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TALES OF THE LEGENDARY

REUNIONS

(a HERO SANDWICH production)



Terrence Knight stepped aside, easily dodging the blow from the shadowy figure he was fighting. He wound up, grinned a little under his mask, gave it an extra
little half-step just for kicks, and delivered a power-soaked uppercut right to the tip of the villain's jaw. The stalker went up, up, and over, slamming
down flat on the ground. His mask continued arcing high into the air, finally landing in a decorative planter some thirty feet away.

"Nothin' but net," Terrence crowed.

"Ooh, nice, Terr!" Rhea said from behind, as she waved Mr. Whiskers in warning at a bound and gagged thug struggling to escape his bonds.
"Don't make me zap you," she threatened. "Mr. Whiskers, keep an eye on him. If he moves, let me know." She set the cat down on the
ground. The man subsided, eyeing the stuffed toy warily. Rhea watched him for a moment, nodded sharply, then turned to begin tagging the large group of
unconscious enemies surrounding Terrence.

"That wasn't as hard as I expected," Lisa remarked from down the hall, dusting her hands off lightly. Around her, three more thugs wobbled on
their feet, then collapsed in a swirl of excited particles, even as a mushroom cloud rose above the group.

"These guys are wimps," Terrence put in. "I dunno why the normal security couldn't handle 'em." He raised an eyebrow -- about the
only part of his face that could be seen behind the mask -- inquringly at Rhea. "You sure the lead was legit?"

Before Rhea could answer, the stalker stirred. Terrence glanced down and shrugged. "This guy'll probably know more than that one," he said,
angling one thumb dismissively at the bound thug engaged in a staring contest with Mr. Whiskers. He bent down, gathered a handful of the villain's costume
in one broad hand, and lifted the man without any effort, holding him straight-armed about a foot off the ground. "Wake up, scum," Terrence growled,
giving the man a little shake. "I didn't hit you THAT hard."

The stalker's arm twitched, obviously palming some sort of weapon, and Terrence shook his head ruefully. They never learned. He raised the man a bit
higher, balled his other hand into a fist, and mentally calculated just how hard he'd have to hit to shake some teeth loose, make the guy drop the weapon,
but not send him to the hospital. Yet.

Rhea screamed -- "TERRENCE! NO!" -- and grabbed his arm, almost flying off her feet as he desperately tried to pull the punch. The stalker acted,
jamming a device into Terrence's arm, the one gripping the costume. Electricity sizzled and arced and Terrence's muscles jerked involuntarily,
releasing the stalker from his grasp. The man landed easily, dropping into a fighting crouch with the gleam of blades peeking out from the shadows surrounding
his hands.

"What's wrong?" Terrence said, ignoring the stalker for the moment. Rhea was staring wide-eyed in horrified fascination at the enemy, her lips
trembling, hands clenched at her chest, and Terrence glanced between them in confusion. He took a better look at his opponent.

The man -- about his own age, if looks were anything to go by -- was about six feet tall, when not crouched and ready to attack, and had swirls of dark energy
leeching out of his body like wisps of smoke, alternately concealing and revealing his features. He looked to be Caucasian, with an angry red tattoo on one
cheek, and was dressed in what Terrence had come to think of as 'manwhore' gear -- lots of leather and straps. He wore some of that himself, from time
to time, but on this guy it just seemed sinister. He had blades in his hands -- narrow, double-edged daggers that winked and flashed through the smoke -- and
a knowing gleam in his eyes. Slowly, the stalker smiled. It was not a nice smile, and Terrence ground his teeth, maintaining his self-control with iron will
as the urge to permanently wipe that smile off the punk's face rose within him.

"Rhe -- Emerald?" Lisa asked quietly. She stood, arms extended, energy swirling between her outstretched hands, obviously ready to drop the hammer
on the stalker at a moment's notice. "What's the matter? Talk to us."

Rhea just stared. Then with a loud sob she spun, gathered Mr. Whiskers to her chest, and took to the air, zooming down the hallway and towards the exit like
the hounds of Hell were at her heels.

"Rhea!" Lisa yelled, but Rhea was already beyond hearing. "Talk, now!" she barked, glaring at the stalker and intensifying the glow
between her hands so much that it began to drown out the normal office lighting. The carpet and walls near her began to smoke and smolder from the excess
bleed-off. "What just happened here?"

"Go after her!" Terrence called out. "I'll deal with him."

Lisa paused, glanced between the two men, then shook her head angrily and let the energy vanish. She leaped high, clearing the overhanging walkway and
touching down lightly behind Terrence in one bound, and sprinted down the hall after Rhea.

The stalker made his blades vanish and stepped back easily, catlike grace evident in his every move. He glanced once at Lisa, dismissed her in the same
motion, and smiled slyly at Terrence. "So," he said, amusement evident in his tone. "It's true. My little Rheabeth is a -hero-."

"-Your- Rheabeth?" Terrence growled. His knuckles creaked and he could feel his muscles swell beneath his armor. What the other man had said
clicked in his mind, and he narrowed his eyes. "How do you know her name?"

"Of course," the man continued, as if Terrence hadn't spoken, "she didn't have powers when -I- knew her." He grinned. "Is
she still wild in bed?"

Terrence lashed out, roaring incoherently, and the stalker ducked. He didn't get away cleanly; Terrence's fist grazed the side of his head, sending
him sprawling, but it wasn't a knockout blow. The stalker rolled to his feet, away from Terrence, and wiped a thumb along his temple, coming away with a
smear of blood.

"I'll take that as a yes," he said, and vanished.

Terrence snarled and stomped his foot, sending shockwaves rippling out and shattering the glass in the neighboring offices, but the stalker was gone. He took
several deep breaths, getting his rage under control, and whirled suddenly at a small noise behind him.

The tied-up thug stared at him with terrified eyes and desperately tried to inch away. Terrence picked the man up by his belt and slung him over his left
shoulder, ignoring the frightened mumblings coming through the gag and the growing stain on the thug's pants. He strode heavily to the planter and picked
up the stalker's mask, then turned and surveyed the scene one last time.

He tucked the mask into a pouch, settled his burden a bit more comfortably on his shoulder, and ran after the girls.

-----

Twilight shadows were lengthening as Terrence landed lightly on the rooftop. Here in Founder's Falls, the nights tended to be soothing and somewhat
romantic. He was in no mood to appreciate either quality, though.

It had been easy, finding Rhea and Lisa -- he just followed the tracker blips. Neither were answering their radios, though, and he could see why -- both
earpieces lay on the slate nearby, turned off and ignored. He stepped forward lightly, the sound of soft crying drowning out his footsteps. Rhea was curled
in a ball, almost sitting on Lisa's lap, at the juncture of the roof and a chimney. Lisa raised her head and met his eyes, and he could see that she was
crying as well, though the sobs all seemed to be coming from Rhea. He took another step and realized he'd never dropped off the thug from the office
building -- with his strength, it was sometimes too easy to forget he was carrying things. He stepped back and dropped the man -- who appeared to be either
unconscious or simply resigned to his fate -- on the fire escape, then moved forward again, taking off his mask and armored gauntlets as he did so.

Lisa continued holding Rhea, and conveyed her helplessness with a simple shake of the head. Terrence dropped to one knee and wrapped his arms around both of
them.

"It's okay, Rhea," Lisa said, her tone suggesting that she had no idea if it was okay or not, but that it was the sort of thing one said to a
friend in need. "We'll help. Whatever it is, we'll help. Talk to us. What's wrong?"

In the fading light, Terrence could see the worried expression on Lisa's face. He assumed it matched his own. They exchanged glances over Rhea's
bowed head, waiting for the sobbing woman to calm down enough to speak.

When it finally happened, Terrence had no idea what time it was. Night had fallen completely by then, but other than that he paid no attention to his
surroundings. Rhea lifted her head and sniffed back some tears.

"We were going to get married," she said out of the blue, staring off at the War Walls. A sad smile tugged at her mouth. "We were already
living together. Two crazy kids, just out of high school."

Terrence blinked and noticed Lisa doing the same thing. He imagined her thoughts were along the same lines as his: Married? To that *criminal*? Lisa was
faster on the uptake, though, and spoke first.

"What happened?"

Rhea shook her head, still focused on nowhere. "I don't know. He just... wasn't there anymore. The police couldn't find him, *I*
couldn't find him, his dad and brother hadn't seen him since he left home... he just vanished." Rhea shook her head. "I thought something
had happened -- a car accident, maybe, who knows -- but they never found anything." She hugged Mr. Whiskers tightly. "That was the same year my
folks died," she whispered, staring now at the rooftop. "It was a really bad year."

"Oh, god, I'm so sorry, Rhea," Lisa said, stroking the other woman's hair. Terrence squeezed them both gently, and Rhea patted his arm.

"You didn't know," Rhea said. "It's okay. I don't talk about it much. Mr. Whiskers doesn't like me talking about it -- I get
all upset, and then he has trouble holding back his power, and, well, you know. I just don't talk about it."

The crackle of gunfire erupted from the streets below. All three of them tensed reflexively, but other than that didn't respond. No civilians were
screaming, which meant it was likely rival factions battling it out rather than something that required their intervention. Terrence suppressed the faint
twinge of guilt he felt over not dropping down to put a stop to it. Rhea needed him right now... that was more important.

"You... you didn't hurt him, did you, Terrence?" Rhea suddenly asked, twisting her head around to look Terrence in the eye. "I mean, I know
he looked like he was a... a villain... but he really couldn't be! I know Danny, he was a good man..."

Terrence shook his head slowly. "No... I didn't hurt him, Rhea. He left on his own." Rhea smiled and turned back around, and Lisa met his
gaze, raising one eyebrow questioningly. Terrence shook his head, mouthing the word "later". Lisa nodded, eyes troubled, but held her peace.

"That's good," Rhea replied. Her good cheer appeared to be returning; she sat up straighter and fussed with Mr. Whiskers fur -- Terrence noted
absently that the cat was overdue for a bath. "Danny's ... he's alive, and he's here in Paragon City... I can find him, I know it!" She
was becoming more animated by the moment, and Terrence bit his lip to keep from ruining things.

What about us, Rhea? he thought. What about me and Lisa? A quick glance told him Lisa was thinking along the same lines.

"I'll help you find him," Terrence heard himself say. And... I don't want to think about what comes next, he thought sadly.

"Me too." Lisa nodded firmly.

Rhea looked at both of them and smiled -- a forced smile, but a smile -- and settled Mr. Whiskers on her shoulder. "Well, alright then!" she
declared. "And... thank you."

"First, though," Lisa added, "I think we need some sleep. We'll start looking tomorrow, first thing. Okay, Rhea?"

Rhea cocked her head at Mr. Whiskers, then nodded. "Yeah... you're right. It's been a long day, we're all tired. Right?" She stood
and stretched. "Okay then." A hint of her usual impishness rose to the surface as she grinned at Terrence and Lisa. "I'm first in the
shower, but I'm willing to scrub your back if you'll scrub mine."

Lisa smiled. "Wait, which one of us? The shower's not big enough for all three...."

Rhea stepped off the roof and twirled in midair. "You two figure THAT out!" she said, and began to fly away. "I'll be
waaaaiiitttingg..." she called back over her shoulder.

"... flip a coin?" Terrence rumbled. The he realized Lisa was already a vanishing speck over the rooftops. "Hey!"

-----

The clock on the stove said 12:04 AM. Terrence blinked at it blearily, then shuffled forward into the light. "'s'matter, Lise?" he asked,
settling into a chair at the table. "Can't sleep again?"

"No. Well, yes, but not because of, you know." Lisa slowly stirred a pot over the stove. "I'm just worried about Rhea, I'll be
okay," she added, flicking off the burner. Then she paused and regarded Terrence quizzically. "What about you? You were sleeping like a baby when
I got up."

"Smelled chocolate," he replied, indicating the pot with a grin. "When you're fighting Vahz -in the sewers- and you suddenly smell
chocolate, it's time to wake up."

"Heh." Lisa passed him a mug and began searching the cupboard for another. "Time to do dishes again," she muttered, finally locating one
hiding behind the plates.

"I'll do 'em tomorrow," Terrence offered. She nodded. The clock ticked forward to 12:06. Terrence fiddled aimlessly with his mug, waiting
for it to cool, staring into its chocolate depths and watching the swirls and bubbles without really focusing on them. Lisa finished pouring her own cup and
leaned against the counter, cradling the mug in her hands and watching Terrence with concerned eyes.

For a while there was silence.

"She doesn't get it, Lise," Terrence finally said. He pitched his voice low; Rhea was asleep down the hall and he didn't want her to hear
what he had to say. Not yet, anyway. "This guy, he's up to something. He knew she would be there. I dunno what his game is, but he's playing
one. I can tell, from what he said."

"What did he say?"

Terrence frowned. "I don't wanna repeat it."

Lisa arched an eyebrow.

"Look, it was rude, okay? It wasn't so much what he said as the way he said it." Terrence sighed in exasperation. "You kinda had to hear
it yourself."

Lisa raised the other eyebrow.

Terrence felt himself flush, and deliberately took a sip of his cocoa. Finally he said, "He called her 'my little Rheabeth', and asked if she was
still wild in bed."

Lisa's eyes narrowed. She didn't say anything, though Terrence noted that her cocoa appeared to have begun simmering again.

"What are we gonna do, Lise?"

Lisa set her cup down carefully and dragged a chair opposite Terrence at the small table. She spun it around and sat on it backwards, crossing her arms on the
arched back. "First things first. We have to find him." She paused. "We have to find him before Rhea does."

Terrence looked at her. "What do you mean?"

Lisa closed her eyes and rested her forehead on her hands. "I don't know. I just... maybe if we find him first and find out what's going on,
it'll be easier." She looked up at Terrence. "You saw how excited she got, thinking about finding him again. I... I don't want her
hurt."

Terrence winced. "I can't believe she was going to marry that jerk."

Lisa cracked a wry smile. "Yeah, well... love makes us do stupid things sometimes." She sat up straighter. "So, what do we know about
him?"

Terrence drained his mug and sat back, ticking items off on his fingers. "He uses knives, and he can turn invisible or something. He's quick, knows
how to handle himself in a fight. That smoke around him... I've seen stuff like it before, it's nasty. He dresses like a male hooker. He's got a
slight accent, alot like Rhea's, actually." Terrence angled his thumb towards the laundry room. "And I got his mask, dunno if that'll help
any. It's in my armor."

Lisa hmm'd thoughtfully, then paused. "Terr? What about that guy you were carrying?"

Terrence blinked, then smiled sheepishly. "Oh, uh... I got one of his thugs, too?"

Their prisoner looked up at Terrence and Lisa with an expression that was equal parts apprehension and exasperation. His body language seemed to say,
"Geez, guys, enough already, ok?" Terrence reached down over the edge of the roof, got a handful of shirt, and hoisted the man up to join them.
Lisa wrinkled her nose and stepped back.

"You really scared it out of him," she commented.

"It happens," Terrence growled -- more for their captive's benefit than Lisa's. He brought the man face-to-face with himself, shook him just
a bit, and said, "Who do you work for?"

Lisa tapped his arm. "Terrence?"

He turned. "What?"

"He can probably answer questions better if you take the gag out of his mouth."

Terrence turned back to his prisoner, sighed, and snapped the gag with a quick twist of his fingers. "Well?" he demanded. "Who is it?"

The man worked his tongue around, spitting out the wadded-up cloth, and glared with all the dignity he could, considering his feet weren't touching the
roof and his pants were in severe distress. "Nice. Real nice. I been arrested befoah, but dis is da foist time I been fuhgotten about. Cripes."

"Work. For. Who?" Terrence said, punctuating each word with a shake.

"Knock it off alreada, I'll tell ya, 'kay?! Sheesh." The man wrinkled his nose. "But foist, couldja scratch my nose? It's been
itchin' fa HOURS."

Terrence raised his other hand, the one not holding the man off the roof, and slowly balled it into a fist.

"I dunno his real name, 'kay?! He hired me an' da other guys inna bar, said ta call him 'Boss'. Didn't know we'd be goin up
'gainst da freakin' Legendary, or we'd'a told him ta stuff it, yanno?"

"Can you remember anything else?" Lisa put in.

The thug thought for a moment, then nodded. "Ya. He's a joik."

"What bar did you meet him in?"

"Casey's. Hey, make 'im put me down, wouldja, lady?"

Terrence glanced at Lisa, who nodded. "I know where that is."

"Don't," Terrence growled at the punk, "let me catch you again." He pulled an arrest beacon out of his armor, juggled it for a moment,
then flat-palmed it on the guy's forehead and let him drop. He vanished a few moments later in a wash of light and a plaintive "Ow!"

"So what next?" Terrence cracked his knuckles and rotated his neck. "To the bar?"

Lisa shook her head slowly. "I can handle this one myself. I think you need to go back and stay with Rhea, just in case. If that guy was looking for
her... he may have figured out where she's staying."

Terrence's eyes widened. "I hadn't thought of that," he admitted. "Call me if you need backup, okay?"

Lisa nodded. "Count on it."

He picked her up for a hug and a kiss, then watched as she stepped off the edge of the roof and bounced away, a single long arc that landed her neatly at the
train station.

"He'd better -not- show up at Lisa's apartment," Terrence muttered to himself, and dropped to the streets below, heading back home to take up
guard duty.

-----

The main entrance of Casey's was lit by a single flickering neon sign hanging crookedly above the door. In this part of King's Row, the streetlights
were at best a hit-or-miss concept, and so the door was buried in shadow. Lisa eyed it for a moment, then let a small smile creep across her face and walked
past it into the alley. A short distance into the canyon between the buildings was another door, this one lit by a dim bulb in a conical shade. A large black
man wearing a denim jacket and leather pants stood next to it, leaning against the building and puffing contentedly on a cigarette. His arms were tattooed in
swirling tribal patterns, and a set of locked handcuffs hung from one wrist like bracelets, both rings clamped tight with the chain swinging free.

"Tony," Lisa said, nodding at the bouncer.

"Been a long time, girl," said the man-mountain by way of greeting, blowing a smoke ring into the air. "A real long time."

"It has."

"You ain't gonna cause no trouble this time, are ya?"

"C'mon, Tony. Me? Cause trouble?"

"I remember last time REAL well, girl. That's how I got so pretty." Tony chuckled, running one finger along a scar on his cheek.

"That wasn't my fault, and you know it."

"Heh! Ya, I guess not." Tony flicked the cherry off his cigarette and tucked the stub behind his ear. He opened the door and stood aside.
"Tell Mike to send me out a burger, willya? I'm hungry."

"You're always hungry, Tony," Lisa said as she passed by.

"I'm a growing boy," he replied as the door swung shut. "And tell him heavy on the pickles!" Lisa waved one hand over her shoulder in
acknowledgement as she entered the bar proper.

The building had been an old clothing factory -- sweatshop -- in the early part of the previous century. After that it had done time as a tenement, a private
school, a soup kitchen, and a speakeasy. Its current owner managed to combine the worst aspects of all of them into a sum less than the whole of its parts.
It was, in short, a dive, and as always, Lisa found herself wondering just why she had stepped foot in here in the first place.

To her left and down a short flight of stairs were three battered pool tables, surrounded on three sides by a wall-mounted countertop crowded with worn and
tattered stools; to her right was the drinking area, with small square and round tables scattered haphazardly across the scuffed checkered-tile floor and an
odd mix of folding chairs, battered stools, and dining chairs formed from rolled aluminum and red fake leather. Straight ahead was the bar proper, with
plywood sheets covering the holes kicked in the paneling and a dented steel rail. She grinned at the largest panel, which took up at least six square feet of
space and had her initials scrawled on the surface in permanent marker.

The bar was in that odd state between crowded and empty; one or two people either direction would tip the scales, but for now it maintained an uneasy
equilibrium. Lisa strode forward, not turning her head; the bar rats on either side ignored her entirely or pretended to do so. She reached the bar, dropped
her leather coat over the faux-leather stool, and perched herself on it easily. The bartender approached, eyeing her with a mix of affection and unease. He
was a wiry man, thin but without giving the impression of being weak or gaunt. He wore a patch over one eye and a neatly trimmed Van Dyke in salt-and-pepper
gray to match his hair. He looked to be in his early 50's, perhaps, but Lisa knew his appearance was deceptive. She wasn't sure how old he was,
exactly, but he seemed to have been a fixture at this place since before she was born, if the stories were to be believed.

"Gamma."

"Mike."

"What'll it be?"

"The usual. And Tony's hungry again, by the way."

Mike snorted acknowledgement of that last as he rummaged under the bar. Shortly he produced a glass, which he clinked down on a napkin, followed by a dark
brown bottle with a peeling label and a thin coating of frost.

"I don't know why I bother stocking that stuff," he grunted. "You're the only one who ever wants any, and you don't come by any
more after that little party you threw."

"The other guy started it," she noted mildly, and smoothed the label with her thumb. A faded image of a man with a bushy handlebar mustache stared
back at her; she held the bottle still while Mike plied a bottle opener, then poured the glass half-full of thick, dark liquid. A heavy head of foam rose and
stopped at the top, with a thin trickle running down the side of the glass.

"To Weinhard," Lisa said, raising the glass. Mike matched it with an eyebrow and a chuckle, and she drained half in one pull.

"So what brings you by my place?" he asked quietly, plucking a toothpick out of the holder and eyeing it critically before settling one end between
his teeth.

"Usual reason," she replied. "I need some information."

He shook his head. "I dunno, girl. Last time you came in and wanted information, my bar got busted up pretty bad."

Lisa fixed him with a glare. "I didn't start that."

"No, but you sure as hell finished it."

"He deserved it."

"My bar didn't."

Lisa sighed, exasperated. "Look, Mike, are you going to help me out or what? I already apologized for that incident. And paid the repair bill."
She glanced around pointedly and raised an eyebrow. "Not that it looks like you used it for repairs."

Mike leaned back, rolling his toothpick in his mouth thoughtfully, then shrugged. "Alright. For old time's sake. -If- I can, you know how it works
'round here."

Lisa nodded. "Fair enough. I need to know who's been hiring in here in the past few days. Not the pros, just dumb muscle."

"Does this look like a job agency?"

"Don't give me that. I know someone was hiring in here, and if they were doing that, you got your cut. So spill already."

Mike laughed softly. "Fine, fine. You want another?" he asked, indicating the bottle. Lisa shook her head. He shrugged. "There's been a
couple folks doing some recruitin', yeah. You said dumb muscle, right? Well, the only one's been doing that is a new guy. Polite enough, but you can
tell he don't belong here."

"Got a name?"

"Yeah. Name's Mike. What's yours?"

Lisa stared at him through narrowed eyes.

"C'mon, girl, you know how it is. I don't ask and they don't tell."

"Neither do you. Give me -something-, Mike." She leaned forward. "It's really important, okay? Don't mess with me on this one."

"Don't throw your muscle at me," he warned softly. "I've confirmed what you already knew; you want more, it ain't coming from me.
He may have been new here, but I ain't gonna be the one to cross him first. I got a rep to maintain, after all."

She glared, then shook her head. "Okay. Fine. If you won't give me a name, then at least tell me who talked to him. I need a -lead-, Mike. Just a
starting point. Okay?"

"I don't -have- a name to give you, girl. But a lead... yeah. I can do that. He wanted Crispy -- you remember him, ya? -- and for whatever reason
Crisp turned him down. I dunno why and I don't WANNA know, okay?" He shook his head. "This guy was bad news, I can tell you that. He moved
like Tony does. He's a heavy hitter, whoever he is. You ain't gonna listen if I tell you to be careful, so I ain't gonna bother, but you'd
better listen to this." He leaned forward and stared at Lisa through eyes suddenly gone flat and dead. "You find this guy and throw down with him,
you do it somewhere else, got it?"

"Loud and clear," she replied. "Is Crispy in tonight?"

"He was earlier."

"Drinking?"

"Damn near cleaned me out of Jack."

Lisa winced. "That's not good."

"Works for me." Mike shrugged. "He left about midnight. You know his routine."

"Yeah." Lisa swirled the liquid in her glass and drank it down, then chugged the last sips directly from the bottle. "What do I owe you?"

The hole in the wall leading to the kitchen dinged, with a cheery "Order up!" Mike nodded at it. "Play waitress for a minute to shut Tony up
and we'll call it even."

Lisa looked at him quizzically for a moment, then sighed. "You really don't want me in here anymore, do you, Mike?"

"It ain't personal, girl." The wiry man's voice was gentle, almost resigned. "You're bad for business these days." He shook
his head. "I never would have thought you'd wind up with the Legendary. It's not just you that's got 'em all scared." He jerked
his chin at the rest of the bar. "They're worried your hero pals will come crashing through those doors any minute. Be honest, so am I."

"I've got no reason to bust you, Mike."

"Fact that you think that way's proof you don't belong here no more, girl." He shook his head again. "You were always a bit too nice
for this joint -- I could never figure out what brought you in in tha first place -- but you weren't all miss high-and-mighty hero back then. You wanna
drop by, I ain't gonna say no -- your cash is as green as anyone else's, right? -- but I'd appreciate it if you'd keep it to a minimum. Five
regulars have left since you showed up tonight; I may own the joint, but I still got bills, y'know."

Lisa nodded. "Alright." She dropped off the stool and shrugged into her coat, then took the proffered plate. "I'll see you around,
Mike."

She had one hand on the door when Mike whistled. She turned and looked back at him.

"Watch your back on this one, girl," he called. "It's not all business, unnerstand?"

She regarded him steadily. "No, it's not," she finally said, and left the bar.

-----

Lisa crouched on the roof corner, eyes wide and alert, scanning the city below for signs of her prey. Behind her on the asphalt rooftop three badly burned
Circle of Thorns members lay unconscious. Their vitals were good -- she had checked -- but they would be in serious pain when they woke up. Crispy had been
here, and was probably still around if the smoke gently rising from the Circle mages' robes was any indication.

The problem was, Lisa reflected, that King's Row at night was a hotbed of superhero activity. She'd already chased down several heroes that from afar
had looked to be the person she was after -- flaming fists and all. None of them were, though, and worse, none of them had any leads to offer.

The only way to tell Crispy's attacks apart from any other fire-based hero was that he wasn't a licensed hero to begin with, and didn't carry
arrest beacons, a Medicom unit, or anything else. So tracking him down had devolved into a sick case of connect-the-bodies. So far he hadn't killed
anyone... but was it only a matter of time?

There! Lisa leaned further out, focusing intently on a sudden blaze of fire highlighting the walls of an alleyway a few blocks away. It looked promising....
She gathered herself and leaped, arcing through the air with only the sound of her coat flapping to mark her passing, and landed lightly on the roof
overlooking the exploding alley.

It was Crispy, all right, locked in battle with two Death's Heads. Around the Skulls lay six Gravediggers -- the underlings had dropped in the first
blast, it looked like, unable to stand up to Crispy's fire. Now the vigilante was staggering from side to side, hit again and again by shotgun blasts from
the infuriated Death's Heads. How he had survived this long, she didn't know. She dropped over the edge and landed softly behind the two thugs, who
didn't notice her presence as they laughed, reloaded, and pumped another round of blasts into Crispy.

"'scuse me, boys," she said, tapping the Death's Heads on their shoulders. They jumped and whirled, trying to bring their shotguns to bear
on this new and unexpected threat, and Lisa hit them both with a wave of charged particles, with such energy density that they were lifted clean off their feet
and thrown down the alley to land, already unconscious, in a Dumpster.

"'EY! Those were MINE!" Crispy shouted, staggering towards Lisa with his fiery aura crackling brightly.

"Calm down, Crispy," Lisa said, raising a hand. "I just want to talk to you for a minute, okay?"

"Lousy heroes," the man muttered, sagging against the brick wall and closing his eyes. His flames began to die down, revealing a young,
tired-looking man with a shock of dirty blond hair and a gauntness to his cheeks that suggested malnutrition. He was bleeding lightly from half a dozen wounds
where the shotgun pellets had made it through his flames, but even as she watched, the blood trickled to a halt.

"You're a wreck," Lisa observed candidly.

"'m fine," he muttered. "Jus' fine."

"I need some info, Crisp, and word is you're the one to talk to."

"I ain't got nothin' to say to you." He shook his head, eyes still closed, and smiled tiredly. "Just be on yer way, and I'll go on
mine, yeah?"

Lisa looked at him thoughtfully for a moment, then sighed. He was drunk -- Crispy was always drunk -- and stubborn at the best of times. As wasted as he was
right now... well, there really wasn't any other option.

She gathered herself, focused carefully on her powers, and released a precisely-tuned burst of particles that washed over Crispy in a glowing green wave. He
shuddered and twitched, his eyes flying open in surprise, and she hit him a second time. He staggered under the impact, coming off the wall, holding his head
as if in pain, with a strained gurgle rising from his throat. She took a deep breath, concentrating, and hit him with it again. He jerked, sweat rising from
every pore on his body, his breathing hard and ragged like he'd been running a marathon. His muscles twitched uncontrollably and he fell to the ground,
writhing like a snake in ashes. The sour smell of whiskey permeated the air.

Lisa took a deep breath and tagged him again. He screamed and gagged, clawing at the air.

Again. He writhed and twisted, and she began to gather her power for another blow.

"ENOUGH!" Crispy managed to bark. His spasms seemed to be easing off. "Oh, god, no more, whatever it is, I'll talk, I swear it, just lay
offa me!"

Lisa released the breath she'd been holding and sagged back against the wall with a deep, bone-tired sigh. Crispy huddled in a fetal position for a few
moments, then slowly rolled himself to his knees. His face had the look of one who had just had a religious experience with the wrong deity, and his clothes
were dark with sweat.

"I ain't been this straight in years," he muttered, settling back on his haunches and staring at her with a look of incomprehension.
"What... what'd you do to me?"

Lisa pushed herself off the wall and came forward, hooking an overturned crate with one foot as an impromptu chair. She sat down, ran her fingers through her
hair, and said,

"I altered your metabolism a little. Well," she admitted, "a lot, actually. Made you process all that booze that you called a bloodstream in
just a few seconds. You'll be okay... but you're seriously going to crash soon, when the edge wears off. And you should probably eat something,
too."

"Helluva way to get a guy's attention," he remarked after a moment.

"Heh. Yeah."

"So... uh... what is it you wanted?" His tone was quiet, but Lisa could sense the underlying fear. Fear of her, or fear of what she could do? She
didn't know, and at this point didn't really care.

"I need to know who offered you a job a couple nights ago at Casey's. New guy. You turned him down." She leaned forward and fixed Crispy with
a stare. "Who -is- he? What did he want?"

Crispy looked uncomfortable. "Hey, wait, you know how it works. He finds out I rat on him, I'm the one gonna catch it, yeah?"

"You're going to catch it from me if you don't talk," she warned. "What I just did to you is what I usually use to -help- people;
imagine if I'm trying to hurt you instead." She could see him pale at the thought of it.

"Alright, ya put it that way..." Crispy wiped at his face. "He didn't give me his real name -- 'less folks are getting weird about
names these days, that is -- but told me I could call him Southern Twilight. I figured he was some sorta hero. You know how I, uh..." Crispy spread his
hands helplessly.

"Yeah, I got it. So what did he want?"

"Said he needed some muscle, some backup, he says. A real sob story about needing to find some old friend of his who'd 'lost her way', is
what he said." Crispy grinned, a trace of his normal cocksure attitude returning. "Personally, I think he was just angling for a discount,
y'know?"

Lisa snorted.

"Anyway, I sez he's in the wrong bar if he's lookin' for that sorta help, and he gets this grin on his face like I'd just given him a
Christmas present. Tells me that it's a, how'd he put it... 'forcible rescue', and he needs guys who aren't afraid to get their hands
dirty." Crispy shrugged. "I tells him it still ain't my deal, but maybe he should go talk to some of the other guys. Then I left, 'cause
he was more'n a bit strange, yeah?"

"Anything else I should know?" Lisa asked. She caught a sudden flicker in Crispy's eyes. She raised one hand and wrapped it in a glowing green
radioactive fireball. "Don't hold back now," she said mildly.

He eyed the swirling green mass for a moment. "You do have a way with words." He shrugged. "Dunno if it matters or not, but he had this
little notebook with him. He was doodling on it while we talked. Top of the sheet had three names on it. First one was crossed out and I couldn't read
it, least not upside down; second one had what looked like a date beside it, third just had a question mark."

"What were the names?"

"Marilyn Harris and Rheabeth Samuels." Crispy cocked his head. "Why? You know 'em?"

Lisa controlled her surprise and shook her head. "Never heard of them, but every bit helps. What was the date?"

"Tomorrow. Well, today, I guess."

A rustling noise and a groan from the dumpster caught their attention. Crispy seemed to take that as a cue, and rose to his feet. "I'll be goin'
now, if it's all the same," he said.

Lisa nodded and watched as he left the alleyway. She rose to her feet and peered into the dumpster, where one of the Death's Heads stared back up at her.
It was hard to tell through the mask, but she she thought she saw his eyes go wide.

"Bye now!" she chirped brightly, and slapped an arrest beacon down on his chest. As he vanished she followed up with another on his
still-unconscious partner. The rest, still insensate on the ground, were only a few moments' work.

She made a quick call to Terrence to confirm that everything was okay back at the apartment, then headed for the police headquarters and the base portal
located there. The Legendary's computers were among the best in the city; if anything could help her figure out what was going on, they could.

-----

The search had been difficult. It was hard to track somebody who didn't want to be found, especially if they knew what they were doing, but the base
computers were up to the task. A hint here, a mis-filed record there, a careless swipe of a credit card... it all added up, slowly but surely. The trail had
begun with the name Crispy had provided. In any decent-sized city, any given name will belong to several people -- possibly several -hundred- people, if the
name is common or the city is large. Without a social security number, drivers license, or other form of ID to narrow it down, finding one specific person
comes down to comparing secondary data -- age, appearance, acquaintances, and so on. Lisa had none of those. Just a name.

But that name had appeared next to someone she DID know -- knew very well, in fact. Lisa started by asking for all examples of the two of them -- Marilyn
Harris and Rheabeth Samuels -- appearing in the same publications. And the only hits were nowhere in Paragon City, but rather, in Georgia.

Lisa knew that Rhea had been born in the south. When she pulled up the articles in question, she knew she was on the right track. Rhea's name appeared in
an advertisement in the personals section of the paper. She had posted it herself, and was asking -- begging, really, based on the tone -- for any information
regarding the whereabouts of her fiance, Daniel Carrington, who had been missing for several weeks. Clicking through the related links the AI provided, Lisa
found that the official police reports had written him off -- the case had never been closed, just chucked on the pile of missing persons reports that every
police force sees too many of.

The next hit, from the same paper, three months later: the obituaries of Rhea's parents, with a footnote that all correspondence was being handled by M.
Harris at such-and-such address, at the behest of the surviving family.

Finally, almost a year after that -- when, Lisa realized, Rhea would just have been leaving Basic on her first deployment -- there was front-page coverage of a
massive house fire that could have been nothing but arson. Massive quantities of accellerant had been used, much more than was needed to set the wood-frame
dwelling ablaze. The inferno, the article stated, had been visible for miles around, and it was only the heroic efforts of the firefighters that kept it from
becoming a wildfire. The house had burnt to the foundations.

The address was the same as the one in the obituary. The AI had backtraced from that address, and it was indeed registered to an M. Harris -- Mark, not
Marilyn. But Mark was a widower and had a just-turned-seventeen daughter. Remains of bodies found -- better to say, the ashes of remains of bodies -- pointed
at an adult male and an adolescent female having died in the fire. Positive ID was impossible -- there was literally nothing left except charred bone
fragments, according to the coroner's report, Lisa saw -- but both of them were known to have been home at the time, and nobody had seen either of them
since. Their cars were still in the driveway, and both sets of keys -- melted and lumpy, true, but distinct -- were by the ashes of the front door. Open and
shut, except for the arson.

Eventually the insurance company declared it to have been an attempt by Mark to get his payout, and things just went wrong. Very sad, but they weren't
going to pay out to the estate, which was likely just an overworked lawyer anyway, since the Harris's had no immediate family in the area. Case closed.

So why, then, Lisa wondered, had Mark's credit card been swiped in a dingy motel in King's Row three weeks after the fire? It hadn't cleared, of
course, but that one false ding was enough to raise a flag for the Legendary AI.

A moment of inattention, a single bit of carelessness brought on by exhaustion, can be enough, sometimes. Lisa and the AI pounced on that motel's
computers and rifled through them. Nobody had checked in under Mark's card, but oddly enough, a few days later a Jill Smith checked out. Without having
checked in in the first place, and paying in cash.

It was slim, but it was a lead. Lisa followed it, searching City Hall records for ID cards issued in that name at that same timeframe. Bingo.

She copied down the most recent address listed for that ID, patted the terminal gratefully, and headed for the teleport bay.

-----

Lisa stood on the dirty streetcorner in Skyway City and gazed thoughtfully at the modest apartment building across the street from her. The streetlight above
her head flickered and buzzed, and she blew an irritated sigh and concentrated briefly, clamping down on her output. The buzzing stopped.

The building she was looking at was an example of low-cost housing and looked it. This one was slightly better than most in that it had a fence surrounding it
-- not that it would stop a Troll rampage, but the gesture counted -- and appeared relatively clean, with only a little obviously freshly-applied graffiti
adorning the alley-facing side. It had, according to city records, six units, accessible by an interior hallway that ran straight through the building. Four
were on the ground floor, the other two were upstairs and in the basement, respectively.

Jill's apartment was on the ground floor, at the southwest corner. Unlike every other home in the area, all lights were on and blazing brightly through
the windows, though with the curtains drawn Lisa couldn't see in. That in itself was enough to make her suspicious. It was four AM, after all, and Jill
-- according to the records -- worked in an office. She should be dead asleep at this hour.

Wincing at her own mental choice of words, Lisa straightened her shoulders and crossed the street. She ducked into the shadows behind the overgrown hedge
under the main window and held her breath, listening. The sounds of the city drowned most everything out, but by pressing her ear to the glass at the corner
of the window and covering her other ear, she was able to faintly hear speech.

"... please, no, Danny, that's all behind me, it's over now. I haven't said anything to anybody!"

A low, masculine murmur.

"I swear, I didn't, I didn't! I... oh, god, Danny, no, please, I'll --" The voice cut off with a whimper, followed by muffled cries.
Lisa scowled. She ducked down below the window and hit a speed-dial button on her phone. Terrence answered on the first ring. Lisa didn't give him a
chance to speak.

"Terrence, I need backup, now." She dropped the phone, leaving it open and ignoring the startled voice that came out of it, and jumped up to the
porch where the main doors waited. The handle rattled in her hand. Locked. Lisa glanced at it, then shrugged and slagged the mechanism with a burst of
cosmic particles. She drew the smoking mass out of the door and dropped it, then hooked her fingers in the hole where the lock had been and pulled the door
open. First door on the right was Jill's -- Marilyn's -- apartment. Lisa eyed it critically for half a moment, then stepped back, braced herself, and
applied her bootheel to the door just inboard of the knob, sending the door flying off its hinges into the next room. She ducked through the wreckage to find
a familiar man kneeling next to a bound and gagged young woman in a chair.

"Daniel Carrington, I presume?" Lisa said in a voice like a glacier. The girl's eyes widened, but the pressure of a dagger against her cheek
kept her frozen.

Danny narrowed his eyes as a smile crept onto his face. "Stay put, baby," he said to Jill, twisting the dagger just enough to draw a bead of blood.
"I've got some business to take care of." He rose to his feet.

"I don't believe I've had the OOF!" he said, as Lisa nailed him in the chest with a blast of radiation. He rolled away from it and came to
his feet, frowning. Dark energy erupted from his skin, wrapping him in shadows; she hurled another bolt at him and watched as it splashed harmlessly off the
far wall, shattering the lamp in the process. The lights in the rest of the apartment flickered and died as the charge from Lisa's bolt sizzled through
them. Danny vanished.

"Such a beautiful girl," his voice mocked, echoing out of the shadows. "Tell me, do you bleed as pretty as you look?"

A faint hint of wind against the back of her neck was the only warning she got. Lisa dived as a knife blade, gleaming in the dim light filtering in from
outside, swept through the space her head had occupied only moments before. She spun and lashed out with a wave of energy, setting the coffee table to
smoldering but otherwise doing nothing she could see.

"So fiesty, too!" His voice seemed to come from just behind her ear, a whisper of breath tickling her senses. She whirled. Nothing.

"Over here, precious," his voice said. Lisa spun again and stopped. Danny was visible again, crouched behind the chair where Marilyn was bound. A
blade was pressed lightly against her throat, and the tendrils of wispy darkness, like living things, were caressing her face and arms. Her eyes were wide in
panic, but even as she watched, they closed, and tears leaked anew from their corners. She appeared to have resigned herself to whatever was coming, because
when they opened again and fixed on Lisa's they were calm and empty.

"Can you feel it?" he asked. "Her pain and fear... it's like a fine wine." He nuzzled Marilyn's hair, sniffing deeply, then fixed
his gaze on Lisa. "But you... mmm." He smiled. "Your fear is already delicious, and it's not even fully formed yet. Oh, yes, I can feel
it, my dear. You're afraid for my little Rheabeth." His smile grew wider, if that were possible. "When you finally realize it is yourself you
should fear for, it will be -exquisite-."

"I'm not afraid of you."

He chuckled. "In time."

"Let her go." Lisa called radiation to her hands, wrapping them in a green nimbus. "Your little tricks won't stop me."

"Ah, ah," he called, tilting his head to indicate his captive. "We wouldn't want complications now, would we?"

Marilyn shuddered. Danny twitched, a fierce grin crossing his face for a moment. The building shook.

"That," Lisa remarked with a grin on her face, "would be my backup. Give up, Daniel. You're surrounded."

"Now where would be the fun in that?" he replied, and vanished. Lisa leaped over Marilyn and lashed out with a blast of rads, scorching the
doorframe. The pulse of energy briefly outlined a figure running for the bedroom.

"Out back!" Lisa yelled, hearing Terrence bellow an acknowledgement. The sound of breaking glass from the bedroom reached her ears; Danny must have
dived out the window. She turned, and froze.

Protruding from Marilyn's back was a polished double-edged dagger, buried to the hilt. From the blood soaking the carpet it had been there for at least as
long as they'd been talking. From the angle, it had to be embedded in her heart. Marilyn's head was tilted back, and her eyes stared glassily at the
ceiling.

"... fuck."

-----

The waiting room was curiously empty. Normally, any number of patients and visitors would be present -- such is the fate of a waiting room in a hospital in
any city, much less one in a city where superpowered criminals and heroes slug it out on a daily basis.

This waiting room contained only two people, however. And one of them, a mountain of a man, was the primary cause of it.

Terrence Knight reached the end of the row, paused momentarily, then about-faced and resumed marching. Rage and frustration was a palpable aura around him,
and combined with his glowering expression had driven everyone to move to safer locations.

Lisa, leaning against the support pillar in one corner of the room, wasn't much better. For her, the fury was tinged with a hint of unease. A dagger to
the back was -nothing-; in the course of a day your average hero wouldn't even -notice- one of those. Her healing abilities should have brought Marilyn
out of it immediately, made the woman feel like she could run a marathon. Instead they had... closed the hole, started the heart, and that's it. There
was no life to the woman. It made no sense.

The door opened and a doctor stepped through, followed by a woman in a smartly tailored business suit, carrying a large leather-bound book with her finger
between the leaves.

"She'll live," the doctor said without preamble, cutting short Terrence's incessant pacing. Lisa and Terrence moved to stand before him.
"But... well, I'll let M.A.G.I. explain."

The woman in the suit nodded and stepped forward. "Miss Smith will survive. Your intervention saw to that, thankfully." She smiled at Lisa.
"But her... essence, for lack of a better term, has been severely harmed. It will take some time for that to recover."

"Will she wake up?" Lisa asked.

"Not for some time, I'm afraid. But she -will- recover, eventually." She became businesslike. "Now, we tested the dagger, and aside from
traces of contamination it's purely normal. It's not even a custom model; one of my assistants found it in a catalog. So nothing unusual there."

"Those dark swirls, then." Terrence nodded, and scowled. "I thought they looked familiar."

"Yes," the woman said, matching his nod. "Dark energy, from the netherworld. It's well documented in our archives. This particular use of
it is less common, but not unheard of." She blew a sigh. "Basically, the man who did this is a... vampire, of sorts. He uses that dark energy to
trap and feed on negative emotions, pain, fear... and through those, the essence of those he attacks. That explains her condition." She leaned forward
and patted Lisa's arm, lightly. "It's not your fault, you know. You healed the body, and that kept her alive; nobody can heal her spirit except
herself. She'll survive, that's what counts."

Lisa nodded, but the frown didn't leave her face.

"We'll keep her under observation," the doctor put in. "Since she's part of your investigation, we'll call you immediately if
there's any change in her condition."

"What if he comes back for her?" Terrence growled.

The woman smiled. "I've laid several wards around her. Even you, as nice as I'm sure you are, would have a hard time approaching her bed right
now in the state you're in. Anyone with hostile intent towards her doesn't stand a chance."

Lisa and Terrence exchanged glances, and nodded. "Good enough," Lisa said. "We'll let you know as soon as we catch him, in case
there's something you can get out of him."

-----

"Only five-thirty, already feels like bedtime," Lisa commented as Terrence unlocked and pushed open the door to her apartment.

"You -have- been up all night," Terrence pointed out.

"True. So I'm going to go take a nap." Lisa stripped her gear off quickly and deposited it in the laundry room, gave Terr a quick kiss as he
struggled with his armor -- it went on quick but came off slow -- and headed for the bedroom.

Moments later she was back. "We've got trouble," she said, holding up a slip of paper. "Rhea went off looking for Danny."

"... oh, FUCK." Terrence said. He stared blankly for a moment, then his eyes met Lisa's. Without a word he began clamping armor back into
place, as Lisa began to pull on her own clothes.

As they left the apartment, Lisa pulsed out a glow that bathed them both and left them slightly breathless, but with renewed vigor. She grimaced.
"That'll last for a bit," she said, "but we're both going to crash hard."

"We'll find her." Terrence settled his visor into place and stared out over Steel Canyon. "We'll find her," he repeated
stubbornly.

More to come...

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs
yeay!

It's nice to see this hit the public, especially seeing as how it's grown.

And now you have me eagerly waiting for more.
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy
Wow...thats All I can say spud is wow...thats fantastic, You've got me on the edge of my seat here ya know *grin* I am soo looking forward to what else
you'll cook up
... wow. That's cool.
Hell of a story, Spud. Can't wait to see the rest.

Poor Rhea...
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
Being semi-kinda-co-writer here.....does that make it my job to put out the "you ain't seen NUTHIN yet" comment?

Cause I will. Big Grin
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."

TALES OF THE LEGENDARY

REUNIONS

(a HERO SANDWICH production)



Chapter Two

Rhea drifted slowly in the air currents swirling around the upper stories of the skyscrapers in Steel Canyon, cradling Mr. Whiskers to her chest and staring
sightlessly at the ground far, far below.

"I'll find him, fuzzbutt," she said fiercely. "And... oh, Mr. Whiskers, what am I going to do?" She held the cat at arms length and
looked into his plastic eyes. As always, she could see the concern and protectiveness radiating from them, despite their construction. Mr. Whiskers just
-looked- like a toy, but he was one powerful kitty behind the mask. She noted with a faint flicker of amusement that she'd forgotten to put his Happy Eyes
back on, and so he still wore the Angry Eyes that he'd stared down the thug with. She fixed that even as he 'spoke'.

(I wasn't with you back then,) he noted with a puzzled tone to the voice only she could hear. (He was... your mate?)

"No... not quite," she said, settling back on a convenient updraft. The power of flight that Mr. Whiskers let her use was probably her favorite of
all, next to his amazing healing powers. "We were engaged... we'd been together since high school." She looked pensive. "I was going to
college, and Danny was working in the factory. He'd gone to work there so we could afford our own place while I was in school. He... he gave up
everything, for me."

(What happened?)

Tears welled in Rhea's eyes again as she remembered the day the police had finally listened to her, that her Danny was missing. Three days he had been
gone, and for the first two they'd refused to even file a report, telling her that he was probably sleeping off a drinking binge somewhere. They
wouldn't listen when she told them that was impossible, that he didn't drink like that.

And when a detective finally DID come around, to take her statement, he eyed the fading bruise on her arm -- caused by a too-energetic lovemaking session the
night before he vanished -- and suggested that perhaps she was better off without him. She tried to explain, but he simply smiled and nodded and once back in
his car she saw him tear off the top page of his notepad and wad it up. He hadn't understood, any more than the ones on the phone had. Oh, sure, he'd
listened... but he hadn't -heard-.

Her Danny had vanished. Into thin air. The factory said he'd clocked out as usual, collected his check, and left. The check was cashed, again as usual,
at the local bank -- they had been intending to pay bills the next day, in cash, all perfectly routine. Neither of them trusted banks overly much.

And somewhere between the teller window and their one-bedroom apartment, Danny and his beat-up Ford had disappeared into thin air.

"I looked for him for a couple months," Rhea noted absently, toying with the fur between Mr. Whiskers ears. "Put out ads, offered a reward,
everything. Nobody knew where he was, nobody saw him or his truck. We didn't have any credit cards or checks or anything like that... Danny didn't
trust them. The police said that using only cash like that made it easy to drop out of sight... they hinted that he'd done it on purpose!" She
closed her eyes and hugged the cat tight for a moment.

"Eventually I had to drop out of school," she continued. "I couldn't look for Danny, and work, and go to school, all at the same time. But
it didn't do any good. He never showed up. Everyone in town began looking at me funny all the time, like they thought I couldn't tell that they
thought I was crazy. Or worse, I'd ask if there was any news, and they'd get this pitying look on their face, and try to change the subject!"
She clenched her fists unconcsiously, then relaxed. "It... it was frustrating, but they didn't know Danny like I did. He was a survivor, a fighter.
He'd find his way back to me. I kept telling myself that."

(What changed?)

Rhea was silent for several minutes, the only noise the sighing of the breeze she sat on and the muffled snap of a flag on a pole jutting out from the building
nearby. Then her voice took on a rote, almost mechanical quality, the same tone that her therapist wrote notes about every time it appeared, thinking she
didn't notice.

"I came home from work late one night and found my parents lying dead on the floor. Mom's throat had been cut, and Dad had been stabbed twenty-seven
times in the back. The house had been robbed. All the cash, and all the gold and silver jewelry, though there wasn't much of that. The police said there
were no fingerprints, no footprints, no sign of forced entry -- in fact, they thought it must have been a friend, or someone my folks knew, because all signs
pointed to whoever it was having been invited in. Some of them... some of them even hinted that maybe it had been me, at first." She laughed, a small,
far-away part of her mind noting as usual that it wasn't normal to talk about these things like this, and as usual she ignored it.

"And after that... well, I had nothing left, y'know? I left a note to Danny with Mr. Harris -- he was a friend of my fathers and was handling the
will and stuff -- and ran. The Army doesn't care if you don't know anything and can't do anything, and my pre-med courses actually counted for
something with them... so that's what I did."

(And that's where I found you,) Mr. Whiskers noted with a slightly-smug tone. (So at least that was a good thing. Right?)

Rhea laughed. "I ... I guess, in a way. And the Army was good to me, up until -you- showed up," she added, poking Mr. Whiskers' nose gently.
"Then they called me crazy and kicked me out, but that's okay. They don't know any better."

(You're not crazy. I'm sorry my mission causes trouble for you... but I have to do it this way. You understand, right? I have to help... it's
why I have these powers in the first place. It's my duty. And I need your help to do it.)

"I know," Rhea said, hugging the toy again. "Believe me, I know. And we ARE helping, right? We've helped lots of people."

(Oh, absolutely. Dozens, at least.)

"Hundreds," Rhea said, nodding.

(Thousands, probably. I've quite lost count, actually.)

"Billions and billions served," Rhea said, and giggled.

(Feel better?)

Rhea nodded. "Much. Thanks. You're the best, Whiskers."

(So what now?)

"Well..." Rhea tilted forward and looked down at the streets below. "I want to find Danny and ask him a few questions. Like, where he's
been, and why he's dressed like a bad guy, and ... stuff like that." Her face fell, but she resolutely pushed it away. Time enough to worry about
how to break it off later. "And then I guess we'll see."

(Lisa and Terrence were going to help you look for him. Maybe we should go find them?)

"I... no, not yet." Rhea shook her head slowly. "I love the big lunk, but Terrence's temper isn't something I want to deal with just
yet. He's too likely to go off half-cocked... and, well, Danny's really good at pushing buttons," she admitted with a laugh. "I don't
need Terrence being all over-protective or jealous or something, which would make Danny get all snarky, and from there it'd probably end with me and Lisa
having to beat them both up just to keep it from becoming World War III."

(He -is- a bit ... territorial, isn't he?) The image of an absurdly-muscled tomcat, wearing Terrence's usual leather jacket and shades, strutting
through an alley and marking the fence flashed through her mind. Rhea laughed.

"That's one way of putting it. But it's kinda cute, too." Rhea winked at the toy. "And he comes with Lisa, and, well, yeah."
She shook her head. "I never thought I'd fall so hard for a girl. I mean, I knew girls could be fun, but... Lisa's just... wow." She
fastened Mr. Whiskers' paws to the shoulder of her t-shirt and started drifting down from her lofty perch.

(She makes my tail twitch.)

"I'll make sure to tell her you said that."



It was half-past-lunch when Lisa called a frustrated halt to her and Terrence's wild goose chase outside a small cafe. She collapsed wearily into a chair
that was, at this point, more comfortable than it looked (not very), and waved listlessly at the hostess, miming a pot being poured and holding up two fingers.

"This is pointless," she told Terrence as he settled into the seat opposite her, removing his visor and gauntlets and laying them aside. The hostess
approached and set down two mugs already filled with the house blend, murmured pleasant greetings, and left them with menus and a promised return of a waiter
soon.

"We've been -everywhere-, twice," Lisa continued. "Nobody's seen Danny, or anyone matching his description. Which isn't
surprising. Let's face it, chances are he's not wandering around randomly stabbing people, so he's going to look just like any other newbie hero
out flaunting their powers, if he uses them at all. And flying redheads with stuffed cats are a dime a dozen in this city, so the few leads we DID get,
weren't her." She blew her bangs away from her forehead with an irritated puff of air and slouched back in her seat, disgruntled. She picked up one
of the mugs and drained half of it in one gulp.

Terrence used one massive finger to ease the other mug across the table towards Lisa, his face a study in suppressed frustration. "Her beacon is still
off," he added as an afterthought, jerking his chin at his visor. "And she left her cellphone back at your place. It's like she doesn't
WANT to be found." His brows furrowed, he looked up at Lisa with a worried frown. "You don't think he got to her already, do you?"

Lisa's breath caught in her throat for a moment, but she shook her head. "No," she said when her voice returned. "He's an egotistical
prick. He'd want us to KNOW if he had her. Since we haven't heard anything... he doesn't have her yet." Please, please, please let me be
right, she added to herself.

"Are you ready to order?" Lisa and Terrence both looked up and blinked, startled, at the unexpected question. Their waiter stood there, pencil and
pad poised. For a moment, Lisa felt herself begin to grow irritated -- couldn't this guy see they were BUSY? -- and then she forced herself to relax. She
looked over at Terrence.

"We do need to eat something," she pointed out quietly. "Both of us have been going for a long time, with no sleep."

"Yeah," Terrence acknowledged with a decided lack of enthusiasm. He picked up a menu, frowned at it momentarily, and handed it to the waiter.
"Two specials and a chef salad."

Lisa grinned despite her mood at the waiter's startled look, and added, "Make that three specials, and I'll take a bowl of the chowder, too."

A screaming Hellion plummeted down from above, bounced off an invisible bubble a few feet above the umbrella over their open-air table, and landed heavily in
the middle of the street. A few seconds later a brightly-clad hero landed, somewhat more gracefully, next to the groaning criminal and tagged him.
"Sorry about that!" He waved cheerfully at the cafe. "Didn't expect him to fly that far off the edge." The Hellion vanished in a
burst of light, and the hero took to the skies.

Lisa and Terrence eyed the spot where the Hellion had been just moments before. They turned their gaze on each other, and burst out laughing.

"M-m-medicom!" Lisa managed after a few moments. "What are we worried about? If he tries anything -- assuming she doesn't just kick his
butt -- she'll just wind up in the nearest hospital!"

Terrence nodded, a chuckle escaping his lips. "He's sneaky, but he's a wuss -- I'd bet either of you could take him in a stand-up
fight."

Lisa shook her head. "We still need to find her, or him, before they find each other. But..." she blew a sigh and drained the rest of her first cup
of coffee. "It's not a life-or-death thing. Rhea'll be okay... I was forgetting that."



Rhea stood on the corner in the late afternoon sun, watching the traffic -- both vehicle and pedestrian -- flow by, and wondered for at least the thousandth
time that day if she'd simply been dreaming. Or if maybe the Army was right and she really -was- delusional. Surely Danny hadn't actually appeared
out of nowhere and attacked Terrence. Right?

Maybe that was all there was to it. The Army was right, she was certifiably nuts, and the stuffed cat on her shoulder was nothing more than a stuffed cat, and
not an intergalactic (interdimensional? magical? she didn't know and hadn't asked) feline savior come to Earth to make sure humanity didn't destroy
itself.

(Well, that can't be right,) Whiskers put in as her mood started to swing towards the black.

"Hmm?" she responded absently.

(If you WERE nuts, you wouldn't really be able to blast that Skull trying to sneak up behind us.)

A few moments later, she laughed and nuzzled her feline companion with her cheek. "You're right, Whiskers. Sorry I doubted." She dropped an
arrest beacon on the unconscious, lightly-smoking gang member at her feet and watched as he vanished. Poof, gone, just like that.

Just like Danny.

Danny. Since she wasn't nuts, as Whiskers pointed out, then Danny wasn't a figment of her imagination. That meant he had to be around here somewhere.
Out of a vague sense of purpose she'd come back to the office complex where the fight had occurred yesterday, but as usual, the city repair crew was on
the ball and there was nothing of the scene remaining except a large bin full of broken glass and other remnants, labeled "401 PLEASE REMOVE" and
awaiting pickup on the curb.

She supposed she could go back to the apartment and get Lisa and Terrence to help her search, but... she wasn't blind, or stupid, and she'd seen how
much hearing about Danny had hurt them last night. It had hurt her, too. She'd never imagined getting involved, seriously involved, with anybody again,
and then it had landed on her lap.

(Technically, you were on Lisa's lap,) Whiskers put in. Rhea chuckled in fond memory.

"Yeah, I guess I was, wasn't I?" She scratched the fuzzball under his chin, shivering as his purring echoed down her back.

"But that doesn't change things," she added sadly. "I have to fix this mess somehow."

And no matter which way she turned it over in her head, she just couldn't see how it could all work out. She loved Terrence and Lisa, but she'd loved
Danny, too -- she still did, she admitted candidly to herself -- and now that Danny was back, in the same city at least even if she didn't know where he
actually WAS at the moment --

"Hey, babe, long time no see."

That voice! Rhea whirled. Danny stood there, leaning against the lamppost, dressed in jeans and a t-shirt, a baseball cap on his head and a small smile on
his face.

"D-Danny?" she heard herself say.

He pushed off the post with his shoulders and came forward. "It's me, Rheabeth." He chuckled, then, a sound that as always sent shivers down
her spine. His voice had always been wonderful, and hearing it again was enough to drive her crazy. "It's been a long time," he continued
softly. "I know you've probably got a lot of questions for me. We've got some catching up to do."

Despite her shock, Rhea shook her head. "Danny, you... you just vanished! Everyone said you were dead... and...." She closed her eyes tightly and
took a deep breath. "And ... I started to believe them, finally," she finished in a whisper.

A light touch on her chin raised her head, but she kept her eyes closed as it turned into a gentle caress on her cheek, and she felt herself smiling in
response.

"I know, hon," Danny said. "It was a hard time for me too. But I didn't have a choice; you know that. You know I'd never do anything
to hurt you, babe."

She opened her eyes to his, her green meeting his brown, glittering and dark and dangerous and safe all at once, and Rhea nodded, a sob escaping her throat.
"I ... I know... but you were -gone-..."

"I'm back." He drew her into a hug, his big warm hands holding her, just like they had before, just like she'd hoped they always would. She
leaned into the embrace gratefully. It had been so -long-...

(Careful, Rhea,) Mr. Whiskers put in suddenly. (You need to find out where he went, what he's been doing... why he left you in the first place.)

(It's okay, Whiskers,) she said to the voice in her head. (He had a good reason, I'm sure.)

With what might have been a disdainful sniff, she felt Whiskers retreat from the conversation, and sighed. Well, he'd come around.

Danny was back!



It was only by sheer effort, Rhea thought, that she'd been able to handle the entire thing. It was almost -painful-, in fact, but she knew that would ease
off soon enough. She leaned back and sighed appreciatively, licking the last traces off her lips.

(Satisfied?)

(Ohhh yes,) Rhea replied, trying not to laugh at the wry undertones to Whiskers' remark. (I wouldn't want to try again any time soon, but that was
very, very good.)

"You always did like chocolate," Danny said quietly. Rhea looked up and met his eyes, and laughed.

"And you always found the best places to get it," she said, glancing around at the restaurant she hadn't even known was here, high in one of the
towers dotting the high-rent district of Talos Island. Danny grinned at her and tipped his wine glass in salute.

"All part of the service," he quipped.

The waiter came and unobtrusively removed the dessert plate, while Rhea toyed with her own glass -- just water, for her, and not the expensive Merlot that,
across the table, Danny sipped at with obvious pleasure. She wanted to forget all the troubles and just enjoy being around him again, but she didn't want
to do it through drink. She'd made enough mistakes before that way.

Nudged more by the fact that Whiskers -hadn't- said anything, Rhea leaned forward again and broached the subject they'd both been avoiding all night.

"Danny?"

He looked up at her, flashing that grin she knew so well, and she almost changed her mind. But the cat nudged her forward -- (Go on, ask him!) -- and she
really did want the answer, she did, but...

"Where did you go?"

His mouth flattened, not in anger but in a sort of thoughtful pensiveness, and he shrugged. "I can't really answer that, hon." He held up a
hand to forestall an outburst. "What I mean is, I don't know." At her inquisitive look, he shrugged again and took a sip of wine before
continuing.

"The day I... vanished, I guess, was a payday." He waited for her to nod. "Well, I cashed my check and was heading for the store to pick some
things up before going home when I saw this wrecked car on the side of the road. There was a girl there, about twenty or so, I'd say. She was leaning
half out of the car, through the windshield, and bleeding all over the hood."

"Oh, no," Rhea said. "Was she okay?"

"That's what -I- wanted to find out," Danny replied, raising an eyebrow. "So, I stopped the truck and got out to take a look, make sure she
was okay... and next thing you know I'm waking up in a ditch with a coyote sniffing at me trying to decide if I'd make a good dinner."

"A -coyote-?" Rhea was baffled. Danny nodded.

"Yep. Turns out I'd been dumped in Texas, somewhere near Galveston." He toyed with his wineglass briefly, then drained it and set it down on
the pristine linen tablecloth. "Anyway. Whoever she was, she took all the cash, took the truck, and left me there, naked, with a lump on my head the
size of an ostrich egg."

"But..." Rhea shook her head. "I looked for you for a -year-, Danny! You weren't anywhere... you could have -walked- back to our house by
then." A bit of humor crept into her voice, despite her misgivings. "Or -called-, at least. Sent a telegram. -Something-."

Danny smiled sadly at her. "I could have, sure, babe. If I'd known what my address was, or who I was. Or who you were, even." He shook his
head. "Told you she left me with a lump on the noggin. The doctors told me I might never get full memory back."

"Amnesia?"

He nodded. "I'm afraid so. It wasn't until I saw you on that show on TV not that long ago that things started to come back to me." He
reached across the table and took her hand in his own. "So you see, babe... you saved me. You really are a hero!"

(I don't like this, Rhea,) Whiskers put in as she grappled with the news. (That sounds like something out of a soap opera -- a bad one.)

Rhea did her best to ignore Mr. Whiskers -- he didn't know Danny like she did, she understood that -- and instead focused on the other thing that had been
bothering her.

"Danny," she said slowly, not meeting his eyes, "why were you at that office building earlier? With those thugs? You were dressed like one of
the bad guys." She bit her lip. "One of the ones I've sworn to stop."

Danny shook his head, his face wearing a rueful grin, and chuckled. "Well, I suppose that's what I get for not listening to the guy at the costume
shop." He sighed. "That was supposed to be a hero costume, babe. I was there to bust those goons, keep them from stealing those files. Just my
bad luck you and your friends crashed the party and jumped to the wrong conclusion." He raised an eyebrow at Rhea. "I guess I need to make the
costume a little more hero-like, huh?"

Rhea goggled at him. "You're... a hero?!"

Danny nodded slowly. "Well, what do you expect?" he added. "You've gone and become a famous hero without me -- not your fault, you
didn't know -- and from the looks of it you're doing pretty well at it. I've got no useful skills outside the factory, I need some way to
support... myself." He reached across the table and took her hand. "And didn't we always say we'd stick together on everything? Partners,
you and me, babe. All the way. Right?" He shrugged. "You're a hero, hon. Can I be less... for you?"

Rhea's eyes filled with tears. "Oh, Danny..."

"Now then," Danny said briskly. "Mind telling me what's been going on with you? Your... friend, back there, seemed awfully... hmm,
what's the word... touchy." He grinned. "I didn't get a chance to even say hello or introduce myself before I was seeing stars."

Despite herself, Rhea giggled as she wiped at the tears on her cheeks with her napkin. "That's Terrence. He's a nice guy, really he is, he just
gets caught up in the fight sometimes."

"And the other one? The cute redheaded nuclear reactor."

"That's Lisa. She's Terrence's girlfriend." Rhea bit her lip momentarily, then pushed on. "And mine."

Danny raised an eyebrow. "Wow, babe, I never knew..." He leaned back and she could tell he was fighting to suppress a grin. "That's, um,
a mental image I don't think I'll ever forget."

"Danny!" Rhea scolded him, but her heart wasn't in it -- and she could feel her cheeks redden.

"That's a whole new twist on 'afterglow'," Danny chuckled, and Rhea blushed anew.



Outwardly he was calm, amused, cheerful; the Danny his little Rheabeth had known and loved. It was easy to do. He'd lived that life before, putting on
the mask for another performance was simplicity itself. He didn't even have to think about the correct responses, it was just something he -did-.

Inwardly, he contemplated.

That Rhea was in a relationship -- committed? He didn't know or particularly care, really -- he'd known about. It was hard to miss. Any fool with a
library pass or Internet access could find out that much. -That- didn't bother him. It made her all the more enticing. Little Rhea had been, he
recalled, getting quite boring. She had loved her Danny, and her Danny loved her; all was right with her world.

Screw -that-. The only reason he'd kept her so long was because she provided excellent cover. And, he thought with a mental chuckle, the sex was fun. In
bed together he could cause a little pain, which she enjoyed, and subdue the hunger pains that gnawed at him until he could afford to risk another
'meal'.

No, he wasn't bothered by her relationship. If anything, that made it all the better. He hadn't realized the depth of their commitment to each other
at first. Now that he knew...

... well, even if he didn't manage a matched set of redheads, he'd still enjoy every drop of delicious pain he could cause the trio. And after little
Rhea was dead, he'd return to sop up the fresh agony that knowledge brought the remaining two.

If he didn't take them first, that is. He pondered that. It might be better to take the big man first. Once he was gone, the girls would lose their
protector, and it was obvious that both of them loved the dumb meatshield. Exposed, vulnerable, they'd be easy to feed from and work on further.

Yes. That would be better. His first plan had been hasty, he could see that now. He hadn't done his homework, and that was his fault. He could accept
that.

But now that he knew how dangerous the big man could be, firsthand... it shouldn't be hard to counter it.

And once Terrence Knight was out of the picture, Gamma Emission wouldn't be that far behind. Providing him with plenty of power, -and- the added bonus of
a heartbroken Rheabeth.

Who would only have him left to turn to.

Smiling through the mask, Danny contemplated the torments and the sweet, sweet pain he would visit on the woman across the table from him, and found it good.



It was full dark and then some when a weary Lisa and Terrence returned after a long, fruitless day of searching to Lisa's Steel Canyon apartment. Lisa
barely had the energy to unlock the door, fumbling the attempt three times before Terrence gently but firmly took the keys from her and worked the reluctant
mechanism, just in time to prevent her from simply melting it out of her way.

She was more mentally exhausted than physically, even though at this point she was coming up on, what, her thirty-sixth hour awake? Let's see, Lisa
thought somewhat giddily to herself. If you get up at eight-ish, and don't sleep, there's twenty-four hours in a day, carry the one...

... well, she didn't know exactly how many hours it was, but no matter how you looked at it it was too many.

Terrence, she felt sure, was equally tired. That surely explained why they had nearly reached the hall to the bedroom before the noises from the kitchen
consciously registered.

They froze and shared a wide-eyed glance.

"Rhea!" they said in unison, and dashed for the kitchen.

"Hi guys!" Rhea chirped as the two of them burst in, Lisa catching herself against the table painfully while Terrence gripped the doorframe to avoid
flattening her with his extra momentum.

It was her. Rhea stood there, looking cheerful and upbeat as always. She wore an apron that Terrence had blushed furiously over when she'd picked it up
("Kiss Me, I Can't Cook But I'm Hot"), and held a chocolate-covered rubber spatula in one hand. Behind her on the counter a tray of brownies
sat cooling, with Mr. Whiskers (wearing a cockily perched chef's hat, Lisa noted absently) watching over them with grave concern.

"I made browni--ULP!" Rhea's voice was cut off as Terrence lunged forward and scooped her up into a hug. She returned the hug as her feet left
the floor. Lisa hurried to join them.

"Terr," Lisa said some few minutes later, tapping her hulking boyfriend on the shoulder. From above that same point, Rhea's bright red
complexion and slightly-bulging eyes stared at her in silent pleading.

"Hmm?" Terr grunted.

"Let her breathe, you big dope," Lisa replied fondly.

"Oh! Uh, sorry." Terr released his hold and let Rhea settle back to the floor, where she took several deep breaths.

"Whew! I missed you too," she said teasingly after her voice had returned. Then, seeing their gazes, her face fell. "Hey... what's the
matter?"

Lisa shook her head. "Nothing... we're just glad you're back."

Rhea raised an eyebrow and leaned back against the counter, dropping the spatula back into the mixing bowl. "You say that like you didn't think I was
coming back," she noted with unusual seriousness.

Terrence and Lisa eyed each other. Terrence looked away first, focusing on a spot on the wall that seemed to demand his whole attention. Lisa took a deep
breath.

"We weren't sure," she said honestly, if not completely so. They hadn't been sure if Rhea would be -allowed- to come back, if she found
Danny.

And the sparkle in her girlfriend's eye told Lisa that Rhea -had-.

"Well then," Rhea said, pushing off the counter and coming forward to stand so close to Terrence and herself that Lisa could feel the other
woman's body heat against her skin. "I guess I have to work harder at... convincing you."

Lisa blinked and opened her mouth to respond, and Rhea grinned wickedly and blazed out a blue glow that washed over the three of them and rebounded off the
walls before fading out.

Lisa's fingers tightened involuntarily against the underside of the table, and she felt her nails dig in. "That's a g-good argument," she
said at last. Tired? Who was tired? Not her! A quick sidelong glance told her that Terrence felt it too.

Whatever Rhea had been up to all day, she was in a -mood-, if the intensity of that aura was anything to judge by. Lisa would have found time to worry about
it, if Rhea hadn't chosen that moment to lean forward and nibble gently at the side of her neck.

"Wait," Lisa managed as Rhea hmm'd and chose another spot to attack. Terrence grunted, a surprised sound, and Lisa guessed that Rhea's other
hand was busy -- since one of them was trailing nails up and down her spine, there weren't many other options. At least not standing and with clothes on.
"We need to oh my god."

"Naughty, naughty," Rhea whispered as her hand caressed sensitive skin that Lisa could have sworn was protected by clothing a moment before.
"Less talk, more shower. Then bed. Then probably shower again, and maybe chocolate. Tomorrow we can talk."

Lisa opened her eyes partway as their lips met. Rhea's eyes were blazing green, mere inches from her own, and as Rhea's tongue flickered across her
lips she stared into them and saw the hunger, the need... and the concern. The love.

And she knew without further words that if she truly wanted Rhea to stop, the other woman would. The last time she'd rejected Rhea's attentions had
been hard for all of them, but they'd grown since then. They knew each other far better now. And Lisa knew she could stop this train before it really got
rolling, and it wouldn't drive Rhea away this time like it almost before. Those emerald eyes pleaded with her to accept it. Rhea wanted -her-...

"Please," Rhea said, breathing against her ear. "Please, Lisa, I swear I'll answer any question, anything, tomorrow... but not
tonight." Her voice carried pain with it, but also an undercurrent of excitement and hope. "I love you guys, I need you... let me show you how
much."

The knowledge that she could say no, Lisa reflected, made it that much easier.

"Okay," she said, and returned the kiss in full.


(Click here for the Directors Cut extended scene. Warning, no pictures but probably NSFW.)



Sell-Sword accepted the steaming paper cup from the barista behind the counter, waved off her attempt to hand him his change -- "Keep it." -- and
headed outside into the cool morning air of New Overbrook, sipping at the steaming brew. He found an empty bench and sat down.

It was only a matter of minutes before his contact arrived. A man in jeans and a polo shirt, his close-trimmed beard and mustache obscuring but failing to
hide a purplish bruise on his jaw, and a Paragon Knights baseball cap on his head. Sword noted the faint outlines of something hard under the jeans and shirt
-- body armor, perhaps?

"Mr. Wesson," said the man in greeting. He sat at the opposite end of the bench.

"Ah, you must be Mr. Smith." Sell-Sword turned slightly, regarding the other carefully. "You wanted to discuss some business?"

"I could use a man of your talents, yes," Smith said.

"What's the job?"

"I want you to provide me with an opening and distraction so I can pull off a rescue, and a means for escape afterwards. Inbound is myself only, on the
way out it will be me and one other."

"Hot extract?"

"I hope not, but the possibility exists." Smith shrugged. "I have faith in my own talents, and your reputation is... well known to me. I
doubt it will be difficult for both of us working together."

Sword's face was perfectly still, even as he frowned to himself. He wasn't sure if Smith recognized him or not, but he knew the other. Smith was not
the man's name, of course, no more than any of the alibis he himself had used in the past were his. A paid assassin, but not a professional; what Sword
had seen of Smith's work long ago suggested a title of sadist or torturer.

Even as he pondered, another part of his brain was continuing the negotiations. "Complications?"

"The target is well guarded, by two misguided but earnest heroes. You know the type. One of them seems to be a radiation specialist of some sort, the
other is your standard meatshield." Smith's cheek twitched. "I can handle the rad-flinger, though the other would be tricky. But he's dumb
as a brick, so it shouldn't be hard for you to distract him. Just stay out of his reach."

"Anything else?"

"The guardians are members of a rather prominent supergroup -- The Legendary. So we'd need to vanish quickly afterwards. The escape needs to factor
possible retaliation or a hunt into the plan."

"Timeframe?"

"As soon as possible. Days, not weeks."

Sword shook his head. "Then I'm not your guy. I'm on a contract already."

"I'm quite prepared to pay --"

Sword stood and dropped his cup into the trash. "No."

"But why?" Smith frowned, his eyebrows coming together in puzzlement. "You're a mercenary, Wesson. Loyalty to the highest bidder,
right?"

Sword stared down at the other, his body language expressing nothing, his face an impenetrable shell. He relied on that in times like this; it helped him keep
from exposing more information than he wanted to. At the mention of The Legendary, it had clicked. That combination -- radiation, a tank, a third? -- could
only be one set of people in that group. He didn't know if Gamma Emission or Emerald Blast was the actual target, but that didn't matter. He was
under contract to Riot Force; Riot Force was allied with The Legendary. Professional ethics demanded he refuse the hit.

And besides which, it would be plain bad sense to cross either group, especially from within. Down that road would lie nothing but debt and pain.

Finally, he spoke. "I'm a -professional-, Mr. Smith. It's all about business. And I don't see any profit in your plans. Good day."

He turned and left.



--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs
Quote:It was only by sheer effort, Rhea thought, that she'd been able to handle the entire thing. It was almost -painful-, in fact, but she knew that would ease off soon enough. She leaned back and sighed appreciatively, licking the last traces off her lips.

*HEADSPLODEY*

dear god, spud! AMAZING!
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies
I said it before, and I'll say it again: This was worth the wait Smile

A wonderful and a little bit painful look into Rhea head (so cute and fragile), as well as the peaks into other characters.

And the parts that make us blush are always welcome ^-^
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy
-Love- the Fic Update spud, Its full of delicious win and awesome, I love learning more about Rhea, and how her mind works..I also Love to -Hate- Danny...Can
we shoot him nowz? So bravo to your supreame writing Talent Mr. Spud we all grovel in Awe (and in awesome) of your mad skillz Smile And Terr..Isn't nearly as
stupid as Danny assumes him to be :p..or probably alot of people assume him to be hehe. Sure he's not book smart, or a genius of maths or Sciences, but
he's far more astute than he lets on, at least in regards to combat, tactics and stratagies. (But his player wishes he could Rp bein all smartz but its too
much 'Le Sob' lol And He has a 'gut instinct' thats disturbingly accurate, Anyways..I'm tired..and Rambeling..and I need sleeps.. *dies*
All I know is that, knowing ahead of time what's due to come, I can just sit here impatiently and go "want moooore." Tongue
---
"Oh, silver blade, forged in the depths of the beyond. Heed my summons and purge those who stand in my way. Lay
waste."
Quote:Can we shoot him nowz?
Shoot him? I want Eva to run him through. Slowly. In a nonvital area. Several times.
-- Bob
---------
Then the horns kicked in...
...and my shoes began to squeak.
I'm betting dude's heart is a nonvital area.. *fumes*
"No can brain today. Want cheezeburger."
From NGE: Nobody Dies, by Gregg Landsman
http://www.fanfiction.net/s/5579457/1/NGE_Nobody_Dies
TALES OF THE LEGENDARY
REUNIONS
(a HERO SANDWICH production)

Chapter Three

Terrence
woke early, despite the hectic day before and the busy night.  He
blinked and yawned, then slid out from under the blankets without
disturbing Lisa or Rhea and tiptoed into the bathroom.
Once that
business was taken care of, he crept back through the room and out into
the hall, belting on a robe as he went.  A quick stop by the kitchen to
start the coffeemaker and pour himself a glass of juice, then through
the living room towards the front door.  He opened it, double-checked
that the knob was unlocked lest he spend another morning stuck on the
front steps, then took the stairs two at a time to retrieve the morning
paper and enjoy the cool, fresh air that filled Steel Canyon before the
traffic started.  It was only a little past dawn, and while the sun was
bright, it was still hidden behind the War Walls and left the city
bathed in dim greyish-blue light.
He picked up the newspaper,
slapped the dew off the plastic cover with a quick whack against his
robe-clad leg, and turned to go back inside when something caught his
attention.  He frowned and paused to look.

Rhea woke
reluctantly, savoring the last remaining dregs of sleep as they slowly
drained away.  She stretched and hummed happily to herself as she caught
sight of Lisa's sleeping face next to her on the pillow.  She glanced
up reflexively and saw Whiskers sitting there.
"Hi, fuzzbutt," she whispered to the cat, keeping her voice low out of deference to Lisa's unconscious state.
(You're happy this morning,) Whiskers remarked.
Rhea nodded and smiled.
(Tabby,)
Whiskers teased, and Rhea let out a giggle.  She inched away from Lisa,
eliciting a soft mumble but not waking the other woman up, and
retrieved a t-shirt from the hamper.  She grinned as a sudden thought
struck her and tossed the shirt back, rummaging through the hamper for a
different one.  When she found it, she slipped into it with some
difficulty -- it was barely long enough to fall to mid-thigh, and tight
across the chest; it was a souvenir that Terr had picked up for her. 
She settled Whiskers firmly on her shoulder as she left the room,
closing the door gently and making a beeline for the wondrous aroma of
java emanating from the kitchen.
Her favorite mug was waiting,
and she filled and doctored it carefully while the toaster worked on a
pop-tart.  She gathered up her spoils of conquest and headed for the
living room, pausing only momentarily to un-stick the spatula from the
brownie batter that had hardened like concrete and scrape the mass into
the garbage.
Terr was seated on one end of the couch when she
cleared the doorway.  She collapsed onto the other end, drawing her
knees up and tucking her legs under, grinning in anticipation of his
flushing cheeks as he noticed what she was wearing -- or wasn't -- and
hurriedly looked away.  It was so cute how he did that.
Except... today it wasn't happening.  Terrence didn't even appear to have noticed that she was there.
"Hey,"
she said softly.  No response.  She frowned.  Something had to be
wrong.  She stretched out one leg slowly, pointing her foot, and nudged
Terrence solidly on the shoulder with her big toe.
He jumped, startled, and yanked his head around to face her.  "Oh, hi, Rhea," he mumbled, flushing.
"I wanted to see you blush," she said wryly, "but not like that."
"Heh." 
Terrence grinned weakly and scratched at the back of his head with one
hand.  And, worst of all, Rhea noted amusedly to herself, he still
hadn't noticed what she was wearing.  (Last time I try to dress up for him,) she commented to Whiskers.
(A t-shirt is dressing up?)
(Hello, it's the Hooters shirt?)
(Ohhh.)
"What's the matter?" she asked quietly, nibbling on the corner of her pop-tart.  Still too hot.
"What?  Uh... nothing."
Rhea
rolled her eyes.  "C'mon, you big lunk, you're like an open book.  Even
Whiskers can tell there's something bugging you.  Right, fuzzbutt?" 
She regarded Whiskers fondly for moment and nodded firmly.  "See?"
"... mornin'..." Lisa yawned from the hall, shuffling towards the kitchen and fumbling with the ties on her robe.
"Saved by the bell," Rhea said, nudging Terr again.
"You're the Southern girl, not her," Terr replied, regaining some of his usual good cheer.
Rhea blinked.  "Lisa?" she called out.  "Something's wrong.  Terr just made a pun."  She wrinkled her nose.  "A bad one."
"Does
that mean he needs to be punished?" Lisa said as she entered the living
room, trailing steam from a mug, the size of which probably violated
legal limits for caffeine intake.
"Probably."  Rhea winked at Terr.  "I dunno, though, he might just be a punk."
"Always.  What did he verbally hemorrhage, anyway?"
"I said he was saved by the bell, he said I was the Southern girl, not you.  As puns go, it was pretty puny, but this is Terr we're talking about."
Terr
mimed gagging and holding his nose.  Rhea rolled her eyes.  Lisa took
another sip of coffee, then offered, "Perhaps he was just... punchy."
"Ack," Terr remarked.  "What have I done?"
Lisa
smiled and bent over the back of the couch to give Terr a quick kiss. 
"Nothing," she said, straightening up.  "... that I can bell-ieve,
anyway."
Terr groaned as Rhea laughed.  Lisa grinned and gave a
mock bow before coming around and settling down between the others on
the couch.  Rhea draped her legs over Lisa and grinned conspiratorially
at the shorter woman as Terr finally realized what she was wearing and looked away, flushing brightly.
"It really is cute how he does that," Lisa said, a smile tugging at the corners of her lips.
"Mm-hmm," Rhea said, nibbling at her pastry and trying (failing) to suppress her grin.
"I'm cursed," Terr grumbled halfheartedly.  "Whiskers, you're a guy, help me out here."
(I'm on her side,) Whiskers said, with a mental bump against Rhea's cheek.  Rhea laughed into her coffee and nearly spilled it.
"Do I want to know what he said?" Terr asked resignedly.
"Probably not."
Terrence sighed.
For
a while there was a companionable quiet.  Rhea finished her snack and
entertained herself by stretching and watching Terr's face for
reactions, while Lisa studiously ignored the byplay (except for the
constant grin tugging at her lips) and finished her coffee.  Finally, it
was Lisa who broke the silence.
"You said you'd answer any questions we had today," she said quietly, looking Rhea in the eyes.
Rhea
nodded.  "Yep," she said.  "Ask away, I've got nothing to hide from you
two."  With a mischievous smile, she added, "You've seen it all
already."
Lisa smiled, but it didn't reach her eyes.  She set her
mega-mug down on the coffee table and folded her hands in her lap,
gently nudging Rhea's legs down in the process.  "Do you still love
him?"
Rhea blinked at the question.  She felt Whiskers prodding
her -- (Be honest, girl!) -- and took a deep breath.  Looking at first
Lisa, then Terr's, faces, she nodded slowly.  "Yes," she said.  "I... I
do still love Danny.  I'd be lying if I said I didn't."
Terr
growled something under his breath, too quietly for Rhea to catch, and
sank down in his seat.  Lisa nodded as if she expected the answer, but
her features betrayed some hurt, too.  Rhea leaned over.  "I love you
guys too, you know," she added.  "I'm not going anywhere... unless... unless you want me to?"
Suddenly
she was afraid.  Maybe she had misunderstood the question.  Was this
it?  Was this Lisa's hint that she'd overstayed her welcome?  That was
probably it, Lisa was too nice to simply come out and say it was time
for her to leave, so now that Danny was back they were going to let her
down gently.  It made sense -- oh, it made perfect sense! -- but it
wasn't what she wanted, not that that mattered, she'd known it would
happen, hadn't she told Whiskers as much way back when... people always
left her, she was like a curse to them... Rhea bit her lip to keep from
sobbing.
She wouldn't do that.  Not to them, not to herself.  If it was time to go, then she'd go, with no fuss.  Calm.  Cheerful.
"Hey!  Rhea!"  Lisa shook her by the shoulders, and Rhea found herself staring into smoldering eyes.
"... w-what?" she managed after a moment.
"You didn't hear a word I said, did you?"
"You... I mean..."  Rhea tried to gather her thoughts.  Finally she shook her head.  "I guess not?"
Lisa sighed.  "I said, silly, that we don't want you to leave."
(You've really got to try to listen first and panic later,) Whiskers said in gentle reproach.
"I wasn't panicking!"  Rhea burst out.
Lisa and Terr eyed her strangely.
"Uh..." Rhea flapped a hand at Whiskers.  "His fault.  Sorry."  She took a deep breath.  "I'm okay, really."
Lisa
nodded.  "Okay then.  Next question."  She paused for a moment, eyeing
Rhea with a concerned look.  "Do you know a girl named Marilyn Harris?"
Rhea
frowned, puzzled.  How did Lisa find out that name?  "That was a long
time ago... I didn't know her very well.  She was my dad's friend's
daughter, I think.  I used to call him Uncle Mark, but he wasn't my
uncle.  You know how it goes."  She shook her head.  "Wow.  What's going
on?  Been checking up on my sordid past or something?"  She let out a
weak chuckle.
Lisa's face was very grave as she replied, "Danny killed her last night."

Sell-Sword
glanced up from his work as Ifrit entered the room, passing through on
her way to points unknown.  He nodded cordially in response to her
greeting, then returned his attention to the display.
He didn't suppose she'd particularly mind
that he was rifling through the Legendary personnel files -- what he
could access of them through the coalition link, that is -- but at the
same time he didn't think she needed to know what he was doing, either.
EMERALD
BLAST, the heading read.  The public file was sparse -- not much more
than he'd already known, really, though it did include a detailed power
classification -- but gave him the interesting note that she didn't
maintain a secret identity.  And having her real name had let him dig up
far juicier information.
Like the fact that she was seeing a
therapist.  She'd said as much herself in an interview.  He supposed it
had to do with her Army discharge for mental health reasons -- that
tidbit was publicly available as well -- but a little poking revealed
that there had been a heavily redacted event of some sort that triggered
it all.  He wasn't finding any details that might explain the interest
of a hired thug (he couldn't bring himself to use the word professional
in regards to Smith), however.
From public sources.
He
saved his work to a secure chip and removed a small device from the
computer.  The display flickered and resumed normal operation.  Anybody
poking around would see nothing out of the ordinary, but a determined
investigator might notice a small blip in the logfiles.  A power outage,
perhaps, causing this terminal to drop out for a few minutes.  Nothing
more.
He pocketed the device and left.  He, unlike Smith, was a professional.  And he had other ways to get the information he sought.

Danny entered through a window, passing between the heavy drapes without a sound and closing the sash noiselessly behind him.
The apartment was quiet.
Spacious
and roomy, it held plenty of evidence of occupation, but had that
undeniable air of neglect about it.  A thin layer of dust coated most
surfaces, and several days worth of mail piled beneath the slot in the
door.  While it obviously hadn't been lived in recently, it just as
obviously wasn't completely abandoned; the utilities were still
connected and as Danny poked around, he noted that what little food
inhabited the fridge had not yet gone bad.  Except for the milk, which
was so far past its sell-by date that he suspected it could harbor the
cure for Superadine's side effects.
Which fit the apartment's
owner perfectly, he noted with a small smile.  Rheabeth was many things,
but she'd always had a hard time handling the food side of household
chores.  He'd done most of the cooking and grocery shopping himself,
when they were together, just to preserve his palate.  He snagged a can
of cola and popped it, letting the carbonation settle a bit before
sipping.
He moved on, through the gap between counters that
separated the living room from the kitchen, and went down on one knee to
look through Rheabeth's mail.  Most of it was inconsequential and
mundane.  He came across an envelope with an interesting return address
and without hesitation slid the tip of a dagger under the flap and slit
it open along the glue line.  He extracted and scanned the contents
quickly.  The note was hand-written on the letterhead of Psychiatry
Associates -- Licensed Mental Health Counselors.  Danny snickered as he
read.  Apparently Rheabeth's therapist was concerned that she was
missing so many appointments lately and wanted to discuss whatever
issues she felt might be causing it.
She didn't need therapy, he
mused, she just needed a good -- well.  He chuckled and folded the note
along the original creases and tucked it back into the envelope, then
hunted around the desk against the wall.  Rheabeth always kept a junk
drawer, and he found it on the second try.  Nestled among the stamps,
scissors, rubber bands, half-chewed pencils and pens, and assorted other
detritus, there was a tube of superglue.  He used it to re-seal the
envelope, then dropped it unceremoniously back on the pile inside the
door and resumed his mostly-aimless drifting around the apartment.
He
wasn't sure exactly what he expected to find.  He rather suspected that
Rheabeth hadn't changed much, except for her newfound abilities, and so
far everything he'd seen and talked with her about had only served to
reinforce that.  She was still soft, over-emotional, and mostly
helpless.  She'd always needed someone to take care of her, and had
turned to this Knight character for it when Danny himself wasn't around
any more.  All too predictable, but then, she'd always been that.
No,
he wasn't surprised that his little Rheabeth had found herself another
protector.  What did surprise him a little was Gamma Emission.  He'd
contemplated bringing another girl into their relationship back when he
and Rheabeth were an item, but had regretfully decided that that
was a bit too much for the small community they'd been living in.  Word
always got around, after all, and he'd been practicing keeping a low
profile since before he was in high school.  What had made it so
tempting in spite of that was Rheabeth's reluctance on the subject. 
She'd been a good little Southern girl, doing her best to please her
man, and the little spikes of pain she felt whenever he indicated
interest in another girl were like intoxicating hors d'oerves,
stimulating his appetite for more.  She never said anything, of course,
but he could tell.
So it was startling that she now had a woman
in her bed -- an attractive, powerful, intelligent, and dangerous one,
at that.  He had assumed, perhaps prematurely, that Rheabeth was as
straight-arrow as it was possible to be, which made it all the more
entertaining when he managed to nudge her into what her upbringing told
her was depraved, sinful, or wrong.  Obviously he'd had more of a
long-term impact than he'd thought.
Regardless, he rather suspected it was this Gamma that wore the pants in whatever twisted three-way relationship they'd forged.
He
paused in Rheabeth's bedroom, regarding the tangled sheets with a fond
half-smile.  He leaned over and inhaled deeply over the crumpled
pillow.  Rheabeth's scent still lingered there, though he knew it had
been some time since she'd spent a night alone in her own bed.  She'd
always been a bit of a wildcat in the bedroom, and given the choice, she
wouldn't choose to sleep alone... or sleep at all, sometimes.  He
laughed softly and ran his fingers along the pillow.  Tiny, wispy
tendrils of his power leaked through the cloth, tracing along the
contours where Rheabeth's head had been, but found nothing to bite on. 
He didn't expect there to be anything, of course.  It was very rare to
find the sort of energy he needed just lying around, and it was much
more satisfying to rip it pulsing from an agonized living person than to
merely absorb what was left over from their nightmares, anyway.
He
slid open her closet and grinned.  Some things, it seemed, didn't
change.  Rheabeth was still a clotheshorse.  He pawed through the
hanging garments, which were tightly packed on the closet rod, not
really searching for anything in particular but trusting in instinct to
alert him if something interesting cropped up.  One item caught his
attention, and he withdrew it carefully.  It was perhaps the flimsiest
bit of condensed, colored air he'd ever encountered, as thin and
insubstantial as the most delicate cobwebs, so light it drifted
languidly in the vague, barely-perceptible wind currents from the air
conditioning.  He pictured Rheabeth wearing it and grinned.  He'd have
to remember it was here.  She would wear it for him the first night they
spent together again.  Soon.
He put it away and pushed the
entire rack aside, checking the bottom and back of the closet out of
habit.  Nothing except shoes and various accessories in boxes.  He put
everything back the way it had been, closed the closet door, and
returned to the main room, frowning thoughtfully.  He wasn't sure what
he was looking for here, but he hadn't found it yet.  He forced himself
to stop, and think, and remember Rheabeth's habits.
Slowly, he
lowered himself on to the couch, at the end where his left side was
cradled by the cushions on the arm.  It felt right.  Rheabeth liked
curling up this way, her feet tucked under, sometimes with a blanket
when the weather was cold.  On their couch back in Georgia, the only
cushion with any wear showing had been the one on the left end. 
Smiling, he leaned forward, reached down, and fished under the couch. 
His fingers found a hard, flat object, just within fingertip reach, and
he drew it out easily.
"You haven't changed, Rheabeth," he murmured.
It
was a simple hardcover notebook, the type used by college students the
world over.  It bore no ornamentation, but the corners were well-worn
and ragged.  The spine creaked a little when he opened it.
He'd
read her diary many times before, of course.  It was an easy way to keep
track of where her mind was at.  She didn't write in it often, and when
she did the chances were good that it would be nothing but inanities,
useless bits of ephemera that, for whatever reason, she was discontent
to let float away.  Vague bits of poetry, a pithy description of how
much she disliked so-and-so or the food at such-and-such restaurant,
observations on politics, and the like.  But at other times she treated
the diary almost like it was a friend, a living person who could listen
and sympathize with whatever little problem was bugging her that day. 
It was those entries that Danny had always found most interesting.  They
gave him vital intelligence.  It was like knowing exactly which brick
to remove to cause the entire house to collapse -- or in Rheabeth's
case, knowing exactly which buttons to push, and how far, to cause her
the most pain.  It was a delicate balancing act.  As dependent as she
was, there was a core of steel there.  If he pushed too hard or the
wrong way, her pain would become anger instead.  He could feed on that
as well, but it was nowhere near as satisfying, and of course, if she
was angry about something he'd done or said, he'd have to spend the time
and effort to calm her down and appease her.  Rheabeth was at her best
when she thought she was happy.  She would tolerate more -- she could
tolerate more, emotionally as well as physically -- and the desperation
with which she clung to her happiness made the agony that much sweeter.
He
smiled as a memory rose, of the knife tracing her curves, of her face
as it mingled terror, pain, and pleasure all in one, and of her
exhausted but willing -- almost cheerful, in fact -- disposition when
she rose from the bed to clean up the mess he'd made.  Her blood -- not a
large quantity, more symbolic than anything, but there all the same --
would stain the sheets unless promptly handled.  She did so without
complaint, a smile on her face.
Yes, it was vitally important to
know where Rheabeth's mind was at.  She could be the perfect victim, and
the willing accomplice, at the same time -- and remain perfectly
innocent while doing so.  It was a rare combination, but it required
careful maintenance.
He flipped through the book until the first
blank page -- perhaps two-thirds of the way in -- then backed up to the
most recent entries.  They weren't dated -- Rheabeth had very rarely
bothered with dates, in her diary and in general, he recalled -- but
from context he gleaned that they weren't very old, relatively speaking.
Its hard staying cheerful all the time, Rheabeth had written, but
I need to.  Lisa took care of it last time, but what if she isn't
around next time?  It's scary knowing that Whiskers can cause that much
damage.  I'm lucky that the Legendary picked up the bill, and I don't
want to think about how much it cost to fix that hospital up.
  Eva
tells me not to worry about it, and Lora just gets tight-lipped and
doesn't say anything.  I think I'll tell the accountant to donate the
profits to rebuilding hospitals or something, I have to make up for it
somehow.
  It's not like I need the money anymore.
Danny
raised an eyebrow.  Lisa would be Gamma Emission, he gathered. 
Precisely what had she done?  It could be useful to know... and what was
this about an accountant?  Had his little Rheabeth come into money
somehow?  She'd been as broke as could be when he cleaned out their
savings and left.  And the Army wasn't known for its exceptional wages,
so that didn't seem likely either.  The interview she'd given on TV had
mentioned a toy line, but he'd dismissed that as inconsequential.  Now
he wondered.
He turned the page.
... said they love me
too, and I'm so happy, even if I know it won't last.  It never does. 
But I can dream, right?  And when they tell me to leave, at least I'll
still have Whiskers, I guess, so it's okay.

I thought of a haiku today.  Whiskers likes it, at least.
Silly tabby cat
Rubbing against Terrence Knight
Lisa will be mad
Danny
flipped through the rest of the entries, but most of them were of the
inconsequential sort.  The very last was the only one that seemed
telling:
James said that he's concerned about my relationship
with Lisa and Terr.  I love them and they make me happy and he just
doesn't understand.  I don't know what he's all worried about anyway. 
He's a nice guy, but he just doesn't understand what it's like being a
hero.  MAGI stopped paying for the visits a while ago, so they must
think I'm okay.
He said he wanted to meet them, but that's not a
good idea, I don't think.  Terrence especially.  And Lisa's like me,
she's a pro herself.  What's that saying again?  Physician, treat
thyself?  Something like that.
Well, I'm going to.  I don't think I'm going to see him anymore.

Thoughtful,
Danny closed the diary and returned it to its resting place.  He left
the way he came, through the window, closing it behind him.
Terrence
was the shield.  Lisa... Lisa was the keystone.  He wondered if his
little gift had made it to Rheabeth yet.  It had been simplicity itself
finding out where she was staying.  She was so pathetically eager to
resume contact with him that he now had her beacon ID and personal cell
phone number.  And now he had a name to put to the spitfire's face.
Danny inhaled deeply of the morning air, smiled to himself, stepped off the fire escape, and vanished.

Sell-Sword let out a disappointed sigh.  Shaking his head, he deactivated his cloaking field and faded into view.
Mr.
Smith was good enough to be a decent burglar, Sword admitted to
himself, but the professional in him cringed at the other man's
sloppiness.  No gloves, no wipedown.  Consuming the target's food, and
worse, leaving the half-empty can on the counter.  Opening the mail and
re-sealing it haphazardly.  All things that Sword had himself avoided in
his search of the apartment.
But -- and here he felt a bit
aggrieved -- he hadn't found the diary.  Smith had done so.  Now that
the other man was gone, Sword made a beeline for it and quickly scanned
it, cover to cover, using the high-resolution camera built into his
helmet.  He would read it later.
Then, returning everything to where it had been when Smith left, Sword departed.  The apartment was quiet and still once again.

"I don't believe it."
"We
saw him, Rhea."  Lisa suppressed her desire to scowl in remembered
disgust, guessing that such an expression would be a bit too much for
Rhea to handle.  Beside her, Terr completely failed to follow the same
chain of thought, and she mentally shook her head as his face crashed
down into a glower that often sent would-be villains running for cover. 
Rhea didn't appear to notice.
"No!" Rhea cried.  Her eyes were bright and shimmering with tears.  "I... I can't... you shouldn't say things like that!  It's not true!"
"We're
not lying," Lisa said, closing her eyes and shaking her head.  "Ask
Terrence.  He saw Danny too."  Beside her, Terrence shifted, clearly
uncomfortable with the sudden scrutiny Rhea directed at him.
"You saw him?" the distraught redhead demanded.  "You saw Danny?"
"I...
yes?  I think."  At Lisa's incredulous glance, Terr shrugged.  "Hey, it
was dark and I just saw this guy running away.  I chased him for a bit,
but he never turned around."  He nodded firmly.  "But Lisa saw him, and
she ain't the type to lie.  You know that."
Rhea closed her eyes.  "Oh, Lisa, I'm sorry, I ... I didn't mean..."
Lisa took Rhea's hand and gripped it tightly.  "It's okay.  I -- we -- understand."
"But it can't have been him," Rhea wailed.  "Danny is a good man!  He wouldn't have done that -- not to anyone!"
"He's
not the man you remember."  Privately, Lisa suspected Danny had never
been what Rhea thought he was, but she felt bad enough pushing Rhea like
this anyway.  It had to be done, but... better to spare the poor girl
what she could.  She wouldn't mention the sarcastic and demeaning
comments Danny had made -- it was starting to become obvious that Rhea
wouldn't listen anyway.
"I still don't believe it," Rhea finally
said, hot tears running down her cheeks.  Her voice, Lisa noted, was
firm -- too firm; Rhea had decided something.  And Lisa knew that once
Rhea had the bit in her teeth, she was difficult to stop.
"We're not lying," Lisa insisted firmly, but without much hope.  Rhea nodded and gripped her hand.
"I
know!  I believe you, Lisa."  The redhead sighed.  "It must be someone
trying to frame him.  Mr. Whiskers even says that's a possibility, and
you know how skeptical he is."  A faint smile crept onto Rhea's face. 
"The fuzzbutt thinks you're telling the truth... but he doesn't know
Danny either -- not like I do.  Just like you two."  Rhea wiped at her
tear-tracks and sniffled a little.  "I don't know why I didn't think of
it sooner, really.  He said last night that some people were after him. 
I bet that's what this is all about -- they're trying to get us to do
their dirty work for them.  I need to warn him!"
Before the
others could respond, Rhea leaped to her feet and headed for the
bedroom.  "I'm going to get dressed," she called back.  "Back in a sec!"
The bedroom door closed with a faint click.
"What," Terrence rumbled incredulously, "just happened?"
"Trouble,"
Lisa replied, pinching the bridge of her nose.  "I can't say too much
or I come off looking like a jealous bitch, and what I can say, she
won't believe.  We need proof."
"He knows where we are,"
Terrence admitted glumly.  He reached out and moved the newspaper that
lay on the coffee table, revealing a small oblong box that had been
hidden beneath.  Lisa raised an eyebrow at him, and he shrugged.  "It
was by the front door this morning.  I ... didn't know what to do with
it."
Lisa picked up the gift and examined it.  A small white
corner of paper peeked out from the lid; Lisa extracted the card and
opened it, then sucked her breath in sharply.
My dearest Rheabeth, it read in elegant handwriting.  I
enjoyed our wonderful evening together.  It was just like old times --
how I've missed those!  Please, accept this as a small measure of my
love for you and when you wear it, think of me.  I can't wait to see it
on you.  Yours forever, Daniel.

"That son of a bitch," Lisa snarled.  She made as if to tear the card to bits, then froze.
"Yeah,"
Terr nodded sadly.  "I couldn't do it either.  I was about to hurl the
whole thing, gems and all, straight through the War Walls... but..."
"But
if you did, you'd have walked into his trap," Lisa finished sadly,
forcing her fingers to fold the card neatly and tuck it back into the
box.
"Yeah."  Terr looked glum.  He sighed.  "We have to give it to her, don't we?"
Lisa
nodded.  "Yes."  She closed her eyes and forced herself to hold back
the scream that wanted to erupt.  "He's playing us, the sick bastard."
"How do we stop him?"
Lisa took a long time answering.  Finally: "I don't know."
They
sat in silence for several long minutes until Rhea returned, breathless
from a quick and cold shower.  She was dressed in casual clothes and
vigorously toweling her waist-length hair.  Lisa felt a faint pang of
regret that Rhea had changed out of the Hooters shirt, but shoved it
aside and waited for the shoe to drop.
"Hey, what's that?" Rhea asked, precisely on schedule.  A slim finger indicated the gift box.
"This
was left for you," Lisa replied, handing it over.  She was perversely
proud that she managed to do that with a straight face.  She watched as
Rhea opened it and gasped.
"Oh my god," Rhea breathed.  She
tucked the card back into the box and withdrew a thin, delicate silver
necklace.  Dangling from it, a small but exquisitely crafted pendant,
with two rearing lions forming a circle around a small emerald, the
whole thing no bigger than Terr's thumb.  She clasped it to her chest,
looking at Terr and Lisa with tears welling in her eyes once again. 
"You see?  He isn't the sort to do what you saw.  That had to have been
someone else."
Terr and Lisa shared a glance, then Lisa shook her
head.  "I know what I saw," she insisted, and held up a hand to
forestall Rhea's outburst.  "But we'll go along with you for now, okay? 
If you're right, then we'll apologize to Danny.  Fair enough?"
Rhea
nodded.  "Okay."  She turned around and lifted her hair out of the
way.  "Someone get the clasp?" she asked, holding the necklace in
place.  "I'm terrible with those tiny things."
As Terrence fumbled through the task, Lisa glared daggers at the box, and by extension, Danny.  You won't win, she vowed to herself.

I blame Sweno.
Or maybe I should thank him, actually.  His posting of the latest Staking A Claim reminded me that I really needed to get back to this.  And unlike Sweno, thread necromancy doesn't bother me. Smile

--sofaspud
--"Listening to your kid is the audio equivalent of a Salvador Dali painting, Spud." --OpMegs
And my Hate for Danny grows. This was an awesome continuation Spud...and has me wondering amused. We have this dry spell where No fic's are showing up...then suddenly we get a fistful in rapid succession from you Sweno and OM lol.
Yay! more fic (which I will happily accept blame for).

once again, you excel at creating characters we love to hate.

And I'm jealous of your ability to convincingly portray several different incongruent points of view.
-Terry
-----
"so listen up boy, or pornography starring your mother will be the second worst thing to happen to you today"
TF2: Spy