"Rome, where civilization started, fell, rebuilt, fell and started again." Issak commented dryly as he held the car door for Cain.

A tall slim man in a light white linen long sleeved shirt and tan linen pants stood up out of the car, his blond medium length hair ruffled in the light breeze and pale blue eyes took in the ancient architecture surrounding them. In true tourist fashion he had in his hand a few brochures.

"It is a change of scenery for sure. This stuff is older than me for once."

"One of the few places that can say that is for sure, Sir." Issak tapped the car to send the driver away. Where Cain was dressed casually, Issak held to a more practical well tailored sport coat of dark grey and black pants. His long hair was gone, replaced with a short serviceable haircut, and gold rimmed glasses framed his dark eyes.

"Now! How exciting is this, finally getting to see where he lived."

"Quite."

"We won't get far talking about it, come on Issak." Cain reached in his pocket and pulled out a set of aviator sunglasses as he was finding the brilliance of the sun a tad tiring already. "I may last longer being out of this Mediterranean sunshine."

"Of course, the entrance to the tourist area is over here. We should be able to leave the tour group and carry on shortly."

"Good afternoon everyone, and welcome to the Ancient catacombs of the Necropolis of St. Peter." A pretty brunette girl dressed in a nuns habit that perhaps just out of seminary, greeted them when they entered the building. "The tour will be starting in a few minutes if you would be so kind to register at the desk."

Cain smiled warmly at the girl, nodding a thanks and walked past her into the foyer. Issak went to the desk to get the tickets and then lead his leader to the caves.

"Do try to not be quite so memorable, Sir."

"Oh, right."

They looked up as the tour guide was trying to get everyone to group up, and begin the tour.

"Professor! You're back early! Why wasn't I notified?" Sister Kate exclaimed as her sensors picked up on his familiar code being entered in the security system. Her hologram appeared beside him in the hallway.

"The call of my students drew me away from my work?" He grinned as he pushed open the door to his quarters. Walls lined with books surrounded him, the light smell of his pipe smoke gone stale assaulted his nose as he walked in.

"Hardly, classes are a week and some away and nothing new has been brought forth for you to do."

"Such a warm welcome Sister Kate." He tsked and set down his bag.

"I'm sorry Professor, just there's barely anyone around right now, Caterina and Tres are still in Milan. Leon and the rest are scattered around right now… as they don't know about Father Nightroads real condition."

"It's fine, Sister Kate. I had an idea that could help Abel, but I need to do some research first."

"Do you want me to notify Caterina of your return?"

"Not yet. I may be leaving right away if things go well."

She nodded and bowed respectfully. "Welcome back, William."

"That's my girl." He winked at her as she flickered and disappeared.

He looked at the clock, nearly 5pm already. "No rest for the wicked they say." He grabbed his cane and walked back out, heading for the old storage areas of the college. If memory served him right, there was still an entrance to the labyrinth below the archaic buildings of Rome. He stopped and turned back to his room, behind his desk was his utility belt of flashlights, tools, vials and some of his handier inventions. "Can never be too careful.." Oh and another pouch of pipe tobacco didn't hurt either.

His memory didn't fail him, he stood before a very old oak door with heavy metal hinges that dated back well before Armageddon happened… but then most of what he was walking past was very old, the archives saved by the devout, recording history as it happened. A good shove and the door swung grudgingly aside. Click, on went the flashlight, he pushed the door nearly closed to make it not obvious he had opened it, where he was going was technically prohibited but that just added to the allure really.

On his hip he touched a small metal object, activating his tracking device to record his path, before heading down the dark spiraling staircase into the catacombs.

Only once he had gotten Abel to talk about being in the catacombs, and it had taken an astounding amount of alcohol. Lilith's pod was set in a small alcove, to the north and east of the archive entrance, but it was a good jaunt from what he gathered. He should have gotten Tres to give him the coordinates before sending him off with Caterina but hindsight being what it is… William sighed as he came to a fork in the tunnels. Pulling out his pipe for a few minutes he pondered which way to turn. Looking over the walls in their yellowed illumination he noticed the right tunnel had marks along the wall, where something had scraped the wall with a corner.

"Ah… here we go."

Meanwhile, in another area of the catacombs the tour group had just finished walking through the first level that was open to tourists.

"Come along everyone, our next level has exhibits of things from the very first world wars, several centuries before Armageddon happened. The only reason we have these marvellous relics is due to the stalwart efforts of the Vatican to preserve our history as we must learn from our mistakes to ensure the future lives on." The tour guides voice drifted away as she lead them further away.

"That was pretty boring, really. Which way do we need to go?" Cain looked around at the several roped off tunnels.

"My research gave me approximate coordinates and I believe it's this way." Issak pointed at middle tunnel that dipped down a winding staircase to another level. He pulled out a small electric lantern, it's cold white light cascading along the ancient stone walls.

"How long will this take?"

"I believe we have a few kilometres to walk, are you still feeling up to it?" He cast an inquiring gaze back at Cain. "I can continue on without you if need be."

"No, no, I'm coming with you to see this. But perhaps when we get done we can go grab some supper."

nodded before moving further down the staircase.

William leaned on his cane as he stopped for a short rest. The hallway he followed looked to open up larger chamber that had several rooms jutting off. It seemed like the type of area to put a lifepod in, and where Abel would have wandered. He moved his light around, studying the main room. A few benches that had seen better days were set along the walls, an old circuit ran along the ceiling, crudely tacked into the stone a long time ago. He followed it to a switch, bracing himself to be electrocuted, flicked it.

"How about that." He muttered as the rooms filled with light from the decrepit light bulbs.

There were four doorways that lead from the main room. William took the first one on his left.

A modest sized room, a long cot and a nightstand was all that occupied it, the layers of dust suggesting it hadn't been used in a long time. He moved to the next room, a small table and single chair sat off to the side, the wood looking well worn on the side where someone would have sat, elbows on the table, chest rubbing against the edge. William could easily picture Abel sitting there, head resting in his hands as he does when bothered. He shook himself at the solemn sadness the whole place seem to be saturated in. Abel alluded to the fact he had been down here a long time but never gave anything concrete, just that it was over a hundred was the closest he ever came to it.

The third room had signs of disturbance. A large curtain was pulled back and a space life pod was exposed. William took a long breath, exhaling with a quiet prayer in reverence to Abel's long lost friend. He set his cane against the wall and moved closer, bringing up his light.

Smooth glass in a bubble shape encased the top, a white metal the lower half and a very soft, faint hum could be heard as he got closer.

Within the pod held in stasis was a beautiful, exotic looking woman. Dark creamy skin that still seemed to hold a speck of vitality given the color, lush red hair surrounded her head and shoulders in abundance. It truly looked as if she was sleeping, that he had just peered in on her rest.

"I can see why Abel mourned you so long… you don't seem passed." He looked around on the pod for where the capsule Tres had taken out had been stored.

He hummed a little as he searched around, careful to not touch anything that would upset the delicate system that was keeping her so well preserved.

"Ahh ha!" He found on the bottom corner a small cap that when he tapped it was hollow sounding. He knelt down checking around the area, perhaps there was a second vial? Or anything really that had her blood in it.

"I don't really want to open your casket my dear." He stood up and leaned against the wall, thinking.

Abel had spoken during nightmares early on in his time with AX, when they had him staying with William while Caterina was in the dormitory. In one painful remembrance he had repeated in a broken voice about her head hanging in his hands. Williams warm brown eyes flickered up and scanned the head and neck of the body. Did it regenerate? It didn't look like any makeup or additional tissues were used to hide a wound as ugly as a beheading would be…

"Perhaps my dear lady I will need in that pod of yours after all…my sincere apologies."

"Looks like Abel forgot to turn off his lights when he left." Cain commented as he could just seen the faint glow ahead of them.

"What? There shouldn't be anyone down here… that's very odd." Issak pushed past Cain, and stopped to look at the faint footprints in the dust.

It looked like one person, a male by the shoe style and they had a stick or cane with them. Wordsworth was a friend of 02 and perhaps had similar thinking of using the dead one to augment the living crusnik. Luck was smiling down on them today it seemed.

"This could be a good thing… as much as I like waiting." He mused aloud.

"Oh?"

"Indeed, I believe we have a mutual acquaintance ahead who may have been thinking along the same lines as us."

"How exciting! Well let's not dawdle then, come on!" Cain danced around Issak and walked down the hallway.

Issak's black eyes glowered a moment at the flippant blond mans back.

"...come on!" Echoed down to the area William was in. He quickly moved over and grabbed his cane and froze to listen again for noise. The thump of footsteps could be heard now, two sets.

"Dammit!" William cursed under his breath and moved into the fourth room that was not directly visible from the entrance. Several boxes and larger crates were here, filled with books and maps of unknown age. He ducked down behind a larger crate, turning off his light and hoping to be as unseen as possible given the spareness of the place.

"Oh wow look at this place! No windows or anything, no wonder he's so grumpy." Cain stood in the middle surveying the main room.

"Indeed… go ahead and look around, I know what I'm looking for." Issak slowly walked into the room, he shifted back into his normal appearance, long black hair, slim black formal suit replaced the butler like look of earlier. White gloves moved about in the air until symbols appeared on the backs of them, glowing an eerie purple.

Williams blood froze as he recognized the voice, his once companion who framed him and resulted in the horrific death of dear, sweet Annabel, Williams fiancé. The chances that they were down here were astronomical… but the reason was easy enough to figure out after Abel's revival. Lilith's remains were in jeopardy.

"Well, well my old friend… how interesting to find you here of all places." He called out, cold black eyes scanning for movement. "There is no way out of here, Wordsworth. Given your age and that bad knee you should stop wondering if you could fight us… you can't."

Issak studied the doorways and then went towards the one William was in.

William stood up slowly, eyeing Issak warily.

"It seems odd to find you here as well."

"We seem to share an acquaintance, that Nightroad fellow has some unfinished business with myself and my… client."

"Ah yes, he does get around, that boy." William retrieved his cane and approached Issac. Hiding his inner rage under his deeply ingrained Albion manners seemed to be his only recourse, he was not prepared to fight Issak and whoever was with him.

"I'm glad you have decided to be civil about this, would hate to rough you up some, manners and such."

"Who is it you have with you?" William peered behind Isaaks shoulder, an eyebrow raised curiously.

He could see a tall, lanky man in the airy linen clothes that tourists normally wore looking about Rome. He was strikingly familiar in build and movement. The hair was all wrong, the face was carefree and inquisitive… somewhat similar to Abel's foolish persona.

"So they are twins."

"In all that matters, yes." Issak turned, following Willams gaze.

Cain walked forward, his hand extended to shake Williams.

"Hello, sir, I'm Cain."

William looked at him cautiously before shaking his hand. "Wordsworth."

"Delightful… now let's get the pod figured out, I fear I need to rest sooner than later."

Issak nodded and walked over to the middle room. Cain followed but hung back a little as they entered the room.

"If you try to run Wordsworth, Cain is more than capable of dismantling you… he is all that Abel could be." Issak warned.

"No offence, just luck had it you are here and we can use you." Cain chipped in.

"Use me?" Oh curiosity killed many a cat… William scolded himself mentally.

"Everyone is worth something to someone else… just takes finding the right combination ... surely you realize that as of right now you are our prisoner?"

William blinked and stepped back a little. Cain noticing the movement tsked and walked over to him, somewhat casually. "I may be a pretty face, but I'm not the Contra Mundi for nothing, I can eviscerate you as easy as I shook your hand, sir." If ever a threat given in a friendly flippant way could be more chilling, William had yet to experience. "Now, we need to get that pod open, would you kindly help us?"

"I didn't find anything on it yet before you showed up actually." He deflected.

"Take another look with Issak, you know what they say, two minds are better than one."

William eyed the young man, but seeing the slight swirl of red within the blue eyes that he shared with Abel.

He walked into the room with the pod, Issak was knelt down in front of it, studying the various controls.

"She does look markedly better than last I saw her." Cain commented, leaning in to look closely at her face.

"Beheading someone tends to be a touch messy." Issak commented offhandedly.

"I suppose… are you sure she's dead? Her neck looks healed."

"Until I open this pod I'm not entirely sure of anything with that body."

"Huh… well I could probably break the glass."

"No, that might damage the flesh, give me some time Cain." Issak gently abolished as he stood up. "A canister was removed from the pod, it had her nanomachines I presume?"

William nodded.

"02 absorbed all of that in the casket, I remember seeing that." Cain commented. "Not a drop was left behind."

"But there should still be some left in her muscles and veins… he wasn't given a hundred percent of her volume." Issak reasoned out.

"So let's take the whole thing and work on it later?"

William raised an eyebrow at this, curious how they would move the well over 500lb pod without being seen.

"It does seem to be the best option and you need to rest… ok, grab him and I'll set it up."

Issak took off his gloves and started mumbling words that William hadn't a clue what language it was. His hand gestures sped up and from the space between his hands a black circle appeared, slowly growing in size until it was close to the size of the doorway. Cain abruptly grabbed William's bicep and pushed him towards the dark circle. As William instinctively balked, Cain pushed a bit harder, tossing him inside the portal before stepping through himself.

William landed hard on a metal floor, his cane clattering loudly.

"Welcome to our place, Wordsworth." Cain said cheerfully. "Best move over to the table here… the pod needs a place to sit." He reached out, offering his hand to him.

William shook his head and slowly got himself up. He studied the dark circle, he could vaguely see Issak, who was moving the circle to the pod as if it was a hoola hoop. Issak step a leg in the circle and then slid the circle over his body and down his arm to where it held onto the pod and like a bubble, it bulged to encapsulate the pod. As it closed around it, both Issak and the pod became present in the room William and Cain stood in.

"There." Issak brushed his hands together. He looked at William, calculatingly.

"I wasn't entirely prepared to kidnap you so soon… I'm afraid the quarters are not up to your standards." His eyes flickered to the edges of the room. William turned to follow his gaze, now seeing they were in some sort of warehouse or laboratory that was quite old. A large window overlooked the assembly floor below, and to the other wall, a large tank filled with black fluid bubbled. Cases of various sizes and shapes were piled about, some looking like control boxes, others with dials and gauges. A vast array of different ancient technologies.

"You have been busy." William reflected as his eyes travelled about the room.

"I do what I can." Issak smirked briefly before lighting up a cigarillo. "You still smoking that ugly pipe?"

"Bad habits die hard."

"That they do… here." He tossed the lighter at William. Taking the hint he could have a smoke too, William went through the motions for his pipe before tossing the lighter back.

Cain had wandered off deeper into the room, likely in search of food.

"Do I need to shackle you or do you have the good common sense to know better? You are just an average human unlike most of the residents here."

"We can find out I suppose. But you have me at a disadvantage of not knowing a single thing about where we are with that trick to get here."

"Mmhmm that was handy, wasn't it? Honestly if that damned thing would have opened I would have just taken the body." He walked around, staring intently at the pod.

Williams mind was reeling between fury at being kidnapped so easily and wanting to find out all he could about what Issak was up to. It was a bit odd to have Issak be so chatty but then, he reflected back to Cain's comments and general childlike carefree mannerisms. Who wouldn't talk to themselves with a unhinged crusnik standing beside you.

Issak stopped and peered at William. "What were you looking for anyway? You're not normally the grave robber type."

"More insight to the crusniks make up, likely same as you?"

"I'm not as clandestine as that… but similar enough. For a 900 year old corpse she's in remarkable shape."

Williams eyes widened a little in surprise. Abel never did share exactly how old he was.

"Oh… he never told you his origins? Interesting. Then you don't know of Mars either?"

Silence.

Issak chuckled and took a long drag on his smoke.

"This might be more entertaining than I thought. 01s memory is a bit off due to being almost completely disintegrated when 02 kicked him out into space but he remembers Mars and their return clearly enough. In fact it was Cain that took her head in the first place, pity they didn't know she could have been saved if she had a higher concentration of nanomachines... I had to slowly cultivate 01 until he went from that black ooze to a form… very tedious process."

William looked over the pod, thoughtfully.

"You are thinking to resurrect her?"

"Hmm, not unless I need to. I'm more interested in her dormant nanomachines that should be in her flesh still."

Williams brown eyes flickered over to Issak. "I can see where you would gather that strategy. They did find the original strains in corpses… I just didn't know where the corpses were from."

"Mars, on a ship they repaired so they could return to earth. It's really an interesting story about how they came about, the four of them, perhaps another time I'll share that."

Cain walked back to where they were standing over the pod.

"I fixed up that one cell just off the ramp, blankets, some water you know, normal human things." William could see the resemblance to Abel more now as it seemed Cain had relaxed.

"Excellent, Mein Herr you do more than you should at times."

"Now, Professor it's time for you to retire for a while. Please don't make a fuss… I'm not in the mood for it tonight."

Cain stood waiting for William to follow, his eyes lacked the weight that Abel's always carried, these eyes seemed empty, the childlike demeanour a cover.

"I'll play along for now, being your such a gracious host and all."

Issak nodded, dismissing them.

"So, your a friend of Abel's?"

"Yes."

"Is he always so grumpy?"

"Ahh, well no… not really at all."

"Hmm, maybe I caught him off guard, he was so angry when he saw me, really quite rude about it."

"Hmm, well you then proceeded to blast off his head… that would upset most people."

"I suppose, but I was so excited to see him again. Tsk, it's too bad he had to fight me again."

Cain rambled on as they got to the small holding room.

"Here you go. I'll talk with you soon, ok?" He waited till William was in the room and then closed the large metal door and locked it.

Well… fine pickle this is, William mused to himself.

His cell was about a twelve by ten steel room, one small vent for air exchange… no windows. The door was quite thick from what he could see of it when he walked in. An ancient army cot, a few faded grey green wool blankets, by gosh even a pillow was provided. A small two drawer dresser sat next to it, a few bottles of water and military travel rations in their shiny silver packaging were sat inside. In one corner was a chamber pot, and a small drain.

"Perhaps I should have stopped for supper before I left…" he commented to himself before checking over the things in his pockets. He still had his few tools, his pipe and tobacco and wait...His tracking device was quietly ticking away. He sighed in relief, knowing Sister Kate would pick it up soon and send help…

Caterina was going to have his head… getting kidnapped by the leaders of the Orden, if he lived through it. William chewed on his pipe as he tried to quiet his nerves. He hoped she wouldn't try to contact Abel, between Cain and now Liliths body being here… it would destroy him and likely let him fall to his crusnik.