Chapter One

Several Weeks Earlier. . . .

It had started out as a perfectly normal day at the bikers' home in the residential area of Domino City. Raphael had woken up first and had gone to make breakfast, followed closely by his adoring Ragdoll cat Liu. Soon after, Alister had gotten up as well, pondering silently over a nightmare he'd had involving the war he'd seen in his childhood. Running a hand through his bangs, he had slowly headed into the bathroom for a morning shower. Valon, who enjoyed sleeping in a lot of the time, was doing so again then, clutching the pillow tightly and mumbling random nonsense to himself.

When Alister came downstairs several minutes later, he found Liu pawing through the mail that was setting on the telephone table near the door. Idly he went over to look through it, not really expecting anything interesting. More often than not, the only mail they would receive would be bills and various bits of advertising and spam. There was rarely anyone who would send them personal letters, since all of their families were dead. Some of Raphael's family was still alive, it was true, but they couldn't care less about their "wayward" relation, especially his cousin Hilda. She certainly wouldn't be sending him anything.

Carefully and gently the redhead pried the envelopes away from the curious Liu's paws. The cat meowed in protest, but Alister just sighed and shook his head, his still-damp, crimson locks plastered to his face and neck. Raphael had a habit of talking to the feline, but Alister didn't often do so, though he petted her and showed her a certain amount of affection. It wasn't that he didn't like cats, necessarily (he liked them better than some other animals), but being around them often made him sad because it reminded him of a kitten Miruko had loved and then had lost. And then of course Alister had lost Miruko. . . .

He narrowed his eyes, sorting through the mail and finding that it mostly was simply bills. But upon coming to the last two envelopes, he stopped and frowned in confusion. One looked official and had the name of a law firm printed on it. Alister couldn't imagine what the contents of that one would be. The only possible thing that came to his mind was that maybe someone was suing one of them or all of them collectively, perhaps for some damage they'd caused when they had been with Doom, but it seemed unlikely. It was true that Professor Hawkins' laboratory had been blown up, but Alister and his friends hadn't been involved with that. That had been the work of some of Dartz's random lackeys, but not of his three favored "Musketeers of Doom." Though, Alister supposed, if someone just wanted to sue someone who had been with the organization, he and the others would be easy prey. Most of Dartz's other workers had scattered to various parts of the planet. Alister was quite certain that he, Raphael, and Valon shared a closeness that most of the other Doom warriors had not had.

The second envelope had an ominous look to it that Alister wasn't pleased to note. It was addressed simply to "Doom's Warriors" and had their address written from cutout newspaper letters. There was no return address. Alister had a feeling that it was being sent from an enemy. Generally, when newspaper letters were used, the sender was not a friend.

A yawn from behind him caused the gray-eyed man to turn around. Valon was wandering down the stairs, still looking half-asleep and not seeming to notice or care that his fluffy brown hair was going wildly in all directions, even more so than usual. Alister raised an eyebrow at him. "Sometimes," he remarked, "I wonder if you ever brush your hair."

Valon grunted. "Sure, I do," he retorted in his thick Australian accent, "but I'm too hungry to bother right now." He glanced to the mail in Alister's hand. "Anything interesting?"

"Possibly." Alister set the bills down, keeping the other two items in his hand as he turned to the kitchen.

Raphael, overhearing the two of them (and praying dearly that they wouldn't start arguing already!), came to the doorway. "Breakfast is almost ready," he announced. "What's the mail?"

"This is from a law firm," Alister reported, holding out the one, "and this is from Heaven knows who." He predicted what Valon's response would be before the boy said it.

"Oh well, it can wait," the brunette said, brushing past Alister to go into the kitchen. "Let's eat first and figure it out later." His blue eyes lit up greedily when he saw the pan of scrambled eggs Raphael had made.

The blonde shook his head in amusement. "Eating might give us more energy to deal with it, incase there's problems," he mused with a sigh, though his curiosity had been piqued. It seemed as though they never had a shortage of problems. Sometimes he wondered if it would ever even begin to stop.

Alister grunted. "And there probably will be," he replied, setting the mail down and coming into the kitchen to eat as well. Liu quickly scampered after him.

After breakfast, the trio retired to the living room to pore over their mysterious letters. They decided to try the one from the law firm first, and Raphael took it up and opened it, extracting a single sheet of paper. His cerulean eyes narrowed in confusion at the contents. "What the. . . ." Briefly he scanned over the page, his expression darkening with each line. What was this! How could this be?

The other two leaned over. "What's it say?" Valon demanded impatiently.

Raphael growled. "This directly involves you," he replied, "and it doesn't look good." He gripped the paper tightly, not wanting to think about the possible consequences that could come from this. They were all just settled peaceably! Why did something like this have to come along now? It didn't make sense and it just seemed so odd and crooked. . . .

"Well, what is it?" Valon cried. "Am I going to jail or something?" The thought sent a panic throughout his body. He couldn't go back to prison! He couldn't! The guards had been so cruel there, and had been rough with him, and when he had tried to defend himself, they had thrown him into solitary confinement. He couldn't let that happen again. He hated small places with a passion. He wouldn't go back!

"Nothing like that," Raphael said. He took in Alister's silent expression of confusion before finally beginning to read.

From the law firm of Morris, Morris, and Baer—

Dear Sir, we understand that you are familiar with a young boy called "Valon," and indeed, that you've been taking care of him for some time. (Hereupon Valon cried indignantly that they most certainly had not!) This Valon was reportedly an orphan and a former convict in an Australian prison.

Recently we were approached by two people claiming that they had lost a son named Valon and that they are desperately attempting to locate him again. They only knew that he had been a prisoner before he was set free and turned over into the care of a mysterious man known only as Dartz, who owned a company called Paradius. We promised to do what we could to find their son, whereupon they left us with a picture of him at about age four, when he was lost under strange circumstances. We have enclosed a copy of this photograph for you to look at.

In our research, we found that you and a man named Alister Amelda Mackenzie also worked for this Paradius company. Therefore, we propose that your charge Valon is actually the Valon that Mr. and Mrs. Howard Paltridge of Sydney Australia are looking for. If this is so, his birth record shows that his present age would be seventeen, making him still a minor and meaning that his parents could likely get custody of him if they so desired it.

Here, Raphael stopped reading, mainly because Valon had suddenly snatched the paper from his hands and was staring at it so intently that if he had possessed heat rays in his eyes, he most likely would have burned it to smouldering ashes.

"It's all a pack of lies!" he yelled indignantly. "And what's this about a 'charge'? I'm not your charge! I'm not anybody's charge!"

Alister pushed himself up a bit more on the couch. "No, I don't think you are either," he said calmly. Valon was too much of a free spirit to be anyone's charge; what was more, Alister and Raphael treated him as an equal and not as one so much younger than they. Alister had always known that Valon was probably in his late teens, but he had never actually stopped to consider the possibility that perhaps he wasn't of legal age yet and therefore "needed" a guardian. The thought seemed foreign to him now. It was so much to take in all at once. . . . And weren't Valon's parents supposed to be dead? Alister had always thought so, from things that Valon had said before.

Raphael reached into the envelope, finding the copy of the photo and pulling it out. He frowned darkly at the image of the sweet-looking, naive, brunette child sitting on the front porch of a run-down home, grinning mischievously at the camera. Indeed, the boy did look like Valon, so much so that Raphael growled, wondering if it was possible that he and Alister were going to lose their young friend. And he didn't trust "Mr. and Mrs. Howard Paltridge," nor their law firm. Something just seemed overly suspicious about the whole thing. If they had lost their son so long ago, why hadn't they tried to get him back then?

Valon glowered at the letter, slamming it down on the end table. "Look, my parents didn't even care about me," he muttered, getting up and heading for the stairs. "They were both no-good crooks." He clenched his fists tightly. His friends were shocked, having rarely seen him this angry.

"I thought you were an orphan," Alister finally voiced. "That's what you told us." That conversation had occurred a while back, when they had all been discussing their families. Alister and Raphael had mentioned that theirs were all dead, but that they had been loving and kind people when they had been alive. Valon had simply responded that he didn't have any parents and then had briefly mentioned of the way he had constantly been shuttled to foster home after foster home, with no one really showing him genuine kindness until Mother Mary had came along.

"Well, that's 'cause I might as well have been!" Valon snapped, turning back to face Alister and Raphael as painful remembrances from his past crowded into his mind. "My parents sold me. Yeah, that's right—they sold me on the black market when it got too tough for them to keep raising me." Flickers of angry, hurt tears shone in his eyes at the memories. And Alister wondered why he'd adopted his policy of only caring for himself. Well, no one else ever had cared, so someone had to. "They were greedy pigs and all they cared about was themselves, so after that I always told myself I was an orphan. It was true, after all—I didn't have any real parents." With that he stormed upstairs, slamming the door behind him and leaving Alister and Raphael both stunned. Raphael tried to call him back, but he was ignored.

The blonde shook his head slowly in disbelief. "I can't imagine such treachery," he murmured, setting the picture down on top of the letter. "Look at him. He was just a child—young, naive, innocent. . . . And his parents would throw their child away for money?" He had grown to hate the world after he had lost his family, but not then nor even now could he comprehend such abominations as parents selling their own offspring, whom they should love more than life itself. This world is going to Hell in a handbasket!

Alister's gray eyes flashed with rage. "What would they even want with him now, if they truly are his parents?" He picked up the photograph, gazing at the sweet-faced boy. Valon was a good person, a truly good person who had started hiding his pain with his carefree grin and sometimes obnoxious ways. Alister had only recently even begun to see that Valon actually was often sad and lonely. He imagined that was why the brunette had taken up an acquaintance with the woman Vivalene, when she had been pretending to be someone kind and caring.

"I don't know," Raphael growled, "but it can't be good." He looked over the letter again. "And it's possible that they aren't even his parents anyway, though I can't imagine who they'd be if they aren't." But he was furious. Whoever they were, he highly doubted their sincerity. He knew that he would do everything he could to keep them from ever getting Valon back. They had chosen to get rid of him in the past; now Valon had a real home with people he cared about and who cared about him. Raphael wasn't about to let a couple of cruel con artists take that away.

"You don't suppose that maybe this other letter has something to do with it, do you?" Alister picked up the second envelope, studying it thoughtfully. It could be some sort of warning from the parents, he supposed, informing them that they would get Valon back no matter what. He wouldn't be surprised.

"It might," Raphael said in irritation. "We should open it and find out." And then, he thought, he should go up and try to talk to Valon. It must be horrible for the boy, to have his past thrown in his face like this again, when he thought he was rid of it all and that he could put it behind him.

Carefully Alister took his pocket knife and slit the side open, then reached in and pulled out the single sheet of paper inside. When he read what was written on it (also in newspaper letters), however, he realized that this was not the same problem, but a much different one—though just as dangerous, or more so. He looked to the older man darkly. "Raphael. . . ." He held out the paper, and Raphael took it, his eyes widening as he read what was on it.

The great Leviathan will rise again, and the three of you will help to make it come to pass. We will finish what Dartz started.

—Doom Reborn