Duke groaned as he trudged into his room at nearly six in the morning. He hadn't even realized how much they had grown to depend on Beast… Until in the middle of that cluster that had been a mission, he raised his comlink up, and yelled for Beast to help him… And Beast wasn't there.

They had managed to put a stop to the transfer. Unfortunately it had resulted in a good ol' fashioned shootout at the middle of the intersection of Pine View Road and Elmwood Avenue. Arrests had been made, including the CFO that his witness had led them to… That seemed like such a long time ago. It hadn't escaped Duke's notice that the area was the same basic area that the secretary lived in and Duke had to wonder if that was by design. Had she been set up in the purchase of her home or was she somehow involved a bit more deeply than they thought?

The master mind behind the whole thing had gotten away. They had ended him… He couldn't go back to his career, his only choice was to skip town. Kyle was working with the police to make sure that didn't happen.

He would the kind to start up again, somewhere else. This was only a minor set-back. Kyle suspected that there was a much bigger player involved. The name Mobius wasn't far from any of their minds.

God, he missed Beast.

He flopped across his bed, absently kicking his shoes off and he didn't even bother to undress as he crawled into his bed and closed his eyes.

There was a ding. He opened one eye, staring accusingly at his computer across the room, on the desk. It was blinking at him. Steadily, telling him that he had an email.

It would have to wait until morning.

There was another ding. And another. He opened an eye again. It was still steadily telling him that he had an email.

He groaned and rolled over, away from it.

There was another ding. This time they didn't stop. His computer wasn't set up to do that… What the hell?

He sat up and glanced over to the computer as it gave out steady dings, the sound progressively getting louder. This time it wasn't just the email that was lit up. It was a text box. Bold text read across the screen, 'you want to read this'

He frowned as he went over to his computer. A virus?

No, their email had the best buffers there were. Trek installed them.

He frowned and silently sat down at the desk as the message changed. 'Good job. You really, really want to read this.'

Well that wasn't ominous at all… To his surprise though… His email opened on its own. The message was a link that said 'watch this.'

He didn't move. It didn't matter.

Something else was controlling his computer now. It was a video and Duke's eyes widened as he quickly leaned and grabbed the mouse as he switched it to full screen. It was Beast… He was in a lab, strapped down to the floor by straps that went across his roof, bed and it seemed like tires… His hood was open and wires poured out. Technicians were all around the vehicle and slowly Duke realized that this video looked as if it came from a security camera.

"Alright, it's going into another scenario. Make sure that you keep up the tactile sensation. It doesn't like that very much." A voice said on the video.

"I've got it." Came the response and Duke lost track of the chatter.

It became background noise as he stared at Beast. The way his tires twitched. The way his frame jumped. The truck was in obvious distress.

Nothing could have prepared him for what came next though. Even the techs jumped at it. For the first time in their partnership… Duke heard his partner scream. Even when he had been brought down by Kro, the truck had been silent as he was flipping through the air, but for a sharp, pained curse and a sound of surprise.

He had never heard that animalistic, agonized sound come out of his partner. It carried on until there was static and for a moment he thought it had blown out his speakers… Then he realized he could still hear the techs, yelling at each other. The static was coming from Beast.

"Damn, it blew out it's voice modulator." A tech growled out, causing another to give out a chuckle.

"Well, at least it'll be quiet. No sense in replacing it until we're done here. Keep going."

The video stopped on that note and Duke just stared at it. For a long moment, he just stared.

Eventually, he became aware of an insistent knocking. "Duke? Duke are you alright?" The voice was female. Erica. Of course it was, they shared a wall. She would have heard the scream. Damn…

"Duke? Open the door please." This voice was male. Kyle. Either Erica had woken him up or it had traveled all the way to his room.

In a fog, he walked over to the door and hit the button that would cause it to slide open. Not just Erica and Kyle. Trek and Jenny were hurrying down the hall. Damn, how far had that sound gone?

"Duke, what happened, are you alright?" Erica questioned, her eyes wide with worry as she held the cotton robe she had thrown on over her t-shirt and shorts she had been wearing to bed, around her.

"Are you alright?" Kyle repeated, laying a hand on Erica's shoulder to calm her down. "We heard a scream, what the hell happened?"

Duke found he really didn't have the words at the moment. He just gestured to his computer with one hand, the video still up on the screen. "Watch that" He muttered, silently moving away from the door and further into the room. He was awake now. Wide awake.

Trek was the first one to shake himself into some kind of action, silently crossing the room and leaning over the computer to hit play.

As the video played again, Duke found he couldn't watch it. He silently walked into the bathroom to splash some water on his face. Which proved to be quite the task as his hands were shaking so hard, he could barely get ahold of the water faucet.

He heard a soft gasp from one of the girls. He heard the techs talking about whatever they were doing to Beast. This time some more phrases jumped out, now that he wasn't so focused on the fear that was obviously coming off of the truck.

Something about scenarios and forcing the truck to choose in the way they wanted. Choose what?

He didn't know and he didn't have time to think about it. Because when he heard that scream a second time, he had to rush a bit. Because his last meal came up to greet him, the dark skinned man kneeling on the bathroom floor, his head over the toilet as he retched. God that scream was horrible. No wonder it had brought his team running.

He was still dry heaving when he felt a cool cloth press against his face.

He reached up to grab it, hand briefly closing around Jenny's hand. He blinked and sat up a bit, abruptly finding a glass of water waiting for him on the other side as Erica knelt down beside him. Trek was still in the bedroom, doing something with the video. Or rather the email. Trying to figure out where it had come from.

"Breath, Duke." Jenny encouraged, as he took the rag from her. "Drink some water" She then went on, as Erica held up the glass she had gotten for the man. Duke took it, gratefully, rinsing the fowl taste out of his mouth before spitting it out and taking a real drink of water.

"Kyle's on the phone with Knight Industries." Erica reassured, as the two women slowly helped him to his feet. "Beast is coming home today. Whoever the hell we have to go through to get him, he's coming home today."

Duke managed a nod, the man drinking a bit more water before he spoke. "I shouldn't have let him go. I should have fought more. He was afraid of what was gonna happen. I knew it, but he's always been so tough I figured he would get over it and would be back in a couple of weeks." Duke managed to get out.

"None of us thought it would be anything like this." Jenny assured him, glancing over to Erica then. "Let's go down to the garage. Kyle will be redirecting us, I'm sure and the local police can handle the tech thefts. We'll have to track the bastard down later anyway. We can do that, once we have all five vehicles again."

Erica gave a nod, then paused. "Lemme go change first. I don't need the garage techs seeing me in my care bear, sleep shirt. They would never take me seriously again."

Jenny smiled and nodded, turning to Trek then who was sitting at Duke's desk, his full attention on the computer screen. "Anything?"

"Whoever sent this covered their tracks well. Maybe an employee there? I'm looking through the video to see if I can tell where they are. We have no idea of knowing which facility they took Beast to, if they don't cooperate with Kyle and really they have no reason to do that." Trek explained, never really turning around. He was in his zone. Best to leave him to it.

"Duke, can I take your computer? I think I'll have better luck with it by connecting it up in the comm room." Trek called over his shoulder, earning a nod from Duke.

"Whatever you need to do."

Five minutes later, Trek was working away in the comm room and Duke, Jenny and Erica were making their way down from the catwalk, into the garage. It was still early in the morning. They had worked all through the night and the vehicles had shut down to recharge while their partners slept. As early as it was, mechanics and techs hadn't quite made it down to the garage yet which meant that as they came down, they wound up with a few tired questions from the vehicles.

"What's going on? You all just went to bed, why are you back already?" Dante asked with all the concern of a mother hen, and before any of them could really answer, Kyle was already coming down the catwalk with a portable phone tucked next to his ear, yelling at whoever was on the other end.

"I don't give a damn, what time it is and I don't give a damn how busy you are. I want to talk to our team's God Damn truck, now!" Kyle barked into the phone and the few people who were gathered, wisely stayed the hell out of the way. "Yes! I want you to put a truck on the phone. I don't care how you do it, hold it up to him, I want to hear his voice."

Jenny opened her mouth to speak, but quickly shut it again as Kyle frowned. "Don't you dare put me on-" He deflated a little, the next word a muttered, "hold…" as whoever was on the other end, obviously did just that.

He shook his head, glancing to the others, a pained smile given. "I'm getting the runaround. We're about to take off now and head for California. All of their facilities are there so one of them is bound to be the right one. If we have to search every damn one, we will."

"What is happening?" Dante asked firmly, now sounding far more awake.

"Is something wrong with Beast?" Kat asked, picking up on that line of thought.

"We'll get you all caught up. We're all going to meet in the communication room in ten minutes and get a game plan. Then we're going to-"

Kyle abruptly cut off again as he turned his attention back to the phone frown crossing his expression. "Hello?" The look he gained was absolutely disgusted as he gave a soft huff and turned to head back up the catwalk stairs. "Are you a black, Ford F-150? Then no, you can't help me. I was very clear, I want to talk to Attack Beast. You cut all of our communications to him, I want to talk to him."

As Kyle headed out, the vehicles were left with more questions…

Duke rubbed at his temple with one hand, forcing a smile as he glanced at the four remaining vehicles. "Beast is coming home. We're just going to have to argue the point a bit. We'll clear everything up in the debriefing."

xXx

Beast gave a start, the blackness abruptly fading once again. This time though, he was driving. Fast. What the hell?

Erica was at the wheel. Not Duke… Realization dawned on him as his attention went to a prison bus they were coming up along the side of. Fast…

"I can target a small missile to take out the front tires. That should stop it." He said, unable to stop the words from pouring out.

"My poor Jenny…" He went on and truly… He felt that. Jenny had always been kind to him. She was beautiful and strong, everything a guy could ever want in a girl. If that guy was human. It was the first emotion he really felt, the first time he saw her. He loved that woman. Even if she would never look at him that way.

"Erica, there's a pine air freshener in my glovebox. Would you hang it somewhere out of sight? I'de like to smell minty fresh for Jenny's ride home." He requested and Erica gave a roll of her eyes.

"How about we just concentrate on the business at hand, Beast?" Erica pointed out, giving his monitor a rather pointed look. Like a fed up sibling. Beast couldn't help the warm, fondness for her too. It was that same fondness he felt when it concerned any of the team.

They were a family of sorts. Erica and Trek were like younger siblings. He needed to watch out for them. He loved Jenny, with everything he had. Duke… Duke was his brother. No question about that. Kyle was like the parent over all of them.

"Alright, lock on target" Erica instructed and Beast brought up his missile systems, locking on the front wheel of the bus.

"Alright, I'm up!" He announced and Erica nodded.

"Now!" She instructed and he let the missile fly. Everything happened fast. He had miscalculated. Or maybe it was just bad luck but something that was just supposed to take out a tire, abruptly flipped the whole damn bus and sent it sliding down the road in a ball of flames.

"Jenny!" Beast blurted out as Erica only stared for a moment.

"Damn, that wasn't supposed to happen." She muttered, as Beast slid to a stop and let her out.

They didn't have a reprieve for long. A truck, speeding along behind the bus, couldn't stop in time… It hit the bus sideways, ripping it in half, causing Erica to give out a scream. Beast quickly scanned the bus, a sigh of relief given.

"It's a miracle but no one on the bus is seriously hurt."

Erica nodded as she took off into the bus. She managed to unhook Jenny but Jenny refused to leave the other women to die… Of course she wouldn't. She would never…

"Ladies, we're running out of time!" Beast called, able to hear the sirens of oncoming patrol cars. He needed to buy them some time. He needed to draw the police cars off…

He didn't need to do anything apparently… An explosion ripped through the bus. The leaking fuel caught. "Jenny! Erica!" Beast blurted out, but it was too late. He could hear their screams. He tried to suppress the fire, but it was burning too hot and too fast.

"Jenny…" Beast whispered softly as those screams died down. "Erica…" He had driven into the bus, trying to find them. Flames melted his tires and he could feel the inferno. The pain was agonizing and sent every sensor on the neuro net on fire… A few inches away from him, he could scan Erica. What was left of her. Jenny was on the other side of Erica, her beautiful face burned away to nothing.

He became aware of fire suppressant from an emergency vehicle spraying him. He also became aware of voices. Familiar voices. As the fire died down, Duke was coming closer, a horrified expression crossing his features.

"Beast… What the hell have you done?" He sounded horrified. He sounded afraid. Beast didn't blame him. He should be afraid.

Slowly, the sunlight went away. Slowly he was left in only blackness. He couldn't scream anymore. He had burned out his voice modulator. He was left with only silence, though his entire frame shook with the intensity of his grief.

He was left alone again. His only companion a wild yellow scanner… And a steadily blinking light.