"Jay, I need you to answer your phone!"

At this moment, there are many emotions racing through Selenia's mind, but the strongest are those of rage. Some of that rage is quite obviously directed at The Hunter, the man who'd been stalking her and Jason for months. But the largest part of it is directed at Jason himself.

They had just finally reunited after he'd disappeared, run off to God-knows-where, and now this! He'd just walked off with that... masked freak!

"Jay, if you don't pick up the fu--"

"Hey, hey! I'm here, I'm here."

"Where the hell were you?? You can't answer a phone?"

"... I was in the shower."

"I need you to get me a ticket home. I'm getting out of here."

"Just a ticket? You're coming back along?"

Sounds of disappointment are echoing through the phone.

"We can talk about that later. I'm leaving for the airport shortly. Make sure everything's ready. Bye."

As she stuffs the cell phone into her pocket, Selenia sighs. It wasn't supposed to be like this... Coming down here was supposed to fix things. They were going to talk everything over, figure out what all these disturbing throughts and half-recovered memories meant. Get away from that weird little --

"I know where they are."

Elsie. Of course. As if things aren't bad enough... Wait, what did she say?

"I can take you to them... I mean, I'm going there anyway. So you can come, or not come. It doesn't matter. I don't care."

Selenia can't help but feel a pang of sympathy for the girl. Part of her hates Elsie, can't get far enough away from her. But another part understands that she's still just a kid, pulled into a lot of shit she can't possibly comprehend. She's also not very good at faux nonchalance.

Selenia sighs again.

"Let's go, Elsie."



The large floor-to-ceiling windows encase a penthouse so high up, the Chicago skyline was almost below it. The only room with a better view was the one belonging to Tomas Novamori.

Normally, a penthouse like this is luxuriously furnished, filled from wall to wall with expensive, rare furniture and decorations. But the owner of this place is far from normal. The only visible belongings in here are a set of old chairs sitting around a card table, a small refridgerator, and a pile of random electronics on a recessed shelf.

Curled up in the corner on the bare floor, stretching and rubbing his eyes, is one Jason Dante.

"Sorry about the lack of a bed. I don't exactly sleep a lot."

Standing across the room, still clad in his black half-mask, is The Hunter, the man Jason Dante willingly accompanied to this place. He moves toward the windows, staring out them, as Jason pulls himself to his feet.

"If you look down that way, you can see your home..."

Dante gives it a quick glance as he rises to his feet, then turns his attention to the man who brought him here.

"Quit acting like I'm your fucking dinner guest! What's keeping me here? What's preventing me from walking out right now?!"

The masked man turns to his adversary.

"Jason, the only thing keeping you here is you. If you'll recall, you came here quite willingly, and you're free to go at any time... Of course, I have a feeling you won't."

"And just why the hell not?"

"Well, as I said, you came here yourself. You're beginning to understand what's at stake here, what my purpose is. And you know I have answers, answers you won't get if you run away."

The former World Champ takes his turn at the window now, staring down the criss-cross of streets towards his home. It's so close, yet feels somehow so far.

After a few moments, Jason pulls himself from the window, taking a seat at the small table. The chair creaks as he eases into it.

"Fine, then. Start giving me some answers."

The corners of the mask curl up in a smirk as The Hunter joins Dante at the table.

"It all starts with a girl..."

Every story seems to begin like that, a girl, a woman. Even the oldest of stories, that of Adam and Eve began with "a woman".

I wondered what it was that made the words "It all starts with a girl..." sound so ominous, in my life I have met and dealt with more girls then I assume the Hunter can count...I just wonder which one he means.

"This girl...she was happy...she had met the man of her dreams and he loved her too...together they built a home, a life..."

That certainly narrows it down a bit...the bastard has already threatened Selenia...as her name passed through my mind I felt my entire begin jerk upright...maybe even thinking her name would let the bastard hurt her...if he touched her again I would...

"Do what?"

The bastard looked me straight into my eyes, either he could read my mind or my eyes, the windows to my soul had betrayed me.

I stared at him, I let the full rage that boiled inside me well up in my eyes, I filled my colourless eyes with it and let the fires of my anger and frustration explode into the retinas. The Hunter sees my built up rage and just laughs.

"At the moment, Jason...you're woefully incapable of doing much of anything, aren't you?"

For some reason this simple comment brought a strange, woe-filled calm to me, in this tranquil but solemn mind set I saw him for what he was, I saw bitterness behind the confidence, pain behind the sarcasm, the mask remained but I still saw the Hunter for what he really was...still no matter how much I tried to twist and contort my mind, I couldn't find a name to go with the face behind the mask, again I saw him grin as my brow furrowed while I thought.

"In fact..." he began with a grin.

"...no matter how much you trash that second to none Dante-brain my name eludes you does it not?"

I saw the grin widening behind the mask and a feeling began to grow in my stomach...not a sinking feeling or fright, not depression or sadness.

Slowly my guts was filling with the crimson bile of anger.

*****

Selenia stood in the middle of the arrivals terminal at O'Hare, she was...alongside Elsie waiting for Jay Ecks, the tickets had come through like they was supposed to but Jay had been...Selenia couldn't put her finger on it, he simply seemed unwilling to do anything outside of helping her.

Elsie just stood there, the last few weeks had been taxing for her, she had spent so much time on a roller-coaster between anger and sadness, between direct rage and near apathy...now tiredness was all she felt, she was sure there was some plan behind her idea to bring Selenia to where ever this Hunter guy was keeping Dante.

As the two women stood there waiting for Ecks a polite cough caught their attention.

"Excuse me...are you Ms. Alighieri?"

The man was around 22 and had a tan that was rarely seen in Chicago, he wore a suit and looked as polite as he sounded.

"No...Not any more...My name is Selenia Dante."

"Oh I see...the man who ordered the car must have been mistaken."

Selenia's eye narrowed, she instantly knew what was going on , the man who ordered the car hadn't made a mistake...he was trying to sway her to his point of view.

"Maybe." She said.

"No matter Ms. Dante...your car is ready."

"Mrs." Selenia snapped off a little more harshly then she had intended, what was going on wasn't this young man's fault.

"My apologies Ma'am...anyway, this way."

As the young driver lead the fuming Selenia and the tired Elsie through the doors of O'Hare airport Selenia made up a plan in her mind, something had gone awry with Ecks and she needed him too much for him to act like a angry five year old at the moment.

As the car speed off Selenia leant her head back and rested her sore back...she longed for Jason and wanted him to return and be as before again. Elsie just fell asleep.

*****

The Hunter picked up a deck of cards and began to shuffle it with a calm that was like acid on my nerves, this self-righteous prick was beginning to tire me something fiercely, He cut the deck and dealt two piles of five cards, five to him and five to me. I look at him and lift my right eyebrow.

"Poker?"

"Yes."

"I thought your kind preferred chess..."

"No...too Bergman."

"I see."

I pick up my cards and to be honest I'm not surprised my the hand he has dealt me. Ace of Spades, Ace of Clubs, 78 of Clubs and the 8 of Spades...the last card is the queen of hearts. I scoff and throw the cards down.

"Fun...cute little trick."

The Hunter grinned again.

"I think so...and so should you given that you played the same trick on Shawn Stylez when you joined the ECF all those years ago."

That brought back a few memories, of course I had been a different man back then...a man calling himself Ahriman.

"You didn't think I knew, did you?"

I squared my shoulder and tried to look confidant.

"To be honest I don't care."

Again the grin showed through the mask.

"Oh I know that you DO care, Jason...you care about everything I say, every word I say burns into your very soul...every syllable of what I say affects you in a deep, deep way...just imagine Jason...you and I are so alike...the only difference is a few years, a few years and our places switch...now I am the one who holds the life of YOUR wife in my hands!"

The grin turns into a smug smile...I can't see the full extent of it, I can just see the outline of his smugness...and the fire in my mind erupts, I hurl the cards, the table and my chair over and launch myself at him, As grab him by his shirt and let my fists rain down on him I feel some deep and primitive satisfaction in the depth of my soul, all the Emo bullshit, all the angst drain away...now the battle is simple, it's him and me...my fists and his face.

I let my fists rain on his face, his chest and on the FUCKING grin of his!

*****

The car door opens, two women exit the vehicle, the driver drops off their luggage and makes some petty apologies before speeding off again. Selenia lets Elsie in and puts her few bags down, as Elsie curls up in a couch Selenia walks out to find Ecks.

She walked through the garden, past the trees she and Jason panted to symbolise each other, past the pool area and past the Tennis court Jason never managed to get done...as she walks past a few tall hedges she sees the largish house that Dante built for his friend, every blind in the house is closed, it a few days worth of mails and newspapers litter the mailbox.

Slowly she strides up to the door and knocks.

"GO AWAY!"

She was very much unprepared for that yell.

"Jay?"

"I said go AWAY!"

"Jay, I have to talk to you!"

"Why don't you talk, to HIM...let him fill you with more of his happy little lies!"

"Who?"

"Who? Jason the lyingmoterfucker Dante!"

"Jay...Jason hasn't lied to us."

"Keep telling yourself that, Selenia...now leave me the fuck alone!"

"Jay..."

"No! As long as you are on that fucking...KILLER's side you're not welcome in my house."

That was the last straw, without thinking Selenia pulls out abilities she thought had gone as her child had started to develop in his stomach. Tendrils of pure darkness seep from her hands and grab hold of the door, without any greater use of energy she pulls the door from it's hinges and hurls it across the garden, embedding it in Dante's unfinished centre court.

Her eyes pulse with radiant dark energy as she stands in front of a shocked and numb Jay Ecks. The large man looks like he hasn't slept for weeks, in fact he looks and smells like he hasn't used a shower or a razor in the same amount of time.

He stares at her and stutters.

"I...I...Th...thought you couldn't of that any more..."

Selenia pauses...neither did she...she thought she had lost the ability, slight panic sets in as she waits for a kick from her baby...a slight nudge in her belly brings her back to this world.

"The world is full of surprises Jay...Surprises that I need your help in dealing with..."

"But...he lied to us Selenia...he lied...he told us that he hadn't done anything to...her...and he..."

Selenia's face shifts from compassionate to irate and the to angry.

"He didn't lie...Jason isn't the liar in this mess..."

"But..."

"No "buts"...Jason is not a liar..."

"I...he..."

"Jay, stop feeling sorry for yourself I need your damn help!"

*****

How wonderful it feels to let all anger loose, how exhilarating it is to finally get the release for weeks and months of threats and innuendos from this masked freak. I pound his face with a few more punches before getting up.

I look down on the masked piss ant and he laughs.

Slowly and deliberately he gets up to his feet, he stretches his neck and looks me into the eyes.

"Feel better now, Jason?"

I spit on the floor before him.

"I feel like a million bucks..."

"Really?"

"Yeah...Really."

"You think beating me down will save you?"

"No..."

"You think more violence will deliver you? Do you think that PUNCHES can replay your debt? You think that beating me down like some jobber can excuse what you have done to ME?"

His voice isn't calm any more, it's full of unleashed anger and years of pain.

"Listen man...I don't have a clue who you are or what your dysfunction is...but I haven't done ANYTHING to ANYONE! Least of all you."

The Hunter stares at me...I see doubt flash by in his eyes, then I her air escaping through his gritted teeth.

"Is...that...so?"

"Yes."

"You haven't done anything...to anyone..."

"No."

He lifts his right hand to the back of his head and undoes the knots on his mask, knot by knot his disguise is opened up, with one violent and angry pull the mask comes off.

"What about me then?"

As the face comes into full view my knees feel like they are turning into jell-o and my brain feels like it's boiling over. I drop to my knees, as I go into a seizure that makes my entire body shake out of control he stares at me, before my world turns into darkness I see the grin...with no mask behind it it seems more like an accusation then a smug grin.

Deep down in my mind I know who he is and what I have done to him...but as my world fades to black...I just can't access those memories.

Then...Jason Dante falls into the oblivion of unconsciousness.

"I'm NOT feeling sorry for myself!"

Ecks had stormed out of his seat screaming at Selenia. The woman wasn't even close to his size but she didn't look particularly impressed with the rage of the former all-American Linebacker.

"Really?" Selenia replied in the tone of a high-school harpy addressing a victim.

Jay Ecks had for as long as Selenia had known him been a calm man, something of a gentle giant...she had of course known that a bottomless rage lurked beyond the calm face and kind words. Jason had told her about how he had gone almost berserk at times, how he had broken down doors and smashed tables in school.

That Jay Ecks the large man had tried to bury, tried to hide beneath a pile of earth that was years thick...she had known it, Jason had known of it...and Jay had known it.

It was a secret the three of them shared and none of them had ever talked about.

At the moment talking was the last thing Jay Ecks wanted to do, Selenia knowing this wanted to drag the large man out of his mental lull by doing just what he did not want to do.

"I'm not feeling sorry for myself..." Ecks said trying to calm himself down by rebuilding a false surface to hide his anger and frustration behind. The result was less then convincing.

"I wish i could say that this was leading somewhere, Jay but at the moment it isn't...as long as you hide behind the lie that your best friend is a murderer."

"It's not a lie."

"What?"

"It's not a lie, Selenia...I saw it happen...the Hunter showed me...and I know that he showed you too."

"That's the part that is a lie, Jay."

His head felt as if it weighed tonnes as he shook it.

"No, Selenia...not a lie, just a horrible, horrible truth."
*****

Darkness...

No light...

Spinning darkness...

A whirlpool of dark greys and back spiralling downwards to my doom, downwards to my oblivion.

But then... a speck of light, a small shade of white in the deep darkness.

I reach for it as if it was my salvation, slowly the normal world comes into focus...then as uninvited as everything has been the last few months I see him again...I see his mask, I try to speak his real name but my mind heaves as I try to get his name across my lips.

Something is locking the memory of...of...

Spasms wrack my mind again as he laughs at me from behind his damned mask.

"Headache? Dante."

I couldn't reply...I could only watch as he walked up to me and bent down to laugh at me.

"Come on, Dante...say my name...you know you want to..."

I tried to get the first syllable across my lips, I tried to get the first damned letter to cross my parched lips but every time a seizure threw me into spasms, I fought, strived to be able to say his name...my mind, knew it my soul knew it...I just couldn't get it to...

I pull myself up, inch by inch I use the Hunter as a ladder to reach my feet, As my brain feels as if it was about to explode I reach my full height and as I do, the bastard leans over and whispers his name to me...silent, innocent words that sets my mind ablaze, I swing wildly at him...again he speaks the words that hurt me...again my brain catchers fire, in a torrent of pain, in a tempest of suffering my tortured mind only sees one escape.

I say the first prayer of my life.

I apologise to Selenia for what I'm about to do...

I beg our yet unborn child to forgive this tormented father for in desperation taking the cowards route.

As I dash towards my goal, visions of friends, family flash by. My mother the man I thought was my father, my "father" seems to look sad and he whispers words that make no sense.

"I'm sorry, son.

I try to figure out what he is sorry about, but the sound of shattering glass fills my ears and drowns out all sanity, all sense dies as I feel the winds of the windy city against my face, I feel gravity do it's thing...slowly as I pick up speed, I turn around and see the masked asshole...he looks surprise, before the wind gets too fast, I lift my right hand towards him...and extend my middle finger.

*****

"Jay...how long have you known Jason?"

Ecks doesn't answer as he knows that she knows the answer already and he doesn't like where she is headed with this line of questions. A few seconds pass by before she yells,.

"Dammit, Jay...answer me."

"Thirteen years..."

"And has he ever killed anyone in those thirteen years?"

"Apparently he has!" Ecks shoots back trying to gather some confidence.

"No...he hasn't..."

"He has hurt people, taken over their businesses, fought people, made them bleed in the ring...but he has not killed a single soul."

"That's his lie Selenia...I thought you of all people would be immune to his lies."

Selenia is approaching her boiling point now, she would love to grab hold of and shake him, instead she does the one thing no normal woman could do, she reaches out for him, but just as she is a fraction of an inch from his head, she feels a tremor in her mind...she feels her world shaking and she hears words in a low, pained voice.

"Goodbye, Selenia...Ti amo!"

Then nothing.

"Jay..."

"What?!" he shoots back with a sneer.

"We have to go downtown..."

"Why the hell do we need to do that?"

"Because something has happened...to Jason."

Ecks looks at her for a while and then he sighs.

"Sure, if it'll humour you."

Selenia is already half way to the mansion, she enters and gets dressed in record time, before dashing out to find a less then thrilled Jay Ecks behind the wheel of his car.

"Where to?"

"I know when we get into town."

"Fine." he replies with a sneer before they speed off.

*****

Air rushed past his ears, air moving at great speed. His mind tried to arrange the mess of impressions that this strange whirling storm seemed to have put him in, it seemed to be a storm of wind, shards of glass and himself tumbling around on the road to something none of the participants had a clue what it could be.

He felt confused and as if he had been thrown into this chaos without warning, without being asked.

As he turned around to see from where he had come he saw his goal and as he did he remembered what had put him in this predicament...

It had been himself, it was his fault, his escape...his pain and sadly his death...

He looks down on the hard grey pavement and wonders what it feels like to be dead.

Seconds later...he knows.

*****

"Jezus! I thought that all dese nutcases went to Frisco ta leap off tha golden gate bridge!"

The paramedic sounded less the empathic...and had a Chicago accent thick enough to level mountains with.

"Dunno, Mickey I guess 'e 'ad the right ta feel depressed to, ya know."

"Yeh, sure 'e did...whouy the 'ell did 'e 'ave ta dive of some damned buildin' here though?"

"Dunno..."

"At least 'e didn't land in wata...that makes 'em a right mess..."

The two men nearly has to scrape the jumper off the pavement, broken bones and blood makes the whole operation a right mess, but finally the get him off of the ground and carry him in his body bag to the ambulance, as they load him into the car, a hand drops out of the bag, the snow white skin is strained by blood, blood that when it hits the road hisses as it burns small holes in the ground.

The man named Mickey flips the hand back on top of the body and slams the door shut.

Minutes later they are off to the morgue.

*****

He didn't know how he had ended up here, nor how his captors had managed to catch him. As he tried to move he felt servos whirring into life and restraining him. The harder he struggled, the harder they bound him in this high-tech straight jacket.

"Mr. Cage."

A man walked into the room in which they were holding Cage. Cage said nothing, he just stared at the man. He was dressed in a suit that had all the hallmarks of an Italian designer suit, Armani no doubt.

"Mr. Cage...I understand that you have...or rather had something in your...how shall I put it possession that I would very much love to get hold of...a girl...a girl named Elsie."

Still Cage said nothing, he just stared at the man in the suit.

"Mr. Cage...I take it that you know the history of this little girl...what you do not know is her significance...what she will do, what she can become."

"I know perfectly well what she can become...Why do you think I have gone to such problems hiding her and protecting her?"

"All that work and still....you failed...Mr. Cage...I'm here to make you an offer, I represent a...entity that can turn all things right again...all he or rather it...asks for in return is for you to help us to find her."

"What's your name?"

"My name? My name is Seth Drake..."

Cage smiled.

"Go to hell then, Mr. Drake."

Seth Drake shook his head before walking out.

"You will change your mind, Mr. Cage...solitude and darkness has that effect I have been told."

Then a steel door slammed shut behind Drake and the lights went out, plunging Cage into complete darkness.

*****

"Anothta John Doe?"

The woman was a little too old to be called middle aged, she had seen corpses of all shapes and kinds in the morgue in her 20 years there, it wasn't that she didn't want to care or mourn the sorry suckers that came into her "care", she simply couldn't let her self get mushy.

"Yeh, a jumpa the paramedics said..."

"Great, wheel 'im in to room 24, I'll take care a' 'im latah..."

"Sure thing..."

The door to the refrigerator unit slammed shut, the snow white skin of John Doe #2387 slowly started to get covered with frost."

The men who fixed the window had left hours ago, night has wallowed the windy city and all it's buildings and people, across the cityscape, millions...no maybe not millions but thousands of lit windows showed inhabitants doing what they did every night.

He sighed, some were reading, most were watching TV...probably the Blackhawks game...a some were having sex.

But few...maybe only one or two was suffering in silence due to their actions.

He pulled the mask off of his face and threw it against the window, he was disappointed with the lack of a "smack" or the lack of breaking glass.

"This isn't the way it was supposed to feel..."

At first when he had seen Dante charging the window he had felt a jolt in his heart, he had felt elation, freedom and...as he was no ashamed to admit, joy.

It had taken him years, oh so many years but he was finally rid of Jason Dante, he had finally avenged his...

A knock on the door disturbed his troubled thoughts. He tried and failed to push the angst away as he walked up to the door to answer it. His last thought before he opened the door was "Who the hell can this be at this hour?"

Then his hand landed on the door-knob.

*****

*Hours before*

Selenia was on her knees, as she stared at the depression in the pavement, tears streamed down her face she had wanted to help him...she had so desperately wanted to help him find his way again...but now...he hadn't let her...he had...

The thought brought new tears, she felt so alone, so very alone in a hostile world full of monsters and abyssal creatures hellbent on tearing down what little safety remained. She put her hand on the concrete blocks, she felt his essence linger, she felt his panic, she felt his desperation, but she also felt his shame and his sadness, she dove deeper and felt his love for her and their unborn child. Again tears filled her eyes as she thought about the soon to be child that would now be fatherless.

Over on his side of the small square, Ecks didn't look sad at all, he looked angry. He let her carry on her grief-stricken widow routine for a few minutes more before walking over to her.

"Selenia...please, don't waste your tears on him, he isn't worth it."

She reacted as if his words were pure adrenaline, normally her pregnant state would have forced her to get to her feet slowly, but now she shoot up from her feet as if she had rockets attached to her back, her tears dried as tendrils of pure shadowy darkness began to congeal in her eyes. It was as if the orbs of her eyes couldn't contain the inky blackness and thus it seemed to ooze out into the empty air as she walked up to Ecks and grabbed him by his jacket.

Selenia Dante was a fair deal smaller then Jay Ecks, but no training in the world makes a mere man stronger then a half-demon human, she lifted Ecks off of his feet without any real effort. Her voice sounded as if it had gone through a sander as she spat her every word at him.

"When are you going to understand that your truth is only the Hunter's lies? Your best friend is dead...dead because of the lies the Hunter planted in our heads...don't you understand Jay? We both carry Jason's blood on our hands."

"My hands are clean!" Ecks almost screamed as he tore himself from her vice grip.

Slowly he started walking towards the car, and as he did...something came over Selenia, she felt something...she felt clarity...she felt hope return...she felt...

Without thinking she leap forward and placed the palms of her hands on Jay Ecks temples. And Slowly, slowly she began to feed every insight she had into his head, she feed the clear vision and the truth directly into his cranium.

Jay Ecks fell to his knees and slowly, tears began to stream down his face. As the true images flashed by in his head, he began to plea...no he began to beg.

"Please..."

"NO!" Selenia shot back.

"Please...I beg of you..."

"NO!" was once again her reply.

"No Selenia, please...please forgive me...please!" Tears rolled down the large man's cheeks as he begged the wife of the man who was the best friend he had ever had, the man he had betrayed for forgiveness.

*****

Dusk was settling over Chicago as a man carrying a large bag stepped up to the desk at the Chicago City Morgue, the woman behind the desk was a largish black woman in her mid forties dressed in the typical hospital green, as if to complete the image of a real hospital veteran, she wore reading glasses on the end of her nose. The man stepped up to the desk and coughed to get the woman's attention.

"Yes?"

The man had long, black hair and seemed to be well built.

"My name is Dr. Bruce Triplsechs...I'm a psychiatrist."

"Yes?"

"A few hour ago, you had a John Doe delivered here...I have reason to believe he is a client of mine."

The woman looked at the "Doctor" trying to judge if he was the real thing or just some sicko looking for a fox of whatever sickos like that got off on.

"Triplsechs? Sounds German to me."

"It is." The doctor replied impatiently.

"You don't look German."

The man made a rude sound and sighed.

"It's my wife's name, Jones isn't what i would call a eye-catching name. I guess you can blame Aqua."

"Who?"

"Never mind, now about my patient?"

"Do you have a description of him?" She said while pushing a paper towards him expecting a formal description of the deceased.

"My client is...sorry was an albino."

"Oh...him...wait just one second..."

She flipped through a number of papers before finding the ones she was looking for.

"Right, sir follow me please."

The woman lead the strange doctor into one of the large rooms a bit further down the corridor.

"Right, Dr. Triplsechs, this is you man?"

The woman opened the hatch of one of the refrigerators and pulled out the body of the man the doctor had wished to see. As she pulled off the cover over the man's bruised face, the doctor took a deep breath.

"Is this you patient?"

The doctor nodded and seemed shocked.

"Sir, in that case we need his name, address. Next of kin and the rest of the normal information."

The doctor nodded.

"Of course...could you perhaps...leave me alone for a little while...I..."

The woman placed her hand on the doctor's shoulder.

"Of course, I understand, take your time, sir."

The woman left and as soon as she closed the door the sad look ran off the doctor's face. He walked up to the dead body and looked at it.

"It caught up with you in the end, didn't it, Jason?"

Bruce looked at the man who lay dead on the table in front of him, he had wished for a reply, but he hadn't expected it. He had hoped for a chance to set things right...but the dead, cold skin and the stillness of his face, told him that no life was coming from the man on the bench.

"Jason...I...things went so wrong, I can't help but to blame myself for this...I keep telling myself that if you hadn't tried to stop Bleeder and I I never would have had to put the Synaptic Inhibitor into your brain...and without that one...you'd still be alive...and ruling the world along side me and Bleeder..."

He shook his head and turned around.

"Jason..." Bruce sighed.

As Bruce shook his head, he heard the sound of a blanket being moved behind him, then that was followed by the sound of naked feet on the tiled floor.

Slowly, and reluctantly Bruce turned around and as he did, he came face to face with the "dead" Jason Dante...as Bruce opened his mouth a hand reached out and grabbed him by the throat. Dante pulled Bruce closer to his face, as he did Bruce saw his eyes, the normally were normally colourless, but now they were instead filled to the brim with a baleful fire, Dante wasn't dead...his semi-demonic system was fighting the damages done to his body, and at moment he was flying on pure hellfire.

"What...did...you...do...to...me...Bruce?" Dante growled through gritted teeth.

*****

Jay Ecks and Selenia Dante were sitting at a café staring blankly in front of themselves. Ecks looked up at his friends wife, a new burst of sorrow washed over him, as he fought it off he asked.

"So it's over now?"

"I don't know. I just don't know, Jay."

"What should we do?"

Selenia sipped her coffee.

"I think we need to find Darkness."

"Darkness? Why?"

"I'm not sure."

*****

Bruce was slowly turning blue as Dante kept his vice like grip on him.

"What...did...you...do...to...me?"

Bruce gasped for air as he replied.

"Nothing...I...urrgh!"

"LIAR!"

"Look, you threw yourself off of a tall building you can't...urgh!"

"Before...that...Bruce."

"I...I...installed a synaptic inhibitor in your brain."

Dante squeezed even harder.

"Why?" he growled.

"You...you rebelled against me and Bleeder...we...needed to stop you from hurting yourself...urgh...and us...You...we...we had made you think that our plan was to pull a cruel trick on..."

"DON'T SAY HIS NAME...after your electronic lobotomy his damned name gives me a seizure..."

"Sorry...Jason...I...I came here to try to get some closure...I'm glad to see you alive..."

"Bullshit..."

"No, I'm honest."

"If you are...remove the inhibitor."

"Yes, of course...I just need to urrghrh!!!"

"No "justs" no "onlys" just get the fucking thing out of my head."

Bruce nodded.

*****

"Darkness?"

The black haired slayer turned to look at the person who had addressed him. Marta Hayes looked somewhat disturbed by what she had just experienced.

"Yes?"

"There is someone who wishes to see you..."

"I don't recall you ever being told to act as a door keeper, Marta?"

"I haven't been told to be a door keeper...it's just that your guests were quite...persuasive."

"Yes?"

"The female looked normal, but she is at least partially demonic...and pregnant."

"Ah...Selenia."

"Yes, that was her name."

"She is Jason Dante's wife...who was the other one?"

"Big guy...looks like a football player, he seems a bit more bright then the average footballer though..."

"That would be Jay Ecks. Well, tell them to step in."

"We already did..."

Darkness looked at the woman who stood in the doorway to his room, she was a great deal shorter then Ecks who was by her side, but at the moment, she seemed to be the one in control and in power of the two.

"So I see..."

"This is too important to keep us waiting...something has happened."

"Really?" Darkness put a tad more sarcasm into that comment then he had intended too.

"I mean...he is...I mean he has..."

Suddenly the enormity of the emotions struck Selenia, like her spouse she was a creature of emotions and feelings and now, in the presence of someone she thought she could truly trust and who would know what a loss like this would feel like, she could let all her gates open, tears streamed down her face turning her make-up into two back rivers running down her cheeks. She openly wept as she found the strength to say the words that pained her.

"Darkness...Jason is dead..."

To Darkness it was as if the world stopped for a split second and a deep chasm of fear, hopelessness and grief washed in over him, before it sucked him down he did what he had always done, shut his emotions away in the deep vault of his mind and slammed the door shut.

For a brief second, Selenia had seen straight into the deepest part of the Slayer's being, for a fleeting second she had seen all his torment and anguish...then his eyes turned hard and cold again, he stared into the floor.

"It's not unexpected."

This however made Ecks explode.

"What?!"

"I said that it was not unexpected...He...Dante has been living too close to the edge of something he does not understand and does not wish to steel himself before...you have my condolences Selenia..."

Selenia was still struck by the shift of attitude Darkness had undertaken so it was Ecks who stepped up.

"Condolences? Fuck your condolences! Fuck them straight to hell!!! She has lost her husband"

"And I lost my wife! It was painful, a torture but you get over it in the end..."

Selenia walked up to Darkness and stared straight into his dark eyes.

"No...you never did...you lie to yourself every day..."

The she turned around and walked out, Ecks in tow.

*****

"Mr. Cage..."

"Piss off..."

"Where I come from he say "hello" or "good day"..."

"You do? I didn't know that cockroaches said "hello"."

"Such an amusing joke, Mr. Cage...I did not come here to exchange insults with you though, I came here to inform you that despite your refusal, we...that is I have made some progress..."

Cage just made a rude sound.

"I think you shall find this interesting Mr.. Cage..."

"C...Cage?"

The fragile sound for a young woman's voice came from the blinding light.

"Elsie...they caught you too?"

"No..."

"What do you mean?"

"They asked me to come and I thought..."

Her voice changed innocence left it and was replaced wit bitterness and a cold, heartless sarcastic tinge.

"...I thought I should listen to what they had to say...what they had to offer..."

Cage stared at the outline of the girl he thought was Elsie, and as he tried and failed to get up from hiss eat, he began to to scream.

"NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!"

*****

"Hey, that hurts..."

"Calm down, I can extract it with this scalpel but it will hurt...come on Dante, sit still!"

Bruce dug into the right ear of Jason Dante, he was looking for a Synaptic Inhibitor he had installed in the albino's brain four years ago...as he dug for the device a small stream of blood trickled out of Dante's ear.

"There...found it...not hold on to something...this will feel very weird."

Dante grabbed hold of the bed he was sitting on and cursed, he was still confused and fatigued after spending the better part of the night "dead", his body hadn't fully recuperated yet, and his mind was a jumbled mess of fear, pain and fatigue.

Suddenly it felt as if his mind expanded, reached outwards...he saw himself trying to strangle Bruce and two large men in typical government suits trying to pull him off of Bruce, he saw Bleeder sighing and shaking his head...he heard his own voice screaming.

"I'll be damned if I let you two freaks do this! This was never the plan...this was just a trick!"

Then he again felt the dull pain of having a chair smacked against his skull, he came to and saw Bruce standing over him, before the former time-cop could say anything Dante retreated from him babbling incoherently.

"Jason...you have to calm down, you have an entire event showering over you...you are bound to feel confused or even a bit out of whack...but it wi..."

Bruce got no further as a perplexed and confused Dante charged past and almost through him out the door. Bruce charged after him only to see him charge out of the door and into the cold Chicago night.

Dante charged past paramedics who took one look at the seemingly deranged man in the tattered and bloodied clothes and got out of his way.

*****

Hours later, Selenia and Ecks stepped into the estate they both called home, for some reason the house felt so empty with out Dante in it, it felt as if it had lost it's soul somewhat.

They checked the locks and the alarm, before Ecks went to bed he checked the surveillance system and what he saw made the hair on his neck stand up. He grabbed his cellphone and dailed Selenia's number.

"Selenia...we have had a break in..."

"Break in?"

"Well, not a break in as such...who ever got in used valid security codes...they...they even entered the vault..."

Selenia didn't wait for what else Ecks had to say, she Condolences dashed down the stairs as fast as her pregnant frame could carry her she reached the door to the safe Dante called "the Vault" and slowly and hesitantly she stepped in. Seconds later, Ecks joined her.

"Jay...everything is intact..."

"Yeah...everyth..."

He paused...Selenia turned to see what had made the large man pause and then, she too stared at what he was looking at.

"Oh my God..." Selenia simply said.

"Yeah...I think...I think we need tog ot o Porto Alegre, right away..."

Selenia simply nodded.

As they left a paper with text written in Dante's handwriting fell off of the box that had been ransacked...on the paper was a single word.

"Ahriman".

***Post Friction***

I felt unclean...tainted by the outfit I had been wearing and by the name I had forced poor Eubanks to announce me under.

"Ahriman."

The name itself was a failure on my part, I had felt the pain of my past and at once I had ran away and hid as Ahriman...I felt like a coward.

And even worse I felt like a failure.

"Jason?"

Oh shit...not her, not now...not with me looking like this...

"Jason are you there?"

I tried to stay quiet but the thought of her voice and her warm embrace betrayed me and in a voice raspy with emotion I whispered.

"Yeah..."

"Oh thank God!"

How was I supposed to tackle this? I had almost killed myself, broken into out own home and I had once more fled from her side when she needed me the most...For some reason the fear of our child already being born filled me and tears welled up in my eyes. I decided to stand up and for once take what I had coming to me as a man. I stood up as she entered the room.

I had expected a lot of yelling and screaming, instead she just hugged me and cried...as the confusing settled down I couldn't stop the tears of reunification either, there we stood husband and wife, soon to be mother and father, semi-demons crying like children.

Hours later I lay on my back in the room the TCW had paid for us in Porto Alegre, I looked up at the fan in the ceiling and for some reason I counted the turns it made.

"Penny or your thoughts..."

I looked at Selenia and smiled.

"How 'bout a kiss for them instead?"

She smiled and gave me a long, loving kiss.

"That one is worth more then a penny."

"Keep the change, Mr. Dante."

"Yes. M'am."

We lay there just looking at each other for am long time.

"You know, before our baby is born...there is something I have to take acre of, Selenia..."

"The Hunter?"

"Yeah, Bruce removed the thing that had been stopping my memory of what happened that night four years ago...I can remember it all vividly now...and I know who the Hunter is...which I think is more then I can say for him..."

"I see..."

"There won't be any leaps out of tall buildings this time, no deaths...just the truth at last."

"How will you make him believe yo, from what you've told me he has no reason to trust you."

I rolled over on my back again.

"There is a surveillance video of what happened, Bruce tried to hide it...make it disappear to make sure that the "hunter" and I killed each other off and let him off the hook. He had it locked away in a storage box in Grand Central Station, then he hid the key."

"Where is the key?"

"I'm not sure...Bruce didn't want to tell me...or maybe I acted too much like a Neanderthal for him to dare to tell me."

"So you're going back to Chicago?"

"We all are, you, Jay and me...we planned for our baby to be born in Chicago, remember."

Selenia rubbed her large stomach and smiled.

"Yeah."

"I'll deal with the Hunter, by any means necessary and then...the I throw myself at the tender mercies of you and our child."

Again she smiled.

*****

The Hunter opened the door to his penthouse suite only to be met with a punch to the face. As the man who had knocked on the door stormed in The Hunter was busy trying to stop bleeding from the nose.

"Oh, Hello by the way." Dante spat.

"D...Dante!"

"In the flesh you fuck..."

"I...I thought you were dead!" there was a strange hint of relief in the Hunter's voice.

"I got better." Dante snapped back and pulled the masked man to his feet.

The Hunter tried locking his eyes on Dante but as he did he felt something in Dante's mind fighting the pain he poured into him, As the Hunter force-fed Dante with a steady stream of pain, suffering and sorrow, Dante steeled himself by thinking about his wife, their soon to be born child, he made himself imagine the child's first words, the child's smile and his or her first steps...step by step he fought back the tide of suffering with happiness and joy.

A groan from the Hunter told him he had won.

"And now you sick masked fuck...what did you do to my wife?!"

"I...I injected her with your blood!"

"What? Are you nuts?"

"I know what you are Dante...imagine what it will do to your wife...and to your child..."

"My wife is a half-demon too you idiot!"

Slowly it dawned on the Hunter...he had really done nothing. As he tried to protest, Dante again punched him causing him to fall with his arms flailing into his living room.

"Now...now we can talk about your beef with me without any threats to my wife and child..."

Dante grinned and as he did, The Hunter saw the albino's mouth beginning to form the first syllable of his real name.