This one was hard to finish. I had the next chapter just about finished, but after finishing this one I'm really considering just redoing chapter 12 from scratch. Regardless I'm still pretty satisfied with how this chapter turned out. Let me know what you think of it please.

Chapter 11

"So… Sad Eyes; that certainly a very, um… interesting name."

The woman in question turned her perpetually leaden gaze on Mikan; Joo-Hwan's wife recoiled in spite of herself. The dispassionate mercenary cocked an eyebrow at that action but said nothing.

"Um…………. what," the mercenary replied to Mikan's statement, not quite sure what the younger woman was getting at. The farmer's wife became increasingly flustered under the mercenary's inspection; she really was no good at making small talk.

"I, uh, wh-well, that is… I was just kind of wondering; what kind of name is Sad Eyes?"

The mercenary stared at the fidgety homemaker. "An assumed one," Sad Eyes replied honestly. She commended herself for not sounding as condescending as she usually was; quite the feat in Sad Eyes' own modest opinion. "I think it fits me pretty well, don't you think?"

Mikan waved her arms in what was intended to be an apologetic gesture.

"Sorry, sorry; I wasn't trying to offend you or anything like that," the farmer's wife said quickly. "I was just… I mean, it's been like five days since we left and nobody's really been talking and I was kinda curious about all of you guys who came to protect us and… and…"

It gradually occurred to Mikan that she was rambling. Sad Eyes watched in bemusement as the woman suddenly burst into tears. The farmer's wife apologized, bowed, and then skittered back towards the main body of refugees walking behind them. Sad Eyes shifted in the saddle of her ostrich horse to watch the women go, scratching her prematurely graying head at the sight.

'The hell was that all about,' the mercenary thought to herself. 'I sure did pick some weird ones this time.'

Sad Eyes scanned the surrounding hills for any signs of movement or that they were being watched. In the waning light of the day, it was hard for Sad Eyes to pick out anything which was not supposed to be where it was supposed to be. Wheeling the ostrich horse around to face the refugees, the mercenary broke from her position at the point of the formation and rode back to the main body of refugees. The column of people halted as their wagon master rode into their midst.

"Alright, this is where we'll be stopping for the day. You all know what to do."

As the refugees busied themselves with making camp, grabbing their gear from out of the bed of the wagon and taking materials from their rucksacks- Sad Eyes decided to check on her underlings. Climbing down off of the back of the ostrich-horse and handing the reigns of the beast to one of the refugees. Adjusting her sword higher on her hips, the mercenary sauntered over to the spot where the three Freedom Fighters had gathered and were relaxing.

"How's it going you three," she asked.

Jet shrugged and took his twig out of his mouth. "S'okay. It's been easy enough so far; it's been kinda boring actually."

Smellerbee punched Jet in the arm. "Way you're talking; anybody'd think that you wanted bandits to attack us. Far as I'm concerned, boring is good."

Longshot nodded in agreement with the tomboy's sentiment. Jet put on a thoroughly convincing- yet obviously false- sad face. He shook his head slowly and scratched the back of his shaggy head.

"Guys, come on. You know me better than that. The refugees getting attacked is the very last thing I want. But," he turned his head to look at Sad Eyes. "From the way people talked in Onsung about how dangerous the roads were, I was expecting something to have happened by now."

Smellerbee cracked her back and laid herself out on the ground. "So we got lucky," she said around a yawn. "That happens to us every once in a while, y'know. You should just thank the spirits that nobody is watching us and be done with it."

"Oh no, somebody's definitely watching us," Sad Eyes remarked lazily. As one the reclining Freedom Fighter's heads turned to look at the mercenary. "None of us noticed anything," Jet said.

"Yeah, well neither did I," Sad Eyes said flatly. "But I've played this game for a long time and my gut is telling me that some dirty hill rats are looking down on us right now."

Lee pulled his sleeping roll out of his pack and rolled it out on the ground; the vagrant indulged in one of his rare smiles. The money which he had not frittered away on food, alcohol, or shelter had been spent to buy this essential, yet easily overlooked, traveler's item. In addition to having a comfortable place to sleep, he didn't have to keep watch that night, which meant that he could get a full night's rest; Lee intended to make the most of it.

The firebender freed himself of his shit- the night was warm enough already and he didn't want to start sweating- and was about to crawl under the covers when he heard someone approaching him from behind. He turned to see Sad Eyes standing there with her arms crossed.

"What is it," he asked. As a means of response, Sad Eyes just kept standing there and looking at the shirtless young man.

"…Nice ink," the mercenary said simply. "Rohilala's a pretty weird choice, if you don't mind me saying."

"What is it," Lee repeated, uninterested in making small talk with the mercenary. She was cutting in on his precious, irreplaceable sleep time. Besides, the vagrant was fairly certain that Sad Eyes hadn't come up to him just to compare tattoos.

"We're having a group meeting; I've got some things to say to everybody. You should probably throw on a shirt or something like that- mixed company and all that."

The mercenary turned on her heel and walked away Lee gave an annoyed grunt, but nevertheless picked himself up off of the ground and made his way over towards where the refugee campfires sat clustered together. He kept his shirt off though- the second that Sad Eyes got finished with saying whatever it was she needed to say, he was going straight back to his sleeping bag. Modesty be damned!

Sad Eyes had gathered the refugees into a circle with herself at the center. Lee plopped down next to Longshot; the mute archer nodded in greeting- the scarred vagrant nodded back. The archer was very easy to get along with. Lee noticed that some of the refugees were sending him scandalized looks; he rolled his eyes. As if he would care about offending the polite sensibilities of these sheep-hens after all that he had been through.

After giving her audience some time to get settled, Sad Eyes decided that it was time to get started. "Okay, now that everybody's here we can get down to it. As everybody already knows, we've been traveling for five days and in that time we haven't seen any sign of the bad guys. Well… expect that to change starting tomorrow."

Everyone gathered around the fire perked up when they heard that. "How can you be so sure about that," one of the refugee women asked the skepticism very evident in her voice. Her statement was met by a general mummer of agreement that Lee found himself a part of; he had to admit that he was a bit curious as to why Sad Eyes sounded so sure that the bandits would choose now to pounce on them.

"I can be so sure because I know the country around here and you people don't," the mercenary deadpanned. She drew he sword; burying the point in the ground, she began scratching out a crude map of the terrain on the ground.

"You all came to Onsung from the east, right? Well, Lake Pilho is directly to the south from Onsung- the terrain's hilly and there isn't much in the way of vegetation, but it's not too rough so the going's relatively easy. The problems are going to start when we enter here," she stabbed a box in her crude map that stood on the path between Onsung and Lake Pilho.

"This, good people, is what folk around here refer to as The Maw."

Almost as one Lee, Jet, Smellerbee, and Longshot emitted frustrated sighs. The scarred vagrant shot a questioning eye at the Freedom Fighters who all sported scowls which were almost as vicious as his own.

"Shit," Lee cursed, deciding to forego nonverbal communication and just give a voice to his bad mood. If experience had taught him one thing, it was that anything with a nickname like The Maw was going to be trouble.

"Um, what is the Maw," a very sheepish Mikan asked. Sad Eyes lifted a lazy eyebrow and turned her attention to the farmer's wife. "The Maw? The Maw is death trap given to us mortals by the great spirits who shaped the earth. It's a twisting maze of ridges, ravines, little box canyons- easy to fall into, hard as hell to climb out of- vicious man eating beasts, poisonous lizards and lots of other nasty shit I forgot to mention. It's a raider's paradise; bandits love it because there're so many places for them to hide and it's real easy to spook a group of spooked travelers like you into a dead end."

The refugees stood rigid in frightened silence; Mikan looked like she was about to wet herself. Lee rolled his eyes at their behavior; they were the ones who had asked the question. It wasn't Sad Eyes' fault if they didn't like the answers they'd got. A small part of the scarred vagrant's brain, one that was of a much more empathetic vein, felt for the refugees. They had gambled their lives on reaching Lake Pilho and from what their wagon master had just said, the odds were stacked against them much more than they had originally thought. Lee's ever present scowl deepened; bad things were going to happen. He could feel it in his belly.

Smellerbee raised her hand. "Look, we get that the Maw's a bad place. But, if by some chance nothing pops out to maim, rape, or eat us, how long would it take to get to the other side?"

Sad Eyes sheathed her sword. The mercenary cocked her head to one side as she considered the Freedom Fighter's question. "Mmm-mmm? Four days with a group this size, I guess."

Lee toyed with the fuzz on his chin that was steadily maturing into full fledged facial hair. Four days; he could make it through four days. All he had to do was keep his head on his shoulders until they made it through to Lake Pilho.

"Well, that's all that I've got to say," Sad Eyes announced dispassionately. "Anybody got anything they want to ask? Questions, comments, suggestions, anything at all?"

Silence. 'Four days; just have to make it through four days and then you're home free.'

"Alright, I guess that's it. Sleep well everybody."

Joo-Hwan stumbled over a rock; had it not been for the conveniently wide back of silent Oh, the farmer would have performed a truly epic face plant on the hard ground. As it happened Joo-Hwan ended up doing a face plant on the marginally softer back of the large man. Joo-Hwan's hands flew to his face; his nose was still tender from the beating he had received a week and a half ago. Great, now even the rocks were trying to kill him!

Mikan was by her husband's side in a second, concern written all over her pretty features. "Are you alright? Are you hurt anywhere? Your face! Did you hurt your face?"

"It's nothing dear, I'm fine," Joo-Hwan said, fighting to break free from his wife's grasp. It was surprisingly hard given how small Mikan was. The farmer saw tears beginning to well up in the corners of his wife's eyes.

"A-are you sure," she stammered around her sniffles. Her husband nodded firmly.

"Of course love. Something like this isn't about to slow me down."

Joo-Hwan gave his wife a tender kiss before sending her back to the wagon with the children and the other young women. For some reason, the farmer felt a heaviness weighing down his heart as he watched Mikan walk back to the wagon.

"She must really love you if she get's that stressed over a bump on the nose."

Joo-Hwan turned to look at the speaker; it was one of the mercenaries, the young man with the hook swords and hodgepodge armor.

"She does," the farmer replied warily. Thought he had been one of the men who had hired them, Joo-Hwan still did not feel completely comfortable with the mercenaries. After all; how could you ever really trust someone who sold themselves for money?

"I'm sensing a but at the end of that sentence," Jet remarked.

Joo-Hwan debated with himself on whether or not he should even be talking to the mercenary at all. Gradually, the good manners that his mother had drummed into him as a child would not allow the farmer to ignore the mercenary's questions, no matter how much he may have wanted to.

"She wasn't always like that," he said. "Well, I guess that's not entirely true. I mean she was always a bit jumpy and she had an overprotective streak in her, but ever since our village was destroyed by Fire Nation raiders, it's like the whole world frightens her."

Joo-Hwan saw the young mercenary's face darken ominously. "When even life itself terrifies you, huh," he said. The teen's right hand clenched and unclenched. "I've been there…… guess that means you should pay attention to where you put your feet then."

"I was scanning the hills for enemies," the farmer said a little defensively.

"Checking for bandits?"

The farmer nodded, looking towards the hills once again. "The day's almost over and they haven't made a move yet; I don't get it. From what Sad Eyes said the other night, I figured that we would have had to fight by now."

The young mercenary shook his head, as if pitying the older man's naiveté. "When planning an ambush, it doesn't make sense to give your targets an open avenue of escape. If we were attacked right now, we could just run back the way we came; most of us would probably get away. If it was me up in those hills, I'd wait for us to get far enough into the Maw so that turning back wouldn't be a viable option, then I'd shut the trap."

Joo-Hwan was horrified. He'd never even thought about the situation in those terms. "Thanks for giving me something else to obsess over," he grumbled.

"Any time," the mercenary replied sincerely.

The night air rung with the rattles, squeaks, squeals and howls of the nocturnal beasts which called the ridges and ravines of the Maw home sweet home. The mercenary Sad Eyes stared out into the night, her hooded eyes unfocused. She sighed.

"Spirits, that's a beautiful sound," Sad Eyes said to no one in particular.

"What, the chatters and chirps of a million-billion vermin and beasts and hill savages," Hoi remarked sarcastically. Choosing to ignore the mild rudeness of that statement, the mercenary instead cut a droopy eye at the only other people sharing this particular patch of dirt.

"You're entitled to your opinions," the mercenary told the refugee. She turned to face the other person sitting next to the campfire. "But what about you, big guy?"

Silent Oh closed his eyes and cocked his head to one side, listening to the sounds of the night. A smile slowly spread across his weather beaten face.

"You see," the mercenary sniped at Hoi. "He gets it."

"Bah," Hoi huffed without much venom.

Sad Eyes cocked and eyebrow, curious at the man's demeanor. "What's the matter, I thought you poor peasant folk were supposed to have appreciation for nature and shit like that."

Hoi chuckled. "This might sound a bit strange coming from a country bumpkin like me, but truth is that I've always despised the countryside and the outdoors. I owned the apothecary shop in our old village; left the family farm to my sister's boy. He's the one who likes playing in the mud."

"I take it that you take a pretty dim view of the old homestead," Sad Eyes replied.

Hoi looked the mercenary directly in her drooping eyes. "Our village was just an unimportant backwater and my entire life, I dreamed of leaving the place behind. It's no secret that living like an animal in the middle of nowhere never appealed to me."

"You make being an animal sound like a bad thing," the mercenary remarked. The look on Hoi's face clearly said that he wished for her to explain herself.

Sad Eyes rolled over onto her back and looked up at the starry night sky above. "The life of an animal is simple; pure. An animal doesn't fight a war; an animal doesn't burn down a village; an animal doesn't sell the conquered into slavery and an animal doesn't rape the vanquished women. Mate, feed, avoid getting killed, and repeat; that's all there is to an animal's life."

"So you're saying you envy the lives led by badger-frogs," Hoi asked pointedly. The refugee found the mercenary's opinions ridiculous. "What about all of the benefits that came from civilized society? What about all of the good that's been accomplished because of it?"

"Civilization; don't make me laugh," Sad Eyes replied, a trace of bitterness coloring her normally bloodless and composed voice. "Human civilization gave us law and government and a thousand different ways to cure a thousand different diseases; it also gave us a million different ways to destroy all of that. Way I see things, humanity is more of an aberration of the natural order and less of an essential component."

Hoi shifted awkwardly in place. He was beginning to feel very uncomfortable with the atmosphere that the mercenary was emitting. The hard obsidian eyes of Silent Oh bore into those of the mercenary with considerable intensity, as if the large man was attempting to divine some type of hidden message underneath Sad Eyes' words.

"You certainly have a very poor opinion of the human race miss," Hoi remarked.

"I've got a lot of reasons," Sad Eyes replied.

The three humans sat in silence; the symphony of the beasts continued on in the background.

Longshot was a very early riser. Years spent growing up on a farm had installed in the young man an infallible internal clock; the years he spent in a training compound to become a Yu Yuan archer and later the years he had spent as an anti-Fire Nation guerilla had given him an extra-infallible alarm system. The archer's eyes sprang open as the overwhelming need to piss assaulted his bladder. Pulling himself out of his sleeping bag he stepped over the still sleeping Smellerbee, heading towards a group of boulders up on the ridge.

Reaching the rocks, Longshot undid his pants and was just beginning to relieve himself when his sharp ears heard something off to his right. The sun had not risen yet, but Longshot's eyes had little trouble piercing the darkness to see something was moving down the ridge in the direction of the refugee campsite. The archer sighed in relief as his bladder finally emptied. The shape- an enemy?- had gotten pretty close to the camp; in the dark it would be easy for the sentries to miss anyone coming down on them from the hills. After shaking out the last few drops and securing his pants, Longshot peeled off towards the mysterious stranger.

With every step he got closer and his vision in the darkness got better. He had thought right; that was no animal over there. That was a man; a very short one at that. Ragged clothing, unpleasant smell, armed to the teeth and sneaking around the perimeter of a group of sleepy, vulnerable refugees; definitely a bandit, if he had ever seen one. He had better take care of this one before heading back down to camp.

Longshot's element was silence; the intruder wouldn't hear a thing until it was too late. Longshot crept down the ridge until he was barely a foot behind the bandit. The mute archer stretched forth his arms, grabbing the bandit about the face and neck. The short bandit grunted and thrashed in surprise and fear for a moment before Longshot used his height advantage to exert a bit more leverage and snap the bandit's neck. The short man only had time for a surprised grunt before the light in his eyes was extinguished; he never had a chance.

The archer looked down at the body while he massaged a kink out of his neck. Well, this guy was dead; he supposed that he had better get back to camp to warn everyone. Longshot stifled a sleepy yawn as he made his way back down to the campsite, easily bypassing the sleeping sentry; stupid civilians.

Toeing Smellerbee and Jet in their sides, he quickly roused them from their respective slumbers.

"Mmff," the female Freedom Fighter grunted muzzily. Longshot gave a significant thumbs down, a well know gesture among the trio; they'd been encircled. Cursing, Jet pulled himself away from his sleeping bag and walked across the camp to where Sad Eyes was sleeping. He crouched on one knee and spoke her name.

"Sad Eyes, Sad Eyes wake up!"

The mercenary's eyes cracked open and looked at the young man with an expression that said bad things would happen to Jet if this wasn't important. Utterly unfazed, Jet informed the wagon master of the situation. Sad Eyes frowned; shit, it was way too early in the morning for this. She looked up at Jet,

"How many hours do you think we've got before the sun comes up?"

Jet shrugged. "Hour and a half, two at the max."

That should be just enough time. Sad Eyes sat up and grabbed her sword belt.

"One of you three go and wake up scar face," she ordered around a wide yawn. "We're going on a little field trip."

Pain; throbbing, pulsing, enveloping and there was a lot of it. Mao desperately wanted to clutch at his head, to rub his temples, do something to deal with the pain but his hands wouldn't move…….. why couldn't his hands move?

Mao the hill bandit opened his eyes slowly; seven or eight hard faces looked right back at him. What the… the refugees? Had he been caught? The hill bandit buried his aching head in the dirt, humiliated at the fact that he had been captured by the people who were supposed to be his prey.

"Looks like he's awake," a gruff voice said from above Mao. He turned his head to look at the speaker, a scowling young man with a hideous burn scar covering one side of his face.

"Well if he's awake, then get him off the ground," another voice barked; cold, female, authoritative. Mumbling something about 'overbearing bitches' the scarred one roughly hoisted the captive bandit up into a sitting position; Mao noticed that there were more people around than he had originally thought.

"Comfy," a woman with a heavily tattooed arm and drooping eyelids asked him.

"No," the hill bandit spat back, not willing to let a bunch of greenhorns think that they could intimidate him. The tattooed woman looked concerned.

"Well we can't have that. Somebody cut his hands loose."

Someone came up behind Mao and cut his hands loose. The bandit rubbed his wrists, restarting the circulation in his hands; he eyed the droopy eyed woman with suspicion. He was a dangerous man; why was she allowing him his hands?

"I've done something for you, now you do something for us, okay," the droopy eyed woman said in a reasonable voice. The bandit felt his hackles rising. Was she looking down on him?

'She's looking down on me,' Mao thought angrily. 'Think you can just play with me? I'll show you, you bitch.'

Mao sat himself up straight and puffed out his chest. "You got a lotta nerve, attacking an innocent man who never done nothing to any of you people," the bandit spat.

If the hill bandit had expected to gain any sympathy, he had sorely miscalculated in his assumption. Everyone within hearing range of the captured man rolled their eyes; did this guy actually think anybody would believe him if he just played dumb? Sad Eyes sighed inwardly; they certainly hadn't caught one of the smart ones. He should have realized that he was caught; give up what he knew and pray that his captors would let him go. That would have been the smart thing to do.

But this one seemed determined to play the affronted victim; she had neither the time nor the patience for that. Her time was valuable. Those bandits that she and her helpers had rooted out of the hills had just been an advance party and there was no way to tell how close their main force was.

"So," Sad Eyes said slowly, her voice a lethargic crawl creaking from in between her thin lips. "…you swear, hand to the spirits, that you weren't up to no good," Sad Eyes said dispassionately, already bored with her façade of civility.

Mao raised his right hand and said, "I swear, hand to the spirits that…"

Shnkt!

The sound of Sad Eyes' blade slicing through the air cut off the rest of the bandit's statement. The silence that followed was broken only by the sound of four of Mao's fingers hitting the ground. The bandit stared dumbly at his hand, or more precisely, what was left of his hand. Some blood spurted. That's when it started to hurt.

Mao started screaming; the refugee children- as well as a fair number of the refugee adults- started screaming. Sad Eyes massaged her temples; was all this noise really necessary.

"My hand! I'll kill you! You bitch, I'll kill you!"

The hill bandit cried, trying to stem the flow of blood spurting from his right hand. Rather than answering his threats verbally, Sad Eyes booted the sniveling man in the face, knocking him back onto the ground.

"Listen to me you lying piece of shit," she ground out in a voice cold enough to chill the blood in a living man's veins. "No matter what you do, no matter what you say, no matter how much you cry, and no matter how much you beg; you are going to die. The only question is how long is it going to take; I'm going to keep on cutting things off until I hear what I want to hear. And don't go passing out on me before I'm done because if I have to go to the trouble of waking you up, I'm going to make things much, much worse just for that aggravation you've caused me. You understand what I'm saying?"

The bandit nodded quickly.

"Good," the mercenary replied. "Question number one; how many of you little watchers were up in the hills?"

"T-ten, only ten."

The bandit bit back a scream of agony. Sad Eyes swore; including this guy, she and her mercenaries had only encountered eight spies. The other two had probably already hightailed it back to their main camp by now, worse luck. She eyed the bandit she'd caught; the guy's eyes had gone out of focus and he was leaning like he was dangerously close to falling over. The mercenary sucked her teeth in annoyance; she reached out and took the bandit's mangled hand in her own and began digging her nails into the open wounds.

"MMMAAAAGGHHAAAAHHH!! STOP IT, STOP IT!"

"You don't sleep until I say you're done, understand," the normally dour woman said furiously. She dug her fingers in a bit deeper, brushing past the fragments of bones and pushing further into the layers of severed muscles and mangled tendons. Mao writhed on the ground, completely cowed by her cruel attentions.

"Tell me about your band. Where were you camped, how many of you are there, everything that you think might be useful!"

The bandit spilled his guts quite readily. The bandits had been following their group since they had entered the Maw; they were a band of about thirty (not counting the eight that Sad Eyes and her crew had dispatched already) and their primary business was the human trade. Part of the reason why they had picked this group of refugees to attack was due to the number of young women and children that were traveling with it. When Sad Eyes was convinced that the man had said all that he knew, she released her hold on the captive's hand. She wiped the red corruption from her hands onto the bandit's back.

"Thanks," the mercenary deadpanned before turning to her four helpers. "So, who wants to do the honors?"

The four young faces looked at the mercenary in annoyed indignation. If she wanted to go to all the trouble of torturing that poor bastard, then the least she could do was finish him off herself. The mercenary frowned at their reluctance to dirty work for her.

'Damn, I didn't want to get any more blood on me.'

Dry; everything in the Maw was just so dry and dusty and arid. The plants were small and their skins were thick and their branches were prickly; they jealously protected whatever moisture they had managed to scrounge up. When the wind blew, it never brought cool relief; it just blew hot air in your face and covered you in dust. The dust got into your clothes, into your hair and beard, down your throat until your guts were lined with sediment. This whole world was just so terribly dry.

But what was this on the ground underneath his very feet?

Wet. Wet, wet, wet, wet, wet, read and still so wet! He reached a hand out, tentatively at first, nervously. His arm shook in excitement and anticipation. The tips of his calloused fingers met the red; wet, oh so wet! The fingers traced the wet red from where it had pooled so beautifully on the ground back to the well from which it had escaped. The fingers reached into the still moist, the still warm orifice. The arm connected to the hand that was connected to the fingers drove them even deeper into the soaking entrance; deeper and deeper.

There was a familiar hardening in his crotch; the sweet tickling sensation running up his back- the butterfly kisses of a long forgotten lover whose skillful ministrations had outlived her name in his mind. His sopping red hand exited the well spring. The free hand grabbed his instrument, moving slowly reminiscing of years gone by.

The taste?

Tart, coppery, far inferior to his phantom lover's and yet still so satisfying after so long without. Another finger was inserted into his eager mouth, then a third after that. Then the fourth; his strokes became harder, more intense. Tongue wormed its way around the digits attempting to get every last bit of the red. We and full and savory; he could feel it coming!

"Boss."

It was coming. He could feel it gathering, preparing to erupt in a rain of…

"Um, Lord Ag-O?"

Frustration and anger; didn't this fool realize how close he was? Ten, fifteen seconds! That was that he really needed to finish!

But it was too late, the moment was passed and dry, dry, horrendously dry reality came crashing back down around his ears. Rising to his full height, the monstrously tall bandit chieftain Ag-O glowered down at his unnerved subordinate, the madness alighting his rugged angular features accented nicely by the blood smearing his lips.

"What is it," the deep base of the bandit leader rumbled, tight with a barely suppressed desire to go out and hurt something.

"Um, we found the bodies of the rest of the guys that were supposed to be watching the targets."

Ag-O went back to looking at the decapitated body on the ground. "All dead?"

It was more of a statement than a question- of course they were all dead. His underling answered in the affirmative anyway. Ag-O bent at the waist and palmed Mao's severed head, holding it so that living man and dead man were nose to nose.

"Tell me, were the others… were they like Mao," he asked, hope evident in his deep voice.

"No sir. They were dead, but all from clean wounds. It looks like Mao's the only one that they took their time on," the shorter man replied, completely missing the tone in his leader's voice.

"FUCK!"

The disappointment was thick as whale oil. The underling looked terrified by his volatile leader's sudden outburst. Ag-O paid his no mind. The giant began tossing his deceased soldier's head from hand to hand as if he were a child playing with his favorite ball. It was really just too much. But the red was still wet; the ones who did this couldn't have gone too far.

"Tell everyone to mount up. We're following them right now."

The nameless underling ran off to comply with his boss' order. Ag-O discarded the head, tossing it aside like so much trash. He stopped to lick some of the red still lingering on his thumb; things were going to get wet. He'd make sure of that!