Author's Note: My apologies for the three month delay on this next part. My time has been split between varying tasks during this tense time around the world and writing has been lower down the list of tasks than I would like, however, here is the next part, and I hope that the succeeding part arrives quicker than this one!

As a general note, this story only has ten parts, so the finale is not too far away...

PART VIII: Carnivora

Los Angeles
United States of America

It was time.

She had bidden her time for well over a decade and that was enough. He had to die, not least because of his increasingly inhuman schemes. Was she developing a conscience? She had felt the change coming over her ever since Cara had been born. She had done her best to protect Cara and keep her segmented from the horrors of her Uncle Dieter. The man doted on the girl and he spoiled her rotten – if only he knew... One day, Cara would have to be told, but not yet. Until then, Cara had a lot to learn about the world beyond her sheltered upbringing. Cara needed to learn how to protect herself from the horrors which existed beyond that sheltered upbringing. For Rosa Müller, there was but one focus to her life – her daughter Cara. Rosa was very much alone, and she had to put that man down on her own. She could do it; she knew that she could – and she had accomplished many similar assassinations in her time, only, she had a new persona. That new persona was her protection which she hoped would allow her and Cara to escape from the clutches of Dieter Mannheim.

On the subject of being alone – maybe she was not so alone – that young man who had suddenly appeared out of thin air and had accomplished so much. There was something about him which had made Rosa sign him up, almost on the spot. Rosa could tell that the young man was trustworthy and that there was much, much more hidden beneath his British exterior. Could she really trust him? She had to; she needed him to project her Cara with his life. Would he? Could she trust him with Cara's life? Yes, she had no choice. So many complications but the foundations had been laid in an operation which had begun many years before. Dieter's life on the earth was now a finite number with an ending just weeks away, or so she hoped. So many pieces still needed to appear on the board in their places. Was Cara ready for the biggest change she had yet faced in her short life? Was the training which she had received in self-defence going anywhere? Rosa hoped that the young man's additional training may prove useful should it be needed, but she hoped that it would not, and that Cara would emerge from the culling just as innocent as she was at that very moment.

'Oh, God, what if I am wrong?' came the unbidden anguished thought.

Thursday, June 22nd, 2017

08:00 GMT-7 (16:00 GMT June 22nd)

Bella Oceana

Cara Müller finished dressing for school.

As was usual, she was perfectly dressed, and her hair was impeccable. For some reason, ever since Evans had come onto the scene, the youngster had started to take extra care with her appearance – Rosa put it off to puberty. After a swift bowl of chocolate cereal and a glass of orange juice, Cara jumped up and gave her mother a hug.

"Bye Mom!"

"Have a good day, sweetheart."

Rosa chuckled as the front door slammed and she went back to her coffee and the newspaper. Evans would be back in about twenty minutes to take her into the office. As she stared at the newspaper in her hand, her eyes did not really take much in much of the printed news as her mind went into overdrive as she put the pieces of her plan together in her head and she tried to figure out every angle, every possible outcome, and then a potential solution for those outcomes. Above all, she had to have an exit plan for herself and for Cara. That exit plan relied heavily on young Evans, she knew, but she had no choice and she had nobody else she could trust.

Rosa Müller was still in a daze when she climbed into the car and she fumbled with her seatbelt. She barely noticed the concerned expression on her driver's face as Evans looked into the back seat. The young man was concerned – there was something very different about his boss' mood that morning. His training told him to be wary, but beyond that he did not intercede as he drove her into the city as he did each and every weekday. Usually, Rosa spoke with him as she continued to read her newspaper or went through work papers from her briefcase which went everywhere with her. Instead, the woman gazed out of the side window, her eyes set and a frown spoiling her otherwise perfect looks. In the few short weeks in which he had been employed by Rosa, he had learnt to recognise and understand the mannerisms of Rosa and Cara. He had also begun to figure out that Rosa was not the same monster that Dieter Mannheim was; Rosa was definitely not an innocent bystander and 'Evans' (Leo Shephard) was certain that Rosa had blood on her hands. While Dieter Mannheim was a dead man walking, Rosa was going to get a second chance as far as Leo was concerned, mainly because of Cara. The more Leo attempted to piece everything together, the larger the puzzle became with more and more missing pieces. His visit to Paris had turned up some interesting information as had his time in Los Angeles.

Dieter was playing with fire - nuclear fire.

That afternoon...

15:37 GMT-7 (23:37 GMT June 22nd)

Nielsen Way
Santa Monica

It was the usual half-hour commute from their home on Oak Pass Road in Beverly Hills and they were not far from D-JAK:LA.

"STOP!" Maddie called out and Sky stomped on the brakes, almost causing a pileup as cars behind slewed to a halt and narrowly avoided colliding with the errant Ford Focus ST.

"What the hell?" Sky demanded as Maddie twisted in her seat to look out of the back window.

"I just saw Chrissy snogging a chick!"

"She does that," Sky commented dryly. "She is bisexual, you know."

"I know, but I just never..."

"Can we go now?" Sky asked as she tried to ignore the irate drivers behind her.

"Does that mean Chrissy's a lesbian?" nine-year-old Connor Tyler asked from the backseat.

"Let's go!" Maddie growled as Sky started laughing.

The rest of the drive lasted mere minutes.

..._...

A few minutes later Chrissy walked in and went to get changed.

"Maddie saw you with Kimberley," Sky told her sister.

"Maddie knows I like girls," Chrissy responded as she undressed.

"Yeah, but she's never seen you kissing a girl . . . and Connor wants to know if you're a lesbian."

"Well, I am."

"Would you care to explain that to Connor?" Sky laughed. "Maddie doesn't want to."

"I'll see what I can do," Chrissy grinned.

"You two getting serious then?"

"I think so."

"Glad to hear it."

With that, Sky left her sister to finish dressing and she walked through into the main part of D-JAK:LA.

..._...

The dojang was full and the usual culprits were causing trouble.

"Juno, you are not concentrating!" the long-suffering Guinevere growled.

"You're a slave driver!" Juno shot back.

"No backchat, missy!" Nicholas pointed out.

Juno scowled at the pair of them as she went back to warding off the inbound kicks of Logan. Team San Diego came north once a month to spend a few days with their Los Angeles brethren as San Diego could get a little lonely for just the four of them and they needed the social time. Behind the girl, Maddie was also being pushed and pushed. However, Maddie was not alone as she was teamed up with Kristen and Cara – the three musketeers as Mollie Hendricks referred to them. All three were being worked hard by Kieran who was an amazing fighter. Mollie was sometimes unsure about the skills that her daughter was being taught but the youngster appeared to be having fun much like her young son, Ben, whose best friend was now Connor Tyler. The two boys were causing more trouble than the girls some days – a feat which was quite something to achieve! James Todd was the one designated to suffer the indignity of teaching the younger children – a task he hated. However, he did his job well and the class was thriving as was D-JAK:LA as a whole.

Mollie was kept very busy and she loved her work which kept a roof over the heads of herself and her two children. She had never had such a rewarding job which gave her so many friends to talk to and also a lot of money which was building up in her bank account. However, there was something gnawing at her which concerned her direct boss and the twins – not to mention that Mindy Lizewski – but she could not put her finger on what was wrong, however, she was determined to get to the bottom of it, one way or another. Could they be bad people? Could they be into drugs? She had looked up Mindy Lizewski and found her to be a 'pillar of the community' back in Chicago where her father was a Captain in the Chicago Police Department. Some ideas had crept into her mind, along with some coincidences which were so far off it was ridiculous – or was it?

Needless to say, her two children had grown in stature since she had started working at D-JAK:LA and she would never give it up.

The following evening...
Friday, June 23rd

19:10 GMT-7 (03:10 GMT June 24th)

Wilshire Boulevard
Los Angeles

The towering structure was 260-metres tall with sixty-two storeys.

Deep below the surface on lower level 1 the valet parking garage was only about a third full as most of the building's workers had gone home an hour or so earlier. One corner of the lower level was permanently assigned to the Tomahawk Group which occupied the twenty-eighth floor and part of the twelfth floor. The Tomahawk Group also carried the building's contract for security which they took very seriously especially as the Wells Fargo Bank had a branch which occupied half of the first floor level with 6th Street. As on most days, two large black SUVs with tinted windows were parked up next to a brick structure which (officially) housed the Tomahawk Group's Response Force – (unofficially) armed mercenaries who actually belonged to the Panther Brigade. Eight valet drivers worked the night shift to cater for the workaholics who needed their vehicles parked and unparked. The entire level was otherwise concrete floor, walls, and ceiling. Vehicular entrance was via the main ramp exiting onto 6th Street while those on foot made use of eight elevators which serviced the lower levels and which exited into a glazed waiting area with comfortable leather couches.

Nobody noticed the lights near the vehicular entrance flicker and die for eight seconds. Nobody noticed that the lights in various sections of the basement parking area seemed to go out for exactly eight seconds before they snapped back on again just as another section went dark for another eight seconds. Then the power went off completely in the southwest corner and the sub-building occupied by the Response Force went dark for a few seconds before the eerie glow of emergency lighting snapped on. Then, just as the eight men inside began to complain and one of their number moved to check the fuse box, the outer door was pushed open and one of those eight men turned to see who was paying them a visit. But all he saw was a shadow barely illuminated by the nearest battery-powered light fitting.

"Time to die," a creepy voice hissed out of the darkness.

The man never had a chance to respond as the shadow leapt at him and he felt incredible warmth spread across his neck and chest even as he felt his legs giving way and he sank to the carpeted floor of the small sub-building just as his sight began to fade from the chronic blood loss caused by the gaping slash in his throat. The second man had not noticed his companion's death, but he caught sight of movement out the corner of his eye and he turned but he was unable to stop the titanium claws which cut deep into his neck causing irreparable damage and preventing the man from calling out to warn his six remaining colleagues. But there was no need to call out as the woman to his left had caught sight of the spray of blood erupting into the air. Instinct made her draw her pistol but then she felt a sharp pain in the wrist of her right hand as she brought the hand up and around. Her brain was a split second behind in processing the pain but her eyes had registered that her hand and the pistol clasped in her fingers was falling away from her lower arm. Her mind told her that it was impossible, but then the pain caught up with what she was seeing along with the realisation that her right hand had just been severed from her right arm. She tried to scream, but something had impaled her throat and she could no longer breathe and she choked out the final seconds of her life not knowing what had killed her.

The sound of the hand and the pistol hitting the thin carpet attracted the attention of the remaining five members of the Response Force. Only, they had no idea what it was that had just killed three of their number with barely a sound and within just feet of them all. The creature blended into the shadows just enough that it was all but impossible to figure out what it was, let alone how to defeat it. There was no overt display of firearms but three blackened titanium claws formed a lethal killing tool of which there were a pair – that was plainly visible – and fresh blood dripped from both sets. The three men and two women reached for whatever weapon was closest, an ASP, a combat machete, a pistol, or just their own skills. None of them did any good as the creature almost effortlessly turned the opposing weapons into weapons which could be turned on their owners. Who knew that an ASP could be used to stop someone breathing by being rammed down their throat? The creature did not stop as it killed, slashed, and blocked until nobody was left alive and eight mercenaries lay on the blood-sodden carpet.

Again, the lighting in the basement parking area played up, but this time it led towards the elevators.

19:17 GMT-7 (03:17 GMT June 24th)

West 7th Street

The overpass over the 110 Freeway provided a view for many miles and was a good vantage point to await trouble.

However, as was usual, trouble found them. Mist growled as she answered her cell – she hated to be disturbed as she enjoyed the night, but she recognised the number as belonging to a snitch.

"What do you want, Spider?" Mist hissed.

"Something bad is happening, mistress."

"Speak, man!"

"People are dying in the basement of the Aon, mistress – they are all dead..."

Mist recognised the name – it was the building where Dieter Mannheim had his headquarters.

"Remind me to compensate you," Mist responded as she dropped the call. "Heads up, crew!"

"Trouble, boss?" Bane asked as she sat astride her motorcycle a few feet away from where Mist sat astride her own machine.

"Aon Center – someone is attacking the place, it seems."

"So fucking what?" Venom growled. "Good riddance!"

"She has a point . . . for once," Bane pointed out.

"Crypto," Mist called. "See what you can find out. We're rolling – the Aon is only a few hundred yards east of us."

"On it!" came the young voice from Safehouse C. "You want Team San Diego?"

"Yes – where are they?"

"Eating hotdogs at North 3rd Street – I'll move them in."

"Tell them to be careful – this is Dieter's home turf," Mist warned.

"Will do – Crypto out!"

With that, the three women moved off on their motorcycles, heading east and Bane waved at the two dark blue motorcycles parked up a hundred yards later where Domitor and Paradox were enjoying a coffee each from Starbucks.

19:21 GMT-7 (03:21 GMT June 24th)

The AON Center
Wilshire Boulevard

It had not taken them long to reach the skyscraper and park up.

All around, everything appeared calm, as it was most evenings. The five Fusion vigilantes headed down into the basement via the vehicular entrance. They were challenged by a uniformed security guard but Domitor punched the guy down as they passed by and continued down and down until they reached the lower basement where, again, everything appeared normal. At a hand signal from Mist, they all spread out and they rapidly began to search for dead people. It was Bane who found the traumatised valet parking attendants locked up in a store room near the comfortable glazed area. They babbled about seeing a monstrous creature dripping blood which had then taken an elevator to the upper levels – before Bane locked them back up again. Then Paradox found something else.

"Er, Mist – I think I might have found a murder scene..."

"What have you found?" Mist asked as she eyed the two parked SUVs and then stepped into the small brick sub-building. "Fuck! How many?"

"Eight, more or less intact – give or take a limb or two, but all very dead," Paradox offered somewhat dryly. "Hit Girl is out of the country, right?"

"Very much," Mist confirmed.

"Who else could have done this?" Paradox asked.

"Carnivora," Mist stated.

Paradox grimaced beneath his mask.

The AON Center
Main Lobby

The security guard seated at the security desk looked up as the an elevator in the west elevator bank a few yards from him dinged and the doors slid open.

For a moment, nobody stepped out, and the security guard looked back down at his newspaper. Then his eye caught movement and he looked up – then he died. Two more security guards appeared from the direction of the east elevator bank having completed their rounds.

"What's with the lights...?" one enquired as he noticed the security desk in semi-darkness.

Then they spied their colleague sprawled across a bloody newspaper at the main desk. Together, both drew their weapons and one reached for the radio clipped to his left shoulder to call in to the - no longer living - Response Force. Then a dark shape leapt over the security desk and landed squarely between the two security guards. They froze as they studied the creature who appeared to be clad in a combat suit of a design very different to that worn by the known vigilantes. The combat suit appeared to almost instantly instil fear in the two security guards and when matched with their dead colleague, they knew that they had just seconds left to live. Actually, they were several seconds out as the creature simultaneously ripped out their throats with its claws. The fourth security guard then put in an appearance but before he could run for his life, he collapsed as his left leg gave way and he gazed up into a pair of eyes which appeared yellow but pulsed red at irregular intervals. The man never had a chance to know what real fear felt like as the four claws, each dripping blood, plunged towards him and then he felt nothing after a few seconds of choking.

The creature turned her back on the carnage and calmly stepped into the open maw of an elevator.

..._...

The elevator doors to his left slid closed just as Trauma stepped off the escalator which had brought him up from ground level.

"Was there a fight and we missed it?" he asked as he surveyed the bloody mess which had probably been four living security guards just two minutes earlier.

"This fight looked like it was very one-sided," Lilith commented as she joined Trauma.

"Ewww!" Lilim complained.

"Mist, Main Lobby is a bloody mess," Riptide radioed. "Hit Girl is out of the country, right?"

"Fuck!"

Trauma and Lilith stared pensively as they watched the elevator panel stop.

"Oh, dear," the boy commented.

"That tears it!" Lilith agreed.

Lilim looked up at the number displayed.

- 28 –

Then her eyes tracked to the list beside the elevator doors and she focussed on a single line:

FLOOR 28: THE TOMAHAWK GROUP

Safehouse C

Crypto had easily hacked into the CCTV system of the building – thanks to a previous visit at the end of the previous year when she had performed her very first mission for Fusion.

Unfortunately, or fortunately – depending on your outlook, Crypto had selected a camera in the main lobby of the twenty-eighth floor in time to see the doors of an elevator slide apart to reveal . . . what it was, she had no idea, but then the lights went out and in the hazy glow of emergency light fittings, she realised that a full on fight for life was underway as a creature appeared to mow down the Panther teams.

"Fusion, we have an unknown x-ray wading through the Panther Brigade on twenty-eight," Crypto advised the teams on the ground.

"Copy that," Mist responded. "Team San Diego are on their way up via the fire stairs while we are taking two of the elevators."

"Watch out for this bitch – she's pure evil," Crypto advised as she watched men die before her very eyes.

"Copy that," Mist replied.

Crypto felt intense concern for her friends – no, that was wrong, she thought – they were not her friends, they were her family.

The AON Center
28th Floor

As the doors of the elevator slid open, Mist and Paradox took stock of the situation just as Bane, Venom, and Domitor stepped out of the next elevator.

There was blood everywhere along with dead bodies, parts of dead bodies, and just parts. It was like a slaughter house. It was as if someone had just let a lion loose in a field full of sheep – mercenary sheep, but still sheep to the slaughter. Nobody had been spared. The vast majority wore black military-pattern fatigues and were obviously Panther Brigade. The first few had obviously been caught unawares but as they moved through the carnage, they began to see signs of the Panther Brigade fighting back against the creature. Here and there were the ejected cartridge cases of automatic pistols with a few discarded empty magazines. The corpses could be seen holding pistols in their hands, slides locked back. Combat knives and ASPs were also obvious but obviously they had been useless against the seemingly invincible foe. It was a frame of mind, Mist knew. If you went in looking to kill, you could overpower even the best who would always try to defend themselves as the mercenaries had tried to their cost. Paradox's trained eyes could tell where men and women had turned to run, but then been hacked down.

'What manner of being – other than Hit Girl – could exhibit so much malevolence and cruelty?' the youth thought to himself as he studied the freshly deceased which numbered twelve as they turned a corner.

There was the creature, scything through the Panther Brigade with what seemed to be vicious animal claws, four of which extended from the back of each gauntlet. A transparent ballistic shield was carried on the creature's back and was turned towards any firearm, the bullets unable to penetrate the thick plastic. For a moment, all five simply stood and watched the demonstration of fairly one-sided close quarters combat. It was a difficult situation and for Mist to decide upon the next action was not going to be easy. Why? Because Carnivora – if that was who it was – was not their enemy as such, but the Panther Brigade were, and they deserved to die, did they not? But then Mist found herself acknowledging what Hit Girl had told her months before; someone could not be allowed to just kill without mercy in the city Fusion controlled. That made Carnivora the enemy and the Panther Brigade the wronged – what a fucked up universe!

She – it – whatever it was, it had to be stopped.

..._...

As far as Mist was aware, nobody useful had laid eyes on the so-called Carnivora and lived to tell the tale, except for the odd traumatised survivor.

Therefore, there had not been much of a description but it was believed that it was a she – which probably accounted for the extreme behaviour and savagery. Whatever, the creature was pissed about something and obviously had something against the Panther Brigade and probably Dieter Mannheim himself – who could blame the creature; the man had it coming! The big question was: how might Carnivora react to Fusion stopping her? Mist considered the question another way around: how might Hit Girl react if Mist stopped her from killing? Not well! While the boys watched their backs, the three girls moved in slowly and carefully until they were in positions to outflank Carnivora who seemed far too busy killing mercenaries than watching for interlopers.

How wrong they were!

Carnivora was highly skilled, Mist could tell, and just when Mist thought that she had closed without being spotted, the creature turned her masked head to stare directly at Mist.

"This has nothing to do with you!" the creature growled out in an electronically mutilated voice. "Stay clear!"

"I can't do that!" Mist called back as she moved closer to where the creature had just discarded her latest bloody kill.

"Then you die!" Carnivora growled as she span and threw a trio of titanium darts at Mist.

It was not what Mist wanted as the plan was to force Carnivora to back off and make her escape; Mist had no desire to kill the unknown creature. The darts raced through the air, narrowly missing Mist as she threw herself to one side, vaulting over a desk and landing on the floor beyond. After rolling back to her feet, she drew her seven-section four-foot-long chain whip with a razor-sharp pointed tip. The lethal device scythed through the air as it reached out for Carnivora. Mist nodded approvingly as the lethal point of her whip narrowly missed her target's head while the target deftly stepped to one side. Mist yanked back on her weapon before she relaunched the chain whip at where she hoped that Carnivora's head would be before she jerked the chain and caught the creature in her chest as the tip of the chain was redirected. Carnivora appeared annoyed as she caught sight of what Mist carried on her thighs and she drew a pair of Sais from her lower back.

Of course, Mist coiled up and stowed her chain whip before she drew her own Sais in response.

..._...

Naturally, Carnivora's pausing of her killing spree to deal with Mist had given the remaining twenty-odd Panther Brigade mercenaries time to gather themselves and prepare a counterattack – only they had to account for Paradox and Domitor.

The two boys were busy creating a perimeter to protect Mist from outside interference while she fought Carnivora. Both were equipped with their own choice of melee weapons. In the case of the British Paradox, the youth favoured a forty-inch dragon katana with a heavily customised Oneida Eagle Phoenix Bow in a deep blue which matched his deep blue combat suit with the deep red flashes and trim. He wielded both together with immense skill and the youth was absolutely lethal with both weapons. As for his American colleague, the boy wielded a pair of custom combat machetes to great effect. Together, they made an unstoppable team as the Panther Brigade were about to find out. Six descended on the pair as they fought to get to Carnivora to exact revenge for the deaths of their comrades in arms. Each Panther was armed with a pistol and a variety of bladed instruments. As they had not been preparing for anything nasty, they were not fully equipped with large blades or other lethal melee weaponry. That did not mean that they could not defend themselves as they were all highly skilled at close quarters combat with any weapon available including their bare hands.

That just meant that Paradox was fighting two men armed with combat knives and a third who appeared to be making use of a four-foot section of metal ripped from a desk divider which, it seemed, made quite a good jō-staff. The men were taller and broader than he, but Paradox knew how to fight for his very life, and he did. His wickedly-sharp dragon katana cut through the air giving his opponents cause to remain a safe distance from the youth. Paradox swiftly identified that appropriated items of desk furniture when in the right hands hurt like hell, therefore, he swiftly retaliated as he blocked the next blow with his bow in his left hand and he slashed with his katana, spilling the man's entrails across some poor bastard's desk. The nearly-dead body served as a great distraction allowing Paradox to smash his bow into the face of the nearest Panther, breaking the man's nose even as the youth span and drove his katana into the next man's chest.

"Right, you bastards, who's next?" Paradox growled as he looked for his next opponent.

There were no obvious takers.

..._...

Domitor had his own problems – four of them to be precise.

He was fighting just a dozen feet from where the twins were working their way around to ensure that there was a clear path for Carnivora to make her escape – it was straight out of Sun Tzu's The Art of War, Chapter VII: '...when you surround your enemies, leave an opening...' – which has often colloquially (and wrongly) been referred to as a 'golden bridge'. Basically, a cornered animal fights with desperation and can decimate a surrounding enemy to no avail and leading to a potential pyrrhic victory, therefore, leaving an opening so that your enemy may escape is a preferable option. That was the job of the twins and they had laid a clear path back to the elevators which Carnivora could not miss. Any Panther who dared upset that carefully created escape route met the wrath of the twins and their razor-sharp bō-staffs.

Fighting an enemy who were majorly pissed off was not generally a good idea as they tended to fight with aplomb and a raged desire to take down their enemy. Admittedly, Fusion had not killed a large number that night, but they were still the enemy, so the Panther mercenaries saw no reason not to take down the Fusion vigilantes, knowing that they would be rewarded for every death. Not that Domitor minded fighting against the odds – it provided a challenge which the fifteen-year-old relished as he parried away every strike, kick, and punch with his twin custom combat machetes which he treasured above all else. The twin weapons were a deep red apart from the blade which shone and demonstrated how keenly the blade had been honed. His black combat suit was highlighted with red and blue trim, a colour combination he was very pleased with. While he fought, he watched the back of his partner, Paradox, who preferred a very different style of fighting, not to mention the quiver of arrows which was attached to the back of his combat suit – Domitor had referred to Paradox as Robin Hood the very first time they had both pulled on their new combat suits which had actually impressed Paradox for some reason and produced a typical response from the boy: "At least I as Robin Hood can speak with an English accent." – an obvious dig at Kevin Costner's portrayal of Robin Hood, a movie which Domitor actually enjoyed.

While the two boys fought, Mist continued her tête-à-tête with Carnivora.

..._...

Neither woman was gaining much headway as Mist had no real desire to kill Carnivora, and it appeared that Carnivora had no real desire to kill Mist.

That just left a fight between two very evenly matched individuals, neither of whom was about to back down – seemingly out of principal. Then Mist saw a Panther closing in on Carnivora, a large pistol held in his hands. She stepped to her left to allow Carnivora to move and then catch sight of the approaching Panther. Carnivora made to duck as the pistol came around, but then the man hesitated and his body shuddered as a bloody arrow protruded from his heart. The creature turned to see Paradox with his bow held up and a second arrow nocked; she nodded her thanks as her attacker dropped to the floor before she turned back to resume her fight with Mist. The Sais clashed as their bearers spun to strike again and again. Slowly, Mist gained the initiative as she forced Carnivora towards where her 'golden bridge' was being maintained by Venom and Bane. Mist believed that Carnivora was tiring – not surprising, really, considering how much killing she had accomplished single-handed within the space of less than an hour.

Mist found herself looking directly into the yellow eyes which pulsed red periodically. Those eyes were unnerving, Mist considered – which was probably the whole idea. Indeed, her own orange eyes bored into Carnivora's own as she willed her opponent to take the escape route laid out for her. They were too close for Sais and they began to exchange strong blows to any part of the others body that they could reach. Mist found that Carnivora was strong but Mist was just as strong, although her opponent was much more experienced – that was obvious – however, Mist always tried to learn something positive from her opponents and had done with Carnivora, picking up some new moves as they fought. But then came another new move as Carnivora rammed her right fist into Mist's left side before she followed up with a savage kick to the right thigh. Mist staggered back allowing Carnivora the space to hook kick Mist to the ground.

Carnivora bolted for the safe corridor but as she passed by Venom and Bane, a Panther cunt ran at the twins and as Bane raised her weapon, Carnivora, unable to tell who the weapon was being raised towards, took the claws on her right hand across Bane's midriff, the claws ripping through the girl's combat suit. Venom grabbed hold of her sister as Bane dropped to her knees her hands hugging her midriff. Paradox ran over to find out what had happened.

"Carnivora slashed her," Venom growled angrily. "She is gonna fucking pay!"

Paradox and Venom helped Bane back to her feet and they directed her towards the elevator – it was time to leave. Domitor had assisted Mist back to her feet and they acted as a rear guard for the wounded Bane and her helpers.

"Carnivora is on her way down – stand clear!" Mist ordered.

There was no response from Team San Diego.

Aon Center
Stairwell Number Two

Team San Diego

In the stairwell Team San Diego were working their way up the steel fire stairs and they had reached the twenty-fourth floor when they heard a fire door above them smashing open and feet on the stairs.

Without warning, they found an unknown creature leaping down the fire stairs towards them. Lilith made to attack the creature, but then came Mist's warning over the comms.

"Carnivora is on her way down – stand clear!"

Lilith stood clear, allowing the creature past, but Lilim did not move fast enough and she was kicked out of the way. The thirteen-year-old girl suddenly found herself flying backwards and she screamed as she fell down an entire flight of stairs. She landed on the steel handrail and fell over before plunging down the second flight of stairs, her body landing on the shallow steel steps sending extreme pain shooting through the youngster's body and she rolled to the bottom where her head collided with the wall and she was knocked out cold. Trauma and Lilim leapt after the girl while Riptide kept watch for any further interlopers.

"San Diego, I have an elevator waiting for you," Crypto radioed.

Trauma picked up the unconscious vigilante and he carried her out onto the twenty-second floor where they found an elevator with doors open waiting for them.

A short while later...

20:15 GMT-7 (04:15 GMT June 24th)

The AON Center
28th Floor

Lieutenant Frank Nielsen of the Los Angeles Police Department Robbery-Homicide Division was one of the first on the scene.

As he stepped out of the elevator he had already identified Carnivora's handiwork in the basement and in the main lobby. The creature had obviously had a disliking for Dieter Mannheim's security people, but there seemed to be more going on, especially once it had been confirmed that Fusion had been present.

"Where are Fusion now?" Nielsen asked a uniformed officer.

"They left a few minutes before we arrived, lieutenant – in that giant truck of theirs. We think one of them may have been injured – no idea who."

"Cheers."

It was a mess and the paramedics were still busy stabilising the not quite dead and the walking wounded. There were twenty dead on that floor alone, with four more in the main lobby and eight in the basement – a hefty haul. That did not include seven wounded. 'What was going on?' the lieutenant thought. 'What was Dieter Mannheim into and why had someone targeted him?' As he understood it from the survivors in the basement, it had been a creature in body armour – a single creature of some kind. It was way beyond anything which Fusion might engage in, so who or what was it?

It had to have been that Carnivora, he knew.