NARCOLEPTIC DOGS PRESS, IN ASSOCIATION WITH COHERENT COMICS UNINCORPORATED, PRESENTS... WARDEN: AN ASH UNIVERSE COMIC (ASH property of Dave Van Domelen. Warden property of Matt Rossi and Dave Van Domelen. All Rights Reserved.) ISSUE NUMBER 12: NATIVITY Part three of Warden: Year Two (Adult content, language and situations - Please be advised.) [COVER: Warden hangs from a cable over a street full of partying Paragangers. Just out of the picture, a woman is holding on to Warden's hand, and above them both the cable is fraying.] 1 February 2024 3:31 PM "Tell me where she is!" Jessa Dumont could feel the blood trailing down her face from the scratches the woman currently holding her by the throat had left. Strangely, all of her fear had faded away, now that she was certain that she was about to die. "I don't know." The growing cold outside the shattered window pushed into Dumont's motel room, and the dark grey sky grew darker by the second. Winter was far from over...and the smoke from fires all over the city only made things worse. "I don't even care. I didn't come to town for her." "Bullshit." Bathory snarled. The three half-feral forms she'd brought with her on her hunt prowled around the room. "You hated her. It had to be you..." "Let go of her." Everyone was caught off guard, then Bathory was somehow flying across the room and slamming hard into the wall. Jessa hated the damsel in distress bit, especially since she'd done it twice this week. However, it seemed to be something she was forced into in New York. Warden was between her shuddering, kneeling body and Bathory's creatures, while the cat-woman pulled herself back to her feet and shook her head. How he'd *gotten* in-between them without anyone seeing or hearing him...well, that was what he did, after all. "Warden. Not dead after all." Bathory's voice was somewhere between a snarl and a purr. "I should have guessed *you'd* be behind this. Where's Cockatrice?" "We don't have her." He stood his ground and waited for one of the hissing once-human things on the floor to rush him, spinning his Katar in a lazy circle with his right hand and holding his left hand out. "In fact, I had no idea she was missing till the police told me." "And I believe you because..." "Because I'd be perfectly willing to kill your pets if I didn't think we could help each other out." Warden reached behind him with his left hand and pulled Jessa to her feet. "Jessa's sister, one of Cockatrice's victims, is somewhere in New York, probably being held against her will. When I went looking for her, I was attacked and nearly killed." He stepped a bit closer to Bathory, being careful to keep out of the range of the claws and teeth of her 'pets.' "By the same people that kidnapped Cockatrice...the Conclave of Super Villains. Your erstwhile allies." Bathory looked hard at Warden, not sure if he knew about the Weregild or if he simply meant that they were all criminals. If he was telling the truth.... "Why would the CSV take her sister *and* Cockatrice?" "I'm not entirely sure." Warden looked thoughtful. "It could be that they need a guinea pig for some cure they've developed and then they intend to make use of Cockatrice somehow. Whatever it is they want, they have both of them, I'm sure of that much. They wouldn't have attacked me if they didn't." "So what now?" Jessa spoke from behind Warden. "I've already had one run-in with the CSV...I'd appreciate not having another." "Well, I need *you* to help me with my own powers. Together, we may be able to find the CSV...or more specifically, one of them. The one who I think might be sympathetic to our cause, based on the brief contact I made with his thoughts. Bathory...well, we can waste our energies fighting each other, or...." The smile was rather disturbing. "I always *knew* you and I would end up close, Warden." Bathory snapped her fingers, and her people backed away. "Good hunting, then. For your sake, you better hope I don't find them first." Ten minutes later, Jessa walked through the front door of an abandoned Dojo. "Where are we?" "It was my home for a while." Warden didn't bother to turn on the light...Jess figured it probably didn't even occur to him. "Now, it's a safe place to operate out of for a while without letting you see my secrets." "Still don't trust me, huh?" "More than I trust *her*." Warden turned away from Jessa and walked towards a spiral staircase near the far wall away from the window. "Are you hungry?" "No. So what is it you expect to do?" "We need to find your sister and Cockatrice, but they could be *anywhere*. Even outside the city. We don't have time to waste hunting the CSV...every minute that passes is a minute that New York doesn't have." He stripped out of his jacket and sat down lotus style in the center of the room. "Come over here and put your hands on my temples." "What's this for?" She sat behind him and did as he said. "I'm going to turn my senses up as far as they'll go...basing my actions on the assumption that the CSV wouldn't leave town just yet. Now, when I do this, I'm going to lose the ability to think." "You are." "Yes. So I need you to link our minds. I'll be nothing more than a sensory machine, and you'll be using me to find our target. Then, when we've found him, you jolt me back into a state of awareness, and I'll take it from there." "You *are* crazy. And yes, I do want my sister back, so you don't have to ask." Jessa closed her eyes and tried not to think about how dangerous this was. If Warden lost himself totally, he could drag her down *with* him.... "Ready when you are." She made the link. Neither Jessa nor Warden were MetaPsych trained. A MetaPsych telepath knows the paradigms that make for easier contact between minds, knows the techniques that allow for a safety zone between the seperate identities of the people involved. Neither of them knew a single one of these. The linkage between their minds took its cue from the minds involved. It was like whitewater rafting without a raft. Jessa's life experiences slammed about inside the emptiness that was Warden's mind, because it was even scarier than she'd expected. He was losing himself in it. In the sounds of a flock of birds above the Twin Trade towers, the smells of a car fire on 42nd Street, the feel of wind rushing through the trees in the sheep meadow...the harbor, Park Avenue, Dag Hammarskjold Plaza...the more he could sense, the less there was of him to sense it. Even Jessa, with her inexperience, could tell that he was on the verge of lapsing back into the coma he'd spent most of his life in, and she was on the verge of screaming at the thought of going there with him. He could hear ants building hills in the park. He could smell the ozone on exposed wiring in tenements near the Columbia University shells. He actually could feel the mineral salts in his bones vibrating when radio waves passed through him. Satan's Eyes were being stomped on by the Rust Brothers, who'd decided to take over the action over in Tribeca...Soho was empty, the residents waiting in their homes for someone to restore order...Madison Square Garden was silent as a tomb...Wall Street was a non-stop street party, with sweaty young Paragangers standing on the steps of the NYSE like guard dogs.... Why would they be doing that? Jessa forced Warden's senses to probe the building. It smelled like old fires not quite extinguished yet, used condoms and sex, stale beer, the acidic tang of Jaz...but it was empty now. Why was it...voices, upper floors... "...mad, bad, and *dangerous* to know! We are *gods*!" "Of course we are, Eugene. *Mais non*." There he was. Funny to remember the first time they'd met...their link was long dead, of course, or she'd have found him without Warden's help. Now the only problem was getting free of Warden's mind before the both of them stopped existing. Jessa fell back on the old classics. --WAKE UP!-- They both fell down, he pitching forward and rolling to his feet while she flopped to the ground, sweating, panting, exhausted and glad to be disconnected from that endless flow of sensory information. He swiveled his head about the dojo for a few seconds, cocking his ears about and standing stock still. Then he shook himself, walked over and reached down his hand. She got up on her own. "No offense, but just once I'd like to get to my feet on my own around you." "Suit yourself." He looked like he was wincing. It was hard to tell. "So, did I find him?" "Wall Street. The Old New York Stock Exchange, from before it moved out to Long Island." She dusted off her backside. "He isn't alone; they've turned the place into a fortress. Paragangers from all over the city acting as security. I didn't get a chance to tell if my sister was there or not." "All right, then." Warden stepped towards the door. "Are you coming?" She considered it. It wasn't that she was a coward...but she knew her limitations, and one of them was that it took her a lot of concentration to use her powers. She wasn't much good once the shit hit the fan. But it was her sister.... "I guess so. But I'm not going *in* there." "Good. I have enough to do without guarding you, too." 1 February 2024 4:27 PM There are many ways to find someone in a city as big as New York. "Talk to me, Hooks." Bathory held the squirming inforunner up against the wall while her 'pets' prowled about the alley, some climbing up onto the wall while others kept an eye on the traffic. "Can't peach...Rex'd kill me..." "*Rex* has something to do with this?" Bathory's manner went from teasingly light to cold, savage rage. "How so, little flea?" Hooks went a lovely coral shade. He'd been using his power to ferret out information during one of the Cyber-Nostra's 'services' in St. Timothy's Church when Sister Christian had just mentioned in passing to one of her hatchet-men that she'd hacked Umbrae's computer system. "Dinno. I just heard Sister Christian say it. Maybe she was lying..." "What. Did. She. Say?" Each word was accompanied by a violent shaking. "I *will* kill you, Hooks. Come to think of it, you *do* resemble a shaved rat...are you boys hungry?" She looked over her shoulder at the rumbling bodies of her chosen servants. "She buzzited the World Building. Said up'nall was encrypted, Pranir glacial-like, but she had the 'price for life' and got some tidings. Said Rex traded Cockatrice to the boys'n'grrl who whacked Warden." "He's not dead." Bathory bit her tongue, but it was too late. Hooks's power worked on you whether or not you wanted to spill the beans, really: she imagined that Sister Christian probably wondered why she'd explained a simple datarun to a subordinate that morning. "So Rex arranged the whole thing?" "According to her. *Please* don't tell him I told you!" She threw Hooks aside like a sack of garbage and considered what he'd said. Right now was a *really* bad time to attack the World Building. She was down to just her pets...half of the Snow Leopards had defected when Cockatrice vanished, and those that didn't were entirely too screwed up from an entire day's worth of partying, fighting *other* Paragangs, or getting arrested. It looked like she was going to need Warden's help after all, and maybe a bit more long term than she'd thought. That was okay. She'd always thought he'd make a fine pet. She turned and stalked out of the alleyway, leaving Hooks in a suitable nest of filth. 1 February 2024 4:45 PM "We can go all night." Cockatrice didn't respond, mainly because she *couldn't*. Air hissed out of her burning lungs, and her hair hung in sweaty ropes down into her face. "I really don't mind keeping this up all night." The voice was Lana Smith's, the woman currently known as Burnout. The words were not. The former Academy student, single mother, and possessed servant to another woman was railing against her actions. Ordinarily, she might have been able to throw off the reins that had held her in thrall so long. Her son was free, safe from harm, and Lana wanted nothing more than to be free as well. "I enjoy making you suffer." But when it came to Cockatrice, the mind driving Lana Smith had a will of iron and a hate like a neutron bomb. She reached out and traced the edges of the Paragang leader's face with a ghostly hand while her breath drifted visibly away. Cockatrice's hands and feet were encased in a very clever kind of restraint...solid ice cuffs nearly three feet thick. The room was at 20 degrees Fahrenheit, so the cuffs stayed very solid...and Cockatrice couldn't use her powers on them because they already *were* ice. It was simple but effective. "I mean, if you're enjoying this too, I can keep doing it." Lana Smith's hand reached inside Cockatrice's body as easily as it would have a pool of water. Once inside, the fingertips only solidified inside the woman's left lung and brushed the lining, causing her to thrash about wildly in pain. "For a very long time." "...kill...you...Bathory..." Cockatrice's eyes flickered to the woman in the elaborate hoverchair, but she was motionless. "Your associate?" Burnout removed her hand and smiled. "She won't find you. The Snow Leopards don't have many friends in New York...I suppose that's a natural consequence of being on top...and it hasn't been hard finding people to betray you. No one will tell her anything. So...shall we continue?" Lana Smith's hand reached over to a silver tray on a table near the suspended restraints. It chose a black device the size of her palm. "Have you ever wondered what direct application of a taser weapon to someone's brainstem would feel like?" Outside the room, Labyrinthe and Conflicto stood on the rail and looked down into what was arguably once the most powerful room in the world. "I gotta hand it to the frosty...she's got pain tolerances I can't believe." Conflicto listened attentively to another scream. "How long before she breaks, ya think?" "Too long." Labyrinthe scowled. He found the whole situation intolerable. He'd only allowed himself to be dragged along on this fools errand because he'd heard rumors that his sister had been sighted in New York briefly. He'd been unable to find anyone who could confirm that for him, however, and a great deal of his time was being spent playing taxicab for the other two on their various errands. "I need a change of scenery, I think." "Hey, me too! Maybe we could go check Ellis Island out. I've always wanted to see where the huddled masses first huddled..." "I meant alone, Eugene." "Well, fine then, your majesty." Conflicto smirked. "Cuz there's a whole city out there that prays to me when they sleep, pallio." Labyrinthe watched him stalk off in a mocking parody of Labyrinthe's own usual measured pace. "Amateurs and maniacs. Surrounding me." Labyrinthe shifted positions and appeared on the roof of the old Guggenheim Museum. "I'm here, as you requested." "You picked the location." Labyrinthe turned to see Warden sitting on top of the rooftop access door. "You wanted the meeting. Why shouldn't I just..." "Let's skip the threats. I couldn't read the woman's mind, but you and Kwan were quite accessible, at least on a surface level. You don't really want to be here, and I don't really want to have to go through you, assuming I even can." "Which doesn't tell me why I should care." "You're looking for your sister." Warden gestured, and a thin, ascetic woman in old Paragang leathers came out from behind the rooftop doorway. "So is she. Jess Dumont, this is the man who goes by the name Labyrinthe." "Hello, Yvan." Jess smiled faintly. "You look different." They looked at each other for a while. Finally, Labyrinthe sighed. "All right. Suppose I help you. What do I get out of it?" "I'll help you to find *your* sister if you help Jess and I find hers, and Jess will do likewise. They used to call her Scry, back in the day, and she's quite good at that sort of thing. As you know." Warden dropped down onto the roof. "Do we have a deal?" "Maybe." Labyrinthe looked around. "Are you sure we aren't being watched?" "Quite." "They can't know I helped you." "All the help I need is the answers to my questions and for *you* to be occupied when I act upon them." "Her sister is in the office with Burnout. I don't know why. They've got some weird kind of friendship or relationship that I don't understand." "That makes sense." Jessa replied. "They were neighbors in the clinic. I suppose I should have thought of that." "She doesn't say anything, just sits there like she's in a coma. Burnout does all the talking. It was Burnout who *insisted* we go after Cockatrice. She wants to make her fix Dumont's legs and then kill her. She's been quite obsessed about it." Labyrinthe folded his arms across his chest. "They're in the NYSE building, top floor, past the observation deck." Warden considered this. --Well, if they're going to fix my sister's *legs*, I don't want to screw that up...-- Jessa thought at him. ++This 'Burnout' woman is dangerously unstable. Who knows what she'll do? And that's assuming Cockatrice both *can* reverse the freezing process and *will* reverse it. A big risk to take with your sister's life. Besides, there's more at stake here than her...there's a whole city to think about. Not to mention Bathory...who won't hesitate to kill anyone who gets between her and Cockatrice.++ Warden frowned. ++Including your sister. I should have taken the bitch out when I saw her.++ "Well?" Labyrinthe uncrossed his arms. "Good enough?" "Yes." Warden answered. "If I were you, I'd find someplace else to be for the next few hours." "Well, I hear that the Guggenheim's still very nice inside, and I'd think I'd be able to beat the security with ease," Labyrinthe smirked. "Remember, when I come to you, you *owe* me." He vanished. Warden 'looked' at the city and said nothing, and Jessa felt herself grow more and more anxious. "Well?" "Well what?" "What do we do now?" "Well, 'we' don't do anything. It's getting too messy to bring you along. 'You' should get someplace safe as quickly as possible. Call this phone number." He reached into his jacket pocket and pulled a card out. "Ask for Captain Wu." "Harry Wu?" "That's him. You know him?" "He busted me a few times." She grimaced. "Are you *sure* I should call him?" "Hell, I'm not even sure there's any writing on that card." Warden smiled softly. "But it's worth a shot. Tell him everything we know." "What are you going to do?" "Whittle down the opposition." 1 February 2024 5:17 PM Conflicto wasn't the poster boy for self-control normally. And it wasn't a normal day. Everywhere he went on all of Wall Street, he was *the man*. Kids his own age would stop and cheer him or get out of his way, depending on what they thought his mood was. He'd even stopped at once point and kissed Paul Marko's girl full on the lips right in front of the reptile, and he'd done nothing but stand there are take it with a big phony smile on his scaly lips. People offered him drink after drink, sat there in real or pretend rapture as he told stories of the raid on Haven, laughed at his jokes, and in general treated him the way he'd always expected them to but which they never had before. He decided to go into one of the abandoned buildings that the gangs had already partied their way through and relieve himself. _It's a great day to be alive._ He unzipped his fly, and then he went blind. "I agree with you." The voice seemed to be coming from a speaker the size of God's big toe. "Although you may not think so very much longer." Conflicto lashed out with his power in the direction he thought he'd heard the voice coming from, but without being able to even visualize his target, it was hard to tell if anything would happen if he *had* been sure of the direction. Then his whole chest exploded in pain. His vision cleared up. He was still in the wreck of a once-prosperous trading company, but now he was on his knees. There was the crosswise handle to a rather odd-looking sword coming out of his ribcage, and he could feet the blade poking out of the back of his shirt. Frantically, he tried to pull the blade out, but even though he could use his powers to make it loose in the wound, the pain was beyond excrutiating. He didn't think he'd ever hurt so badly in his entire life. Then he heard the footsteps, and before he could react, a pale hand tore the blade out of his chest in one fluid move. He screamed. "Does that hurt?" Warden extended his foot and kicked him over onto his back. "You can try and do something to me...and bleed to death...or you can keep the blood from seeping out of your chest...and be completely at my mercy. Which will it be, Kwan?" "Son of a *bitch*!" Conflicto was already making his choice, the choice Warden knew he'd make: he increased the viscosity of his own blood. It wasn't easy, because Warden made *sure* that he felt every sweaty, miserable second of effort it took him. "That's what I thought. The next time you decide to get cute with me, remember that all I would have had to do is aim six inches in any direction and you'd be missing one of several possible major organs. Goodnight." The tonfa blow to the head knocked him out cold. 1 February 2024 5:57 PM Bathory stood in the midst of chaos and scowled. No one went near her. She was counting who *wasn't* at the party. Gifford and Gibson Rust. Despite their recent arrival, the giant Rust Brothers had made a name for themselves as mix-masters and also handy thugs, if you liked your cyborgs on the cheap. Supernaut. If you liked your cyborgs on the upscale. Sister Christian was thirty-five yards to Bathory's left, conversing with the melted-out remains of a Financial Data Portal, but her enormous Pranir-designed killing machine was nowhere to be seen, and neither were The Rangers, his lieutenants. Mephis. The Onyx Eye were around in *force*, still smarting from their recent loss to the Snakeaters and trying to re-establish their credibility... but where was their firebug? He was about as likely to miss a party as he was to suddenly grow a conscience. Practically all the Snakeaters. For no reason would they miss a chance to make the scene...hell, Marko was a sybarite if ever there was one...but there was no sign of *any* of the big boys. She saw Barnes at one point, hiding in plain sight, as it were, but that was it. Bathory marched past Dr. Jacky, who gave her a lecherous grin she ignored, and headed right for her favorite chew toy. Barnes saw her coming and yelped, then ran as fast as he could, trying to put distance between them...and ran directly into Embeth Alloun, one of Cockatrice's oldest allies and a chief member of the Snow Leopards. Alloun saw Bathory coming and grabbed Barnes with one buzzing hand. "Warrant a blasted head, Barnesy? The Lady wants a word." Bathory smiled at Alloun. "What are you doing now?" "Jus' gabbin. Why, y'need me?" "Yes. Do me a favor...convince Barnes here to tell me where Cockatrice is being held." Alloun's eyebrows shot up. "Oh, you didn't know? It seems our new 'leader' traded Warden's death for Cockatrice's life." "Well." Alloun lifted Barnes off of the ground, the large muscles in her arms bulging, and began to vibrate him at teeth-rattling frequency. "Tym's sake, Barnesy, if you don't want me to buzz you into little pieces...I'd get to gabbing." He talked. As Bathory knew he would. 1 February 2024 6:35 PM The Rust Brothers were as excited as they ever got. That wasn't all that excited. Once, they'd been normal Paragangers... well, not *normal*, but typical...until they'd got it into their heads that they should become cyborgs. No one was quite sure *why* they'd decided this. Or why anyone else had decided to follow their lead when joining their gang, for that matter. But, with the bullheaded never say die spirit that was their trademark...well, that and their rusting, slapdash cybermods...they went out and found themselves the best illegal doctors they could and got it done. In the words of Gimble, the New York Street-fixer who'd done most of the work, 'Christ, that ain't pretty.' And she would know, because *she* ain't either. In fact, she's a humanoid Rhinocerous Beetle, but that's another story. Now the Rust Brothers saw a chance for the big time. Granted, they *were* just guarding the outside doors to the Stock Exchange, but it was a start. Gifford wore his 'My name is Don' shirt with pride. Gibson wouldn't wear his shirt, though. Currently, they were arguing about it. "You need to process the update kit." "I'm fine without the upgrade. I don't scan the intention...and the kid was a jerk anyway. Conflicto. What a stupid nomenclature." If Gibson could have made a snort, he would have. Instead, he rotated his throat mike. "He threatened to increase the friction in my disk drive." "You need to on-line your sense of humor." Gifford's voice was equally as modulated and processed as Gibson's. Both of them were mish-mashes of recycled parts, harvested from dozens of sources...some of it looked more like old stereo components than cyberware. Some of it *was*. "You should be excited to be Rob." "Who *is* Rob, anyway?" Caught up in the argument, the two of them didn't see a man in a long duster walking up the stairs. They didn't see him reach up behind his back and pull a hook sword from its sheath. They didn't see him draw a katar from the inside of the coat. "Excuse me." They were startled. Each turned his head to look down at the person speaking. Warden flipped up and over them, landing behind them on the stairs, right next to the door. He slashed out with the hook sword and caught Gifford's foot, pulling it out from under him and sending the top-heavy cyborg crashing down the stairs. "Hello, Gibson." Warden blocked an enormous metal-plated fist with the katar and reached out with his senses. Most of Gibson was heavily sound reflective and smelled of ozone and petroleum, but there was a gap between the plates of his pectoral armor.... "You're dead." Gibson brought down his left hand like a piledriver, but Warden wasn't standing there when it came down. "Not yet. Try again." Gifford had finally reached the bottom of the stairs and was getting to his feet...Warden was flipping backwards, catching a support pillar with his feet, and then bouncing back at Gibson's chest, foot extended...and as Gifford began running up the stairs, Warden slammed into the gap on Gibson's chest. The impact sent *Gibson* rolling down the stairs...directly into Gifford. The two of them tangled up and clattered down in a pile. Warden didn't expect it to keep them down forever...just long enough to get inside. Which he did. The door slid on squealing hinges, and Warden went inside, ignoring the crudely-spraypainted quote from Paradise Lost on the top, because he couldn't see it. The inside smelled of gasoline fires and vomit. Warden could also detect traces of drugs he'd never smelled before...new Pranir-made designer drugs or possibly homegrown, it was hard to tell...and something else. He could smell a lizard. At this point, someone teleported a live grenade two feet from Warden's side. He slashed out with the hook sword and batted it out the open doors, not even moving from his stance. He looked briefly through Gibson's eyes...getting a headache from the bad interface between his meat and that robot left eye...and saw the grenade land directly in Gifford's path as the two of them charged up the stairs again. Warden stopped looking as it went off. Snakeaters. The roar of motorcycles. The sound made him wince, and the vibrations along the walls threw off his sound-picture, but he locked in on their minds. They leapt over the smoldering firepit and charged him. There were four of them...Sarah Kimball, one of Mountain's old favorites, not as popular with Marko...Tristan Mann, the teleporter who'd sent the grenade, more than likely...and Hekyll and Jeckyll, the clone-slaves of Manson Haight, who could duplicate himself once a day. Warden jumped at the lead bike. Dodging would make him a target for Mann. He grabbed the handlebars and flipped over Kimball, slashing out with the katar as he went by, tearing a hole in the gas tank and dousing her and the machine. Then they were past him and Mann attempted to teleport Warden's hook sword away. It worked. Warden aimed the Cestus at Mann and pressed the second knuckle on the index finger with his thumb. The grapple fired and embedded the barbs in his shoulder, and then Warden simply *yanked*. Mann was torn through the air and slid to a stop at Warden's feet, which then snap-kicked into his head and knocked him unconscious. Warden reached out to pick up the hook sword, and then felt a small dot on his skin getting slightly warmer. Why... Clutching the sword, he rolled away as tracer ammo chewed up the stone where he'd been, and began walking the fire after him. Supernaut jumped down from the gallery, the micro-cannon in his left arm still spitting tracers at Warden. Mann took seventeen of them where he lay and died, but Supernaut didn't care. He wasn't interested in much of anything but doing Sister Christian's bidding, and she told him to kill anyone who intruded. She *didn't* tell him not to kill his supposed 'allies.' This might have been an oversight on her part. The three remaining Snakeaters on bikes weren't happy with Supernaut, of course. Marko and his people on the catwalk weren't happy with The Rangers, Supernaut's Cyber-Nostra friends. "Your chrome just slagged one of mine, sneak-snack." Marko hissed at one of the Rangers...since they all went for that androgynous android look, it was hard to tell which one he was yelling at. "Acceptable losses. Warden needs to die." "According to *you* he was already dead, Tizzik." Marko looked around at his men, then over towards Mephis, the Onyx Eye ganger who'd been sent to protect their interests. "Does that seem odd t'you?" "I can't hear you. My soul still mourns the loss of my beloved park." Mephis smiled, referring to a recent action by the Snakeaters. "Besides, I think I'll take a shot at Warden myself." Warden couldn't get out of the way in time as Supernaut switched from tracers to glazer rounds. Six bullets thudded into his ribs, and even though they didn't penetrate the coat, the impact slammed him against the wall and knocked the air out of his lungs explosively. He damped down the pain, but his head felt hollow and made of glass. Supernaut popped a chainsaw from his right arm and walked over to Warden. The blade bucked and kicked, spinning so fast that the entire metal body of the Cyber-Nostra killer began to vibrate. "Kiss it goodbye, geklover...." The vibrations increased. Supernaut felt his leg servos begin to lock up. The chainsaw began to dance around like a bucksaw, and Supernaut felt the first stirrings of panic. "What... you can't..." "Nope. He can't." Embeth Alloun shouted from the old board, where she and Bathory, and the 'pets,' had snuck in while Warden and the Snakeaters were making so much noise. "But *I* can. Buh-bye." With a whine like a swarm of bees trapped in a tin can blasted over an expensive PA system, Supernaut's chainsaw arm sheared away from his body. Bathory and her 'pets' leapt off of the board and landed in the middle of the Snakeaters/Cyber-Nostra standoff, slashing and tearing. Warden took the opportunity to move while everyone was occupied somewhere else. He couldn't win a fight like this, and that was beside the point, anyway. He was here for something else...his ribs ached with every move, but he couldn't afford to divert himself towards shutting down the pain. He slipped up the catwalk. On the floor below, the Snakeaters were attacking Supernaut, Heckyll and Jeckyll actually riding their bikes *into* him. On the catwalk, Marko and Bathory were slashing at each other like the beasts they really were, while Alloun and the 'pets' were fighting the Rangers. It would have been clear sailing, if not for one thing. Mephis was standing in the way of the door Warden needed to pass through, tiny animated snakes and worms made of fire dancing on his exposed skin like burning tattoos. He smiled, and flames danced out of his mouth. "Looks like it's just you and..." Warden was in motion. If Mephis wanted to waste time being clever, he'd pay for it. He slammed his katar blade-flat into Mephis's head, then snapped off a side-kick that he boosted as high as he could, turning the Onyx-Eye Paraganger into a battering ram that smashed through the door and into the room. Which was very, very cold. Mephis shuddered, his flames spreading to try and warm him...Warden didn't care. Instead, he drove a knee Muay-Thai style into Mephis's abdomen while scanning the room. It was large, almost sixty feet by sixty feet, with a spiderweb-crack lined window made from something that smelled like polymer...and in the center of the room were three women. One was sitting in a metal chair that covered her legs, one was standing there looking at them with sound waves passing mostly through her, and one was in an elaborate system of restraints that refracted sound in a particular way. Ice restraints. A hand edge-on into Mephis's throat, and then Warden grabbed his wrist and twisted in a Combat Akido move, sending the pyrotic hurtling into Cockatrice's restraints. He cracked his head on them and passed out, and the flames playing along his body melted the right side down into steam. "No." The ghostly woman didn't scream, didn't even raise her voice... the sheer rage in her words made them sound quiet and heavy. "No no no no no...I'll *kill* you for that." "You already tried that, remember?" Warden wasn't quite sure what to do now. He'd been hoping that Cockatrice would have already turned Tyra Dumont's legs back to flesh by the time he arrived. That wasn't the case. He cocked his head and listened to Dumont's ebbing pulse-rate. "What have you done to Dumont?" "You idiot." Burnout barked a laugh. "You haven't a clue. Why do you even *care*? What is it to you?" "Her sister asked me to find her." Warden circled away from the door on the off chance that Cockatrice somehow regained consciousness...her heart- rate was so erratic he thought it more likely that she'd die first...when he heard a loud roar followed up by a bellow. And a screaming, spitting Bathory came crashing into the room, wrapped in feral combat with a hideous fusion of a man and a monitor lizard. They were followed by Supernaut, Embeth Alloun, Bathory's pets and the Cyber-Nostra Rangers. Warden moved, rolling out of the way, as Marko slapped Bathory with his tail so hard that several of her ribs dislocated. Bathory went flying across the room, straight through Burnout, and smashed into the wheelchair containing Tyra Dumont. The two of them slid across the room and piled into the window, which exploded outward even as Warden leapt for them. The wheelchair, with its artificial environment system, went out the window just as Warden locked his hands around the arm. It was heavy, but not *too* heavy...he braced himself and tried to drag her back up...his ribcage began to buckle...Dumont's eyes finally opened, and Warden counted himself exceptionally lucky in that moment that he was blind and had no idea what kind of stare she was giving him...and Supernaut pounced on him, breaking the two fractured ribs the bullets had given him and sending all three of them out the window. They free-fell. Warden kicked free of the cyborg and dove, pointing his arms straight back and tried to close the gap between himself and Tyra. With his left hand, he fired the grapple from the cestus, using sonar to aim it. It caught the lip of the framework around the ruined window, and then he stopped paying attention and reached out to grab Tyra's chair with his right hand. He clutched the arm-rest with one hand just as he ran out of cable and the grapple went taut. Warden *howled* as the weight of the chair on one side and the pull of the line on the other yanked his broken ribs *and* his still-healing arm, but he held on. They dangled a hundred feet above the ground, swaying in the wind, as Warden tried to pull them both up. There was a noise like a gong as Supernaut landed in the street. Several of the 'gangers had to scramble to get out of his way, and the noise nearly 'blinded' Warden. "Stop...trying..." Dumont's voice came in a whisper. Warden swiveled his head down to look at her, and finally 'saw' why it was pointless. Her ice legs had shattered in the initial impact, and were now falling in chunks to the ground below them. Dumont was bleeding from the abdomen, where they'd separated from her torso. She'd be dead before she hit the ground if he let go. "No..." Warden felt sick. "I was going to *save* you." "It was a pretty good try, anyway." Dumont's face twisted up in a feral grin. "So I won't...." Then her heart stopped, and she died. Warden hung there for a moment and then, swearing at himself and at everyone else, let go of the chair. It tumbled end over end and hit the ground. He listened as it fell. Then he let the grapple fall out of the frame and dropped onto the side of the building, letting the air wash over him, feeling his broken ribs poking into his side when he breathed. _So much for good intentions._ He could still hear the fighting up above him, but it was meaningless to him now. He had to do something much harder than fight yet another in the endless parade of Paragangers...he had to go and tell Jess Dumont that he'd let her sister die. He smashed the window and climbed into the building. 1 February 2024 8:27 PM The broad shoulders in the expensively-tailored suit rolled as Mary Carson walked into the office. He was looking out the window at the city as snow began to fall, the fires dying down, the gangs too exhausted by fighting among each other or against Warden to keep acting up. "Sir? Mister Umbrae?" "Yes, Mary." His voice seemed to vibrate the windows slightly. "What is it?" "I thought you should know...Andrew's missing." "I suspected he might be. And Warden?" "He was last seen leaving the fight at the NYSE. Apparently the police credit him with stopping the gangs...once they knew he was still alive, the party mood died down, and with the CSV out of town...." She trailed off. "The whole situation's a mess. No one trusts anyone, no one knows who is in charge." "They will." Umbrae smiled. "I *knew* he'd beat death somehow." "Sir?" "That will be all for now, Mary." As she left, Umbrae's slight smile became a grin, and he stared into his reflection. "Now, it's time to remove those who would have been too powerful before." ============================================================================ NEXT ISSUE: The Gangs are at each other's throats, Umbrae is pulling the strings, and Warden has to decide if he wants to be a vigilante or a hero. Also, be on the lookout for STRAFE #6, which takes place during the past two issues of Warden, and STRAFE #7, which happens directly after this one. ============================================================================ Author's Notes: The Rust Brothers created by Marc Singer. Tyra Dumont, Jessa Dumont, Conflicto, Burnout and Labyrinthe created by Tony Pi and Dave Van Domelen. Everybody else is mine.