REFERENCE NOTES:

Beware! Crusty old Marine who drinks coffee that is eight parts bean and three parts water, and swears a blistering blue streak. Yes, this is canon, I promise! Well, not the coffee part, that's me drawing from my personal experience with crusty old Marines. Truly, there is no greater friend, no worse enemy…especially when you suspect they keep a grenade in their pencil drawer. You have been warned for sporadic appearance of a (censored by hyphen) word that is rated "R."

I SO do not own or make money off of FMP, its universe, or its characters. So, no suing, please.


Chapter Two: A Good Start

Sousuke Sagara much preferred the feel of the tawny Florida sand thundering beneath his boots as he ran to the feel of sitting quietly, watching the gulls wing gracefully over the waves. In moments of silent contemplation like this, he would loose his inner battle with the feelings of loss and self-disgust that had taken root in his mind. His face remained impassive while his inner thoughts wrestled furiously. The balance between his former life and his current state had reached critical mass – he could not reconcile himself as a soldier and the look Kaname had given him that night, four months ago – the same night that Leonard Testarossa had been waiting for them in her apartment. The silver-haired young man had left without much violence, but with a few choice words, he had trailed in his wake a fog of discomfort, distrust, and dejection that had attached itself to the young pair.

"Chidori," he mumbled, absently shredding a piece of sea-bleached rope between calloused fingers. It was one of many random items of mutilated sea wrack that had collected around him by now. He'd been on a run with a squad of Force Recon Marines and had continued down the beach when they had headed into the ocean for laps between shore and a far-off buoy. His wound wasn't quite healed enough to join them, according to the Navy medical officer who'd been examining him since his arrival. His special dispensation from the Lieutenant Colonel meant that the Marines had so far tolerated his presence without a word, silently allowing him a spot in the ranks as they pounded across wave-packed sand in the pre-dawn light, bearing sixty-pound packs. Sousuke could feel the small stabbing pain in his gut every time he breathed in, but pushed past it. He could almost hear the Lieutenant Colonel bellowing in his ear, Pain is weakness leaving the body! He couldn't help but agree.

The sun was lifting itself halfway past the horizon when Sousuke stood and dispassionately surveyed the pile of debris he'd produced in the last fifteen minutes. It had taken far too long to return his heart rate and breathing to normal pace. This hateful weakness was yet another side effect of the rifle bullet he had taken in the gut, a yawning chasm between the state his body currently occupied and where he needed to be. Most days, he felt as if both Lemon and the Lieutenant Colonel – who, despite his foul mouth and harsh workouts, kept a cautious eye on Sousuke at all times - were watching him for signs of imminent collapse. He rather enjoyed disappointing them so far, but it was still a conscious daily effort to keep his back straight and his face composed.

He turned and began a slow jog back the way he'd come. Sousuke no longer needed to watch where he put his feet, or concentrate on the mechanics of running. At first, he had been clumsy and slow, like a newborn colt. With his coordination recovered, his mind was free to wander. The past month had seen great strides on his part towards recuperation from the bullet that shredded a kidney, damaged his liver and part of his intestines. It had left a ghastly mark across his abdominals, a deep wound now edged in angry red scar tissue. Eventually, it would fade to gray and join the rest of his collection.

He wondered if Kaname would mind that there was now less of him. He wondered about her often. Sometimes he dreamed about her, brief flashes of her face, and her lips shaping mysterious words as she was lifted away in the palm of Leonard's Belial. What had she been trying to say? The blood in his eyes and her hair being whipped by the wind had obscured his vision, and he wasn't sure he'd read her words properly. Some nights it was, find me. Sometimes, she said don't follow me. Most nights she just said, I'm sorry. He would wake, shaking, some nameless emotion crushing him, and be restless for the reminder of the night.

Doubt filled his heart like ice water. How could he even think that she would want to be near him? That she might want him to stay with her when – if he could – he returned her to Tokyo? He didn't deserve her trust. He didn't deserve to be someone she relied upon, cried on, held onto. The look on her face when Leonard had compared him to a serial killer was not easily forgotten. It was as if her eyes had reflected a red-eyed, soulless demon back at him. Her fear of him had been palpable, an invisible morass that he could not reach her through. She had actually pulled away from his touch, when only minutes before they had been holding hands.

Sousuke stumbled over a piece of driftwood that had been half-buried in the sand. He recovered himself, and continued jogging down the beach, trying to concentrate on his footing. Now was not the time to break an ankle.

He was a soldier, a mercenary, and as such had carried out orders to fight and kill. It was true that it had not always been in self-defense, or to spare innocent lives. He had been a killer, a murderer on command, and had initially treated the dealing of death as a matter of necessity, efficiency, or practicality. Even in his earliest memories, he could distinctly feel the cool detachment that had encased him as he brought crosshairs to bear on the head of unsuspecting victims, breathed in, breathed out, aimed, and slowly squeezed the trigger. Even in close range assassinations, he had been ruthless, professional, and swift – dispatching assigned targets without the burden of thought.

With the failed assassination of Majid, the Badakhshan Tiger, and subsequent adoption into the freedom fighters, his life had taken a sudden turn. The ferocious, uncoordinated violence of the mujahideen had swept him up in their storm of religion-driven fervor against the Soviet invasion, and his adolescent days had been spent in caves and dry valleys, clutching whatever variant of the AK-47 had come to hand, a twist of cloth across his nose and mouth to filter the sand from the air. His days and nights had been a rapid succession of explosions, long dusty marches, and the rattle of machine gun fire, until the first day he had become the pilot of a captured Soviet RK-91 Savage.

Joining Mithril had, again, changed his way of life drastically. Warfare was no longer a desperate personal struggle for survival. Instead, carefully considered strategic engagements took shape under the hands of military experts, and while the plans rarely lasted beyond initial engagement with the target (as regularly happens to plans), their strikes were often surgical in nature and as such, collateral damage was kept to a minimum. The enemy - drug cartels, slave traders, dealers in black market technology or body parts or weapons - always deserved what they were dealt.

Didn't they?

Sousuke reached the end of his run and turned towards the boardwalk that paralleled the ocean. He could see Michele Lemon, undercover counterespionage agent of the French Direction General de la Securite Exterieure– the DGSE - perched on the third step up off the beach in casual clothes, casually smoking a cigarette, and watching the low Atlantic waves scrub the beach flat. They nodded at each other as Sousuke stood in front of him, stretching his abused muscles. After a while, Lemon spoke, his voice light and casual.

"So, Sagara…what do you think she's doing right now?"

The question caught Sousuke off guard, even though he had spent most of the morning thinking about Kaname. He couldn't even begin to form a reply, but Michele just shook his head.

"Never mind." He exhaled smoke. "It's not good to dwell on it too much."

"No," Sousuke agreed for the sake of agreeing.

"I received new orders last night."

"Is that so?"

"DGSE is willing to involve a Division Action team in your mission in exchange for additional information. For example, the Ministry of Defense is very interested in the source of the abilities of the Arm Slave you piloted in Hong Kong."

Sousuke snorted in annoyance. "I told you, that A.S. was destroyed in Tokyo. There's nothing left. Someone hauled away the wreckage." A mixed feeling of relief and regret washed over him at those words. After Hong Kong, he had suddenly found himself able to depend on the combination of the Arbalest and Al, the A.I. They had succeeded in several sorties, using the power of the Lambda Driver. It had failed him in Tokyo against Leonard and the Belial. Now he was on his own again. Using ordinary equipment to perform ordinary missions - isn't that what he had wanted?

Lemon raised an eyebrow, and a slightly amused expression flitted across his face, as if he knew something Sousuke didn't. He let the comment pass. "If that's unavailable…" he shrugged. "Free rein to examine any and all materials belonging to Amalgam during your…girl hunt…would be an ideal resolution. Satellites, stealth machinery, advanced A.I.s, weaponry, anything we can get our hands on."

Sousuke's face was stoic, but internally, his head nearly spun on it axis. If France got their hands on Black Technology, it wouldn't be long before industrial sabotage, arms trading deals, and covert ops spread the advanced military capabilities of Mithril and Amalgam to armies around the globe. The inherently violent nature of man would cause the world to turn on itself and self-destruct spectacularly, aided by the secrets of the Whispered. His stomach clenched. This was the coin he would have to pay to retrieve Kaname? Lemon already knew about her importance – how else could Sousuke explain the significance of retrieving one single, solitary girl from the embrace of a massive, secret mercenary organization? Had Lemon passed the information about the Whispered on to the DGSE? Would Kaname and every other Whispered be gaining another adversary through his attempts to save her?

"This must be discussed with the Lieutenant Colonel," Sousuke said, stalling. More experienced heads than his must be brought to the table to negotiate what help was needed, what information could be used, and the terms of payment involved.

As the sun cleared the line of the ocean and bathed the beach in hot yellow light, he stood up, and with Lemon, trudged back to the nearby parking lot where a dark government SUV waited for them. They would be driven back to the unassuming corporate building that housed the Marine Corps division of the U.S. Southern Command headquarters, where they were being accommodated by Lieutenant Colonel John George Courtney, USMC, Retired - the only remaining member of Mithril, and the acting commander of Mithril's South Atlantic fleet, that Sousuke had been able to contact.


Lieutenant Colonel Courtney thumped the heels of his (no longer regulation) spit-shined black combat boots gracelessly on the fold-up card table that had been set in the middle of the tent. He crossed his arms on his chest and leaned back in his rickety-looking chair, surveying the stoic, dark-haired young man in front of him from underneath wild, bushy, sand-colored eyebrows. His leathery skin was tanned in a reverse-raccoon mask; dark where the sun had scorched it, light where his UV-blocking goggles had been pressed into the orbital bones. The card table was covered with maps of South America, weighted down here and there with objects to keep them from lifting off in the mid-morning breeze coming through the tent flaps from the hot, yellow-green edge of the Florida Everglades – a Ka-Bar fighting knife, two cups of black coffee that resembled used motor oil, the Lieutenant Colonel's over-starched cover, a battered-looking coconut, and a Glock 18 that had been broken down for cleaning.

The two men were reviewing the intelligence compiled between the DGSE and the CIA as a result of the information Sousuke had forced out of Kurama, and Sousuke was eyeing the messy pile of papers with an unconvinced look on his face. They had accompanied a platoon of Marines that were practicing maneuvers in the steaming sawgrass swamp of the Everglades a few miles away. Courtney was along on the maneuvers as a consultant; having been involved for many years in the Southern Command's war-on-drugs-mission, and regularly spent time educating the platoons that rotated through the Miami headquarters in matters of the terrain, weather, and culture that they would encounter in their area of deployment. A few support staff members and a medic had remained at the temporary base, along with the troop carriers and the Humvees. This left the retired Lieutenant Colonel and his guest in the commander's tent to discuss one Miss Kaname Chidori's whereabouts with some degree of privacy.

"You've got your work cut out for you, son," rumbled the Lt. Colonel, showing a shocking amount of restraint with the F-word. "Nikero is easy. Grenada will take a little while to scout the islands. But San Carlos…" he trailed off. "There are a dozen places she could be. Such a vague reference leads me to believe it's the most likely." The front chair legs slammed to the ground as he suddenly sat up. Maps rustled noisily and one of the coffees pitched to the ground, where the contents stood trembling for a moment on the hard-packed sand, refusing to sink in.

"Here we go, in no particular order. San Carlos, Chile. About 50,000 people, 365 klicks south of Santiago, primarily agro industry. Lots of orchards. Set between two rivers. We'll have to be careful, trade agreements between the U.S. and Chile have been stepping up in friendliness, and we can't afford to twist their panties. Not to mention, the Chilean Army is one of the most professional and technologically advanced armies in Latin America." Courtney tapped the map with a pen. "That's one."

"One?" asked Sousuke, knuckles white on the hand clenched around his water bottle. He was sitting quietly in the other camp chair, dressed in the latest uniform issue: the new Marine Corps pixilated-pattern desert camo BDU's and hot weather combat boots. He had unbuttoned his jacket so he could check for signs of heat or tenderness around his nearly healed wound, the signs of possible infection. His abdomen was still wrapped tightly in bandages, and he surreptitiously held a hand over the location of the entry wound, testing for soreness.

"Lance Corporal!" bellowed Courtney suddenly. "Front and center!"

"Sir!" replied a Marine, appearing suddenly in the tent entrance and saluting crisply.

"If you would be so kind," the Lt. Colonel said, jerking his chin in Sousuke's direction.

"Aye, aye, Sir!" the Marine replied, and stepped forward. Without another word, he landed a powerful right hook right in the younger man's gut, drawing a deep grunt of pain from Sousuke, who broke out in beads of sweat across his forehead but kept his seat.

"Thank you, Lance Corporal. Dismissed!" Courtney returned to the pile of maps.

"Sir!" The Marine saluted, about-faced, and marched himself out of the tent again. The Lieutenant Colonel didn't bat an eyelash.

"Now then, second option. La Fortuna de San Carlos, Costa Rica…the largest cantón in the country, part of the Alajuela province. Note the presence of an active volcano. And cows, " he added, as an afterthought. "Supplies half the milk in the country."

"Cows? Why is it on the list?" grunted Sousuke, wiping the sweat off his forehead.

"There's a branch of the Costa Rica Institute of Technology located there. It would be good cover for a research facility. Plus, the active volcano provides seismic cover for any kind of digging or weapons testing." Courtney picked up the remaining cup of coffee and downed half the contents.

"Third option," he continued, setting the coffee down. "San Carlos, municipality of Morazán, El Salvador. We're willing to rule this one out due to continued geologic instability in the region. Mudslides, earthquakes, and the like. We don't think they would build a facility with sensitive electronics in this region."

"Fourth option, San Carlos, Belize. Farming village of about 200, also involved in excavation of Mayan ruins in the area. Too small, Amalgam would stick out like a sore thumb." Courtney turned over a map, and pulled out one showing the southern continent's Atlantic coastline.

"Fifth option, San Carlos, East Falkland Island. Also, Port San Carlos, same island. However - and bear in mind that I'm basing this on what I know of Captain Testarossa and her brother - I don't think the South American equivalent of Scotland moors will be considered a suitable location for Miss Chidori. You did say that Leonard Testarossa promised her 'hospitable treatment.' Coming from him, I interpret that to mean a relatively gilded cage for our bluebird."

"Yes," Sousuke growled. "He told her, 'I want you to throw away the life you have now and come with me. You don't have to worry. Of course, since I guarantee your hospitable treatment, I promise you a prosperous life to do as you please. An institution has been prepared just to fulfill your intellectual interests, and first and foremost- it is completely safe.'" Sousuke frowned deeply. "Was he implying that she has other organizations to fear besides Amalgam at this point?"

"Amalgam is the biggest shark at this stage of the game. That doesn't mean there aren't little sharks in the water, waiting for their chance. The decimation of Mithril has chummed the waters." He chuckled evilly. "And Kaname Chidori is still an untapped Whispered entity. Mithril was focused on protecting her from the KGB; they never had the time to determine her specialty. From your field reports, we extrapolated some possibilities, but never pursued them."

Sousuke met the Lieutenant Colonel's eyes reluctantly. "The Lambda Driver," he whispered. "Shun On."

"Among other things," Courtney replied, calmly, and picked up the coffee cup again. "Weber's report from Shun On included her reaction to drugs administered in the test facility…and subsequent commentary on the ECS system's weaknesses. Captain Testarossa noted a Whispered response in her report from the Ariake incident with the Behemoth. Let's also not forget her involvement in the thwarted sea jacking of the Tuatha de Danaan, and her interaction with 'Dana' in the TAROS unit. She was also instrumental in the destruction of the Arastols onboard the Pacific Chrysalis, and volunteered herself as bait. Clouzot's report was…an interesting read."

Sousuke nodded, steel-gray eyes distant, as he remembered Kaname bravely standing her ground in front of an Arastol as it reached for her. He recalled the moment he realized that he wanted her for himself, and sighed. Courtney politely ignored him.

"San Carlos, Nicaragua. This one could be a problem…the U.S. is not on good terms with the government. We'd have to drop you in Lake Nicaragua and let you swim in," Here Courtney chuckled, adding, "Might have to pull a favor from SEAL Team Four." Team Four's arena included Central and South America, and maintained a fluency in Spanish.

"It is not a problem," he said stoically. "Chidori is my priority. All else is secondary. I am prepared to go alone."

"Hold on now, Sagara," the Lt. Colonel said crossly. Sunlight peeked through the vents in the tent roof and flashed off the silver oak leaves on his lapels, which he wore regardless of his retired status. "We are still part of Mithril. There is a f-cking mission!" All previous attempts to curb his foul mouth were being tossed out the window as his voice climbed in decibels. "I'm not going to toss you out on your f-cking ass! There may not be much left of the South Atlantic fleet, but I'm here" he jabbed himself in the chest with a calloused thumb, "-and you're here" he pointed at Sousuke, "-and there are still favors I can f-cking call in! Do you get me?" he demanded.

"Yes, sir!" Sousuke barked, in conditioned response to an overwhelming figure of authority.

"Mithril will need Miss Chidori's help to stand on it feet again. I hope she will f-cking appreciate that. However, it's a tactical advantage to us if we can remove her from Amalgam…any loss of a resource on their part is a gain for us. Now then," he said, in a less ferocious tone, "back to the list…"


The young Marine lieutenant that had driven them down from Marine Command in Miami had been cheerful and talkative; rattling on about the weather in English so heavily accented with a Midwest dialect that Sousuke was hard-pressed to understand the conversation. The man had been perfectly happy to carry the dialogue himself with no input from his passengers, so Sousuke had fallen asleep leaning against the back window pillar of the dark blue Chevy Tahoe with the Marine Corps seal on the front doors, surrounded by Lemon's silent men as they headed south on Route One to Homestead Air Reserve Base.

A short while later, as the sun was finally coming up, Sousuke stood with Michele and the five-member squad from the DGSE's mythical Division Action on the wide-open tarmac of the base's east runway. The quiet competence of professionals hung about them like the early morning fog that wreathed the landing strip. These silent, unassuming men didn't look like elite special forces at first glance, but then – neither did Sousuke. Their uniforms were as mundane as woodland camouflage could be, though each man was wearing a webbed harness covered in gear –handguns of various makes (mostly Beretta M9s), clips of ammo, rappelling equipment, GPS units, and so on. Each man carried the French FAMAS G2 Commando-variant assault rifle slung over a shoulder. Sousuke could distinguish a brace of throwing knives (rather impractical, in his opinion) being worn by one man; another had a M136 AT4 rocket launcher strapped to his pack frame. Several more AT-4s were lashed together with the pile of jump gear sitting to one side; they would be handy if Arastols or light armored vehicles guarded the facility. In case of heavy tanks, multiple AT-4s directed at the vehicles' sides would be effective, but they would quickly run out of rockets using that method of attack – not to mention if a single round didn't work, they'd have to hit the same exact spot as the first strike to even begin to hope for a different result. Nothing they carried would be effective against an A.S. equipped with a Lambda Driver.

Lieutenant Colonel Courtney had indeed called in some favors, and Sousuke had found himself gazing at a U.S. Air Force MC-130 Hercules, ready and waiting for them at the end of the runway, rear lift gate open. As the Marine lieutenant in the Tahoe drove off, Sousuke and his fellows gathered their gear and headed for the rear cargo ramp, where they were met by a stern-looking loadmaster with a Master Sergeant's insignia. The Master Sergeant quickly covered the safety belts/harnesses, floatation devices, emergency kits, and emergency locator beacons, then pointed them to the troop seats and went about the rest of his pre-flight check.

They strapped in for the flight to Costa Rica, where they would be inserted into the target area via HALO jump. This meant at least two hours before the actual jump, they and the loadmaster would be pre-breathing 100 percent oxygen to remove the nitrogen from their bloodstreams. Opening the back loading ramp of the plane at high altitude would depressurize the entire compartment, giving unprepared paratroopers the bends in the same fashion as scuba divers rising too quickly to the surface after being at great depth. It also meant, he thought to himself resignedly, trying to read the information he'd brought with him through a full-face O2 mask.

Sousuke stuffed a spare jacket into the red webbing stretched over the bulkhead of the plane and leaned back, withdrawing a sheaf of papers from his pack. It contained as much information as the DGSE and the CIA had been able to compile on local activity that could possibly be related to the operation of a technologically superior outpost. They had been specifically looking for signs of transport of the supplies needed to design and fabricate some of the advanced technology utilized by Amalgam. To Sousuke, who knew what he was looking for, there were some indications that the drug commonly used to help spike the brain's gamma waves, and thereby control the Lambda Driver, TI971, was being moved in considerable quantities to the area, but it also appeared that La Fortuna was more of a shipping depot than a final destination.

He frowned. It was hard to tell what this would mean in reference to Kaname. He doubted that Amalgam would have backed Leonard's all-out effort to capture her without expecting compensation of some sort. It was a given that she was either being forced to work on research for Amalgam's use, or that she herself was being researched. His suddenly active imagination conjured up an image of Kaname strapped to an examination table like the one in Shun On, her eyes wide in terror. The paperwork crumpled noisily in his hands as he clenched them into fists.

Control yourself. Don't let 'what might be' interfere with 'what is'.

He tried to smooth out the papers in his lap, then gave up. He folded them in half and stuffed them back into his bag. As the MC-130's four Rolls-Royce wing-mounted turboprops roared to life, transferring vibrations through the roller tracks underfoot, he tried to wriggle back in the seat and get comfortable for the flight. The rest of the men had already stretched out as much as possible and were re-reading the information packets regarding the area, examining personal gear, or closing their eyes and giving every indication of intent to nap for the majority of the flight. Noisy as it was, he was inclined to follow their lead. Unlike trips with Mao and Weber or other members of the SRT, he had no one to talk to on this flight. Even Lemon was uncharacteristically silent. He closed his eyes as the MC-130 leapt from runway to sky, determinedly pursuing sleep as the pilot pursued altitude.

Try as he might, he couldn't quite fall asleep and stay there. As he floated between the realms of wakefulness and slumber, he pondered the fate of the girl he'd been assigned to protect over a year ago. It was impossible to say what kind of condition Kaname was in. He was certain that Leonard wouldn't allow any real harm to befall her, but that didn't mean that Leonard himself wasn't a danger. There was something about the silver-haired young man being Whispered, and in close daily proximity to Kaname, that set his teeth on edge more than any other facet of the circumstances she was in. He suddenly missed the acerbic, talkative presence of the Arbalest' A.I., spouting inappropriate jokes or, even worse, suggesting they sing. Last time, it had been Christmas carols. Really, he thought muzzily, he should have dismantled that pile of junk months ago.

As Sousuke finally succumbed to sleep, his near-permanent frown eased ever so slightly.


A/N: Updated 12/14 – Some minor grammatical stuff, a few corrections drawn from reviews. I apologize for hyphening "f-ck," I know it looks awful, but I don't particularly want to change the whole story to an "M" rating. However, if you can find me a kid over ten who hasn't heard that word aloud, you might be able to knock me over with a feather…or more realistically, a week-old baguette…