Oozing like cold mucus, the paint slugged onto the wall, clogging up the nearly microscopic hole on the can my hand held. "Duty, discipline, and mission," I whispered to myself before chugging down a burning shot of a deadly alcoholic mixture that would leave most people writhing in agony. "These are the words that shall save me forevermore." I wiped my mouth on the back of my hand, ignoring the warm saliva and crusted blood that peeled off onto my skin, accompanied by the stench of day old saliva. "These are the words that shall save me from the pits of Hell." Another spurt of black paint splattered onto the wall, forming the sloppy "n" of mission. "To you, my Lady, I pray for salvation. To you, my Lady, I pledge my blood and flesh. To you, my Lady, I offer my soul in return for redemption." I guzzled the remainder of my alcohol potion down my throat until the bottle was void of any more liquid fire. Nearly delirious and swooning under the booze, I tossed the glass bottle off into a far off corner, letting it smash against a wall and sending a rat squealing off into another direction. "Duty, discipline, and mission," I repeated, and stepped back to admire my handiwork.

Across the walls of my room, the words "duty", "discipline", and "mission" glistened of wet paint and grinned back at me, pleased that I was once again all powerful. Pleased that I hadn't totally abandoned the Blue Lady.

Pleased I would kill again.

Having discarded the beer, which left me wickedly electric, I strode over to the cracked mirror I had set up over on the far wall of my room. I stared at myself, dressed in the starched black jeans, my heavy dark coat with high collar, and the black cheap T-shirt underneath; all the clothes I had been wearing-with an occasional wash-since Chicago, considering that I hadn't truly had time to change since Florida. Suddenly, the clothes seemed horrid, purely awful as if they were suffocating me and destroying all of the adrenaline that was building up in my veins.

I had to get them off before they sucked away my power.

My fingers, smeared with black paint, fumbled with the dark, leather belt, not bothering to pull it through the loops, but merely letting it hang like a dead snake with a tongue of metal clinking against its metal teeth. Tearing off my jacket and shirt, I immediately felt my pores sigh in relief that they had been freed from that dingy prison of clothing. Unfortunately, with the air, came the coldness, causing my arms to prickle, but I managed to push the chill away, focusing only on what nightmares lay ahead. It was then that I stopped, bare-chested and belt hanging loosely at my waist, wondering if anyone would come bursting into the room. Chuckling to myself, I thought, Ben, you are a fool, and I reminded myself there wasn't a single person in that building who could literally disappear before someone's very eyes in a blur like I could. With flashing fingers, I untied the thick-soled boots and dropped them in a dead heap on top of my other clothing, accompanied swiftly by a pair of wretched smelling socks. Then, at last, I undid the top button on my pants and slid out of those, leaving paint smears on my thighs where my fingers had rubbed against the skin when I removed my pants. And, since, I didn't bother with such wasteful things as a "male undergarment"-better known to the common world as boxers or briefs-I was standing, fully nude in the middle of my room, freed from that horrid clothing.

Naked, I admired myself in the dingy glass, fully confident that no one could defeat me in both my strength and beauty. I breathed in deeply, watching my diaphragm expand to accommodate the newly delivered air, and how my chest muscles were highly defined, rounded in exactly the right places that college kids took deadly steroids to achieve. Extending my arm outward, I clenched my hand into a fist as biceps muscles flexed and triceps swooned to the point of perfection, and I grinned, remembering the feel of crumbling vertebrae beneath my fingers-strength would not be a problem for me to find that night. My thighs, sculpted to Greek god's might, supported my firm body, while the rest of my eager muscles all quivered with excitement, knowing what was in store for them. Covering the pulsating muscles, my skin was perfectly immaculate and darkened with a gorgeous tan from my weeks down on the Florida beaches.

After nearly two and a half weeks, I had found somebody.

Outside, the sky was ominously black with the night storm that had been approaching the city for a few days now, and heavy rain splattered against the window, seeping against the wood and rattling the windowpane. In the far distance, beyond the towers of the metropolis, I knew it was going to be a deadly night for all of us. For the strong and powerful. For the weak and passive.

Admiring my seductiveness and power for a moment longer, I at last turned away, redressing because I had at last been freed from my prison of clothing, and had just shoved two guns inside of my black vest when there came a piercing scream from down the hallway. Instinctively, I glimpsed upward, but shrugged it off, dismissing it as just another murdered hooker. Besides, I had a mission tonight, and I couldn't be bothered with such trivial manners. Yet, the cry came again, and slowly, I opened my door, glancing down the hallway for anything out of the normal, but nothing appeared to me. The drunks still lay unconscious and scanty clothing still hanged from doorknobs. Pinching my eyes to narrow slits, I turned back around into my room until the choked shriek formed a single word, "B-en!"

Lia.

Without debating between my obsessed hunt and her tiny life, I dashed out my door. I was bounding over comatose bodies in the hallway and whipping over the floor so fast my feet nearly slipped out from underneath me as I hurtled around corners. Again, the scream came, this time filled with tears and absolutely terrified, "Ben! Please! Ben!"

"Lia!" I yelled, praying I wouldn't be too late. "Lia! I'm coming!" I flew over the charred part of the hallway that produced a massive hole in the building-a route that was smartly avoided by the normal people-landing precisely in front of Lia's room in a loosely crouched position. I burst inside the room with the strength of ten thousand men, prepared to kill, and was met not with the eyes of an evil villain, but with the fading eyes of Jada instead. She was curled up into the fetal position on her bed, covering her head with fragile hands as blood gushed from her nose and a cut on her head. The eyes I had once known to be so utterly strong were now quivering with approaching unconscious. A quick scan of the room showed me Lia who was huddled in a corner, tears trickling over fresh bruises, as a man pressed a hand against her throat, threatening to destroy her.

"Where is your savior now?" he mocked, spitting an acrid wad of chewing tobacco directly into her face, causing her to gag and snivel. The brown mess dribbled over her closed eye, swollen nearly to the size of a walnut, before oozing down her chin. "Where is this Ben who is going to save you?"

"Right here," I growled.

The man I assumed to be George lifted Lia with one hand still around her throat, leaving her suspended in the air, and he turned to face me. All of Jada's descriptions had been correct; he was a rough six foot five, taller perhaps, and probably averaged two hundred fifty pounds. His large forearm, tanned with a golden business watch on the end, held Lia high. The clothing he wore resembled mine in the sense that it wasn't rags or cheap lingerie like the rest of the population in the slum, but more fashionable. Wearing a pair of loose blue jeans, a teal button down shirt underneath a brown leather jacket, he obviously maintained a well paying job outside of his monthly rape of his daughter. He tilted his brunette head back and laughed. "This is the almighty god that'll save you? Lia, you are a fool. He's nothing. You ass, Lia, I'll kill him with my bare hands."

"No, you won't," I argued.

"Good. He's a cocky dead man, too."

"Let her go, George."

In a graceful fluid motion, George pulled a gun from his jacket and aimed it squarely between my eyes so that the gaping black hole remained only a couple millimeters away from my skin. Behind him, Lia spasmodically jerked as her red face began to change to a purple color from the lack of oxygen. Jada wasn't moving-I was unable to tell if she was still conscious-but her blood still flowed onto the bed sheets where she had delivered Taji.

Taji. What had happened to him?

"You want me to let her go?" George sneered. "I'd like to see you try."

"Bring it on," I chuckled, and before he could respond, I launched myself at him.

In a superhuman flash, I snatched the gun right out of his gigantic hand, while simultaneously reaching inside my vest and pulling out my own pistol. Once the guns were safely in my possession, I elbowed him so vehemently in the nose that I heard a cracking sound, followed by a pop of blood, causing him to curse and drop Lia in a heap. My entire movements were blurred flashes that no one would have been able to catch until I slowed down to move protectively in front of Lia, who lay hacking up a yellowish tinted mucus in the corner. I raised the two guns high and pointed them directly downward at the bleeding George.

"You bastard...I should kill you right now."

He grinned, revealing blood smeared teeth that glistened under the light. "You wouldn't kill me in front of Lia and Jada. I'm their father after all."

"And what have you done to Jada to get that honor?"

"That isn't any of your goddamn business," he warned, rising stiffly to his feet.

"I make it my business when people I care about get hurt."

"Caring is a weakness," he mocked, and for a brief moment, I saw Donald Lydecker standing in front of us during a class shouting in our faces, grabbing us by the shoulders, twisting our arms until we screamed. "Caring is a weakness! If you care, I swear I'll destroy you myself! Got it-soldier?!"
Powered by my old, hellish nightmares, I advanced towards George, wanting nothing more than to break every damned bone in his body. "Get the hell out of here!" I bellowed at him, feeling powerful rage burn up inside of me. "Get out of here, NOW!"

"And why would I want to do that?"

The man was an idiot.

"Because I'll kill you, that's why! Come back here again and I swear I'll remove the only thing that gives you pleasure in life. I'll slice it off and turn you into a goddamned female, and then you'll know what it's like to be raped!"

George narrowed his malicious eyes at me just before I launched into all-out gunfire. Rapidly, I began to shoot at him, clipping him in the leg and the shoulder. He screamed once and scuttled blindly out of the room, cursing under his breath and leaving a trail of dark blood behind. Once I knew that he was gone, I dropped the guns in a clatter and fell to my knees, wanting, for the first time, to hold Lia just so I knew she was still beside me.

Still alive.

Without my asking, Lia, more bruised and bloody than I had seen a living person in a long time, threw her arms around my neck and buried her face in my shoulder. Her thin arms where her bones protruded from beneath the skin were cold against me, and her tiny body heaved as she sobbed for the first time in my memory. Wrapping one arm around the back of her body, I stroked the back of her head, whispering that everything would be ok and pulling her closer to me.

"You came," she cried into my dark jacket. "You came, Ben."

"I wouldn't leave you."

"He killed Momma. Took Taji."

"He what?"

"Momma dead. Pushed her out window. Taji gone. Gone...gone...gone..." Her tears, hot and painful, fell against my skin, and all I wanted to do was heal her pain. Make her the happy child in the rain again.

"No..." I whispered, remembering sweet little Taji who had never done a single thing wrong in his entire life.

"You must find him."

"Who?"

"Father. Find him and-" She didn't finish, but I knew what she wanted me to do nonetheless. Her innocent tongue would not acknowledge the punishment George deserved. But, my hand and anger certainly would acknowledge punishment and torture for that bastard.

"But you-and Jada-what will you do?"

She pulled herself away and met my eyes, peering through tears and the massive swelling of one eye to properly see me. I noticed that there was a dried smear of blood forming on the abscess of her upper lip. "You come for us, Ben. You must come for Taji now. Save him like you did when he born. You must be savior now. Save all of us."