THE CHRONICLES OF THE FINALGAMER
The Final Stand

"I will not die until I achieve something.  Even though the ideal is high, I never give in.  Therefore, I never die with regrets."
Prologue: Cirrus, Ikaruga

Falling through the sky, there was a disturbance that came briefly to South Wallace Street in Canaryville, Chicago.  At the corner hitting West 44th, there was a flash of light scarring through the air above the black ruined gravel, covered constantly over by crackling smears of fresh tarmac as something burst violently forth.  Car alarms went off, three of them at once as the raptor fell onto the empty road.  He staggered slightly with a headache soft burning as he started to blink fiercely.  Not for the pain in his head but for the air that he still remembered.  Acrid, unclean, polluted.  He missed that smell so badly.
His instincts kicked in and he ran off from the road hiding out into the shadows of a nearby alleyway as the car alarms continued to ring off with panicked whooping and blaring anger.  Nobody seemed to come out to investigate as if it was perfectly normal, the raptor rolling his eyes before the shock suddenly set in.  It was home.  It was truly his home once again.  A dead-end street up ahead, with one further street onwards turning to the right, an entire row of shops and living places to his left all the way.
But some things were now different.  The jeweller's down the road in blue and white hues had become replaced by a purple shade and what James could briefly recognise as some charity store.  The pharmacy at the other end with neon green was much more bleak and faded, the sign no longer working whilst the mini-mart everybody local went to appeared far more drab and peeled with its sharp happy colours dying off like the bedsheets of a cancer ward.  The local garage was still there, the sign unchanged ever since Mahmoud moved away to be replaced its new owner.
The sidewalks were cracked, the road paved over with swollen lumps like the face of domestic violence.  The sky remained ever constant in its dark trembling threat to rain ever but never doing so.  A harsh wind of acidic taste bristled past his cheeks, cold and vile like discarded needles tearing across his face.  He felt something watching him, even whilst hiding in darkness as his eye cast itself towards one particular place, nestled in against the opposite corner and facing towards the dead-end of the street.  The bar he had come to know and love so intimately for all of his teenage life.
It appeared to be still operational, but the windows were now fiercely fortified with iron bars showing a much less friendly atmosphere, strengthened in defiance with crossed arms, no longer with open hands.  He swiftly ran towards it not wasting a moment of his breath as he dodged through the streets, empty as they were but he could never be too careful. Something wasn't right.  He wanted to fall to his knees and kiss the road tarmac, praise the sky clouded with dark smog and weep to its industrial heavens but he knew he had to get someplace safe.
The air was tense, almost as if it held its breath for something to explode straight out on the street.  It was quiet.  No noise of people coming and going, no calling out between windows of the neighbourhood.  Even the long distant trains calling beyond the teeming hills of roofs had gone silent.  The bar's front door was still open surprisingly as he walked his way in, being cautious with the stone steps downwards.  Returning to the bar he had left so long ago, what he had come to love as his home, he felt somewhat saddened to see it in less than perfect repair.
Bullet holes were more frequent on the walls, half the tables had been overturned and the jukebox in the corner that he never really liked was now bashed in with a violent crumple caving the central part inwards.  But he saw that drinks still remained on the shelf fresh as always meaning that it had to still be in business.  As he approached the bar counter, gently navigating his way around the old tables, he felt a presence from behind him somewhat.  He turned slowly with a hand on his scissors but the moment he did, something grabbed him from behind the counter and slammed his shoulders backwards against the top of it.
	"DON'T.  Move."
Staring upwards in the glimmering dark, he saw a ruthless-looking female doberman with knife planted directly against his throat, with her other hand swiftly grabbing at his left shoulder.  A black tank top was all he could see beneath her neck as she snarled:
	"What the fuck are you doing in here?"
	"I...I came...to see someone."
	"Who?"
	"...Sarah King.  Does she still run this bar?"
	"Who wants to know?!"
	"...James.  James Campbell."
The canid looked at him oddly but never removed the knife from his throat staying three inches above his trachea.
	"How do you know this Sarah King?"
	"I used to work here.  Years ago...I need to find her, is she still alive?"
	"I'M asking the questions here shitscale.  Why are you out here after curfew?"
	"The-...there's a curfew?"
	"Don't play fucking stupid with me, if you've been in this city before you KNOW about the curfew!"
	"Th-there wasn't any curfew back...twelve years when I was here, the fuck!"
	"Wait, twelve?!"
	"Yeah, I disappeared, I had to get out, the A.R.M.E was closing in on this place and Sarah hid me because I was the fucking experiment they were chasing after, now WHERE IS SHE?!"
	"You don't get to see anybody unless I TELL YOU, raptor boy!"
	"JENNY!"
A voice rang out from the back rooms of the tavern, old and cantankerous as the doberman replied:
	"YEAH?!"
	"...ask him about the room he hid in."
	"H-huh?!"
	"Ask him.  What room did he hide in before he disappeared?"
James struggled not to break into tears from the relief of hearing such a voice.  It was older and wilting slightly, but it was most definitely the same voice he had known always from that long distant memory.
	"What room did you hide in?" asked Jenny.
	"The Anne Frank room," said FG.  "There's a slot you twist your finger into, left, right, then left a little."
Deliberation was weighed into the air before the voice unseen gave her order.
	"Let him up.  Slowly, if he makes any sudden moves slice his arm open."
The doberman carefully released him as he heard the warning loud and clear to slowly push himself off from the bar and turn towards Jenny, her knife still held firmly in her hand as she demanded:
	"Hands where I can see 'em, don't go thinking of grabbing that weapon you got."
	"Alright."
The raptor obeyed dutifully as his eyes turned moist, watching the darkness of the back room as he heard a gasp shivering from within.  Slowly a shape came through revealing a face, he had long since missed.  Walking with a soft uneven gait, he saw an old dolphin female greyer than ever with sunken eyes and drooping wrinkles across her bare shoulders, her bottle snout creased with her neck now developing the slight paunch of a wattle.  Her eyes however remained sharply intense, drooping with heavy bags but still strong nonetheless, wearing nothing but a white tanktop and brown thick camo pants.
	"......James?  Is......is that...no.  No it...it isn't-"
	"You want proof?" replied FG.  "I still remember Delaney.  Or maybe you'd rather talk about Delacroix...and how the day you let her body get 'found' by the police to put an end to it and stopped your little crusade, you came up to my room and thanked me...for destroying your demon, I think you called it."
She gasped sharply and backed off with a clutching hand to her chest, making a strange rattly sound before she came round the bar limping slightly to get a closer look.  Her sawn-off Lupara shotgun known as "Louise" was held in her other hand as she put her face up to the raptor almost breathing on him in disbelief.  A tear welled up in her eye with her face somewhat bruised purple from old wounds before it tensed with spite.  Before he could even see her other hand free she slapped him across the face enough to burn his cheek with a hot sting.
	"OWWW!  WH-WHAT THE FUCK!?"
	"Where the HELL HAVE YOU BEEN!?"
	"I'd tell ya if you just give me a chance, CHRIST you fucking BITCH!"
	"You...do you know...how long you been gone?"
	"Yeah, something like...twelve years!"
	"Fourteen.  Fourteen god damn years.  And you never decided to come back in all that time, or send me a message, SOMETHING?!?"
	"I couldn't!"
	"I oughta shoot you in the other leg fer this!  The hell do you think you are running off away from me, you had me worried SICK, I OUGHTA-"
	"SHUT UP GODDAMIT!"
He got angry enough to bring out a tetra blast from his hand to disarm Sarah from her shotgun, which flew onto the floor and made her yelp to clutch her stunned limb, surprised and looking a little worried when she felt the claws around her neck.  Jenny was stopped in her tracks by a burning hand with fire resonating from its palm towards her as the raptor kept her at bay before shoving Sarah against the wall.
	"Listen.  I know you're angry, and I know that you're overwhelmed, hell I am STRUGGLING not to fucking break into tears and hug the shit out of you right now but I know that's not your way and it's been a very VERY long time, but you can at LEAST let me explain why I couldn't see you until now.  Alright?"
	"......fine."
She sighed and relaxed her muscles, letting James pull away from her as she gave a signal to Jenny and bade to put her knife down.
	"He's...definitely him."
	"Wait, THIS is him?"
	"No other way...come on, let's...let's talk.  I just...hhhhhhh shit."

Sarah struggled to move back towards the living quarters by a small passage as Jenny walked through ahead of her, with James at the dolphin's side.  Both of them were clearly feeling each other's sense of relief and awe trying not to just grab each other into a hug tightly as possible, as well as the fact that Sarah was struggling to contain her own furious outrage at having had no contact from him since.  Eventually they moved towards the sofa in the back living room.  He watched Sarah sit after he did, her leg staggering slightly as she sighed whilst Jenny stood to attention like a servant watching FG with a cautious look.
The old blue walls seemed more pale than before, but there was still the dark blue sofa and brown oval coffee table like he had remembered it, the stairs behind them with four doorways as James remembered them.  One that was underneath the stairs themselves leading to several old basements, one just behind the stairs into a small corridor leading to the side exit, the kitchen to his left sitting at the back of the entire building and lastly one just to the right of the television that was the bathroom.  Sarah turned to Jenny asking:
	"Could you go an' call Maurice on line three, tell him to keep an eye out fer the patrol van comin' up in twenty."
	"Sure boss," said the doberman with salute, "just holler if you need me."
She rushed down towards the basement to wait on command whilst the two looked at each other, before they turned away struggling to think on when was the best time for them to hug, or talk, or just simply do anything to find the words as Sarah started.  It took her three minutes to bring up her words as James gave her some time to consider his presence back here again, her hands constantly rubbing against each other with the wind taken out of her sails.
	"I thought they took you....I...I really thought you were...dead, but then after they were finished with me, I saw that...they never found that secret door, didn't even think to look...but you were gone James.  You could've been safe in there."
	"I know....I didn't mean to disappear."
	"Do you know...what they did to me?  Do you know what I had to deal with ALONE?"
	"I...I don't."
	"You...come back to me expecting me to kiss you, to hug you, tell you that I'm so happy to see you again...well...a part of me wants to, definitely but there's a bigger problem right now, and that is the fact that you ABANDONED me."
	"I want to explain."
	"See this?"
She pointed at her left leg before hammering her fist against the side of her knee which made an oddly hollow clang of steel.
	"I had to deal with this thing broken fer SIX MONTHS after you disappeared.  I was in a fucking wheelchair, the A.R.M.E wrote a fake police report callin' it a home invasion gone wrong and I'm sitting in a fuckin' chair with my womb turned into fuckin' gazpacho.  It took four months for those bruises from their boots to go away...and it took seven for the pain to leave after."
	"I....I.....oh god Sarah,"
	"I have been...nursing myself, for fourteen years under those bastards and YOU...you weren't even there.  You weren't even kidnapped, I heard nuthin' on their chatter about you, and you were just GONE.  Like you dropped off the face of the earth, do you know how I felt, when nobody would explain anything to me, DO YOU KNOW HOW SICK I WAS WITH WORRY!?  DO YOU!?"
Her eyes began to water up, which scared James even more having almost never seen her do so.  He risked her fury and swiftly hugged her tight in sympathy, starting to turn with tears on his own face as he struggled to keep himself.
	"I'm...I-i-i'm sorry.  I'm s-so sorry...I had...I-i-i had no choice."
	"DON'T."
She pushed him away with anger still bristling by a single shove.
	"Don't you fucking tell me you had no choice, what POSSIBLE reason could you have had fer not coming home sooner after FOURTEEN YEARS?!  ...you've got nineteen minutes until the patrol arrives."
	"Wait, what?"
	"Waste time askin' questions or tell me what you been up to, nineteen minutes."
	"A-alright...okay.  I'm...I'm sorry.  I'm so sorry about everything but...please let me explain.  Whatever I say now, I swear to you nothing of it is a lie."
	"...alright.  Explain yerself."
	"I know this is all gonna sound insane...but...please...you have to believe me.  I swear to you now, on my mother's life, that everything I say from this point on is true."
She knew whenever he said this that it was absolute when he said such a thing as she nodded from the severity of his words when he started.
	"...the experiment, they did on me...gave me some abilities I guess, you could call them."
	"Ah huh?  I noticed a li'l fire from yer hands back at the bar but-"
	"No...much more than that, th-th-there's...a lot of things I can do but...the main thing I can do is...I can teleport across places.  And not just this world, but...other worlds too."
	"......what?"
	"Maybe I should show you...that would make this go a lot quicker."
James slowly brought up his left arm before he began tapping onto it cautiously.  Slowly the amber lights of his omni-tool started to flicker, a strange circular rotation pulsing to bring up a holographic screen.  The first thing it revealed was an odd-looking humanoid in slender body with a skin-tight suit of black and blue, wearing a mask made of glass.  The world around her was far too advanced for anything to be recognised by Sarah as she spoke in a garbled language.
	"What the hell is this?"
	"Just...I know you're not going to believe when I say I went to other worlds but...this is my proof."
	"Is this a fucking joke?  What is this, some knock-off sci-fi movie, what the hell is-wait...was that you just talking?"
	"Yes.  That's Leiah.  She was a quarian, from a galaxy far away, she helped me when I got lost."
	"The fuck is a quarian?"
	"There's...let me show you the people I've met."
He skipped through the video recordings to reveal many odd creatures.  Hulking toad-like beasts, cricket-faced denizens of the stars above, humans with ragged faces alongside the walking dead bantering like old friends, small rabbity creatures debating with soft-snouted hunchbacked beasts between long-snouted reptilians in medieval clothing.  James even pulled out a photograph separately from his satchel showing a happy-looking family of yellow-skinned turtles in some tropical paradise.  Even though his face had been etched out by a bloody marking, his body was clear to see from Sarah's point of view.
The dolphin hunched over slightly confused, maybe overwhelmed by the sudden implications as she took things slowly.  The raptor finished up his omni-tool log showing the most recent footage, a serene shot of the panoramic ocean of a begotten alien place with one strangely tall inhabitant of thick glossy hairs and short wings on its back.  Her head started to swim the more she considered the possibilities asking gently:
	"Is...is that all...real?"
	"Yes," said FG.  "These were all places that I've been to, this photo is a place I've been to, I've been struggling to find a way back home for the last twelve years and I-"
	"Fourteen."
	"...are you sure?"
	"Go look at the calendar on the wall."
Gazing to the wall she indicated, he saw the cyber-calendar themed with action females from various movies and TV shows of the century, more of a wall-fitted calculator that updated its clock every month.  But the year was clear as day to him showing 3527 A.D.
	"...but...but...th-that doesn't make sense I...I was gone for...was I wrong?"
	"You left here in 3513 A.D.  I know that, I would never forget that."
	"But...wait..."
And then he remembered.  Oddscar.  A raw sense of mourning had come back to him upon realising as he sighed deeply at the time that was lost, time that was not his.
	"Ngh...god."
	"Are you...are you seriously saying tha-?"
	"Yes.  I left this world, and I've been trying to get back ever since."
	"......this...this can't be real.  None of this, this has to-lemme look."
	"Huh?"
	"L-lemme look at yer face, I wanna see yer face."
She brought his face to his and pulled the wrinkles around his eyes open slightly, gazing into them.  They were tired but clear, slightly faded from the brightness of youth but they seemed to be lucid perfectly.  Sarah pulled back with her hand to her head confused and overwhelmed by this possibility as James tried to explain further.
	"I'm just...I'm sorry Sarah.  I had no way of getting back, I tried, I swear I tried but for some reason the stupid teleporting ability just wouldn't let me go home, and I don't know WHY it didn't, so I was just jumping between worlds trying to find somebody that could, and then I finally did!  I finally found someone that could shoot me home like um...three days ago, and all the time I was thinking of you...I just wanted to know if you were okay."
He placed his hand on hers as she looked softly towards him.  She could easily remember the arrogant fresh-faced punk she had taken in, who barely changed in his look as the years wore on.  But there was now something different, there was a face without the wide-eyed immaturity she always feared for his life from.  The eyes he had now were the kind she saw in revolutions, hardened to a veteran's gaze, tired and older.  Many scars littered his body, deep and slow-healing from bladed cuts to gunshot burns as she hugged him tightly, shaking slightly.  She couldn't resist any longer as she pulled him close into a tighter embrace.
	"Oh god...James...hhhhhoh James.  Heh...I knew you were a stubborn punk, I KNEW you c-couldn't...get killed that easily."
	"Hehe...t-takes a lot more than that to scratch me up."
	"I......I'm so glad to see you.  Welcome home."
	"I've been waiting to see you again......boss."
	"Alright."
She stood up readying herself with a stretch of her back.
	"We got ten minutes until they come."
	"Wait, who?"
	"The Armee, obviously."
	"Wh-what are they-are they coming down here to fuck with us, again?!"
	"Because you set the vultures off."
	"...vultures?"
	"Security cameras, hidden in the streets, we call them vultures, there's three of them on that street out there and since you were walkin' around after curfew, they're gonna come down an' investigate.  Follow my lead."
	"Okay...I'm not leaving you."
	"I hope not."
	"No no.  I mean..."
James stood up firmly towards her with a fierce look piercing through her eyes.
	"I'm NOT...going to leave for anything, if you have to fight, I'm fighting alongside you."
	"Seriously?"
	"You really think I spent fourteen years way out in god knows where and not learned how to protect myself?"
	"Hm.  You still remember how to shoot?"
	"Just give me something to shoot and I'm there boss."
	"Heheh...wow.  Just...look at you."
Sarah leaned back against the doorjamb with a smile of relief.
	"It...there really is something about you a lot different, you got a whole air of...authority about you I never seen before."
	"I can explain all the things I did in a lot more detail after we sort these douches."
	"Right, good, yer gettin' focused I like it.  Alright, are you willin' to follow my orders?"
	"As long as you're not making me run and hide, I'm not a stupid kid anymore."
	"I'll be the judge of that...but I won't tell you to."
She walked out towards the bar and pointed towards the left end of it.
	"There's a spare shotgun I keep in the slot, take it and duck down, do NOT get up until I do this."
The dolphin made a gesture that he recognised.
	"Understood?"
	"Got it."

Unaware as he was of the changes around him, he kept down and waited until the signal which would only come around ten minutes later as Sarah stood next to the jukebox.  A phone rang faintly from downstairs as she bashed three buttons in particular sequence on the old broken machine which suddenly sent out an odd piercing whistle that quickly went beyond any of their hearing range.  The dolphin made her way back towards to behind the bar and stood ready with her guns beneath the counter as she nodded towards James.  He nodded back as the sound of boots came towards the door.
	"JUDICIAL SQUAD, OPEN UP!"
	"DOOR'S OPEN!" shouted Sarah.
Trampling through the simple door came three people in tall dominating black riot squad outfits with fortified padding and helmets covering their faces.  The species was hard to tell but Sarah was certain two of them were human and the tail on the third suggested a female canid amongst them who approached, the bartender polishing a glass nonchalant.
	"Ma'am, we're here to do a search of the area for any suspicious individuals?"
	"You mean you're not here for happy hour?" said the bartender.
	"No.  We are here because we had reports of an individual seen outside after curfew, a reptilian sort.  Have you seen anyone like that?"
	"Heheheh, the mayor's office is that a way, maybe you should ask there."
	"Ma'am do not be flippant, we are here on our duty."
	"Is that duty to break my OTHER leg, because the last time you boys came into my bar I wasn't appreciating your courtesy."
	"If you are not going to answer us-"
	"Here's my answer."
She put the glass down firmly with a thunk.
	"Nobody reported ANYTHING, in that time you just magically pop up.  You're trying to pick up some extra cred pulling in another shitscale and you're not gonna find any here.  Now if you're not here to order, I suggest you leave."
	"Is that a threat?"
	"To people like you, my existence is a threat."
	"You threaten an officer of the judicial squad, that's a sentence for two months."
	"Plenty enough time for me to 'disappear' right?"
Sarah snarled defiant at them making the four know absolutely where they stood as she waited.  James braced himself with a focus of his strength as the nanos trickled into his right arm hearing one of the humans step forward.
	"You got a fuckin' problem with us, sushi bitch?"
	"Maybe I do.  Maybe I just hate your type, maybe I just despise your group for being a cancer to this city."
	"Do you know...how many times this filthy place has been reported to us?  Too many.  Now...I don't know what your deal is with us, but you just like to keep causing trouble don't you?"
	"You keep changin' the definition of trouble until the people you don't like fit it...that's the fun part about bein' the law isn't it?"
Without a word the human pulled out his rifle aiming clearly towards Sarah's head.  She didn't flinch, even knowing the distance of 30 feet between them was close enough to make it difficult to miss.
	"I'm warning you...Mrs. King-"
	"It's MIZZ...not Mrs.  And no, I'm not available, I prefer people that didn't get discharged from the real army because they thought it would be fun to beat the shit out of prisoners."
	"DON'T fucking play with us."
	"You DO know the military has rules right?  It has conduct and shit and like real rules to be fair and honourable but that's stuff you probably didn't look through, I mean it's hard to read when yer hands are bloody an' hhheheheh, it's never YOUR blood is it?"
	"TELL US WHERE HE IS!"
	"Who?!"
	"ENOUGH!"
The rifle went off, spraying through three bottles beside Sarah in a glassy explosion that missed hitting FG still hiding behind the counter.
	"TELL US WHERE THAT FUCKIN' LIZARD IS OR WE BURN THIS BAR TO THE FUCKIN' GROUND!"
	"Really?  Aren't you worried that your CCTV will capture it?"
	"We see EVERYTHING," said the canid, "but seeing and acting are two different things so we can always...turn a blind eye to someone that gets in our way.  So unless you want to be another statistic you play good and tell us where that shitscale is hiding that was outside twenty minutes ago and went INTO your bar."
	"Oh, really?  Well, good thing I solved that problem for you then."
	"What?"
	"...you're in my neighbourhood now."
She smiled cruelly.
	"Do you know what I can do without even moving from this bar?  I can take your eyes.  I can hurt you without even coming out from behind this counter."
Walking slowly towards her right, she drew their line of vision away from where James was waiting until she stood at the side gap of the counter revealing her fully body.
	"I can blind and deafen you, which I already just did two minutes before you came down and once I am done with you...you'll never be seen again.  You don't exist the moment you walk into this place, and just like everyone of your other friends did when they messed with me...you'll never be mourned...when there's nothing left of you to bury."
The bartender shaped her fingers into like a gun.
	"Bang."
They never saw the blast coming when James got up behind the bar.  Neither did Sarah but it didn't stop her rushing forwards to slam a double barrelled shotgun into the canid's face.  Two shots rang out, a screeching gargling noise as her head crumpled inwards, trapped within her helmet as the shell impact crushed her face.  One of the humans had been destroyed by James' raw steel arm-cannon of shining green, completely obliterated by the scorching plasma heat that tore through his stomach to a blood-festooned explosion through the wall.
The third grunt was staggering from the dual-destructive killing but he swung out by his instinct towards the dolphin girl that had rushed towards them.  She ducked fast and slammed her arm upwards from underneath to offset his balance, throwing his own arm swinging back over his head before grabbing his neck and throwing him down into the bar itself.  The raptor wasted no time with scissors out, discarding the shotgun to plunge his blades viciously through the back of the human's throat.  Gargling with a twisting crack, his spine was severed just beneath the brain as Sarah shouted:
	"JENNY, COVER THE BACK, THERE'LL BE MORE OF 'EM!"
The sound of rushing troops came in as Sarah ducked back down behind the bar before FG handed her the shotgun in joining her, a rather formidable combat-built weapon of sleek gun steel with half the weight of a sledgehammer.
	"Take this, I never liked shotguns."
	"What the FUCK did you just shoot?!"
	"Something I handle a lot better, just say the word and I shoot but I only got two more left in me."
	"...right, fine, just stay there and keep them away from the door, we-"
Crunching sounds from behind them indicated a door was being broken into at the side.
	"Shit, there they are, can you handle the front of this place?"
	"I got it."
James cocked his arm-cannon firmly.
	"Trust me."
	"Alright, this is yer big test, just keep this place clear and if any goons come down, kill 'em."
He nodded as he waited whilst Sarah ran into the back room.  Two more of the military-fitted A.R.M.E members were ready with assault rifles close to their cheeks sweeping the area around the stairs.  They cautiously circumnavigated around the sofa towards the front in order to pincer James at the bar, a wiry young bear and another human.
	"CLEAR!  Door has been breached, moving in!"
	"DROP YOUR WEAPONS!  DON'T FUCK AROUND, YOU COME QUIETLY WE'LL MAKE THIS-GHHR-GHHRRHHK!"
From the doorway underneath the stairs, something flashed out from the dark as a knife slammed into the lesser-guarded throat of one invading foe with perfect precision.  His partner turned fast to see an anthro doberman viciously stab into the goon's throat having snuck up behind him to twist and lacerate violently through the arteries, blood streaking beautifully across the walls as he never had a chance to fire.  A shotgun blast destroyed his spine from behind, cracking through the armour with a brutal strength, like a horse kicking both legs into the head.
Falling forwards, he had no chance to see Sarah pump another shell into his head crushing it completely into a bonecrushed smear as Jenny finished her ruthless kill, wiping the knife on the body as she hid back into the shadows for any next approaching.  Both of them had to duck when the front of the bar exploded with gunfire whistling from behind the dolphin, the doorway a straight shot through to the living room.
The raptor however stopped them short of a full advance, blasting his arm cannon straight back to destroy another squad member, forcing his torn and mangled insides outwards to splatter his companions as they charged in.  Two females, feline and human, barged past their fallen friend and scattershotted across the bar destroying half the drinks.  James quickly grabbed some of the bottles that had fallen down and tied four of them together with rubber bands underneath the counter, before hurling them to shatter across their helmets.
	"LIGHT 'EM UP!"
Blasting a fireball straight from his fists, he set the two on fire as shrieking peals of agony trembled throughout the air as their heads were set to flame, screaming with panic and forcefully throwing their helmets off.  With badly singed hair and skin suffering with orange streaks, they began firing once again desperately trying to riddle FG with bullets in a barrage across the room.  The raptor shot back with his own fire volleys that only burned harsher into their skin, blinding them with pain enough they started to retreat out the door for cover.
	"THIS IS THETA GROUP, COME IN, WE NEED BACKUP, BACKUP NOOOW!"
	"WHERE THE FUCK DID OUR TRANSPORT GO?!"
	"SHUT UP JUST FUCKIN' WASTE THAT SON OF A BITCH!"
Three more militia personnel came charging in with a trio of shotguns blasting across the entire room in scattershot forcing James to duck hard.  He had one last charge in him for a plasma shot before he would be too exhausted to continue his nano-assault.  Powerful blasts rang throughout the front room of the tavern with breaching crescendo almost deafening FG who was trying to avoid the glassy rain of exploding bottles.  An entire minute of unloading shells across the room before they had a chance to reload, which was the perfect opportunity to strike.
James pulled up with his last shot as he locked on to one of their heads and completely melted two halves of two different humans' skulls, shrieking as their helmets detonated with skull fragments shrieking across the walls as eyeballs dripped to a runny pus down their blood-crackling cheeks.  The one remaining of the new offence, a boar with shining tusks was surprisingly unfazed with such brutality as he charged towards the raptor roaring in fury.
James braced himself to pull out his scissors to thrust forwards across the counter but the boar was faster than expected, slamming the blades to one side with his arm protected before punching James fierce with the other against the back of the drinks shelf.  Bottles fell around him, some of which shattered to coat him in amber streaks but before he had a chance to get up, the sound of a revolver pierced the air from behind the bar as sparks pierced off of the boar's helmeted face making him fall back slightly.
Sarah barged forwards with her sawn-off shotgun in his mid-stagger, blasting partway through his tough armoured chest and exposing enough of his undershirt to kill despite the guard's intimidating stature.  Brutish and thick-muscled, he sprang back from his backwards stumble to shove his arm across Sarah's throat and power her through the doorway until she fell against the sofa.  She fired twice in mid-fall with her revolver, a beastly looking Colt Python but only one of the shots hit the boar's body as it punched him in the shoulder.
Snarling with rage he was about to jump forwards and crush Sarah beneath his weight, but he had not seen the doberman in the dark to his right from the bathroom as she whistled sharply enough to make him turn his head straight towards a shrieking blade.
Hurling through the air, the knife plunged straight into his chest somewhere left of his sternum, causing him to gasp in sharp suffering which was the perfect opportunity for Jenny to rush forwards and grab at her knife's handle to stab him harder.  But he resisted through the intense pain to grab at her throat and slam her powerfully against the wall with a brutal thud.  She wasn't allowed to fall as her throat was squeezed tighter before she swung her legs forwards to wrap around his waist and pulled her body close enough to grab the blade and stab down into his wrist.

Forced to let go by the twisting of his veins snapped out of joint, the boar screamed in weakening agony and threw Jenny hard against the door from his hand pouring with blood before Sarah put him out of his misery.  Reloading her shotgun, she kicked him against the wall with a powerful slam of her left leg before blasting his throat clean open, bursting like a rotting tomato as he gurgled choking in desperate silent screams clutching his neck.  He twisted as he fell, crumpling to the floor as his body spasmed in final moments before Sarah walked over him to where James was lying down.
	"You okay?"
	"Yeah...you?"
	"Sure am.  Jenny?!"
	"Yeah?!" cried the doberman.
	"You good?!"
	"Yeah boss, nothin' broken!"
	"Alright that's good.  Come on, we gotta clean up."
She pulled James up as the alcohol streaked from his body in cool moist droplets as he shook himself a little.  He went to get a towel from the bathroom to soak in cool water and clean some of the fluids from himself.  Jenny got up and recovered her knife from the floor, cleaning it free of blood on the guard's body as she added:
	"Coast is clear boss, I'll just tell the plumber to come pick up our friends."
	"Good," replied Sarah, "James I'm gonna need yer help to clean up."
	"Um...oh-kay."
Feeling awkward after having been thrown straight back into the old days of a rough-and-tumble life of crime, he carried a body by the arm dragging it from the door to streak blood behind towards the back rooms of the place.  Sarah, despite her age and uneven legs, managed to do the same with enough strength as eventually all seven bodies were pulled the lowest point of the entire bar establishment.  The room with the chair.  He was nervous at first by the long walk downwards but duty called as Sarah warned him not to push the bodies down the stairs, but to drag them cautiously.
He remembered the hidden room where he first escaped from, the telephone room down below as well as "the chair" where Sarah used to inflict worse upon hardier criminals which is where the bodies would be dumped.  Once all the bodies had been shifted to the lowest point of the place, Sarah began to clean the entirety of the floor with James' help making certain every trace of blood was washed out.  With gloves and mouth covers to protect themselves, they armed with rags soaked in chemicals such as hydrogen peroxide to wipe as much of the red remnants from the floors and concrete as they could, which took at least forty minutes for just the front area.  James was slightly winded, but not enough to stop him as he took off his gloves and mask once the work was done.
	"Hoohoohooooo man...nothing changes with you huh?"
	"Nope," replied Sarah calmly, "still the same dumb shit everyday.  Thanks for the help...you did good."
	"No problem.  So...are we clear for now?"
	"Yeah."
She tossed the blood-soaked rags into a box, which in turn was placed into the room full of bodies for disposal later on as she washed her hands in the bathroom alongside James to make doubly sure.  Any weapons that they had she put away in storage through a separate small chamber James did not see before they were finished.  Slinking down back onto the sofa, they simply grinned at each other at feeling as if nothing had changed in the last fourteen years.  Despite everything she had been told by James, Sarah was starting to come around and softly digest all the information as she said:
	"We should probably keep yer adventures secret from the rest of the group."
	"I think that would be best," replied FG.
	"It's a pretty tall order, you have to admit."
	"If anyone asks, just say I disappeared somewhere in the Gaza Rift, nobody'll ask."
	"Heheh...good, nice cover."
	"Thanks, wasn't my idea.  So um...I wanted to come back to make sure that you were okay at least but...I'm seeing that a lot of things has happened soooo...you mind catching me up on what's been happening?"
	"You first.  I wanna hear everything about this journey you went on."
	"Really?  That wasn't enough for you?"
	"It was enough fer me to BELIEVE you, even though I'm kinda struggling with the idea of other worlds I mean...god, jesus James that...that was the whole reason they were experimenting on you?"
	"They just wanted to make a soldier," said James, "like some kind of armoury able to replicate ammos and weapons and shit, which I can do."
	"Seriously?  You can make ammo?"
	"I just made my arm into a plasma cannon, you really think that's gonna be difficult for me?"
	"Point taken...god that was...next time warn me okay?  I'd rather not get blinded from seeing that shot."
	"Noted boss."
	"Boys are all noted!"
Jenny's voice called out from the telephone room underneath the stairs as she made her way back up.
	"They'll be down in fifteen, usual procedure."
	"Thanks Jenny," said the dolphin, "did we get that van out safely?"
	"Hidden at our usual depot."
	"Good...the vultures'll be back on in about four minutes so let's hope that fooled the A.R.M.E, you can go on home."
	"You sure about that?"
	"Just remember yer path, you'll be fine, me an' James gotta lot to catch up on.  I'll see ya tomorrow."
	"No prob.  Nice to see you finally, Rex."
	"Glad to be back," said FG coolly, "maybe next time we can say hello properly."
	"Heheh, sure, why not.  Latah boss, see you tomorrah."
She went to get her coat, swooping it from the hanger as she smoothly exited the bar by the side door without so much as a hitch and went straight into the night.
	"She gonna be okay?" asked James.  "Who was she anyway?"
	"She'll be fine," said Sarah, "that's my assistant, Jenny Liebowitz."
	"Assistant?  You normally let them stab people like that?"
	"Well she's more like my second-in-command."
	"Ohhh okay, tha-wait what, SECOND in command?!"
	"Yep.  Chain of command's all shook up, things have changed.  Now let's talk about you.  Tell me every single thing that's happened before I go to sleep."
The bartender laid back against the sofa calmly, trying not to look shaken by tonight from such a whirlwind of emotions combining anger, relief, sweet happiness and frustration.  Not that James wasn't familiar with such a blend of feelings on her face as he tried his best to talk to her about everything he could.  From the moment he teleported out from the hidden room in the bar and landed upon a terrifying alien world, to returning back here, he gave every inch of his journey the best possible description.  It was the most detailed explanation he would give and quite certainly it would be his last time ever explaining as Sarah listened with rapt attention.
It would take two hours before he finished.  Sarah only interrupted whenever something was a little beyond her concept or when James had to explain a certain term he would use not of this world.  But she kept her ears open for him, pensive with her hands pressed together in methodical stance as she took every single word in.  The things he spoke of were frankly beyond James' imagining, even beyond hers, and she knew that James had never been a creative person.  Yet all the phrases he used, every little nuance and descript of other fields and horizons were bedazzling to her.
A monstrous space pirate resembling a pterodactyl, a kingdom of mushroom-headed creatures living peacefully with koopas and squat brown-footed lumps, cities inhabited by lapines and lizards, an island of crocodilians in a battle against apes for dominance of the high seas which she had to admit was definitely more James' kind of dream environment, all of these places he depicted with such incriminating detail and vivacity she had no choice but to believe him.  The names alone were already strange enough as she asked once he was finished:
	"In...all of those places...what with all this weird magic and future science there was no way you could get back home any faster?"
	"Nope," replied FG, "I tried but I couldn't, and uh...well I only found someone who could help me about three days ago."
	"And you weren't here three days back why?"
	"Because I needed to help him, do him a solid so he does me a solid you know how it is."
	"Hm, I guess...those uh...giant scissors of yers, are they really cursed by sumthin'?"
	"I wish that part wasn't true but it is, don't worry he's not gonna hurt anyone, I kicked his ass hard with the right ritual thanks to an old lady who helped me out."
	"Right, this uhhh...Ruby chick, I mean...god James this is a lot to just...take in over one night."
	"You asked me to give you all of it," said James shrugging, "wanted to give you some time but if you just wanna hear all of this now I guess-"
	"Just...demons possessing you, these terrorists in space, a nuclear bomb in the wasteland, a whole prison inside a book-"
	"Yeah I know this sounds like a really weird-"
	"Fanfiction."
	"...okay, I was gonna say anime, but yeah that sounds pretty right."
She leaned back once again with a hand over her face, sighing deeply to conquer against the many emotions now dwindling towards a spiral into the pit of her stomach.  She felt queasy for some reason with her tailfluke waving between her legs weakly as they waited for the disposal crew to come.  It was around fifteen minutes later that they came in through the side door, a scruffy golden retriever with a ragged stache and beard wearing a blue plumber suit with cap over his eyes.
	"Heyo boss, got sum more bizness fer me?"
	"Sure do," said Sarah, "it's in the usual room."
	"Got it......hoh-llllleeeeeee shit is tha-...is that yer boy James?!"
	"Just came back today, at least an hour ago."
	"Well god damn..."
The canine lifted his cap to reveal calm brown eyes widening from amazement.
	"Wouldn't have believed it if it weren't fer my own eyes, damn...son you had us all worried."
	"It was a long trail to get back," said FG softly, "but I'm here now."
	"Sure is...wuz expectin' sum sorta ceremony to have you back, maybe a welcome parade the way Sarah's been-"
	"Cody."
Sarah looked at him coldly with a nod to keep him silent as he she pulled out her wallet, handing him a rather feasible wad of bills before he went through to the basement, followed by two assistants that were a bull and a tiger in the same suits.  The faint sounds of bone and flesh being chopped and severed could be heard as James grimaced slightly wishing he had less sensitive hearing for such until they were done.
Carrying at least four bags worth of body parts and ruined armour, they left through the back door without even saying goodbye as the sound of a van drove off in a completely different direction.  Both of them were tense, and still not entirely certain as to how best to proceed in their rather odd reunion what with all the information James had given her.  Mindblowing to even think as she sighed with her hands slipping across her head.
	"I think tonight's done a little too much on me, I think I gotta go to bed.  You have yer room still."
	"Wait, really?"
	"Yep, I kept it always the same when you left.  You can sleep off there if you plan on staying."
	"I am...just until this all blows over, or at least I can help make sure that you're alright."
	"Heh...thanks."
Sarah pulled him up with surprising strength as he wrapped his arms around her once again, feeling her breath warmly against his neck.
	"I'm glad you came...back to me."
	"I never stopped trying...Sarah."
The two walked upstairs with hands holding like sweethearts as they went towards their individual rooms opposite of each other on the topmost part of the building, Sarah on the left with James on the right.  She bade him goodnight as he opened up his room, strangely not coated with dust after all the many years he had left it from.  His bed was still there as was his posters, DVD favourites and Krunk-22 albums.  A fond need to relive everyone of his old memories came back to him but he was slowly turning exhausted the more close he went towards his old bed.
He didn't even remember falling into it, snuggling into the clean blankets with such a familiar scent of homeliness that came pouring back in seconds upon closing his eyes that he felt as if he had never left.  It felt a lot smaller than when he had last been here despite never having really grown that much in the time that he had been away.  Soon however he was waking up, after what felt like ten minutes to him but was in actual fact several hours later as the morning sun bleakly crept into his window.  It had been a good sleep, not the best but certainly enough to perk him up into his full state.
	"Nnnnnnnnnnngh...wow...that...hhhhmmmmm...god..."

James stretched his arms out and slowly walked out of his room feeling muscle memory kick in as he stumbled downstairs with automatic feet as he saw Sarah watching the news on TV.  It was as if nothing had changed, still there were the usual dangers of the world involving which race to hate this week, which celebrity deserved praise or ire, and lastly a pathetically cute story to try and give some small glimmer of hope in a stupidly small sense compared to the world's atrocity.
	"I wasn't dreaming."
Sarah's head was turned away from him as she kept staring at the news, showing the blowhole at the top of her head facing up at him.
	"You really did come back."
	"Yeah...kind of feels just like yesterday I left."
	"Same here.  God."
	"Do you...remember what I said last night?"
	"I do...and it still sounds pretty unbelievable but you got proof.  Siddown."
He made his way over as she sat with one leg over her knee horizontally, her arms spread out whilst wearing completely nothing but a pair of white panties making James irk slightly at not realising until he came round the sofa.
	"What?" she said looking up.  "It's my home, plus you never wore anything on yer chest either an' ya still don't."
	"Heh...yeah I...um...y-yeah, right."
James sat beside her trying not to stare at her breasts exposed, thick grey nipples on silver skin drooping from age with creasing lines at the top where the flesh would distend from her body.  He also could not help but notice her left leg which had screws fitted into the joints, as well as the fact it had an oddly plastic appearance despite the skin colour being similar to her other leg.  Her arms were also rather veiny now that he saw them in the light of morning, except they weren't the varicose veins of age and instead resembled straight deep metallic lines from the elbow to her fingers.
	"What's with your arms?"
	"Cybernetic limb actuators," replied Sarah, "got 'em done so I could handle gun recoil better."
	"Really?"
	"Sure beats arthritis...you ever had yer wrist broken?  Hurts like hell."
	"Heheh...I told you about my arm so uh, I can imagine."
	"Yeaaaah I uh...I don't honestly see any difference in yer arms."
	"Cut the left one and it's gonna bleed something white so uh...yeah."
	"Right."
They weren't sure how to begin the day as James noted the time on the cyber-calendar to be 5:13am.  A lot of time to do nothing as the morning news rolled in with its 24-hour filter of recurring big events, none of which interested James or were even recognisable to him.  There weren't even any sounds from outside, no vehicles, no people walking.  Everything had become so alien in that moment after waking up, the way the world held its breath before things would just explode into chaos as he struggled not to cough.  Sarah however managed to save him from the embarrassment of breaking silence.
	"You wanna know what's been happening?"
	"Please."
	"...alright.  Walk with me."
Heading to a room underneath the stairs, he found firstly the basement containing all of the bar's produce in steel kegs, but beyond that were two hidden doors that went deeper underground.  One was at the corner, the room he had originally hidden in, whereas the other was the further extensions and the true base of operations.  Sarah slid a key into a keyhole disguised as a crack in the wall, twisting to undo the lock which allowed a door to swing open at her side.
He recognised the room beyond to be the telephone room which contained a large wooden round table with several old phones and a tape recorder on a separate desk next to two maps of the city, showing different areas and venn diagrams of influence.  It was a lot more empty a map than when he last saw it, but his eyes were cast towards the other rooms spanning out beyond that he couldn't recognise before, asking:
	"Are those new?"
	"Yep," she replied, "had to put in a lot more stuff, plan a lot more things out, the usual."
	"What kinda stuff?"
	"Operations, reconnaissance...diversionary tactics, means of retrieval, defence.  For starters, lemme tell you about what's been happenin' with 'the Armee'."
The dolphin turned away from him at first, staring up at the wall at her empire now becoming smaller, focused within Canaryville.
	"They got the city."
	"What?"
	"They took it.  Everything, the city is their own now James.  I've been holding out in my fort best I can but the matter of the fact is...it's not our home anymore.  It's just...just a place we live underneath their feet...like cockroaches hiding under the fridge."
She softly turned back towards him, hands behind her back methodical with sunken eyes of porous regret.
	"They rule the city now."
	"Tha...no...n-no you're just...don't tell me that, please."
	"I'm sorry James.  But it's true.  After you left, they began to take up positions in all the right places, police, fire departments, civil services, planting all their little contacts and laymen to grab every little piece about us.  Well, not US, but the city that is, I kept my record clean.  Over time they began to take over each of the services, fitting them out with THEIR technology, THEIR managerial staff and THEIR eyes to see.  It started out as a simple introductory measure of peace and commerce, from the biggest developer in the city as a deal to improve against crime.  The mayor's too stupid obviously to see what's happening."
	"And he just let them put their shit into every office?"
	"It started out sounding good, to everybody west of Cicero that is, new security system, new integrated technology that we the taxpayer don't have to pay for!  High-definition real-time feedback security at no extra cost.  That was smart of them, to release their tech out into the wild, make this city their playground for absolutely free.  The mayor was impressed, idiot, all you needed was the right buzzwords an' he's sold, but now of course...everybody's being monitored.  That street outside had three security cameras, all of which spotted you last night.  Those were put in five years ago down here."
	"Okay, so they have eyes everywhere, you must be able to hack them."
	"No.  Not without the right military tech, which I don't because I can only do so much.  First they put all their eyes around the city, and when the city doesn't wanna pay fer its own services, who are they to say no not realising that it's just another new means to control them with.  So then the police speak up saying it's too much manpower to monitor all these different cameras so of COURSE 'the Armee' say they'll easily monitor it all by themselves acting as something of a private security force with their own squadrons.  With some officers who want to assist."
	"Ohhhhh good, I see where this is going."
	"Do you?"
The dolphin bartender crossed her arms beneath her breasts.
	"Good news is, all the corrupt police officers, what few there were, have all left their pals from the police station.  The bad news is, they now got higher clearance running the city with your good ol' friends, the A.R.M.E serving their own interests.  But hey."
She swept her hands out in a sarcastic knowing manner.
	"At least they finally got rid of all corruption in the police station, who now are completely useless an' full of good guys that can't do a goddamn thing because they lost all authority."
	"How did that happen?!" asked FG.
	"The mayor was so impressed by the A.R.M.E's diligence at responding to crimes more fast and efficient than the actual police, he gave them powers judicially.  The police protested of course because what the mayor didn't know was the constant undercutting and the unfair advantage that the big pseudo-military faker asses have, so of course they got no funding.  The only reason the police haven't been shut down entirely is by the fact that they're an institution, red tape and whatnot.  You can't get rid of the police entirely from a city, but you can sure as hell replace them."
	"Damn...what about that commissioner guy, you know um...the one you knew?"
	"He's still alive, and around, in fact I been talking with him lately on how to try an' fix things.  That's gonna come later but right now I'm just explaining this to you."
	"Alright."
He watched Sarah walk around the table towards him with derisive eyes and a clear distaste burning in her mouth.
	"The council had some bickering but soon it was taking off!  Crime went down by sixty percent, all the idiots and dumb thieves and would-be killers got all arrested and slammed down into prison.  Anyone commits a crime in the city you can guarantee that A.R.M.E will be solving it on day two.  At first it seemed to work out great, their response time was incredible, their methods were swift, a new wholly clean sleek vision of law enforcement against the old, fat, tired police officer.  And admittedly, the first four years went surprisingly well in having less people getting killed."
	"And how were you holding up through all this?"
	"I played it smart, despite plenty people telling me it wasn't worth doing this whole thing anymore.  The city was in safe hands, even people I trusted thought the A.R.M.E were turning a new leaf, maybe somebody up top got replaced and they were really willing to fix this place up.  I knew better, because all those people who left me are either dead, or gone from Chicago.  I know how much money the city's lost through various bad schemes put forwards by entrepeneurs and desperate councilpeople."
James said nothing as Sarah placed her hands on his shoulders staring into his eyes.
	"The city is dying James.  This whole country is dying and it has been fer years.  We all wanna be like Africa, where the streets are paved with gold, where Johannesburg is the fucking crown jewel of this planet where everybody wears a suit, even the KIDS wear fuckin' suits.  You an' me...we both come from the old world, and the old world is just...hhhhh..."

She turned away as she slipped her hands off from his body with struggling exhaustion of her weary state.  A great mental weight was on her shoulders and it wasn't the age that was killing her but the pressure.  He reached out to try and give some solace but she drifted away further to speak.
	"Europe's survivin' pretty easily...strugglin' but survivin', they always try to push each other's money onto everybody, that's not new.  They're middle-class an' floatin' good but they can't agree on what colour to paint the fences, whereas America is just a slowly crumbling shack city an' Chicago is no different.  The council here was so desperate for anything money-saving they just had to go with a military contractor, a group of people that aren't even real military who dare to use the actual U.S Army's standard and capitalise on it for their means and their special little club of discharged people."
	"So how much worse is it since I was gone?"
	"Well...when crime went down, people started thinking they didn't need 'the Armee' anymore.  So of course, with all the 'police recruits' they got that were all 'upstanding' individuals they...started making more crime happen.  Falsified reports, confiscated people's belongings, always in the poorest areas so nobody would ask or be able to defend them.  They had it all wrapped up, you'd think somebody would notice but well, you remember I told you the undercutting and powers taken AWAY from the police?  Yeah, that came to bite everyone in the ass."
	"Seriously?  And all because the council was really needing to save money?"
	"Which they did, along with some extra cutback from the A.R.M.E having some uh...extra compensation for services, they gotta use the water and electricity of the city after all, they've got to pay fer services which is the one decent thing they do.  But regardless...people have gone missing.  People have been taken in with fabricated reports of theft or contacting other people that have gone missing and well...you're seeing the pattern now I hope."
	"They're just kidnapping people?  Like with me?"
	"Mmhmm.  What's most disturbing though are the people that they took.  See, ever since you got out of the place, there was a string of disappearances throughout the city, people who just gone and went missing like that."
Her fingers clicked sturdy.
	"I heard names poppin' up all over in the three years after you were gone and I noticed sumthin' scary.  All the people that went missing were saurians like you.  Nobody noticed because well, if you'll pardon me saying but, society doesn't care about your people so they just assume that those who live down out here with forked tongues an' creepy skin have probably got all caught in bad business.  That and they start even making up stories with their own made-up police statements about arson or murder so that's probably why they came down when they saw you on the vultures, to pick up another scalie."
	"They...really, you...n-no...no no this is too much, this can't be-"
	"I'm sorry James.  I wish I had better news fer you, but I don't.  Everyone is being affected but...the majority of people that have been kidnapped over the years were reptiles like you, first the saurians then they started targeting others, the crocs, the turtles, regular lizards, they all just kept getting taken an' nobody knows why, but everybody knows WHO an' that's some pretty sinister stuff.  There's not a single reptile in the city anymore, though we did manage to get some out to relocate an' escape elsewhere."
	"It's more than sinister, it's fucking systematic.  Wh-what about the news, someone must have reported this!"
	"And THAT'S the biggest problem of all," said Sarah mock triumphantly, "the city is now in complete martial law, as of two years ago."
	"...what?"
	"Nobody leaves this city.  Ever.  Not one person, and nobody even knows about it, not even on the internet."
	"But tha...that's impossible, you can't, not even from the internet you can hide that shit!"
	"Maybe you can't completely hide it, but you CAN suppress it.  The A.R.M.E have got some kinda blocker that tracks any mentions of Chicago or any of their activities and shuts the streaming down.  Reporters tried to come in, and there was even a biiiig protest during the martial law starting up.  There was hashtags, charity drives, everything you could think, but none of it got to here.  We all went out on the streets, we all stood together, even the police stood by us trying to keep things cool, we never fought back, but we STOOD to defy them.  The A.R.M.E were not gentle."
	"Jesus."
	"You ask anyone about Armour Square and people are gonna tell you about the massacre.  Oh sure there was a huge buzz on the internet about it and relief came pouring in, but once all the news dried up an' all the statements were taken an' the riot was gone, people just stop.  No more hashtags, the money all goes to some place, it helped to give us some food an' relief and yeah we did have international aid at one point, but once they were gone...it's like the teacher leavin' the classroom when the bully comes back to punch you in the face, before tellin' you that if you try to speak out again, yer fucking dead."
Feeling himself suddenly thrown into the deep end of what was an even worse situation than he thought possible could happen to his hometown, the raptor rubbed his head cautiously and sat down onto a seat next to the table.  He almost feared the answer to his next question as he stared up towards Sarah cocking his head at her.
	"So...what are you gonna do about it?"
	"Sumthin' I got up to finish in a few months.  Don't worry, I have a plan fer all this an' once I got everythin' set in place...it's all gonna be okay."
	"You sound pretty certain."
	"I got the best chance possible, it just has to wait."
	"You seem like you've got this all down tight, I mean considering the way you pulled off handling that group that came in after me.  What was that all about?"
	"Oh yeah, heh.  So, basically, we found out a way to knock the cameras out but only fer a few minutes thanks to wireless signal interference.  We found out the right right frequency to mess with them an' the jukebox has a scrambler now hidden inside it that throws off the cameras into a recording loop.  And so long as nobody is on the street for at least five minutes previously, their security watch dogs are fooled.  They never see a van arrive at my bar, and that van has now disappeared along with everybody else."
	"Wow...that's pretty smart."
	"I learnt that in Speed, remember the movie with the bus?"
	"......no?"
	"Wow you have been away haven't you?  Hahaha...alright, so because everybody uses digital, everybody knows how to use it an' hack through it.  I don't need to, cuz all my tech right here is strictly old school.  We're not Johannesburg, we got landlines an' wheels so we're gonna use 'em and since nobody else even notices the old landlines we fixed up, that's how we get around stuff.  Jenny calls our lookout, tells 'em to ring us back when the patrol gets close, that's when the time is right to knock out the feed an' BOOM...missing persons special."
	"Damn...well at least you haven't changed thankfully."
	"I hope that's a compliment."
She smiled knowing it was, chuckling as she shook her head before realising something.
	"So...what exactly were you plannin' on doing when you came back?"
	"Well...I wanted to see if you were alright, that's it really.  I mean I can see that you're not dead at least but the way you talk about this city gone to shit it...well I can't just ignore that, I can't just...leave like this."
	"You were plannin' on leaving again?"

James forgot himself with a loosened tongue and promptly shut his lips, but Sarah was too quick to notice as she walked forwards suspiciously, her head cocked to one side curiously with disdain.
	"...James.  You...you WERE plannin' on coming back to be here with me...weren't you?"
	"I...I just......look.  A lot of things happened and I...don't wanna throw things out of the loop, let's just focus here an-"
	"Tell me."
Once she had a topic in her sights there was no letting go.
	"We're all putting this out in the open just between you an' me, so no more secrets from you.  Tell me."
He sighed trying to make this as easy as possible with a hand to his forehead as he became fearful for her reaction.
	"I......I made a promise."
	"Ah huh?"
His hand dug into his satchel before pulling out the photograph once again.  Sarah looked at it firmly with a distrustful squint.
	"His name is Koopin.  That little guy there.  I...promised, I spent four years of my life with him and...they were the most wonderful years I ever had."
	"Really?  You...but, you-but-"
	"I don't plan on staying.  I never did.  I just wanted to see you, and explain to you, and tell you I was still okay, that I was happy someplace else, all I wanted was to come back and finish our business, both between me and you, and our business with 'the Armee'.  I'm...I'm sorry."
	"Are you serious?"
He braced himself for a coming fight or at least a slap in the face.
	"You...y-you literally tell me, the next day you come back, that you don't even plan on staying here?!  Wh-what are you f-fucking playin' with my heart, I'm sixty-five I can't fucking take this goddamn teasin' of yers you better be fuckin' with me!"
	"I'm not teasing you.  You wouldn't let it go, you could have just let me not say anything but I know what you're like."
	"You could have AT LEAST had the dignity to lie to me or, maybe NOT plan on leavin' me again so soon the fuck is wrong with you?!"
	"I didn't say I was gonna leave soon, I just said I wasn't planning to stay here!  I'm sorry.  Sarah I...I know you don't need to hear this-"
	"YOU-...you sure as hell know I don't the fuck are you doing to me James?"
Sarah grabbed the table in a forceful fit, struggling not to throw her fists viciously as a rage burned inside her.
	"You know that...I always treated you like you were my own son...when you were gone, I...I felt...I felt like...like I'd lost my third kid or sumthin'."
	"Sarah please don't do this."
	"We're bein' honest...aren't we?"
	"Yeah but you're trying to guilt me, do you know why I don't want to stay here?!  Because of what you JUST told me, this city is fucking dying, my people are in a fucking apartheid-"
	"But we stand TOGETHER James!"
	"AND I WILL!  I will stand with you, I am here to help you fight against 'the Armee' but when they're done with, I'm not staying here."
	"What better place do you have than this?!  HUH!?"
She stood up bristling with her heart screaming in outrage.
	"What better home do you have than the place I let you live for eight years with a bed, food and warmth?!"
	"A place where I was HAPPY DAMMIT!"
	"YOU WERE HAPPY WITH ME!"
	"THE FUCK I WAS!  LOOK AT THIS FUCKING SHITHOLE, YOU'RE A CRIMINAL!  YOU OWN AN EMPIRE THAT YOU NEVER MADE ME PART OF, YOU MADE ME AN OUTSIDER, HOW THE FUCK DO YOU THINK I FEEL KNOWING THE CLOSEST THING I HAVE TO A MOM IS A FUCKING MOBSTER?!"
	"I did not CHOOSE this life James, we have BEEN over this!"
	"Doesn't matter, you see this?!"
He forced the photo towards her face.
	"THIS is happiness, THIS is a family who care about each other and they care about ME!  They want me to come back, I fell in love with this god beautiful little person, this...th-this wonderful kind and loving creature h-he makes me feel...do you know why I'm not the James you knew back fourteen years ago?  The punk bitch who got in everybody's face, the little brat who trudged through day in, day out, never appreciating all the work you did behind the scenes, he grew up because of HIM!  Him and his family!  None of them have blood on their hands, his dad is an honest grocer, his mum is a loving housewife and brilliant musician and HE is the one reason I a-a-actually...s-stopped...being angry so much."
James pushed the finger carefully towards where he knew precisely where Koopin was the other side of the photo as Sarah listened with conflicted fury.  The more she heard James' voice start breaking the more she slowly understood.  It made it all the more difficult to suppress her rage burning deep to quench it with a cool-headedness.
	"I was never happy.  Not here, not with you.  I love you Sarah, that will never change, but I HATE this fucking place.  I HATE this worthless city and this world full of its problems, everything here reminds me of the shit I did, the problems I made because I was too stupid and arrogant to stop and THINK!"
	"Hindsight is twenty-twenty I admit, but that doesn't mean you get to run away an-"
	"NO YOU LISTEN TO ME!  Maybe you were okay with drenching yourself in this shit day after day but you never let me in, you never let me BE a part of it, so I'm just watching you from the other side of a window and never adjusting myself to this.  I watched you protect this city, I watched you manipulate people, I watched you lie and steal and KILL and the first few years I was scared and sick, I never enjoyed it, I TRIED to and the moment I did, it was the WORST thing I ever did!"
	"Bullshit, you were always a feisty little runt jealous of me an' what I got to do!"
	"DO YOU KNOW WHAT I DID OUT THERE?!"
He shrieked pointing towards the ceiling behind him.
	"I tried to do things like you, I tried to be tough, I tried to make people respect me by making them fear me and it DIDN'T WORK!  I can blame you all I want but you know what?  FUCK IT, it's my fault for ever trying and it made me realise that this is not a good life you lead, Sarah King.  It's just the best you ever had compared to everything else.  And for me, once, it was the best I had too but not anymore.  Because I found someplace better.  Someplace I can be happy, someplace I can MAKE something of myself."
	"Wh-what...James, I don't even know what sort of life you can get outside of this-"
	"I had a home."
His eyes began to thicken with tears unchecked bleeding down his face.
	"I had a home, with Koopin, do you know what I did?  I lived with him, I slept in the same bed as him, I kissed him every morning and every night.  I talk to his parents on the phone just talking about shit, I had a job, working at a bar just like here but it was a happy place.  Everytime I went in, it was all smiles and tears, not like here where it's all sneering and cracks at each other getting all racist because it's funny haha all of us are miserable subhuman shit.  I got paid, I went home, I had dinner with my boyfriend and I went straight to bed.  Nobody gets shot, nobody needs to drag a body through the place to dispose of, nobody needs to keep an eye out for the police, nothing.  I had a normal life, in a strange and weird place but d-dammit it was perfect.  I just want to be normal again."
He pulled the photo back close to his chest as a sudden pain burned in his heart.  Knowing he was so close and yet so very far was a feeling he had known when he began this journey long ago.  But he had changed the goalposts with a new home and it was hurting him all the more as he sighed with tears sitting on the edge of his eyes clearing up with his hands before she asked:
	"...why did you leave?"
	"Huh?"
	"Why did you leave then?  If it was so perfect."
	"...two reasons.  One, I had to get rid of the demon that was inside me, because he was causing real problems and I was...fearing for Koopin's life.  Two...there was someone who came from this world to find me."
	"Yeah?"
	"Someone who found me with the same tech that I use, another of the A.R.M.E's projects to hunt me down, at least at first he did but then things changed.  But he told me about you, that you were still okay and you were fighting against them.  Made me realise I had things to fix back home, things I needed to do.  I couldn't just stay with Koopin and pretend everyone else didn't exist.  It hurt...hurt Koopin too, I never want to see him upset again so I am here to fix this and I am going straight back home to him before-"
	"Okay."
	"...Hmm?"
	"I...I thought you were just being selfish again but...the way you talked about a...just...being normal, that's not like you.  That was never like you, you always wanted the adventure, the thrills, the blood spilling across the street.  You always wanted to be a revolutionary, some kinda poster boy to reblog across the world and that never came...now yer talkin' about settling in, living in a nice house an' doing all the most boring things, stuff that I wanted to do I'm just...I......I-i-i just need a minute to take this all in."
	"Uhh...okay, then I'll just...I'll just go-"
	"Just head on upstairs an' watch TV a little,  I just need to clear my head."

Nodding in sympathy, the raptor gently slinked back upwards to watch what was on TV as he felt the urge to reacquaint himself with his homeworld.  Ten minutes of news gave him all he needed to catch up on the current condition of things.  Old familiar faces had moved on, actors retired or in memoriam, political faces changed only by their terrible hairstyles or different shades of sputum to spout for their platform.  Occasionally a kind word came through or better hopeful news as he sighed laying his head back.
	"Peace talks have begun in the Ukraine between the two factions.  The People's Right and the Democratic Socialists of Kiev met together in the public square of the country's capital to discuss potential alliances against a greater threa-"
	"-continues to ravage Japan, the storm tearing its way across Kyuushu as the citizens struggle to flee northwards to the city of Kyoto-"
	"-a 12-year old porcine.  The prime minister of Britain has refused to comment as he stepped down from office to be taking part in the trial next month.  Allegations have risen against his cabinet known as 'the Eton Club' for a large string of statutory rape charges-"
	"Forests as tall as a skyscraper?  It could be happening closer than you think, the Australian company Faux Foods has been endeavouring to produce more of their synthetic meat by building apartment blocks entirely populated by forests in order to combat the rising scale of pollution in Oceania.  The founder of Faux Foods said that 'nature has given us all the ingredients we need to survive a perfect existence, and it would be the greatest insult to waste them'.  The Fauxrest Towers will be projected for their completion in-"
	"South African rand continues to remain at its highest point with the Chinese yuan hitting a steady margin of one rand to three yuan.  The American dollar continues to drop, currently at a ratio of one rand to fifteen dollars limping behind the British pound sterling-"
	"Found trapped in a cave beneath the Gaza Rift, the group of Spanish pilgrims were making their way to Jerusalem when a weakened cave roof collapsed underneath them, trapping the party for forty-seven days along the Tel-Aviv Faultline.  Efforts from both the Lebanese and Egyptian governments came through after finally managing to extract and rescue all of the thirty people in the party, before they were taken to Jerusalem to recover.  The lone city standing within the hundred-and-thirty mile-long abyss has remained an inspiration of hope for all religious denominations as the strength of will-"
	"-the seventeenth state in America to declare bankruptcy, after the shocking blow of destitution that has run rampant throughout the United States.  With struggling economic crises affecting a country that finance experts call 'a profit margin stretched too thin over too great a nation', president Malone seems desperate to form new trade deals with expanding nations in Europe after the fall of Mississippi, rendering almost the entirety of America's south into extreme poverty.  In response to this, Singapore activists have been gathering plans to build a charity concert to help the impoverished nation under the name 'The United Selves'."
Moving on from the news, he went on towards cooking shows that taught him how to make five-star meals out of a five dollar budget, products advertised that he did not recognise before as well as raw-faced sitcoms that made jokes that were relevant for only that year.  James never laughed, he slowly cocked an eyebrow with confused look as he eventually decided to flick onto the preschool channel finding a charming animated show called Tiger Pan.
It was just starting the early morn when baby would be up, the parents' last hope of a good few hours of sleep in front of the sofa as James listened to the soft steady voices from animated creatures amidst bright gentle colours.  He didn't realise after watching Pan the little tiger cub run around with his new friend Song the froglet that it had been forty minutes since he last spoke to Sarah, and he wondered on whether to go back down and talk to her or not.  At some point however, there was a sweet little turtle boy on the animated show that made him smile fondly.
	"HEY, look it's Ping!"
	"Hi Ping!  How are you?!"
	"I'm fine..."
The little turtle looked sad as his friends came over worried.
	"Are you okay?"
	"Um...ah huh."
The tiger cub looked up towards the viewer.
	"Do YOU think Ping's okay?  ...............noooo, he's not, because he's not happy.  Even if he says he's okay, he's not okay, because he's sad.  Should we help him?  ............yes!  We should!  What's wrong Ping?"
	"Um...I...I wanted to play with someone today, but..."
He winced silently as he rubbed his tiny hands nervously.
	"I got nobody to play with."
	"But...why?
	"B-because...I...you guys are busy playing with each other."
	"We'll play with you!" said Song the froglet.  "Why didn't you ask us?!"
	"I didn't wanna stop you guys from playing just so you could play with me...I'm sorry."
	"But we wanna play with you!  Don't we Pan?!"
	"That's right!" said the tiger.  "We're yer friends, an' we'd never leave a friend out alone if he wanted to play!  Right?!"
All three of them turned towards the audience once more, the turtle looking like he was on the edge of tears as he asked:
	"C-....c-can I play with you?"
James nodded unconsciously from a welling sympathy.
	"............really?  Thank you!"
His tears were gone in an instant as a smile came to him before Pan dragged him off to run around next to the pond with Song.  Feeling strangely shameful about getting emotional all of a sudden, he brought out his photo of Koopin out of a desperate need to see him again soon.  The bloody smear still remained mocking him by obscuring his face as he planted a soft kiss on the koopa's face.
	"I could clean that for ya."
He looked up oddly hearing Sarah's voice from behind him.
	"The blood, on yer photograph, I can clean that out for ya."
	"...really?"
	"Yeah come on we just cleaned a whole front room of it out I can sure do it to a little photo."
	"Are you sure?  This photo's really important."
	"I know how to clean surfaces, any surface of fluids trust me.  Learned a lotta stuff over the years, you want me to clean that up for ya then I will."
She was having difficulty in backing down from her previous argument, and knowing she had to overcome this and say sorry towards him was to James a great obstacle.  He knew that this was her means of forming a mutual agreement, a sense of respect without need to back down from each other yet as he slowly brought forth his photograph with a stern warning.
	"Don't.  Lose this."
The dolphin was taken aback slightly by his firm tone but nodded with understanding as she placed it in her pocket calmly, smiling at the sight of the preschool television that he was watching.
	"Takin' some life lessons from Tiger Pan?"
	"It was on and not depressing me, so why not?"
	"Heh, good show.  Teaches kids about handling people."
	"Maybe both of us should watch it more often."
	"Hah.  So..."
She moved herself back down into her seat besides FG.
	"You said before that I never let you in, never made you part of this.  An' I had my reasons before but after what you just told me...I wanna ask you sumthin'."
	"Yes?"
	"......do you like hurting other people?"
The question was rather certain and to the point, but James grew weary with a heavy sigh remembering the last time he was asked this.
	"Are you serious?"
	"Just...answer for me."
	"No.  Alright I just...don't wanna hurt anyone now.  I just-I'm done, I'm done with fighting Sarah, I just want to go home and...be a regular person.  I'm tired...I want to stop.  That's why I want to go back to Koopin, I'm not gonna lead you on, I'm not gonna pretend to wanna stay here.  I just want to make sure that you're okay and then I'll just go back and hang everything up and just...live like a normal person."
Sarah nodded calmly, taking this all in as she asked one last thing.
	"Would you ever come back?  Just to visit me at least?"
	"Course I would...I mean if things go well, and we manage to beat back 'the Armee' then yeah totally I wanna see you again.  I don't just wanna lose contact with you after work, I'll still be back.  Just have to find a way around again but I'm sure I can figure this out.  Let's just focus on the here and now and how to beat back these army fakes."
	"Good, that's all I needed to hear."
	"Huh?"
She slowly got up from her seat.
	"The reason I didn't take you on when you were younger was because you were too eager to fight.  Too antsy.  Now...you're weary, yer tired an' methodical, you wanna fight only because you HAVE to, not because you WANT to, am I right?"
	"Yeah.  That's it"
	"Then I think it's time you showed me what you were made of to join me an' the Fishnet."
	"Wait...seriously?"
The bartender slowly turned with a dark grin on her face.
	"You're clearly older, wiser an' a bigger pain in the ass which is just the kinda guy I need fer this big operation.  You wanna just fix things, yer not here fer revenge, you wanna make things turn out okay, I'm surprised that in the two days you got here, you haven't said one word about revenge.  That makes me happy knowin' you got good focus an' I admit...I'm a little upset, an' disappointed you got no real plan on stayin' with me.  But the fact you came back at all, shows that you've grown way more than I ever thought you could.  So here's the deal.  If you pass my test...I'll let you be one of us officially an' then we can get on down to business...that good?"
	"If it's gonna help, then I will."
James stood up without a second of hesitation.
	"I'm ready.  Let's do this."
	"Heh...yeah, you certainly are.  Do you know how I get new people into my group?"
	"No."
Her smile turned with the fierceness of shark teeth.
	"Yer gonna have fun then.  Go wash yerself, I already did, once curfew is over we can get out an' I'll take you someplace."
The raptor nodded as he went to wash himself in the shower, his clothes self-cleaning with the binding spell of his boxers that he still wore always alongside his jeans.  He forgot many times that all it needed was a good soak and it would be good as new, the best purchase he ever had next to a good motorcycle to race.  He wasn't long in cleaning himself up, a good ten minutes of smoothing out his scales with bodywash and deodorant before he was fighting fit once again.  It made him realise he had not even cleaned himself for at least a good week or two chuckling bashfully.
With one look at the mirror seeing his eyes rejuvenated, perfectly clear and green, he gave a confident wink and fingerclick pointing to his reflection as he bolstered himself with confidence, the end in sight ever closer as he jogged his way back to Sarah.
	"Well somebody's eager."
She was dressed fully by the time he was done, slipping on a dark green T-shirt and lighter black pants as if about to run a few kilometres.  Her arms remained bare sagging underneath the shoulder and drooping at the armpit slightly with exposed veins.
	"Gotta show enthusiasm somehow," said FG.
	"That's true."
	"So what are we gonna do?"
	"Curfew's almost up, ends at 6am and starts at 8pm as a means to control the population, but you an' me are gonna get a taxi an' drive out to someplace where we won't be disturbed."
	"Are we gonna fuck?"
	"Pfft, no what, with this body?  I think you'd rather have something that doesn't melt from the heat like me."
	"Sarah come on, you know you're the sexiest lady I ever knew...and you still are frankly."
	"Are you trying to sweet-talk me?"
	"No I'm just being honest.  If I wasn't with Koopin I'd...well..."
She rolled her eyes with a tender shake of her head, crossing her arms before she patted him on the shoulder.
	"Yer sweet, but next time bring chocolates."
	"Noted, you still like hazelnut?"
	"You give me that I'll let you eat me out drier than the Dead Sea."
	"Hohohhhh that's a challenge."

With their playful banter they soon exited the bar, Sarah locking everything up and leaving a note to Jenny on her usual coat hook to explain where she was if needed for any emergency.  She called a taxi already by the old landlines connecting Canaryville's businesses to her directly and soon a yellow car had rolled up with a swarthy-looking human at the front.
	"Take me on the beginner's route.  Nice an' slow."
The driver nodded without a word and rolled his window up before he made their way around a particular circuit of the city's infrastructure.  Heading west along West 44th Street, the car rode its way through old schools and churches, torn down and refurbished to become pathetic stores or simply left to rot derelict without any sense of stature.  A horizon of low-set buildings cast out in brown and grey with odd tinges of red, green and perhaps the odd white.  The library still stood as the car turned its way north, hitting along South Union Avenue towards Lauridsen Park.
James remembered the park being a lot more green than it was now, barren and dirt-filled with the remnants of rusting old sets that made him sigh with a depressed sensation.  Houses were fortified with wood and steel across their windows, stores became more forceful in demanding cash only with iron defences and he was almost certain there were more people outside on the streets.  Human, canid, mustelid, amphibian, every sort he saw sitting at the corners with fractured signs and broken eyes.
In the distance James saw the ominous tower of the A.R.M.E, shaped like a fractured sword with one side reaching higher than the other in a strange slanting length of at least 108 floors.  It stood next to an elevated motorway that crossed through the city, which he remembered well as the same road he had landed on in his escape with his newfound powers unaware as he was of them at the time.
	"You see this?"
Sarah had him turn towards her as she spoke.
	"I rule all of this.  A kingdom slowly rotting from its core by outside influences.  Maggots and flies of the A.R.M.E, infiltrating my world, placing their diseases in the form of their stolen technology to twist and darken everything.  No one trusts each other, not outside the Fishnet in any case.  Normally at this point I give a speech saying how and what I rule and why you are chosen to be part of my group...but this one is different.  You're gonna be the first to hear this.  I'm scared."
She placed a hand on her head, her elbow propping up against the window.
	"I'm scared of losing all this.  I have nothing left, you might have something to go back to...but I sure don't.  That's...that's why I lost my temper with you just an hour ago and I'm...I'm sorry.  I know I can tell you this, because you're the only one who ever saw how weak I could be, how weak I DIDN'T want to be."
	"I...I didn't realise that."
	"Well now you do...this...I just have a city struggling to keep together when a parasite like THAT."
She pointed towards the A.R.M.E headquarters.
	"Is sucking the life out of this place and trying to control every single action or thought that we make before soon enough this whole city will become nothing more than its training grounds for new operations, which it already is.  I was so glad to see you back, knowing at least one thing they managed not to take from me had come back to help me...but...you grew up.  You're a different person."
	"I'm still your friend," said James.
	"But you've grown so much...without me.  I'm proud...but at the same time I'm...I wish I had gotten to see you grow up more and see how you changed, it's just so disappointing."
	"If I had my omni-tool with me at the beginning of all this I'd have been able to show you.  I tell you the first few years of my journey was just me being a total shit."
	"It's not just that.  It's...everything is slowly slipping away from me.  I've made so many deals, I've dirtied my hands so deep I can't even remember what colour they once were, I feel like...hhhhh like I'm just pushing a boulder up a hill, you know what I'm sayin'?"
	"I do.  I've...felt that kind of struggle too for different things."
	"How did you cope?"
	"...I just kept pushing.  You know me, I was too arrogant to quit something."
	"Heh...that is true."
The car turned itself towards South Western Avenue rolling straight on towards the outskirts of Chicago.  Hitting towards a much larger green expanse not so touched by the desolation of urban decay, they rolled past McKinley Park and soon stopped at an old gas station that had been long since abandoned.  It wasn't even so much as a gas station as rather a drive-through pump-and-go stop with three small archways for a vehicle to pass underneath.  The driver turned in towards its small lot and parked itself into the bushes behind where none would see it.
	"Where are we?" asked James.
	"The entrance hall."
Sarah stepped out as she said this, tapping the driver's window as he rolled the window down.
	"Give us about ten minutes, keep the meter runnin' an' gas it if anyone comes near."
	"Got it."
The driver nodded with solemn patience and unmoving expression as James stepped out quickly whilst the dolphin lead him towards the gas station front.  There wasn't even a store, just a window booth to pay into next to the pumps in the arches as the cars drove bleakly past ignoring the shadows moving from out of their range as Sarah had her back turned towards him.
	"What exactly are we here for?" asked James.
	"To prove yourself," said she.  "You wanna get into my gang, you have to prove that yer strong enough to defy me."
	"What?"
	"It's a test I give most people, at least ones I need to see their strength for myself.  If you wanna be with me...you have..."
She turned slowly with a blank expression.
	"To fight me."
	"...I'm...wh-what?"
	"Fight me.  That's the deal, you have to knock me down hard enough to make me start reconsidering if it's even worth gettin' up again cuz once you do, yer in the Fishnet."
	"Are you...are you serious?  No wait, of course you are, really Sarah?!  Can't you just give me an errand to do like you used to?"
	"Nope, cuz yer not an errand boy, you're gonna be part of my gang an' I want you to be able to stand up to defy me.  Maybe I do sumthin' you might not approve of, maybe you have to wrestle control from me, an' I don't mean stand up to me mentally cuz you already done that quite clearly.  I mean physically as well."
	"Sarah...please.  I don't wanna fight you, I mean come on, you...I don't wanna kill you by accident for fuck's sake."
	"Hhhhm...hhhhmhmhmhm...hhhhahahahahaha, HA HA HA, kill me?!  Fuck, you think I'm that easy to kill, who do you think I am?!"
	"I'm just saying it's been years since we last-you're like twenty years older than me!"
	"Thirty.  But I appreciate you bein' sensitive about my age."
	"I don't...I don't, just, don't make me fight you, please come on."
	"Alright, alright...but if you don't join me for this, you're gonna be stuck here until I let you in which also means that-"
She whipped out the photograph of Koopin's family in front of him.
	"Your little cutie's gonna have to wait even longer fer you to come back."
	"...don't."
	"Don't what?"
	"Don't...do some bullshit to make me fight you."
	"Like what?  This?"
The photo went straight into the air like a shuriken, her other hand pulling her revolver within an instant.
	"SARAH!"
Bang.  The photograph fell back into her hand as she snatched it from the air, showing not a single hole had been made upon it.  Still undamaged despite the ever-staining blood smear on the raptor's face as Sarah grinned cruelly.
	"You...wh-wh-whatyoujus-...what the FUCK?!"
	"You gave me your weakness too easy.  You give someone your secret, you give them power over you.  Right now...you need to take that power from me."
	"Sarah I'm warning you...don't...EVER fucking do that agai-NOOO!"
Again the photograph flipped into the air as she fired straight up, missing the picture once again to fall back into her hand untouched as she waved it mockingly before him.  His fury was starting to burn at a slow temperance.
	"Now what's holdin' you back from sockin' me in the face huh?  You love me?  You care about me?  I know you do, but I know you got a lotta things to say to me, an' those are things you can't say with yer mouth, can't you?"
	"Give it BACK, NOW!"
	"Nope, new deal.  Fight me, an' I'll give it back to you.  Don't fight me, an' I'll get rid of that blood smear easily with a point-three-five-seven caliber bullet IF I don't miss an' accidentally nail that cute boy of yers in the face."
	"YOU FUCKING BITCH!  I CAME BACK FOR YOU AND THIS IS HOW YOU REPAY ME?!"
	"You come back to brag about your fuckin' perfect life, how'd you think I WOULDN'T be insulted?"
	"I could have NOT come back and let you rot away in this FUCKING CITY!"
	"Well yer here now.  So let's do this.  I don't want some pussy-ass bitch who bows down to me without a single word, I want a fighter who can THINK fer themselves an' stand up to me WITH authority an' proper experience.  Now you got that look in yer eyes fer both but I wanna see you turn sumthin' fierce so let's do this.  No weapons promise."
She put the photograph back in her pants, holstering her weapon in turn as she grinned with arms open.
	"We're going brawling, mano a mano."
	"Fine.  Fine, you know what, fine you wanna fucking fight?!"
He did the same as he slipped off his baldric fiercely placing his scissors to the side next to the windowbooth.
	"You'll get a fight you fucking Spanish bitch."
	"Hhhhahahahaha, ohhhh now we're talkin'!  NOW we're hittin' the insults like I remembered you to, good.  Good to see that's still inside of you."
	"Like you care, you can't even say anything from 'el lengua materna' without throwing up all over the place!"
	"It was just a phrase, not Federico fuckin' Lorca.  Also it's 'su lengua' not 'el lengua'."
	"...tch...wow."
The raptor started to get himself into a fighting eagerness as his younger ways came pouring back to him.
	"You actually care enough to correct me?  I thought you didn't give a shit."
	"I'm a stickler fer accuracy, what can I say?"
	"I would ask if you ever heard of Don Qui-"
	"DON'T you bring up that long-ass winded piece of crap in MY fuckin' house."
He started grinning a mix of anger and cockiness with a streaking vicious cackle on his lips at watching her get wound up.  Her hypocrisy was outstanding sometimes and he relished ever using it against her.
	"Alright, alright chica, you want me to knock you down, fine.  But really even with your little fancy upgrades I've still got thirty years ahead on you."
James stepped forwards in a stomping rush, pounding his bare feet across the tarmac as Sarah stood tapping her firm wide loafers snugly protecting her webbed feet.  From the moment he swung with a haymaker she ducked underneath, grappling with one hand against his bicep to trap his arm before planting her other fist straight into his stomach, with absurd speed for her age.  The raptor staggered back wheezing from the surprise more than the actual pain which throbbed dull in his plexus as Sarah gladly pressed her fist into the other hand's palm squeezing them tightly.
	"Hmhmhm...there's only one thing I like about my heritage."
She cracked her knuckles as they creaked.
	"Sabe mas el Diablo por viejo...que por Diablo."

Sarah King shifted her stance into that of a boxer, placing her good leg back behind with hands up ready to face her former assistant and foster son as James did the same.  She walked forwards unafraid in the light of the early morn, the dawn bleak in paling yellow gradients with darkness all around them still with streetlights turned off for the awakening day.  The raptor made a straight jab as she swerved her head sideways, leaning back before bopping James on the snout to make him jolt before the second punch came reeling from his right, cracking her knuckles across his face to force him staggering.
Shaking his head clear of the stunning strike, James ducked down and made a bullrushing thrust with his fist to slam into her stomach, fast enough she could not react in time as she gasped wheezing slightly.  But the dolphin stood her ground and swung fierce with an uppercut which James managed to dodge, until her left foot came up to powerfully thrust deep into his gut as he fell harshly onto the ground.
	"GUUUH!  Nn-nnngh...f-f-fucking christ."
	"Hhhh, come on...not time fer nappin' just yet."
He stood up slowly, eyes burning with frustration at this pointless exercise as the raptor made a feinting punch like a jab towards her face.  Knowing she would swerve away to counter, he ducked from her countering swing before planting his fist straight against the bottom of her bottle-length jaw snapping it upwards.  She stumbled back shaking herself quickly to recover, but James was quickly on her tail to slam his fist into her eye as she grabbed for him by instinct.  She didn't let go, grappling his arms despite being too late to prevent the punch but managing to hold him tightly for a vicious headbutt.
Gritting her teeth through the pain Sarah threw her head forwards as the bulbous melon forehead pounded onto James' skull, downwards as he was blinded by the brief instant of a fierce headache before she slammed her knee straight up into his pelvis.  Rapidly confusing his body with pain from both above and below, she shoved the raptor away as he groaned wincing to clutch his cock before he stumbled onto his knees, feeling the force of a baseball bat from the strength of her limbs.
	"J-j-jee-...zus, f-f-fuuuuuck."
	"Here comes the kick."
Sarah ran towards him as if about to kick a football straight over the end goalpost but James quickly planted his body flat to the ground as she missed completely with her swinging leg and scraped halfway past him.  Directly now above him, he grabbed in dirty counterattack for Sarah's own crotch and squeezed viciously like crushing peaches before his other fist directly punched into her cunt.
Shrieking from the sensitive pain, her tail swished with spasming pain as James pulled himself up, grabbing at her fluke and yanking it viciously to force her back as he landed his fist into her skull.  Staggering forwards from the sudden blow, the dolphin turned and rushed ruthlessly towards James with a weaker right punch to his face, watching to see if he would either block or dodge.  James slapped the fist out of the way with his left arm which was suddenly grabbed by Sarah's own left before she forced it against James' neck.
The world flipped itself on his head as James went crashing down by a judo-style throw from the bartender, her foot pressed next to his heel to overbalance him easily.  Once he hit the ground once more Sarah mounted his chest to start punching him across the face, playfully, not using her full strength but rather to teach him.
	"You.  Feel it.  YET?!"
	"GUH!  NNNGH!  F-FUCKING!  BITCH-NANNGRRGHK!"
	"A-AAAAAARGH!"
Jaws came crunching down upon her fist, the raptor's mouth opening to bite viciously hard until blood came trickling out as she went punching with the other hand to make him cease.  But he only bit down harder resisting with every welt newly given to his cheeks before grabbing at both wrists with his hands and throwing her swiftly off of his body, rolling slightly in the dirt as she flapped her bleeding hand.  James marched towards her as she gasped whilst slowly getting back up:
	"SHEESH...f-fuckin' maniac, you want me to get tetanus?!"
	"I'll do worse than that if you don't STOP IT NOW!"
	"Pfft...typical male, first time I ride you an' yer already tired out-"
	"SHUT UP!  You gonna stop this or not?!"
	"No."
	"THEN FUCK IT!"
Slamming a wondrous haymaker from the side at blinding speed, he knocked Sarah down hard enough for her to fall completely on her stomach.  But she wasn't out for the count just yet as she waited for him to get close, before trapping his leg with both feet and suddenly twisting her body to force him down next to her, her right foot snaking up to behind his knee and pulling hard like a fishing reel.
Falling forwards flatly, the raptor groaned as he tried to get up before Sarah could as both managed to struggle simultaneously back onto their feet.  Dirtied with dust all over their upper bodies, the dolphin breathed deep to get her wind back before a classic one-two boxer's punch with the first jab from her left and hurling her right fist from behind her after as James failed to block the second hit which mattered most.
It clocked him downwards onto his snout, forcing his head downwards before the overhead swing from Sarah came crashing down on the back of his skull.  But he managed to evade by a staggering dumb strafe before his claws swished out violently across her face, scarring down the bottlenose to the point that the dolphin could taste her lips bleeding as she braced herself.  The raptor lunged forwards with a followup punch like a train towards her exposed cheek as she veered further right before slamming a brief uppercut directly underneath James' arm.
The surprising punch did little to damage him but it was enough to shock him as Sarah followed up with an overhand strike, a shorter overhead swing that focused more on speed than power to keep James stunned enough to take even more hits.  Surviving two more hits from the older bartender, he took another punch to the chest and chin until he grabbed at her throat, pulling her close to drive his knee into her stomach and force her to dry vomit.
	"HHRRRRRRGH!"
Two punches below her breasts and one across the jaw, he released her after the third hit to send her down once more as she coughed harshly with bloodied spit drooling from her teeth.  James felt his own face feeling no blood come out just yet, but there was certainly bruises that made it sore to touch as the dolphin chuckled darkly.
	"Hhhhhmhmhmhmhmhm...that...that's it.  Now I know you can take a punch like anyone else."
	"Better than you, apparently."
	"Hmm...well, I guess...you musta been able to survive a lot after all that crazy bullshit journey you gone put yourself through.  But can you take something like THIS?!"
Turning with the speed of a cheetah she pulled her revolver from her holster and fired towards the raptor, who dodged by instinct to avoid the shot as she smirked.
	"WOAH!  ARE YOU FUCKING CRAZY?!"
	"DODGE!"
She fired again as James pulled up his shielded gauntlet, blocking his face to protect himself from any potential shots and not even trying to think what went through Sarah's deranged head by this point.  She either had the greatest confidence in him to not get shot, or she was crazy from the years of loneliness she had gone through without him.  The third shot managed to hit dead-on towards him as she fired in front of where he was going to be but he still kept his tetra shield up.  Something however was off about this.
He expected to hear something whizzing past, or at least scrape fiercely hot against the firm impenetrable blocks despite the several minute holes nestled within.  He turned and waited for the next shot with Sarah now standing up fully as she grinned defiant readying her aim as he stood ready to dodge.  With shield up to cover his vitals, he rushed forth the moment she shot at him as James dodged one way before slamming his guarded left hand against her gun-wielding arm, cracking the revolver harshly from her grip.
	"FUCK!"
Sarah cried out before there came the lunging blow from her former protege, his right fist pounding straight into her melon as she snapped back with star-studded vision.  Her eyes blinded briefly from intense stifling of pain running throughout her senses before she fell backwards almost completely cold-cocked whilst James stood above her.  The two panted hefty with stuttering limbs that ached, raw breaths heaving from their chests as Sarah choked back a bit of blood that dripped from her throat.  The raptor saw she was not going to get up and conceded with his body bent forwards to suck back his second wind.
	"Y-y-you...c-cocky...son of a bitch," mumbled Sarah.
	"I'm your...son, so that fits me...blank-shooting bitch."
	"Hhhheh...hhheheheh...hhhehehehehehh...ohhhhh...how'd ya know I...was using blanks?"
	"You...never made...sparks on my gauntlet...guarding thing...wh-whate-...whatever hhhhh...hhhhappened to...no weapons?"
	"Never...accept rules...from someone above you...gh-hhhrrrrkkhhh...I wasn't...gonna do anything to yer photo...promise you, I swapped my bullets out before we left."
	"You promise...on your children's grave?"
	"......yes.  I do."
She gulped back nodding sombrely to show her integrity.  He knew she would keep that promise as she slowly shifted herself up before handing him back the photograph.
	"Here.  I know yer gonna worry so, when we're ready to clean this we'll clean it together, alright?"
	"Alright.  Um...th-thank you."
	"No.  Thank you...fer coming back."
James took the photo and placed it back in his satchel as Sarah smiled.
	"The fact you gave up yer chance for...happiness just to come back...having had some time to think about that truthfully I uh...I appreciate you for doing that, for me."
	"I know we uh...had some problems between us but well..."
Gently he sat down beside her with a smile weary upon their faces as he sighed.
	"You're still important to me.  And despite all the shit you've done and all...I know you've got a good heart in the end, and that you want what's best for the people of this city.  I want to help you."
	"...heh, welp."
The dolphin pulled him close with an arm wrapped round his shoulders aching.
	"Yer now part of the Fishnet fer real so welcome aboard.  We start when yer ready."
	"I'm ready."
	"...well...can ya wait a bit?  My kidneys are startin' to feel like my fists at the moment."
	"Hah, same here with my face, christ you still hit like a car."
	"Flyin' or non-flying?"
	"Does it matter, both of them crash and still kill you."
	"Hahaha good point-A-OW-ow-ow...h-hurts...laughing."
	"Snrrrrrk...you want me to get you one of those chairs that go up and down the stairs?"
	"Keep talkin' like that and I'll make YOU into that chair, leatherboy."