Velvet Dark leaped on the dragon-wielder, wrestling him to the floor and knocking his gun away. The other four men turned, shocked, as Velvet knocked him out with her fist. Velvet knew she shouldn't kill any of them, they were on her side, but she couldn't let them kill Elvis either. One of them levelled his Dragon at her. She quickly ducked and swept his feet with her foot, sending him to the ground. She looked up to two Dragons pointed at her head, and in the corner of her eye, one trained on Elvis too.

'Shit, I'm getting too old for this'

Throwing up her hands in disgust, she surrendered.

'Just what THE HELL did you think you were doing, and who are you?!', one of the government agents questioned.

'Trying to save an innocent from certain death', she replied, seething.

'You mean that alien ?'

'Yes'

'Have you seen what he did ?!', shouted the man, outraged.

'You never learn, do you ?. With you government forces, it's always shoot first and ask questions later.'

'He was stood in the centre of a massacre scene, gun in hand, and you say that creature is innocent ?'

Velvet began to explain her story, how she had seen her brother murder everyone in the building. Apart from her. In fact, he hadn't know she had still even existed. Velvet had been missing a long time. Nine years. Before Joanna had even known about where her older 'sis' went to work. Velvet remembered the scene clearly. She and her brother Jonathon had been on a mission together deep in a desert, recovering Alien technologies from a crashed Maian ship, incase they were discovered by someone. It had been very hot, and the mission was in pitch black to avoid discovery. The problem was, there was already someone there. In fact there had been ten people there, concealed in the darkness. dataDyne agents. That had been in a time when the two companies didn't even know each other existed, it was merely a coincidence they met there and then. And what a meeting it had been...



Jonathon stuck his hand inside a storage cupboard in the wrecked Maian saucer, grasping for anything that could be in there, trying to hold his flashlight too. He couldn't leave anything that might be discovered. Soon this wreck would be stripped bare, nothing but a chunk of rended, destroyed metal, ready to be blown up with the C4 charge Velvet was messing with.

'Hey, pack it in, you'll blow us to hell with that!'

'Sorry Jon' she apologised, returning it to it's fireproof steel box.

He continued his search, trying to ignore the dead alien in the seat next to him.

'How do you reckon this poor guy crashed ?' he said, motioning with his head.

'This is creepy Jon, hurry up', said Velvet, ignoring his question.

'Try helping then, sis'

Velvet also began checking some storage containers, as far away from the corpse as possible.

Silence and the cold pounded at the agents' minds.

'Hey, Jon, I think I just heard something outside', Velvet cocked her head.

Jon's heart was pounding, although he pretended not to be scared.

'It's just the heat playing at your mind, now get on with your job!'

Velvet stood for another moment, listening intently with a scared impression on her face.

'Jon, I've got a bad feeling about this, I want to leave NOW. Just set the bomb and let's go'

'Yes, I want to go too, but we can't guarantee everything will be destroyed in the blast. All I need to do is collect the small items so they don't get scattered around and discovered'

But they'll be covered up by the sand anyway-'

A shout emanated from the darkness a small distance away, interrupting Velvet's argument.

'WHAT THE HELL WAS THAT ?', she whispered.

They were both becoming terrified, despite the pistols they carried for safety. This was far too creepy despite their ages. Jon looked out through the gaping hole in the side of the craft.

'Give me the C4'

She dug it back out from it's case, handing it to Jon. Carefully, he set the timer for 30 seconds, and strapped it to the dashboard.

'Run', he hissed.

Jon leapt out, running as fast as he could towards the jumpship nearby, guiding himself with the flashlight. Gunfire suddenly sounded behind him, tearing through the silence. Sand thudded and sprayed up into the air around him, blowing in his face. He swept it away with his sleeve, determined to escape. Where was Velvet ?, he suddenly thought, diving through the open door as bullets rebounded off the metal in the ship.

Velvet struggled with her foot, it had gotten wedged between two small containers!. Gunfire erupted nearby.

'Shit'

She was surely dead. The C4 was bleeping nearby, counting down each second. Ten at least had already passed. She began to panic, the worst thing she could possibly do in the situation, pulling at her leg like there was no tomorrow. There wasn't going to be at this rate, she thought, terrified. Men's shouts sounded amongst the racket. What the hell was going on ?. How did these people know they would be here tonight, whoever they were ?. They had obviously been prepared, she realised as a man dressed in black, carrying a large rifle and wearing what she recognised to be night vision goggles dashed past the ship, oblivious to her struggles inside. The C4 was at least up to twenty seconds by now. Velvet had never been so scared in her life. She then realised what she had to do. She was too far away to reach the C4, and even if she could reach it, there was nothing she could do. The alien containers were far too heavy to even nudge, and Jonathon was obviously dealing with his own 'problems', hearing the yelling again, followed by gunfire. She quickly bent down, and wincing, snapped her ankle with a quick twist of the hand, learnt in the Institute training. It was the only thing she could do to save her own life. Her foot went numb, and she pulled it out the tight gap, trying to ignore the agonizing pain shooting up her leg.

24...

25...

26...

Velvet limped through the opening, gasping in pain, and stumbling into the freezing darkness, which kept lighting up with the bright flashes of gunfire. She saw the jumpship about ten metres away, the large door just closing as it was lit up by gun-muzzle flashes. Men dressed in black swarmed around it, firing with their loud rifles. The blue jets roared and the ship raised into the air, sparks spraying from the bullets connecting with it.

'Jon, NO...!', yelled Velvet, in the despair of the moment, collapsing to the cold sand beneath her.

'Hey!'

A man had spotted her. He took aim at her head with his rifle, and fired, the shot roaring through the night...



Jon gazed out the cockpit window, safe inside the bullet-proof jumpship. Velvet was staring up, looking shocked as he took off. She collapsed to her knees, screaming something. There was nothing he could've done, panicking, and he'd dropped his gun on his frantic dash for the ship. One of the men below turned and aimed at his sister.

'NOOO!', Jon screamed, as her head jolted back, blood spraying...

The Alien craft then exploded, flashing light across the whole scene below, temporarily blinding him. He swore he would get revenge on these ruthless people, whoever they were, and remembered that dreadful night until the day of his death, nine years later.



That was the real reason Jonathon Dark had been so angry when his younger sister destroyed dataDyne years later, the very company, he later realized, that had killed his sister, and scarred his mind for life, giving him endless nightmares and visions of that scene as he had taken off. Joanna Dark had unknowingly stolen his opportunity for revenge...



Velvet had been assumed dead anyway. In truth, she had awoken seven years after that night, from a supposedly un-recoverable coma. She had survived a broken ankle, a gunshot wound to the head, and severe burns, as well as dehydration as she had lain in the desert for two days before being found by a passing hovercar, only just alive, but in a deep coma. The doctors and surgeons nearly switched off the life-support, until she showed faint signs of recovery. After spending two years retracing her life, due to amnesia caused by the gunshot wound, she found her way back to the CI. After being re-trained in secret, so as not to shock her brother and sister, she felt ready to show her face once again. Then, before the chance arose, she had seen her brother kill everybody she once knew, and hidden, in shock, until now. What had caused him to do this ?