Alamo rubbed his throat, and then his eyes flew to the shield generator. "Mouse!" he rasped. Mouse came running through, and kneeled beside his friend. "Yeah man, I'm here."

Alamo pointed, "The shield generator!" Mouse turned with a calm face, until he remembered the beam of death coming towards them. "Oh damn!" And he took off running towards the USB cord on the ground when the Hunter-9 that Alamo saved tackled him. The two crashed across the living room, it slicing at him with blades for arms. Mouse battled the limbs away before they could severely bleed him open, but they occasionally nicked him. "Alamo argh! Get that generator on!" Mouse ordered. Alamo painfully got to his feet before his legs gave out. So, he started crawling across the burnt-chestnut floor. The sun glistened through the window, quite mischievously as if it was enjoying the show, but the sky was quickly tinting red, meaning the beam was almost right behind them. And with a satellite cannon, or more precisely a Raze Cannon, it creates no large explosion, because what good does that do the Earth? Instead, it simply incinerates everything above ground, and superheats the crust all the way to the mantle, making sure nothing can hide below ground. Not much better, but at least there is no crater to refill.

The floor snagged pieces of Alamo's armor, but he grabbed the cord and looked for a power source sufficient enough. The Nova was out of the question, the arm had been severed. What could he use?! "Mouse! There's no power source!"

Mouse grunted, and finally got his leg between the Hunter-9 and himself. It stabbed right through his cheek, igniting a howl of pain. The blade went so deep, it had cut his left-side wisdom-tooth. "Go to hell!" Mouse spat with a mouth of blood, and kicked the machine off himself. It went flying out the building, through the very hole it jumped out of previously, and crashed in a tired heap on the ground below. Mouse held his cheek, and said, "Alaknow, my waser wif. Uwoose wat." Alamo nodded and plugged the cord into the pommel of the blade. There was a hum, and then a blue ray shot out the skinny spire, through the roof, before a blue dome hit its peak at the zenith outside, and reached the ground. Pockets of plasma danced across the barrier, sliding and slipping as the sky became pure red from every direction. Aresole pulled back the bolt of his sniper rifle and fidgeted for another round in his waist-band rack. Nothing...He checked his magazine, empty. "I'm out." Without any true warning, the translucent barrier shook from the force of the electrical impact, jolting Aresole's jaw. Part of the roof near Aresole was blown off as a bullet ricocheted, causing Aresole to duck instinctively. Bullets came dangerously close to his ears, resulting in a high-pitched ringing as he plugged his fingers into them to drown out any further noise. With practiced poise, Aresole rolled off the roof and took off running through his now lessened smokescreen.

Mouse detached a vibrating phone from the bottom of his right shoe and opened it. The black screen suddenly bleeped, and showed a high resolution 3D model of Earth. Black dots lined every continent, including Antarctica, and a text message suddenly blared across the screen in bold, red letters: DragonDen is Dead! Agents are now considered Phantoms until communication is reestablished by the name of Messiah. Repeat, no contact.

Mouse's eyes were gripped by the message, eyes dancing over the words once, twice, thrice, four times. After the fifth reread, when Mouse had dissected every article, every smidget of sentence composition, he emotionlessly called over Alamo. The soldier limped over, wincing at the countless bruises he acquired. "What's wrong?" he asked. Mouse replied, "Look at your phone." Any information relayed was retrofitted specifically for each Shadows' eyes, so in case one was compromised, they could be excommunicated, and not gain any information in the capture of another Shadow. Alamo disengaged his phone too, and read the message. He scoffed in disbelief and grasped the phone angrily, as if it was the cause of DragonDen's demise. "Well we're royally fucked now!" he yelled, throwing his hands above his head. Mouse quietly reattached his phone to the sole of his shoe, and glanced out the window. The Raze Cannon had fully subsided, leaving the sky a free blue. No clouds hung in the air, but a feeling of resolution, of ending, spread. Alamo and Mouse's heads snapped to the stairs as Aresole ran up, eyes wide.

"They're right behind me!" he shouted. Suddenly, there was a shimmer in front of the whole in the wall, and the Light Lancer uncloaked in all its shining glory. The side of the ship slid to the right, and Drake stood hunched, but still ready to fight.

"Who's right behind you?"he growled. Mouse, Alamo, and Aresole leaped onto the ship wordlessly, while Devilkin hopped to the dilapidated floor right below him. The final remnants of Buindundilo's men rushed up the stairs, as well as the mostly destroyed Hunter-9. Drake lifted his arms regaliously. One of Buindundilo's men told Devilkin in crude English to surrender. Devilkin simply looked at him, and curled his right hand. Red irises infecting Devilkin's normal color, and his skin became drained of color, where the veins could be seen coursing red and blue blood beneath the surface. Drake's eyebrows sparser, bones more defined. The man's eyes bulged, and his throat became taut with tension as he grappled with a hand that did not exist. Bui it choked him all the same. As if a puppet on strings, he was lifted into the air, feet left to dangle as they tried to reconnect with the ground. The Hunter-9 and rest of the troop attacked, but Drake easily sent them back with his left hand. Nothing arose to challenge him. Curling his index finger, the Force brought his original victim to him obediently. "Never." was all that Drake whispered to him, and the soul fell to the ground, gasping and coughing. Drake swished the ripped, worn fabric of his cloak, and boarded the Light Lancer. Doors closed, cloak engaged, the ship departed, ascending high into the sky.

"Where to?" Aresole asked. Mouse's mouth was being operated on by a tangle of arms holding scalpels, stitch-guns, disinfectants, enamel fillings, and pain killers , which he did not object to, because he was fast asleep. Alamo was also fast asleep on an operating table. Numerous prosthetic limbs massaged, oiled, lathered, cleaned, or injected his body.

"Where to?" Aresole asked again, this time directed to Drake. Drake slouched in his seat, eyes deep in thought as an arm removed his cape and respirator. The options were not varied. He had also read the message, and knew that Dunnovoocha would not simply let him and the rest of DragonDen disappear. They would have to hide, but what would they do once they crawled out of the framework? Without the original manpower, funding, and connections of Crislin, they would be no match for him. No other government would tolerate them, they were blacklisted soldiers of the USA, which meant they could not reappear again. James was nowhere to be found, so a new lightsaber was out of the question, and Big Daddy could not be sensed, which had Drake fearing the worst. To be overly pessimistic, Drake couldn't even take BD's lightsaber for himself, meaning he was left with his fists, and this power in him. But he was very apprehensive to use it. The call thrummed in his bones, tingled him, like an ingrained addiction. It was in-explainable, but the energy, this Force, it was getting stronger, and fighting harder against his will to control his actions. It pulled to his darkest thoughts, thoughts of murder, thoughts of unending power. He shook his head, and played off that action.

"I don't know. The future is as uncertain as a bowl; everything is coming together."

Wow, two months since I updated. That is unacceptable, and I'm deeply sorry about that. The next update will definitely be later this week, as well as all my stories that I'm continuing. Thanks for reading, no review necessary. =)-LLL