Now

Portland Island, Liberty City

As Lana approached the bottom, Priest turned around to face her. He was still wearing his skin-tight black mask, and yet, for that brief moment, she could see beyond the dark shroud and see that something had suddenly went wrong.

Lana didn't hear any sounds as blood sputtered out of Priest's chest, a split second before he fell over; not a bang from a gun or even a cry of pain, just a faint thud as his body hit the sand.

Lana panicked, she instinctively turned around to look uphill, doing so too fast she lost her footing, slipped and took a long tumble down the rest of the hill.

The fugitive lay on her back, twenty feet away from where Priest stirred on the ground. She spat out some blood; on her way down, she'd cracked two ribs, sprained an ankle and broke one of her back teeth. Lana surrendered, with her injuries and Priest in worse condition condition, she had neither the hope nor the means to escape; the simple act of turned her neck to see the person descending down the hill felt like all the physical effort she could handle.

The shooter was a young woman of uncharacteristically slight build, decked in black clothes and armed to the teeth. She was pale skinned, dark haired and moved with contained aggression.

Lana closed her eyes and looked heavenward as Mandy walked up to her, but instead of a bullet, a kick to the side of the head knocked her out unconscious.

Mandy took a look at both unmoving bodies before she removed a hand from her assault rifle to produce a phone, she dialed a number and spoke as soon as the other end picked up.

"I have Lana Lang incapacitated at Liberty Quays. She must have been about to rendezvous with a submarine, I need a helicopter at the location and get the navy to send-"

"I'm sorry but the reception is awful; could you repeat that?"

Mandy sighed in frustration and held the phone directly before her lips,

"I'm at Liberty Q-"

If the other end could have received anything at all, it was just a bang before the phone shattered in Mandy's hand.

In rapid reflex, Mandy let go of the shattered remains of her phone and took hold of her rifle again, aimed it at where the bang came from. Priest was half-sitting up, leaning on his elbow and holding the smoking gun Lana had found in the stolen car. Mandy pulled the trigger; a barely audible burst of machine gun fire tore through Priest's forearm and prevented him from taking the second shot.

"Jesus, you are relentless." Said Mandy advancing forward to kick the fallen gun into the water. As the sun set and the sky started to grow darker, she took a moment to look at the palm of her gloved hand in mild awe.

"Amazing. You didn't even graze the leather; a one in a million shot."

"I was aiming for your face, bitch." growled Priest.

"Oh, really?" Mandy quipped as she leaned down and swiftly pulled the mask off of Priest's head.

"Well well, as I live and breathe," Mandy said, "Judas Priest himself, you've made a lot of powerful people upset."

"Yeah, would you like me to autograph your bra"

Mandy smirked as she pulled the trigger once more, firing another burst of bullets into Priest's thigh. Priest groaned painfully and wriggled on the ground, but he did not scream.

"Aren't you wondering how I found you?"

Priest didn't answer, and simply looked at Mandy hatefuly.

"You got sloppy, you should have killed that old lady who's car you stole. She told me what car you were driving." Said Mandy as she fired at the other leg.

Priest's back arched as he fought back the pain.

"Fuck! I'm down, alright!" barked Priest, "Stop shooting I'm not going anywhere!"

"Felix Leiter would give his remaining leg to get a piece of you, it was made clear that you and the reporter were to be brought back alive and the rest to be killed.

"Screw him. You're going to pay, your bastard." Said Mandy as she tore Priest's foot to pieces with a burst of gunfire, earning not a whimper of pain, but a scowl of defiance.

"Scream, damn it!" shouted Mandy as she shot Priest in the shoulder.

Priest tightened his lips and closed his eyes tight, doing all in his power to deny her the pleasure of his suffering.

"Little lady, you ain't shit."

"I'd be impressed if you didn't disgust me." Said Mandy as she removed her rifle and tossed aside, and then took a gun from her holster and cocked it.

"That was just an appetizer." She said as she took aim at Priest knee and pulled the trigger.

This time Priest didn't hold anything back, he screamed bloody murder as his kneecap shattered. He screamed as long and as hard as he had ever. The pain was exquisite, and lingering, the likes of which Priest had experienced rarely, if recently.

"It's a wonderful thing, silver." Mused Mandy as she took another shot, this time aiming at his clenched fist.

"And I have three whole clips of it."

Mandy lowered her gun, waiting for Priest to cease his animalistic wail of anguish.

"See, I made a point of studying you. I know the strength and vulnerabilities of your…. species. Regular ammo feels like a bee-sting, unless it causes a heart injury, and in that case it'll knock you off your feet and slow you down for a little while, right? Silver, on the other hand, feels like a red-hot knife dipped in acid, and one in the heart will kill you. Right? But, if I avoid the heart, well…."

Mandy fired again, and again and again until her gun clicked empty.

Priest heaved on the ground, the dozen bullets freshly fired into his stomach felt like barbed wire being dragged on his insides. He wanted to pass out, to scream, but could not. Mandy watched callously as Priest regurgitated onto the sand by his head, a foul blend of bile, blood and innards that promptly burned to ash.

"Did you get off on it? Did doing what you did to her, throwing her out of a window, using her to break your own fall, shattering her spine. Did it make you tight in the pants?"

"please…" Priest rasped weakly,

"…you don't even know …. her name."

Mandy's face failed to betray her emotions. In the distance, the sound of a helicopter ominously approached.

"You hear that? That's death's wings, he's coming for you. You've sowed evil for three hundred years and your time is now up."

Priest closed his eyes, no longer having the strength to keep them open. His senses waned, the world grew quieter.

"Actually, it sounds like my ride is nearly here, so we're going to wrap this up quick." Said Mandy as she loaded a fresh clip of silver bullets into her gun.

Priest moaned in agony, opening his eyes, as the first bullet plunged into his shoulder.

"I could do this all day, and come tomorrow morning, I'll probably regret that I didn't."

The second shot hit Priest in the chest, puncturing his lung.

"The others are next." Said Mandy as she took her third shot, getting closer to the heart, "Sayid Jarrah… Lucy Wagner… Shaun Collier. They're all going to get it. Even that little whore of yours, Mona Sax, she'll get it worst than the others. I'll see to it."

Mandy took her fourth shot, the slug plunged two inches away from Priest heart. She took her aim for the fifth time. Through his pain, Priest could see Mandy only as a blur, but the look in Mandy's eyes was as clear as day, and looking into cobalt blues he learned that she truly was about to kill him. She was holding her gun with absolute steadiness, directly aimed at his heart.

"Any defiant last words?"

"My little whore…. is going…. to kill you."

"No she won't." said Mandy as she tightened her finger on the trigger,

"We're done fucking around."

Priest closed his eyes, defeated, waiting for the life, his failures and triumphs, to flash before his eyes before it all ended with a bang that he thought was long overdue. The bang finally came. Priest's senses ceased, he remained as he was, waiting for something to claim him, the fires of hell or the abyss of oblivion.

The sound of a thud brought Priest's senses back. He could hear the traffic from the city, he could feel the wet sand under his remaining finger tip, and he could smell the ocean , burning cordite and the stench of his bloody and ashen vomit.

Priest opened his eyes; Mandy's own looked back at his. But there was something different. Gone was the rage and the fire and the lust for vengeance, to be replaced with abject fear, and pain.

Mandy was slumped on the shore right next to him, chest down, bleeding from the neck. She was alive, but only barely, paralyzed, the placement of the exit wound in the center of her throat, and a fragment of bone lodged in the wound indicating that her spine had shattered upon the bullet's entry.

Priest braved through the excruciating pain of moving his neck, to blurrily see someone standing by where Mandy had stood moments ago, his hand still outreached, holding a gun.

"We're not fucking around anymore, either." Said Shaun as he lowered his gun.

"Frank… Issat you?" asked Priest weekly.

"It's Shaun."

"Sh-sh…." Priest struggled to say.

"It's alright, Priest, everything is under control." Said Shaun as he took a couple of steps forward and lowered his gun, not to cease using it, but to aim at a lower target.

A single tear dripped down Mandy's eye. Priest looked into Mandy's eyes and saw a look of sorrow, regret and disappointment. It was a look all too familiar to Priest, he'd seen it in the eyes of all the men and women he'd killed down all the years. Defeat, despair and disappointment.

"Mina…" whispered Priest, extending a hand to caress her cheek, as it much as it pained him, "Her name is Mina."

As the corner of Mandy's mouth twitched with what could have been gratitude, Shaun pulled the trigger once more. Mandy's pupils dilated, and gone was the look in her eyes. She was dead, to feel love, rage and scorn no more.

In the distance Priest could hear the steady purr of a speedboat motor.

"What was that all about?" asked Shaun.

"Nothing." Mumbled Priest, dipping the tip of his fingers into Mandy's wound, "Help me up."

Shaun did as Priest bade him, helping him to his mutilated and shattered legs. As he held him up, his mentor brushed his face with his hand, smearing him with his victim's blood.

"What what are you doing?"

"You're blooded, Shaun." Said Priest painfully, holding his stomach closed with one hand, "You've graduated, killer."

"Blooded? What are you talking about?"

Priest did not respond, he was simply looking into Shaun's eyes with bewildered awe. Suddenly, he collapsed to the ground.

"Jesus, Priest. She got you good."

"Silver poisoning…" mumbled Priest, "Get me to Doctor Robert."

Six Hours Later

Gotham City, Maryland

Though she's been a facilitator of death for years, Diana Burnwood never quite managed to foster composure in it' presence. The tiny hairs on her forearm spiked as she walked into the morgue. It was almost completely deserted, all the cadavers were in the walls, and only one light at the center was open. Diana tightened her coat as she moved between the autopsy tables, heading to where the light shone.

Mina stood by an autopsy table, looking down at the body of her departed love. With the tips of her fingers, she pulled back strands of Mandy's hair, tucking them neatly behind her ear.

"You'd better have a good reason for being here."

The Director's voice sent a chill through Diana's spine, it wasn't the composed hostility, or the veiled threat, but the shaky voice in which she said it, Diana could tell that Josephine was fighting to keep emotion and tears in check.

"Now."

Diana's knees wobbled. She was the bearer of bad news, yet was in the uncomfortable position of having no choice in delaying.

"It's… It's the chairman." Said Diana and cleared her throat, "He found out, madam Director. About Lang, the attack from a month ago, about Liberty City. Everything."

Diana waited for her superior's reaction, but there was none until a minute later.

"Alright. Wait for me at the office."

Diana paused for a moment before she retreated as fast as she could without showing disrespect.

Mina grabbed the edge of the sheet covering most of Mandy's body and before pulling it up to cover her face she whispered,

"I'm sorry."

Ok, so NOW Hughes is dead.

Next Chapter: The opposition convene in the British countryside to celebrate McNeil's drop from the presidential race, and over drinks, Barbossa tells the story of the very first time the opposition made a move against the League.