Years ago…

Once again, all Yakob del Sed could see was the dark -- and the only sound he could hear was the voice of Cottian del Sed. This time, of course, the voice came over the communicator rather than being next to Yakob, but the situation gave him chills all the same. The cramped shipping container he'd taken refuge in didn't much help with that, either.

"Your position's secure?" Cott asked, voice distorted by distance and poor connection.

"It is," Yakob replied, finger to his ear. "Got myself hiding on a pirate wreck orbiting Red Bear -- one of those that the Pierrot fleet took care of back in the day. The shipping containers are lined with lestrom, so any life scans should miss me."

Why are we hiding, Yakob? We're strong! We should just go and fight them!

Yakob ignored the mental interruption for the time being. They'd have a strategy meeting after this.

"Good thinking," Cott replied to Yakob's explanation, the audio clearing up for a few seconds.

"How about you, commander?" Yakob asked, the slightest smirk on his lips. Cott had been chosen to lead this mission based on his people skills, but it was still strange to consider him as being in charge. "How are things going on your end?"

Cott spat out a humourless laugh. "With you reporting in, I've confirmed everyone's managed to find somewhere to hide -- so now I'm trying to figure out how I'm gonna explain this mess. First mission into Supremacy space and I'm the one to mess it up. The Directors aren't going to be happy."

To hell with the Directors, Bruno growled, words bouncing off the walls of Yakob's skull. We didn't do all this for them. We need to stand by Cott. We'll keep him safe from them if they try anything, right Yakob?

Yeah! Serena declared. We can beat them up!

Yakob nodded almost imperceptibly as reply. Loyalty to the Sed was all he'd been taught, but he'd learnt loyalty to his friends on his own long before that. If they tried giving him any orders he didn't like, they'd be getting a very nasty surprise.

"Hey, Cott?" Yakob asked suddenly, spurred on by the chorus in his head.

"Yeah?"

"I've been thinking… if you want, I mean, and this is just me floating an idea around so don't think I'm committed to this or anything…"

Cott chuckled. "Out with it, man. You sound like you're about to ask me out on a date."

"What if we… didn't go back to the UAP?"

A moment of silence. Not even Bruno or Serena had anything to say. When Cott finally replied, he too was much quieter.

"What do you mean?"

"We're on the border between the Supremacy and the UAP," Yakob quickly explained, reeling through the factors he'd been tossing over in his head for days now. "It'd be the easiest thing in the world to just double back and head back into the Supremacy."

"What, and have the Supremacy and the UAP after us? Doesn't sound too enticing. Plus, we'd be betraying our own people, right?"

Yakob frowned. "Our own people? First, we were their street urchins. Then, we were their lab rats. Now, we're their hunting dogs. At no point have we been their people, Cott. Fuck them. They won't be able to come into the Supremacy to look for us, and we'll be able to get away from these guys chasing us now eventually. Then we can do whatever we want."

"Like what…?" The emotion in Cott's voice was indecipherable.

"I don't know, mercenary work or something!" Yakob replied, shrugging despite the fact that Cott was an untold distance away. "The point is that it'll be up to us. No more missions. No more tests. We'll finally have our own lives."

"That's…"

"Do you really want to be doing this the rest of your life?" Yakob pressed on, leaning further into the receiver. "You're a lucky guy, but do you want to be following orders until the time comes when you're unlucky? When you take a bullet to the head and they find some replacement for you?"

Another moment of silence, lingering far longer. Then, the slightest sigh.

"I'll… think about it, okay?"

"Okay. That's all I ask."

The communicator clicked off, and that was the last time Yakob del Sed ever spoke to his best friend. The next human contact he had was with the squad of Supremacy elites that wrenched open the container, pulled him out into the fell light, and forced a black bag over his head.

Now…

When Bruno del Sed finally came to, he was staring at himself in a bathroom mirror. Water ran from the tap into the sink, and droplets of that water dripped from his features. Serena had just been washing her face, then?

He could see why. They didn't look so good: their features pale and sallow, bags under their eyes, and -- as made itself evident when Bruno tried to move -- a nasty cut on their stomach, still in the process of mending with stimulants.

Bruno blinked blearily. What had happened?

It came to him in a flash. Him, bleeding in an apartment building. A bullet striking his body. The voice on his script. Cott. Cott.

Panicked nausea welled up in his throat, and for a fleeting moment he almost disappeared under the ocean of his subconscious again. But no -- he couldn't do that again. If he let himself sleep like that once more, who knew when he'd come to?

"Serena?" he asked, voice hoarse. "Where are we?"

No answer. Serena was here with him, he could tell, but a sense of exhaustion came from her -- she was in no state to communicate with him. He supposed it was only fair that she got her rest now.

Bruno half-walked, half-stumbled out of the bathroom, stepping into the clean and sterile halls of what was clearly some kind of hospital. Ruth, leaning against one of the walls next to the bathroom door, glanced up at him as he approached.

"Something up, Serena?" she asked, then squinted as she got a better look at his expression. "No… Bruno?"

Bruno vaguely nodded, looking around. What had happened since he'd last been lucid? Was everyone safe?

He was snapped back to attention as Ruth limply punched him in the arm, a lopsided grin on her face. "Don't scare us like that, asshole. We weren't sure you were coming back."

Bruno rubbed his forearm as he smiled humourlessly -- it didn't hurt, but in this confusing situation he was glad to have something to occupy his hands. "Sorry. Where are we? What's the situation?"

"Some hospital the Oliphants own," Ruth scratched her nose. "That Ray guy or whatever's being treated -- Rico's mom is hiding out here too. We've got the place on lockdown."

Bruno frowned doubtfully. "Didn't they have the last place on lockdown, too? Someone still ended up dying there."

The smile on Ruth's face grew a little more uneasy. "Well, yeah, but this time we're expecting it. Plus, we know what to look out for. If Carla Oliphant comes anywhere near this place, Skipper can just blast her to hell."

"Carla… Oliphant?"

"Oh, yeah, she's behind the whole Hunter Game thing. This girl called Keiko Oliphant-Hidaka sorta kidnapped Serena then got betrayed by Carla. She wants the family dead for some reason."

Bruno rubbed the bridge of his nose, trying to process all the information he was being given. "Okay… where's this Keiko girl, then? I can get more information out of her. If she messed with Serena, I've got a bone to pick with her anyway."

"Oh, she's dead."

Bruno blinked. "Huh?"

"Yeah, she got stabbed to death," Ruth winced. "By, uh, by Carla. Dragan was there -- he says it was really fucked up. Serena was there, too, but I guess she didn't tell you about it."

"Shit…" Bruno gulped, bracing himself for the next question. "And… what about Cott?" Every time that name passed his lips, it felt like he was back in that interrogation room, staring at that black blur that eroded the mind.

Ruth's expression hardened. "He showed up -- well, his puppets did. Guess the coward wasn't willing to risk himself. We drove him off, but he's working for Carla. They're behind all of this, together."

Bruno closed his eyes. "I see."

To tell the truth, he would have been perfectly satisfied never seeing Cott again. Out of sight, out of mind. It was Serena's heart that burnt for revenge -- and even if he felt some of that residual warmth, he didn't yearn for it as strongly. He had no desire to bring himself closer to the source of his pain. It'd be like intentionally driving his hand onto a protruding nail.

And yet… it seemed the world had other ideas. It had put Cottian del Sed in front of him, here, now.

What else could he do but put things to rights?

"So what happens next?" he asked.

Dragan was dozing in a chair when they entered the waiting room, a thin line of drool running from his mouth as he softly snored. From what Bruno understood, it had been a long night -- no doubt they could all do with some rest.

They'd passed Fix on the way in, the wide man standing outside the door like some kind of guard, but they hadn't exchanged any words. Bruno honestly had no idea what he'd say to that man in the first place: wasn't he locked up for murder last he'd seen him? What had happened with that?

As Bruno and Ruth approached, one of Dragan's eyes opened, lazily returning to consciousness as he sat up in his chair. He ran his hands over his face, snoring replaced with a groan of displeasure.

"Couldn't have given me like ten more minutes?" he mumbled through his palms. "Or, like, an hour?"

"No rest for the wicked," Bruno said seriously. "Where's Skipper?"

"Watching the roof," Dragan yawned. "I've already told him they're not gonna attack until Abraham Oliphant shows up, but he wouldn't listen to me. Asshole."

Ruth scowled. "What?! He's still recovering from his injuries! How come you didn't stop him?!"

"Like I said," Dragan replied, with a pinch more annoyance. "He wouldn't listen to me. There's only so much I'm willing to risk getting my hair ruffled, yeah?"

As Ruth ran off -- presumably to scold Skipper to death -- Bruno raised an eyebrow. "You sound like him right now," he observed.

Dragan snorted. "Fuck off. You're back with us, then?" His words were harsh, but his tone was surprisingly warm. As he spoke, he glanced down at the script in his hand.

"Looks like it. Sorry for the absence. This all kicks off when the Oliphant boss gets here, then?"

Dragan nodded, sneaking another look at his script. "Yup. Right before Carla and, uh, the other guy --"

"You can say his name," Bruno said quietly. "I won't freak out."

"Right… when Carla and Cott -- well, part of him, anyway -- were talking, she mentioned that she wanted the bodies of the Oliphants lined up in front of Abraham. So I'm guessing she wants to destroy the family and rub his nose in it. Daddy issues or something."

Bruno thought about the way Dragan talked to Skipper, and the way he talked to Fix. "Yeah. I can imagine that. But why does that mean they won't try to attack again?"

"Carla's lost the element of surprise. From what I observed, she herself didn't seem very strong -- and like I said, Cott's a coward. The participants of the Hunter Game might make a go for it, hence why we're still holed up here, but the organizers are gonna wait for the grand finale."

So they were still in the crosshairs, despite how optimistic Dragan tried to look. "So what do we have?"

Dragan frowned, eyes flicking between Bruno and his script. "There's us, of course, plus some of the Oliphants -- Roy Oliphant-Dawkins is pretty badly burnt, but he should recover in time. Rico's mom wants to rip Carla's head off, so there's that. Some of their employees. We have the guy outside, and, uh… that's it."

"Not great."

"We've been in worse," Dragan shrugged -- and as he did, he glanced down once again at the script in his hand.

Bruno furrowed his brow. "Are you doing something? You keep looking at your script. Are you hacking the system or something?"

Dragan sighed. "You'd better be joking," he said. "If you really must know, I'm keeping up on the news -- seeing if there's any clues as to what Carla's up to. It's pretty hard to multitask with you talking to me at the same time, so why don't you go catch up with everyone?"

Bruno frowned. That was… pretty cold, and pretty suddenly cold. Had he pushed some button he hadn't meant to? Had Serena done something while he was out?

"Uh, okay," he said, scratching the back of his head. "I'll talk to you later, then."

Dragan vaguely nodded, still staring at his script as Bruno stepped out of the door.

Dragan Hadrien had been telling the truth -- he had been looking at the news on his script. However, that wasn't the reason he'd sent Bruno away. The reason he'd done that was because of the photo he could see on the script.

The image had been part of a news article Dragan had been scrolling past -- a shot of the hallway in a new youth center, walls lined with posters on both sides. He was certain that hallway had been empty originally. There had been no people in the photo.

He looked down at it again.

A young woman was standing at the end of the hallway, long brown hair falling over her face -- the only sign of her features being the single eye that stared out, bloodshot, from between the brunette curtains. One hand, clenched with all the intensity of a claw, reached out towards the camera.

When Dragan had first noticed this, the figure had been little more than a vague blur. Now it was an actual person. Was this some kind of ability, then, using his script as a medium?

Static flared across the screen again, and when it cleared the figure was closer, crawling on all fours towards the camera lens. At the distance she'd travelled during that blip, she'd reach the camera in maybe two more sequences. What would happen then? Would she actually climb out of the screen?

Dragan had already tried to let go of the script, but his hand was stuck to it like a powerful magnet. He supposed he could smash it, but without letting go of the script -- and with the way he was holding it -- that would require damaging his own hand, too, which he'd rather avoid. Plus, there was no guarantee that would stop whatever this ability was.

So he did the next thing that came to mind. Dragan Hadrien took a deep breath and calmly looked down at the approaching figure in his hand.

"I don't suppose someone like you has stuff like mercy or compassion," he said quietly. "But I expect you understand what mutual gain is."