Duke sipped at his coffee while looking over some paperwork. He put the cup down, wrote something on the report, and then set it aside.

"You're doing paperwork this early in the fucking morning? Jeez, Top, you'd think you could leave it at your damned desk instead of dragging it to the debriefing. Not like it's going anywhere."

"No, but it multiplies. I can probably get most of this stack done before we start," he looked up. "Just being efficient. Besides, if you could bring your work in here, you would, Cover Girl."

She smiled at him. "Hell yeah, but my work is waaay more fun."

She wandered off and he started to read the next report. Flint took a seat beside him, putting his head on the table and for all appearances, going to sleep. Lady Jaye came up beside him and patted him on the head.

"Poor baby, having to deal with Beachhead's greenies for one day," she said, taking a seat.

Flint groaned and mumbled into the table before lifting his head back up. "At least I was able to give them back this morning. Did you see what they did to the dojo? Snake Eyes is livid. Something about not needing to have a technicolor dojo. The quartermaster is just as pissed. All those expensive mats that now have to be replaced because the greenshirts thought they were being cute by painting both sides. Jinx. God, Snake Eyes had to stop her from going on a killing spree. Apparently, someone wrote something in that squiggly character thing that the Japanese use. What do they call it again? Kanagi? Whatever it was, it doesn't mean what they think it does."

"Hmm?" Duke looked at Flint. "I saw those reports earlier. Greenshirts are taking a collective hit to their paychecks and will be scrapping paint off the mirrors later. Probably with shaving razors or whatever hellish thing Beachhead can come up with. And, not that I know anything about it, Ace has a pool already on how long it takes for Snake Eyes to stop driving them into the ground during hand-to-hand. Those will be some sore and miserable greenshirts by time it's all over."

"Funny how they don't get into nearly as much trouble with Beachhead around," Lady Jaye commented. Both men snorted.

"Alright people, let's get this debriefing started. Any volunteers?" Hawk asked as he took a seat.

Spirit spoke up. "I will start. We went to interview a man who had a near death experience, but he would only talk to me, while Scarlett and Snow Job waited outside. He remembers being in a car accident and then standing at a crossroads. There was a cloaked figure holding a scythe in its hand, blocking the way forward and he couldn't go back because there was nothing there. He said the cloaked figure was not death, but an avatar for it and it gave him a choice, to choose the left or the right path. He tried to ask what the directions of the paths meant, but it demanded he choose. He continued to ask questions, trying to find out which path was the right one, but it only answered two questions. The first one was why he had never heard of the place he was standing at and the second was if he could see what the avatar really looked like."

"What did he see?" asked Stalker. The Joes were listening intently, curious about the story Spirit was telling.

"He described it in much greater detail. He said the figure lowered its hood and removed its cloak. He saw a beautiful and winged Native American woman. She started changing, becoming thinner, until there was nothing but skin covering her bones and then that melted away. There was only the skeleton left. The cloak reappeared around it and it again demanded he make his choice."

"Ya know, if we just went lookin' for stories on near death experiences, we would be dealing with this until we died," said Tunnel Rat, snorting. Several others murmured their agreement.

"You said there was a second question. About the place he was at?" asked Duke, trying to keep the conversation from derailing.

"Yes. He says that the avatar told him it was the crossroad between life and death and most people forget it or remember it as something else."

"Was that all?" Duke asked.

Spirit nodded.

"It's an interesting story, but it doesn't seem like much," observed Psyche Out.

"Maybe not, but every little bit helps. Who's next?" asked Scarlett.

Polly flapped her wings and then squawked. "PFM, Mate! PFM!"

"Right, already gave the translated story to Lady Jaye, but the librarian told me about it when we went out for dinner. Seems that it tells of some entity that gathers excess energy from the earth and uses it to give certain people special powers. Father Time was the first one created. The story describes him as being an old man when he first got his powers and that he lived out the rest of that year, before turning into a baby on the New Year. It also goes on to tell about Father Time's early days adjusting to his new powers as he grew up again and how he was worshipped as a god because of them," reported Shipwreck. "Cobra was at the library before us and got a copy of the original version to go," he added.

"Well, we thought we ran into Cobra, but it turned out it was just an idiot who thought the Cobra symbol was cool and had it tattooed on his wrist. I swear, some people just don't have any common sense," Dusty reported, shaking his head.

"Some people jus' dun know what to do with it, even when it goes and bites them," agreed Wild Bill.

"We researched some of the philosophers thinking maybe one or some of them were Father Time and that maybe the current Father Time is an heir or student. Deep Six also did a run down on some of the time deities," Dusty continued.

Flint spoke up next. "No Cobra excitement for us, but we got a book from the professor that has a great deal of information about a bunch of theories on what amounts to magical people. There are a couple things in it on Father Time, but it mostly operates on the theory that he is the Grim Reaper. It at least gave us another direction to look," he shrugged.

"I wouldn't be surprised if whoever was sitting at the same table as Clutch was from Cobra."

"Hey!" exclaimed Clutch.

"Breaker has a point. I mean, why else would anyone with good taste hang around you?" pointed out Ace.

"We were researching the same thing and decided we could get more done if we split it up between us and then made copies!"

"Duuude, she totally was from Cobra!"

"Duuude! You weren't even there, so shut up! I can tell if someone is a Snake."

"Gawd, both of you pogues can drop and give me fifty if'n you don't shut the fuck up," growled Beachhead.

Duke shook his head. "We also compiled a list of potential people who could be Father Time, although we looked at the scientists and theorists," he said, trying to get things back on topic.

Author's Notes: PFM is pure fucking magic.