Chapter Eighteen: Pulp Fiction of Wrathful Reservoir Dogs!

Dan's hunger for payback against the man who had sold the Hammer Wolves out was strong, but his desire to ensure that this reunion would go well for him was stronger, so he went over all the data they had on the recent activities of and the planned deal between the Midas Hounds and the Diamond Don's Mob with Richard, Voltaire, Claire, and Alphonse.

After brainstorming, double-checking their data, and going over (and finding solutions for) all the possible problems they could think of, they at last agreed on a solid mission plan.

A full day had gone by meanwhile, and, thanks to Voltaire being able to secure a few high-level potions, Richard's crew were more-or-less completely healed of their injuries —at least, the physical ones— when the Crimson Tengu Ravens were called back to the hotel's theater for the mission briefing.

Richard had needed all that time, and could have used more, too. He had wanted to talk to Greymont a bit more about that weapon strike that had hurt the dragon, and how he had somehow been kept from quickly undoing the damage done, but he didn't get the chance.

To ensure that they would be more eager for another go after last time's disaster, Dan was leaning against the stage up front, along with Richard and Voltaire, who had decided not to lead from atop the actual stage this time. Richard was glad to see that they all still came when summoned, even if some were a bit more sardonic than others about it.

Another change was that the theater's projector screen had been deployed behind them. It was a bit crude and extremely old-fashioned, but it would do for visual aids. As another change, Greymont was still separate from Richard and mingling with the rest; they seemed to tolerate him, kind of like he was their mascot or something….

"So, Requiem," Troy said as he leaned back in his own chair and belched, "what new way did you come up for us to get our asses kicked today?"

There were some snickers at that, which Richard took as a good sign—if they could laugh at what had happened the other day, then that meant it wasn't dwelling as heavily on their minds as it had been.

"I think we'll be the ones dominating this time, Troy. I know it hasn't been very long, but this window of opportunity will be vanishing soon, and I think you'll all agree it would be foolish to pass it up."

"What this time?" Zach half-sighed. "Another group of islanders going to go broke if their temple gets raided?"

Dan took a moment to lean up from the stage and advance to Richard's side, crossing his arms. "Nah, Zach—just a weasel that should be caught before he slips away to his hiding hole. Guys, this is for real: it's Dickberry. Looks like the rat was hungry enough to crawl out of the ground at last."

That did it: anyone who had showed the slightest disinterest was immediately all-ears. Even Troy sat up as Richard started briefing them.

"Based on the data I claimed from the two Hydra Wyvern enforcers, and some information Claire decrypted from Los Midas Police Codec traffic, it seems he joined the local mob after selling you out…although, to be precise, it seems selling you out was his 'initiation'. He's currently working as an informant, information broker, and supplier of black-market goods the Don has appropriated."

"Figures," Troy snorted with a neck crack. "Little rat was only ever good for getting scoops and haggling…."

Voltaire advanced at that point, reaching into his pocket and bringing out a tiny remote, then pressing a button on it: holographic and three-dimensional images could be rendered in just two dimensions fairly easily, especially with Claire's help.

The old projector came on with a snap, and it displayed a photograph of Dick and several unknown men, the former shaking hands with one of the latter. At its side was a map of Los Midas, this one a digital projection in real time.

"Apparently he's very good indeed at that, since the Mob recruited him. He's actually pulled off several successful operations in the past few weeks, with most of them happening right under the Los Midas Police's noses, but his recent promotion must have stroked his ego too much—he made a deal in public, and an undercover officer got this picture.

"It's ended up doubly-bad for him, because the Hydra Wyverns had a mole in the police force, and, on their passing the picture along, it seems they weren't happy about this former Hammer Wolf cutting in on their profits. They were about to act on it when we made our move on their hideout, so that plan was nixed—but their loss is our gain."

The projector began to magnify the map while Richard continued, "They're trusting him with a bigger task now: he's heading up replenishing the Don's stock by commandeering a ship transporting advanced weapons, then delivering them directly to buyers."

"Must be loaded, to pay for all of them in one shot," Hector mused. "Who is it?"

"The Midas Hounds."

This served to intrigue the group even more. Dan smiled. "Hear that, boys? We're going to have one hell of a reunion party. I'll make sure to bring the punch…."

Richard held up a hand, both to Dan and everyone else. "Now, I want to remind you all: even though you're itching for revenge, and you deserve it, we can't get careless—especially not after last time. Blackberry Raszkowski is obviously getting bolder, but I doubt he's throwing caution to the wind. He'll have bodyguards with him, and these ones are going to be employed by the Diamond Don.

"Plus, the Midas Hounds will be there. I doubt there's anyone on the caliber of Zandoris there, but we could always be unlucky enough to get two bad surprises in a row. Regardless of who's out there, heavy weapons are being exchanged, so whoever gets to those first will be more than well-armed. On top of all that, they're commandeering the ship, so we'll probably have to deal with hostages."

"Don't worry," Dan reassured Richard. "None of us are about to let him get his hands on anything or anyone who could let him worm out of this."

The other Hammer Wolves immediately nodded.

"I know you will," Requiem answered. "If everything is still going on schedule, according to our data the transport hijacking has already occurred. The ship is being rerouted to the Los Midas Reservoir …right there…" By now, the image had halted, and he pointed at it. "…tomorrow night at seven. The forecast is expected to be rainy, but that might work to our advantage. Luckily, this is happening tomorrow," He turned his head back to the others. "so, before the mission, I'm going to be training you all on how to deal with possible surprises."

"I'll be giving you rain-repellent uniforms for this one—we don't want weather getting in our way." Voltaire added. "I won't be able to be there in person, unfortunately, but I'll still be able to give support on the Codec."

Claire suddenly spoke up, clearing her throat a bit. "He won't be alone, either." A number of those present looked to her in a bit of surprise, not really having expected her to say anything. "I've got your back, too; hopefully, this can make up for me not being on the last mission. If it's okay with you, Alphonse will be on the frontline, looking for a hookup so that we can get more information. It's a bit of a risk, but I've decided it might be worth it. Just make sure he gets back to me in one piece—it's not like I can take him to a mechanic or ship him to a drone factory."

"Depends," Dan answered. "Can he move around without getting attention?"

"One of my primary functions is to allow me to apprehend, disable, or take down criminals without alerting them to my presence," the machine duly answered. "This mission is only slightly different from many of my previous assignments."

Richard looked back again to the group, his voice growing a bit more solemn and forceful. "I know our last mission didn't go well, but I intend to do everything I can to ensure this next mission won't suffer the same outcome. I expect you all to do the same.

"Your treacherous former comrade, his mob allies, and the Midas Hounds all believe that there's no price for wanton criminal activity. I think it's time we force them to realize that there is quite the steep price, yes?"

This was well-received; the entire room was filled with various sounds and gestures of approval. This was great timing, Richard realized: a mission they all really wanted to be on, so soon after their first loss—it was the perfect way to bounce back. They were actually getting excited about it, in spite of what happened last time; even Greymont was wagging his tail so hard it was slapping the Ravens on either side.

Troy seemed to note this, and looked up ahead. "Hey, Requiem—think you can bend that 'no eating' rule on Greymont for this one time? I want to see the look on Dickberry's face…."

Richard grimaced a bit beneath his mask, but tactfully replied, "Don't forget that people aren't even supposed to know Greymont exists, and we'll need him alive long enough to get whatever he knows about the Mob out of him."

"Aw," Dan snickered to Troy, "what—trying to make the dragon sick from eating a 'bad berry'? Besides, wouldn't you rather mash him into jam first?"

Troy grinned a bit more wildly at that. "Good point."

One Day Later

The weather report had been spot-on: the group arrived a full half-hour before seven, but the Los Midas Reservoir was already hardly visible from a distance thanks to the downpour. There was a clear reason for choosing the site: the only people ever there were city public utility workers, and their unions were on the Don's dollar. All he had to do was snap his fingers, and everyone would get lost.

In the downpour, all that stood out of note were a few mass pumping structures, a tower for observation, and, of course, a large concrete edifice that separated the actual reservoir from the nearby river. A single dock was located on the riverbank nearby; it might not have been quite large enough for intercontinental cargo vessels, but those wouldn't be in a river anyways. A mid-sized freighter could squeeze in and get out quickly if need be, though.

With this in mind, the group set up. As another bonus, one of the sluice gates had undergone renovation not too long ago, and the debris from it was in piles, awaiting a chance to be hauled away. It was a veritable junkyard in the midst of the reservoir, allowing the Crimson Tengu Ravens to easily find an assortment of hiding places. Between the rain and the darkness, not to mention their gear, there was no way anyone would know they were there.

After that, there was the small matter of waiting for the respective parties to arrive.

Even in waterproof gear, it wasn't much fun waiting around in pouring rain, and they had arrived early enough to build up a good amount of anxiety. Time seemed to only painstakingly slowly tick by, but Richard was pretty sure that they would be punctual; he didn't think someone like the Diamond Don would tolerate anyone —client or employee— being 'fashionably late'. Still, he almost got a little too anxious when seven came and went; only one minute later, he was already starting to think they had rescheduled…but, at two minutes past seven, their quarry showed up.

Coming in from the south was the mohawked man Richard remembered from back when he and the former Hammer Wolves had first (unofficially) met. He also vaguely recalled the bird taunts, reminding him the man's name was Avian.

Just seeing the Midas Hound member seemed to psyche Dan up. A number of men were behind him, all of them wearing the same gold attire Richard had noted before; definitely the Midas Hounds.

"Looks like the party's starting," Dan's voice mused through the Codec.

Not long after the men walked in, a light broke through the thick rain. It wasn't a signal lamp or beacon but a floodlight coming from the river. Looking at it, Richard needed only adjust the setting on his Dragon Lenses Scanner to make out a boat.

"And here's the guest of honor. Get ready, everyone." Requiem added.

It wasn't long before the freighter began to pull up to dock, mid-sized just as Richard had assumed it would be and looking rather mundane: one didn't really want to advertise one was carrying weapons, after all.

Attention soon shifted off of that to a set of beacons, these ones appearing in the sky over the docking area. Not long after, an airship came in to land: not as grandiose or top-of-the-line as what the Magna Centurions used, but it was still a Surge Zeppelin. The dock was hardly large enough to accommodate the massive aircraft, but the pilot was clearly rather good, because he managed to set it down there anyway. By the time the Midas Hounds were standing in front of it, its boarding plank had deployed, and the hatch popped open soon after. A trio of men stepped out the door and began to descend; Richard quickly tuned his visual and audio sensors to zoom in on the scene.

One man was in a pilot's suit, but Richard didn't recognize him. The one on the right, however, was 'Mister Simpson', from back in the Diamond Dome. He was either quite fond of his suit or had others like it, because he was dressed the same as he had been on that other day.

The person in the center got the attention of most of the other Ravens, for it was none other than Dickberry himself, who had upgraded a bit in style since Richard had seen him last: he was sporting an aqua-blue blazer with matching pants, and he had loosely tucked the collar so he could expose a very large and elaborate gold necklace. His hair had been switched to being gelled back with some blond dye mixed in.

As Raszkowski grinned and nearly strutted down the platform, Dan must have zoomed in as well, because he had the look of a wolf whose tail had just been stepped on. He was grasping a thick metal grating from the canal, and, without transforming his hand, was bending it in his grip. Richard wondered if he had looked half that angry when he had spotted Steiner.

"All right, boys," Avian said, his voice coming in somewhat digitized through the Scanners. "It's Rowell's birthday, right? Let's get him a present he can share, so we can all have one hell of a birthday bash!" He turned back to the mobsters. "Nice to see you all made it on time, in spite of the weather."

The airship provided a good umbrella, so the Hounds were able to dry off some as they spoke to one another, though the heavy rain made it difficult to pick up what they were saying even with the Scanners' audio enhancements. "Well, where there's money to be made, I can be really punctual," Dick answered in an amused tone. "Settle down, boys; before you start partying, gotta fork over the cash for the price tags!"

Avian started to make a gesture —probably for one of his boys to bring the money— when he froze. He stared back at Dick, and his eyes widened. "Wait a sec…I know your face—you're one of those goddamn Hammer Wolves!"

"Aw, come on," the other man casually replied as he tugged at his collar. "Do I look like a Hammer Wolf to you? Don't you boys read the news? Come on—the Hammer Wolves are yesterday's news, you know what I'm saying? I saw the way the winds were blowing, and got out while I could."

There was a pause in response to that. Avian looked up to the mobster at his side, and then back to him. "Damn, so the rumors are true—you sold out your own bros? That's cold, yo!

"Still, got to give you props for seeing how stupid your former posse was. As long as you're not stupid enough to pull that on us, then I'm willing to forget you were one of the has-beens."

Dick chuckled and held his hands out in an entreating gesture. "Hey, sometimes a man has to know when he's outgrown some people, friends or not, know what I'm saying? Anyways, don't worry; this deal is legit. You can check it out yourself—it just ain't yours unless you can pay the bills. If you can, though, you can take home any top-of-the-line piece of merchandise here you can carry."

Dick looked away from the airship platform, towards the docked ship. During this conversation, it had extended a plank of its own and opened the side doors to the cargo hold, although it hadn't done more than that just yet. He snapped his fingers.

On cue, a team of men began to come down, one after another, each pushing a cargo container on a hovering dolly. One by one, they all came under the umbrella of the airship and parked their dollies over the wet concrete of the airship's dock.

Even with his Dragon Lenses, Richard couldn't make out the exact wording on the crates—only the larger labels on them about their being hazardous, munitions, or otherwise of note. Apparently the Midas Hounds could read them better, because they were practically salivating. Once the boxes were out and settled, Dick advanced off of the platform and over to them.

"Now this, this is premium stuff here, boys," he began. "Fresh from the Aurino Military's factories! No more bargain-basement junk—this here is the latest and greatest of the Plasma series! Faster recharge rate, stronger energy discharge, the works—and you're getting it first, exclusive! Consider it a favor for a frequent buyer…and I hope —and my boss hopes— you don't forget about that generosity."

"Yeah, yeah, don't worry," Avian answered as he licked his lips, eyeing the crates. "We're not about to bite the hand that feeds us. The Diamond Don has always been generous, and we've always been very grateful. You can tell your boss we're up for doing whatever favor he'd like." He turned and snapped his finger to one of his men.

The Midas Hound member came forward, but the payment wasn't anything nearly as impressive as a sack or case full of cash: he simply reached into his pocket and came out with a card. Avian took it and passed it forward. "We'll take the whole lot—got the bill for payment right here."

Dick immediately reached over and plucked the card from Avian's hand, then reached into his blazer and brought out a data pad with card reader. He swiped the card a moment later and tapped a few buttons, still smiling. When he looked at the screen, though, he paused. His eyes flickered up and down between the screen and the card a few times, and then his smile faded.

"Seems you're a little short, man."

Only now did Avian snap his eyes away from the crates. "Wait…huh?"

"And after that little talk about being grateful." Dick sighed, shaking his head. "Not even willing to pay the price tag? Feels a little…disrespectful, to me."

"Are you kidding me?" Avian retorted. "That card's worth a hundred thousand Auros! You said the payment for everything was one hundred K!"

"Oh…I guess you didn't read the rest of the message," Dick answered slickly as he rubbed his beard. "The discounted goods are a hundred thousand—but you forgot our tip. There's finder's fees for this kind of thing, you know?"

Not only Avian, but many of the Midas Hounds with him, began to look angry at that. "What the hell are you talking about? You trying to screw me over!?"

"Come on," Dick answered, his eyes narrowing. "We put everything on the line to smuggle some top-of-the-line weapons right into the middle of the city just so you guys can have an easier time, including Hover Jet hoverbikes, a few new Gohma Jaeger Cogs, and all sorts of other goodies at severely discounted rates. Is a small bonus for all that hard work too much to ask?"

The man sneered. "Depends on just how much you're asking for."

Blackberry paused at that. He gave the man a look-over, before he found something that appeared to pique his interest. "You know what? That gold chain looks pretty nice." He stepped forward a bit. "Hand it over, and that should cover the tip."

"What the hell d'you need my bling for? You've already got your own!"

"True, but my girl Cathy needs a good present. Besides, it's not like with all this firepower you won't have another one by the end of the week."

Avian took a moment to look at the cargo already off the boat, the last of which was being unloaded onto the ground from the hovering dollies…but more than that, he looked up to see that the Surge Zeppelin was armed, and that many of its numerous turrets were currently active. Tough and numerous as the Hounds might have been, if those ended up being used for more than just show….

Cursing a bit, Avian reached for his necklace, snapped it off, and then threw it at Dick's feet. "Fine. Eat it, for all I care. Better be the last surprise for the night, though."

The necklace had landed in a shallow puddle from the heavy rain, and a tad had splashed up onto Dick's shoes, much to his annoyance; he was even more disgruntled that he had to step forward and stoop over in order to pick it up. "Nope, that's it; mobster's honor. Now, let's hurry this up, before a cop shows up or I catch a damn cold." He leaned up and turned to the men, giving them a motioning signal. "All right—let's move this stuff, already!"

The team immediately turned around with their unloaded dollies and reentered the freighter's cargo hold. A moment later, they emerged with even more goods than the first batch contained. That wasn't all, either; other men came out to help unload more of the crates from the airship.

As they continued to unload even more weapons than before, making Richard more than a little uncomfortable at the quantity of firearms, his Scanner picked up more conversation. This time, it was coming from one of Avian's cohorts, who was talking to Dick.

"So, your boys got a jump on the military by dressing up as the crew? Damn…but how'd you get the uniforms?"

"Why don't you ask them? They're the ones who paid for them!" Dick answered with a wide-toothed grin. "These are all actual military personnel. They owed the Don favors, so we're collecting some. Some of them have you could say…more incentive than others, though. Heh—it's quite the incentive when—"

"That's quite enough, Mister P," Mister Simpson interjected, his face calm but his voice rather sharp. "The less these men know of our trade secrets, the more at-ease the Don feels—especially since many of them have a history not only of being in jail often, but of being interrogated while there."

Dick paused and swallowed, clearly looking nervous for a moment, then quickly nodded. "Sorry about that, Mister S—just a little too revved up by how hardcore we are, you know?" Pausing a moment to compose himself, he suddenly turned to the Hounds and pointed at the munitions. "Anyway, stop chewing the fat, take your goods, and get out of here. Don't tell me you're getting hung up on buyer's remorse, either."

Avian watched as one of the latest crates wasn't just deposited, but broken open. It revealed a heavily-armed red-and-black Hover Jet. The gold chain was almost forgotten as Avian grinned from ear to ear at the sight. He looked back to Dick, and, seeing him cowed by his superior, took the opportunity to give a mock bow. "Sure thing, Mister Puss."

The new mobster looked up in anger at that, but the Midas Hounds merely chuckled as they turned and began to move towards the unloaded gear. Dick blustered for a moment, clearly upset at that, before snapping back to Mister Simpson: "See what I tell yah!? No respect, even when I have the power. I told you this codename was never going to work! Come on, Mister S—do I have to stick with 'Mister P'?"

Mister S just repositioned his shades before replying gruffly, "The Don gave you your name, Mister P; that's final."

The man who lured Dan and the others to what was intended to be their deaths grimaced before snapping back in a voice full of restrained anger. "But seriously, man—why do I have to stick with 'Mister P'? I don't even have a 'P' in my name! Come on, can't I be 'Mister X'? Even 'Mister B', or 'D', or...hell, even 'Mister-freaking-K' would be better!"

The bald mobster retorted, "Only the Don chooses the names of his agents—he doesn't want his men arguing over who's better suited for a name. Are you arguing with the Don's wisdom?"

Dick froze in place and gulped. "Not at all, man; I was just confused about the matter. I'm just saying, 'Mister P' isn't the most imposing name, if you get what I'm saying?"

"Then I suggest you make a reputation to back it up, so that it does convey fear and respect."

Dick paled and let out a swallow so loud that Richard could pick it up. As for Simpson, he finished pulling out what looked like some sort of transmitter, but he frowned on looking at it.

"The signal around here is always wretched…. I'm going to use the ship's transmitter to call and let the Don know that the deal went through on schedule. You, on the other hand, will ensure the buyers disperse with all the goods quickly enough to avoid any suspicion about why a freighter is taking so long to refuel on an unscheduled stop."

Dick immediately smiled and stood nearly at attention. "You can count on me, Mister S."

The veteran criminal promptly turned around to go back into the airship as he muttered, "I'd better be able to. Capisce?"

Simpson then walked back up the plank. As he reached the threshold, he began to try calling again, but kept walking, leaving only Dick, the Midas Hounds, and whoever the Diamond Don had coerced into helping with the deal.

After a moment, the new mobster turned back to the scene, trying his best to look important and flaunting whatever status he had gained for himself when and where he could by micro-managing the affair.

As he did so, Richard figured now was a pretty good time to strike—if there was any wild card in this bunch, it would be Mister Simpson: he wouldn't be so high up in the Don's pecking order if he couldn't protect himself. That ship they had brought in looked fairly well-armed, but, with the senior mobster out of the picture and the vessel not capable of anything even approaching Zandoris' spells, he knew this was as good as it was going to get.

He tapped his Codec and murmured into it, "All right—the Midas Hounds are relishing their new power, and the mobsters don't seem too on-guard. It's best to strike now, before they have a chance to load or learn how to use those weapons. Claire, is there anything noteworthy on the ship?"

"Nope—it's a normal Tornado-Class Surge Zeppelin; aside from being a warship and having all those lovely military security networks, nothing important. It's no challenge to hack, but that means squat unless I have direct access to its mainframe—all of its systems hook into it but are otherwise isolated, so without that I can't disable all the weapon systems."

"You're sure this is such a good idea?" Hector spoke up in a near-whine. "This may not be that nutcase from Costa Toro, but going out right into the gun barrels of a warship like that? We're going to be bloody skid marks!"

"Don't worry," Requiem answered confidently. "Even though the mob's managed to appropriate a Surge Zeppelin, they aren't going to be dumb enough to alert the military to it, and if they fire even a single heavy artillery round, a quarter of the district will hear it. Same as before—strike fast; get in and get out."

Two of the Midas Hounds were already circling a crate, hopping up and down almost like little kids at a birthday party. One was howling with delight, and the other was laughing wildly as he took a crowbar he had brought to the top and pried it open.

When they got the lid off, they froze in amazement for a moment, before their faces lit up even more than before. One of them reached in, and quickly yanked out a new model of AGX rapid-fire plasma assault rifle.

He immediately waved it around like a kid with a popgun, making shooting noises as he did so. This soon attracted the attention of the Hound who had carried the payment card for Avian, who quickly came over to look in on it himself.

"Let me see that!" he quickly said, advancing and literally seizing the weapon from his comrade. As his subordinate frowned and grabbed another one, the gangster grinned as he held it up and marveled at it. "Check out the blast radius on this thing! This is way better than those cop-used hand-me-downs…." He held it up, putting his head to the sight and looking out the scope. "With the Hammer Wolves gone and the Hydra Wyverns sitting quiet, ain't no one can touch us now!"

"Think again."

The man looked up a bit at that, only to hear an aborted cry behind him. He snapped back around…and saw only one of the two other gangsters was still there. That one also looked up at the uncompleted scream, and was just as stunned to see nobody —aggressor or comrade— there .

Both looked around for only a fraction of a second more before they spotted something through the heavy rain. For a moment they thought they saw what looked like a rubber limb, which wrapped around the second Midas Hound's head, pulling him away, and both arm and man vanished back into the night.

The remaining gangsters looked up in surprise. "The hell?" he called out. "Vinnie?"

No response came; just the darkness and the falling rain.

The card-carrier hefted his weapon and aimed it into the night, forgetting it wasn't yet loaded. "Hey!" he shouted. "Who's out there? Think you're so tough?" He shook the weapon. "You'd better release my bros if you don't—"

He didn't finish his threat. The rain overhead parted, revealing the silhouette of Requiem, red eyes blazing, as he seemed to practically materialize from the rain and fog. The Hound stopped short as he looked up in alarm, but was powerless to even look threatening as the armored man dove and smashed a fist into his face, instantly dropping him onto the wet ground and sending him sliding from the sheer force of the impact.

In spite of his shouting and the attack, the rain was so loud and the area so dark that none of the other gangsters or mobsters had noticed anything was wrong. Avian in particular wasn't noticing much of anything except his hoverbike; he too was nearly doing a dance around it as it was unpackaged and all of the plastic wrappings and foam inserts for the sensitive parts removed before one of the unloaders finally handed him the keys. He snatched them so fast that he nearly broke the man's finger.

"Aw, man…this almost makes it worth getting my old hovers impounded! No one in town is going to catch me on this without getting turned into a smear!" he said with a laugh. "Who needs a gold chain when I can knock over a bank with this!?"

A number of other Midas Hounds gathered about, eagerly looking at it as well. However, one of them turned and looked around. "Looks like Rowell and Vinnie are taking their sweet time packing those guns…."

"Ah, don't be jittery," Avian answered with a wave of his hand, still marveling over the hoverbike. "Our timing is rock-solid. You think any cop in this town is stupid enough to try a sting on the Diamond Don? Probably just bragging to their girls. You're so worried, go check on them!"

The gangster frowned a bit, but seemed to acquiesce to that; as Avian and the others continued to marvel over all of their new wonderful toys, the worried Midas Hound went back into the rain and started the dash over to the more distant crates, practically invisible in the rain and fog.

He nearly got out of sight before a monstrous fist attached to a hulk of a man lashed out, seized him by the throat in a crushing grip, and yanked him to one side, out of view. No one saw this attack either, and he was powerless to yell out as he disappeared. However, he managed to flail for a moment just long enough to kick an empty can, sending it flying across the pavement with a clatter as it tumbled over itself.

This finally got their attention. Both Avian and a few others looked up…only to see their fellow gangster missing…and not just him: it seemed their numbers had thinned out quite a bit, all of the sudden. Only about half the gangsters originally there were still visible, rain or no rain….

The mohawk-sporting man's face twisted. "What the hell…?"

"Hey! Pick up the pace, you mooks!" Dick suddenly shouted from underneath the cover of the airship. "What's keeping you from hauling this stuff out of here? You want to attract attention?"

Avian snapped his head back to him, immediately scowling. "What the hell is going on around here? Where are the rest of my boys?" He snapped back. His face twisted a moment later. "You ain't trying to sell us out too, are you?"

The mention of that incident instantly made Dick lose some of his composure, but he quickly put on the best face he could and looked innocent. "Hey, hey! Ease up! Think we want their attention either? We've paid off anyone who even might have a reason to be here!"

He looked around after saying that, and noted that Avian was telling the truth: there were indeed fewer of them than before. The rest of the Midas Hounds looked up and came to the same conclusion. A few shouted, but got no response. There was definitely something or someone out there, doing this….

"Hey, wise guy!" Dick finally shouted, trying his best to sound bold, and not being terribly successful—he took a step back as he did so. "You trying to cut in on a Mob deal? You must have a death wish! Get out here, you nosy pig!" He took another step back. "What—are you scared?"

Avian was far more direct. Immediately, he motioned for his remaining men to go to the crates. "Scared or not, he's a dead man. Between all this firepower, there ain't going to be enough of him left to fill a coffee cup!"

Quickly, the Midas Hounds went for ammunition as well as the new weapons. In a flurry, all of them began to load and ready the firearms. The darkness was still falling, and the rain was still going strong, but that didn't stop a team of three of them from raising their new guns and charging straight out, moving to the nearest large bunch of crates to search around it. On arriving and doing a quick walk-around, they found nothing, and moved on further into the darkness, to the next pile.

Those gathered up front just barely managed to see them go around the corner when near-invisible shapes came out and attacked. No one had a chance to fire; they barely heard their friends' cries of pain over the rain before the three fell and their limp bodies were dragged out of sight, vanishing along with the others. In spite of the bold words of their leaders, even the mobsters were growing nervous now: the Midas Hounds were down to less than half of their original number at this point.

In spite of his own anxiety, Dick managed to use his anger at the "cowardice" of the attackers to fuel him as he spoke boldly again. "All right…somebody must have a death wish out there! Think you can stop us?"

"I believe I've made that more than obvious." The cold, metallic voice echoed quite audibly through the area.

At once, everyone froze, from the sound of the voice alone: it sounded like nothing they knew, man, beast, or machine, and it seemed to resonate and echo everywhere as if the open space of the reservoir was an amphitheater. They only looked into the night a moment before lightning flashed, illuminating the area for just a moment. At once, both gangsters and mobsters alike gasped and recoiled.

In spite of everyone's constant searching, somehow Requiem's armored figure had instantly appeared crouched atop the nearest crate, easily close enough for them to see his red eyes glaring.

Requiem glared at them all for a long moment, noting their fear and letting it sink in; even the boldest ones couldn't help but show a little. To drive his point home, Richard devoted most of his burning gaze to the Midas Hounds' leader, Avian; even he began to back up upon seeing the figure staring at him like a hawk might a mouse. The mobsters and gangsters were completely tongue-tied—they didn't know what to say or do about their uninvited guest.

"What…what the hell is this?" Avian finally managed to stammer, not nearly as bold as before. "Is this a joke? Someone putting us on?"

"Oh, hell…" one of the gangsters muttered, his skin fading and his body starting to shake like a leaf. "Oh, man, I know that thing; word on the street is that the Hydra Wyverns have been lying low because a demon took most of them out…."

"G—g—give me a break!" Dick stammered the words out in a half-sneer, trying his best to look bold even though he seemed to be considering both the remaining Hounds and the mobsters for their potential as human shields. "You've got to be kidding me! You aren't all scared of a bunch of ghost stories, are you? You're supposed to be fighters! Besides, look how he's dressed—anyone looking like that has to be a nut!"

He clammed up soon after saying that: the rest of the Crimson Tengu Ravens had decided to emerge. They weren't quite as silent and mysterious as Requiem, but, as they stepped out of the shadows, they caused no small number of gasps from those gathered. The disguised prince pulled his sword out, leaving the portion of the blade not wrapped in black silk visible, in all its deadly and silver glory.

"You should pay more attention to your friend," Richard coldly retorted. "I indeed brought a pack of Hydra Wyverns to justice not long ago, and I am indeed a demon of vengeance. Allow me to introduce my brotherhood of shadows, the Crimson Tengu Ravens. We're here to collect for some unpaid, overdue sins…especially yours, Dick Blackberry Raszkowski."

All of those with Richard tensed up for battle; Avian and many of the others on his side, including some of the mobsters, hesitated. They turned and looked back to Dick; after all, he had clearly been called out specifically, even if he had been going by "Mister P". He continued to look nervous for a second or two longer, but it seemed as if he only had one response to this sort of situation: mask his fear with aggression.

Soon, his eyebrow began to twitch, and he reached into his blazer as fast as he could with both hands, fumbling for a moment before he recklessly yanked two different weapons out—a small plasma machine gun in one hand, and a short-barreled energy shotgun in the other.

"You got a thing for me!?" he shouted in the boldest tone he could muster, which mostly came off as wild. "I don't know how you found out my name, but you ain't stopping me! I'm just getting started!" In spite of making his bold claim, he didn't immediately open fire; instead, he shouted out around him. "What the hell is wrong with all of you—letting some guy in a costume make you turn yellow!? He's just a nut; shoot, already!"

There was no immediate response; everyone still waited for someone else to move first. The hesitation nearly cost Dick his own resolve before he quickly decided to open fire himself, shooting at Richard. At once, the young man channeled the Aura Edge spell into his blade, igniting it with a blue aura, and swept it up.

Richard didn't have to worry about blocking more than one shot—Dick had clearly picked weapons for the inaccurate user, but he was such a lousy shot it didn't seem to matter, especially given his hands' shaking in reaction to his hidden terror.

Dick began aiming more carefully, but again it didn't matter: Richard had meanwhile taken off in one of his leaps, which took him far outside the path of the shots and high into the air, all the way to the bottom of the airship's envelope.

Once there, he twisted around and lightly kicked off of it, launching himself back down again. A second later, he twisted back and landed right on the ground in a near-silent touchdown, not looking even slightly winded from the stunt. Most of the others gasped and recoiled even further, the ones nearest stepping as far away as their legs could reach.

"D—damn it…. Sh—shoot them!" Dick screamed, loud enough for his face to turn red.

Unfortunately for them, they hesitated again, and that was all the time needed for the Crimson Tengu Ravens to take off for their respective targets. Whatever few managed to get enough nerves and time to aim their weapons and fire were interrupted by the Ravens who had firearms of their own, who distracted and forced them to dodge long enough for the melee fighters to reach and drop them.

While they were able to put up a bit better fight than when they were being ambushed from the shadows, that wasn't saying much. They had suffered from the sneak attacks, and continued to suffer as they were rapidly and heavily struck by their attackers.

It didn't take long for Avian to realize that he didn't have a chance in a melee, especially against the larger bruisers. However, unlike Dick, who let his own fear drive him into a useless rage, he thought quickly.

"You punks think you can beat the Midas Hounds just because you got the jump on us?" he shouted in the boldest voice he could muster as he quickly backed up and mounted the hoverbike as fast as he could.

His hand came around with the key and fumbled for the ignition. It took quite a bit of struggle and some swearing about where it was located, but finally he got it in and fired up the engines. "I'll turn you all into roadkill before you know what hit you!"

Immediately he revved the hover cycle to create a threatening "roar", and then took off into the air. He didn't charge for or make an attack upon anyone immediately; first, he simply shot over the crowd, racing out to get some distance between him and the rest of the group.

Richard, seeing most of the opponents were "spoken for", ignored them and turned his scanner to Avian, realizing he was the deadliest opponent at the moment. Sure enough, as soon as he had gotten a good distance, he swept around as the dual plasma guns installed in the front of his Hover Jet popped out. The engine revved again, and soon he dove in, firing shots wildly into the crowd.

Luckily, the gangster didn't seem to have the sense to use the auto-targeting system, or simply didn't know how to properly use a piece of military equipment like this, and most of the fire was wild. Two purple spheres of plasma were coming towards Zach and Hector, though; Richard snapped into their paths and brandished his sword.

He had no time to properly deflect them back, but he still managed to smack them to the ground. Avian continued to howl as he shot past, screaming threats and boasts, but he had missed with his first window of opportunity to hit anyone, and needed a moment to turn the hoverbike for another pass.

At the same time, Richard saw one of the mobsters was taking to the weapons as well. This one had managed to fish out a bazooka and load it, and was taking aim right at him, obviously looking to take out the most deadly opponent.

Richard, however, wasn't worried as he eased off on the Aura Edge's intensity. He had managed to evade plasma shots; an old-fashioned, unguided rocket was no problem. Sure enough, the mobster fired, and the rocket-powered shot was more than slow enough for the young man to smack it away with a well-timed Zephyr Fist technique; it sailed to the right and made impact with an untaken hover bike. The gangster running to it in an attempt to join Avian suddenly screamed in pain and anger as it erupted in a fireball, shoving him back as well as disabling him.

Dick let out a curse at not only this but the whole of the situation continuing to unfold: even with Avian's arms advantage, the battle was far from even, let alone in his favor. A mobster ran up to Richard and aimed a gun point-blank at his head, but if the shot would have worked didn't matter: with one casual swing, the gun was in two pieces.

The self-proclaimed demon of vengeance followed it up with a kick a moment later, hitting the man hard enough to knock him all the way into the river at the foot of the reservoir. Dick's fear continued to escalate, but so did his anger as he realized his position and status were quickly being compromised—and by someone he didn't even know.

Quickly, he let one gun fall, revealing it was attached to his wrist by a strap, and brought his own wrist-mounted transmitter to his mouth. "What the hell is this guy? —Is he some secret agent? Come on in there—we need some air support! Slag the dude in the mask!"

In response, a rather loud groan began to come from overhead, causing both sides to pause and look to the source. To everyone's surprise, the cannon barrels mounted on the side of the Surge Zeppelin proved they weren't just idle threats as they began to rotate and shift to the tune of the generators inside of them warming up.

Not just the Crimson Tengu Ravens, but the Midas Hounds and the mobsters, gaped on seeing the warship coming to life—after all, these were artillery shells; if they fired those, especially at this close a range, there was definitely a large chance —maybe even a guarantee— that they would hit their own men as well. Richard actually thought it was a bluff for a moment, especially since they didn't immediately all fire at once.

Dick continued to yell louder and louder into his transmitter, seemingly furious they weren't shooting, and in response one of the barrels suddenly snapped back. A thunderclap that nearly deafened both sides cracked through the air as two crates and the ground surrounding them were instantly annihilated in a red-hot plasma blast.

Dan had been nearest, and, to Richard's amazement, had somehow reacted fast enough to leap back before the resulting plasma blast could incinerate his legs, before everyone else recoiled and gaped in shock as they were slapped with debris and smoke created by the blast, some of that debris so hot that it had melted.

Hector coughed and waved in front of his face as the echo boomed out to the city. "Yeah, 'they're not big on letting the city in on this'…" he sarcastically groaned.

"What the hell are we supposed to do against a damn warship!?" Tony shouted back as the rain quickly cleared the remainder of the smoke.

"Quit griping like a bunch of third graders!" Troy snapped back as he advanced. "They're just wusses hiding behind some fancy weapons! Real men don't need to hide behind fancy tech to get the job done! It's like Requiem said: they've barely gotten their hands on their new gear, and as long as we keep the pressure on them they won't even have time to learn how to turn them on!"

Troy immediately bellowed his Titan Force technique, and the rain seemed to bend slightly around him as his muscles surged and his height increased. He stood his ground while everyone else backed off, causing the next barrel of the active turret to aim at him. Richard was thankful whoever it was controlling the guns was still hesitating, as he didn't think they could survive a whole Surge Zeppelin's onslaught at once.

When that next one did fire, Troy saw it coming. The barrel barely began to shift before he quickly leapt to one side, so that the next crater blasted into the pavement hurt nobody.

Not wasting any time, Troy spun to the nearest untouched crate, seized it, whirled around, and snapped it at the turret that had fired. In spite of it being well-armored, the object was thrown so hard that upon impact the entire dome formed by the cannons and their systems caved in with a deafening noise, followed by smaller sputters and snaps from the feedback of the plasma generators.

The colossal male gave a laugh as he strode over to and backhanded a Midas Hound still stunned by what they had just witnessed, knocking them to join the mobster in the reservoir. A change came over Dick at this point. His anger abated again, and was replaced by raw fear—yet not at the power he had just seen. He was familiar with the Titan Force technique that Troy had used back in their Hammer Wolves days, and he was seeing it again right now, with someone laughing just like him….

Quickly, he yanked the transmitter up to his mouth and spoke frantically. "I want these bastards dead now, do you hear me!? Dead! Bring out the Jaeger Cogs! Anything! Everything!"

A loud buzzer went off a moment later, again redirecting everyone's attention. This time, it was to one of the unopened crates, which popped itself open a moment later. Richard gave another grimace as he saw two separate spider-like metallic drones crawl out of them, their eyes glowing red as they activated. Richard wasn't such a weapons expert as to know what all types of Jaeger Cogs were like; all he knew about these two was that they were each the size of a hovercar and that they were clearly inferior to Garou-types in speed, though he was betting they were going to make up for it in durability.

They seemed to readily recognize both the nearest and strongest enemies; the one nearest Richard immediately whirled its red eyes to him, before springing off the ground and into the air. While still going up, it swiveled around, attaching itself to the bottom of the airship's envelope.

It had some sort of ability that allowed it to attach itself to the metal sheathing, because it stuck to that one like glue, and instantly deployed a pair of plasma cannons similar to those that the Garou-types had. Richard quickly snapped his blade up and focused his Aura Edge again, once more lighting his sword up. A moment later, he took off for it.

He gave an easy target as a result; the plasma cannons soon fired right into his path. Luckily, that was exactly what he had been hoping for: an easy-to-predict shot. Auro Solais swung out and deflected both away, wide and far from him. A second later, he kicked off the ground and launched himself into the air, right at it. He was betting the machine wasn't expecting his agility and speed, and pointed his blade forward to run it through.

Then, to his surprise, a third cannon emerged between the other two. Rather than having the edge, he soon found that he was helpless to dodge due to his midair state as the weapon fired at him.

The only move he could make was quickly crossing his sword in front of him to guard and hopefully break through, only to find it wasn't plasma or explosive at all, but some sort of grayish, sticky goo.

On making contact with the blade, in spite of its magic-enhanced edge, it burst and gummed up the entire weapon with thick, sticky material, before the rest of it erupted and flooded over his upper torso, in particular his arms.

Richard suddenly found his arms and weapon engulfed in a thick adhesive. He vaguely remembered hearing something about a non-lethal weapon that acted similar to sticky paste, and he supposed he'd found it, as both the weight of the material plus the adhesive qualities weighed down his sword and glued his arms to his sides. He got a second surprise soon after, as he began to descend back to the ground, when his fall was sharply halted in mid-air.

Blinking in astonishment, he looked up and saw the goo was suspended from the barrel: the Cog had him on a line. Before he could react further, it suddenly retracted it, and with a violent snap his body was flung forward to the machine and seized by the front pincers.

He only had a moment to feel pain as he felt it seize him with a crushing grip, before it snapped its arms back down and threw him to the ground. While Greymont absorbed the bulk of the blow, he still gave a minor cry as his body slammed against the pavement. He gritted his teeth and grunted as he struggled to break the bonds, to no avail. Not only that, but the Jaeger Cog was beginning to retract its goo again….

"Ha! I knew it!" Dick shouted in sudden triumph. "I knew you were a hack! Now kill him; kill him, already!"

Richard scowled beneath the mask as he was reeled upward. There was no way for him to break out of this; all of his magical techniques depended on his arms, and he couldn't use his legs on anything when suspended in midair. As he neared the machine again, he started to wonder how he could get out of this…

…and then got his answer. Another Jaeger Cog, this one a Garou-type, suddenly leapt out from the darkness with its plasma cannons already deployed and blazing. Richard snapped his head to it as soon as it appeared, recognizing the markings as those of Alphonse.

The enemy Cog, in turn, seemed to be armored well enough not to immediately fall to just a few shots, but in trying to evade a critical hit, it was unbalanced and stunned; that gave Alphonse more than enough time to dash forward, collapse its cannons, extend its blades, and then leapt up right its target. With one slash, it cut through part of the sensor array.

Richard's mechanical captor reared back and spasmed, losing its target altogether; as for Alphonse, the moment it landed from the first slash, it followed up with a second, severing the goo line this time. Richard felt vertigo again as he was suddenly released and dropped to the ground. It was a rough impact, but with his legs free, he ignored the pain and quickly rose to his feet.

Before he even had a moment to catch his breath, Alphonse landed again and quickly ran to him. Richard didn't even have time to ask what the robot was doing before it deployed a microlaser from its head region and fired a beam at him.

With the speed it acted at, and without having received any warning, he almost feared being sliced up by it, but the machine was as accurate as a surgeon, quickly moving over the web lines to free Auro Solais, his arms, and removing the larger clumps of gunk weighing him down. Richard was honestly stunned at how fast it worked.

"The Gohma Jaeger Cog is in my database," Alphonse said in a monotone as he worked. "Its primary directive is immobilization of targets using its various armaments. The bulk of their control systems are in the center of their abdomens."

"Suppose I should have expected a spider-type drone to act like one…" Richard muttered as he flexed his free arms and glanced up, seeing the Gohma scaling up the side of the airship as it struggled to recalibrate its sensors. "Think you can provide some cover for me?"

The machine didn't answer verbally; instead, the blades retracted and the plasma cannons came out again, before it unleashed a volley in the direction the Gohma was trying to climb, forcing it to change directions.

"I'll take that as a yes," Richard muttered before he took off again, sending a command to Greymont to prepare himself to extend wall-climbing spikes from his boots again. A moment later, he took off in another bound, but not for the enemy Jaeger Cog this time; instead, he launched himself right at the side of the airship, swinging his legs out to meet it.

Immediately after landing he began to dash —perpendicular to the ground— the rest of the way to the machine. He shifted his sword to one hand, and swung out his other at the metal sheathing as he travelled along it, chanting and using his wand to cast another Metal Morph….

The Gohma suddenly oriented its head at him, indicating its sensors had finally compensated, but it didn't have a chance to prepare any type of offense before the spell took effect. The metal beneath the machine suddenly groaned, and then morphed into a pillar which snapped out like a springboard.

The machine was instantly flipped off of the airship's envelope and into the air, spiraling over itself. Knowing it couldn't reorient itself to target him midair, Richard flew off of the side of the ship himself, again pointing his sword forward and renewing the Aura Edge for another thrust.

This time, the machine didn't have a chance to even spot him before he was on it, driving the mana-wrapped blade into the center of its belly. Richard immediately heard the insides being fried by the energy and its systems begin to go haywire and sputter, and before it had a chance to explode he snapped one foot out and kicked off of it, knocking it clear off of his sword and far and away into the pouring rain.

As he himself descended to the ground and made an easy landing, the Gohma smashed into the ground a distance away and created a fireball; any parts that hadn't been smashed or fried were incinerated.

Rising back into his fighting stance, Richard turned and looked back to Dick, whose boldness had once more evaporated; the junior mobster couldn't even pretend to look angry now. Raszkowski stared in dumbfounded shock for a moment or two, ignoring the cries of his lackeys and the Midas Hounds as they were beaten to a pulp. Finally, he found enough voice and strength to speak.

"Hold the fort, boys; I—I think we need the big guns. Yeah, I don't know what's holding Mister S up, but I'm going to go get him. I'll be back in a jiffy to bring out the hurt!"

He then turned around and ran back into the ship as fast as he could.

With Avian airborne, Dan had wanted nothing more than to whip out a Turbo Knuckle and show the Hounds' leader exactly how little extra help the new toy would give over the civilian hoverbikes they used to run around with, but had forced himself to hold back until now, sticking to conventional flesh and bone. He knew as soon as he started showing his own magic it would be obvious who it was beneath his Raven mask, and he didn't want to spook Dick into running for it early.

That had changed now, though; Dickberry was running for it anyways.

Dan had just finished smashing his latest opponent's face in when he saw the tails of Dickberry's flamboyant coat vanishing into the entryway. His fists promptly clenched so tightly that his nails dug into his palm.

"Troy, you and the boys handle this!" he shouted. "Dick, no matter how you try to worm out of the hole you dug, it's payback time!"

His large pal quickly gave his approval. "I'd rather snap his spine myself, but so long as you grind his skull into gravel, you can have him, Nicholson!" the hulk shouted back as he hoisted another crate, snapping it off at another turret before it could warm up and start firing. "We'll trash these chumps!"

As there was no more reason to hold back his magic, Dan quickly chanted his Elastic Fist spell, then swung his arm out for the side of the open hatch Dick had just went through. His arm immediately extended across the distance, nearly a hundred feet, to seize the side with his extended fingers. Holding tightly onto the doorframe, he then let the elastic limb snatch him off his feet and onto the gangplank.

One mobster near the doorway had managed to get one of the plasma machine guns, and tried to open fire, but it took Dan only an instant to shift his other arm into a Shield Arm. He intercepted the shots with ease as, without breaking momentum, he flew to the entrance. He didn't even slow down when he smashed the gangster in the side of the head with the metal appendage, sending him spilling over the side, as he landed just inside the ship.

Luckily, Dick was neither fast nor clever enough to think of a good escape route in a strange ship; Dan immediately spotted him again, tearing down the nearest metal stairwell. He almost smiled on seeing the sign overhead that said where it led: the engine room. There would be no exits for him to in that direction.

Quickly, Dan dashed after Dick, not only running faster than him but making a lot less noise, and what little noise his passage made was easily hidden by the sounds of the fight outside and the engines humming.

In an instant, Dan was at the stairwell himself. Not bothering to take the steps down, he vaulted right over the edge and dropped down to the bottom level, smacking down on the lower deck. His eyes immediately twitched to one side—and there was his quarry.

Even that short run seemed to have tired Dick out; all the bling he was wearing probably didn't help, weighing him down as it was. He was hunched against a wall, catching his breath, when he heard Dan's arrival, and he looked up in alarm. In a flash, he grabbed his weapons and aimed them up at the intruder.

"You're going to be sorry for messing with me, you damn punk!" he snapped angrily, his boldness back now that he thought he was out of Requiem's reach. "You've gone a long way from your leash, you damn mutt, and while I don't know who you are, you're asking for a world of hurt!"

Dan didn't look the least bit threatened. He simply grinned as he pushed himself to his feet.

"Forget me already, Dickberry?" he hissed, using his foe's old teasing-name. "That almost hurts…."

Dan brought a hand up and yanked off his mask. He only smiled wider as he saw the color drain from Dick's face, making the mobster look almost like a corpse. Dick seemed to forget about the guns altogether as he stared, open-mouthed. A moment later, shaking again, this time far worse than he had before Requiem, he took a step back.

"D—D—Dan…. How the he…. How…. You…you're not…. You're supposed to be—"

"Dead?" Dan cut him off, cracking his neck and beginning to advance. "Fried? Locked away in a hellhole? Turned into a nice science project? It seems luck was on our side; most of us got away from that. Of course, not all of us—something I definitely haven't forgotten…."

His knuckles tightened, audibly popping.

"Thought you 'outgrew' us, Raszkowski? Thought we were taking a 'dirt nap'? Look at you, acting like a big shot, thinking you're real classy with your new mob buddies. Are you happy with where and what you are now, Dick? You'd better be, because that blood money is going to cost you!

"N—now…hold on…hold on!" Dick whined, throwing his hands up defensively, letting the guns again fall onto their straps around his wrists. "Calm down—j-j-just calm down, Nicholson! This is all just a big misunderstanding, see? I…I don't know…what that Requiem freak told you, but it's wrong! It's all wrong—"

He was cut off as Dan's fist turned to metal and swung around, smashing into a pipe so hard that it dented it in, causing steam to leak out. His eyes were filled with fury.

"How stupid do you think I am, you little rat!? You think, even if I didn't know about you selling us out to the cops and joining these mobsters, that I'm deaf!? That I didn't hear you bragging about all your little 'side deals' crap a couple minutes ago!?"

"Hey, hey!" Dick cried, beginning to look frantic and shrinking before him. "It's not like that! The mob noticed me—noticed how good I was at arranging stuff! They gave me an offer I couldn't refuse! You all could have been in on it; I told you that you could! But you didn't want to! You wanted us all to stay nobodies; you never wanted to be a big-time player! Small fish always get eaten by the big sharks, sooner or later; it was only a matter of time, man! I only tried to see that things ended in the best way possible!"

"For who? For you!?" Dan snapped back. "You mean for you, right!? Maybe we were no millionaires, but we had a good thing going! I've seen what happens when people dream too big and it comes crashing down too many times, man; sometimes it's better to just make use of what you've got. We had what we needed, and I thought that was enough—but clearly you were too spineless to speak your mind, eh?

"We could've been having good times right now, if you weren't a greedy rat! Mix words all you like, but, when it comes down to it, you were just an ungrateful backstabber who sold out his friends to fool himself into thinking he was going to be a 'big-time player'!"

Surprisingly enough, Dick lost a bit of his fear at this. His own face turned angry again.

"No! I moved on, man! All you ever wanted to do was the same thing over and over again! Same damn bars, same damn pizza, and same damn brawls! Fighting for the same couple blocks that we'd lose the next week again because you never looked at the big picture!

"I wasn't going to spend the rest of my life chained to some two-bit brawler happy watching Electro Ball games on a broken monitor in some dive that never even bothered changing its damn lights!" He shook his head. "You know, Cathy was right about you all along—you wanted me to risk getting my head bashed in every other night for a bucket of weak beers for the rest of my life. Excuse me for wanting a little more out of life!"

"So, after everything we'd been through, one day you were suddenly too good for us? Is that it?" Dan snapped back, his anger only rising.

"I wasn't going to throw my future away for grade-school nostalgia! I spent my whole life seeing how things worked! I'm out to get bigger! I'm going to own this town, one day! And what about you? What about your so-called future with your new 'boss'? Are you just going to spend your time punching shoplifters and purse snatchers until you're an old-timer!?

"I don't know what your new boss' real plan is, but if you really think you're an 'agent of justice' or whatever, you're even dumber than I ever thought! I thought you knew how things work, man: greed conquers all! Even the great King Andross just goes through the motions to appease all the moaning beggars! Power is justice, and those who seize power for themselves are the ones that win it all!"

Dan slowly got into a fighting stance. "You're even fuller of yourself than I thought, Dickberry. You think you're strong, now that you're with 'professional' thugs that gave you some toys? Got it wrong, man; you're the same gutless rat you've always been!

"You know, over the years I bailed you out of a lot of crap you brought on yourself, because, despite how you could be a weasel at times, I thought you could be counted on. Tch—trusting you was one of the biggest mistakes in my life, and people are dead over it.

"You asked if I believe in Requiem. To be honest, I'm not sure if he knows what he's doing—but his heart is in the right place. It's because of him that me and most of the others aren't dead by now, so I owe it to him to give the Crimson Tengu Ravens a chance. Besides, when it comes down to it, I don't care about his end game—he got me a shot at paying you back, and that's good enough for me!"

The bearded man swore, his panic returning, as he staggered back and fumbled for his shotgun. "All you're doing is starting a fight you'll never be able to win! I may not have ever been able to beat you in a fistfight, but this ain't no backyard tussle; I've got the odds and the power on my side! No way you can win now; no goddamned way!"

Veins were becoming apparent on Dan's forehead; his eyes widened as he yelled out, "You wish! If you thought I'd run away just because it was safer, then, even after all the years you knew me and were one of the Hammer Wolves, you don't know a damn thing about what me and my gang stood for!

"A real man doesn't run away with his tail between his legs—especially from things he isn't afraid of! Before I pound your head so hard that I break it, I'm going to show you what real strength is, Dickberry!"

Dick, a wild look in his eyes, immediately pulled the trigger, hoping to catch Dan off-guard. It did no good, though—the barrel was too long, and Dan simply moved closer and to one side of the barrel, letting the spread of particle pellets hit nothing.

Dickberry quickly tried to back up farther, simultaneously bringing up his other gun to shoot Dan, but Dan was already moving. In an instant, his metal arm had expanded into the full Shield Arm, and Dick's burst of plasma fire only hit the metal limb.

From this range, even that couldn't protect Dan completely, but the pain only drove him to lunge forward farther and harder as he morphed his other arm into a full-sized Turbo Knuckle piston. He hid it behind his Shield Arm, to avoid letting his opponent know what he was prepping, and quickly dodged to the side with the shotgun.

Dick wasn't fooled, and quickly tried to dash the same way to evade it, but didn't watch his footing. One of his feet promptly hooked on a cable, and with a cry he suddenly flailed and spilled forward, leaving himself wide open.

Dan could have taken his head off with one punch from his Turbo Knuckle, but he purposely only rolled back the piston a little: he wanted this man to suffer long and hard before he finished him off, even if Requiem hadn't forbidden a killing blow before interrogation. Thinking of those gunned down in the garage, he slammed the piston forward and dispatched it into the right half of Dick's jaw.

It was as if a bomb had been set off on his face; Dan caught a glimpse of the force making the skin on the man's head ripple just before Dickberry was launched across the room. If the mobster had intended to scream in pain, it didn't matter, given how hard his jaw had been slammed shut.

He landed near the end of the corridor a moment later, but before he did three of his teeth landed at Dan's feet. Dan had to give Dick credit for at least having durability, because his foe was not only still conscious after that, but was able to move, even if only to squirm and moan.

From just taking one hit, the whole right side of Dick's face was swollen and bloody, both because of a gash from the metal knuckles as well as the holes in his mouth from where three of his teeth once sat; that was why Dan usually tried not to use this against human beings.

Of course, all he saw before him right now was a weasel.

"Thought you knew how to take one of my punches?" Dan spat to one side as he advanced again. "That was barely a love tap!"

Dick coughed, a large splatter of blood falling on the ground as a result. He managed to somehow get his hands underneath him and push himself up, then quickly scrambled back even further, seeing Dan approaching. "Th—th—think about what you're doing, Nicholson! It doesn't have to go down like this! You can still get a big prize if you play it cool!"

Dan curled his fist tightly, and, as he walked over to resume his pounding session, he retorted coldly, "Guess I hit you harder than I thought—because even you wouldn't be stupid enough to think I trust the word of a liar!"

Dick swallowed. "Hey…. Hey, it wasn't as simple as you thought! I didn't want to see you get killed—I thought you'd all just be put in the slammer for a bit! Get a chance to think things over!" He coughed. "Dan, you…don't turn down the Mob when they make you an offer you can't refuse! They would've iced me!"

Dan grinned bitterly. "Man, that was, what, three different excuses in less than a minute? Well, maybe you should've trusted your friends, not sold them out the first chance you got, and not been a greedy, delusional jackass!"

Dick whimpered and tried to keep sliding back, but he had hit the rear of the corridor. He spun around, saw he had nowhere else to go, and turned back towards Dan. He looked for his guns, but their straps had been snapped by the Turbo Knuckle blow; Dan was walking past them. He whimpered again as he spun back away from Dan again. "You…you don't know what it's like when the mob is putting pressure on you. I only had one option; I had to take it. You can…you can call me whatever you want…"

Dan was nearly upon Dickberry at this point. He snapped his shield arm away, seeing no need for it, and retracted his piston back into a fist as well. Dick swallowed.

"I don't care…" As the former gang leader reached him, he saw a flash of metal, as Dick suddenly spun around and used what little bearings he had left to lunge to his feet and right at Dan, his face suddenly murderous. "…and I ain't gonna let you stop me from getting to the top of this world!"

Dick's right fist, now bearing a knife, shot straight for Dan's heart. Without any hesitation or strain, Dan's own hand shot out and seized the blade-bearing wrist. Dick continued to push for a moment, but didn't get even a millimeter closer. His eyes widened in further shock, which quickly melted to horror as he realized Dan had his arm trapped. He looked into his former leader's eyes, only to see them narrow.

"You think after I let you stab me in the back I wasn't going to be ready for you stabbing me in the front? I'm sick of your ego-stroking, Dick! You've conned yourself into thinking you're this 'slick player', but you're really just a rat who can't win if the other person sees him coming! Enough is enough; it's time for one hell of a wake-up call!"

Dick desperately grabbed his trapped arm with his free one and tried to push his blade closer to Dan's chest. Dan easily held the knife at bay with one arm as he swung his other up, around, and down on Dick's hands, at which point his other arm released its grip, allowing them to swing down and drive the knife's tip right into the mobster's knee.

The corridor echoed with the sounds of Dick's high-pitched wail as he arched back and away from Dan, screaming in pain and blood flowing into the lower half of his pants leg on that side. Dan released him, allowing him to retreat. Hot tears and sweat were now flowing into his face wounds, and he clutched the knife in his leg tightly with one hand. After a moment, he looked to his foe and held up his hand.

"Stay…stay away from me! I…I…I know some hardcore spells I never told you about! I'll blast—"

He was silenced by Dan, who snapped an arm out and seized him by the throat in a crushing grip. Eyes still full of fury, Dan swung his other arm back. As he felt Dick squirm like a worm on a hook in his free hand, his arm again morphed back into a piston….

This time, though, it wasn't quite the same spell Requiem knew of; again, the multiple pistons popped out of his elbow joint, but this time Dan's hand itself disconnected slightly from the bulk of his arm and made a sizzling sound before suddenly bursting into flame. Dick gagged, and would have screamed in horror if it had been an option.

"You want a 'hardcore' spell? Goddamn it—to think everything got so messed up just because I couldn't see how much of a petty opportunist you really were! Combustion Knuckle!"

The pistons began to oscillate in Dan's elbow joint again, making the fist go in and out like a jackhammer, but only very slowly this time. Using mostly his own strength, he snapped his arm back and drove it forward, burying it hard and deep into Dick's gut. The man struggled to scream, but was unable to from within the crushing grip.

"Cody…"

Dan smashed inward again.

"…Jim…"

He beat two more times in rapid succession. "…Zach and Jess, who nearly got turned into lab rats at Rycroft because of you…"

He smashed two last times, making sure to dig in enough to hear ribs snapping this time. "…and Eloy and Rocky, trying to rebound from the damn mess you made! How's it feel to know how helpless they felt, you spineless sack of crap!?"

He snapped his hand on his throat away, giving Dick a half a second to gag for air, before swinging his flaming fist down and up, smashing Dickberry's jaw in another uppercut. The man was ripped straight off of his feet and into the air, and Dan used the moment to shoot forward, underneath his flailing body, and to the other side. As soon as Dick started to fall, Dan discharged the flaming arm arm one last time, this time smashing Dick in the back of the head.

Dick was launched back through the same corridor he had been smashed down a moment earlier, this time sailing all the way into the stairwell and falling down another level. A moment later, Dan heard the sound of a limp body's impact against something hard and metallic-sounding; based on the sounds of electricity arcing and further cries of pain, he reasoned he had knocked Dick into something.

His anger not diminished at all, Dan quickly turned and trotted to the stairwell himself, pausing only to look down. Laying in a heap before a sparking, smoking computer terminal matted with blood, which had apparently been wrecked by his impact against it, was Dickberry. By now, his oily black hair was covered with at least as much blood as the terminal, and he was clutching his right eye in spite of the pain his face had to be in.

As he writhed and tried to peel himself off the ground again, blood oozed between the fingers on his face: it seemed as if some debris from the screen had either punctured his eyeball or lodged in it. The rest of his body was a mess; whatever hadn't been beaten and broken from the assault was burned from the fire Dan had tied into it—his clothing was smoldering in places, and the skin underneath those spots were roasted.

As Dan reached the bottom step, he vaulted over the railing and landed right next to Dick. Whatever pain the traitor was in seemed to be overridden by his fear: still covering his eye, Dick snapped to Dan in shock before he desperately tried to scramble back, pleading Dan to stay back.

"What's the matter, bro?" Dan sneered. "Big shot like you scared of some two-bit mutt like me?"

"You won, you won, Dan!" Dickberry said, desperately holding up his free hand in defense. "L…look at me! I got nothing left! You wouldn't kill an unarmed dude, would you?" He swallowed. "Come on, Dan…just…just cut me a break…for old time's sake…."

"Oh, I'll break something…" Dan growled as he began to bring back his fist, letting it become metal again. Crying out in terror, Dick curled up and held up his one remaining hand, cringing into a ball. He had nothing else left he could do. For a moment, the former Hammer Wolf hesitated; Dan remembered what Requiem had said —how they needed to grill him— but it'd be so easy to just snap that little neck right now….

As it turned out, his hesitation was well-timed: it gave him a moment to hear the micro-plasma generator heating up —one like those used in guns— at his side. Quickly, Dan snapped away and darted for cover, but whoever was aiming at him was already pulling the trigger. He managed to twist his body around and snap away, but a shot still streaked out, and, as fast as he moved, he still felt heat graze his right knee.

In spite of how tough he was, and how much anger was driving him, Dan cried out in pain. The air in the plasma round's path became dangerously hot as it was pushed aside, and that heat rapidly traveled into and under his skin, cooking the ligaments and kneecap; even with just a graze, he was suddenly barely able to limp with that leg, and his attempt to dart out of the line of fire ended with him falling flat on the floor face-first instead.

He quickly snapped his head back up to locate the source, and found a laser targeting reticule aimed right between his eyes. He went still at that, not trying anything; after all, if whoever was aiming had wanted him dead outright, they would have already squeezed the trigger. Instead, he looked at the man who had him in their sights.

Standing in a side corridor was the "Mister S" from up above. He didn't look too terribly upset about the turn of events—neither what was going on outside nor the beating that Dick had just taken. Perfectly even and calm, he held a plasma pistol up and aimed right at the former gangster. Dick himself looked up to him a moment later, and relief quickly flooded over him. His former enthusiasm began to return, seeing that he now had another mobster backing him.

"Regardless of your history with Mister P, I can't let you terminate someone still useful to my superior's business operations."

In spite of the pain in his knee, the heat of which seemed to be radiating up and down his leg, Dan managed a weak grin. "'Mister P'? That's your new nickname, Dickberry?" He chuckled. "Good change—great for Mister Patsy; Mister Punching Bag; Mister Push—"

"I can see you gave my associate quite the pulverization," Mister S said, talking over him while idly looking at Dick, who by now was getting his anger back at the chain of insults. "It's too bad for him that it took me so long; I had to handle a man having second thoughts.

"I honestly had hoped he could keep things together…but no matter." He looked back to Dan. "I've already put one man's tongue in a vice today. I can do another."

Dan managed a snicker. "I'd hate to be so much trouble…."

The mobster looked unaffected. "It's clear you have drive, kid. If you're willing to show a little class, you'd make a decent enforcer."

"Yeah, that's Mister Simpson for you; always looking for a talent…." Dick croaked, trying to sound confident and cool again, which wasn't easy, considering how badly messed up he was. "You should listen to the man, Nicholson. Only way the night'll end good for…for…."

He coughed, spitting up more blood, and visibly wincing as he irritated his own internal injuries.

"And you should know when to keep your mouth shut, Mister P," the gangster said dismissively. "Your lips have a nasty habit of being too loose."

Dan knew he couldn't get good leverage on the injured leg anymore, but the fact he had been given some time was all he needed; one of his arms was still metal, after all…

"What'll it be, kid?"

Dan cracked his neck slightly. "How about, you take your offer and shove it? I only beat up guys who've got it coming, kinda like you."

Immediately, he snapped to his feet, shifting most of the weight to his good leg, and barreled at the man. Naturally, he opened fire the second he saw him make a move, but Dan was faster.

He had bet on Mister S not having been around when he used his Shield Arm before, and it seemed his bet was on the money, as the mobster ineffectively fired upon the metal limb as Dan swept it in front of himself. Keeping it up before him, he let it take three more shots as he closed in on the larger opponent, cocking back his hand to deliver a blow as soon as he was in range.

But, unfortunately, he didn't account for the bad knee as well as he'd thought: the pain was too great, and it ruined his leverage. It slowed down the punch considerably, allowing Mister S to swing back and let the hook strike only air.

Cursing a bit mentally, Dan quickly leaned back on his good leg, made the other as rigid as he could, and swung out with a kick next. While it might have not been his best blow, it still connected with the plasma pistol and knocked the weapon clear out of his new opponent's hands.

Mister S looked slightly surprised at the move, so Dan quickly shifted his Shield Arm technique away, morphing his hand back to a lighter metal. He quickly used this arm with his good leg for leverage, and moved to slug him across the face.

Much to his surprise, the man snapped out his hand and caught it right in his palm. Dan's eyes visibly widened: he had taken on guys nearly twice the size of Mister S on the street, but he had never seen what had just happened: his opponent catching his fist and holding solid, only giving the tiniest quiver of strain. A moment later, Mister S snapped his other fist out, aiming for Dan's side, who quickly lashed out with his own palm and caught it.

The two were locked, and both of their bodies went rigid as they pushed into each other, both blocking and pushing forward at the same time. Mister Simpson's face remained calm; Dan couldn't tell if he was just the type who stayed calm…or because this wasn't hard for him.

"You and your boss should know not to wander around where you don't belong," the mobster coldly said, not even his voice shaking.

Dan merely grinned back, looking wild as he tried to mask the pain in his knee. "Save the threats, baldy; I've tangled with a lot stronger guys than you and come out on top! You may be good, but you're not good enough!"

Mister S stared back silently a second or two longer, before his face finally changed: it broke into a slight smile.

"Funny—that's what I was going to say. You're not green at all, but I'm just getting warmed up. I see you've got some tricks; time I show you a few of my own. Here's one I use to cut egos down to size—along with their owners!"

Immediately, the man snapped one fist away from Dan, tearing it out of the Raven's grip. The former gangster looked at this in some alarm, and saw the entire limb abruptly glow red. He heard fabric shredding as the entire sleeve got cut to ribbons—the end result of dozens of small metal blades popping out from inside and rapidly orbiting his limb.

Dan gazed fearfully at the result: it wasn't a gauntlet, or a sword, or even a piston-arm like he used, but a many-toothed, razor-sharp, and cruel-looking chainsaw. With a loud buzz, it immediately revved to full speed, and a moment later Mister S darted in, swinging the chainsaw right for Dan's stomach. When he tried to yank back, he realized his other hand was still tethered to his foe's, and, in spite of his efforts, the spinning blades still managed to tag his side and rake into his belly.

Overwhelming pain slammed Dan as he felt the weapon rend his skin and some of the muscles below, and he could feel his own blood and a few bits of skin rising up and slapping his face. Immediately, his strength failed; all he could do was scream and yank himself back. He wasn't sure if he broke free of Mister S' grip, or if the mobster just let him go, but he staggered back as blood freely flowed from the wound.

It wasn't squirting, so no major arteries had been hit —probably— but that was little comfort, as his entire side was soaked with blood within a moment. The pain was so unbearable that Dan didn't even slap his hand over the wound, fearing it would drive him into more agony. It wasn't deep enough to be overwhelmingly serious, but he could barely stand from the intense pain. All the dodge meant was that he wouldn't die quickly.

As Dan finally forced himself to put pressure on the wound, Dick looked up, his boldness still swelling now that he had someone backing him up, and snorted. "Serves you right!"

Mister S ignored his rescued comrade, although he was still grinning. He revved the chainsaw a bit. "What'll it be, kid?" he repeated as he raised the spinning weapon over his head. "Want to be cut up a piece at a time to feed the fish, or your head lopped off so the Don can mail it as a warning to your buddies?"

"How about 'C: go screw yourself'?" Dan hissed between clenched teeth.

The answer Dan received was Mister S lashing out and kicking him sharp and hard in the gut. He didn't hit Dan directly in the wound, and he didn't have to; just hitting nearby agitated the wound further, causing Dan to give another cry and fall to the ground.

The chainsaw revved as the mobster began to bring it over to the former gangster's neck. "Head it is. You made your play, but it's clear who's got the stronger—"

A metal-clad foot smashed Mister S in the face, knocking him back, clear off his feet, and onto his back. He quickly cut off the chainsaw before the blade could fall on and cut into him, but still went flat and lay there an instant before he began to wrestle to his feet.

Dan, still clenching his own teeth from the fresh pain, turned his head to one side, following the metal foot to its source and seeing it was attached to Requiem. In spite of the fact he had just had his life saved, he couldn't help but feel a touch of irritation as he saw the masked man lower his foot back to the floor: it seemed he had a nasty habit of needing Requiem to come to his rescue….

"Requiem…what the hell you doing here…?" he managed to spit out. "What's going on outside…?"

"The second Gohma Jaeger Cog is down," he answered, not taking his eyes off of Mister S as he reached to his side. "I was about to move on to the Hound on the hover-bike when I saw you were missing; I figured you had followed Blackberry inside.

"The others assured me they could handle the situation, so I used our Codec network to follow you." His hand came out a moment later, bearing one of the more advanced and powerful potions they had available to them, and tossed it to Dan. "Use it before you bleed out."

As embarrassed as he was, Dan wasn't stupid enough to ignore the offering. He forced his free hand to catch it, popped off the top with his thumb, and quickly downed half of it. The other half he smeared over the ragged wound.

It burned terribly for a moment, but he felt it stem his wound's bleeding and cause the cuts to rapidly begin to scab over; the part of the potion he had drunk would take care of any internal wounds. "Guess I owe you another solid; didn't think I'd need backup to stomp on a rat, but I guess I didn't figure who was tagging along with him…."

Mister S' sunglasses were broken from the hit, although he otherwise looked fairly undamaged. He managed to get back to his feet, and revved the chainsaw back up; Richard's answer was to quickly bring Auro Solais up; tough as that saw's blades might have been, there was no way the weapon could cut through Richard's sword. He stood his ground and kept the point forward as he waited for Dan to rise.

"We can do this the easy way or the hard way. Either way, you're facing up to your crimes."

Mister S snickered. "So, you're the ringleader of these jokers that're making a mess of my operation? It seems you're putting on quite the show—but I think I'll put the kibosh on your little stunt right now! Listen well, you punk: in this city, I'm the one making threats. Got it?"

Requiem's blade immediately ignited in a fresh blue aura. "Well, that's one thing that's going to change under my watch."

A second later, he sprung at the mobster. The other man instantly revved his chainsaw and shot it up to him in response. Dan, on his part, was still trying to stand up, waiting for the pain to subside more, and could only watch as both swung their weapons at each other. The two collided, and sparks flew out as both locked and pushed into their weapons.

While both weapons managed to hold, there was little dispute to be made over the fact that the sparks had to be coming from the chainsaw: Requiem's blade always remained perfect. Both glared at each other and continued to push a moment longer, before the armored man swiveled forward his right elbow, driving it hard into the other man's gut.

The blow was a solid one to a weak spot; in spite of his ferocity, Mister S grimaced and grunted as he stepped back instinctively. Quickly, Requiem brought his blade around, going for the saw-arm's elbow to slash the weapon clear off.

In spite of his pain, the mobster quickly crossed his weapon in front of him again, seeming to have recovered in an instant, and the blades clashed once more. Dan, and seemingly Requiem as well, was a bit stunned at how fast Mister Simpson recovered. In fact, his face didn't even look strained after another moment: he was back to smiling, and wider this time.

"I see you're the no-nonsense type," the mobster commented, his other arm starting to lower to his side.

Dan caught this motion, not having his own vision obscured by the chainsaw or the sparks flying from it. No sooner had Mister S lowered his arm than it too began to glow red. The sleeve over it soon ripped as well, metal pieces coming out and assembling far faster than the other arm's had. This time, the arm also enlarged considerably, with a large set of attachments on it.

"Heads up—his other arm's augmented too!" Dan yelled.

Requiem looked just as Mister S' arm finished and was aimed up at Richard's head. Dan had no idea what the armored man's reaction was underneath his mask, but his own jaw loosened on seeing the arm had morphed into a full-sized plasma minigun. This weapon was normally only used on a mount, but Mister S hefted it as if it was nothing more than a big metal pipe…and it was already starting to spin.

Quickly, Requiem ducked and pulled back, just as the minigun pelted a stream of plasma fire right where his head had been a second earlier. Noticing the gun was slow to change directions, Richard quickly swept up Auro Solais to try to sever it, but the mobster still had his other arm operational, and swung to one side to deflect the blow with it.

That allowed him to advance and raise one of his feet, giving a kick to Richard's chest. The blow wasn't enough to do any lasting damage, but it was enough to knock Richard off-balance and backward, back near the line of fire. Mister S quickly swung the barrel down, and Dan saw Requiem make what was probably the stupidest move he had seen: trying to brace the blade to intercept the shots.

Richard managed to deflect two before his blade was knocked clear to one side and the plasma shots impacted him in the chest in a continuous stream. Dan recoiled to avoid getting hit by stray plasma, but also gaped as he saw a full stream unload itself into the man's torso, bowling Requiem over and along the floor.

For a moment, he thought Richard was nothing more than a corpse; that this was something even Greymont couldn't stand up to. Mister S apparently felt the same, as he cut off the firepower and lifted the minigun, letting it cool off as he looked at his handiwork.

Mister S then got an unpleasant surprise: Requiem's chest was smoking, but that was all—it seemed even those shots had nothing on Zandoris' moves or magic. That said, Dan knew that that was just Greymont's armoring; it could only do so much to protect the "soft and fleshy part" underneath from internal impacts—and, sure enough, Richard looked too weak to spring back up….

"You're made of pretty tough stuff, 'Requiem'," the mobster commented. "I thought even your shell would crack, after all that. I guess I'll just have to keep shooting until I can tell you're a smear…."

Pulling the gun back down, the barrels began to rotate again. Dan soon got a second surprise, as Requiem didn't just lie there and wait for the attack to come. With power Dan didn't know the other man possessed, Richard suddenly rolled to one side, letting the next volley of plasma fire rip into only flooring.

The mobster quickly spun the gun around, but the armored man was already rolling to his feet and going forward in a dash. Dan would have admired Requiem's stamina if he didn't have to duck himself a moment later, nearly getting tagged by the same plasma shots that were chasing his leader.

True to his word, Mister S didn't let up; he continued to fire round after round, turning anything and everything that got in his way into wreckage like a tornado might tissue paper. The smells of molten metal and burnt plastic soon filled the air. The man grinned widely when he saw that he was leading Requiem to a wall, putting him in a pincer of gunfire that he couldn't get out of….

However, rather than stopping at the wall, Requiem simply charged right up it, Greymont enhancing his boots again. Mister S blinked and halted his torrent of plasma fire in his surprise. That gave Requiem the time he needed to launch himself off the wall and over the last of the plasma rounds, back to the open floor before the mobster.

Dan poked his head out, and saw the armored man's body illuminate green by another spell for a moment before Requiem slammed into the floor, driving one palm into the metal paneling. A ripple shot into it from Richard's aura, and in response metal spikes formed and erupted from the ground right before Mister S, lunging forward in an impaling strike. Somehow, the mobster had realized it was coming: he backpedaled and swung his chainsaw-arm out, quickly lopping off the ends of the metal spikes before they could reach him—but to do so, he had to swing his minigun-arm to one side.

He looked up to quickly aim and resume fire, but saw he was too late: that had been planned for, and Requiem was already up and running for him, his mana-charged sword ready to slash.

At once, Mister S yanked his chainsaw back and out of the path of the blade, but this time protecting his weapon cost him. Requiem was more successful with this slash, and the tip of Auro Solais cut into the left lapel of his suitcoat, slid sideways to remove his tie, and sliced through the opposite lapel.

An audible hiss of pain came from the man, signifying the end of the blade had also managed to tag his chest. Unfortunately, that only seemed to make him madder; he quickly brought the minigun around and fired. It flew wild at first, but its precision didn't really matter, as it still forced Requiem to back off to avoid being blown away again.

Letting out a curse at his inaccuracy, Mister S tried to aim his gunfire more directly at the armored man, but Richard quickly applied Greymont's speed, leaping back two more steps before leaping off the ground altogether in a superhuman bound.

Again, Mister S cut off his fire in surprise, readying his chainsaw to counter another direct attack and looking into the room Requiem had entered. He spotted Requiem sailing through the metal beams of the substructure to a walkway above, backflipping, and landing on a walkway near the ceiling.

Quickly, Richard spoke another spell, and as a result his free arm began to rapidly morph. Dan, in spite of the situation, found himself ducking back out from his cover and looking in, and managed to catch a glimpse of Requiem's arm forming that same cannon that the leader of the Crimson Tengu Ravens had used against the Wong Brothers and Zandoris. He grinned at the sight: no matter how tough this guy's weapons were, they'd never survive a shot from that….

As for Mister S, he nearly opened fire again, and the barrels rotated rapidly…yet he hesitated: Requiem now had the tactical advantage, looking down through a small corridor through the craft's engine room upon the open floor around the doorway.

All Requiem had to do was step to one side, and he'd be out of sight and harm's way, and the only way the mobster could get a bead on him at all would be to dart in, hoping Requiem would stay put long enough to get shot—and meanwhile Mister S would be in the open, a clear target with no nearby cover.

He also noted the size of his opponent's weapon as it finished forming, and heard what sounded like an extremely powerful generator humming as it started to warm up. It sounded about as intense as the turrets outside….

Quickly, the mobster glanced to his side. Dick, by now, was cringing again, still holding his bloody face and realizing how useless he was in this situation. Mister S saw something else as well, though—namely, Dan, standing across from him, watching Requiem and seeming eager to watch the armored warrior blow him away.

On seeing this, he grinned. "Might as well cut my losses," he murmured, before looking up to his primary opponent. "Hey, hero: decision time!"

Requiem was still warming up his gun, but he glared back down at the mobster, wondering what that comment was supposed to mean. Dan turned to look at the mobster…and froze, seeing the minigun was aimed right at him, spinning and ready to fire in an instant.

The former gang leader's eyes widened. A second later, he was cursing himself out mentally. He couldn't believe it; how could he have been so stupid, gaping around, gawking at everything just because he'd wanted to see if he could get a hit in?

"You ever see a gunslinger showdown?" Mister S asked. "What do you think is faster—your gun, or mine? Think you can take me out before I can put a dozen rounds in your friend here?"

Requiem froze. His arm continued to charge, the sound of the generators getting louder and louder, but it stayed at his side. He didn't move a muscle, just stared down at the mobster.

"Damn it—made myself a liability. What the hell are you waiting for!?" Dan shouted. "Waste him!"

The armored man didn't reply; he continued to stand there, glaring. His cannon continued to hum, but he made no move. After a few more seconds, it was clear no move would be made.

Mister S had been sweating just a little, not knowing how crazy or sane his opponent would be, or if the armored fighter would care about losing Dan, but now he had his answer. He laughed a bit as he slowly started to back up.

"You won this 'battle'…but now you've called down a war on yourself you can't win. Better people than you have tried to cross the Don and paid for it—and wearing masks to hide their identity didn't help one...damn...bit. Within a week, you'll be wishing you never even heard of this operation or our family.

"Face it, Requiem: You may win a few battles, but my kind will win the war; that's how the world works. If you're not sorry yet for picking this fight, you're going to be sorry pretty damn soon!"

While Requiem didn't move, a hissing voice came from his helmet. "You may be accustomed to having things go your way, but I assure you, that will change. The web of evil that the likes of you, Alec Steel, and all the other agents of the underworld, have been casting over the Aurino Republic will be shattered. No matter what it takes, I will make sure that happens!"

Mister S continued to back up, although for a moment there was clear hesitation after what he had heard. Dick's reaction was a lot stronger. "What the—how the hell did you guys know about that Krovada deal with Steel!? Who snitched!?"

Both Dan and Requiem noticeably raised their heads on hearing that. The bald mobster blanched a moment before his gaze narrowed and a fire seemed to light in his eyes. "They don't need a mole, when they have certain people who don't know to keep their mouths shut…."

The man swallowed, coughing a little. "Er…uh…those hits knocked some sense out of me…. But…we're not going to let these punks make us run for real, are we?"

"With the ruckus outside, the cops will be here sooner or later, so we might as well capitalize on the mess and let these mooks be our patsies. The right engine will blow soon, so our men can believably claim that they were here due to engine trouble.

"I've already unleashed a computer virus on the ship's systems to erase any data that shows our involvement; there's nothing that can lead back to us. As long as we are gone, there's nothing to worry about."

The beaten man grinned. "Heh; that's why you're the man, Mister Sim—"

His voice twisted into a cry of agony as the mobster shot down, seized him by one arm, and forcefully yanked him to his feet, clearly not caring if it was causing agony or not.

"Consider yourself lucky the Don still has use for you, after how badly you've mucked things up tonight. You're going to learn the price of incompetence tonight, and we'll see whether or not you end up wishing these two had finished you."

Dick resumed whimpering, but didn't dare say anything else as he weakly tried to get his feet under him to lessen the pressure. Even so, he was practically dragged out like a rangy, bleeding stuffed animal toy as Mister S continued to keep the minigun aimed on Dan and an eye up at Requiem.

They slowly backed up until he reached a metal bulkhead. Mister Simpson lashed back with his gun-arm's elbow, smashing the button to make it open up, and then stepped through, dragging Dick behind him. He kept the gun up until they were fully through and the hatch automatically closed and sealed behind them.

Only when the targeting reticule of the gun was removed did Dan sigh in relief, just as Requiem reached him. Richards sword was up and his other arm was still in cannon form, as if he was planning to charge after them.

At that point, the entire bulkhead suddenly exploded. Both men swept their arms in front of their faces, thinking they'd get pelted by the resulting shrapnel, but nothing of the sort happened; the explosion was localized and precise, which also meant it had to have come from a planted bomb, not an explosive weapon from outside the craft.

When both of them pulled their arms away and looked where it had come from, they saw nothing was left of the hatch controller set into the wall but twisted, burning wreckage. On seeing that, Requiem hesitated a moment, and Dan heard a sigh come from the helmet. The generator on the cannon-arm finally died down, and the limb began to revert as Richard sheathed his sword.

Dan, however, let out a curse. One of his arms was still metal, so he swung it into a nearby wall, denting a panel that hadn't been shredded by the gunfire. He had been ready to grind Dick into a pulp, and now the rat had gotten away, still talking trash, with that smug look on what was left of his face…. He snapped to Requiem. "Why the hell did you let them get away!?"

"You're welcome for saving your life," Requiem muttered in response. "Weren't you the one telling me not to throw the lives of my comrades away in pursuit of my goals?"

At once, Dan went immobile.

"His life means nothing to me…which means I wasn't willing to trade yours for it," Requiem added as his arm finished reverting.

Dan hesitated a moment, his anger melting away after what Richard had just said. After a moment, he couldn't help but chuckle bitterly. Requiem was something else, all right—not only making him feel ashamed for losing Dick, but also making him feel ashamed for being a hypocrite at the same time. —And after all that hell he had put Requiem through, accusing him of treating him and his boys like fodder, too. He supposed, whether he liked it or not, he had to eat some of those words.

"Guess you're at least trying to be a man of your word," he muttered, far more quietly, turning his head to one side. "Thanks."

Requiem didn't bother replying; it seemed he knew that anything he could say would just make it more irritating for Dan. In the silence that followed, Dan shook his head.

"I guess you see now why I get so pissed at the thought of being used, huh? And why I have such a hard time trusting you? It seems I'm a rather poor judge of character; after everything we'd been through together, all those times hanging out and backing each other up…" His face tightened. "…the only thing he was sorry about was getting caught." His fists clenched. "Damn it, if that bald bastard had stayed away for one more minute…thirty goddamn seconds…."

"Then you might have killed him before we could have gotten anything out of him that would have helped get rid of the people who made betraying you so lucrative."

Dan again went silent and looked up to Requiem, but the armored man was already turning away from the flaming wreckage and going back the way he came.

"Take it from me: power and status alone never bring happiness. And both he and his comrade had better pray they never meet either of us again."

The former gang leader kept his head down, frowning, but he supposed what Requiem had said was all he could do for it; ruing the fact he missed his chance wasn't going to help anything now, after all. He sighed and finally turned to follow.

"Oh…. Dan?"

The man looked up, just in time to see his mask be tossed over Requiem's shoulder right at him. He caught it by instinct, then looked at it momentarily.

"Don't forget that."

He hesitated only a moment, before he managed to smile as he followed again, putting it back over his face. "And don't treat me like a little kid. Let's go do what I should have done long before I got into this outfit: put the Midas Hounds in their place for good!"

It seemed Richard had done quite a bit before heading after Dan. The sneak attack alone had severely demoralized the attackers, but upon seeing the individual known as "Requiem" dispatch both Gohma Jaeger Cogs, with the second falling far more easily to him than the first, even the veteran mobsters were starting to lose their resolve, let alone the Midas Hounds.

All of their superior firepower did them little good; they were incapable of getting to most of the weapons before they were struck—the Crimson Tengu Ravens had positioned themselves far too well. In contrast to the disastrous Costa Toro mission, this one was going almost without a hitch. None of the Ravens were down, and few were even injured. By the time Dan and Requiem returned outside, almost all of the remaining opponents were down, and those that were still standing were severely outnumbered; only one was still a threat.

Avian might have had a big mouth, but he knew how to handle a hoverbike, and he was adapting to the weapons controls quickly as well. Throughout the fight, he had been making progressively tighter turns, with more and more accurate strafing fire from the guns.

Fortunately, as he had gotten better, the Ravens' enemy pool had meanwhile diminished, allowing the Crimson Tengu Ravens to keep outside of his gunfire by taking cover—but neither had he presented a defensive weakness.

Avian was making his latest pass, firing away at Zach and Hector, when Requiem and Dan emerged. Both targets quickly split and went for cover behind metal crates: as heavy as the rounds were, the cargo containers were tough enough for use as shields when he sprayed plasma at them. That was a very good thing, too, because the shots weren't wild like before.

As soon as he was past, the two Ravens snapped around, raised their own firearms, and opened up on him, but neither of them was a professional gunman, so the man only needed to dodge a couple of the rounds.

"You think I'm going down like that!?" Avian shouted back. "You may have beat some of my boys, but you're sure as hell not bringing me down!"

Snapping back around, his turn and pivot tighter still, he activated something new on his machine. Both Zach and Hector swallowed as they realized he had discovered one of the other weapons on the machine.

A new opening appeared in the bottom of the hoverbike, and a rotating rack quickly extended outward, eventually coming to a halt with a missile sticking out of the opening. With a hiss of fire, it snapped loose and sped off toward the two of them.

Luckily, they never even had to twitch: halfway to the target, a trash can snapped into the air and made contact with the missile, prematurely detonating it. While the heat and debris that resulted were enough to make everyone shield themselves from the blast, and Avian himself swiveled uncertainly in midair from the shockwave, no one was hurt. The source of the lobbed projectile, the hulking Troy, rose back up after throwing it.

"Yeah, yeah…big words from a wuss riding around on some fancy toy. How about you come down here and we settle this like men, chickenwuss!?"

"Yeah, right—you think I'm that stupid!? No way I'm getting anywhere close to you!" he snapped back. "I'm staying right up here until I've wasted you all, and there ain't crap you can do about it!"

Troy gave a growl as he saw the man rapidly shoot by once again, clearly realizing there was indeed nothing he could do from down there. He may have been fast, but he wasn't as agile as Requiem, and if Zach and Hector couldn't peg him with their guns, he definitely couldn't do it with a crate. The only option left was to find something better to throw at him, so he began to look about around for more suitable objects.

However, he spotted something even better a moment later: one of the Midas Hounds lay, either unconscious or dead, nearby. What attracted the hulking man's attention to the Hound was in his limp hands: it seemed he had found a grenade crate, and had been in the middle of loading one of the devices with an explosive charge.

Grinning a bit, Troy quickly advanced and snatched the almost-ready grenade. He then looked around a bit as he finished the Hound's job, and finally found something that seemed good for his task: a small, empty barrel that had been used for ammunition. It had already been emptied, but he didn't want it for ammo. He shifted his thumb to the trigger on the explosive device.

"Oh, 'there ain't', is there?" he mused to himself as he mashed the button and dropped it into the barrel. Immediately after, he snapped his head up, seeing Avian making another pass already and swiveling out a fresh missile at the same time. Grinning wider, he flung the barrel into the hoverbike's path like any other makeshift projectile he had used so far.

Avian was interrupted, but only enough to move his hovercycle to one side, easily letting the barrel sail by. The mohawked man laughed. "What the hell you think you're aiming at, you big, dumb sack of—"

He was cut off by the exploding grenade. As a fragmentation grenade, it was dangerous enough, but the explosion caused the ammunition container to instantly erupt and send additional, much-larger, pieces of shrapnel everywhere. This time, a small dodge wasn't enough; one of the barrel fragments sliced right into and through the starboard engine.

A plume of fire and smoke erupted from the exhaust before the engine rapidly whined, stuttered, and shut down completely. Avian might have been unhurt, but his confidence turned to panic as he struggled to keep the machine in the air, or even balanced, with just one engine. His face soon flew into rage again as he struggled with the controls, but in spite of that, he looked at the ground again, to at least squeeze off some last shots at the one who had nailed him…

…only to see no one there.

"Up here, chump!"

To Avian's dread, he realized the voice was, indeed, coming from above him. He snapped his head up, and gasped as he saw a grinning Troy coming down upon him. A million thoughts of how to react to this ran through his head in that moment, but none of them had any chance to be enacted before the huge man came down and slammed both fists into his chest.

The blow was relatively "light" by Troy's normal standards…but that didn't change the fact it had enough power to smash Avian down into his seat with such impact that it damaged the machine, driving the base of the seat mounting right through part of its chassis and punching into the fuel tank. Assuming that didn't disable it right then and there, the force of the impact swatted it to the ground like a fly that had been whacked.

On impact, its momentum was so great that, after smashing half of it into scrap, it bounced, still bearing its rider with it, tumbling and then skidding until it finally hit the wall of a blockhouse near the edge of the reservoir proper.

Troy himself slammed down a moment later, still grinning. He drew himself up and cracked his knuckles a bit, watching the smoking, leaking, and flaming wreckage. Half wrapped around the front of the controls was Avian, bloody, bruised, and so dazzled that he could barely let out a moan as he shifted slightly on the helm of the machine. As for the hoverbike itself, it was only good for the junkyard now.

The big man chuckled as he started to advance. "Guess this means the Midas Hounds are toast now, eh?"

Avian weakly looked up from the heap as Troy neared. He moaned again. "Damn it…. This…this was supposed to be our night…." In spite of his condition, he feebly tried to pull himself free of the wreck. "I'm not gonna let some random nobody steal my glory…."

"More of that, huh?" Troy snorted. "You losers have been yipping about how great you are since before I took to the streets. Now look at you—just errand boys for the mob. A pile of mongrels who'll do anything for some scraps. Also, 'nobody'?" He grinned a bit wider. "It won't be long before the Crimson Tengu Ravens make waves so big that no one in the whole damn nation will laugh us off. Hell, the whole world will be shaking at the thought of us coming before we're through!"

Avian spat weakly in Troy's direction, the bloody saliva falling short of the mark by quite a bit. "Shut up…just…shut up…" He summoned all the vitriol he could manage. "Damn it, you're as annoying as those Hammer Wolves were…that one big dumbass, always yakking about how big and bad they were, and then they got whacked…."

Troy paused on hearing that. If possible, his smirk grew wider as he leaned his forward. "Is that so, sucker?"

Troy's hand calmly rose and pushed his mask up to his forehead. Avian's eyesight was bad enough that the Midas Hounds leader paused a moment, but, after blinking twice, the mixture of astonishment and raw fear that entered him was more than obvious. His pain seemed not to matter as he shook in terror.

"No…no way! You…you…you can't…I'm looking at a ghost!"

He gulped a moment later as the large fist of Troy whipped out to seize him by the throat.

"You could say we've gone through a bit of a 'reinvention', but the spirit's still the same. And I think I've heard you disrespect us for the last time…."

Avian gagged, one hand seizing the grip on his neck with the other one holding up and waving wildly. His pupils were pinpricks now as he sweated bullets over the meaty fist. "W—wait…. Hold up, man! I give up! I'm done! I see how things are going! I'll do whatever you want, just…just cool it, man!"

The smile finally vanished at this. Troy's face turned into a scowl, and anger flooded his features. "And now you don't even have the guts to die like a man." He turned his head away, and looked over the area a bit.

After a moment, his eyes settled on the ruins of the second Jaeger Cog. It was currently in a twisted, burning heap, but also letting out a high number of electric sparks. He stared at it momentarily, then looked back to Avian.

"I think my boss would like to keep you around; grill you for more info…" he stated dully.

For a moment, Avian relaxed, his gaze looking more hopeful. However, Troy's rage surged as he grinned again.

"…but, even if I didn't know you've got nothing already, my boss ain't around, is he?"

Releasing Avian and snapping himself around and away, Troy lifted up a huge foot. Avian's eyes widened in fresh terror for a moment; he scrambled wildly, trying to get out, his tough facade actually degenerating so much that he let out a plea for his mother, before Troy snapped the foot back around and gave him and the wreckage a forceful kick, knocking them both clean off the ground, away from the wall, and right into the burning wreckage of the second Jaeger Cog.

Avian let out one last, long scream as he flailed through the air, until the hoverbike-front-turned-coffin slammed into the flaming machine. The bouncing must have been sprayed it fairly thoroughly in the high-efficiency fuel it ran on, because the chunk of wreckage immediately lit up the area with its flames. Avian and the Gohma vanished inside the rather loud and bright fireball.

By now, almost all the rest of the Midas Hounds were down, but this alerted the rest of the Ravens to the sudden blast, fearing a new weapon. However, they saw nothing but the gray-blue cloud of flame and smoke erupting from the spot. A moment later, they saw flaming bits come down; some were of metal and burning plastic, and others were of a human body: the force of the blast had blown Avian to smithereens.

A few of them paused at that. They had all seen the hoverbike go down; they'd figured it was a done deal at that point. Yet now Troy had just blown one of the enemies up…and it was the ranking officer, too; the one who would have had the most info. They looked at the hulking man.

Troy, on his part, continued to grin ravenously at the flames, almost like a man entranced for a moment, before he eased his smile a bit and looked behind him. After pulling his mask back down, he noticed the Ravens staring at him.

After a moment, he shrugged. "Punk tried to nail me with a grenade when I got close."

Zach was one of those staring. He remained silent a moment longer, then dismissed the matter. He looked around, as did several of the others.

On seeing Avian and therefore their last hope gone, whatever Midas Hounds weren't dead or knocked out quickly threw down their weapons and put their hands up.

The mobsters were a bit different. Some had died in the battle, but a great many others had only been disabled. Those ones were now dead, apparently killed by their companions that were still standing: it seemed they were keen on making dead-sure no information got out. The ones still alive and able to do so had already scattered, using the Midas Hounds as cover for their escape.

Troy whistled. "All right…I don't want to jinx it, but I think we've won this one—and a hell of a lot better than last time; everyone's still in one piece."

"What about Dan?" Tony called out, his own face worried. "I saw him go after Blackberry, and then Requiem went too. I don't see them anywhere…."

Sounds of footsteps on metal rang out from the gangplank. The group turned and looked, and saw Requiem coming out of the hatch on the side of the Surge Zeppelin and rush down the gangway. They grew far happier a moment later, when Dan emerged behind him.

It only took a moment for them to notice the blood on Dan, as well as markings of a hastily-patched wound from a rather nasty weapon. They also noticed he was less than his normal, enthusiastic self, and furthermore limping a bit as he cleared the gangplank.

"Yo, man!" Hector called out. "What happened? Did you get him?"

The rest waited impatiently for the reply to that. Unfortunately, they didn't get the best response: Dan's face was grim and dark, and he clenched one of his fists and gritted his teeth.

"I got him to feel our rage, guys, but…" he muttered, rueful to admit it, "…his boss bailed him out. Unlike Dickberry, this guy was an actual pro, with some real surprises." He paused, then spoke even more quietly. "…Requiem showed up and helped me out, and he probably could have handled Mister S, but…" Another pause. "…he didn't stay put. He bailed with Blackberry."

"Damn it, Nicholson!" Troy shouted, spitting to one side. "Are you kidding me? You couldn't even beat down that one puny turncoat!? I'll bet you let him sucker-punch you after he begged for mercy, didn't you?" He sneered. "Should've let me do it; I would've beaten the crap out of him and his little mob buddy—"

"Damn it, McGuire, you think I wanted to let him get away!?" the former gang leader snapped back viciously, his pride hurt by that comment. "Give me a break! I got hacked with a goddamn chainsaw!"

"Bickering isn't going to change anything at this point," Requiem suddenly interjected, just as Troy was heating up to answer Dan. Both men went silent and looked to him at that, as did the rest of the group. "He's gone. He definitely won't be sleeping easily for a while after the beating he got, either—and the day is still ours. The Midas Hounds are gone, and their Mob supporters are either dead or fleeing. On top of all that, we haven't lost anyone." He looked around at the group after saying this. "Well, almost. Where's Alphonse?"

In response, a set of servos started whirring and clicking. The group looked and saw the Garou Jaeger Cog suddenly push its way through their ranks and walk up to the front. He sat before speaking.

"My apologies for my absence—Master Claire gave me a priority-one order to hack into the systems of the Surge Zeppelin. While I was unable to infiltrate all the protected files in the time allotted, and discovered a virus that would have attempted to infect me if I had tried to access certain ones, I successfully copied all the files on all but two of the hard drives, encrypted as well as unencrypted." he answered in his normal monotone. "In addition, I picked up transmissions from the local police networks—multiple shuttles are en route, and should arrive within the next three minutes."

Requiem paused. He looked to the sky and around a bit. After a moment, a heavy sigh came from the mask.

"What's wrong?" Dan asked.

"This isn't the way I envisioned our debut to the public: no hostages on the ship to rescue; no way to prove which members of the crew are corrupt. If we let ourselves be seen, they'll assume we attacked military officials." He looked back to the others. "I suppose we'll have to quit while we're ahead."

"We might get something out of this, Requiem," Tony pointed out with a shrug. He gestured around them: "They left a whole lot of weapons behind. What do you say we take them with us? I mean, it gives us better odds, and they're better off with us than them, am I right?"

The armored man glanced about: sure enough, in spite of the damage, a lot of the weapons had been protected by their casings and the fact that the ammunition and batteries had been stored separately, in stronger containers. And their own armaments certainly were rather paltry right now.

After a moment, he put his sword back. "I suppose it fits under the old rule of combat, 'to the victors go the spoils'. Just keep in mind, whatever you take you have to carry all the way back to the hideout."

The group didn't seem to mind that; many of them grinned, and some even high-fived. Hector immediately tossed his own weapon over his shoulder and went for one of the bigger plasma rifles.

The rest scrambled to get whatever they could carry just as quickly, some taking multiple weapons, and some shouting to grab as many ammo boxes as possible. Requiem stood and waited, making sure to keep track of time; they only had a little while, after all.

As he did, Dan moved up a bit to stand next to him. Still holding his side, he looked over the rest of the battlefield. He sighed. "Even if I couldn't bring Dick down, I'd hate to be in his shoes when his boss sees how badly he screwed up. The Mob may do the job for me…."

"And the Midas Hounds should lose any reputation they had when word gets out they lost this badly, even with this kind of weaponry." Requiem added.

"Hey! Hey, Boss —er— Bosses!"

Both men looked up: Hector had been going off to grab a couple boxes of plasma cores, but had stopped before the same blockhouse that Avian had been knocked into. It was clean, but for an emblem there in spray paint: a yellow snarling wolf—the tag of the Midas Hounds. He was motioning to it now.

"How about we leave our own mark, eh?" he called out. "Even if we can't go public, we can still spread our cred a little, you know?"

Requiem paused, but then nodded. "If you can do it in the span of a minute, sure. We're already starting to become a rumor in the streets; we might as well accelerate it."

Hector chuckled and turned back to the emblem. A bit to Requiem's surprise, he started an arcane chant. The end result was some sort of weightless glowing substance generated out of thin air. It rapidly flowed over the painted tag and removed it. "Don't worry, man—this kind of thing is my specialty."

Requiem looked to the sky a moment. "Rain is still picking up. That means getting out of here should be easy enough, going back the way we came—"

"Hey! What the hell, man!"

The armored figure turned his head, as did several of the others, to see who had suddenly shouted. It wasn't one of them; it was an irate-looking Midas Hound, standing with hands up (well, one hand up, at any rate—his other arm had taken a shot, and was hanging limply at one side) to indicate he wasn't a threat.

"That's it!? You're not stealing the whole stash for yourself, or taking any cash? What gives!? What'd we ever do to all of you!? This wasn't your business!"

"Injustice is my business," Requiem coldly answered, "as hard as something that abstract may be for you to comprehend. If I were you, I'd think hard about your actions during your time in prison. When you get out, I guarantee individuals like you will have a lot more to fear than what happened tonight. And the penalty will be far more severe for you if I ever see you again."

The Midas Hound swallowed a bit, and Requiem turned away from him and back to Hector. Sure enough, he was indeed fast—no sooner had he erased the old symbol than he had gone to work with two cans of spray paint he had either conjured up or hidden on his person. He was just finishing a bloody red talon, using the paint's tendency to drip to good effect, in the center of a black circle.

Hector stood back a few steps and seemed to admire it, then looked to the armored man. "What do you think? Mark shows where we've hunted, and that we mean business."

"Not bad, for improvisation. We can discuss choosing a permanent symbol back at the base.

"All right, Crimson Tengu Ravens: it was not a flawless victory, but we did good tonight. Even the Mob will be forced to accept we are nothing to take lightly!"

Dan looked back at the ship before muttering sourly, "Doubt they're quaking in their boots, but at least they're going to have to accept that they can't just roll over us."

Troy gave a snort. "Guys like them are too used to being on top to feel threatened. I guess that's going to be one hell of a throw-down, but, as long as we keep butting heads, sooner or later they'll see who has more guts—and then this city will be ours!"

Richard eyed Troy carefully for a moment before sharply responding with, "No, it'll be everyone's. It'll be a place where people can live happily, without their lives being dictated by the greedy and cruel. One step at a time, and, as long as we tread carefully and don't get careless, we can pull this off. Ah—speaking of getting careless, we seriously have to go now."

The rest of the Ravens then heard the sirens in the distance, and quickly followed Requiem as he dashed out of the area and started back to the Valro Burrow to ensure that the night ended with the Crimson Tengu Ravens squarely in victory.