Note: In case any of you recognize it, after a fashion, one of the scenes here owes a lot to March Upcountry by David Weber. Read that book, it's GREAT. Now, on with the show!

"I've got the classic good news/bad news thing going." Fefnir said to Ciel and Cerveau, amused. Harpuia cocked his head to one side, interested. He, Leviathan and Zero had returned before Fefnir, and informed everyone of what they had found. "Which would you like to hear first?"

"After Zero's report, I think we want the good news," Ciel said sourly. She had been utterly furious with Shii's actions, and even more infuriated with the fact that the Resistance was responsible for this plague, even if only by accident. "What is it?"

"Your way station at Tau Alpha is dandy. The guy in charge was so pissed off, it was hilarious… the soldier manning the sat link had been sleeping on duty and missed Cerveau's calls." The expressions on the Resistance member's faces were priceless, at that revelation. Harpuia had to hold back a chuckle, and Leviathan didn't bother, giggling. "I thought he was going to kick the guy right out of the tree. Cute arboreal base, by the way."

"Uh, thanks. And the bad news?" Fefnir's expression sobered.

"The other one is toast. Nothing but bloodstains." There were winces all around, but no particular surprise. They had been expecting it.

"Well… we have some good news on our work with the gel," Ciel said, rubbing her forehead. "Our tests with certain sonic frequencies are promising… it really doesn't seem to like it. We're trying to isolate and intensify just the right one, now, and we're hoping that might be able to kill it." Harpuia nodded thoughtfully. "And maybe the computer techs can get something out of those old computers. If this plague was engineered in the past, a cure might have been, too."

"Yes," Leviathan agreed. "Oh, and Sage, could you ask Plastic Solutions to send us their best polymer specialist? We want to see if we can whip up with some kind of spray-on coating that will help defend the troops."

"I'll look into it. Keep up the good work, Fairy, Ciel." Leviathan pinked with pleasure as the mild compliment, and smiled. Ciel's smile was more strained, but she was still dealing with the shock of the revelations about Shii's actions. Harpuia glanced at Cerveau. "Do you want a teleport back to the Resistance base?"

"Only nearby… we have an anti-teleport field." Cerveau said easily, and Harpuia frowned to himself. He had known that, but had briefly forgotten. "But yes, I should get back before they start to worry." He hugged Ciel again. "Good luck, Ciel."

"Good luck, Cerveau."

Later that day, in Fefnir's room, quiet music was playing. Along with dim lights, and a holo display of shifting, soothing colors, it gave his quarters a beautiful, peaceful ambience.

All of the Guardians had extremely large quarters. Copy X hadn't planned it that way, and had been a bit annoyed with the circumstances that had led to it. While he had been concentrating on the defensive placements, he had used army contractors to build the more common areas of the HQ. Those contractors had been very familiar with the hierarchy of military organizations, and with the listing of numbers and ranks X had given them, had built the quarters according to their own notions of propriety. A Guardian could have spartan quarters if he wished: but they would be larger than anyone else's. And Master X's were the largest of them all. That was simply a perk of high rank, in the minds of the builders.

X hadn't been particularly pleased, when he'd found out. He had envisioned simple, common sized quarters for everyone. By the time he found out otherwise, though, changing the plans would have been far more trouble than it was worth. So the Guardians had quarters big enough for a small party. Fefnir was taking advantage of that fact, although not quite intentionally. By some bizarre silent agreement, Leviathan and Harpuia had joined him in his quarters. Fefnir was sitting on the loveseat, slowly giving Hook a backrub, as she sat on the ground in front of him. Her head drooped down as she sighed, relaxing into the attention he was giving her. Leviathan was sprawled on the nearby sofa, wearing a pink sweat suit and staring at the holo, entranced by the colors. Harpuia was on the last available seat, a very comfortable ottoman. He had his chin in one hand, and was watching Fefnir and Hook, his mind a million miles away.

There was something about that log Zero read… something, but what? Harpuia watched, not really seeing, as Fefnir and Hook switched places and she began giving him a slow, sensual massage. Something important, something that could explain something… but what? The feeling that he was missing something knawed at him.

"I'm missing something," he finally said with a sigh. Leviathan turned her head slightly, fixing him with drowsy eyes.

"Why don't you sleep on it, Harpuia? Maybe you'll dream." Harpuia considered that. If he went to sleep soon, he would have enough time… regular sleep took much longer than a session in the recharger, but then he would dream. It was a long shot, but maybe the free associations of dreaming would make things clearer.

"Maybe you should both sleep on it," Fefnir suggested, and they both turned their heads to see that Hook was now sitting beside him, and they were cuddling quite extensively.

"Would that be a hint to get out of your room?" Leviathan said with a small smile.

"I'm not even sure how you got here in the first place, so yeah, I'd say it is," Fefnir replied with a grin, planting a kiss on Hook's throat. Harpuia smiled, then pushed himself to his feet. Leviathan followed his lead with a sigh.

"I envy you. Have fun." Leviathan followed Harpuia out of the room, feeling tired and a little dejected. She wondered if she would ever have someone to care about as much as Fefnir did for Hook, and she did for him. An image of Zero filled her mind, his lovely blond hair flowing in the breeze…

Completely unaware of Leviathan's fantasies, Harpuia entered his own quarters and bid her a good night. Leviathan nodded absently, walking down to her own rooms. Instead of reading a book or baking before having a quick session in the recharger, Harpuia elected to use his bed.

Dreams might not hold the answer, but they should at least be interesting.

It was not a dream. Harpuia knew that immediately. It was a nightmare.

He almost cursed himself for not realizing this would happen, then stopped. Perhaps a nightmare was what he needed to see the truth of the matter. Or perhaps not. Perhaps all he would see was the reflections of his fears.

The city was a burnt out husk. He could just barely recognize it as Laguna, the beautiful little town he had visited in his search for Leo's past. The bakery was gone, now. The little café's umbrellas had been torn to pieces, the white fabric stained with congealed blood.

Unlike the Rebellion base, there were bodies everywhere, human and Reploid both. Harpuia tried to avoid stepping on them, but it was impossible… there was simply too many. He winced at the faint squelching sounds his feet made, as he accidentally trod on a human corpse.

Suddenly, one of the bodies caught his eye. The armor was almost unrecognizable, torn and coated with blood, but the spidery purple hair…

"Muffy?" He knelt down beside her, gently turning over the limp, frail body. Her face was blank, her green eyes cold and empty. A thin line of drool trailed down one cheek. "Muffy…" Harpuia closed his eyes in grief. He had lost so many members of his unit, over the years, that he usually felt only a brief pain. But Muffy… Muffy was special, with her endearingly deranged habits. It was hard to imagine the unit without her constant monologues to keep them company.

There was a tug on his arm, and Harpuia's eyes shot open. He stared into Muffy's face, the eyes that were now focused on him… and she smiled.

"Harpuia." She breathed, yanking him closer, as if for a kiss. And the line of drool on her cheek… moved.

Harpuia shoved her away with an urgency that approached panic. She opened her mouth, and more gel slid out, spilling down the front of her armor. She reached for him again-

"No!" His blade slashed through the air with a wicked hum, neatly removing her head. The body spasmed and gel splattered away, but then it collapsed. They had already established that the gel needed a mostly intact neural system, although injuries that would kill a normal Reploid did not affect it. Removing the head, or striking for the main body, did.

Harpuia stood up shakily, staring at the corpse… then glanced around him. He was horrified to see the gel and weed growths were infesting the dead bodies before his very eyes. Soon, they would be moving, and there were far too many for him to avoid without becoming infected. There was only one thing to do… he activated his jets and began to fly away.

His path was random, twisting, but it somehow brought him to the police station. He paused over the shattered building, sickened by the destruction. Below him, he could see Officer McIntyre, looking pale, surprised and very dead. Officer Bebe was there as well, but he at least would not be rising from the dead. The memorial was broken, and a chunk of it had been thrown through his chest. Gleaming shards of the titanium composite were scattered everywhere. He hesitated, then landed, looking around for anyone alive.

"Harpuia!" He turned at the familiar voice, and felt a surge of relief as he saw Leviathan running toward him. She seemed unhurt, uninfected. But she stopped before she reached him, a strange expression on her face and her eyes on his… feet?

"You stepped in it," she said, her voice without inflection. Filled with a sudden dread, Harpuia followed her gaze to his feet… and saw the tendrils of gel that were already creeping up his jade and white armor. As if his gaze had encouraged them, they suddenly extended farther, sliding up his stomach and over his sides. A surge of weakness sent him to his knees, his eyesight hazing out around the edges. He looked up as Leviathan stepped closer, raising her spear.

"I'm sorry, Sage," she said compassionately, and Harpuia's eyes widened as he realized what she meant to do.

"Fairy, no!"

"-but this is for the best."

Harpuia woke with a violent start just as the blow fell, and glanced around wildly for a moment. Then he relaxed as he registered where he was, and reached up to rub his forehead. It was early morning, but a quick check of his systems showed he had replenished almost all his energy with the brief sleep. It would be enough, and he needed to think.

The key had been in the nightmare as well, he sensed. But it was still maddeningly elusive. What could it…

Harpuia's eyes widened as a sudden bolt of clarity came to him, and he immediately swung out of bed, calling his armor to himself. If he was correct, he knew the answer to a question that had occurred to them before… and perhaps a starting point to finding the real nest of these creatures, if he was lucky.

He walked quickly through the corridors of HQ, ignoring his surroundings. Soon, he was at the telepad. The operator looked up at him curiously. "The warehouse district, near the recycling facilities." She punched the coordinates in obediently, despite her obvious interest in what he could want there.

The warehouse district was perhaps the dullest part of Neo Arcadia. The presence of the recycling facilities added grim to dull, even though they were almost entirely shut down now. The few workers about took one look at Harpuia's grim expression, and avoided him. Not precisely fearfully, but in the manner of people looking to avoid a possible storm front.

Harpuia reached one particular warehouse, and examined the locks on the door. There were several of them, governed by a number pad. There was no way to get in without the code, unless you were willing to remove the door. But as it happened, Harpuia didn't object to removing the door. A few slashes and a quick pull later, he stepped into the warehouse.

He knew what he should have found here. The bodies of the low-level Reploids that had been ordered retired by Master X, to lower the strain on the power grid. A sight both grim and pathetic, they should have been stacked on top of each other, like industrial garbage. Harpuia had only been here once before, and had been repelled by the indignity of it.

Now, though, there was nothing but the dark smears of Reploid blood on the floor. And a very large hole that led into the sewers. Harpuia stared at it for a long moment, dark thoughts running through his mind.

This plague is like a judgment upon us, he thought, closing his eyes in pain. It's using our own dead… no, the ones we killed against us. The irony in that was dreadful. He almost wished Master X had still been alive to see it… and wondered if he would grasp the irony. Probably not. Harpuia took a deep breath, and opened his eyes, looking into the hole. He was tempted to explore it immediately, but that would be a very foolish thing to do. If the gel creatures still lurked there, he would probably be quickly infected. The best strategies for avoiding the goo needed maneuvering room, and the tunnel would deny him that. In fact, it would probably be certain death for anyone who dared try it, although they might have to anyway.

Turning away from the hole, Harpuia teleported back to HQ. He would have to let the others know right away.

Not very long later, down in the laboratory…

"…And that's the situation." Harpuia finished explaining his deductions to a rapt audience. Looking back on it, he realized what had triggered his suspicions… the words of the log had referred to the nanite gel animating a dead Met. Until then, they had only seen how it affected the living, but how could enough living Reploids have disappeared to make up the army of creatures that was assaulting them? The revelation that it affected the dead, if the body was sufficiently intact, had given him the clue he needed. "But until we have a cure, I think sending teams down through dark sewer tunnels after these things would be almost suicide." Fefnir winced, and nodded. Of all of them, his unit had experienced the closest combat against the monsters.

"You got that right. The easiest way to deal with these things is keeping them at a distance." Fefnir rubbed his head, scowling. "If these things are in the sewer system, though… shit, this is bad. And there were a whole lot of bodies in that warehouse." Harpuia winced, wishing Fefnir hadn't mentioned that.

"We have some good news, though." Leviathan said almost cheerfully. "Those crazy Rebellion scientists in the Arctic weren't too good with computers. We're recovering the files as we speak." Ciel looked slightly embarrassed, but didn't comment. The information about where the alien plague had come from had been released to the public in a slightly edited fashion. It had been presented as an ancient bio-weapon some Reploid explorers had unwittingly released, rather than negligence on the part of the Resistance. Governor Eggleston was hoping to parley the truce into something more lasting, and that would be difficult if everyone was furious with the Resistance for being idiots. "If there's a cure in there, we'll find it."

"Excellent. And the work on the sonic frequencies?" Leviathan and Ciel exchanged a glance, then Ciel shook her head.

"It's not going so well. So far, if we jack the frequency high enough to cure the Reploid, it damages the Reploid in question severely."

"Repairable?" Fefnir asked, and Ciel held her hand up, moving it in a 'maybe' gesture.

"Sometimes yes, sometimes no. It's better than nothing, but…" She shrugged helplessly. "The polymer coating is actually going better. We've come up with something strong enough that it actually might do some good. It should be ready for tomorrow. How's the purely military situation coming?"

"Not too well," Harpuia admitted. "We've beaten off several attacks, but the creatures are becoming bolder. But the greatest danger is that they might be lairing beneath Neo Arcadia itself." Everyone winced at that thought. "Ciel, Leviathan, as soon as you have a cure, please let me know." They nodded, and the meeting broke up as everyone went to their separate tasks. Harpuia rubbed his forehead. With the new threat, he had put his own unit on a state of high alert. But that could only be maintained so long, before alertness dulled.

He only hoped Ciel would find a cure soon.

Fefnir leaned against one of the fortifications, looking down. It was the dead of night, and all of the civilians had been moved within the military base of Port Town. They didn't actually know that an attack was imminent, but several groups of the creatures had been spotted in this area. Nighttime evacuations were a bitch, so they'd told everyone to take a blanket and moved them to the lower levels of the base, which had been designed with this kind of situation in mind. It had been easier to do than Fefnir had feared. Most of the human and Reploid civilians seemed relieved to be behind secure walls, even if it meant they had to give up the comforts of home.

Wolverine, this is Ferret One. Fefnir tilted his head, listening in, although he was not the one being addressed. That was the 4th Battalion's communication net. Not that it particularly mattered… the communication nets had been somewhat combined, with a great deal of practice. We have movement.

Fefnir, this is Sahara, came a soft, sweet female voice. We have movement too. Fefnir softly growled a curse, as he looked at the tactical plot. Ferret One and Sahara were on opposite sides of the base, using rooftop positions. The enemy was coming from more than one direction.

More confirmations came in, and the plot began to gleam with hostile icons as sensors focused on the bizarre readings of the semi-Reploids.

"Plan Alpha, everyone." Fefnir ordered, his voice oddly echoed by the human commander of the 4th. There was a chorus of confirmations, and the scouts began to fall back. There was no point in them remaining in the vulnerable outer positions, now that the enemies presence had been confirmed. Then Fefnir arched an eyebrow as someone began transmitting on the unit frequency… the one that was still reserved for his Jin'en unit.

Guys, I just want you to know that I have been honored and privileged to work with you all, Gumbo said, managing to sound halfway serious. There were several aw's in answer, and a few raspberries. So let's go and make Fefnir proud! Remember… blast anything that moves! Laughter, now. Fefnir shook his head, but chuckled, letting Gumbo go on. It was bad communication discipline, but this wasn't the Rekku and he wasn't Harpuia. And remember, we're the best, of the best of the best! Well, actually, maybe not that first best, that would be the Rekku… and the second would be the Meikai… and actually, I think Phantom's guys were above us but we're still darn good…! More laughter, this time, and a few whistles. And just in case I die, there's one thing I just have to say!

What's that? Hook's voice. Tell us, tell us! Fefnir recognized that as Orzo, not exactly a newbie but not very long in his unit, either.

In case I die, I just gotta say… Gumbo said with a choked back sob. Fefnir, I LOVE YOU MAN!

"Oh you BETTER die!" Fefnir snarled into the communicator as his whole unit broke into hysterical laughter. Then the firing started, just as the creatures came into view.

"WHAT is going on with the Jin'en?" One of the human officers asked his own unit commander, who looked over with a frown. There was nothing actually wrong with what the Reploid unit was doing. The firing pattern was wild, if effective, and they were blasting away… but then, it wasn't as if they needed reloads. Still, the nearest ones he could see seemed to be… laughing? Curious, the unit commander tuned into the private Jin'en frequency just in time to hear…

No, man, I really LOVE you! Gumbo protested, and there was more hysterical laughter. Fefnir's voice came clearly over the com, growling threats about what he would do when he got his heterosexual hands on Gumbo's homosexual throat. The human unit commander shook his head, then switched back to his own unit frequency.

"They're just playing around. Keep up your own fire." He wouldn't have allowed that kind of thing in his own unit… but if it worked for them, it worked for them. So the Jin'en went into battle with laughter on their lips.

Morale could not have possibly been higher.