M.A.S.K:

ALMOST UNREAL

WRITTEN BY ZARIUS

Note: This is another story set in a post-series future and continues to explore my take on the Vanessa/Brad relationship as glimpsed in "No Finer Weapon"

Additional Note: No, Susan, you didn't hurt my feelings on the last fanfic, so you needn't worry

Also, a special nod as always to my good friend Miratete for suggesting I bring up Vanessa and Sly Rax's temperamental relationship

DISCLAIMER: M.A.S.K and all characters are properties of Kenner Toys and DIC Enterprises.

As she stirred from her slumber, Vanessa Warfield, now known as Mrs. Vanessa Turner, opened one eye and immediately checked the rolex watch she had stationed on the side of the dresser, as the clock atop the wall of her hotel bedroom wasn't working.

She was a keen mistress of time and never liked to be without a reminder of it.

She got out of bed and put one hand firmly on her stomach, keeping a beady eye on the now six month old bump, and waited for some movement. She uttered a few profanity-laced threats for it not to, as it was bound to kick off a period of morning sickness.

She moved over to the other side of the bed, finding someone was missing. She got up and walked towards another, smaller bed opposite hers to find it too was empty.

"Right...a kidnapping then. I knew he'd pick up some sort of habit from me" she jokingly thought, and went to pour herself a glass of orange juice. As she looked through the fridge, she found a note pinned to the front of it, she took it down, opened it, and read it

'Took Vice to the beach, catch us if you can'

-Brad

Vanessa smiled. "Challenge accepted " she said aloud.

After brushing her teeth and changing from her velvet night dress to a two-piece bathing suit with a pattern of black and green lines stretched across it, she wrapped a skirt around her bikini bottom, put some shoes on and walked out of the room, making sure to lock it as she left. She walked down to the elevator, got in it, descended down, breezed through the lobby and entered the strikingly hot temperatures that graced the Californian air in the midst of July.

As she made her way over to the nearby beach, she switched on her mobile phone and punched in her husband's number.

"Where are you at Turner?" she said

"Aim your eyesight at who I'm aiming to please" came Brad's sincere and very confidant voice.

Vanessa was puzzled, but agreed to keep her eyes peeled. Soon, she became all too aware of what Brad had meant.

A crowd had been gathering amidst the centre of the packed beach. As Vanessa got closer, she could hear the gossip from those in attendance. The names "MASK" and a remark about "Blue Eyes" got her attention, and she very quickly summed up what was going on.

She cut her way through the crowd, using her heightened instincts and her ability to cut through the commotion and forge a path from it to find the source of the assembled activity.

There he was. Utilizing his old Hocus Pocus mask from the days he rode a most majestic Condor, delighting the teeming populace with illusionary tricks, projecting holographic images in front of children whose eyes were dazzled with the magic and mystery, the kind of things you absorb when one is young. There was applause and requests for more. Brad focused on those in attendance crying out for music. His guitar case was stationed next to him, guarded by a feisty yet bubbly six year old who was taking in money from the onlookers.

Just as he reached down to grab it and give kids and adult fans something for them all, a mix of mask and music, he spotted Vanessa, her arms folded, an eyebrow raised. He let out a nervous giggle and took the mask off.

"Ok folks, we're taking a bit of a sabbatical, but we'll resume shortly" he said, which led to a multitude of disappointed moans from the audience and a hefty amount of disheartened screams and pleads from girls demanding an autograph and in some cases a contact number.

Brad took the six year old's hand and clutched it tight, leading her back to Vanessa.

"How much did we make pumpkin?" Brad asked

"$25...you know the deal, I get 5% as promised" the girl said

Vanessa was curious, "5%?" she asked

"She wants an ice cream" Brad said.

"So just use what's in your wallet" Vanessa said.

"A lot of it" the girl replied.

"We talked about this Turner" Vanessa said, "No overindulgence. It weakens the spirit"

"Hey, she wanted to learn how to conduct business, I have sizeable talents, we put our heads together and made some people happy...everyone should indulge in a bit of entertainment, especially in a hot and bothersome day"

Vanessa let out a huff, she walked over to Brad and wrapped both hands around his warm neck

"I thought you liked getting hot and bothered...if last night was any indication" she wisely cracked. Brad grinned, the two swiftly exchanged pleasantries on the lips. The young girl gagged and looked at her bag of change and dollar notes, and sharply kept her eye out for the ice cream stall. Thankfully, it had yet to close.

She looked at her father and tugged at his shorts to get his attention while he remained transfixed by the warm embrace of his wife.

"There's no queue" she said, "So you're on cue"

Vanessa broke from her kiss and swiftly took the bag from her daughter.

"Relax Vice, I'll cover it" Vanessa said.

"No, you always keep most of the money to yourself, dad would give me it all back" Vice yelled.

"I was a career criminal most of my life, it's strictly second nature" Vanessa said in her defence, "Besides, I think it's long time you learned to share, we're getting lots of ice cream, but you're just getting one to lick, the other three will be for me and your father"

"Who gets the third one?" Brad said.

Vanessa pointed to her belly.

"No fair, she doesn't get to have a say yet, let alone know what a 'say' is" Brad protested, but Vanessa was well on her way to the stall.

Vanessa didn't bother looking up to match eye contact with the ice cream seller, she emptied the bag full of loose cash and spilled them onto the stall.

"Four strawberry ripple cones" she said.

"I don't like strawberry" Vice yelled. Vanessa ignored her.

Eventually, she was served with her creamy treats

"You want any change with that?" said the ice cream man.

"Don't bother with change, I'm not about percentages" Vanessa replied.

"I figured as much given you cut off a good 10% of us when you went to the races" the man replied

Vanessa looked up, her temper rose as she finally gazed upon the features of a rather stony looking man with a rock-hard chin, one eye patch and a beret on his head.

"Cliff?" she said, "Cliff Dagger?"

Brad reeled in shock as he overheard the name. Vice was confused, and it was only her innocent uncertainty that prevented Brad from moving forward and taking immediate action.

It had been so long since the days where he and M.A.S.K would work overtime fighting crime, which often meant frequently colliding with Cliff and his V.E.N.O.M cohorts, of which Brad's wife was chiefly among, where rapid laser rays fired away and illusion was the ultimate weapon.

Those days were all gone now, first replaced by the wackiest of races, and then there was a storm of conflict before all settled, seemingly for good.

Cliff Dagger had dropped off the radar before the racing had begun, this was the first time he was gazing upon him in a decade and a half. As he had vanished before the final wars took place, anything was now possible

"Brad, take Vice somewhere she can play" Vanessa said, "I'll handle this"

Brad was hesitant. Vanessa sharply put her point across clearer, "On your bike Turner" she said.

"Don't we have a car dad?" Vice asked. Brad gave Cliff a telling scowl, tightened his hold on Vice's hand and led her away to another corner of the beach

"Hey, nice bit of mind-control Vanessa, I've always wanted to see a M.A.S.K cronies properly tamed like that. Domestication is the touch of a real woman"

"Spill the beans before I spill this stall's contents all over your already frozen brain" Vanessa said, clutching Cliff's white t-shirt.

"Hey, relax, I thought we were on the same side once upon a time" Cliff said, putting his hands up

"What are you doing here?" Vanessa angrily questioned, "You following some final set of instructions from Miles he laid out in the event of his capture? To try and get his own back on me for selling him up the river and down one mighty waterfall?"

"I'm selling ice cream. Chill" Cliff remarked, "I need to make some money so I can get out of here and move up to Nebraska. My partners are waiting on me up there. I had left behind some real visa and passport problems...by literally leaving them in a cab on the way here. They had to go over there to make a deadline, if I make enough money, I should be able to buy myself a trip on a private plane over there"

"Partners? Last I checked you and Wu were two peas in a pod" Vanessa replied

"Yeah, but she called in a few favours from this Siberian clown, Boris 'The Czar' Bushkin, she had an enchanted evening with him some time ago back when he worked for M.A.S.K. I'd moved on by that point to help Wu in her business scouting for artefacts. He helped us out in a jam back when he had a race in the Amazon. He helped us secure some rock that's said to have originated from the same area of space as the devil planet Nibiru"

"Yeah, I remember being a part of that one...one of the only times around that period I was trying to give our outfit a little extra leverage against the PNA and whatever else was up against us" Vanessa revealed. "Sly was a real piece of work that day though, the damned projectile weapons from that pit stop catapult accidently tore into Manta's right side when trying to hit Ali Bombay and Boris, I had to pull out of the race, and I was doing my best to represent our crew and he sticks in me like a sharp thorn, only in his case it's a sharp wheel"

"I haven't heard from old Sly in a while, last I heard from him he was filling in for Mile's gardener" Cliff said, "Spent more time laughing at people stepping on rakes than doing any pruning of the flowers, how's he holding?"

"We haven't talked since it all went down" Vanessa said, "Why would I? Out of all the snakes I was saddled with, he was always the one who managed to rattle and roll away. He was always lost in his own kind of zone...and sometimes he would just zone out. One time he attacked a whole tribe of people with that bike of his, just ran through them with me in the side-car, and he didn't consider for a minute that they might be somehow armed, he ends up being tagged with darts containing a sleeping potion and he loses control of the bike, I had to maintain control of it before we fell off a cliff. That lunatic deserved to be stuck behind that catapult pumping gas rather than let him pump his arrogant adrenaline on the road"

Cliff was taken aback by the sheer poison in Vanessa's complaining, he didn't think she held him in such disregard, but then, given his own levels of disregard to her own safety, he could understand it.

Cliff opted to resume his tale and change the subject, feeling Vanessa could do with less of a temper in his heat. He began putting the ice cream cones together as he continued.

"Anyway, Wu and him sort of hit it off for a bit and she said if he wanted to help her out with any of her endless scouring for artefacts and whatnot, he was to give her a call, or wait hand and foot for her TO call. When M.A.S.K and V.E.N.O.M ended their business sometime later, he did. We've done all kinds of stuff together following up on the Anunaki...do you know some believe half if not all of the world could be micro-managed by these ancient bloodlines? Some people think they really are reptiles in human form herding us around like domesticated cattle...can you believe that?"

"Considering all of the mythical magical mystery tours we've been subjected to over the years, it takes a really ignorant man to put blinders on in this age of truth" Vanessa explained.

"Hey, Wu believes in it too, but...me? I once saw a tv show that told me all I needed to know about life...if it doesn't make sense, go have an ice cream" Cliff replied, "I figured if that sage advice can get me through the day, it might as well save it too, and so here I am"

"Naturally a candy junkie like you would think of something sweet" Vanessa remarked. Cliff handed her the ice creams.

"You and Wu still going strong though?" she asked, "You're not worried they'll be mingling behind your back while you try to get back in front of their faces?" Vanessa asked

"Who said we can't have the best of one world?" Cliff said.

"I like her style" Vanessa said

"What did you mean earlier by the way? About it being one of the only times you were helping out the old gang during the races?"

Vanessa looked at her cones, then looked at Cliff, she put her hand on her pregnant womb, closed her eyes and smirked

"You think you can ride across the oceans, across deserts and jungles, you can steal space shuttles and command the skies, you can bring the wrath of a wind god down on a frightened village, you can command a mask that generates an electrical whip that can inflict so much...pain on people, and not once do you think it's fantasy because it's all happening. No matter how big the defeat is, no matter how hard you're pushed back, you know every elusive move you make is you screaming to the world 'I can outperform your regular tricks, I'm an anomaly you can't properly deal with, just manage small victories here and there'. There comes a time where those small defeats can eat at you, especially if they're consistent, you feel there is so much more detail in your desires, so much potential being wasted because we entertain the same tired ideas and embark on the same routines, barely shaking it up.

When it comes to the races, when it came to being an almost legitimate threat, it made no sense that we should still somehow lose. I figured it was time to punish the routine, to say to the world 'I will make the bed in the ocean rise, I will make the sand into an island, I will build a bridge'...and when the head of the snake is chopped off as the agents all blame it, blame Miles, for its routine, for its failings, I would rattle the tail, I would take like a chameleon, but instead of changing colour, I'd change shape, I'd become the snake, and I would burn the bridges, and I would command the victories and defeats, I would make them small, I would make them large, whatever size, whatever cost, would be all up to me and the information I gave to either party. It would feel easy...and the best part is it would feel like I had truly mastered the ultimate weapon...illusion. It would feel almost unreal"

"So what happened?" Cliff asked.

"Every little girl dreams of the same thing...even me. You think you own the world...and then you meet someone who changes it. I resisted it, like anyone of my temperament and loyalties of the time would, but I couldn't shake it. He was always good, in behaviour and in looks, the only gentleman I'd ever met, he would even open doors for me...the part of me that was never treated much like a princess beyond my youth was given a second chance, what kind of woman could hope to pass that up?"

"Wow...that's a real touching story Vanessa, if I had a heart, it'd be melting along with your ice cream" Cliff said. Vanessa panicked at the sight of her cones in meltdown. Cliff offered to scoop up more and dab it onto the cones free of charge.

"Thanks for hearing me out Cliff" Vanessa said, "I hope you make it back to where you belong"

"I hope you've figured out where you belong...somehow I can just tell from your face you don't quite like to leave things unsettled" said Cliff.

"Don't try to force feed me a PSA, it's not the 80s anymore" Vanessa remarked. Cliff nodded.

Walking away, Vanessa scouted the beach for Brand and Vice, ultimately spotting them amidst more people, Brad was lying on the beach, playing his guitar, watching Vice play with his Hocus Pocus mask entertaining another crowd.

"She keen to take over the family business?" Vanessa asked

"Trust me, I aim to keep her well away from this stuff...something about legacy heroes seems to irritate a lot of parents I know from the organization. I don't mind it much, but...yeah, best to keep them regular, not indulge in the kind of mixture we got caught up in"

"No finer weapon than reality right?" Vanessa said, handing him one of the cones

"I'll never stop playing that tune" Brad said

"Best broken record I've ever listened to" said Vanessa.

She tapped VIce on the shoulder and gave her the ice cream, she kept the mask on, refusing to eat it. Vanessa huffed

"Kids were so never your thing" Brad said, "Remember that one time you..."

"Save that story for another author" said Vanessa

She took out her phone again, and looked through a list of names, before locking onto one under "B. Sheppard"

"I'll be a couple of secs" she said, and walked a few meters away to take the call. Brad shrugged and took the ice cream from Vice and helped himself to two, the same as his wife.

Vanessa patched through to the other number.

"Bruno? It's me...is...is Sly there?" she said.

Bruno let her know where he was and offered to patch her through to him.

Vanessa licked both of her ice creams as they continued to melt in the heat and pour onto her hands and drip onto her toes. She was the only thing keeping her cool

At a faraway petrol station in Mexico City, a thirsty and tired looking Sly Rax answered his mobile phone

"Who is it?" he said, "Is it you Bruno? I told you to call me only when the coast was clear, I've been ducking those loan sharks for months, don't tell me they're still swimming..."

"You're in the deep end now Rax" Vanessa said.

"V-Vanessa?" Sly said, "I...Is this...real?"

"Almost" she said, "I...was thinking about you today, don't know why, maybe I'm thinking back to that cliff...where you almost got the pair of us killed...maybe I feel...you owe me your life...and I'm calling in the favour"

"What favour?" said Sly.

"Let me know how you're doing, you said something about loan sharks, maybe I can grab hold of their fins and steer them clear of you" she said

"This...doesn't make any sense" Sly said

Vanessa smiled, "Then go get an ice cream" she said

And in the long, overdue conversation that followed, whatever was left of Vanessa's unreal world gently slipped into the realms of reality.

THE END