Revenant

Pantarax never forgot a face.

Not because they were all so memorable or beloved—it was just business. And Pantarax's business was not the sort in which one could afford a slip. Ever.

Her face had been the last Pantarax could recall seeing before the world had narrowed to a pinprick, to the pavement that Pantarax had—painfully, agonizingly—crawled over, seeking cover in a hostile world.

Later, in the dark of an abandoned gas station, Pantarax had hidden, while a body made to be supple as hardware could be, had fought to heal. And all that long and weary time, her face had remained firmly in mind—like a beacon, guiding a wounded warrior home. For Pantarax had never failed a mission, and would not fail in this one.

So despite the pain of an imperfect healing, Pantarax had gone on the hunt again. Finding her had been simple enough, and Pantarax had spent some time observing her—observing the way she walked, the tilt of her head that let her hair fall across her face; the way she smiled—the slow, shallow one, and the quick flashing one—and the way she frowned, until all of it was intimately known.

Until her every move had teeked cool and soft across ready sensors, and Pantarax could feel her moving in metal and wire and plastic that had submitted to the rhythm of a foreign body, had taken it on as a second skin, and the sound of her voice when she laughed or was angry, upset came without thought.

As wetware went, she had her charms, Pantarax admitted. And if she was unschooled in war, she had already demonstrated that she had learned its most basic lessons well: never hesitate to strike, and strike with everything you had.

Still, the kill had been easy enough, once the time came. She was unschooled, after all. But not until Witwicky had been staring gape-mouthed at "Mikaela" telling him she was leaving him, had Pantarax felt truly well again.

It'd been easy, afterwards, to find another form to please Witwicky. Pantarax had done it once already, after all, and "Alice's" contacts had been glad to welcome "her" back under "her" new name.

For this time... this time there would be no missteps, as Pantarax led Witwicky right down the line, took what was needed in data, and delivered him in good time to the arms of the only justice genocide deserved...


A/N: Mikaela, you deserved a better exit from a crappy last installment in this franchise. I'm sorry this is the best I could do on short notice. I'm sorrier that your actress didn't take a bigger, more profiteering racist down with her when she went...

I ordinarily would not touch anything from RoF with a ten-foot pole, because there's just nothing I feel I can do with it, but desperate times, etc.