Mordecai came to utterly disoriented with no idea how much time had passed. His head was swimming and he rolled to his side, propping himself up with his forearms and his stomach heaved in reaction to the pain. He vomited thin bile, nothing more, and spat the rest of the blood out of his mouth. Bloodwing hopped to his side, blood smeared on his beak, and watched him curiously.

"Good boy," Mordecai reiterated weakly, "Fetch me my gun, will you?"

The bird did not move. Sighing, Mordecai attempted to stand and buckled and fell the instant he put weight on his ankle. He felt warm all over, his mouth was dry, and he lay there panting, trying to focus on his breathing and keep from passing out again. The spell passed and he got to his hands and knees, crawling over to where the bandits had discarded his rifle. It was tortuously slow and he shuddered, imagining he felt the hot breath of a skag on the back of his neck with each movement. He felt exposed, vulnerable, and he glanced at the blackened crater with some regret. There was no way his hood and goggles had survived that. There was no way to tell if his shield was back up either, not with his HUD destroyed, as it was part of his goggles. For all he knew, that grenade blast could have overloaded and fried it.

Once he reached his rifle, he was able to use it as something to lean on, and could manage a sort of shuffle without putting much weight on his injured ankle. The bullet wound in his thigh had gone cleanly through and the blood had clotted, but the one in his hip ground against bone with each movement. More than anything, he wished that Brick were here right now to pick him up and carry him over one shoulder. He'd welcome Lilith's scathing glare if it meant he didn't have to put himself through the agony of taking another step.

It would also mean he stood a chance at getting back to Fyrestone alive. He didn't need a HUD or Dr. Zed to tell him he was in bad shape. Weak from blood loss, broken bones, and his runner was hours of hiking away. If skags found him, he be done for.

There was movement in the corner of his vision. He turned to look and stared in surprise as a runner shot up over the hill, landing with a bounce and careening closer. He could hear the engine now that it was getting closer and he rubbed at his ears, feeling flakes of blood peel off as he did. Everything was coming from a distance, like he was underwater.

"If those are bandits," Mordecai sighed, barely able to hear himself speak, "I'm done for."

Reluctantly, he unholstered his revolver and dropped to one knee to save his ankle, ready to make a last stand. The runner turned and slid to a stop and Mordecai dropped the gun, laughing with relief. The laugh quickly turned into a cough and he doubled over, clutching his broken ribs.

Lilith reached him first. She was riding up in the gun turret with Roland, the two crammed in uncomfortably and neither able to actually fire the gun from riding double in something meant for one person. Mordecai sagged and she wrapped her arms around him, letting him fall back against her shoulder. He could hear her talking and with a bit of effort he could make out words.

"-Zed contacted us saying you'd gone out and had should have been home by now. Said there was bandit activity again and feared something had happened. Our lead was a dead end, so we came back looking for you."

"Thanks," he whispered, "Might have taken on a bit too much here."

Roland knelt at Mordecai's side, taking out a health vial and gingerly finding a bare spot in his arm to stab the needle. The drugs moved quickly and Mordecai sighed with relief as they stole the pain away.

"You're supposed to be recovering," the soldier said gruffly, "Now look. You're a mess."

"You've got some new bandages too, Roland," Mordecai replied, and the man only scowled even deeper.

"I got more of me to get hit. You're skinny, they shoot you, they shoot something important. That bullet still in the hip?"

"Oh god, you're going to pull it out, aren't you?"

"Damn right I am."

Mordecai looked away, squeezing his eyes tightly shut. Lilith found his hand with her own and he clasped them together, then tight against his shoulder and braced for the pain. It snaked into the wound like fire and he gasped, clutching Lilith's hand as if he could transfer some of the sensation to her.

"So I shot someone between the eyes," she said, trying to distract the sniper, "It was so gorgeous. So clean. You'd be jealous."

"At what range?" Mordecai asked through gritted teeth.

"Pardon?"

"What. Range."

"Point-blank," Brick supplied from above. Mordecai didn't have to look to know what Lilith's scowl was like.

"All done," Roland said and Mordecai breathed a sigh of relief. He opened his eyes and regarded the slug that Roland held between two fingers in front of his face. It was slick with blood. After a moment Mordecai reached out to take it from him.

"You got one hell of a story it seems," Roland continued, packing gauze over the hole and taping it down, "Lot of dead bandits in that valley. What happened to your mask?"

"Got blown up by a grenade. Listen, I'm not done here yet. Can you do me a favor?"

The three exchanged glances. Roland finally shrugged.

"Back in Fyrestone," Mordecai told them, "there's a man named Hetter. Bring him here. Don't tell him anything, just bring him here. He has a pistol, let him keep it, but be careful he doesn't try and use it."

He could tell they wanted to ask questions. But no one did and Roland just divided them up, sending Brick back in the runner to fetch Hetter and directed Lilith to stand watch in case skags or more bandits showed up. He'd tend to Mordecai, since it was apparent they wouldn't be getting back to Fyrestone just yet and there was still more that needed to be done to keep him breathing. As he did, Mordecai told him about everything that had happened, to keep his mind from whatever pain broke through the haze of the health vial. It would go a long way towards knitting together bone and flesh, but these things needed to be set first and Roland went bone by bone, checking the ribs, setting the ankle and then turning his attention to the delicate bones of Mordecai's shattered hand. That took the longest and Mordecai finished his story halfway through. Roland let him lay back then, and finished the task in silence, finally tying off the last of the bandage, the thin fingers splinted. Mordecai was relieved that it at least wasn't his dominant hand that had been crushed. He could manage a rifle like this.

"Zed has some stronger stuff stashed away," Roland said, "We'll make him bring it out. We missed your rifle this last trip. Lilith won't say, but the reason she shot someone point-blank is because he flanked us and there was no one there to pick him off long before he got that close."

Mordecai just smiled.

"So you know how you're going to handle this Hetter?"

"Yes," Mordecai laughed, "I know exactly what to do."


Everything was positioned according to Mordecai's instructions. Mordecai sat on a boulder with his back to Lilith and Roland. A repeater was in his lap. His revolver was too powerful for this, he needed a gun that would leave smaller holes. Brick pulled up the runner a short distance away, leaving the area before Mordecai completely clear. To the sniper's left lay the valley with all the dead contained inside it. There was some protests from Hetter as Brick shoved him forwards and then the man fell silent as he saw the valley spread out before him with all its dead. Mordecai could not hear his footsteps as he approached, so he turned his head to watch Hetter approach. He made a wide circle until he stood before Mordecai, the look on his face one of numb resolve. Mordecai wondered how he, in turn, looked to Hetter. Stripped of his mask, his eyes bare. The executioner face-to-face with his prey.

"The boss decide to try a different approach this time, did he?" Mordecai asked, his voice soft and low. Hetter did not reply.

"None escaped," Mordecai continued, jerking his head to indicate the valley, "I made sure of that. Why aren't you running, Hetter?"

"You're a sniper," Hetter replied tightly.

"My aim is good at any distance. You're going to die. Out there, there's cover. I'll give you a head start, how about that?"

"No."

Mordecai tilted his head to one side, giving him an expression of feigned curiosity.

"And why not?"

"Because I want you to have to shoot me here," he replied, "Up close and personal like this. I don't think you can."

Mordecai laughed. It hurt his chest to do so, but the pain was worth it, and he laughed. When he was done he fixed Hetter with a steely stare.

"You think," Mordecai said slowly, "that because I am a sniper, it means I cannot stomach killing someone so close. Cannot make such a... personal... kill. Because I befriended you, I can only shoot you in the back. Let me enlighten you, Hetter. Being a sniper does not mean my kills are impersonal. The ones Lilith does – the ones Brick do – are personal for only a few brief seconds, when they see the terror etched in the bodies of their victims and then the victim is dead and gone and it's over. It's a brutal, short-lived kill, and the intensity of it is what forms that bond between killer and prey. Snipers... we live beside our target. We watch them, see their mannerisms, how they walk, how they stand. Who they talk to in those long hours of their watch and then, when we finally know them as best we can, we take our shot. It is a lingering death. My targets die from the moment they step into my cross-hair and this death can take minutes or it can take hours, depending on how long I need to wait before I start my attack. They die, and I watch them walk about not knowing they're already dead. They don't know it until my bullet splatters their brains all across the wall. You think I don't know the intimacy of death, Hetter? That it frightens me?" He stood, slowly, the gun dangling in his hand. "Try me."

Hetter grabbed for his pistol, the one Mordecai had brought him, fear finally flooding his face. Mordecai was faster and the repeater bullet went through Hetter's wrist. He cried out, clutching at the wound, blood winding down his arm in rivulets. Mordecai shot again, this time putting the bullet through Hetter's ankle. When the man collapsed into the dirt, Mordecai limped over and gently kicked the pistol a short distance out of his reach. He stared down at Hetter and shot him again, once in the leg, once in the hip. Then he squatted and the two men regarded each other, Hetter's face twisted in pain.

"There's a sort of justice on Pandora, I think," Mordecai said, "You have to find it yourself, but it's there. Your bandit friends beat you and left you for the skags, careful to tie you up high enough so that they wouldn't actually get you before one of us came along and found you. I think justice... would be letting things come full circle, don't you?"

He stepped back a pace and unslung his rifle from across his back. Lifted it and gazed down the scope. There, far in the distance, was a skag den. Mordecai waited for his aim to drift across his target and then he fired, landing a bullet into the flank of one of the skags just outside. In a moment the rest of the pack boiled from their dens, moving like a wave in the direction the shot had come. The wind had shifted and was carrying the scent of blood in their direction. It would not take long for them to get here. Mordecai slung the rifle back over his shoulder and turned to go.

Behind him, Hetter was screaming, begging for Mordecai to make it quick. To just let him die. Mordecai did not heed his cries and instead made his way to where the rest of his companions waited. They'd fetched his runner and the two sat idling side by side, Lilith in the driver's seat of one, Brick in the other. Mordecai took his spot at the gunner's seat and rested his rifle on the rail. They were not done here yet. Hetter was struggling to reach the pistol, to have some means to either defend himself against the skags or to put a bullet in his own head and end it quick. Mordecai fired just as Hetter reached the weapon, the bullet slamming into the body of the pistol and sending it flying, far out of reach, far away enough that the skags would be there well before Hetter could crawl to it.

Still, Lilith did not drive the runner away. They waited, the four of them, until the skags made it there and the first of them latched into Hetter's body, ripping their jaws back and forth, pulling long strips of muscle off the legs. Mordecai watched this and did not regret any of it. Finally, only after Hetter was well and truly gone, did Lilith and Brick engage the runner's engines and ease the vehicles out, back towards Fyrestone, where Dr. Zed and his scary needles were waiting. Where Mordecai could finally heal.