"Okay! Mr. Brooks, if you will please come right this way..."

Barnaby somewhat reluctantly followed the nth person that had whisked him away to get his photo taken, and Kotetsu was left feeling officially grumpy, and decidedly put out.

It wasn't the first shoot today, oh no. Barnaby maybe got about a fifteen minute break between all of the BS that the sponsors were putting him through before yet another person would come in, requesting that he come for his next interview, or some other such nonsense. And Kotetsu?

He was bored out of his mind.

Groaning unhappily, he removed his hat from his eyes. At least the couches were comfy-he didn't know if he could handle being ridiculously sore on top of everything else. Though, of course, Kotetsu later would swear up and down that no matter how bored he thought that he was at this particular moment in time, Barnaby was definitely faring much worse. Having your picturetaken for what was bordering on two and a half hours now was now exactly the ideal way to spend an evening. He could hear the snapping of the cameras and the mindless blithering of the cameraman in the other room, and wasn't jealous. Not even for a second.

He'd tried taking a nap earlier, though that proved to be unsuccessful. Morning coffee and loud media people tended to thwart sleep rather enthusiastically.

A distraction from the mindless void provided itself in the form of Bunny's phone vibrating quietly on the table and playing a short tune. Kotetsu's face broke out into a wild, mischevious grin.

About twenty minutes later, he was still giggling quietly to himself, pausing every once in a while to make an utterly stupid face on his partner's cellphone, and then quickly bursting back into snickers. Striking a particulairly ridiculous pose, his best yet, he managed to set it as Bunny's background before finally having to just quit and cover his mouth with his hand to keep from guffawing out loud and disturbing the photoshoot. Sometime during, his trademark hat had fallen off, and his stomach was starting to hurt.

Footsteps echoed from around the corner, and he quickly put the phone down back on the table, still not quite able to suppress his chuckling.

"What's so funny, old man? Have you finally gone senile?"

"Ah, Bunny!" Kotetsu's grin just got wider, and he scrambled to pick up the paper to provide an excuse for his pretty much non-stop laugher for the past half hour. "B-Boy, these comics sure are funny today, aren't they, ahahaha."

Bunny just kind of gave him a tired look that said that he didn't buy that excuse at all, before looking down at the front of what Kotetsu was reading with mild surprise. "These three...they were my first arrest."

What? Kotetsu quickly spun the newspaper around to get a look at what his partner was talking about. He blinked at the mug shots of three criminals, only barely recognizing them after a few minutes of deliberation. "Oh yeah. I'm kind of surprised that you recognized them." he said off-handedly.

His partner made some snarky commment about his old age and bad memory, but he pretty much ignored it. Bunny looked pretty disinterested after his initial remark, and had already turned around to the coffee machine beside the couch to grab a drink before his next shoot, so it wasn't really worth getting into a huff about. The thought that the arrest had been actually a little while ago briefly crossed Kotetsu's mind, and he took another look at the print. Why would the newspapers be talking about them again-

"Whoa." Bunny looked back over at him. "It says here that they were murdered last night. Aparently someone broke into the prison where they were being kept and set them on fire. That's pretty sick."

He turned back to his coffee. "Oh. Is that so?"

Kotetsu blinked owlishly before glaring. "What do you mean, "is that so"?" the newpaper was placed back on the table, and Kotetsu stood. "They're dead!"

"So? They're also criminals, old man." Bunny glared right back at him, idlely stirring the cup in his hands.

"So?" Now, this was somewhat appaling. Even when he was younger, he didn't think that way. "They were still killed! Burnt alive, even! Don't you think that's even the least bit upsetting?" at Bunny's blank stare, he frowned furthur, starting to get pretty angry. "Don't human lives mean anything to you?"

The door opened to both of them looking like they were ready to kill the other, Lloyds thankfully averting catastrophe by dragging Tiger away and babbling something about endurance and fire. Kotetsu was not amused.

Even inside his suit, the heat from the fire was unbearable. Kotetsu grimaced, sweating hard, and grit his teeth against the onslaught of flames. He felt like screaming, or maybe crying.

"Okay!" there was a blare from the loudspeaker that the scientists had to use over the din. "Turn up the heat, please."

Crying was probably a bit higher on that list of things he felt like doing, now.

He heard Nathan say something about sadists before his signature yell, somehow, above the crackle of the fire around him and the thumping of his own heart. Even knowing that he was in no danger, when everything around you is starting to melt from the intense heat, it was pretty hard to not feel some kind of thrill. Besides, it was ridiculously hot, even with the protective metal, though he had to admit, Dr. Saito had done and excellent job on his new suit.

But Christ, he didn't know if he could take much more than this, enhanced suit or no. He felt like he was (or should be) evaporating, or melting, or something, and it was driving him a little crazy.

He could hear a steady drip behind him-ah, the banisters on the second floor were starting to melt. Surely that was kind of a bad sign?

"Alright, that's enough for now!" everything stopped in an instant, and the scientist lowered the mike as Kotetsu sighed with relief. "At this rate, the facility wont last for much longer, so we'll have to leave it at that for today."

Kotetsu quickly flipped up his faceplate as gasped for air that wasn't partially artificial. "Water...!" He croaked before finding his voice again. "Shit, I really need water!" One of the assistants helpfully pointed towards a table with a jug of the stuff, and a few minutes later, he'd practically drank the whole thing.

"Huurghh...was that really necessary, Fire Emblem?" He carefully used his Hero alias; there was people here who didn't know him personally, so it was just for good measure, really.

The dark skinned man made a show of flicking non-existant hair over his shoulder. "Really, sweetie, everything is necessary when you're being accused of murder."

"Speaking of which, I don't think we have enough data." the assistant running the computer sighed. "You'll have to come back tomorrow. I'm sorry about the inconvinience."

Yeah, he definitely felt like crying.

"He's facing suspension from the show, Tiger." Agnes reminded him for what had to have been the eighth time. "Show a little compassion here."

He looked a little indignant. "I know that! But it's a little uncomfortable to be set on fire over and over again for an hour, you know?"

"That's not important."

Kotetsu had changed quickly from his Hero suit into normal clothes, lest Nathan's wayward hands find something he'd rather they didn't. Walking out into the open space just outside the testing room, he looked around for his flamboyant friend...

"Sweetie, I always forget how delicious your bum looks when you're wearing dress pants."

...Who he was quick to find, though it was really more appropriate to say that Nathan found him. Or, rather, his ass. With his hands.

"N-Nathan!" Kotetsu kept his scandalized yelp to a quiet volume, thankfully. He pushed the other man's hands off of his derriere. "Don't sneak up on me like that! More importantly-"

A scream echoed throughout the yard, interrupting Kotetsu's defence of his behind. The two Heroes exchanged more serious looks before running to the door to the outer courtyard, where the noise had come from.

"Someone, please! He's-"

Kotetsu was already in action, Nathan right behind him. Sprinting around the barbed fence, the courtyard was filled with prison mates, but it was easy to find what he was looking for.

A man engulfed in blue flames was pretty obvious to spot out in a crowd, after all.

"Shit!"

The man he was trying to put out with his vest has stopped screaming, Kotetsu suddenly realized. Shit, shit shit, shit! I can't let this guy...

Frantically beating down on the prisoner with the in a last ditch effort, Tiger squeezed his eyes shut and could only pray. Not too long afterwards, the flames finally went out, and the man collapsed to the ground, Kotetsu following suit, grabbing the man by his charred shoulders.

"Oi! Hang in there! Don't you dare die on me." When the man gave no response, Kotetsu shook him harder. "OI!"

A hand was brought to his shoulder, and he shook at the contact. "There's nothing you can do, honey. He's already dead." he heard Nathan's falsetto. "I'm sorry.

He'd accepted Nathan's offer of a ride home that night, but when he asked to be let out a block earlier than his house so he could have some time to think about what had happened today, he surely hadn't been expecting this.

'This' being bullet holes in his already pretty tarnished vest, and a giant mecha shark-wannabe chasing after him like he'd killed his mother.

Which, in all truth, was seriously up for debate at this point, given the tenacity with which the thing was fucking hunting him down. "Shit!" he breathed, a fresh round of bullets effectively destroying part of the wall he was hiding behind.

Kotetsu was running out of places to hide, and challenging it head on without some sort of backup was definitely a really, exceptionally stupid idea. Besides, he'd already made a show of that earlier.

'Damnit, Bunny. If it would have helped you actually believe me and come and help this poor old man, I never would have taken any stupid photos on your phone.' he willed silently. Shit, why wasn't Saito answering his phone...

Hey, wait, wasn't that Nathan's car?

"Wait!" he yelled at the car, praying to anything that would listen that it was who he thought it was. "Stop, stop, stop!"

He didn't even care if he looked absolutely ridiculous at this point. Even if it was some stranger, being in a car was better than running from it on foot. But, as luck would have it, it was his number one favorite gay best friend.

"Wow, are you actually reconsidering my offer?" Nathan purred, but really, they didn't have the time for Kotetsu to let him down gently, even in this kind of situation.

Kotetsu wheezed helplessly, completely out of breath. "No, Jesus Christ. Look over there!" He did, and the brunette was treated to the manliest girly shriek that he'd ever head in his entire life. "I know, right! Help me out here!"

"What the hell is that?" the black man demanded, getting out of his car. The thing shot at both of them, forcing them to run, but not very far.

"I have no idea." But Kotetsu was beaming anyway as they crouched by the front of the car. "Seriously, Nathan, you're like, my favorite person ever right now. I'll buy you lunch tomorrow, if you just, I dunno, kill it with your flames or something."

Nathan frowned and flipped his non-existant hair again, bullets raining down on his car and pretty much destroying it. "As much as I love the prospect of me and you on a lunch date together, why don't you just use your own powers?"

"Eh? But, well, what if I need to use them later? There's no sense in wasting them right now?" Kotetsu was still grinnning, but it was a little strained now. The hood of the car popped by itself, probably due to all of the damage, and was promptly treated to a shower of bullets. "Besides, I need to use my powers to save people."

A pout was present on Nathan's face at that. "Well, you could be saving me, you know." before he finally realized what the hell the thing was managing to do to his car while they were having a pleasent conversation thanks to a light fireball that went up over the hood of the car. "What the hell do you think you're doin', you asshole?" he roared, voice dropping into a deep, rough, and utterly terrifying baritone.

"Well, there's no sense in beating around the bush any more. Let's just kill this thing and be done with it."

Kotetsu moved to stand, but a perfectly manicured hand tugged him down again by the lapels of his coat, which was kind of ruined now, and was doing absolutely nothing to protect him against the cold. He shivered. At least it was kind of warm when he was running away from that thing.

"Wait, no, we can't just-"

The pinging and clanging of bullets against the utterly demolished car finally stopped for a moment's reprieve, and the two Heroes blinked in unison before turning their heads around the sides of the car. "Is it out of bullets?" Nathan mumbled.

This time, Kotetsu was allowed to stand and walk cautiously over to the suit of armour. He didn't get closer than about a metre and a half away from the thing before a high pitched humming started, and he stopped dead in his tracks. "Uh, Nathan? I don't think this is very-"

A huge blue flame and his own surprised yell cut him off. It licked along his shoulder, burning away the already tattered fabric and singing the skin in a matter of less than a second, and it managed to get a good throb going before he turned and practically flew back to where Nathan was. "Ugh, shit."

"Well, I guess I have no choice." The black man smiled, and pulled a pose, sticking out his pinky finger delicately and glowing an unnatural blue before he flung a blast of orange at the mech's blue flames."Fire~"

And was promptly horrified as the blue englufed his attack and continued it's trajectory. "N-No way..."

"Look out!"

Kotetsu tackled his friend out of the way, just as the blue flames smashed into the car, causing it to go up in flames almost immediately. Kotetsu groaned, glowing a faint blue. "Distract it! I'll figure out something."

"Are you insane?" a rather feminine cry of outrage.

"Just do it!"

Leaping into action before the flamboyant man could argue with him any furthur, he rolled nimbly away from the oncoming blast of blue fire. Nathan, taking the hint, diverted the machine's attention away from Kotetsu, and a second was pretty much all he had before the machine overpowered him once more.

Kotetsu jumped, just enough to slam his weight down on the mechanical arm that was projecting the flames, effectifly ruining the mechanism. With a roar, he climbed onto the top of the monstrosity and

'CH-CHUNK.'

Ripped off the mecha's faceplate, revealing the man inside, who raged, giving a final jerk of the controls that sent Kotetsu flying, and disapeared from sight after a blinding flash of blue light.

He landed, in a rather undignified fashion, right on his ass. It was only then that he heard the familiar whirr of his motorcycle from the distance, accompanied by the noise of a rather large truck, and that meant that either his bike had managed to figure out how to navigate on it's own, or Bunny was hear to steal his kill.

Goddamn it. Well, at least he was too late.

Kotetsu lounged, rather uncomfortably, on the back of one of the chairs inside the rather massive truck. Seriously, how did this thing manage to fit five people, a living room, two bikes, two hero suits, as well as the facilities to store them and the mechanics to help Tiger and Bunny put them on, and a whole hell of a lot else that Kotetsu was sure existed, but just hadn't found out about yet.

I mean, seriously. At this rate, there was probably an entire cooler full of booze and a small bakery somewhere in here.

"So, what you're telling me is that you think that you've seen this guy before, but you can't remember where?" Barnaby was pinching the bridge of his nose again. He was going to give himself a nosebleed or something if he kept that up, the idiot.

Kotetsu frowned, and cradled his head in his hands, as if it was going to help him remember somehow. "I knowI've seen this guy somewhere before, Bunny. But..."

"Really, honey. You should at least try a little harder than that, don't you think? It's pretty pitiful when you give me that face" Nathan chided from his position on the opposite couch. Christ, it was freezing in here. His friend's expression changed slightly as he got a better look at him. "...Oh dear, honey, you're not looking so good. Did you hurt youself?"

Kotetsu grit his teeth, moving the tattered sleeve of his jacket gently so it covered his burn. "No. Besides that, weren't you the one who said just a little while ago that you'd keep my bed warm for the night?"

His partner groaned, shaking his head as Nathan prattled off denials and propositions in the same breath. "Ugh, this is hopeless. You really do have a terrible memory." He turned towards the door, still shaking his head, Nathan moving to join him. "I'm wasting my time here."

Seriously tempted to mock him rather childishly (again), Kotetsu frowned and crossed his arms, only vaguely catching the faint whisper that was Saito mumbling in front of him, sitting on the couch that he was leaning on. "Ah, sorry, what?"

"You tried calling me earlier, didn't you?" Saito looked guilty.

Kotetsu looked as if he'd just remembered that he had every right to be pretty mad at the good Doctor, and turned partially around to get a better look at him. "Yeah, that's right? Where the hell were you! I could have died, you know."

"Well you see, I almost died as well."Saito whispered. Even Barnaby turned around at Kotetsu's shocked exclaimation that followed that. "Do you have any idea how hard it is for a claustrophobic man to get stuck in the elavator?"

The brunette sighed again. "Man, you had me worked up for a second, there." He grumbled. "Shouldn't that building have proper maintenance done on it's elevators, anyway?" Wait. Elevator maintenance... Kototesu paused, bringing his hand to his chin and stroking his bead before perking up and snapping his fingers. "T-That's who it was!"

Barnaby groaned, and turned around from his position at the doorway. "What are you talking about, old man?"

"It was that elavator maintenance guy!" When Barnaby gave him a completely blank stare, he elaborated. "You know, the one in that bombing incident."

Barnaby's eyebrows rose in recognition, before he turned towards Kotetsu. "You don't suppose..."

"That's exactly what I suppose, Bunny-chan."

He could hear his partners rage and the gritting of his teeth from here, and Kotetsu smiled. "It's Barnaby." the blonde growled out, before stalking in the direction of their bikes.

A/N: Super Duper long chapter, and it's not even done the whole episode. Sorry guys, it's almost triple the other chapters, orz