As we mentioned before the (admittedly outrageously-long) break, our heroines were going out to dinner, unknowingly being followed by the small squad of demons. Also unbeknownst to the girls, events were about to unfurl that would put all of them in the path of danger, and that Ricardo was tearing through the streets trying to warn them. As it goes, however, they were not aware of any of this, and as far as they were concerned, all they were in for this evening was a good meal and good time with each other.

The girls sat at the restaurant, sitting down to enjoy their dinner. As they sat, they were completely unaware that they were being watched. Across the room from them, sitting alone at a table, sat a man with a newspaper. As it is known, those who are spying on people think that hiding themselves with a newspaper and occasionally peeking over the top is a great tactic for trying to be inconspicuous. In reality, it just makes them stick out like a sore thumb. However, since the girls did not think that they were being followed, they paid no heed to the blaringly-obvious spy across the room from them. It can be said, then, that the more conspicuous you are, the less people will notice you; this is the primary logic that people employ when trying to get into off-limit areas, such as clubs, in that as long as they act confident and look like they have a reason for being there, others will assume that they are supposed to be there.

Anyway, to get back to the spying man, he was just sitting there, a cup of coffee on the table. He was wearing a Hawaiian-pattern shirt, and wore a pair of dark-green-tinted sunglasses that made him feel incredibly dated. He observed the girls for a minute or so, and then he put down the newspaper, left money on the table, and went outside the restaurant. He flipped out a cell-phone and dialed a number.

Somewhere else, a man wearing a sombrero curiously taped together in the middle, as if it had been cut in half and repaired, picked up the phone as he was eating tacos from a convenient Amigo Tacos that seemed to be in every single town in Latin America.

"Sombo?" the voice on the phone asked.

"Yeah, H-S?" the man called Sombo responded.

"They are currently getting ready to eat. Proceed with the plan?"

"Yes. Permission is granted to initiate."

"Roger. Also, Sombo…"

"Hm?"

"On the way in, I spotted some unwanted guests in the distance."

"Assassins?"

"Of a sort."

"Deal with them. The girls cannot be allowed to be harmed until the Captain has been able to meet with them."

"Got it."

The man called H-S made his way back to the door and leaned against the wall next to it. He dialed a new number on his cell phone.

"Lazaro, we got some bogeys to take care of. At least five of them. Freaky-looking fellows with tentacle-heads. Get some men on it."

"Roger."

If Dido had been observing any of this, she would have been furious. However, she was far too busy getting things ready for raising the dead. Kennedy stood by away from the large tank, observing Dido as she was finishing her preparations. Several demons stood by at the ready, armed with machine guns.

"Um, Dido?"

"Yes, dear sister?"

"Why are there several demons here stationed with machine guns?"

"Well, that's actually a good question, glad you asked! You see, the person we're resurrecting is… special, to say the least."

"Special as in how?"

"Weeeell, let's just say that this individual was in life gifted with extraordinary prowess in speed and agility. He was a bit nuts, too. A young fool driven insane by love."

Kennedy waited several minutes for this to sink in.

"Dido."

"Yes?"

"Don't tell me that you plan on resurrect-"

Just then, several demons came in, with a slightly taller, red-headed one coming in after them.

"Lady Dido!" it spoke loud but evenly.

"Yes, Commander Red?"

"There have been some unforeseen circumstances. To say the least, the current operation is in jeopardy."

"…by what is it do you mean?"

"It means that we're in deep."

Dido and Kennedy stood motionless.

"By deep, how do you mean?"

"By deep, I mean that there are several squadrons of infantry heading our way right now through the forest."

There was a complete loss for words.

Returning to our girls, they had just got done ordering their meals.

"Geez, for such a small place, you'd think the food would be less expensive." snarked Nadie.

"Hmm… maybe they're charging for service?" suggested Ellis.

"Maybe…"

In addition to the poorly-disguised spy already mentioned, there was also another man staring at the girls, albeit for very different reasons. A young man, with the appearance of a well-meaning but hopeless loser, named Luis Armando. Luis, about three years earlier, had been held hostage by some petty gang in Baja. Fortunately for him, the gang-leader was wanted, and in came bursting Nadie, creaming several punks in the face (and other, lower places) and handcuffing the leader. Since then, he had not forgotten about her, and always wanted to repay her for what she did, but being a bounty hunter, she was not exactly easy to find.

Now that she was sitting there, no more twenty feet away, he was thinking to himself "Luis, man, here she is, after all this time! Here's your chance!" However, he wanted to wait a while longer, neither feeling the courage to speak to her directly, nor confident in his ability to keep himself form not looking like a total creep while doing so.

So he sat there as the girls ate their food. Meanwhile, across the room from him, sat a woman named Sonia Villas Manjarrez. She sat staring at Luis. Ever since Luis had arrived in town some three months back, she had wanted to speak to him. She found him rather cute (she had a thing for well-meaning yet hopeless men) and wanted to ask him out, but she was too nervous to. So now, as she sat there staring at Luis staring at Nadie, the jealousy began to rise within her.

"What's so special about her?" she muttered to herself. "She's too tall, her hair's atrocious, and her boobs aren't that great. What's the big deal?"

As Sonia sat sulking there, an older man from yet another corner of the restaurant, one Jorge Zavala, sat staring at all three parties. Like Luis, he too had Nadie as an unintentional savior, back two years earlier when he was walking down the streets of Mexico City. A street gang tried to mug him, but in came Nadie, gun pointing, saying the words that stuck with him ever since: "If you have any last words, say 'em."

Sonia he knew from when she was young, and he remembered how she comforted him after his wife had died. Luis he met while travelling the road about six months back, and he had helped him out with his car. Now that all three of them were here in one place, Jorge thought to himself that now he had the perfect opportunity to repay all three of them… right after finishing dinner, of course. It is rude, after all, to interrupt someone eating.

Now, we have this strange circumstance with the spy watching Nadie, Ellis, and Lirio, Luis watching Nadie, Sonia watching Luis, and Jorge watching Nadie, Luis, and Sonia. Lirio, being the youngest, was first to notice this peculiarity, but said nothing of the matter besides starring back at them, particularly Luis, who was most visible. After a moment of this, the food arrived, and Lirio completely forgot about Luis and instead focused on eating her meal.

Alarms rang all throughout Dido's compound. Everywhere demons were scattering with whatever gun they could grab a hold of. Several went outside to face the intruders, but were quickly shot to bits. The demons, being poorly trained and quite frankly not too bright, were little resistance, and the intruders quickly overran the defenses and dashed inside.

Meanwhile, Dido and Kennedy were sneaking around the halls, trying not to get noticed.

"How the hell did this happen? Becoyo said that absolutely nobody would know of this place!" spoke Dido.

"Well, why don't you ask him who the flying hell these guys are?!"

Kennedy felt a presence behind her. She turned, only to be butted in the face by the hilt of a gun. Dido turned also and quickly followed suit.

The two witches were dragged away by the intruders and thrown into the back of a large truck. In addition, the tank was hauled away as well, and placed in a separate truck. The trucks loaded up with their contents, they drove on down the road, to God knows where.

Meanwhile, at the Amigo Tacos where the Sombrero-Man had been eating, the cashier went into the backroom and picked up the phone. She punched in a secret number and it rang.

At the other ends, a certain blue-eyed woman picked up the phone.

"Ms. Hayward, I just overheard something fishy."

"What is it, Number 85?" asked Jodie from her desk in the Amigo Tacos office building in Buenos Aires, Argentina.

"There was this man eating here who just now called someone. He was wearing a sombrero that looked like it had been cut in half at some point."

"Do you think he's the man we've been looking for?"

"Not sure. Sending photos right now."

"Good. Also, what did he say on the phone?"

"He talked to someone he called 'H-S', and mentioned something about 'the girls' not being allowed to be harmed until the 'Captain' had been allowed to meet them."

"Hrm. If this is the man we think it is, it could be a much worse situation than we thought."

The photos arrived in Jodie's e-mail. Clicking them open, she took a good look at the man in them. She gave a sigh. "Okay. Send some agents in now to handle it. Hopefully we can get to them before they do."

"Roger. Number 85 out."

Jodie put down the phone and stared at the screen again, her face resting in her hand.

"Can't trouble just leave those two girls alone already?"

Since the events of the previous year, Jodie has gone up very highly in Amigo Tacos, and now controls over half of the franchise's locations. However, using contacts from her C.I.A. days and from her allies in the Witches' Council, she has also made it a secret intelligence network, dedicated to searching-out groups that may threaten the safety of the world. She had limited resources, but whatever she could put towards the effort, she did.

This one group in particular she had been watching called themselves the very peculiar name of "The Eye of Saruon". When she looked up the name "Saruon", she mostly got false-leads to The Lord of the Rings series and Sauron, but she found several online articles, relating that Saruon was an ancient mystic from Central Asia, whom according to legends from the small nation of Gazth-Sonika existed before even the rise of Egypt and Sumer. Saruon left behind an odd script known as Elies Script, and his teachings by the 8th century A.D. had been collected in three volumes: Firstari, Secondari, and Thirstari. Beyond that, she could not find anything.

The group itself, however, she did know some more about: it was small, and most of its members were mercenaries. The man in the photographs had previously worked for Rosenberg, his codename being "Sombo" after his hat. Since he was a rather incautious individual, he was easy to track over time, and through him Jodie had learned several things: that The Eye of Saruon strives to capture Ellis, and that they are made up of the remnants of a group that fell apart in 2011, Enfant. The Eye of Saruon's leader is referred to as "The Captain" but beyond that not much else is known.

Having finished mentally reviewing the facts, Jodie set about getting things ready for the operation.

Steve Beckman, her assistant (who also bore an uncanny resemblance to Rosenberg) looked in from the door.

"Ms. Hayward, the Execs from Caracas will be here in about twenty."

"Ah, right. Thanks, Steve."

Steve closed the door, and as he did, Jodie picked up the phone again.

"This is Hayward…"

The girls had finished eating by this point, and were getting up to leave. Luis, summoning all of his courage, got up to introduce himself.

"Uh, um, hi."

"Oh, hello there. Who are you?" asked Ellis.

"Well, um, I'm…" Luis took a look at Lirio. He thought to himself "Oh, crap, is she her sister? Maybe even her daughter? Oh, what to do…"

After a moment of standing there awkwardly, Nadie spoke up.

"Well, if you're trying to ask Ellis out, I'm afraid it will have to be a no"

"G-g-good heavens, no! I-I, I mean, sure, she's cute, but that's not why I came over here.

"Oh? Then what is it?"

"Well, um, maybe, er, um…"

At this point, Lirio lifted up her boomerang that she brought with her.

"Ah!"

They all looked down at her.

"I think she wants to show us how she uses it." Spoke Ellis.

"Ah, well, er, sure! Let's all go outside now. You want to show me how to use it, little girl?"

"Eh-heh!"

The girls plus Luis then exited the restaurant. Behind them, Sonia got up to follow from a distance. Jorge, fearing he may lose them if he stayed, got up as well, leaving some money on the table to pay for his meal.

H-S got up, looked around, and then exited through the backdoor.

Greetings! And many apologies for such a very, very late update! I practically wrote myself into a wall, and it took much longer to figure it out between everything else in my schedule. A day ago I figured out a way to continue the story, so I decided to write again. I feel incredibly guilty for making you guys wait, and I'm afraid this chapter may be a little cluttered. As you can see, I'm trying to connect El Cazador with the other shows in the "Girls with Guns" trilogy, in particular, Madlax. Though it is not going to be a full-blown crossover quite yet, I at least want to establish that El Cazador, Madlax, and Noir all take place in the same universe.

Yet again, to those who want to continue reading this, thank you, and hopefully I'll be quicker to update this time!