... instead of focusing on the external Icarus... it's time you got in touch with the Icarus inside, y'know? Maybe then you'll discover what it is you're supposed to do with these things.

"Life has given you a second chance, Icarus. Don't blow it by thinking about yourself..."

With that, Ozzy turned, walking out of the room. As he reached the door, he stopped in his tracks at the sound of his name being uttered with a slight Russian accent.

"Yeah?" he responded, looking over his shoulder.

"Where are you going?" Icarus asked.

Baxter shrugged. "Don't know. Thought I'd find Edmund... Adem... Lyly... Vic... see what's getting done, y'know?"

Icarus paused, opening his mouth several times, as though wanting to speak, but not able to. His hands fidgeted a bit in front of him like a hyperactive child who had just been told to stand still. Finally, the words came.

"C-can I come with you?" Icarus asked, sounding more meek than he had probably ever been in his life. "I... don't think I should be alone right now."

Ozzy smiled. "Sure thing," he said, holding out his arm, wrapping it around the younger man's shoulders as they exited the room. "Let's go see how the other's are doing..."