Thanks again to my sounding board Sentinel103. We get to bouncing ideas off each other and the fur flies. Only problem is I have to rein in his more esoteric tendencies.
Then there's my proofreader CajunBear73. How he catches all the goofball mistakes I make I'll never know. (hanger/hanger, your/you're, their/they're/there, missing punctuation/Caps/Quote marks. You get the idea)
Thanks Dude's. Y'all makin' me actually sound intelligent.
Chapter 33 The Aftermath: Blurs and Nightmares
Kaname arrived at the site and parked on the back lot near the Galaxie. Both cars were parked well away from the warehouse in question. She stepped out of the GTO and made her way to the trunk of the car. Opening the trunk revealed a couple of bags. Pulling them closer to the back of the car, she opened a side pouch on each and pulled out a headset matching the ones being used by Kim, Ron and Wade.
Putting one in place, she asked, "Eleanor, can you sync these to the rest of the team?"
"Accessing, frequency found, loading encryption codes, 256-bit encryption active. Coms are active and secure, Kaname. I have cross-loaded the codes to Arbalest so that we can monitor the situation as needed."
"Good, how long till Sousuke gets here?"
"ETA two minutes. Kaname, Dr. Load loaded additional munitions in your weapons bags. Specifically, something he called 'Goonades'. They are an entanglement type of ordinance designed to secure an enemy at a distance."
Kaname opened the ammo box to reveal an even dozen of the new grenades. "How do they work?" Eleanor gave her the same explanation that Wade had given Kim and Ron earlier. Kaname's reaction was similar to Kim's. "OH Yes, me like!" Then she became a bit melancholy. She wished she had a few of these when she was running from Yu Lan. She might have been able to capture her and maybe even stop Leonard Testarossa from having an Arastol snap her neck. Shaking her head, she dispelled the flashback. She didn't have time for rehashing her past actions.
She heard it long before she could see it. The thundering roar of turbines as something unseen approached for a landing. In a field behind the lot, she saw a series of sudden craters appearing from nothing as the Arbalest landed at a run, scrubbing speed until they came to a stop.
Keeping the ECS measures in place, Sousuke popped the cockpit hatch and clambered down the side of the mecha. When he reached the ground, the hatch closed causing the mecha to vanish again. As he approached the GTO, he first put on the headset and started pulling things from his bag while he had a few questions. "Al, can you use your ECS to cover Stoppable-sans car?"
The basso voice of the AI responded, "Calculating… Yes Sagara, if I am placed in a kneeling position over the automobile, I can redirect the emitters to cover both machines."
"Very well, do so. Keep your ECS active at all times. Both of you monitor our communications at all times.
"Also if you have to, you are to escape and evade rather then let anyone access to you or Stoppable-san's car. Take it with you, but handle it as gently as possible. You're going with us Eleanor, your going to transport Kaname and myself to the other side of this line of structures. But the same orders apply for you. Escape and evade.
"Once Eleanor has dropped us off, the two of you assist each other as needed. Al, you are our fallback position. If necessary you are to provide covering fire with the chain guns. Eleanor, you are our mobile evac. Be prepared to move out to our location for pickup, but we are planning to rally here.
"If you are forced to abandon this position, attempt to remain close by incase we need to escape. If that fails, rendezvous back at the GJ hangar. Al, when you get there, place yourself under the orders of Commander Director and ONLY her. She is the only GJ agent to be allowed in your cockpit.
"In the meantime, keep attempting to contact GJ. Inform them we are onsite and may need prisoner transport. If you are able to reestablish contact, link them to any Team member available. Understood?"
"Understood Sergeant. Stand by here unless position is threatened, evade as needed to remain nearby, provide covering fire to any Team member if needed, failing that, return to the hangar and follow the orders of Dr. Elizabeth Director. Attempt to reestablish contact with GJ. Having done so, tie them into your coms."
"Eleanor?"
"You got it."
While he had been giving orders, Sousuke pulled off the A.S. helmet and started pulling a pair of cargo pants on over the A.S. suit. With the cargos in place he grabbed the body armor and settled it into place. Because they were going into a closed area, he didn't bother with his longer ranged weapons. Instead loading up on magazines for the handguns he was carrying. Kaname had loaded up on non-lethal bean-bag rounds for the Mossberg M800 shotgun she was carrying, settling a bandolier of rounds across her shoulder.
Once they were ready, they got back into the GTO and drove to the other side of the building. Sousuke drove right up to personnel door on the side of the warehouse. They both bailed and Eleanor moved of to find a secure position to watch.
When they were ready at the door, Sousuke tried calling the rest of the Team over the headset. "Any Team Possible member, Sagara, come in."
Ron's voice came through sounding tightly controlled, "Sagara, where are you?"
"Onsite, opposite where you made your entrance."
"Get in here. Wade's down. The bad guys are down too, but we need help covering 'em."
"Breaching the door in 15." Sousuke didn't bother with the lock pick Wade had given them. He merely held out his hand and Kaname passed him what looked like a can of 'Silly String'. He laid a crossing series of lines of the 'string' across the door with a large spot in the middle. Setting a detonator in the spot, he blew the door in place shattering it into dozens of pieces.
Earlier Wade followed Kim towards the rear of the building, one eye on the scanner in his hand, the other, per Sagara's training, on her hips have some idea of which way she would jump.
"The hips never lie, Load-sensei. They are the center-of-gravity. An opponent's feet, shoulders, hands and head can all be used as a feint. They can be used to misdirect you as to the direction they will go. Keep a part of your attention on the hips. With practice and training, you can know what direction your enemy will move in."
He was nervous, excited and scared witless. Falling through the vent had left him stunned. If it hadn't been for the training and practice, he probably would have fallen prey to that first response of a stress situation: To freeze. The eye is drawn to movement and the first instinct, pounded into the human psyche from pre-history is to freeze and assess whether to use 'Fight or Flight'. But all the training in the world doesn't replace the jitters inherent in your First Mission. But he had started to settle down as the adrenaline moderated its flow into his body.
When Kim stopped by the door to the rear of the building, she noted where the boy's eyes kept flickering to. Grinning she couldn't help but tease the boy a little. She whispered, "Wade, if Ayame finds out you keep looking at my butt, she gonna get jealous." She had known the boy for years, but his response surprised her.
"Kim, I have access to the entire internet, and even my filters can't keep out everything. Besides, I designed your battle-suit. I know what your butt looks like. Like Sagara said, 'The hips never lie'. And why would Ayame get jealous?"
"I think she's getting a little crush on you."
Even with his mocha coloring she could see the blush. "She is cute, but right now we need to get into the server room. I think it's across the hall on the other side of that door."
"Then let's get you in there."
Ron moved out towards the front of the building. When he reached the door to the offices, he paused, listening. Not hearing anything, except for a whirring, grinding sound that pitched up and down, he carefully opened the door a fraction, just enough to slip a small mirror to look around the back side of the door. No one was in the room itself, but he saw movement through a door on the other side of the room,
He slipped through and silently blindsided the men in one room shredding reams of paperwork in a commercial grade shredder. The three men didn't have so much as a chance to grunt, let alone sound a warning. Using more of the zip cuffs Wade had provided, he secured the goons like the ones in the main part of the warehouse. One twist, he hogtied these guys since they weren't hurt as bad as the others. Once he had them secured, he ghosted out of the room in search of more targets. One in particular!
He moved down the hall towards the front, catching the rest of the men unawares, knocking them out and dragging them back to the shredding room where he used the bundle of zip-cuffs to secure them to anything and everything. Shelves, chairs, the desk, each other, whatever came to his imagination. And Ronald Stoppable had a vivid imagination.
While he went through this practical application of 'takedown' with the enemy agents, he heard Kim and Wade through the headset as they handled their side of the building. He smiled when he heard Kim teasing Wade and almost cracked up at Wade's response.
He had almost finished his sweep of the front of the building when he heard a grunt and what sounded like a hammer hitting a log. Wondering what was going on he got ready to move towards the rear of the building. Then he heard a furious sounding Kim in his ear. "Let him go, Du!"
Then the came the sounds of gunshots.
BANG!
BANG, BANG, BANG!
Then a few seconds later, over the headset, came a sound of horror. "WAADEEEE!"
Ron took off running to the rear of the building, knowing something terrible had just happened.
Kim led the way across the hall towards the server room. The door was open and they heard the men inside confirming that this or that set of files were deleted as they worked.
She held up one of Wade's 'Goonades' with a question on her face. Wade shook his head and held up the palmtop, shrugging his shoulders. He didn't know what the 'Goonade' would do to the computers in the room.
Wasting no time, she put it back in the pouch and launched herself at the men in the room, Escrima sticks leading the way. In seconds the men were down and Wade was pulling zip-cuffs from a cargo pocket. After they were tied up, he started looking through the system.
"They have a shredder program running. It'll take me a few minutes to stop it. I'm gonna tie in and start copying the file incase there's a hidden program. This will take a little time."
"Will you be OK here for a few minutes? I wanna check the rest of the rooms."
"Yeah, go ahead. Be careful."
"Be right back."
She peeked out the door. The coast was clear and she headed down the hall.
The data was loaded already, and one or two more loads and the important physical items would be tied down in the hidden long-range escape hover-jet. Just one of the many things that both GJ and his Fuhrer had taught him, always have a way out.
It took a second to understand what made him pause. There was no talking, no orders, and no human sounds on the other side of the door. Carefully cracking the door he saw Team Possible's tech guru standing in front of the main terminal, with his fingers flying over the keyboard, cross loading data to the Kimmunicator plugged into a USB port.
He saw that Wade was wearing a significantly different outfit then the last time he saw him on a monitor. The body armor especially.
As he quietly slipped into the room, he thought, 'So the little Schwarzie thinks his body armor and helmet would protect him 'eh. We'll see about that.' Du carefully aimed his shock watch at the young mans buttocks and fired. Wade grunted as he dropped like a sack of rice. His helmet saving him from a concussion as his head hit the edge of the workstation. Will walked over to the unconscious teen leaned down and unclipped his helmet.
Dragging Wade to his knees by the carry handle on the back of the armor, Du pulled his pistol, aimed it at the base of the teen's skull and said, "Leb wohl, sie kleine Scheiße!" (Farewell, you little shit)
Kim had heard Wade grunt and a 'thunk' through the headset. She and Ron had been on so many missions together, she knew every sound Ron could or would make. And that grunt wasn't Ron. She headed back to the server room at a run, calling Wade's name over the coms.
Kim skidded into the room where she had left Wade. She saw that Du had drug Wade onto his knees, left hand holding the handle on the IBA, right pulling a handgun from an issue hip holster, preparing to shoot the unconscious boy, execution style.
"Let him go, Du!"
The man might have been a traitorous, arrogant, pompous ass. But his reputation as one of the best technical Global Justice agents was well earned. Almost like a striking snake, he twisted, bringing the handgun to bear, firing towards the sound interrupting him, screaming in frustration.
For Kim it was all reflex. After days and weeks of training in the shoot house, hours spent on the firing range and in the AS simulators, Kim didn't even think. This wasn't Will Du in front of her. It wasn't even a human being. Just another synthodrone, another target. One that needed servicing.
As soon as the pistol started coming around, she dove to the side and rolled to a knee, dropping the Escrima sticks as she went, training telling her, first she would never be able to close to hand-to-hand range fast enough and she could gather them up later if needed. In one motion, she came up, drew the Ruger from the cross draw holster, left hand cupping the right, sights settling on the target and, like a machine, squeezed the trigger three times, servicing the target.
The first two rounds splatted against the front of the armor the traitorous agent was wearing. Even though the armor stopped the bullets, they would have still hurt; leaving bruises the size of grapefruits. That is except for the third round. It entered the through the targets mouth, passing through the soft tissue at the back of the throat. Tumbling, it impacted the spinal column severing it. Then it changed direction upwards into the cranial cavity, rebounding inside the skull. Instantly all action in the body of the target ceased; dead before it hit the ground.
Her mind was racing a thousand miles an hour. 'I just killed a man. But he had a gun to the back of Wade's head. Wade's hurt! How bad? Don't know! I just killed a man! Wade's hurt! How bad? Oh GOD, what do I do? Focus Possible! Wade's down! HELP WADE! MOVE POSSIBLE!'
"WAAAAAADE!"
She focused on the one thing that in her mind was stable just then. Everything else would wait. Helping her friend, her teammate. She ran to his side, taking his pulse, hands trembling. At first she couldn't find the pulse for the shaking, but CPR training finally kicked in. Wade's heartbeat was strong and steady. Drawing a penlight from her First Aid kit, she checked for pupillary reaction, both eyes reacted fine. Wade was even showing signs of regaining consciousness, groaning a little.
"KAAAAYYPEEEE!" The door to the warehouse was torn off the hinges and tossed aside like a Frisbee. Ron was standing in the now open doorway, blue aura in full effect, holding the Lotus Blade in its Katana form.
Ron closed the textbook to his 'History of Western Civilization' class and rubbed his tired eyes. While the class wasn't easy, he did enjoy it. A part of it was the instructor, who regularly allowed free flowing discussions about the lessons. It was also a class he shared with Sagara, which was, indirectly, also a reason for his enjoyment.
Having utterly no preconceptions and very little tact, the young Japanese man seemed to take great pleasure in poking holes in the pet theories of the class's other students. One in particular: Howard Devon.
Ron thought Devon was going to have a gibbering fit when Sousuke defended the Spanish Conquistadores. Devon seemed to have this idea of the "Noble Savage" and Sagara mentioning that Cortez with 500 men had defeating the Maya nation, numbering in the millions, while it may not have been justifiable, it was understandable, just didn't seem to fit in with that world view. Devon was of the mind that it was only the firearms carried by the Spaniards that allowed this feat.
Sousuke on the other hand brought up the fact that "Even if the Conquistadores had been using modern rifles and getting one shot, one kill, they couldn't have carried enough ammunition to kill all the warriors that the Maya could put in the field. They could have easily used mass wave attacks to over run the Conquistadores in one battle."
He then went on the mention the fact that "The Maya's had brutalized and terrorized their neighbors so badly that the tribes the Maya had conquered were more than willing to ally themselves with these strange new arrivals."
Then Sousuke turned the class on its ear by saying "Let's reverse the equation and bring the Mesoamericans to Europe as conquerors. After subjugating the populace, does anyone here really think they would not have continued their practice of human sacrifice?"
When Devon tried to lambaste the Spanish again with: "It was the Spanish that gave away blankets infected with smallpox to the locals to kill off vast numbers of the Native Americans."
Very calmly, but with a strange, knowing gleam in his eyes, Sousuke replied, "That is not quite true. In Sixteenth Century Europe, they had no idea of the disease vectors that were involved in bacteriological warfare. They didn't know how diseases were transmitted. The Christian Conquistadores were taught that such things were a 'Scourge and Plague from God'. They didn't even know enough to wash their hands to prevent disease transfer. There was a vague understanding that associating with either infected personnel or corpses killed by a disease could lead to catching the illness yourself."
Sousuke never raised his voice. "In fact, it was this that led to the first recorded uses of Weapons of Mass Destruction via bacteriological warfare by launching the bodies of plague victims with a catapult or trebuchet in to a city under siege." Devon had unknowingly broached a subject that Sousuke was very familiar with. After all, part of knowing how to fight WMD's is learning about the history of the same.
A few of the other students nearly had to tackle Devon when he lunged at Sousuke with blood in his eye before the instructor, shortly before releasing the class, agreed with Sousuke. It was a good thing the others grabbed Devon when they did because Ron saw Sagara palm a flash-bang when Devon started for him. Ron wished Sagara could have attended Middleton High with him. One thing was for sure, at least with Sagara, class was never boring.
He dropped his book into his pack and twisted, cracking his back to release the tension. Not that it helped a lot. When last he checked, Kim was still in her room. She was recovering from the shootout in the warehouse, but not fast enough for his liking. Maybe his Seven Layers of Heaven or Death by Chocolate dessert tonight would help.
The aftermath of the mission was both a blur and a nightmare.
Out of the twenty-six men in the warehouse, only one died. William Du. According to both the State Police and GJ, with all the weapons that had been fired, that was nothing short of a miracle.
That's not to say there weren't injuries. Every one of the men in the building had to be taken to the hospital for a variety of injuries ranging from severe bruising and concussions, mostly Kim's doing, to broken legs and shattered knees, mostly him.
It was hours before GJ was able to respond and in the meantime they had called for local and State law enforcement to assist in locking up the prisoners.
That was the blur. Then came the nightmare.
Once the prisoners had been taken to jail, the Team was escorted to the local police station where they were shown to the interrogation rooms and both State detectives and GJ Internal Affairs, who finally arrived, started taking statements from all the Team members involved.
The questioning had taken hours and they had kept asking the same questions over and over, twenty different ways. Ron nearly blew his stack a few times and it was only the hand on his arm that kept his temper in check.
Kim was currently on suspension with GJ but that was just standard procedure. The preliminary report, delivered that morning by both Betty Director and the State's Attorney, said that barring any forthcoming evidence, it was a righteous shooting. Kim had been faced with suspect in the process of killing someone, gun in hand and had no choice but to drop the suspect hard.
The physical evidence, Wade's tazering and Will's fingerprints on his gun, and the data, the recordings from their coms from the start of the mission to the arrival of local and State Police left no doubt. Now it was just a matter of crossing the T's and dotting the I's as far as the law was concerned.
Now came the hard part: Getting Kim through the trauma. She had spent the last two nights curled up to him in his room. After hearing what happened, not even James Possible begrudged her that. He had been awakened a few times to her crying and he just gathered her in and let her clutch him as the tears fell.
Of all the things Ron wished he could spare her, this was the biggest. He wished he had traded places with her, sending her to the front of the building instead. Strangely, not because he wished he could have been the one to kill the bastard. But because he'd been there before.
It was quieter in the office/study than it had been in a couple of weeks. Shunya couldn't put off his return to New York any longer and had to leave yesterday to be in his U.N. office this morning. Before he and his youngest daughter passed through the security section he pulled Sagara to the side. No one knew what was said, since Shunya had left and Sagara wasn't talking.
There was a moment of drama when Shunya looked around and Ayame was missing. She came flouncing back into view a moment later wearing a smug grin. She was trailed by a wide-eyed Wade. Kaname and, to a lesser extent, Kim teased him mercilessly trying to find out what happened. It couldn't have been too extreme because they weren't gone that long, but Wade had taken to locking himself in the lab to get away from the girls.
Rubbing his hands across his face, he stood and headed to the kitchen when an alarm suddenly went off. It was the steady tone of a security breach in the building. Snatching his Kimmunicator from his pocket Ron hit the call button, saying, "Go Wade." He looked up to see Kim running into the living room talking to the one on her wrist. Even what happened two days ago wasn't enough to keep her from reacting to an alert.
On the screen he saw Wade hammering at his keyboards looking, not at the camera, but at other screens. "Sensors picked up someone scaling the south wall. You should be able to see 'em from the living room."
They looked out across the flat roof. It was devoid of anything, including the normal things like air conditioners or vents. That was a part of the design Sagara demanded when he set the building up. Nothing for an enemy to hide behind, and as long as they were careful, there was plenty of room to land with either a parachute or the jetpacks. All the air handling units were located in a room on the side of the garage.
A moment later, Sagara and Kaname came running up from the ground floor, pistols in hand.
"Anything out there?" Sousuke asked
Kim answered, "Nothing so far."
Sagara bolted to the sliding glass door and looked out. Not seeing anything, he looked back and said, "Cover me." Kaname took a position to watch his back as he crept out on the roof patio. Not seeing anyone on the garage roof, he aimed his pistol towards the apartment roof. When he started climbing the ladder on the side of the apartment that led to the roof, Kaname, Kim and Ron fanned out below, Kaname watching Sagara, Kim and Ron scanning across the top of the garage.
When he got to the top he peeked over. Nothing but a flat roof. Talking into his wrist Kimmunicator, "Load-sensei, there doesn't appear to be anyone here."
Ron looked across the roof. Something was making the hair on the back of his neck stand up. He said, "He's not up there, Dude! He's down here."
Kaname and Kim looked across the roof, not seeing anything as Sousuke leapt to the patio. They looked at Ron, his eyes slowly tracing across the roof. "We know you're there, you may as well come on out."
Nothing.
"Guys, inside." Ron raised his Kimmunicator, "Wade get ready to charge the roof grid." Like unfolding a sheet, a figure appeared. He was a little taller then Ron, garbed in an all black gi, with tabi on his feet and a mask on his head. Nothing of his features showing except an open swath across the eyes. They were a dark brown, almost a black. He was carrying two of the wooden practice swords, known as Bokken.
"Kon'nichiwa, gakusei."(Hello/Good Day Student.)
"How's your English? Kim doesn't speak any Japanese and mine's only fair."
"My English is excellent."
Where had he heard that voice before? "You're the Sword master Sensei sent?"
"Hai." He lightly tossed one of the Bokken to Ron. "Defend yourself. No powers."
Ron knew he knew that voice. "It's alright you guys, he's from Yamanouchi. Y'all wait here."
Kim laid a hand on his shoulder, "Ron?"
He gave her a grin, "It's alright, KP."
Ron brought the Bokken up into the best semblance of a ready position he could. "You know, you coulda rang the bell or called ahead or something."
"That would have given you time to prepare. The ninja is always ready. Hajime! (Begin!)
And they started to dance. In seconds it was obvious that Ron was outmatched and the figure in black was playing with him. He kept landing blows everywhere. Not hard enough to seriously injure his student, but hard enough to hurt. A lot.
Ron struggled to keep up, unconsciously reverting to Bo techniques to defend himself. And got his butt handed to him for his trouble. The black garbed figure slid a strike straight through his defenses to land in the middle of his sternum, knocking the wind out of him. Then twirled to hit a nerve plexus on Ron's left thigh, causing the leg to fold on him, sending him to the ground. Before the others could act, even before Sagara could draw his Glock, the ninja brought the Bokken back around in a beheading strike, only to stop millimeters from Ron's throat. The only thing Ron could do was lie on the ground and wheeze.
The ninja's voice was cold and arrogant as he growled, "The next time you attempt to use outside techniques during training, you will hurt worse. Before you can meld an alloy, you must first create the pure substance. Once you have mastered Kenjutsu, The Art of the Sword, then you will be free to try and incorporate other teachings." Holding the Bokken where it was with his right, he reached into a fold of the Gi and removed a traditionally folded letter. He held out it to Ron, saying, "My… bona fides I believe you call them."
When Ron took the letter, he stepped back and Kim came running to see if Ron was OK as the others approached. Ron opened letter to see the calligraphic flowing script of Sensei Toshimaru Ishido telling him that he had personally handpicked the bearer of the letter to be his instructor in Kenjutsu. And part of his reasoning was the redemption of one of his students. You could imagine Ron's shock when the ninja removed his hood to reveal the face of Fukushima.
"It's been a long time, Outsider!"
The little man was in a towering fury. Not only had he lost his highest ranking inside agent. But the data, plans, blueprints and devices that were nearly in his hands were still locked inside the bowels of Global Justice. And the worst part was, according to what information he could get, it was all due to Possible and the Untermensch. Again!
He felt the information reliable because it came from a source inside Global Justice's rival: World Wide Evil Empire and that fool Gemini. A source he had ordered to stay low-key to avoid the fate of Gemini's better personnel. If the idiot would ever stop disposing of his best, most capable people, WWEE would actually be dangerous.
This was a lesson he had taken to heart from Stalin. The Dummkopf had routinely purged his armed forces and civil authorities of anyone even remotely capable of possibly challenging him. The only problem with that was it also deprived him of people who could act intelligently without oversight. Yes it was a risk to his personal authority, but it led to NO ONE being able to function without asking for orders or his opinion. And that meant EVERYTHING fell across his desk, leading to nothing getting done.
No, he would not make that mistake. He would allow his lieutenants to function. But with the understanding that if they went too far, they would pay, dearly. And it was working. Weeks ago he had given his orders. The delivery method for MelaninX was on schedule for the end of February and the agent was being produced and stockpiled.
Also one of his agents had found that fat cow Amy Hall, hiding out in Monkey Fist's abandoned manor in England. Like a good German Soldier, he didn't wait for orders, he acted. He gathered a platoon and captured the statue of Fist. Weeks before it was necessary to have it. All he had to do now was wait for the Winter Solstice to revive the man. He already had a candidate in mind. The fool had fumbled and botched instructions repeatedly. He had just enough intelligence to do what he was told but he was lack witted enough to have no idea of Dementor's plans for him.
Six weeks! Six weeks and he could send the Untermensch a present in the form of his own personal Arch-foe.
At thirty-three chapters and 200,000 plus words this story is looking like it is going to be nearly twice as long as I expected it to be. I figured it would be a most 125,000. But now things are starting to kick. There's the meeting with Monkey Fist, a plot that our heroes don't know they need to stop and a villain or two to deal with. All this and more to come in the next chapters of 'This Animal I Have Become.' Stick around, the plot's about to thicken. And as always, please, leave me a note. Even if you wanna flame.