juniebug113

[daydreamerdrew]

Iron Man (1968) #14

[xenoredux]

The Legend of Silver Fang - Episode 4: The Gang Wars

If you haven’t read episode 3 yet, you can do so here.

As mentioned before, the major story beats and overarching plot are the same. This is written under the supposition that, in fantasy land, this is a mini series with episodes that run about 2 hours in length each.

Some things to be aware of going in:

This story is violent as shit!!! CONTENT WARNING FOR: Animal injuries, animal death, drowning, cannibalism, disembowelment, illness via poisoning, and other bloody Epic Bruh Moments. Maybe don’t read ahead if dead animals upset you

I was trying to achieve a decent adaptation that combines the strongest elements of the anime and manga. It will not be precisely like either and will occasionally totally deviate from both

This isn’t meant to be “better” then the canon. It’s just the way I’d go about rewriting the Akakabuto arc if I had that level of ungodly power lol

Character designs made to represent several mentioned characters can be found here, here, here, here, and here. Others will be left up to the reader’s interpretation. A link to the next episode will also be provided at the end. If a link isn’t available, the next episode just hasn’t been posted yet!

YES THIS IS THE ONE WITH THE NINJAS IN IT

The first, second, and third platoons are heading to Kasumi Dake. It's an admittedly creepy part of their road trip. The mountain is as misty as its name implies, as is the surrounding, half-dead forest.

To make matters worse/spookier, the once pale blue sky has turned a garish grey, and thunder rumbles as it begins to rain. The Kai Bros confirm they're on the right trail to the mountain, so none of the more crybabyish among them (lookin' at you, Hyena) have an excuse to leave.

Still, it'll be harder to deal with this matter during a storm, so the army huddles together under a rock overhang, being afforded just enough room to keep out of the weather's way. The Kai Bros detail how much of a bullheaded pig Moss is as everyone listens. Akatora says that Old Fattycakes has been trying to cagoule he and his brothers into joining his dogmafia for legit years now, and he just gets madder every time they tell him to get lost.

Unexpectedly, Ben gives a heaping helping of benefit-of-the-doubt to this crimelord, insisting that he's got to have something going for him if he has a huge pack. At the very least he must hold a belief his followers share. Nobody can hazard a guess as to what such an ideology could be, but it gets the dogs thinking.

Cross says this means they should try to handle the situation peacefully if they can, only launching a full blown takedown if Moss proves he's just your run-of-the-mill dictator. The Kai Bros aren't happy to hear the army might go soft on Moss, but they don't complain.

A moment later, Hyena begins to slink away from camp. Great asks where he's going and the Weimeranar twitches, says he needs to take a leak. Hyena says he could always stay under the rock, though he's not sure if he'll be able to keep from wetting himself much longer, and Great is so icked out that he all but tells Hyena in an Italian accent that it's time to take a piss.

Hyena snorts and tells the crew to keep an eye on the group's baby as he might wet himself instead, and he's already gone by the time Gin realizes he was being picked on by a nerd twice his age.

Smith laughs and tells Gin not to take anything Hyena does to heart. He's always been a wormy little guy. That's probably why he falls in behind Sniper so easily. He doesn't have the balls to pull any nasty tricks without his German Nanny around. Gin laughs and tugs on Smith's ear appreciatively.

It would seem as if Smith doesn't know Hyena as well as he thinks, though, because Hyena, though he did stop to pee, is up to some nasty business indeed. He's wandered into the forest, howling gingerly to attract the locals' attention.

He garners a response as a booming, gravely voice tells him to either state his business or get the fuck off his lawn. Several dogs who exude the same energy as smoking bikers with sleeve tattoos encircle him, cornering him against a boulder. As Hyena hyperventilates, he looks up top the boulder and shrieks.

Hyena's gaze meets with that of the biggest, heaviest dog he's ever seen. Shorter then Ben but with twice his body weight, the animal is a hulking English Mastiff mix with a spiked collar and, curiously, a coat mottled with zipper scars from stitches long since healed.

Beside the dog are two others; like bookends, they stand beside him, the leftmost looking like a slender, younger clone of the absolute unit of a dog and the rightmost being a Siberian Husky. There's no doubt about who the big guy is: Kasumi Dake's own godfather, Moss.

Miles and miles away, Hidetoshi leaves the hospital to head to a board meeting. Outside of the hospital, Daisuke is standing in the rain with a colorful, cartoon character clad umbrella. Hidetoshi tells Daisuke he should go home, Gohei's asleep and it's past visitation hours. Daisuke shakes his head and looks at John. The dog tries to follow Hidetoshi into his car but is gently pushed away.

Before Hidetoshi drives off, he gives Daisuke a sympathetic look. "I'm sorry about Gin's disappearance," he says. "We'll find him someday, I promise you that." Before Daisuke can respond, the good doctor has already put peddle to metal.

Daisuke sulks and begins to walk home, seemingly lost in thought. John sighs melodramatically as he wanders through a pet door into Hidetoshi's office. The shepherd's eyes float across the photos adorning the walls, each one reigniting a memory of bloody exploits past. John scoffs about how Hidetoshi - and most of the men in the village, for that matter - have given up hunting, which just goes to show how much of a pack of quitters humans are.

His mind wanders to Gin. He's been thinking of the Akita more and more these days, mulling over their last exchange. If he's to be perfectly honest, John's gotta admit that he's fearful for his sorta-friend's wellbeing.

Enough is enough. All inaction and no killing makes John a dull boy, so it's time to return to the mountains. He'll kill three birds with one stone: make sure Gin is okay, return him to Daisuke (by force if necessary), and maybe kill a tyrannical bear or two if he has time for it. John smugly grins at his totally foolproof plan as he runs out. It's time to become the village hero. It's time to actually make a difference.

The rain finally lets up. Back under the rock the dogs are coming to realize this, and so they begin leaving their resting place. Akatora reminds Ben once more that he and his bros are, like, SUPER willing to kill Moss if he doesn't listen to reason, to which Ben, with his most fatherly of smiles, tells them to start chillin' with the killin'.

But before anyone does anything, Gin points out that Hyena never came back from his pee break. Ben heaves an exasperated sigh. Gin gathers this isn't the first time Hyena's pulled some dumb, inconvenient shit.

Smith mutters about "that goddamn idiot" under his breath before saying he'll do the honors of finding the lost complaint factory. Having begun to strike up a friendship with Smith, Gin channels his inner five year old and excitedly asks Ben if he can go with.

Ben allows the boy he's essentially adopted to run off with his friend and the two young dogs scampering off. Ben chuckles and says dogs Gin's age always need a reason to keep moving. A moment later the group departs.

Meanwhile, Hyena has been filling Moss's head with both disgustingly transparent flattery and heinous lies. The story the little traitor's come up with goes something like this: he's a feral dog living with a nomadic pack run by a dude called Ben. The pack has recently encountered the infamous Kai Ken Short Kings who've tricked Ben into thinking Moss was seeking to destroy all competing packs. This has led to Ben waging war on Kasumi Dake. Poor Ben is just too stupid and smelly to know any better, but he's powerful and dangerous to trifle with nevertheless.

Moss smells a rat - possibly a large, grey, snively one - but he allows Hyena to leave his territory unharmed. He turns to the Mini-Moss at his side and asks what he thinks of the situation, addressing him as Jaguar.

Jaguar is Moss's son from a litter wherein he was the only survivor. He's only 2 years old, just a touch older then Gin is. The youngster puts on a bold face and says that he doesn't believe any pack's leader would buckle to three dogs he dwarfs just to start a random war. Moss agrees, saying that the Kai Bros are too up their own asses to recruit assistants anyway.

That said, the husky at his side, Lloyd, still believes caution should be taken. The little wormy guy might've been lying about the Kai Bros, somehow having discovered their beef with Moss, but there's no saying a large pack of feral dogs couldn't be seeking to do them harm.

Moss decides to send two of his men to spy on the pack and learn more about its intentions. In a parallel to Gin's departure with Smith, Jaguar asks if he and Lloyd may do said spying, his desire being to prove himself to his old man. Moss agrees so long as his son keeps himself safe, and he proudly watches the two slink off into the forest.

Elsewhere, Gin and Smith are trying and failing to find Hyena. Smith's getting increasingly annoyed at the little bugger, cursing and complaining about the inconvenience. Suddenly, both he and Gin smell something coming. It's not Hyena, but someone else. Two other someone elses, in fact. The two run and hide somewhere they won't be spotted to watch their new company.

As Gin and Smith sit atop a rocky ledge, two unfamiliar dogs run by. Smith hazards a guess that they're two of Moss's men as and the two strangers come to a stop. Gin and Smith gasp - Hyena is standing in the strangers' way! Moss's dudes ask what Hyena's still piddlefarting around here for when, in a shocking display of effort, Hyena lashes out and bites the Mastiff in the neck.

Gin and Smith can barely contain themselves - what the hell is this idiot doing?! He's going to get everyone in trouble! Gin can't stand by and let this happen. He's about to spring into action but stops when he notices a dark shadow descending on the group.

The shadow is from an illusive cling-on the pack hadn't realized was following them: General Sniper! The Doberman dives onto Lloyd, landing the perfect blow and snapping the Husky's neck on impact. Lloyd dies instantly, his body tumbling to the ground. Sniper gives a wildly cliche evil laugh. He turns to a confused Jaguar as the Mastiff punts Hyena aside.

Jaguar runs to Lloyd's side and starts shaking him in an effort to revive him. Sniper just guffaws and tells Moss's precious son that his death is necessary for the cause. That cause being, of course, a war between Moss and Ben's packs, a war which will hopefully lead to Ben's demise. He punctuates his insidious plan by slashing open Jaguar's left shoulder, sending the inexperienced dog rolling in the dirt.

Meanwhile, on the cusp of the village, Daisuke is looking around the forest, bow clutched in hand. He's calling Gin's name and murmuring about how his dog had had a strange fascination with the feral pack in the area. Could Gin have come out here? And Daisuke had thought the rain had let up, what is this sticky substance dripping onto his shoulder?

The child turns to see he's being overlooked by a bigass bear with a set of hugeass teeth. As he screams bloody murder, the bear begins climbing down towards him. The animal roars hideously at Daisuke as it approaches.

While Daisuke cowers and falls on his ass, the shadow of a dog passes over him and snags hold of the animal's muzzle. It's John, heroically putting the kibosh on his departure so he can save the shrieking boychild.

Back at Kasumi Dake, Gin's had enough. He leaps down from his hiding place and bops Sniper upside the head, smacking him just far away enough to distance him from Jaguar. Smith joins Gin while the brindle scolds Sniper for his heinous deed, fully planning to follow his chiding up with an asskicking.

Smith joins in the Sniper-bashing bonanza by spitting in Sniper's face and telling him he can pull whatever bullshit he wants, he'll never overpower Ben. Hyena tries to intrude and save/stroke Sniper's ego, but Smith just chases him away, offering him a hearty whooping for his treason. Distracted by the injustice taking place, nobody notices as a bleeding Jaguar limps off.

Sniper, flustered with his failure to assassinate the canine equivalent of a 19 year old, throws himself headlong into Gin, ready to rip him to pieces. He's Too Slow, though, and Gin leaps into a nearby tree out of his reach.

A look of fear flashes in Sniper's eyes. He's not afraid of Gin killing him, but instead of his physical prowess. The Boss is also capable of vertical leaping and other anime asspulls. This convinces Sniper once and for all that Gin truly is the Boss's kid. Aight! All the more reason to kill the kid.

"Do you know why they call me Sniper?" he calls up as Gin readies to leap down. "Snipers are known for their accuracy. They never miss." Gin lunges down at the Doberman. Sniper bares his razor sharp fangs. "I never miss."

Gin realizes he's about to be assblasted by the general's teef, so he does a barrel roll in midair fast enough to dodge Sniper's fangs but not his force. He's sent backwards, colliding with a tree and having the wind knocked out of him.

As he struggles to get up, Sniper looms over him and steps on his head. Mr. S begins sadistically cooing at the young dog, promising him he'll bury Gin and Ben alongside each other when they're both dead.

But there's several episodes left for me to write, so of course Smith comes back and boots Sniper out of the way just in time to save Gin's life. A bloodied, battered Hyena follows behind Smith, but he's useless to help his boss now. Smith grabs Gin, flings him onto his back, and, with great effort, runs away. Sniper and his now worthless henchman give chase, hollering about how the two should've been more obedient to their superior. The Spaniel just bails, desperate to get away.

Perhaps too desperate, because he's unable to stop when he realizes he's run into the edge of a cliff. He screams as he and a barely lucid Gin fly over the edge, both of them dropping into the stream below. Sniper and Hyena watch wordlessly as the soldiers disappear from sight.

As the dogs duke it out, Daisuke is still cowering and John is still bear wrastling. Problem is that John overestimated himself. Without an armed human at his back, bears are like twice as hard to kill now. The shepherd tries his best to keep pace with the bear, but he's getting more and more tired by the second. He quickly begins to realize he can't save Daisuke despite his promise to Gin. His eyes sting with tears of desperation.

Just before the bear is about to abandon the puny pooch and start chomping on the child, an ominous howl is heard.

The dog, the bear, and that kid over there gaze up as a muscular, heavily scarred dog leaps to Daisuke's side. Daisuke takes one look at the dog and faints dead away, overwhelmed by all the shit that's happening.

The dog is Riki, better known to John as The Boss, and his ferocious growl and rippling dog pecs alone are enough to drive the bear out of sight. As the bear stomps off to gossip about this event, The Boss Dog turns to John.

The leader's voice drops to a mellow, low tone, and he asks why John's back here instead of with the other soldiers. If he recalls correctly, John was going to follow Ben on his cross-country trip. John snorts disdainfully and says neither Ben nor Muscles McGee here are his leader. Nobody leads someone as hardcore as John.

The Akita Killyou nods thoughtfully, irritating the edgelord before him, before asking what John plans to do now. In a moment of foolish boldness, John spits that he's going to lead the boss's pack now. The battle-worn bitchboy better ready himself, because John's about to steal his position... by force.

Elsewhere in a stream, two other dogs are doing their best to survive. Smith struggles to keep himself afloat with Gin on his back, but he's growing weak. The Spaniel inevitably succumbs to his exhaustion and begins sinking.

As the water floods his faceholes, Gin regains consciousness with a snort. He treads water for a sec and realizes his friend is underwater beneath him. "Smith!" Gin exclaims before diving in. He returns the life saving favor to Smith by yoinking him up by his collar so that his head is just above the water.

After he catches his breath, Smith confides in Gin that maybe dropping 20 feet into a raging river wasn't such a good idea. He feels battered enough that he thinks he's broken something. He urges Gin to let him go, but Gin stubbornly shakes his head no. Smith's eyes widen as a rumbling sound fills his ears. He looks further down the river and sees a wave of foam flowing over a cliff's edge. This stream leads to a waterfall!

Smith demands Gin let go and save himself, but given he's the hero of this story, Gin adamantly refuses, instead clinging to his friend. As the two reach the fall's edge, Gin turns Smith to face upward, shielding him with his body as they fall into the lake below.

Meanwhile, Riki and John stand off in earnest. The Ohu leader has agreed to battle John for rank, and he doesn't seem the least bit concerned about defending his title. This is likely because all it takes to down ole Johnny boy is a single, well-placed smack with the fangs.

As John collapses, the leader stands over him, offering to help him up onto his paws. John refuses to meet the other dog's gaze, but the boss just smiles. He tells John that he'll be keeping his position as leader, but that John is always invited to join his ranks. He'd be honored to have such a powerful spirit fighting alongside him.

John's ego is more then a little hurt, so he just snarls that what the boss and his soldiers are doing is stupid. A ragtag group of mutts cannot bring down a monster the likes of Akakabuto, and he's never going to change his mind about that.

The boss nods, but he must respectfully disagree. His power is hard to overstate - hell, he can scare bears off with a funny look. And yet he knows he couldn't kill Akakabuto alone even if he tried. He says that there's strength in numbers not when a bunch of directionless cowards join forces, but when those who are strong as individuals work together.

John's forehead crinkles before the boss offers him a bow and runs back into the woods. John is left panting beside Daisuke, who he then begins dragging back to the village.

Dusk comes and goes, bringing nighttime with it. The platoons have been waiting for the return of their soldiers, but it's been taking an awful long time for them to return. They'll never meet Moss at this rate. Chutora suggests that Hyena, Smith, and Gin have all died, to which Cross responds by cuffing him upside the head.

The two are about to squabble when Ben tells everyone to knock that shit off, he can smell blood. Everyone is suddenly alert as a stranger with a gash in his shoulder stumbles into view, collapsing not 20 feet from the pack. Everyone rushes to help him as he falls over. He meets Ben's gaze and manages to utter "Are you Ben..?" before losing consciousness.

"Oh shit," panics Akatora, "It's Moss's kid!" Everyone is taken aback. Great asks Ben if he believes Gin and Smith had attacked this guy without permission, but Ben doesn't think so. It wouldn't be like either of them to do something so rash. Akatora insists that all brindles regardless of breed will fight to the death at a moment's notice, really showing his internalized brindlephobia.

Kurotora worriedly wonders aloud if Moss has killed Gin and Smith in retribution. It would explain why they never came back. Cross tries to slow everyone's roll so they stop coming to conclusions while Ben directs the dogs to finally get in line. Whatever's happening, they need to get to the bottom of it, and they'll only do that by meeting Moss. They leave Great behind to keep an eye on Jaguar as they peel off with new purpose.

Somewhere else in the Kasumi Dake river valley, Smith awakens on the shore of the lake covered head to toe in mud. As his eyes adjust to the darkness, he realizes that Gin is sitting in front of him. He also looks like he had a deep cleanse day at the spa. Gin is overjoyed to see Smith has woken up. He says that he was worried Smith had died, to which Smith playfully tugs at his ear and assures him it'll take more then some water to do Commander Smith in.

But they can't keep horseassing around. Ben and the pack are in danger if they don't clear up this situation ayy ess ayy pee. The two scamper off to find, well, everyone.

As all this is happening, Moss and his gang have found Lloyd's body, and Moss is, to put it delicately, super fucking pissed. He's appalled at the death of his comrade and sick with worry for his son. The others try to soothe him by saying they haven't found Jaguar's body, suggesting he could still be alive, but Moss is too livid at the idea of his sweet baby boy being dead to care.

Remembering what Hyena had told him, Moss swears death on every single soldier following that bastard Ben. He tells his men to prepare for war as he shakes with rage.

The aforementioned Ben and his soldiers are continuing along when Akatora suddenly tells everyone to hol' up. The Kai Ken has just become aware of a kind of smelly smell, a smelly smell that smells... smelly. Ben's all like "Nani the fuck" when suddenly some bassy-ass voice starts screaming obscenities at them.

Up atop his glorious rocky throne stands Kasumi Dake's most beloved mobster. The dogs are in awe of just how fuckin' CHUNK Moss is as his own packmates surround him.

Moss presumes correctly that the dane at the front of the pack is Ben, and he demands to know what he's done with his son. Cross boldly screams back, demanding to know where their missing soldiers are. Moss doesn't give a response, not even the classic I Asked You First, because he's too busy shoving boulders down from his rocky recliner.

All it takes is a few hard shoves to cause a veritable rockslide, unleashing a torrent of boulders onto the Ohu dogs. Ben hollers for everyone to get out of the way, and nobody needs to be told twice.

The slower and less fortunate of the dogs are crushed like barking insects as the larger boulders collide with them. As he scurries away, Ben notices Cross about to become one of these smushed pups as she's too busy shoving others out of harm's way to notice the rocks tumbling towards her. Desperate, Ben throws himself against her with all his might, knocking her clear out of the path of destruction seconds before he himself is pummeled.

Cross and the other survivors collect their bearings before looking back on the destruction. Cross shrieks in horror at the sight she's met with: a bleeding Ben, his eyes shut and his tongue lolling from his mouth, can be seen lying in the jumbled mess of rock. She cries guiltily out to her beloved as the Kai Bros hold her back.

It's too late for the big man. Angry tears flow from her scrunched up face as Cross's wails turn into growls. That fatass on the hill WILL pay for this.

Back at base camp, Jaguar has regained consciousness, and he's having a pleasant chat with Great about how some little grey shrimp and his bossy German friend have been setting up both his dad and the Ohu dogs to fight an unnecessary war. Great is only a little surprised that the obviously evil Sniper would pull this kinda shit, but he thanks Jaguar for the info anyway.

Feeling better after being able to rest, Jaguar rises to his feet and insists the two hurry to his dad's domain. He'd feel awfully guilty if anyone were killed over this misunderstanding.

Jaguar'd better get ready to get guilted because a handful of soldiers have indeed been killtd. Several bodies can be seen poking out of holes between boulders, including the upper half of the dane in the red necklace. Given she was Ben's second in command, Cross prepares to lead the troops into battle in earnest. Moss is about to do the same, telling his men to kill everyone who wasn't crushed. The two armies of dogs collide, snapping and tearing into each other.

Cross and the Kai Bros lead the charge, though, strangely enough, Moss isn't at the forefront of his own army. Instead he's following behind them, urging them on. Cross sees red at the sight of her man's murderer and lunges at him, chomping down as hard as she can into his shoulder.

Cross is no weakling, but Moss is covered in so much visceral fat and muscle that her teeth don't even draw blood. Moss coughs out a smoker's laugh as he flips onto his side, smushing the Saluki and knocking the wind out of her. The Kai Bros call out to their new commander as Moss grabs her by the throat.

Watching from a hilltop nearby, Sniper grins cruelly at the bloodbath before him. He laughs in a most edgy way as Hyena licks his own wounds beside him, quite a bit less amused at the sight of a buncha people who trusted him getting murked.

Sniper notices Hyena's not feelin' the deadly vibe and tells him in a slippery voice that he should be happy. When Sniper's the new leader of the platoon, then the Ohu army, Hyena will be his right hand dog. Hyena forces a giggle, but truth be told starting a war between two innocent parties feels suckier then he expected it would.

The battle rages on. The Kai Bros desperately call out to Cross, but she's unable to escape Moss's gargantuan, flappy jowls. He begins to shake her like a ragdoll and she snarls in desperation and fright. All hope seems lost until the bark of a young, overpowered dog echos across the valley. The Ohu soldiers look up despite the onslaught tearing into them.

A shooting star crosses the night sky, and at the end of its trail a silver brindle akita leaps into view. Gin flings himself into the scruff of Moss's neck. Smith is following close behind, and he canonballs onto the dog that's got hold of Akatora's leg. Smith hollers for everyone to stop, they've been set up!

The Kasumi Dake pack gives pause, but Moss doesn't. He releases Cross and flings Gin off of him, snarling at the insolent kiddo. Gin tells Moss to cool it, his son Jaguar is still alive.

Gin has Moss's undivided, if disbelieving, attention now. Gin goes on to explain that it wasn't he and Smith who attacked Jaguar and Lloyd, it was this shitty dude and his henchman who the Ohu dogs had once believed to be a friend. Smith backs up Gin's account while Gin looks around wildly to find Ben and make sure he's also aware of what's gone down.

Upon realizing what Gin is doing, Cross gives a cough and hobbles over to him. She has tears in her eyes, and she's unable to articulate what she needs to say.

Gin is about to ask her what's wrong when he sees something out the corner of his eye, something red that stands out against the greys of the rocks. The  red, round thing catches a sliver of moonlight. Gin gasps as he realizes what - who - it is.

It's Ben, dried blood smattering his unmoving face, the rock that downed him lying on top of his chest. Gin joins in Cross's desperate weeping. He hadn't know Ben for long, but the mountain of dog and his unceasing patience had made an impact on the kid.

Sorrow turns to rage as Gin sets his sights on vengeance. He turns to the silent crowd, demanding to know who the fuck killed his Army Dad. Moss, totally uninterested in Gin's grief, demands back for Gin to explain where his son is. Gin makes it abundantly clear that his empathy is finite as he lunges towards Moss, catching him by the waddle-like roll of skin under his chin. "I'll kill you!" the Akita screams. "I'll fucking kill you!"

Moss only responds with a laugh that rumbles through his body. He's about to mention how very kawaii it is of Gin to attack him when he suddenly finds himself flipping over. "Huh?" he manages to gasp as Gin turns the old clown upside down. Moss is so heavy that he ground around him shakes when he strikes it, and his mobsters look on in awe.

Moss laughs once more, admittedly impressed, before deciding he's done playing games. He kicks Gin's comparatively small body off of him and sends the young soldier crashing into the side of the boulder that smushed Ben.

Gin wheezes a cough as he glances over Ben's lifeless face. Gin's eyes glaze over with tears once more as he turns to Moss, promising the fat bastard that he'll kill him before the sun rises. Moss accepts the challenge, telling Gin to say that to his face not online see what happens. The two run at each other for like 2 seconds before they hear a familiar voice calling out for its father.

Great and Jaguar have successfully located the gang war. Moss immediately loses all interest in Gin, overjoyed to see his son truly is alive and well. Jaguar's shoulder is caked in thick, black shards of dry blood, but he's otherwise doing okay.

As Moss runs over to embrace his son, Jaguar mimics 2009 internet culture by confirming this whole thing was indeed a trap.  And moreover that Akita kid and his friend saved Jag's life after Lloyd was killed.

Moss thanks his kid for the plot summary of the day, but he's not sure that'll end the war now. Grateful though he is for Gin's service, Moss knows that the youngin won't stop til he's avenged Ben.

Gin and Moss are about to face off again when everyone hears a weak, breathless voice. The voice tells everyone to stop, and its request is punctuated with the scraping of rock against rock. Everyone looks to the rockslide as one of the boulders shifts upwards.

The shadow underneath the rock slowly begins to rise, revealing a broad four-legged muscleman with a bloody face and a necklace of red beads. It's Ben! Looking rough but definitely alive, he rolls the boulder off of himself with a growl.

As his friends run over to him the big lug reveals his sense of humor hasn't been crushed to death either by telling Gin all his carrying on had made it impossible for him to sleep.

The Kai Bros tackle their commander as Cross cleans his face of blood. Gin admiringly gazes with tearful eyes up at Ben, and Ben smiles warmly back at him. Moss's mafioso are touched by the scene. Even Moss is a little overwhelmed by Ben's machismo.

As his companions calm down, Ben takes a step towards Moss. The dane doesn't want to be rivals. He sees all dogs as equals. His only enemy is that dickheaded bear back home. Ben bows and makes his intentions clear: he's humbly asking for Moss's assistance. Jaguar backs him up, detailing what Great told him about the Ohu army's noble cause to pummel Akakabitchboy into a much-deserved early grave.

Moss thinks this is a neat idea and all, but if he's going to be falling in line behind a buncha army boys, he's gotta make sure their leader is up to snuff even when injured. He tells Ben he'll join him if, even in this condition, he can kick Moss's ass.

Moss barrels towards Ben, and Ben makes good by doing what Moss asked. He kicks the Mastiff's ass by grabbing his neck and slamming his head into a rock. The Big Boy tumbles away, shaken by the impact.

Just as his men are about to run to his defense, he lets loose another one of his rumbly, gravely laughs. He's seen all he needs to see. Moss lifts himself up and promises Zombie Dog he and his pack's loyalty. After all, Moss is getting to be an old man. Instead of wasting his winter years lazing on rocks and farting himself awake, he'd rather die fighting for something that matters.

"We're not going there to die, Moss," Ben says to the old coot. "We're going there to fight so that we may keep living." As the verbal contract is sealed, both packs form one. The dogs celebrate their new allegiance with a chorus of howls. Gin joins the howling, forgetting about his aches and pains from a long day of getting the shit kicked out of him. As he looks to the shimmering moon above, his rich brown eyes seem to fill with stars.

Unamused by the poetry of the scene, Sniper is still watching Dogfight TV from atop the hill, except now he's pissed. Sniper isn't a decent enough person to understand how two enemies can become friends, and he's shaking with fury to see his lbr pretty simplistic plan crap out on him.

Hyena's less angry then he is ridden with anxiety. Since the Ohu dogs are still alive and have recruited new friends who hate both him and Sniper with a passion, he's expecting retribution for the whole war instigation thing. Sniper doesn't speak. He's too busy glaring at Ben, Moss, and the little silver thorn in his side to think of anything but vengeance.

Sniper throws his paws up in the air and decides he needs to disappear til the heat is off of him. As Hyena tries politely and submissively to explain that Sniper will literally never be free of the sins committed here today, Sniper snaps at him.

Hyena rolls onto his back as Sniper commands his underling to continue the ruse and rejoin the pack. Hyena wants to argue, but he wants to live as well, so he keeps his whimpering mouth shut as Sniper plods away. As soon as his silly little stub tail is out of sight, Hyena groans in worry. "Here we go again," he says to a laugh track.

After a few more minutes of screaming at the sky, the dogarmy takes off. The platoon is at least twice as large now, powerful enough to curbstomp most non-bear foes in their way. And so the group fearlessly continues their road trip, running day and night over a 48 hour period. Destination: Iga of the Mie prefecture. Goal: recruit some dogs with uber special skills. Hotel: Trivago.

The dogs quickly reach Mie. Ben mysteriously mentions a particular dog from his past being here, and everyone's automatically like YEAH ITS ASS KICKING TIME. Except hold up, Ben says this isn't the type of guy they wanna fight into submission, but rather speak with. This piques the pack's curiosity, but Ben is too busy reliving memories of past exploits to share. Instead, the Kai Bros decide they've got rumblies in their tumblies, and so it's time to kill some shit.

The three run off to beat a boar onto a metaphorical plate. They're joined by Papa Moss, a guy as big and powerful as any wild boar. The pack applauds the efforts of the deadly dwarves and generous giant as they settle in to devour the fallen piggie.

While everyone stuffs themselves silly, Cross nuzzles Ben's neck and tells him she's glad he didn't actually get curbstomped by a rock. Ben licks her head and agrees that being alive is pretty sweet. That said, if ever the platoon needed a new leader, he trusts that she'd be able to fill his shoes. She'd rather not think about it, so instead she curls up beside Ben and rests her head on his back as he enjoys his share of pork.

Just out of both sight and smell, a pair of eyes watch from the shadows as the Ohu dogs have their fill. The eyes swiftly glide across the way to notice another, much more pitiful pair of eyes focused on the same sight.

The pathetic eyes, the lids around them sagging in self-pity, belong to one anxious, hungry Hyena. He murmurs to himself that life is so unfair, wishing for all the world that he could play some Linkin Park right now.

The stranger in the bushes watches Hyena pout, though they're unable to hear him sniveling to himself about how he'll never find a way back into the ranks. They also watch as a slab of meat falls from the tree directly above Hyena, and their eyes widen. So do Hyena's, but for a different reason. He looks up at the meat's mysterious origin and sees a very strange dog on the branch above him.

The dog is of average size with a muscular build. Her coat is brown with a pale tan underbelly, and atop her scarred head is a fluttery lock of hair reminiscent of a mohawk. In a hollow, airy voice she tells Hyena that the meat is a gift for him.

Hyena spends a single moment thinking WTF The Fuck before the meat seduces him with its juicy goodness. Having had nothing to eat for like three days, Hyena makes like he hasn't eaten in three years and snags it up greedily. It smells weird, but he's too hungry to care.

As he takes his first bite, the Bizarre Tree-Dog leaps from her branch to another. She rapidly takes off and out of view by playing hopscotch in the trees. This gives Hyena a spook, so he snags the meat up and tries to scramble off before realizing that the strange dog is coming back.

This time she's not alone. She and two other dogs of the same unidentifiable breed leap down from the trees and into circle formation around Hyena. Hyena the Cowardly Dog practically pees his no-pants as they inch towards him.

While this is happening the Ohu dogs are allowing themselves to kick back for a moment. Ben figures his mysterious new ally is close, so giving everyone a second to rest ain't a bad idea.

Gin is too excited by the new sights and smells to rest, though, so instead he pokes around curiously. He hears a rustle in the bushes as if something is sneaking away, but he can't see anything. Instead, he hears a new sound just a moment later. It sounds like someone screaming, and that someone sounds like someone he's met - and disliked - before...

Hyena continues trying not to evacuate his bladder as the strange dog approaches him in earnest. She glares at him and asks if the dogs pigging out on pig over yonder are his bros. Hyena says they are, and that they'll kick the ass of anyone who dares fuck with him.

The stranger has to keep from rolling her eyes at the obvious lie as she commands Hyena to tell them this: Maya ("demon arrow") of the Koga Clan is telling them to leave this forest at once. Should they not heed this warning, the pack will face the wrath of the malevolent Koga leader.

The Kogas each do a boss-ass vertical leap into the trees. They're off again, rushing through the leaves as quick as physics will permit. As they go, Hyena finally legit pees himself and just about faints, never having been more afraid of a reminder that trespassing is impolite.

He curls into a shuddering, urine-soaked ball. This is without a doubt one of the worst days of his life. And it's about to get even worse because a dog he's never seen before has emerged silently from the bushes.

The dog isn't one of the Kogas, but instead a red, brown, and white Rough Collie. The animal has a handsome face and a rehearsed-looking gait, walking as if he's trying to impress someone. The Collie stands over Hyena while Yeenee hides his face and his literal pound of flesh. "Who are you?" is all the Collie gets out before both he and his find notice something coming towards them.

It's the Ohu pack, and they're less then happy to see Hyena has returned. Jaguar is especially pissed that the little war criminal dares to show his face again, and he's ready to smack the weenie's head in when Akatora tells him to back off. Nobody is gonna kill diddly shit without Ben giving the a-okay. That said, who is this weirdo standing beside Hyena? Did he bring the little bugger back?

Cross closes the distance between herself and The New Guy (2002) and asks where he's come from while Ben approaches Hyena. It doesn't take a dog the size of a small horse much to look intimidating, but Ben's never looked scarier then when he shows his disapproval of his former comrade.

Hyena insists that he has no clue where Sniper is now, and that he only did what he'd been told him because Sniper had threatened to kill him if he didn't. Moss tells the shivering whelp that he doesn't believe him and that it wouldn't matter if that was true anyway. Hyena was an accomplice to the murder of one of his men and the attempted murder of his only son. The little bastard can never be an Ohu soldier given what he's done.

Alongside all this in a conversation you'd expect to be had over tea instead of the future corpse of a criminal, Cross and Gin politely grill the Collie.

The fancypants's name is Wilson, and he's an old circus performer who's traveled the world. His speech is eloquent, his demeanor is goodnatured, and the dude is clearly ripped under his piles of fur, all of which convinces Gin that he'd make a fine soldier. Gin asks Cross if Wilson can join them, but she's not too sure. She asks why a performing dog is out in the middle of nowhere.

Wilson sighs and looks drearily at Gin, seemingly deep in thought. He had escaped the circus several years ago, he explains. Back then, he'd had a wife named Lean and a son named Londo. His boy was about Gin's age when he was murdered by someone Wilson refers to as The Devil Dog, a cannibalistic cultist monster who Will's owner had tried to train to be a circus dog as well.

The man had been impressed by the dog's unique appearance and flexibility, but the mongrel hadn't liked being bossed around. He mauled the ringleader, killed AND ATE Wilson's family, and escaped back to his followers in the woods. These woods.

Cross seems especially shaken by this retelling of family slaughter while Gin offers his condolences. Wilson kindly accepts Gin's pity, but he insists he doesn't need it. He plans on getting his revenge soon enough, both against The Devil Dog and another unmentioned foe of his. Gin's about to ask what other sinister being has added a hefty dose of trauma to Wilson's backstory when Hyena, weeping like a baby, comes crawling across the dirt to cling to Cross's ankle.

Cross snaps out of her empathetic stupor as Hyena begs her to convince Ben that he's deserving of forgiveness. She reacts as one would to stepping on a piece of gum and pulls her paw away, her face crinkling in disgust.

Even more desperate now, Hyena turns to Gin. Gin's reaction is more volatile then Cross's - he starts growling at Hyena as if ready to attack - so Hyena gives up on finding allies before he has a chance to beg Wilson for backup. Ben pads up to him as the grey dog trembles pitifully.

"Hyena," Ben says, his voice almost unrecognizable with hatred, "you are no longer my subordinate."

Everyone is pretty sure this is Ben's final statement before he whips out his katana and teleports behind Hyena, but he has yet to move. Ben's suddenly bombarded from all sides with suggestions. Jaguar wants to kill Hyena! No, Moss does! No, The Kai Bros do! No, Cross says Ben shouldn't do it! Great agrees, Ben's too good to kill a worm like Hyena!

A loud "Be quiet" is all it takes to silence the platoons' wild jabbering, and Ben is left standing in silence over the deserter.

A moment later and without warning, Ben snaps into action and at Hyena's neck, grabbing hold of him in his powerful jowls. Gin finds himself taken aback. Hyena's shitty, it's true, but Gin's never seen Ben looking so much like a cold, hard killer. Ben's not really gonna splatter Hyena's gutless guts all over the place, is he?

Nah. The dane instead tosses the Weimeranar into a tree, knocking a tooth or two loose and probably causing a few fractures on impact. Hyena wails about the pain he's in while Ben advances on him. Hyena's pleas fall on deaf ears as Ben snarls at him. Hyena is allowed to live... for now. But under one condition: either he brings Sniper back to the platoon to pay for his crimes, or Ben will use his particular set of skills to find and kill both the mastermind and his henchman.

Moss and Jaguar are a little pissed that their would-be life-ruiner isn't rotting in the dirt, but Ben calmly asks them to grin and bear it. It's better to take out an evil and banish his lackey then kill the lackey and lose track of the evil, yeah? The Mastiffs agree, if a bit begrudgingly.

Gin sighs in relief. Ben puts up a tough front when need be, but he wouldn't really kill Hyena. It'd be like kicking a puppy, only somehow less literally.

Before Hyena leaves, he realizes Smith is chewing on his chunk of meat. He whines about starving, so Smith taunts him over how they let him live and yet he's still unsatisfied. Gin's a little too shaken for joking around so he tells Smith to give the dweeb back his Lunchables.

Smith giggles his frat boy giggle and tosses the meat back to Hyena. Sniper's starving steward has gone back to eating when suddenly a dark shadow falls over Wilson's face.

Wilson wastes no time in leaping over the dogs in his way to reach Hyena. He demands that Hyena spit it out, what do you have in your mouth, bad dog, spit it out, drop it, spit it out I said. Just like my dog does whenever I catch him chewing something he shouldn't, Hyena tries to swallow his bounty before someone else can get his icky spit on it.

Hyena is a baka, Wilson says, because that's no regular meat. It's the flesh of another dog.

"GASP" gasps everybody in horror. Even though he only chewed the dog flesh for a second, Smith starts puking up the pork in his stomach. Hyena turns a deep shade of green and looks like he's about to follow suit. A shaken Gin tells Wilson not to joke around, but he knows the Collie isn't lying. Akatora turns accusingly towards a now puking Hyena.

The Weimaraner tries desperately to explain his innocence between mouthfuls of stomach acid. He says in a panic that he didn't know he was cannibalizing - the meat was given to him! Ben starts to regret letting Hyena live as he demands to know who would've gifted some rando a hunk of Roasted Rover when Wilson begins snarling towards the treetops. "It was them," he growls, his eyes burning with hatred. Everyone looks up.

It's the strange dogs from before, the ones with the fauxhawks. Maya gazes down at the confused canines. Then she and her compadres disappear up into the leaves. Determined to get to the bottom of this, Gin superjumps after them, discovering they've swooced just out of view. This catches the dogs off guard, and they begin leaping from branch to branch to get away. Gin's experience in neighborhood parkour comes in handy and allows him to effortlessly keep pace with them.

The rest of the pack follows on foot, trying to keep pace with the flying squirrels/dogs above. Gin's convinced he's almost caught up to the cannibalistic coterie when one of their unseen comrades leaps down on him from above. The dog rabbit kicks Gin in the middle of his back, effectively knocking him from the air and into the dirt. The pack doubles back to make sure Gin hasn't acquired any especially nasty booboos. Gin's alright, but now the squirrel dogs are gone. 

As everyone begins discussing what to do next, Ben verbalizes his internal monologue for the audience's sake. Those dogs were 100% ninjas, or at least trained in the art of ninja-ing, which means they must be part of his target's pack. Wilson asks who Ben's looking for, to which Ben replies he came here to find Iga's Akame ("red eye").

Great interjects and, as kindly as one can, accuses Ben of pursuing a cannibal in the hopes of making him a soldier, but Ben assures everyone he wouldn't be looking to add dog-chompers to their ranks. Either Akame's changed since Ben last met him or something weird is going on.

Gin tries to imagine what this Akame could be like. He'd earned Ben's trust somehow, but if his namesake and this recent experience are to be considered, maybe Akame is a red-eyed tyrant who eats other dogs. Gin imagines a bestial dog with a mohawk and two bloodshot eyes leaping from the trees and descending on other dogs, eating them alive.

But there's no time to keep spooking himself because Ben has instructed everyone to get moving. It's time to figure out what the hell is going on.

The pack continues their trek. Instead of shinobi dogs, though, they mostly just find a buncha trees and rocks. Some soldiers are becoming so impatient they're wondering if it's time to interrogate the surrounding foliage when Gin picks up a weird scent. The smell is unpleasant, metallic, and strangely organic. He pursues the smell to find...

The bloodied corpse of a Kishu Inu being chomped on by the ninja dogs AAAAAAAAAA!!! Beside himself with disgust, Gin accidentally gasps a bit too dramatically, and the cannibals turn to face him. Gin snarls and dives towards them. As Ben and Cross come to see what the commotion's about, they see Gin has already launched into a lecture about how these are some very, very bad doggies. Shame on them! Naughty naughty!

"Fuck off, kid," is all one of the Kogas manages to say before the rest of the packup comes in as backup. Wilson meets eyes with of one of the Kogas, his gaze filled with hate. The shinobi smirks, well aware of who Wilson is. As this staring contest takes place, Ben asks the ninja dogs to tell him if they know Akame.

The smug asshole gazing at Wilson thinks fast, saying, "Sure we do. He's our leader. He overthrew Master Kurojaki ("black devil") a while back. We're just following his orders. Ain't that right, guys?"

The Koga looks back over his shoulder at his crew and gives them a slippery smile. The dogs rub their two braincells together long enough to realize what he's doing and they grin back, nodding. They punctuate their unreliable narration by telling the soldiers to leave before bounding away into the trees.

Gin is about to follow them when Ben croaks out that there's no point. Gin follows orders and joins the others in looking to Ben for guidance.

Ben is looking mournfully down at the broken white body before them. The dog is indeed dead. He's covered with bite marks, his innards poking through deep gashes, his fur stained with thick patches of blood. Ben remarks that he's ashamed of having brought everyone here to ask for a cannibal's help, but they must stop this treachery before they can continue their mission. Likewise, they should do a body good and bury the poor sucker. It's the least they can do to make up for the tragedy.

Smith and the Kai Bros begin to drag the dog away so as to lay him to a more dignified rest. As they do, another much more alive white dog watches from the trees above.

He looks very much like the other dog, likely because he is also a Kishu Inu. He gives pause as he sees the Ohu soldiers drag the other whitey away. He mutters to himself about how he's never seen these guys before and that it's probably safe to assume that anyone holding a dead guy is evil. Could they be working with the cultists? The dog's not sure, but he hurries off regardless.

Deeper in the forest, a monument to a forgotten era, a dilapidated human house, stands tall. It's the Kishu's destination, and he leaps to it swiftly. He calls out to his Chief from outside the long abandoned building. "Kirikaze?" a measured voice greets him. "Come in."

Kirikaze ("misty wind") bounds in and immediately begins detailing what he's seen: there's a buncha new kids on the block, a whole assload of them, and after he saw Goody Proctor dancing with the devil, he saw said pack with their doglips fastened around the legs of a fallen comrade. He suggests that the pack may have killed the poor little white guy because they're in cahoots with the cult.

The measured voice calls down to Kirikaze from the rafters of the house. The dog it's attached to tells Kirikaze to gather the others, they've got a homestead to protect. If these n00bz truly are a threat then they must be eradicated. As he lays out his plan, the speaker turns his head into a sliver of sunlight. He's a magnificent white Kishu, paler then any of the others. He squints in the ray of light, his purplish-red eyes glistening thoughtfully.

Meanwhile, the fallen fair-furred friend has been buried in a shallow but otherwise decent grave. Ben bows his head over the distended dirt covering the dog and whispers a prayer. Gin, as if reading his mind, asks who Akame was and why Ben wanted to enlist him. Moss chimes in and says that he's not all for blindly following Ben into a cannibal's lair. Ben decides it's time to stop being so ~*~mysterious~*~ and comes clean with a flashback.

Back when Ben was still a hunting dog, the Kai Bros weren't the only dogs his owner nursed back to health. You see, Ben and his master were out playing Rooty Tooty Point-n-Shooty in the woods when they saw a white animal leaping from tree to tree.

Ben's master had thought the creature was a squirrel, so he'd shot at it and hit it. The man and his dane had approached it and found it to be not a squirrel but a Kishu Inu. The dog was a stark white, whiter then any other animal Ben had ever seen. The albinistic dog had been shot in the leg, and he'd looked at Ben as if pleading for sympathy.

Despite the dog clearly being feral, Ben's master took him home to heal him and raise him as a hunter. It's not every day you see a canine leaping through the trees, so the man was pretty determined to keep the albino no matter how much the dog snarled and hid in back of his prison, a tall, wire pen with a sturdy roof. It took a while for his leg to heal up, but within that time the dog - obviously named Akame - confided in Ben and became his friend.

Akame didn't like the idea of working for The Man (either the individual or the sociopolitical concept), and he especially didn't like the idea of being a house pet while his pack languished in the woods. Without his guidance the other Kishu ninjas would be at a loss for what to do.

Ben was hard pressed to believe this random guy was a ninja solely because he could jump super good, but when Akame stated that his wife had had a litter before he'd left and he'd never gotten to see his children, Ben's heart melted like the cheeseball it is. 

Ben had looked deep into the pleading dog's pigmentless, pinkish eyes and decided he wasn't going to orphan any of his puppies. He broke Akame out and escorted him back to the forest. That had been several years ago, and now, if the cannibals were to be believed, Akame was leading a band of murderers.

Ben gives a weak chuckle and wonders aloud if the mohawk dudes were Akame's sons and daughters. Cross looks like she's about to soothe him when Moss interjects that it's cool, man, everyone makes mistakes. It's not Ben's fault his good nature was taken advantage of, not so long as he's willing to put an end to this volatile tomfoolery.

Ben nods, his determination returning to him, and he and the others get back to their favorite activity: running towards an undefined location. But holy canolli, what's this? A gust of wind blows past the pack's noses, sending the eternally intimidating scent of strangers whooshing through their sinuses.

Everyone looks around but they're unable to see where the smell is coming from. All except protagonist Gin, obviously, who is the first to look up. He makes a weird noise in the back of his throat, alerting everyone else to look too.

A barrage of Kishu Inus jump down on top of them, each hollering curses and victorious announcements of triumph over evil or some shit. One of the Kishus screams about Kogas, only confusing everyone further. One of the dogs announces the ninjas' attack move like this is some kinda anime. "Raikaken!" ("thunder blossom blade") she shouts as the wave of white engulfs the army.

The white dogs dip in only once, tooth-smacking every face and ass they can reach. Then they all leap back into the branches before anyone has time to understand what just happened. Flustered, Gin jumps into the trees and calls after them to put up their dukes. Ben instructs everyone else to follow on foot again and the chase begins. Gin calls down to the soldiers periodically to make sure they're following behind.

Watching from a short distance away is an excited mass of Koga dogs. Maya has lead them there to enjoy the show, and she's brought her hubby with her.

The man himself is a unique specimen indeed: the Koga leader is a touch taller then his comrades. He's got a torn left ear and a dark coat of brindle merle. Just between his front paws sits a toddler-age puppy who is clearly his own, the child bearing the same unique markings. The Koga leader grins in amusement, pleased that his cult can kick back and watch as innocents fight their battle for them.

Meanwhile, despite his efforts, Gin is falling behind the Igas. They manage to hurry out of his range of sight and smell, and so he comes to a frustrated stop. As his sides heave with exertion he calls down to Ben that he's lost the lil buggers. Gin leaps down to rejoin the group and explains that he doesn't know what happened, dude, they just up and disappeared.

Smith's face crunches up stoically. He announces that he's not willing to let this go so anticlimactically before he begins sniffing around. The others watch as he takes major nose-hits from the ground and then pauses. He points instinctively at a patch of dirt for a moment before remembering himself and setting to digging. Within moments he manages to unearth something peculiar: one of the Kishus!

The white dude's head is the only part of him exposed, and he's unmoving. "Is he dead?" someone asks. There's a small wave of shrugs. The group quickly assumes the corpse was buried by the cannibals to serve as a midnight snack and they begin to walk away.

Gin follows behind, but he notices Smith hasn't left the presumed cadaver's side. Smith murmurs something about the holedog not smelling dead when one of the "corpse's" eyes opens! The dog snarls viciously and grabs Smith by the collar. As Smith screams and the soldiers double back, the Spaniel is yoinked into the hole and out of sight.

Gin reaches the hole first and notices that it's not just a hole. It's a tunnel, and both the Kishu and Smith have disappeared into it. He tries to leap in and follow, but Ben pulls him out of it by his curly-cue tail.

Gin's insolent about the ass portion of his spine being used as a handle when there's a comrade who needs saving, but Ben says it'd be too risky to follow after them. They're fuckin' NINJAS, my guy, this is clearly a trick they've set up for intruders.

Cross wonders aloud where the tunnel may lead and Ben surveys the area. It takes him all of 3 seconds to realize that oh my goodness there's a house like 50 feet away.

Ben is instantly certain that the ninja bastards live there given no human came out screaming about the massive pack of feral dogs. No doubt the tunnel leads to that building, and that to get to the bottom of this mess the pack will have to go there. They'll have to surround the building's perimeter and then launch an attack.

That said, Ben's a little wary of leaving the tunnel unguarded. Given he previously had his opportunity to go spelunking taken from him, Gin jumps at the chance to explore some hole. Ben tells Gin that he's to WATCH the tunnel, not explore it, as he could be attacked by the ninjas.

Gin pouts as the other dogs go to surround the house, but he still chirps a "Good luck" to them as they take off. As soon as everyone else is gone, Gin gathers all his bravery (and insolence) and dives into the tunnel, still determined to find his friend.

Inside the dirt tube, Gin realizes the Kishus' squirrel-tier leaps are only matched by their gopher-tier digging abilities; the tunnel widens substantially, and it's impressively long. On the other side of it, the dog who 'napped Smith drags him out and under the house.

It doesn't take the dog more then a second and a whiff with his powerful schnoz to realize Gin, in all his smelly post-pubescent glory, is following him. He just shakes his head and makes a brief trek out to a scrape connected to the tunnel. The scrape dips into the lake beside the house, and with one swift motion the dog lifts the single wooden board separating the water from the dig-out.

The water goes roaring down the secret tunnel, which Gin can hear despite not knowing the context. Gin was just thinking that this was all too easy before looking up and reading the above paragraph. Just then, a torrent of water comes wooshing down towards him, flooding the tunnel and knocking him back with the force of a thousand spitting goldfish. He can only manage to cough out a swear before he's carried away.

The other soldiers have taken this time to organize themselves into a nifty little formation around the house, but they come to realize that nobody knows where the littlest recruit is. Cross tells Ben that when she went back to the tunnel to check on Gin he was nowhere to be seen.

Ben's certain the kid has gone down the hole against orders, but there's no time to be upset. Wilson says there's precious little time to save Smith. If Akame really is cannibal chief, he won't keep his men from their next meal for long. Despite his reinvigorated concern for his friend and fellow commander, Ben is wary of leaping into action too suddenly.

Inside the house, Smith is lying unconscious on the floor. Something that feels like another dog's paw (3 guesses as to what it is) touches his face. He slowly opens his eyes.

As the world comes back into focus, he lets out a high-pitched yelp. He's surrounded on all sides by stark white dogs, each one eyeing him harshly. One of them approaches him and he responds by screaming and running into a corner.

Smith starts wailing about how they shouldn't eat him because black and white dogs taste like ass and cause explosive diarrhea when another Kishu, one that was just out of sight, leaps from the rafters right down beside him.

Smith falls into a heap as the newer new guy looms over him. This guy is even paler then the rest; his fur is so pale it seems almost translucent at the edges. The other dogs are clearly annoyed at Smith's bellyaching but this guy just stares at him with expressionless red eyes.

"You're a Western breed, aren't you?" asks the super-white dog, finally breaking the silence. "I've never seen a dog like you before. What are you doing out here?"

Smith chokes out something about traveling to which the dog responds by asking why he and his friends are in this neck of the woods. Smith says that he and his buds are trying to recruit soldiers, which, judging by the super-white dog's reaction, was the wrong thing to say. The Kishu says that Smith's clearly with the Kogas. Smith barely knows how he got here, let alone where this conversation is taking them, so he tries to flee once more.

The neon white dog grabs him firmly by the scruff as he runs past, then slings him back into the corner. As Smith's noggin grows a goose-egg, one of the Kishus leans towards the super-white guy, their obvious leader, and informs him that she and the others are pretty sure that the "soldiers" are outside the manor, no doubt ready to overtake it at any moment.

Neon White tells his pack to ambush the dogs from out the tunnel while he interrogates the hostage. All but the leader depart, leaving a confounded Smith looking on.

The dogs do indeed travel through the flooded tunnel. The gaping Earth-hole is only tall enough to allow for a small air pocket above their heads, so they're mostly submerged. While passing through their underwater subway system, the dogs see the floating, motionless body of a young brindle Akita. Several of their faces crumple at the sight, probably thinking about how war is hell and stuff, before they leave the body behind.

But hey, I'll let you in on a secret: ITS GIN AND HE ISNT DEAD WHODA THUNK. He's just playing aquatic possum while taking tiny, secret gulps of air. He waits until the last of the dogs has swum past before grabbing onto the end of his tail.

The dog seems surprised and he makes like he wants to turn around and face Gin, but there's not enough space to turn back. Gin has hitched a ride out, but he'll no doubt have to contend with the bastards as soon as they leave the tunnel.

Meanwhile, the Ohu dogs have come to the conclusion that Gin and Smith are super, hella dead by now, or at the very least imprisoned, and this stake out has gone on long enough.

Given the commander’s absence, Ben assigns Cross to Smith's place. Then he starts directing everyone on how best to ransack the house. With a nod and an oddly poignant "GO!", the dawgies leap into action, all of them galloping at full speed towards the building.

The Kishus are well prepared for times like these. Several pits in the ground containing live warriors open beneath the approaching hoard's feet, ninjas leaping up from within to snag onto some unfortunate underbellies. Others leap down and out of the trees, cracking skulls with their powerful bites.

Lucky for the Ohu dogs these attacks only slow them down, not defeat them. Ben continues to lead the hoard until it's formed a ring-around-the-rosie of running troops around the house. 

But before the soldiers can literally come full circle, Ben yelps in pain and unromantically tumbles head over heels. One by one the other dogs succumb to the same fate, each stumbling blindly and then rolling over. A chorus of pained, confused whimpers rises up as Smith and the lead Kishu exit the house.

Smith calls out to his friends, but the super-white guy stops him, telling him not to take another step unless he too wants to be skewered.

Turns out the ground has been littered with Hishi seeds. Hishi plants are a water grass with distinctly sharp, spiky seeds, and the pack has managed to slice their paws on tons of them. Tens of little doggy footses bleed into the dirt as Smith watches helplessly.

Akatora says that a few seeds shouldn't be enough to down an army, but he feels... like ass. Like, totally sick, and not in a good way. The Kishu nods and explains that, btw, the spikes have been poisoned. A death by poisoning is a deserved one for a bunch of cannibal cultists (which is my band name now, don't steal).

Ben realizes who this dog is and pipes up. "Akame? Is that you? Have you gone mad?" The Kishu's reddish eyes widen in recognition. His eyes dart to the red bead collar around the dane's neck. "Ben?" he says while approaching the commander. "What are you doing here? Why are you helping the Kogas?"

Ben counters by asking why Akame's leading a hoard of cannibals and suddenly everyone understands that a particular plot element has been reused. The good guys have been double crossed once again!

Akame apologetically explains to everyone but the audience that the Igas thought the Ohu soldiers were allied with the Koga cult to aid in their evil plan. That plan being, of course, to slaughter the remaining Iga warriors and overtake their manor. Before he can truly grasp all of this, Ben's stomach starts benchpressing his other organs and he rolls over in pain.

Akame tells everyone not to move, else the poison will spread faster. He sees his own dogs are coming to see what the deal is and barks at them to bring the antidote. One of the dogs, soaking wet, trots up, looking especially annoyed.

Before they go to get the meds, the most annoyed dog swings his curly tail as an exhausted Gin finally lets it go. Gin sputters out water and the Ohu soldiers perk up at the sight of him. Unfortunately, all of them are getting gutpunched from the inside, so they don't have the strength to go meet him.

Ben saves Gin's silver ass by explaining that he's with them. The Igas seem confused that Gin's not a Koga ally. Just then, the wind picks up and blows a now-familiar stink into everyone's noses. A white projectile falls from the trees and smacks one of the Igas in the head. It lands on the ground with an Icky Thump by The White Stripes, allowing everyone to see what it is: the severed head of a Kishu Inu!

Everyone who is able to lifts their heads to the treetops which seems to be the new entry point for all characters. One of the forest's largest trees is covered in the silhouettes of tens of mohawked dogs. On the highest branch stands the leader of the Kogas. Wilson's eyes widen and he squeaks out "It's him... The Devil Dog."

The Devil Dog laughs as Akame utters a SEETHING "Kurojaki." The merle brindle laughs gutterally, congratulating the Igas on their new feat in stupidity. These new guys here? They were innocent the whole time, duh! And their arrival worked out well to distract the Igas while the Kogas formed a new plan of attack. Now the filthy nonbelievers will be destroyed, and their ancient master's home will become the new domain of the glorious Koga clan.

It's only now that Gin realizes the Kogas outnumber the Igas pretty badly. Kurojaki instructs his soldiers to attack the enemy. The cannibals launch themselves tooth-first towards their foes. Kurojaki takes one look at Akame, smiles, and then disappears up into the tree.

Akame knows that the bastard isn't running away, he's just going to go and retrieve his secret weapon. He tells his men to defend themselves, the soldiers, and the manor while he pursues Kurojaki. The albino scrambles away while the others, Gin included, fight on.

Gin tears into the nearest Koga when he notices that one of the Igas, the youngest one, is scared to do the same. The dude seems inexperienced and afraid, not like the other warriors. One of the Igas calls out to him, scolding his little brother Hayato for being such a puss.

To demonstrate how hardcore ninjas have to be, Hayato's ubermasc big bro drags his Koga of choice back into the flooded tunnel, no doubt intending to drown both the brown dog and himself. Hayato cries out to his unnamed sibling, blubbering about how he wishes their father were here to help them. Jinnai, one of the Igas present, tells Hayato to dog up - Akame can't hold their hands forever, and they cannot shame their pops by showing weakness.

Hayato's eyes fill with tears and so do Gin's. Gin has an Epic Bruh Moment and realizes that the Igas are the children that Ben had freed Akame for, and in turn the albino has raised them to defend their home at any cost.

Gin can't help but think of Riki standing on the mountaintop, gazing down at Gin and commanding him into life-or-death battles alongside the other dogs. Would he change his mind if he knew Gin was his son? Hell, what if he DID know and just didn't feel like treating Gin differently? Gin is knocked out of his stupor as the Koga he's fighting kicks him in the face and runs away.

Gin's mind is elsewhere, though, so he hardly notices. Instead, he decides to help poor Hayato. Hayato's actually doing alright at holding his own and it's probably because he's gotten super pissed at his brother's death.

The idea of the day is #diekogascum, so Hayato allows his opponent to chase him to a strange looking plot of grass. Gin squints at the ground for a moment before looking horrified. Before he can tell Hayato to stop, the Kishu plays Follow The Leader with the Koga over the plot. The strange foliage turns out to be debris covering a pit trap. Both Hayato and his adversary scream in agony as they fall into it.

Gin runs over to see what's become of them. He gasps at the sight. Both Hayato and the Koga are dead. The hole is surprisingly wide, and it's filled to the brim with spikes worn to points. Both lifeless bodies slide wetly down the stakes, each leaving some of their guts strung up behind them.

Disgusted by the gruesomely skewered corpses, Gin gallops back to the others. That tears it, by gum. These Kogas are fucking WAY too much shit up, and the only way to stop this madness is to boot them into next Wednesday.

The Kogas are kinda swaying that way too because they've realized the Igas are willing to wipe themselves out so long as they can take some cannibals with them. Despite their greater numbers the Kogas have weaker spirits, and they really don't wanna be kabobbed to death today. The mohawked murderers leap back into the trees with Gin following right behind them.

This time they can't escape Gin's righteous anger as he snags one by the hind leg. Turns out it's Maya, and despite her skillz, she's no match for Gin's moralistic tantrum. He downs her in an instant, sending the two of them crashing to the forest floor.

Maya's got a nasty gash on her face now. Rivulets of blood pool beside her cheek as she lays unmoving. She weakly looks up at Gin and manages to gasp out a question: what the fuck? Also, is Gin one of the shinobis? Gin shakes his head and proudly introduces himself as a bearhound, but it ends up being pointless ego stroking because Maya loses consciousness.

An impressed Akame descends from the trees. He tells his men that Kurojaki has gone back to the Koga marshlands, probably to retrieve his scythe. Gin doesn't know what a scythe is, so he just asks Akame what they should do next.

After Akame explains the need for antidote to the youngster he apologizes for harming Gin's friends. Luckily, as the epic pwnage was taking place, some of the Kishus scraped together some rainy day herbs to cure the Ohu dogs' ailment. Unluckily there wasn't enough for everybody. Ben in particular ain't doin' so hot. He's refused to take even the smallest bite of antidote before all his men are cured.

Akame insists that they need more of The Cure (years active: 1978-present) asap and Gin is totally on board to gather some. There's just one itty bitty issue: the plantidote is a water root that grows exclusively on the perimeter of the Koga's wetland territory. Kurojaki and the Dogchompers will be on high alert given the preceding events, so it'll be an especially dangerous mission. This doesn't sway Gin at all, though he is a little worried at the possibility of a scythe being a machine gun.

The other Kishus here, Jinnai and Kirikaze, elect to also come with. And so he four go on the most nerve wracking field trip ever conceived. As they venture forth, Maya picks herself up off the ground, taking advantage of having been forgotten in all the excitement. Despite her flesh wound, a nasty grin spreads across her face. This is too perfect - the leader of the Igas is wandering right into her hubby's domain. She gives her body a rough shake before she stumbles back to the marsh.

While everyone else is running to the swamp, the Ohu dogs are taking their medicine. Smith is the only one well enough to dole out rations and he's having a heck of a time convincing Ben to take his meds. In fact, he isn't making any progress at all, as Ben just bats anything he's given away with a trembling paw. Ben insists in that fatherly tone of his that Smith feed all of the others instead.

Cross, the Kai Bros, and Wilson all try to share their herbs with him, but even as he grows too weak to speak he continues refusing everything he's offered. A single tear rolls down Cross's cheek as Ben's mouth whitens with foam. He meets her tearful gaze as his bloodshot eyes glaze over.

The sun begins to set on this long, dreary day. But hope may be on the horizon yet. Akame and his crew have entered the Koga domain undetected and have located the antidote! They each dive into the pond and yank the roots up, snagging as many plants as they can carry. Gin smiles in relief only to realize that the worst is yet to come. He and the Igas look on around the pond's edge.

The Kogas have soundlessly surrounded our hapless heros. An ugly, crackling laugh taunts them as Kurojaki steps out of the shadows. A bloody-faced Maya stands smugly by his side. Their infant son stands between daddy's front paws and meets Gin's eyes with an innocent, oblivious stare. Kurojaki takes a moment to survey the invaders in the lake. Between his jaws he grasps a sharp, sweeping blade.

----------

Thank you to everyone who waited patiently for this episode! We’re at the point where some of the biggest diversions from canon will start cropping up, so hopefully they’re enjoyable. And holy SHIT they keep getting LONGER

Episode 5: The Beasts

[geekprincess26]

The Snow: Chapter 10

This poor fic has sat for months waiting patiently for its author to overcome her writer’s block and health problems, and finally, she did.  I’m thrilled to be returning to this story as it’s one of my favorites, and I’d like to thank @goodqueenalys for all of her help!

Half an hour later, Sansa was still sorting through the voicemails now stored in her newly activated phone.  Margaery and her mother had left several apiece, and Sansa deleted all but the one or two that had come in after she had last spoken to each.  Hannah, her publicist, had left one the day before, and Sansa quickly returned the call to let Hannah know that she was quite all right but still stuck in York, and that she would alert the other woman as soon as she returned home.  

Several other voicemails had originated from the same number.  Sansa did not recognize it, but she could tell by the first few digits that the number belonged to someone who lived in York.  Her finger hesitated over the “play” button on the newest message before she finally pressed it to the phone’s touch screen.  

When a gravelly male voice identified itself as belonging to Officer Glover of the York Police Department, Sansa nearly dropped the phone.  When she heard the officer state that he was following up on all of his earlier messages, she set it on the bed and leaned forward onto her arms, which had begun to tremble.  So thoroughly had the events of the past few days engrossed her that she had barely thought about the car accident that had brought her to Jon’s flat in the first place, but it was the only thing she could think of that would have precipitated such a call, unless she had done something over the course of that night to run afoul of the law.

Sansa’s arms shook harder as her mind’s eye returned to the night the blizzard had begun.  She could see the snow falling thicker and faster, the vehicles swerving closer and closer to the road’s edge and the cars that had already skidded onto it.  She could hear the voice of the hulking man who had stood next to her and helped her direct traffic, which had begun as a booming roar and hoarsened thickly as the minutes had dragged into hours.  She could see the woman in the blue Ford Focus again, eyes wide and brown and so empty that Sansa had turned away horrified after only a few seconds, even then, before she had known for certain that the woman was dead.  Perhaps Mya would have said Sansa had focused so thoroughly on Jon because her mind had been trying to block out the images of life and death flashing before it.  Perhaps she would have had some advice for what Sansa could do when they returned.  But Mya was not there, and Sansa’s rapid-fire blinking was doing nothing to remove the resurgent memories, so after a few more moments of shaking, she did the next best thing and hit the callback button on her phone.

Not a minute later, Officer Glover’s voice was assuaging Sansa’s most immediate fears.  She was in no trouble, he assured her; he merely wished to ask her a few additional questions about the car accident, and she could come by the police station when she liked, although the sooner the police could generate their final report, the better.  Moreover, her car had been towed to their lot, and she could retrieve it when she stopped in to see him.  Sansa managed to reply that she would come as soon as she could before her shaking finger pushed the button to end the call.  She dropped the phone back onto the bed and wished very much that she could join it, but she knew her mind would probably only insist on unspooling its every recollection of the accident.  No, scratch that.  Her mind would play that trick regardless, but at least she could get up and go to the police station rather than lie huddled up on the bed forever.  She picked up the phone again and forced herself off the bed and onto the stairs, and had made it halfway through the living room before she remembered to bring up the phone’s browser and search for the nearest cab company.  After all, Jon was still recovering from his fever and should not be out in the cold, and she had inconvenienced him too much to reasonably expect him to drive her – or have his driver drive her – anywhere at all.

Twenty minutes later, Sansa padded down the stairs and past Jon’s room.  She heard the sounds of Pink Floyd emanating from it and sighed with relief.  No, bothering Jon right now would not have been a good idea, she thought as she slipped out the doorway and began the trek up the building’s winding private drive to the main road.  She had instructed the cab company to send its car to the address two driveways over on that road – it was, after all, the least thing she could do to safeguard Jon’s privacy, especially if the cab driver recognized her – but she was still shivering and sneezing by the time she got there.  Gods, she hoped she wasn’t catching a cold.  

However, Sansa did not cough or sneeze during her interview with Officer Glover.  It was perhaps the only good thing about the meeting, during which Sansa racked her brain for every detail she could recall about the night of the traffic accident.  The face of the dead woman – Sarah Mordane, a grandmother of five, according to the officer – had begun flashing in front of her mind’s eye during the cab ride, and now trying to remember everything else was like trying to wade through three feet of snow mixed with wet concrete.  

The woman’s brown eyes had stared vacantly at the ceiling of her car.  The car had a navy blue carpet interior.  There had been a brown stain, perhaps from coffee, on the passenger’s seat near the gearshift.

Sansa could not remember the colors of any of the other cars involved in the accident, and it took a moment for her to think of the color of her own vehicle.

The groceries had splattered out of the three white plastic bags on the passenger’s seat.  Sansa could remember the style and color of the writing on them.

She had to think for almost five minutes before she could remember even the genders or rough ages of any of the other drivers who had stopped to offer their assistance, except for the man who had helped her to direct the traffic until the police had shown up.  

She didn’t even remember his name.

Officer Glover was very patient at first, offering her coffee and telling her to take her time when her mind refused to focus.  He was also clearly exhausted, though, and as the interview wore on, he yawned more and his questions grew sharper.  He caught himself a couple of times and rephrased a question or reassured her that she could have a break if she wanted one; but the dark circles under his eyes told Sansa that he longed for home, a shower, and proper sleep even more than she did.

Eventually, Sansa’s mind wandered past the car of the dead woman and into the road and onto the neon-pink hats worn by two of the young women who had stopped to help her and the other traffic director, and onto row upon row of headlights and taillights stopping and starting carefully along the road and through the next intersection.  By the time Officer Glover stopped the interview and thanked her for her time, she felt more exhausted than she looked, although she could still see Sarah Mordane’s eyes staring at a navy blue ceiling.  

But remembering the other woman’s car made her think of her own, and she asked Officer Glover to direct her to the impound office before she left.  There she spent fifteen minutes filling out paperwork that she normally could have completed in five, and another fifteen minutes waiting for an officer to escort her to the impound yard.  She cringed when she saw just how badly the back of its left side had been crumpled by the truck that had hit it, and she cringed again when she turned the key in the ignition and got only a faint whine before the motor stopped.  She let out a very long sigh as she rested her forehead against the steering wheel.  

“Would you like to call for a tow, Ms. Stark?”  The cheerful voice of the officer who had brought her to her car, an officer whom Sansa thought looked younger than most university students, revived her enough for her to turn her head and sigh again.

“I’ll have to, I suppose,” she said at length.  “Do you recommend any particular towing company or shop?”

The boy shrugged.  “Haven’t lived here long enough to say,” he replied, “but I could ask some of the other officers for you.”  He gestured back across the lot.  “Come on in.  I can get you more coffee while you wait.”

Half an hour later, Sansa was sipping the last of her coffee.  It must have been her sixth or seventh cup that day, she mused, but she had needed every drop of the caffeine in order to stay upright.  As it was, she found herself barely able to give the tow men the address of one of the few car shops open this late at night.  Fortunately for Sansa, it had also gotten the second-highest rating on her phone’s Yelp! app, which she had spent most of her wait time scanning; and fortunately, the woman manning the shop’s counter was quite friendly, even though she did not appear to recognize Sansa.

“They’ll have it looked at tomorrow morning,” she said as she handed Sansa the intake receipt.  “We should be in contact before noon with the diagnostics and estimate.”

“Thanks.”  Sansa gave the girl a weary smile and trudged back out into the cold.  The wind had picked up, and she scurried along the sidewalk to the first open shop she could find, which turned out to be a 24-hour diner.  The interior was a bit run-down and the odors of grease and coffee clamoring loudly for dominance, but it was warm, and that was all Sansa cared about for now.  She collapsed into a chair at one of the corner tables, and before she could stop shivering, a waitress stopped at the table and asked if Sansa wanted coffee.  Before she could stop herself, Sansa answered, “Yes, please,” and chided herself as she watched the girl stride away.  At this rate she would never get back to Jon’s flat, let alone sleep.  But perhaps at least the latter was for the best, she thought.  If she could only remember Sarah Mordane in flashes in her waking moments, she was bound to get much worse in her dreams, which had a history of turning ugly when Sansa was suffering from severe stress.

She hadn’t gone a day without nightmares between her father’s death and the year after she and Jon had divorced.  That thought alone was enough to make her shiver again and snatch up the cup of coffee practically before the young waitress had set it down on the table in front of her.

Once her fingers had been sufficiently warmed, Sansa removed her phone from her purse.  If she was going to spend the next several hours fighting off both sleep and Sarah Mordane, not to mention the tears that threatened to gush out of her at the thought of the poor woman’s children and grandchildren, she could at least use them productively.  She clicked her e-mail app and spent the next hour or two sorting her messages, as well as checking her remaining voicemails.  Myranda Royce, her agent, had left her four or five of the latter, all consisting of requests that Sansa contact her about a potential project or two.  Sansa entered a quick reminder into her phone to contact Myranda the following day and returned her attention to her e-mail inbox, where her message to Jeyne Westerling was sitting in the drafts folder.  Tired as she was, she had to read it through three times before she had caught up with her own trail of thought, but focusing on her phrasing meant focusing away from her memories, and so she began typing another paragraph.  The going was slow and interrupted by Sansa’s frequent trips to her browser app to pick through the Solicitors Regulation Authority website and the newest online edition of its Code of Conduct publication.  After all, she did not want to come off as completely ignorant and uninformed in her e-mail.  

After two more cups of coffee and two scones, Sansa could barely stack one coherent thought on top of another.  She saved the draft of her e-mail and pulled up a game of Pac-Man on her phone.  Two or three rounds, she thought as she reached up to cover a yawn, and she would think about returning to Jon’s flat.  She lost the first round so badly, however, that she decided to try a game that would require less of her flagging coordination skills.  Maybe a round or two of solitaire instead, with the card backs set to that lovely pastel pattern that soothed her eyesight just so…

An insistent buzzing noise, accompanied by a vibration jarring her shoulder, pushed Sansa bolt upright against her seat.  She had to gaze at her phone for a few moments before realizing that it was ringing and she had fallen asleep against the table, pinning it against her shoulder.  And judging from the silver glow of the sky outside her window, she had been asleep for some time.

The still-buzzing phone lost its balance on the edge of the table and crashed to the floor.  It stopped ringing just as Sansa bent to pick it up.  Shit.  She turned it over and saw the screen peppered with text messages from Margaery Tyrell.

Are you OK?  Call me, babe.  I’m getting worried.

Sansa, just checking to make sure you’re OK.  Let me know for real, so I can get Jon and Ash off my back, OK?

Oh, double shit.  Nope, triple shit.

If Jon had noticed her absence and gotten worried enough to contact both Margaery and Ashara Dayne, who served as publicist to them both, to get them looking for her – right, how about shit times a million?

Sansa sighed heavily.  Yesterday’s truce had been more than a bit awkward after their years of estrangement, but it certainly beat fighting and tears and praying like crazy that Jon would snap out of the fever that had overwhelmed him the day before that.  She sighed again.  Jon was no doubt fit to be tied at this point, and Sansa did not have the energy for another argument.  She wanted a warm shower and her bed.  She wanted to forget about Sarah Mordane and the accident and the fighting and, hell, everything about the past week.  Well, not quite everything, her mind amended, thinking of the brooch and Jon recovering and helping her up and laughing with her.  And never cheating.

Sansa blinked hard and swiped the home screen on her phone to return Margaery’s call.

“Good gods, you better have had one hell of a night out,” said Margaery as soon as the line connected, but she sounded almost as panicked as Sansa had felt upon finding Jon sick with his fever three days prior.  Sansa sighed.

“Sorry, Marg,” she said quietly.  “I didn’t mean to set off a three-alarm fire – ”

“Um, try five,” Margaery interrupted her.  “If not six.  My dear, do you realize how many bottles of wine Ash will require as a bribe for having her beauty sleep interrupted at three in the morning?  Not to mention the storage upgrade I’ll have to get my phone just to hold all the texts Jon’s been sending me since then?”  Her voice shook over the last few words, and Sansa heard a distinct gulp on the other end of the line.  She was not fooled in the least when Margaery covered it with a cough.

“Sorry,” she offered after a pregnant pause.  “I really didn’t mean to scare everyone.  I just had an interview with the police about the accident that stranded me here, and then I got my car taken in to be fixed.  I figured I’d get back to the flat before Jon knew I was gone.”

“Then what happened?  You are OK, right?”  This time Margaery did not bother concealing her concern.

“I’m fine,” Sansa answered.  “I just stopped at a diner to grab some food and fell asleep.”  She cut off the reply she could hear Margaery starting to utter.  “Really.  I fell asleep.  That’s all.  I was just tired.”  She sighed.  “You can let Jon know I’m coming home right now, as soon as I can get a cab.  And tell him I said to stop bothering you.”

Sansa could practically see her friend’s eyes rolling on the other end of the line.  “No shit,” she replied.  “He’s a bigger pain in my ass right now than Ash.  And that’s saying something.”  She paused.  “Which, really, he hasn’t been this way, I mean this worried about you, since before – well, in a few years.”  Another pause.  “Maybe – well, you’re sure things are OK with you two?”

Sansa gritted her teeth.  Clearly Margaery was relieved of enough worry to start prying again, and Sansa was in no mood for prying.

“It’s fine, Marg,” she sighed.  “I’ll be back at Jon’s shortly, OK?  I’ll even text you to let you know.  Pinky swear.”

That got a giggle out of Margaery.  Good.  No prying.  “You’d better, darling,” she said.  “And really, stay safe, all right?”

Half an hour later, Sansa swung her legs, which felt more like stones by now, out of the taxicab she had called immediately after hanging up with Margaery.  They had not yet recovered from her night of shoveling the snow away from Jon’s patio door, and fatigue had rendered them even less capable.  It was cold, and the light of the rising sun reflected off the snow into Sansa’s slitted eyes, but even those things would not speed the slow trudge at which her legs had contented themselves.  Sansa did not blame them, for she was in no hurry to face Jon’s worry or, more likely, anger.  She did not have the strength left to fight either.  So when she heard Jon calling her name, she looked up, startled, to find herself already only ten yards from the bottom of the stairs leading to Jon’s flat’s main door.  When she saw Jon himself perched at the top of the steps with nary a coat or hat on them, she gulped and stopped in her tracks.

Then Jon sprinted down the stairs and, before Sansa could react, engulfed her in his arms.  He lifted her so that her feet dangled a couple of inches off the ground.  Thrown off balance, Sansa clung to him and emitted a startled squeal, which was muffled by his thick sweatshirt.  Then she felt his cheek against hers and his warm breath on her neck and heard his stuttered gasps of Sansa, oh, God, Sansa, Sansa, sweeping past her left ear.  His arms trembled around her in tandem with the rapid rise and fall of his chest, and every time they did, the lump in Sansa’s throat grew.  Sansa, oh, Sansa, he muttered, and she squeezed her eyes shut and clung to him even more tightly.  One of Jon’s hands reached up to cradle the nape of her neck, as he had done when her father had died, and when one of the massive overhead lighting fixtures had crashed right next to her during a shoot for one of her films and she’d been unable to stop shaking afterwards, and when Lady, the dog she’d had since the age of thirteen, had died.  Tears rolled out of Sansa’s eyes and froze on her cheeks, and she tucked her head further down into Jon’s neck.  She inhaled the smell of cedar and salt and Jon and cried harder.  His other hand rubbed up and down in a slow rhythm on her back until her tears subsided.

At length, Jon set her back down, but they clung to each other for a few more minutes before Jon drew back and cupped Sansa’s face in his hands.  Her eyes widened when she saw how bloodshot his were, and how dark the circles under them, as though he had not slept a wink.  

“Jesus, Sansa,” he gasped.  His hands were still trembling.  “What in bloody hell were you thinking?  I – are you sure you’re not hurt?”  His eyes darted downward to check for any sign of injury on her.  Sansa shook her head.

“No – I mean, I’m not hurt, I’m fine,” she said.  “I didn’t mean to be out for the night.  I just – the police wanted to talk to me about the accident, and I had to get my car towed out of their lot, and I fell asleep.”  Her shoulders drooped.  “I just meant to be gone a couple hours.”

Jon pinched the bridge of his nose and huffed.  He opened his mouth, but then closed it with another huff before letting out a long sigh and shaking his head, apparently unsure of whether he wanted to snap at Sansa or hold her again.  Perhaps at one time she would have been able to tell.  Now she simply waited until Jon sighed again and stabbed a hand through his unruly curls.  He grimaced as one of his fingers hit a snag.

“Bloody hell, Sansa,” he said at last.  “Just – I’d have taken you myself.  You didn’t need to call a cab, for Christ’s sake, and not if you were that tired.”

Sansa shook her head.  “I didn’t want to bother you,” she replied softly.  “You were listening to your music, and anyway you’re not over your fever – you’re not even wearing a jacket, Jon.”  She gestured at his sweatshirt.  “Or a hat.”

Jon waved it off.  “I’d still have bloody taken you,” he said.  “You shouldn’t have to be out anywhere alone – God, if – Sansa, just – and to the police – what were you thinking?”

Sansa lifted her jaw.  “It was only for a couple of hours, Jon,” she repeated.  “I wasn’t even tired when I left.  Besides, you never would have known I was gone.  It was an accident that I fell asleep.”

“Exactly!” Jon retorted.  “An accident, and if you’d fallen asleep in the wrong place and I hadn’t gotten Ash Dayne to get a hold of Marg so she could find you while I was – we were both thinking you might be in a ditch or snatched by some crazy – or in some hospital’s intensive care, or God knows where – ”  His hand reached up to pinch the bridge of his nose again, but this time it was shaking, and so was the hand he stretched out to rub Sansa’s shoulder.

“Jesus Christ, Sansa,” he murmured, and drew her back into his arms.  “Just – please don’t do it again, all right?  Please don’t do it again.”  

Sansa was still trying to form a coherent reply when a gust of wind blew her hood down.  She stumbled over one of Jon’s boots when she reached up to fix it, and she would have fallen into the snow had he not swept her off the ground.  Sansa yelped.

“Sorry!” exclaimed Jon.  “I just didn’t want you to fall – here.”  He bent to release her, but another gust of wind blew her hood clear down her back and whipped her long red hair in front of Jon’s face.

“Sorry,” she said, but Jon merely shrugged against her shoulder and turned to carry her up the apartment steps.

“No problem,” he grunted, and within no time he had swept her into the apartment and set her down in the hall.

“Thanks,” Sansa murmured.  The rest of what she had been about to say dried on her tongue when she saw Jon’s eyes burning into her.  They were wide and moist and frantic.  His hands slid up from her shoulders to cup her cheeks.  His fingers were trembling.

“Are you sure you’re OK?” he asked.  Sansa nodded mutely.

“I’m sorry,” she whispered after a few moments.  “I really didn’t mean to fall asleep or upset you.”

Jon sighed and shut his eyes, which made the dark circles underneath them all the more pronounced.  Sansa wondered if he had slept at all the prior night.

“Just – ”  Jon shook his head once more before opening his eyes.  They had taken on much of the russet hue they got when he was sad, but this shade was darker and flickering and kinetic.  

“Please,” he murmured, “if you need to go anywhere, just say it, all right, and I’ll take you wherever you need.  Anywhere.  Just – please, don’t go off like that again, sw – Sansa, please, just tell me first.” He raised his lips to rest near her temple, and Sansa felt them contract in a trembling half-kiss.

The lump had re-formed in Sansa’s throat, and this time yanked something from her chest cavity, like a rotten apple being pulled out of a bushel.  Jon had not called her “sweetheart” or “sweet girl” in nearly three years, and she knew she had not imagined the beginning of both words forming on his lips.  

Sweet girl, he’d murmured in kisses across her body the last time they’d ever made love.  Sweetheart, he’d breathed into her mouth, which had still been gasping and gulping from the aftershocks of the peak his mouth and hands had wrought just seconds before, as he’d reached up to caress her cheeks.  My Sansa, my sweet girl…

Sansa blinked away the memories.  Only they and the habit, and possibly the worry, could have made Jon’s mouth form the odd fragment.  Still, she felt the lightening sensation spread clear through the top of her head before she could manage to draw back and nod.

“I will,” she murmured.  The flickering settled behind Jon’s eyes, and he let out a deep breath, and his fingers began to steady.

“Thank you,” he whispered and gathered her back against him, one arm encircling her body and the other hand reaching up to cradle the back of her neck.  Sansa, whose heart and nerves were spinning in time with Jon’s still skipping heartbeat, buried her face into his shoulder and nodded.  She twined her arms around his back and closed her eyes as his lips murmured comforting whispers into her hair.

Jon’s heartbeat had resumed its usual steady thrum for some minutes before he drew back.  Sansa let out a startled gasp and stumbled forward again.  Jon caught her at once and raised a concerned eyebrow.

“Are you sure you’re OK?” he asked again.  “You’re still shivering.”

Sansa opened her mouth to tell him she was not.  That was when she caught sight of her right arm shaking out of the corner of her eye.  She tried to still it, but could not.  She looked at her left arm and saw the same.  Then she felt her teeth chatter.  She bit her lip to try and steady them, but it was no use.  Neither was wrapping her arms tightly around her middle in order to calm her trembling body.

“Here, Sansa.”  Jon’s voice had gone gentle and his eyes, when Sansa glanced up at him, had gone gentler still.  “I’ll get you a blanket and – um – some tea, here – ”

Before Sansa could move, he had swept her up in his arms, carried her to the living room, and set her on the plush beige couch where she had spent so much of her second night in the apartment.  He immediately left her field of vision but returned just as immediately with a couple of blankets.

“Here,” he murmured again and draped first one, then the other over Sansa’s shaking body.  “Do you want another one?”

Sansa shook her head.  She tried so say no, but the lump in her throat would not allow it.  Jon, looking even more concerned, opened his own mouth, but then shut it just as quickly.  

“I’ll go get the water on,” he said on his second try.  “You still like the chamomile, right?”

Sansa nodded, and Jon padded off to the kitchen.  She could neither see nor hear him for what felt like the better part of an hour.  When he finally returned, she was still shivering.  Jon sank to his knees next to her head and reached tentatively to cup the back of her neck again.

“Any better?” he asked.  Sansa shrugged.  His hand was warmer than the blankets, though, and it felt so good when his thumb began rubbing soft circles at the nape of her skull.  Part of the lump in Sansa’s throat loosened, and she inhaled deeply.  She closed her eyes and let the air escape slowly, past the lump.  Jon reached over to brush a strand of hair out of her face, and she took another slow breath, and then another.

The shriek of the teakettle brought Jon to his feet at once.  Sansa squeezed her eyes shut and pulled the blankets more tightly around herself.  When Jon returned, he had to say her name twice before she heard him.

“Tea?” Jon asked, but he still looked worried, and when Sansa just kept shivering, he reached down and slowly moved her till she was sitting most of the way up.  He sat down beside her even more slowly, as though she might order him off the couch at any moment.  Sansa, however, did not.  Instead, she buried her head into the warmth of his shoulder and closed her eyes so she could better feel his heartbeat.  

“Here,” Jon whispered again.  He hesitated a few moments before encircling her in his arms.  They were solid and strong and real, and Sansa clung to them as hard as she could.  Sarah Mordane’s eyes looked a bit fainter in her mind now, and the lump in her throat a bit smaller.  She kept trembling, but Jon kept holding her, and his heart kept beating.  At first his pulse was almost as quick as hers, but they both slowed at length – probably about the time the tea went cold, Sansa thought later – and every now and then he would give her arm or shoulder a gentle rub.

The last thing Sansa remembered before she drifted into sleep was the sound of Jon beginning to snore.

[xadoheandterra]

Title: Eternity in an Hour Fandom: Devil May Cry 5 Characters: V, Griffon Part: I | II WARNING: HEAVY AS ALL HELL SPOILERS ABOUT V. Also Poetry. Summary: He came into this world with the breath already stolen from his lungs, the strength taken from his limbs, and his skin as thin and fragile as ash.

V knew one thing for certain and one thing only—he didn’t want to die like this; weak as a newborn kitten in frail humanity. Of course, that meant surviving and, well, V wasn’t sure if surviving would be any worse than dying really. Not with—not with what that fool of a devil had planned to go down.

Especially not without Dante on board—and fuck did V not want to deal with Dante right now. Not like this. Never like this—and even worse he didn’t really have a choice. What had he been thinking, originally?

Oh, right, he hadn’t. Fate fuck him.

Notes: The poem that is the source of the title and is referenced here is Auguries of Innocence by William Blake and apparently V references it a lot in the game? I hadn’t even realized that he did so because 90% of the time I was more focused on fuck there are a lot of demons and V is a squish.

I picked the poem honestly because it’s one of my favorite’s of Blake’s, and I thought it fit the character rather well too, and well apparently Capcom agrees so there’s that? IDK. It’s an interesting bit of poetry. Contradicting and confusing, but interesting.

Perhaps it should not have surprised him so much to see the manor still stood, if a little run down and beaten up. Furniture rested, well cared for despite the age and lack of use, and Vergil stared at each item he came across for a good second until he felt a not-so-subtle nudge from the nightmare bound to his skin. It’d been years since he’d come to this home, the last time perhaps when he was almost nineteen before the mess in Fortuna—and he still could barely recall even that. Something about a potential resurrection ritual, some sort of girl, and Dante?

What had Dante been doing in Fortuna all those years ago? Vergil knew he went to find out more about Tamen-ni-gru and how to raise it—not to mention their father. If rumors were to be believed the beast of a man had lived and even ruled there for some time, long before their mother came into the picture. The worshippers left a sour taste in his mouth, a bit of disdain—and Vergil couldn’t recall while and it bothered him.

“Focus,” Vergil hissed to himself and moved on. He passed room after room until he came upon the master suite—he’d lost his way, frustratingly enough, and found himself trapped in the halls of his childhood. Now he stared at one of the last places Mother stood before she—

—there was the closet he—

Vergil sucked in a breath and hissed, “Focus,” to himself. This half-brained plan of his to split devil and human had left him rattled, and this piss-poor place of memory best left forgotten wanted to take root. None of it mattered, not now, not when—Vergil stumbled into the wall as his legs nearly gave out from under him and he coughed a wheeze of surprise as his breath stole away.

It took him five minutes to recover even a semblance of himself, leaned against the wall and wheezing as he tried to draw in a real breath, to bring strength to his limbs. Vergil felt like he was a hairs breath away from crumbling into ash and it scared him.

“You really should take it slow, V,” the Griffon said as it burst into life around his shoulder. Vergil tilted his head toward the creature.

“What…did you call me?” Vergil questioned.

“Uhhh, Vergil?”

Vergil eyed the bird and then turned away. V—Dante used to call him Verge, and when they were very, very young he’d call him ‘bee’ – he never could quite get the sound of Vergil’s name right when they were small children.

“V, huh?” Vergil mumbled. Maybe that was a better thing to call himself. He was barely even half of what he was—just a letter tacked onto a name long, long forgotten in the dust of Hell. V—not Vergil, because he wasn’t. Vergil wasn’t weak, or human, or dying.

Except he had been, hadn’t he? Corrupted, twisted beyond his ken, and dying. He was days from crumbling into ash, wasn’t he?

V hated the thought.

“Well looks like the smart mouth actually kept things pretty neat here,” the Griffon huffed as he took off from Vergil’s shoulder to explore the room. “Shit’s all pristine. Who woulda thought?”

“Maybe that’s why he never has any money,” V said dryly.

“Oooh, look! A book, V!”

V hummed, and Vergil pushed himself off the wall and fumbled into the room.

“What is this? Poetry? Eugh.”

In it’s talons Griffon held the book in question as he beat his wings an angled his head in a way that no normal bird really could to stare down at the cover. The embossed ‘V’ caught Vergil’s eye first, and they widened in surprise. With trembling fingers V took the book away from the Griffon, who scoffed in response.

“Don’t tell me you like that shit,” the Griffon grumbled, and V felt his lips curl into a smile. He leaned back against the wall, far more relaxed now as he flipped the book open and stroked long fingers down the edge of the page. As if from memory V began to quote, voice soft even as it trembled with pain.

“To see a World in a Grain of Sand And a Heaven in a Wild Flower, Hold Infinity in the palm of your hand And Eternity in an hour.

A Robin Red breast in a Cage Puts all Heaven in a Rage. A Dove house fill’d with Doves and Pigeons Shudders Hell thro’ all its regions.

A Dog starv’d at his Master’s Gate Predicts the ruin of the State. A Horse misus’d upon the Road Calls to Heaven for Human blood.

Each outcry of the hunted Hare A fibre from the Brain does tear. A skylark wounded in the wing A Cherubim does cease to sing.

The Game Cock clip’d and armed for fight Does the Rising Sun affright. Every Wolfs and Lions howl Raises from Hell a Human Soul.

The wild deer, wandering here and there Keeps the Human Soul from Care. The Lamb misus’d breeds Public Strife And yet forgives the Butcher’s knife…”

V trailed off, unaware that his still naked form was now surrounded by the Griffon, the Shadow, and a hulking form off in the corner. He took a moment to take a breath and then continued softer than before, brows furrowed down in intense sort of thought.

“A truth that’s told with bad intent Beats all the Lies you can invent. It is right it should be so; Man was made for Joy and Woe;

And when this we rightly know Thro’ the World we safely go. Joy and Woe are woven fine A Clothing for the soul divine.

Under every grief and pine Runs a joy with silken twine. The Babe is more than swadling Bands Throughout all these Human Lands.

Tools were made and Born were hands Every Farmer Understands. Every Tear from Every Eye Becomes a Babe in Eternity….”

“Holy shit Shadow did you know he could do this?” the Griffon landed next to the Shadow and stared at V who stared at the book and flipped the pages almost reverently. He faded away from speaking for a moment, voice trailed off in hoarseness, before he eventually finished with a whisper,

“Every Night and every Morn Some to Misery are Born.

Every Morn and every Night Some are Born to sweet delight. Some are Born to sweet delight, Some are Born to Endless Night.

We are led to Believe a Lie When we see not Thro’ the Eye Which was Born in a Night to perish in a Night When the Soul Slept in Beams of Light.

God Appears and God is Light To those poor Souls who dwell in Night. But does a Human Form Display To those who Dwell in Realms of day.”

For a moment Vergil leaned against the wall in silence as his fingers brushed against the last page of the book and the hastily scrawled name within it.

“Auguries of Innocence,” V said softly. “One of the more…popular of William Blake’s poems.” One of his favorites, he could remember. The juxtaposition of the poem, the pitting of sides against one another over innocence—it spoke to him as a teenager. It spoke to him now.

V slipped his fingers from the name—Vergil Sparda—and snapped the book shut. He couldn’t find himself to part with it, to leave it here—and he wondered if Dante even knew the book resided in the ruins of their home, but it mattered not. Half a second later, as if he came out of a trance, Vergil stood upright and began to search the room with more awareness than he’d had when he first touched the book.

Within minutes he found clothing—obviously Mother’s, he noted, but they fit this body’s slim figure. V wondered what age he was—did he look like himself in any form, or did he take far more after Mother like this? Mother to whom he could once attribute the human blood that ran in his veins.

“Lookin’ good, V!” the Griffon cackled as V tugged on the jacket.

“Be quiet,” V replied and with a wave of his hand the Griffon burst into shadows and seeped into his skin. He grabbed a silver cane from where it rested—Sparda’s, V thought, although he could never remember seeing the Devil with a cane before. Still it had a weight to it, and it could bear his own when he felt his limbs weaken.

Distasteful, but the cane would have to stay a permanent part of his attire for now. V needed to get out of the manor, find some funds, and then—well, there was not a chance in Hell that he could handle the swarms of demons that would follow the fools call to arms. He’d need protection to get where he needed to go—to do what he needed to do. Protection meant—Dante.

Dante meant money.

V sighed.

[elrondsscribe]

The Seventh Avenger: Chapter 7

All rights belong to the Tolkien Estate and to Marvel Studios.

The timing of the events at about this point in the movie is slightly sketchy, so I may be playing rather loosely with it. Also, weird ideas about Elf telepathy on display.

By the time Glorfindel got to his locker, his temper had cooled down a bit and he was beginning to be rather alarmed about the whole business. It was all very well for Tony Stark to hack censored information on leaked photos during an internationally broadcasted Senate hearing, but to hack a counter-intelligence agency with their own equipment on their own airship? And what about poking poor Bruce with a stick, for no reason other than to see if he could provoke the Hulk? Had the man no restraint, not to mention common sense?

As for Bruce himself, he had obviously been on edge since his arrival, which did not bode well for the continued absence of his larger, greener alter ego. Glorfindel had meant what he said about Harlem, and refused to refer to the mild-mannered scientist as a monster, but he had no desire to become personally acquainted with the Hulk just yet. Not with Loki still on board.

And Steve? Glorfindel winced. What was wrong with himself and the Captain? Tony was possibly more tactless and superficially arrogant than Steve; and yet Steve's meddlesome, almost bullying manner was nothing short of infuriating (Like Erestor when you first met him, whispered an annoying memory in his ear. And look how you and he get on now.). And yet the man had been relatively easygoing before Loki had come aboard.

As for whatever Fury was withholding . . . Glorfindel had been in both the Avengers' position and Fury's. He knew perfectly well that Fury could be masking some really repulsive mission of his own for which he wanted the Tesseract; he also knew that Fury, as the head of something like an intelligence organization, probably had a hundred (possibly quite legitimate) reasons for revealing only what he deemed necessary; not to mention having superiors of his own to placate and orders of his own to follow.

But the mention of Gondolin troubled him because, loath as he was to admit it, Steve was right. Treachery had brought Morgoth to Turgon's hidden gates, and fire and death to the Gondolindrim.

But what could he do?

Well, for starters, he could get some answers from the one person who was undoubtedly up to something.

Glorfindel turned and marched down to the detention level. It took him some time to find it, for the Helicarrier seemed to be designed so that the detention level was not easy to get to. But at length he reached the room with the great glass-walled cell, and Loki looked around when he entered. He smiled. "Well, if it isn't the yellow sprite," he said. "What may I do for you?"

Well, two can play this game. Glorfindel flashed his own most radiant smile. "You could abort your evil plan to take over the earth with your Chitauri army, to begin with," he said.

"Oh, I'm afraid that's not possible," said Loki, still smiling. "You see, I have a score to settle."

"So I hear," returned Glorfindel pleasantly. He began feeling out, cautiously, for the Asgardian's mind.

Loki's smile twisted into a sneer. "Did you hear it from Thor?" he mocked. "Was he sad and mournful?"

"Very," returned Glorfindel, who had just found what seemed to be Loki's mind, a vast and twisted maze full of traps, entire chambers held hostage by some unknown force of great power. "Anybody'd think his adopted brother had destroyed part of another planet, and then come back to destroy all of it."

"And that, my shining golden friend, is where you are mistaken," Loki's face assumed a noble expression. "I'm not here to destroy anything, merely to rule and instruct."

"Really?" said Glorfindel. "I thought you had a score to settle." He was tiptoeing around the edges of Loki's mind, peering in where he could, trying to see the Asgardian's (Jotun's?) more immediate plans without being detected.

Loki tilted his head. "You don't agree that the mortals of this planet want for a ruler? Why should I not be the one to make them free from freedom?"

"Do you think I'm going to let you do that?"

"I don't see that the matter rests with you," returned Loki.

"And that's where you are wrong," Glorfindel stopped smiling, folded his arms, and narrowed his eyes. "I and my people, the Eldar, have walked this earth for thousands upon thousands of years, and we have both suffered and conquered evils the like of which you have never known. Do you think we will suffer your foolishness? Do you think we would let a mere child of some thousand years old to reign over us, because he decides he wants to?"

Loki blinked, and for once seemed to be at a loss for words.

It was at this moment that Glorfindel began to sense that Loki's mind was far too dangerous a place to wander at will. There was strange, perilous magic about him that Glorfindel had not felt from Thor, and not a little insanity. So he withdrew as delicately as he could; but Loki's eyes suddenly narrowed with suspicion.

"What are you?" he hissed, striding forward toward the Elf (though he never touched the glass).

"Oh," said Glorfindel with an air of blinking innocence. "Just a yellow sprite, I guess."

Loki's eyes flashed, and the sudden assault on Glorfindel's mind made him start back. Hastily he went on the defense, barring every door and window into his consciousness and flinging Loki back with all his force. Loki reeled, and Glorfindel pressed his advantage with a strike that tore through Loki's barriers in a moment.

A glowing blue orb in the midst of the golden scepter thrummed with power, and from it curling tendrils of blue magic reached outward as if to draw Glorfindel toward the orb. He drew back from the power of the scepter in suspicion and alarm, only to fall straight into the octopus-like tentacles of Loki's will. Glorfindel struggled to break free, but Loki held him fast, twisting his way into Glorfindel's memory.

He seemed to falter then, overwhelmed by the sheer magnitude of days that were the Elf's long life, and Glorfindel took the chance to slip unnoticed into Loki's designs.

He seemed to step straight into the ruins of the Helicarrier's half-destroyed command room. The enraged Hulk whirled on Glorfindel and gave a roar of rage, SHIELD scattering before him like ants, and the Avengers swarming all over him in vain like so many gnats.

And then, with a resounding GET OUT! Loki had hurled him from his mind, and Glorfindel returned to his body to find himself lying on the floor with an aching head and back, as if he had fallen over backward, which he apparently had. He turned his head with some difficulty and saw that Loki was on his knees in the middle of the cell, panting and and in disarray.

For a moment both were too dazed to move; and then Glorfindel remembered what he had seen of Loki's plot. The Hulk! He scrambled to his feet and went racing up to find the command room. By the time he burst into it, he was so out of breath that he could only gasp out "Director - urgent -"

Both Fury and Hill were standing over an agent's screen, though they (and many others) looked up almost involuntarily at Glorfindel's rather violent entrance. Hill then looked up at Fury, who gave her a nod and then turned to Glorfindel. "What is it?" he asked as he crossed the room.

"In private," panted Glorfindel, turning to go out into the hall which would eventually bring him to the flight of steps that led to the lab. Fury followed him, and as soon as they were out of the room Glorfindel hissed, "Loki means to unleash the Hulk."

Fury's face, which had already looked fairly grim, became even grimmer. He touched his ear. "Romanoff, you copy?" he barked. "Find Thor and get both your asses up to the lab. Loki wants to unleash the Hulk." He touched his ear again. "Shoulda known he was here for Banner," he growled. "Like we didn't already have enough to worry about."

Glorfindel knew better than to ask what he meant. He just followed the Director anxiously until they reached the lab. Both Bruce and Tony were quietly leaning against one of the work stations in front of a screen.

But Fury's first words were addressed, not to Bruce, but to Tony. "What are you doing, Mr. Stark?" he asked in frosty tones.

Glorfindel suddenly remembered what exactly Tony Stark had been doing for the past hour or so, and remembered also that Fury had been standing in front of a screen in the command room. He knows he's being hacked. Should I have told him? Naw.

"Uh, kinda been wondering the same thing about you, actually," said Tony breezily. "Not you, Goldilocks," he added to Glorfindel. "Just Mad-Eye Moody here."

"Goldilocks?" scoffed Glorfindel. "That's the best you can come up with?"

"Shut up," said Fury to Glorfindel, and then to Tony, "You're supposed to be locating the Tesseract."

"We are," said Bruce, who looked just as smug as did Tony. "The model's locked and we're sweeping for a signature now." He pointed over Fury's shoulder at a distant screen. "When we get a hit, we'll have the location within half a mile."

"And you'll get your Cube back," added Tony. "No muss, no fuss - what is Phase 2?" He had at that moment just glanced over one of his screens.

And then something large and heavy landed on one of the countertops with a clack, and the voice of an angry Steve Rogers said, "Phase 2 is SHIELD using the Cube to build weapons. Sorry, the computer was moving a little slow for me." The last words were addressed to Bruce and Tony.

"Ooh, not following orders now, are we, Captain?" mocked Glorfindel, ignoring for the moment the large, rather nasty-looking weapon Steve had just laid on the table.

"Oh, you think this has nothing to do with you," Steve shot back. "You think you didn't get ripped off too?"

Fury moved to dispel the implied accusation. "Rogers," he said, laying a hand on the thing that had so angered Steve. "We gathered everything related to the Tesseract, this does not mean that we're -"

"I'm sorry, Nick," Tony swung round the screen he and Bruce had been reading so that it now faced Fury, Steve, and Glorfindel. "What were you lying?"

There on the screen, clear as daylight, were unmistakable schematics for large, powerful-looking, possibly nuclear weapons. More damningly, Glorfindel had seen them before, during his years as an English spy during the Second World War. In HYDRA hands.

"How did I let myself get into this again?!" he groaned under his breath.

Steve was glaring at Fury. "Looks like I was wrong, Director," he growled. "The world hasn't changed a bit."

And then the armored Thor strode into the room, and behind him Agent Romanoff. Her green eyes were fixed on Bruce Banner, and the moment Bruce looked back at her Glorfindel could almost feel the tension.

"Did you know about this?" he asked her, pointing with his glasses at the weapons schematics.

"Of course she bloody knew about it!" Glorfindel threw up his hands. "Everybody on this ship probably knew, except for us." I wonder if that was what Hill was so twitchy about earlier.

Romanoff did not spare the Elf so much as a glance. "You want to think about removing yourself from this environment, Doctor?" she asked warily.

Bruce gave a bark of mirthless laughter. "I was in Calcutta, I was pretty well removed," he said. Glorfindel suddenly noticed the gleam in the man's eyes with some alarm.

"Dr. Banner, Loki is manipulating you," he said. With success, apparently.

Bruce indicated Natasha and Fury with the glasses. "And they've been doing what exactly?" he demanded.

Romanoff took a step toward him. "You didn't come here because I batted my eyelashes."

"Yes, and I'm not leaving because suddenly you get a little twitchy," snapped Bruce, and he indicated the screen again. "I'd like to know why SHIELD is using the Tesseract to build weapons of mass destruction."

And Fury said, "Because of him," and pointed at Thor of all people, surprising Glorfindel very much. He wasn't the only one, for Thor arched his eyebrows and asked, "Me?"

"Last year," said Fury. "Earth had a visitor from another planet who had a grudge match that leveled a small town. We learned that, not only are we not alone, but we are hopelessly, hilariously outgunned."

And then it struck Glorfindel like a bolt of lightning - this was the purpose of the Avengers Initiative! He peered closely at the Director. Unless he was mistaken, "Phase 2" had not been Nick Fury's idea. Did he even support it? If not, why was he defending it?

"My people want nothing but peace with your planet," Thor was protesting.

"I suppose your precious brother isn't one of 'your people,' then, nor this army of Chitauri he intends to lead," snapped Glorfindel. "To say nothing of your 'Dark-Elves' or whatever you call them. Why on earth would we think other planets want nothing but peace with us?"

Thor faltered, and Fury folded his arms. "Even our own planet is filling up with people that can't be matched, that can't be controlled."

"What, like you controlled the Cube?" demanded Steve, and Thor interjected, "Your work with the Tesseract is what drew Loki to it, and his allies. It is a signal to all the realms that Earth is ready for a higher form of war."

"Higher form?" demanded Steve, eyes darting to Thor.

"You forced our hand," said Fury. "We had to come up with something."

"Nuclear deterrent," Tony chimed in, "'cause that always calms everything right down."

Glorfindel stared at the man in disbelief. "Oh, that's a good one, Merchant of Death, by all means call the kettle black!"

And Steve said, "I'm sure if he still made weapons, he'd be in this neck deep!"

Tony bristled. "Wait, wait, wait," he said, taking a step toward the Elf. "How is this now about me?"

"Isn't everything?" snarked Steve.

"I thought humans were more evolved than this," scoffed Thor.

"Ex-cuse me," said Fury irritably to Thor. "Did we come to your planet and blow stuff up?"

"Do you always give your champions such mistrust?" asked Thor.

"Yes, actually, and the more you've sacrificed, the less they trust you," snapped Glorfindel.

Natasha Romanoff stared from Elf to Asgardian. "Are you boys really that naive?" she said in exasperation. "SHIELD monitors potential threats!"

Bruce's arms were folded. "Captain America is on SHIELD's watch list?"

"You're on that list?" asked Tony of Steve. "Above or below angry bees?"

"I swear to God, Stark, one more crack -"

But Glorfindel was suddenly distracted by the sight of something just behind Bruce. The golden scepter sat on a white tabletop, and the large blue gem set in it gleamed like a blue star. The high, musical thrumming that came from it grew steadily louder until Glorfindel could hardly believe that he was the only one hearing it; now that he was looking, he saw that, the longer they argued, the brighter it glowed and the more it thrummed.

And then suddenly, he remembered just what he'd just been saying. Damn you to the pits of Udun, you will not have me too!

He was distracted when somewhere beside him Bruce spoke: ". . . what are we, a team? No, no, no - we're a chemical mixture that creates chaos. We're - we're a time bomb."

Fury took a step toward the physicist. "You need to step away," he warned.

Tony flung out an arm. "Why shouldn't the guy let off a little steam?" he asked with a bravado that only a man who had never been near the real Hulk could muster, and he laid a hand on Steve's shoulder.

"You know damn well why!" cried Steve, flinging off Tony's hand. "Back off!"

There's going to be a civil war in here!

"Stop!" cried Glorfindel. "Stop!"

Nobody seemed to be listening to him. Tony had actually just swung round so that he was directly facing the Captain. "Oh, I'm starting to want you to make me."

"Big man in a suit of armor," Steve scoffed. "Take that off, and what are you?"

"Ah, genius, billionaire, playboy, philanthropist," Tony rattled off, but his face held no humor at all.

Glorfindel gathered all his breath. "DARO!" he thundered, and everyone around him started and stared at him, their quarrels dying on their lips.

"You fools!" cried Glorfindel furiously. "Do none of you understand? This is why Loki wanted to come aboard! I'm sorry, Captain," to that individual. "You were right. Loki does mean to start a war here. And look at us now! Do you think he hasn't done it?"

The look Bruce turned on him could have blistered concrete. "And just where are you in all this anyway?" he demanded. "Sounds like you've been pretty comfortable sitting on the sidelines for the last seventy years - what made you decide to get involved now?"

Glorfindel was thrown by the question. "I - SHIELD knows about Elves," he said. "Generally the fewer who know of our existence, the better."

"Really?" asked Tony. "What are you trying to hide?"

Glorfindel clenched his jaw. "Maybe we don't like being hunted like Dr. Banner," he said. "People do that, you know."

And then, shockingly, mercifully, the machine in the corner beeped.

"Got it," said Tony into the sudden silence.

Banner headed toward the monitor, saying, "Sorry kids, I guess you don't get to see my little party trick after all."

"You've located the Tesseract?" asked Thor.

"I can get there faster," Tony volunteered

"Get where faster?" asked Glorfindel sharply. He'd just been looking at the screen over Bruce's shoulder.

"Uh, the Cube?" suggested Tony.

But Bruce's eyes widened. "Oh, my God!" he said.

"What?" asked Thor.

"It's here!" cried Bruce.

And at that moment, the explosion came.