Disclaimer: I do not own anything here except Paladin, and because I don't have him copyrighted, I guess I don't own him either.

"I am not under you
You cannot play my game and use your rules
You claim you know me better than I do
Which one of us does it make a fool?"

----Raise Hell in Heaven by Lordi

It was dusk in Roanapur. The sun reflected off the garbage-strewn waters of the harbor as it sank in the distant horizon. Light danced and played amongst the ripples in the waves and the floating debris lazily as gulls called overhead.

The man watched his boat sail away for a few moments, smoking a cigarette in calm solitude. A shot rang out in the distance, muffled by the city of sin to his back. He didn't flinch, he only continued smoking his cigarette.

He reached slowly into his trench coat, seemed to think better of it as he stopped and instead took his hand out and put it on the butt of one of the pistols that hung from his shoulder harness.

Feeling it's comforting presence in his gloved hand, he took a long drag and finished his cigarette. He flicked the cigarette off the dock and into the water. The water rippled around it. Now just a piece of waste in a sea of waste.

He sighed as he picked up the black military-style duffel at his feet and turned to the city of Roanapur. He began walking.

Just a piece of waste in a sea of waste.

---------------

"Bring me all the Bacardi you got!" Rock and Revy shouted at Bao for maybe the third time that week. It had become their thing, Rock mused as Bao filled his shot glass. It'd been more than a year since he'd left his white-collar life in Japan and threw his lot in with the Black Lagoon Trading Company, and this was how life was. Work, maybe (who was he kidding, usually) get shot at, and then go to the Yellowflag for drinks with the rest of the crew at the end of the day.

It was just him, Revy and the usually rough and tumble crowd in what he'd first referred to as "the bar at the end of the world" when he'd first come here with Revy, Benny, and Dutch. The drinking game was one between Revy and him, and it had started that same night he'd first come to this city of debauchery, violence, and sin.

Sometimes Revy won. Sometimes he won. In the end, it didn't really matter to Rock anymore. There was once a time when he hated drink hard liquor like this, but over time he came to like it. Maybe it was because it was always with Revy, maybe it was just the life he was living now.

Most of the time he didn't really care, this made him happy, and for now, that was all that mattered after a long day.

"Alright, bring it pussy!" Revy exclaimed before downing her shot.

That's the way things for several shots. Neither of them paying attention to the other customers at the bar or taking note of the newcomer that sat down on the stool to Revy's right. Rock, not wanting to get too plastered tonight, admitted defeat for the night.

"Knew you had no balls, Rock," Revy grinned, facing Rock, and threw her thumb towards her shoulder, noting and pointing at the newcomer sitting pretty much behind her at this point. "I'll bet even this weird Wears-My-Shades-Even-Though-It's-Night-Freak could do better than you."

Rock looked over her shoulder at the guy behind her. He definitely wasn't one of the normal crowd. The man was of an average height, definitely taller than he and Revy but not as tall as Dutch. His dark hair was cut into a military crew-cut which brought out the sharp features of his face. Rock couldn't see the man's eyes behind the shades he wore, and he wore a relaxed, if very neutral expression. A long black trench coat hung from his otherwise average-sized frame. Other than his expression, Rock figured the guy was pretty forgettable.

Though is was interesting to see a pistol belt clasped around his waist on the outside of the coat, with many small pouches containing pistol magazines hooked to it and a shoulder rig set-up very similar to Revy's. Except the pistols in his were black and seemingly of the Colt 1911 body design.

He must have been listening, because he turned his head to look at the back of Revy's and said, "I bet I could."

Revy turned to face him, looked him up and down, narrowed her eyes and gave him a grin. "Finally, someone who thinks he's got a pair."

Pulling her own glass across the bar top while motioning to Bao, she said, "Fill 'er up."

For almost the next half-hour, the shaded stranger matched Revy shot for shot and neither was giving up. A small crowd had gathered around. The shaded stranger only showed small signs of even being effected by the alcohol, while Revy was near wasted as Rock had to help her remain in her seat.

"Just give it up, Revy," Rock said. "You've had more than enough. Let's get you back home before you pass out."

"Stow it, Rock, I'm fine," she slurred rather nastily back.

Her shot glass filled up once again, she went to down it and...missed. She spilled the whole shot on herself and wailed "FUCK!"

"I guess that means I win," the stranger said as he put his glass down on the bar top.

"Aww, Paladin, looks like you made a nice lady-friend," came a mocking and surly voice from beyond the crowd, followed by the sound of several weapons being cocked and safeties clicking.

The shaded stranger let out and audible sigh and his black-leather gloved hand tightened around his shot glass. The crowd behind him, Rock, and Revy seemed to disappear as the customers made themselves scarce. The citizens of Roanapur seemed to have a sixth sense for when shit was about to hit the fan.

The man with the surly voice was dressed in the stereotypical combat fatigues and had a pistol in one hand. He was flanked by several of the kind of mercenaries the struck Rock as amateurs and low-quality guns for hire.

"She's a nice lookin' chink bitch to boot, Paladin, and you already got her drunk for us," as he said that, Revy, who was laying her very drunk head on the par, twitched and her eyes narrowed.

"The fuck you say?" Revy reached for her Berreta 9mm Cutlass and fumbled to take it out of it's holster, and pointed it at the man, futilely trying to pull the trigger and it just not clicking in her head that the safety was on.

"I like 'em fiery," the man walked up and put a hand on the shaded stranger's...no, Paladin's shoulder. "I've got you caught and trapped and surrounded. The police back in the States have got quite the price on your head, and they don't care if you're dead or alive. So just make things easy and come along."

Paladin lifted his glass up a bit, as if he were going to try and drink out of it even though it was empty, and then in the blink of an eye slammed it back down on the bar, shattering the glass. He kept some shards in his hand, turned while beginning to stand, and with them in the palm of his hand, slapped them into the bounty hunter's eyes.

The bounty hunter let out a surprised and agonizing howl as his eyes were pierced by the many glass shards pushed in deep by the force of the blow. The pulled the trigger of his pistol, firing wildly into the air while clutching at his face as Paladin pushed him away and towards the floor.

Paladin drew his pistols simultaneously as the other mercenaries in the bar began to bring their weapons up, obviously caught by surprise by the attack and stunned by the manner in which it started.

Revy tried to jump to her feet to get into the fray as well, but lost her balance and fell. The only thing readily available for her to grasp being Rock, and he was caught completely surprised as well and down he went with her. Revy's head hit the floor with a dull thump as Paladin began pulling his triggers.

Rock landed atop her. He took one look at her face and knew she was out.

And they were on the wrong side of Bao's bullet-proof bar in the middle of a gunfight.

The brass fell atop them from Paladin's guns as he dispatched the men inside the bar within seconds. Rock noticed he did so methodically, almost mechanically, without the flair and cockiness that Revy normally displayed.

From outside the automatic weapons fire started up, tearing through the front windows and doors. The hot tracers streaking through the air into the room. Paladin was already on the move.

Rock was well aware that he and Revy were out in the open, motionless, and defenseless unless he did something.

Unless he did something, they were both going to die.

A cold fist wrapped itself around his heart and he stopped thinking. Self-preservation is an interesting instinct. Rock's arm reached out, seemingly of it's own accord, and grabbed the shoulder of the bounty hunter who was still very much alive and screaming in pain from the loss of his eyes. Rock pulled the man towards him and Revy, positioning him into a de facto human shield.

Them man began screaming that he was going to kill that freak and began to reach for Rock's throat. Rock pulled away the man began flailing around again, leaving himself exposed.

He heard the WHISSZZ as a round passed very near his head and cracked into the bar inches from him.

Instincts he didn't know he had took over and her reached out. Instead of grabbing the flailing man's shoulder again, Rock's finger's closed over the man's throat and pulled him back into a position where he would shield both Rock and Revy. The bounty hunter, already in great pain from the shards of glass in his face and eyes and weakened by it, tried vainly to struggle against Rock's grasp.

The man grew weaker and began wimpering. Rock wanted to shut his eyes but was to stunned by his own actions to do anything besides watch as the blood and tears streamed out of the man's slashed and punctured face while his strength gave out.

Throughout all of this, the gunfire lessened some until it died off completely.

Rock didn't see or hear Paladin come back in and pay his tab, as if nothing had happened. He didn't see or hear Bao telling him that was all Revy's fault and they'd better cover the repairs or they'd be getting new assholes in their foreheads. He didn't see the road on the drive back. He didn't see himself taking off Revy's shoulder harness and laying her on her bed. He didn't remember laying on his own bed in another room. He didn't remember sleeping that night.

Because he didn't.

All he remembered was the sight of that man's face slackening and failing, and the sound of his breath stopping between Rock's fingers.

--Author's Note--

Well, it's been a while since I've written. A year or more I believe. Well, I'm sorry for taking Revy out of the game, but after drinking as much as she did (probably without food in her stomach either) I couldn't figure a logical way to get her into the action like I wanted to, in fact, that fight had three drafts before I was satisfied. Well, please read and review. What did you like, not like, where am I doing good and where could I improve, that sort of thing.

Edited: April 4, 2009. I cleaned up some spelling errors and changed a few small parts.