A flashing strobe woke six sleeping bodies, who quickly scrambled out of bed and wiped the sleep from their eyes as they donned their uniforms.

One leaned over to another, whispering in Hungarian, "{Khalid, ten shekels on kebab in the mess today.}"

The other shook his head and smirked. "{Fifteen, but you'll lose that bet, Walid. Got an inside source.}" He handed the other boy a small slip of paper.

He read it and his eyes shot up. "{Huh. Never had cornbread before.}"

The strobe's insistent pulsing drew their attention back to their duties, and they finished getting ready before standing on line with the rest.

A fierce voice called from the door. "Inspection!"

As one, they looked to their left at the boy next to them, then to their right a few seconds later. Khalid reached out to touch each inspected to ensure every crease and stitch was just right. A thread was loose on the circle-within-crescent symbol stitched to Walid's jacket. Khalid's touch tapped his shoulder to let him know. He glanced at the loose stitch and visibly winced before quickly composing himself. They all faced forward a moment later as two sets of steps entered the room.

One was a good deal heavier than the other.

Immediately, Khalid felt a cold sweat break out on his back, and he tensed up. The heavy tread slowly strode past their line. It was a few seconds before the familiar visage of a faceless mask entered his field of view. It stopped short a moment later, right in front of Walid.

"Soldier," the grating voice said. "Your uniform is tarnished."

Walid swallowed. "Understood, sir," he said in hesitant English. "I will address it."

"Hm."

Then he kept moving. As soon as he reached the end of the line, he turned back and marched to the very middle, then faced them directly. Khalid could feel those eyes boring into his.

"At ease!"

They obeyed.

"Today is an important day for all of you. You know why you were chosen, what you have endured to get here. All of that will be nothing compared to today's trial. You will need all your courage, all your skill, every bit of strength that has kept you alive. One way or another, you will prove your worth." He pointed to Khalid's shoulder. "And you will have earned that symbol."

A smile twitched at Khalid's lips.

"What say you?"

As one, they chanted: "Blood and glory, Lord Achilles!"

Achilles hummed contentedly and turned for the door. "As you were."

The six stood in line as Achilles made his exit, hands clasped behind his back. His aide followed him out. As soon as he was gone, they all relaxed and descended into an excited tizzy, throwing around all sorts of speculation as to what it all meant. Khalid smiled in silence; he didn't need any speculation. Lord Achilles mentioned the strength that had kept them alive, but they all knew his strength was the only reason any of them still drew breath.

And they would repay him at any cost.

…

Operation Falling Star had been a critical success. Not only had they shut down every Network site on their list with minimal casualties, but the sheer tonnage of intel and contraband they'd confiscated was easily one of the biggest busts of the last decade. Agent Bordeaux was already putting together a case to prosecute Roman Sionis and his overseas partners, and ARGUS was putting the information they'd gathered to use tracking down smaller satellite operations.

But there was one subset of intel that neither party was particularly invested in. Not because it was irrelevant to them. No, that was thanks to Caden calling in a favor from Cyborg. On his request, Victor had isolated this particular bit of intel in an obscure partition of their jointly-shared files. Why?

Because like he'd told the rest of the Vagabonds, Achilles was his responsibility, and his alone.

Using information acquired from the Red Hood, Adonis, and now the Network itself, Caden had managed to narrow the Myrmidons' base of operations to a very small region of contested land situated on the border of Qurac and Bialya. He would've hopped on this immediately after Falling Star, but given his prior experience with Adonis, Caden was…leery about taking on another of his clones by himself. Especially since Achilles' mercenaries were apparently a whole different breed of fanatical.

Thus, it was with this in mind that he stood in his armory and made a telecall to the isle of Themyscira.

Queen Hippolyta's visage greeted him a moment later. Her surprise was evident. "Drake. To what do I owe this call?"

He cleared his throat. "I'm actually trying to get in touch with Artemis, but obviously she doesn't have a direct line. Would you be able to pass a message along?"

She glanced to the side. "I'll do you one better."

She walked away and shouted something offscreen, and a minute or so later, Artemis stepped into frame.

"Drake," she greeted. "Is this about your offer?"

"Cyborg did agree to boom you to Bana-Mighdall, so that's already set up whenever you're ready. But…that's not why I called."

"…all right?"

His lips pursed. "The last time we met, you mentioned being suspicious of the war's proximity to your home. That maybe someone was intentionally driving it closer to Bana-Mighdall, the Myrmidons, perhaps?"

"That is one theory, yes."

Caden smiled malevolently. "How would you like to cut their head off right now?"

Artemis frowned. "How?"

He grinned. "I found them. Everything I've found points to the Wadi Alkharab, a valley aptly named for being one of the most desolate places in the contested zone. Hard to find, surrounded by rough terrain that makes any advance in force nearly impossible—it's the ideal place to set up shop for a bunch of fanatics who worship violence."

"How large is this valley?"

"It's uh…about a ten klick stretch the long way and roughly a third of that wide. Not a small search area, but they're in there for sure."

Artemis' head tilted a bit. "And Achilles?"

"Almost certainly there. None of the recent Myrmidon incidents have had a single sighting of him. In fact, he hasn't been seen at all since Karbala." Caden smiled sheepishly and rubbed the back of his head. "I could uh…really use some backup on this."

She frowned a bit. "Why ask me? You have an entire team."

His eyes darkened. "They're having a…bit of a spat at the moment. At least, some of them are."

"Over what?"

He groaned and rolled his eyes. "The teenagers are being teenagers. Hopefully nothing too serious in the long run." His frown deepened. "But more to the point, with the possible exception of Jason or Lucas, I don't think any of them will approve of what I have in mind for the Myrmidons."

"…you mean to kill them all."

His head shook slowly. "I've been doing this a long time. If there's one thing I've learned, it's that fanatics cannot be reasoned with. Every piece of intel, every report, every single recorded encounter with the Myrmidons—and Achilles in particular—paints them as less of a mercenary group than a death cult."

Artemis scoffed. "They follow the will of Ares. What did you expect?"

"Which is exactly my point. I don't think any of the others have the will or stomach to do what needs to be done. And frankly…I wouldn't involve them even if they did." Caden's brows furrowed. "There are some things they don't need to live with."

Artemis stared at him for a while. "What's your plan?"

He smiled for a brief moment. "Cyborg boom tubes us just outside the valley, and we press inward to search it until we find them. We sweep the perimeter, sabotage any means of escape, and cleanse the whole damn valley until we're the only ones still breathing."

"You think we can accomplish this with just the two of us?"

"Well, ideally yes, but realistically, Achilles is the priority. As long as we take him out, the Myrmidons will be leaderless and hopefully crippled. Ares will have a tough time keeping them directed without someone of his caliber holding the reins."

Artemis thought about it for a while. "Anything else I should know?"

Caden thought for a bit, then shrugged. "Yeah, you…might want to bring more than a sword."

"I prefer the axe."

He blinked. "The what now?"

She waved dismissively. "Never mind. Your point is made. Our shields are sturdy enough to hold up to firearms and even some heavy munitions."

"But you can't defend from all sides, and you're not as fast as Jason or Diana."

Artemis arched a red eyebrow at him. "Is that doubt I hear?"

He shrugged. "Just stating the facts. Ever used a gun?"

"If the Batman has no need for firearms, neither do I."

Caden scoffed and smirked. "I don't need them either, but I'm not about to handicap myself just to prove a point."

"If I find myself in a scenario where I need to resort to such crude implements to achieve victory, I've made a critical error."

"'Crude implements,' says the woman who prefers using an axe."

"Are we doing this or what?"

Caden shrugged and crossed his arms. "Yeah, yeah, whatever. Just don't come crying to me when you get shot."

She deadpanned. "Don't worry. I won't."

"Then arm up and call me back. I'll get a hold of Vic and have that boom tube ready."

…

It didn't take long.

As expected. Artemis was a soldier, after all. Soon as they were ready to go, Caden sent Cyborg a text, and a boom tube erupted in his living room. He took a deep breath and stepped through, momentarily blinded by the glare of the swirling energy. He emerged moments later on the other side, in the middle of a desert mountainscape at the edge of twilight. The faint rasp of a whetstone drew his attention to an armored figure sitting on a boulder some five yards away. An Amazonian helmet sat on the rock next to her.

Artemis looked up at him and drew her whetstone over the edge of a side sword, then pointed it right at him so she could observe its sharpness. A contented grunt, and she slid the blade back into its sheath. Artemis stood and retrieved her helmet, then approached Caden.

He gave her a once-over, grimacing a bit when his gaze hit her legs. "Your thighs are unarmored."

"My shield covers that area."

"Not from all sides. You really want to risk an arterial bleed just to stick to tradition?"

Artemis rolled her eyes. "Really, Drake?"

He groaned and waved dismissively. "Whatever. Let's just go." He reached into a pocket and handed her an earpiece. "Here. It's WayneTech. Should hold up if they try to jam us."

She nodded and took it.

Caden pulled up a readout on his forearm and mapped out their search path, then took point as they moved into the valley. The rocks there were a mix of red and deep orange, with sedimentary layers obvious even in the fading light. A river had run through here once. Now, whether due to war or just the evolution of the region, it was as barren as it gets. Either the Myrmidons had a deep subterranean well or they got constant supplies from an alternate location. He pulled up the readout again to get real-time footage of the area.

Artemis frowned and looked at his screen. "How are you doing that?"

He scoffed. "Batman's not the only one with the resources and know-how to run his own satellite. Came in clutch during the Olympus War; none of the gods knew it existed. Neither did the League, for that matter."

"How did you manage to keep it from them?"

Caden smiled neutrally. "I'm a very private person."

"Which explains little."

"My point exactly."

They walked in silence as the sun sank lower.

"I'm running into the same issue the Bats had in Singapore: whatever the Myrmidons constructed has to be underground or shielded somehow. I can't find it from the sky."

"Then we use our eyes."

"You have any idea how big this valley is? We'll be out here all night if we don't find a way to expedite this."

Artemis gave him a side-eye. "Do you want this done fast or right?"

"Yes."

"That's not an answer."

"It is when I'm involved. Let me try something different."

He switched the satellite to scan for any motion of significant mass and set it to alert him if something came up.

"There." Artemis pointed to a large, pyramid-like cluster of rocks. "Vantage point."

"Sure."

They made their way toward it.

"I see you left the axe behind," Caden joked with a smirk.

"Not exactly," Artemis said.

"Okay? Meaning what?"

She smiled. "You'll see."

"Hm. What's your plan once you get home?"

"I'll need to speak with Queen Antiope and figure out our current risk of discovery. If my theory is correct, we may be pulled into this conflict within just a few weeks. The war front has been moving rapidly since Karbala."

"Yeah, I've been keeping an eye on it. Queen Bee's been using her connections to the Decembrists and the Network to funnel massive quantities of advanced and alien tech into her regular troops. The UN—impotent as ever—have been trying to sanction Bialya and stem the flow of illegal weapons into the region, but, well…they're the UN. Hopefully Falling Star will put more of a dent in their arsenal once the ripples reach this war."

"And you?"

He frowned at her. "What about me?"

She shrugged. "You did have a big hand in making Qurac what it is today. I would think that makes you a bit more invested than most in ensuring its security."

Caden shook his head. "I gave them the opportunity to take their country back from a genocidal maniac. Anything that followed was all their doing, as it should be. I have no intention of meddling with another nation's affairs; it never works out well."

"Hm. Even if it means they'll be conquered?"

He sighed. "Nations rise and fall. Bialya may be run by criminals, but this conflict is about profit and power. Even considering Queen Bee's brutal tactics, there's no reason to assume she won't deal equitably with the people of Qurac."

"She did try to cause a nuclear meltdown in the opening battle."

"No, Achilles tried to cause a meltdown."

"Ah right. Her army just bombarded a city of several tens of thousands who would certainly have died if not for your Lantern friend."

Caden's jaw tightened.

Artemis sneered. "How very equitable of them."

"What's your point, Artemis?"

"My point is for someone who claims to be diligent in finishing what he starts, you've been remarkably…" Artemis searched for the right word, "half-assed about all this."

"So you want me to stick my nose where it doesn't belong and interfere with the affairs of people I don't know?" Caden scoffed. "Look at the last century of American foreign policy and tell me: how spectacularly did that go? Go ahead. I'll wait."

They went silent and walked for a while until they finally reached the summit. Caden took in the vast expanse of barren sands and rocky crags as an increasingly cold wind blew over the landscape. A sigh left his lips as his brow furrowed.

"Premier Al-Khabur was murdering entire villages," Caden said softly. "And he was using brainwashed children to do it. There was already a rival movement with a plan to make things better. Circumstances were such that they just needed a catalyst to save their nation. I simply supplied that catalyst by cutting out the core of the cancer…and let them handle the rest." He held up an index. "But the single most important part of that equation? That they—never—knew about it."

Caden scoffed after a long pause. "And you're one to talk about half-assing. The Amazons are supposed to be all about spreading 'enlightened peace,' yet the only thing that's seemed to spread from your people is paranoia." He sneered. "I guess it's just easier to preach peace from isolation, hm?"

Artemis glared. "What's that supposed to mean?"

He glared back. "It means people who live on 'Paradise Island' shouldn't throw stones at the rest of us who have to live in the real world."

They glared at each other for a while, then went back to taking in the scenery in tense silence.

"Out here, actions have consequences," Caden said after a while. "Sometimes for generations to come."

"…so does inaction. You knew that when you killed the premier."

"That wasn't war. It was slaughter. Aside from the initial attack on Karbala, there hasn't been even a hint of similar disregard for innocent life, and until that changes, I am not going to blithely insert myself into that conflict. This is their fight, and I have no part in it."

Another minute passed with the pair observing the valley, Caden pulling out a monocular to scan for any signs of movement. Artemis took a breath to say something, but Caden's forearm monitor beeped and cut her off.

They both hunched over it.

Caden hummed. "Gotcha. Small convoy, about a klick west of us." He used the monocular to try and get visual contact. "Can't…yeah, no, terrain's blocking the view. Let's go around, see if we can cut 'em off, see where they're headed."

"Right."

They broke off into a run. Caden checked a topographic readout to see their target's likely path to get around the terrain. The pair arced off to the southeast, moving straighter than the convoy could and making up quite a bit of time. Caden glanced at his Amazon companion, who'd finally put her helmet on to keep her hands free.

He frowned. "We need to know where they're going! Don't slow down on my account!"

Artemis glanced at him, then immediately tripled her speed, outrunning him easily. Caden barked a laugh and kept running, doing his best to track the convoy. He tapped his earpiece.

"Artemis, adjust your course a little further south, ten degrees. The terrain thins out between us and them, and we don't want to get spotted."

He vaguely saw her nod in the distance and rolled his eyes. She didn't quite get the concept of the earpiece just yet.

Well, practice makes perfect.

They ran for a solid ten minutes, Caden feeling his fatigue gradually mount while hers seemed bottomless. He was starting to breathe a little heavy when Artemis finally figured out the earpiece.

"Drake, I think they're slowing down."

He checked his readout and zeroed in on her position. "Got it. I'm almost to you."

A minute or two later, he climbed to the top of a rock formation and crouched next to Artemis. She pointed down. He put his monocular up to his eye and saw the truck he'd spotted on satellite being escorted by two dune buggies with miniguns mounted on the back. He could only see the gunners standing in the turret section, and adjusted the focus right before they vanished into a tunnel he would've confused for a small divot in a rock wall if he'd seen it at any other angle. The red circle-within-crescent patch was clear enough.

"Gotcha," he said softly.

Caden put his monocular away and unstrapped a compact case from his back, laying it on the ground and clicking it open. From inside, he started assembling a custom rifle based on the AK platform.

He caught Artemis eyeing the rifle. "Beautiful, isn't she?"

Artemis blinked and frowned crookedly. "If you like that sort of thing. I've seen similar models before, but not this one."

"Hm. When I was younger, I spent a lot of time in the old Soviet bloc. Kind of an occupational necessity." He held up the rifle as he fixed the gas piston in place. "Saw a lot of these. So I took 'em apart, figured out what made them tick, picked up the best design cues, and combined 'em all into this. I call it the A-91 Daggertail. Built it myself. Took a few tries though." He grinned crookedly. "Hence the '91.'"

"Why is that?"

"Well, the one part of the design philosophy it took me a while to understand was 'perfection through simplicity.' Really the main improvement I ended up focusing on was the materials, giving them more staying power, more resistance to wear and tear. So now I have a space-age rifle that chambers one of the most widely circulated rounds in the world." He slapped the dust cover on and fixed a low-power variable optic in place. "And if something does break down, I designed it so certain parts would be interchangeable with other members of the design family.

"And then there's my personal ammo." Caden clicked the magazine into place. "Hand-forged tungsten-core rounds loaded with enough gunpowder to rip right through Level IV armor in a few hits." Caden shouldered it and tested the sight alignment and magnification. "The recoil suppression system virtually eliminates muzzle climb, so more shots on target in less time, especially up close."

He lowered the weapon and flicked the safety on and off to test if it would stick. It didn't.

"You're quite the polymath," Artemis observed.

Caden sighed and pulled a full-face ballistic mask from the case. "I'm a bioengineered genius-level intellect with insomnia, perfect memory, and a limitless budget." He looked up at her with a slight cringe. "I have a lot of time on my hands."

"And you spend most of it on things instead of people. I'm beginning to see why Kara affectionately refers to you as a 'basement dweller.'"

He stared at her, complete deadpan, then reached around the underside of his rifle and yanked the charging handle to put a round in the chamber. "Let's go."

Artemis chuckled as he put the mask on. The balaclava portion holding it to his face was comprised of a gray aramid weave, and the face-molded mask of matte-black ballistic-rated polyethylene. Caden also brought the polyadaptive graphene matrix pack he'd used in Athens, just in case he needed to jump off something tall. And he'd programmed a few extra functions into it, in case he needed an extra layer of armor on the fly, among other reasons. The PGM had remarkable tensile strength, and though he hadn't integrated any direct applications of the kinetic energy it could absorb, he and Fox had configured it so any ballistic impacts would only make the molecular bonds stronger.

Finally ready, they set off toward the tunnel, using the terrain to mask their approach. Once they reached the tunnel itself, Caden set about looking for cameras or motion sensors that might give away their position. Nothing so far, but it was almost completely dark. A few hundred yards, and he could see why it was only almost. The tunnel didn't lead to an underground bunker, but a massive subterranean cistern that looked like it had been expanded to hold an entire military complex. Just at a glance, it had to span at least three miles in every direction, with a rock ceiling four stories high and a small opening about a hundred meters in diameter right over the water reservoir. They knelt behind some rocks to take it all in.

"Incredible," Artemis breathed. "If Achilles weren't a bloodthirsty maniac, I would complement his skills."

Caden's jaw tightened. Because of course he designed all this. He was the only one in Ares' employ who could. Just keeping a cavern of this breadth and depth stable this far underground was an incredible feat of engineering. It was the perfect hideout, completely shielded from satellite surveillance and in the middle of nowhere. And the cistern answered his question about their water supply. It even looked like they had their own facilities for hydroponics and animal husbandry. With a cavern this big, they certainly had the space.

His head shook slowly. "Completely self-sufficient and undetectable. They could go dark for months, maybe years, without ever having to come up for air." Caden looked to Artemis. "Now do you understand why I've been hunting him so zealously?"

Her lips pursed tightly, and she nodded. "I'm starting to. The only question is where we'll find him. Facility this large, he could be anywhere."

"If I were running this place, I'd have cameras watching every inch of it, something secure. That means a closed-circuit monitor network. All I need is a hardline to jack in and a few minutes to search."

"I have…no notion of how to find any of that."

Caden waved dismissively. "Yeah, don't worry about it. I was just thinking out loud." He tapped his forearm pad and frowned in focus. "Okay…let's see just how programmable the PGM is."

His fingers flew over the pad as he activated an additional configuration. The pack's material expanded and shifted at his command, rapidly forming an array of antennas and coordinate sensors, all feeding data to his pad.

"Ohh boy…okay, this might take a bit."

Artemis stared at his back. "Is this really the time to be testing a new toy?"

"If they knew we were here, we'd already be dead. This…is the perfect time."

Her eyes rolled.

Caden's lips pursed, and he set the array to scan for heavy EM signatures. The readout displayed clusters of power and data lines everywhere, with no initially discernible pattern. Then he spotted a nexus of lines, like the center of a web, and grinned.

"Gotcha."

They dashed across the open space as soon as they confirmed a blind spot in the cameras and took cover behind one of the perimeter storage buildings. Slowly but surely, they made their way to the nexus, with Caden frowning at the lack of patrols. Normally, he'd think nothing of it; this was their home base and almost impossible to find, so naturally they'd feel secure.

But Achilles was their boss.

That gnawing feeling in his gut didn't dissipate when they found a hardline on the roof of the building. It looked like a relay station, so probably not heavily populated, but still significant enough to have a token guard force. They lay prone as Caden used the PGM to jack into the data line. A few minutes later, he had access to every camera feed in the base.

"Okay, keep watch," he whispered.

Artemis nodded and periodically checked the perimeter of the building. There were a few vehicle patrols off in the distance—more of the dune buggies—so security wasn't as lax as they'd initially assumed. But the fact that the entry tunnel didn't have even a small guard squad nagged at Caden. Still, he pressed on through the camera feeds. There were dozens, maybe hundreds to sift through. So he uploaded a program shared by Oracle that filtered through the footage in search of Achilles' known traits—the faceless mask, walking gait, his trademark blade gauntlets.

It didn't take more than a minute before there was a hit.

Caden stared at the feed for a solid minute before he whispered, "Got…you…now…"

Achilles was being escorted by a small army of Myrmidons with the usual livery and patches, but an additional red stripe on the sides of their pants. All were in full face masks. Not uncommon for the Myrmidons, but this was their headquarters. The lack of guards, the masks…something was off. No matter. He knew where Achilles was now.

"I know where he is," Caden said. "We need to cut off as many escape routes as possible as fast as possible. The moment they know something's off, they're either going to swarm us or swarm the exits."

"Agreed. Do you have any suggestions?"

Caden looked around and frowned. "Under any other circumstances, I'd say we take out the supports and collapse this whole cavern."

"But?"

He sighed. "But you're not fast enough to hit all the supports at once, I didn't bring nearly enough explosives, and if we go rooting around and steal their explosives, we're likely to get caught and he's likely to escape."

Artemis frowned and thought for a while, then met his eyes. "Can you kill him?"

Caden frowned. "What do you mean? The plan is—"

"If I give you a window…can you kill him?"

He stared at her. "Artemis, whatever you're thinking—"

"Answer the question." Her green eyes were hard as diamond.

Caden's jaw tightened. "Yes."

She nodded slowly. "Then you'll have it. Get in position at the building and wait for my signal."

The moment she started to get up, he grabbed her arm.

"Wait. What are you going to do?"

She stared at his hand, then at his face.

Caden met her gaze unflinchingly. "We're a team on this, Artemis. No lone wolf, no going rogue."

Artemis blinked slowly. "I'm going to make a great deal of noise. And then I'm going to lead them all around by the crook."

He arched an eyebrow. "A…wild goose chase?"

She shrugged. "Sure, let's call it that."

"O…Okay. Call me if you get in hot water. I'll have my earpiece in."

Artemis nodded and leapt off the roof. Caden took a deep breath and used the camera feed to plan out his angle of approach on the building where Achilles was holed up. By what he was able to pull from the network, it was their primary living space, a barracks, by the look of it—and mostly underground. Which meant that there was probably a back door of sorts. If it was there, though, it wasn't on any cameras he could find. He just had to bank on speed and violence of action to get this done.

Drake spent the next ten minutes sneaking toward the building. Halfway there, a massive explosion shook the cavern, and he looked to the side to see a ceiling-high fireball in the distance.

"Ah hell," he muttered.

Artemis had just set off one of their main fuel depots.

Meaning the vast majority of the base was now headed her way. He heard the scream of a minigun moments later and grit his teeth as he pressed forward. She could handle herself and she had a plan. He had to trust that. So he sprinted for Achilles' bunker to the backdrop of echoing gunfire.

…

"Sir, we're under attack! An Amazon broke into one of our depots and she's tearing it down one pillar at a time!"

Achilles stopped mid-step and tapped the side of his mask. "A lone Amazon? Show me."

He motioned over a lieutenant, who pulled up a tablet linked to the helmet cameras of the men responding to the incident. He stared at the feed for a good while before stopping it on a still of a tall redhead.

The lieutenant turned to him. "We should sweep the whole complex. No telling how many other rangers are with her."

Achilles' head shook. "I recognize her from Lord Ares' records; she's no ranger. If she's here, she came alone. Yet…"

"Sir?"

"How did she find us when none of her sisters could?"

The lieutenant had no answer.

"…ah." Achilles chuckled. "Of course."

Achilles tabbed through the camera feeds, scanning every moving body—and saw a rapid shadow of one moving in the opposite direction. Toward his location.

"It's him." He turned to the rest of his guard. "Form up on the main entrance. I want every gun covering that door." He turned to another porter. "Summon Khalid and his squad to the inner sanctum."

They nodded and obeyed as the LT followed Achilles to a security room deeper in.

"Sir, something's not right here."

"Oh? Whatever do you mean?"

"If he came here with that Amazon, then she's doing all this on his advisement."

"So?"

The lieutenant scoffed as they shut a ballistic door behind them. "This is Caden Drake. He doesn't just announce his presence like this and then walk in the front door."

Achilles hummed softly. "Oh yes…I'm counting on it."

The lieutenant stared at him, then turned back to the feed, pale as death.

…

A dozen rifles pointed at the triple-bolted double doors securing the building's entrance. Every man behind a gun had a faint tremble in their grip. They knew their enemy. They knew his legend. What their Lord Achilles had done for a year, he had been doing for orders of magnitude longer, and mostly alone at that.

But this was that they had trained for.

The tension rose with every distant rumble and echo of gunfire. Most were sweating hard enough to get blurry vision after the first minute. Still, they blinked it away and stayed focused. The faint din of the climate control system was the only sound in the antechamber aside from the occasional cough or nervous shuffle. A few of the Myrmidons started glancing around when the vents started whining. It took the middle rank of shooters a few seconds to realize the whine wasn't coming from the vents.

Only two swiveled toward the wall before it exploded inward and crushed four of them in a shower of concrete and steel. Through the dust, an armored figure flew into action, gunfire exploding from the barrel of his weapon as his trigger finger turned into a gloved blur. Five more dropped dead before any of them recovered enough to shoot back, and only with suppressive fire at that. The smoke and dust from the explosion were still too thick. Two more fell with a single shot to the head each. Only the faintest hint of a muzzle flash gave them something to shoot at.

The multispectral scanner built into the lenses of his ballistic mask made his own view perfectly clear. The Myrmidons retreated down the antechamber steps in several stacks, firing as they went. Two more fell and were dragged away before they even made the first flight. A fragmentation grenade rolled down the stairs amid the chaos and gunfire, so small and just slow enough for no one to notice. Six more were torn to shreds in the resulting explosion. Sparse shots came from the Myrmidons as they slid into new defensive positions.

Caden Drake leapt from the cloud of smoke like a faceless demon, full-tilt sprinting toward the Myrmidons. He cut down three more before they could retreat behind cover. The rest opened up on him as he slid behind a support pillar, reloaded, and checked himself for holes. They pounded his cover with a barrage of fire, ripping off chunks of concrete and rebar as it gradually chipped away. The moment he heard the faintest pause in their salvo, he tossed a nine-bang flash grenade out and let their muzzle flashes blind them to its rolling approach. Halfway through the nine eruptions, Drake lunged from cover and flipped the Daggertail to full-auto, charging into point-blank range.

He put three rounds in a Myrmidon, then yanked his reeling body in front of him and fired over his shoulder at four others. Two came at him from the side and nicked his arm with a grazing shot while the other six shots hit his human shield. Caden shouldered the corpse and took his sidearm, putting a bullet in the kneecap of one assailant while the other stumbled when he fell back. Four more rounds tore through the pair before they could move.

Caden tossed the stolen pistol at a Myrmidon who'd lost his gun and pulled a machete, stunning him long enough to throw the corpse in his face. Drake shouldered his rifle and emptied the rest of the mag into another retreating stack, tagging two more. They returned fire. He flinched and shouted when two rounds struck him dead center and a third ricocheted off the side of his mask. He leapt behind a cluster of sandbags, snapping the empty mag from his weapon and grabbing another. Movement in his peripheral vision stopped him when he saw the machete soldier mid-swing.

Caden used the mag to deflect the blade, and it slid away as the soldier came in for another slash. Drake lunged in and halfway tackled him, bracing one arm against the elbow of his assailant. The soldier couldn't turn the machete enough to make it a threat, giving Caden a moment to draw his pistol and put three bullets through his side before shoving him back and firing another through the head. He holstered it and was moving toward the discarded magazine before the body hit the ground.

The Daggertail was reloaded and back in the fight moments later. He grabbed a smoke grenade from one of the fallen and deployed it in the next area, but two incendiary grenades rolled right back toward him to lock down the entrance. Ignited thermite sprayed in all directions around the doorway, giving off massive glare that made it almost impossible to see beyond it. So Caden grabbed two more frag grenades from the corpses and tossed them over the flames. The explosions bought him time to reconfigure the PGM into a cloak of sorts just long enough to serve as a shin protector.

As soon as the thermite started to dim, he leapt through the gap. The last few sparks bounced off the PGM as Caden opened fire on a startled squad of Myrmidons. He tapped his gauntlet between bursts, retracting the PGM to his back right as more impacts struck him from behind. He let the kinetic energy shove him forward and leapt over a large storage container. Drake emptied the last few shots into a trio of mercenaries taking cover behind it. Caden hunkered down and snapped the last magazine into his weapon as he closed his eyes and focused all his senses.

The way the vibrations echoed through the relatively small room were such that it was almost impossible to tell where the gunshots were coming from—at least, for anyone else. He could make out at least four distinct shooters in a wide dispersion around the room, but no exact locations thanks to how loud it was. His eyes opened, and he took rapid breaths as his system flooded with more adrenaline. A body lunged out from behind the container, immediately riddled with holes as it dropped. Before any of the shooters could think, the opposite side flashed with gunfire and two went down.

Caden had used one of their own fallen as bait.

He ran around the opposite side of the room, popping off a few shots to keep the remaining shooters suppressed. One managed a lucky hit to his chest, but it didn't even faze him before Drake dropped him with three shots, one right through the neck. The last remaining shooter mirrored his movements and unloaded with a magazine-fed shotgun. Caden lunged behind cover and returned fire, ducking and weaving between scattered crates and a few hardened barricades that seemed retractable. His eyes narrowed as he scanned the room.

Gambling that the construction was symmetrical, Drake pivoted and fired his rifle at a line of barricades perpendicular between the two, sweeping his barrel in a fan pattern. The barrage of rounds ricocheted off the armored surface, pinging everywhere at reduced speed. One got lucky and arced around the shooter's cover. A yelp and growl followed a moment later. Caden dropped the empty weapon to hang at his side and charged the shooter with his pistol, sliding around the corner to fire at center mass.

The merc was aiming his shotgun at the same time, but such was his positioning that two of Caden's shots actually hit the weapon instead. It didn't save him. Caden mag-dumped into his chest and head, then snapped a fresh one in and proceeded deeper. He traversed several flights of stairs without any further hint of resistance—or his quarry.

It all screamed trap.

He went in anyway. A few taps on his forearm pad formed the PGM into a high-intensity IR light. His mask's lenses switched to infrared, and he scanned the basement for any sign of movement. Caden saw only the hint of a silhouette in his peripherals and snapped toward it. Another, and he whirled toward that. Achilles was screwing with him.

So followed the movement down a corridor to a room with a low ceiling and tossed a pair of specialized strobe grenades in. He made sure to shut off the IR filter first, switching instead to an adaptive polarized filter. As the strobes went off, Caden charged into the light and sprinted at the only silhouette in the room. His pistol rang out over and over, mag-dumping into the figure. He could see a faint glint as the air split with piercing shrieks of sheared metal.

It wasn't until he was within six yards that he remembered the spinning blades Cassandra had mentioned. Caden's head snapped away from a metal shard that just barely flew past him. It still nicked the side of his mask and rendered his right lens useless. In between strobes, Drake fired the last five bullets to no effect as he darted around and started to backpedal. Achilles closed the distance with frightening speed.

The moment Caden snapped the last magazine into his pistol, Achilles took a swing at his shoulder. Caden swung the gun at the blade in a flash of pure instinct. By some miracle, the grip managed to divert the blade enough for him to dodge backward. Unfortunately, it also snapped the weapon from his grip to only a finger in the trigger-guard. Drake leapt back and tried to spin the pistol back into firing position. Another tungsten shard flew toward him and skewered the weapon to a far wall.

Caden didn't need to look to know the gun was ruined—that shard had impacted right in the barrel assembly.

Achilles lunged. Caden's arms dropped to his sides. Both arm-blades slashed at his neck from opposite directions. They stopped less than six inches away, metal grinding on metal when Caden quick-drew both knives from the back of his belt. The pause didn't last long. Drake lunged in and slammed his knee into Achilles' ribs. He slashed at the clone's faceless mask with both knives, meeting nothing but air and seeing only afterimages in the wake of each strobe. Achilles countered, and Caden's heart raced as they twisted and danced around each other well within arm's reach.

Unless one of them got a direct hit through their armor, it was only a matter of time before this went to the ground. Caden felt another flechette graze his left bicep between light pulses and grit his teeth. He leapt into Achilles, tackling his waist and lifting him off the ground. Caden's right knife flipped to an icepick grip and stabbed Achilles' lower thigh. They fell to the ground in another room right as the strobes stopped, leaving them in total darkness. Caden couldn't see the knee that slammed into his face, rendering the other lens useless; or the blade that stabbed through his right shoulder, making him drop the knife imbedded in the clone's thigh.

He did feel Achilles scramble out of his grip and heard him dash away.

He'd been stabbed before—the shoulder wound wasn't critical. Yet.

Caden groaned and pulled his mask off, cracking a flare and tossing it. A red phosphorous glow filled the hollow concrete space. He caught a glimpse of movement and followed it into a high-vaulted cylindrical room. His eyes hadn't yet adapted to the low light, but before he could even think of popping another flare, a blinding spotlight illuminated the center of the room—which happened to be exactly where Caden was standing.

A silhouette just in front of the spotlight cast Achilles in deep shadow. The clone was perched one floor up, one hand tightening a tourniquet above the wound in his thigh. Caden's eyes narrowed as he gave the room a once-over. A simple glance revealed it was designed as some kind of fighting or sparring pit.

And that they weren't alone.

Six figures strode out of the shadows with hatchets and machetes. Every one of them had similar ballistic masks to their master, minus all the lettering. All they had was the same circle-in-crescent patch etched into their foreheads. And a red stripe on their pants.

Caden sneered and glared up at Achilles. "What is this? Too afraid to finish it yourself?"

Achilles finished tying off the windlass, then turned to Caden. "No."

The unease Caden felt from hearing his grating, distorted voice was matched only by the unblinking gaze he could just barely see behind those mask lenses.

Achilles' head cocked just a tad. "Just proving a point."

Then he waved the six forward.

All six Myrmidons completely encircled Caden. Despite his reputation, they didn't seem the least bit perturbed or hesitant in their motions. Caden's left hand gripped his remaining knife. He snarled as the first came in after him with a hatchet, deflecting the ax-head, then grabbing the merc's wrist with an empty hand and slicing it open with a passing cut. A distorted cry came from that mask as he moved onto the next one, a pair of mercs with machetes. Their blades skated off his with every other slash. He tried to close the distance, but the hatchet man hooked his weapon's head around Caden's ankle and yanked.

It was just enough to lock him in place for the machete twins to attack from opposite sides. Caden bent over backward and curled his arm around the hatchet man's. Then he used the prone merc's back as a springboard to roll away from the pair. The other three were waiting for him with dual kicks to the diaphragm and another hatchet strike that separated him from the knife. Caden roared and grabbed the second hatchet man's collar, yanking him into a headbutt that caved in the mask. A backfist sent another machete soldier reeling. Caden ducked under a passing machete stab and came up behind his assailant to suplex him into the concrete.

From the ground, Drake kicked out the back leg of another machete soldier and sent him tumbling face-first. Panicked chokes filled the air when the falling merc's trachea was crushed by Caden's knuckles. He immediately dropped the machete into Drake's waiting left hand. Caden swung wide just once to keep the three standing mercs at bay, then elbowed the stunned hatchet soldier behind him. The force of that served as a springboard to push Caden to one knee. He swung the machete up and blocked two more with the flat of the blade, both hands pressing up on either side.

The metal flexed as Caden shot to his feet. A shin-kick threw one merc off balance. He deflected a single light swipe before Caden opened his jugular with a backward drawing cut. A hatchet came at Drake's face. The machete blade snapped when it took the full impact, but there was still enough left to punish his assailant with jagged stabs to the arm and side. Caden growled when the bite of another machete cut through his side. He dropped the broken machete and grabbed the Myrmidon's head, using a hip-throw to slam him into the still-prone machete merc. The hatchet merc with the dented mask came at him with two, one from a fallen comrade.

The flurry of strikes met nothing but air until Caden's palm slapped against the haft of one while the other palm slammed the bottom of his mask at just the right angle to block his vision. The weapon was twisted from the Myrmidon's grip just in time to intercept another machete stab. Caden used the haft as a lever to snap the machete from his assailant's grip, then tripped him and threw the hatchet into the back of his head.

Just three left, two with hatchets, one a machete.

The two hatchet men came at him from opposite sides, high and low. He leapt right through the center and threw his right forearm up. The carbon nanofiber sleeve diverted enough energy to keep one of the hatchets from cleaving through his arm, but the blunt force transfer still hit hard enough for him to feel something crack. His pierced shoulder was throbbing hard, making his right arm feel like a chunk of lead he could barely move. The adrenaline running through his system still gave him enough strength to turn that fist forward and slam the machete merc in the diaphragm.

Caden's right arm fell limp. The spiking pain made it progressively harder to see and even harder to focus, but he was operating on pure instinct now. If he hadn't been, he might've noticed the way his assailants' movements were hesitating, were slower and weaker than they should've been for hardened mercenaries. The two remaining hatchet men tried to tackle him. Caden ducked one's grab and snatched up the fallen machete. As soon as the low tackle hit, the Myrmidon fell limp from the machete blade that was punched up through his spine.

The other hatchet merc swung at the back of his head while he pushed the body off, striking his dead comrade instead. The moment the hatchet buried itself in that mask, Caden spun and tripped his attacker with both legs, then climbed on top of him and laid in with knees and his one good arm. The disarmed machete soldier had managed to catch his breath and tried to put Caden in a rear naked choke only to get flipped head-first into the ground. Drake grabbed the hatchet man's collar and picked him up, roaring as he slammed him down—impaling him on the machete blade sticking out of his comrade's back.

Then Caden turned to the last man with wild eyes, not even feeling his crippled arm or the blood running down his face. He just looked up at Achilles, who still hadn't lifted a finger, and mounted the last merc. Then his left hand came down, over and over, until he heard bones snap.

And he kept going until his vision started going blurry.

Caden blinked and wiped his eyes, trying to clear it out, and looked down to see his last few blows had displaced the mask just enough to see the chin. A chin that was completely devoid of even a hint of hair. He stared for a moment. That in itself wasn't unusual per se—or it wouldn't have been in a number of paramilitary organizations.

But this was the Middle East, and Achilles had a habit of sourcing locals.

He reached down and pulled the mask back completely. The transferred blunt force from Caden's one-handed beatdown had done significant damage to the face and probably ruptured something internally. The merc was absolutely dead, and had likely perished quite fast. The primal wail of horror that pierced the room sent all of Caden's pain rushing in at once. He rushed to the others with legs he forced to cooperate and removed their masks as well. The room shook with his shrieking once more as his shaking knees gave out.

The oldest of them couldn't have been more than fifteen or sixteen.

The room echoed with Caden's scream for a solid thirty seconds before tinnitus set in and the ringing drowned out Achilles' approaching steps.

"…why?"

Caden's whisper got barely a head tilt from Achilles.

He forced his eyes up to glare at that mask. "Why did you send them to me?"

Achilles didn't answer.

"What point were you trying to make?"

The clone stared back, then reached up and popped the seal of his mask. He pulled it off, and Caden's gut twisted. Whatever discomfort or dissociation he'd experienced meeting Adonis couldn't compare to the sheer disgust that filled Caden's gut when he saw Achilles' face. This clone was pale, deathly pale, with perfect skin that looked like it had never seen wind or dirt or even a scratch. Even his hair was close-cut and perfectly trimmed, without even the slightest hint of tousle. If Adonis was like looking in a distorted mirror, Achilles looked like a dollmaker's attempt at replicating him.

And the smile that etched itself onto those pale lips…

"Why did you want to kill me so badly?" Achilles finally asked.

Caden stayed silent.

Achilles held a finger up. "I'll wager it has something to do with the pile of bodies you found in Karbala." He looked around and waved to the six corpses. "Seems a bit familiar now, doesn't it?"

"You butchered scientists and engineers—noncombatants—"

"And you butchered six boys who stood in your way."

"They had masks and weapons! I didn't know!"

"Would it have mattered?"

Caden stared at the bodies, felt all the color draining from his face.

Achilles knelt in front of him. "You and I aren't so different."

Caden spat in his face, marring that pale perfection with bloody spittle.

Achilles just smiled and wiped his cheek.

"You sent them to die," Caden growled.

Achilles chuckled and stood, splaying his arms outward. "You're the reason they're here at all!"

"…what are you talking about?"

The clone sighed and pinched his nose, pacing back and forth. "Oh my dear big brother…do you have any idea what's going on in Qurac? What's really been happening for the last two years?" Achilles reached into his belt and tossed an orb on the ground between them. "Here, let me show you."

It rolled to a stop and stood on one side, projecting a 3D layout of scanned documents and surveillance.

"Two years ago, you assassinated Premier Al-Khabur and his entire cabinet to make way for a professed idealist with a concrete plan for his nation. It went off without a hitch, and after Olympus was kicked to the curb, Qurac was reborn as a new ally to the West. Enter President Rumaan Harjavti."

Caden stared at the projection for about fifteen seconds before it started to paint a picture. Raids on private citizens, documentation of illicit transactions, mass graves at wealthy estates, trumped-up charges of sedition leading to asset seizure on a massive scale. And a long, long list of industrialists and military officers who'd benefitted from all of it.

With President Harjavti at the very top.

"And like that, a tyranny of one turns into tyranny of the 'majority,'" Achilles said glibly. "And everyone cheers." Sarcasm dripped from his every work. "Because of course, despotism just can't happen in a 'democracy.' That's why it's the only acceptable way to govern in the modern age, don't you know?" Achilles knelt in front of him, the hologram disrupted by his face leaning through it. "And you might've noticed if you'd bothered to pay attention.

"What did you do instead?" He smirked. "Replace one dictator with another and piss off to do your own thing while the country tears itself apart from the inside." Achilles grinned venomously. "How very American of you."

Caden glared back at him. "How does any of this have to do with them?"

Achilles glanced at the corpses and waved over their bodies. "These are the orphaned boys of the families Harjavti destroyed to line his pockets and consolidate power. The girls…" He chuckled unsettlingly. "Well, I don't think you want to know what happened to them. But the boys? Harjavti and his ilk know how quickly boys become men when properly motivated for revenge, so most were killed. The few that survived were cast out on the street with all record of their existence purged, forced to join street gangs or beg to survive." Achilles stood. "I offered them an alternative."

"That—" Caden tried to lunge to his feet, but his legs gave out halfway. "That's not better!"

Achilles' head cocked. "No? On their own, their life expectancy was both short and miserable. An unmarked grave or dead in a ditch. That was their only future. I gave them food, a home, a purpose, a family, even. Their last days were spent in blissful camaraderie." He smirked and nodded to Caden. "What did you do for them?"

"I didn't know!"

Achilles knelt and held his gaze unblinkingly. "That's right. And you didn't care, so long as you got to do your 'good deed' and punch out."

Caden's jaw clenched. "How does working for Ares to massacre people make you any better?"

Achilles laughed. "Oh it doesn't. I live for the bloodletting, for knowing that my men and I survived where so many others didn't. Does that make me a monster?" He shrugged. "Probably. I own that." He leaned in and smiled venomously. "What I don't own is the sheer brass balls it takes to lie to myself or anyone else about who I really am and why I do this." His smile widened. "Now that…takes a special kind of savagery."

Caden stared at the ground, at the lifeless eyes of the boys strewn around him. Then he looked up at Achilles and returned that unblinking glare, blood boiling in his veins and murder in his eyes. Achilles smiled and stood with an awed look on his face. He exhaled sharply, positioning his hands like a frame around Caden's face.

"That," he breathed, "that look, right there—that's what I was looking for." Achilles gave him a small bow, never breaking eye contact. "Thank you for proving I'm not alone."

Then Achilles stepped back into the shadows and vanished.

…

Artemis sprinted past the torn bodies of the dozens Caden struck down on his way into the barracks. In the privacy of her own mind, she admitted to Drake's point about being unprepared—the Myrmidons were no fools when it came to combat. She was breathing heavier than she had in months outside of the training fields. Nevertheless, she'd managed to waylay most of their forces and destroy a good number of vehicles, as well as most of the stone supports holding up the cave complex.

It wasn't enough to cause a collapse—yet.

Artemis found her way into the basement, squinting at the low light. She saw a faint light coming from deeper in and ran toward it. As soon as she turned the corner, she stopped short and stared. There was Caden, kneeling, bloodied, and surrounded by Myrmidon corpses.

Juvenile corpses.

Artemis swallowed and approached his back. "Drake! Drake, we have to leave!"

He didn't even acknowledge her.

She reached down and shook his shoulder. "Drake! Snap out of it! They're coming!"

Artemis was about to check for a pulse when his eyes slowly slid to meet hers. Their dark brown was almost black. In all her centuries of life, she'd rarely seen eyes so dead. Artemis' jaw tightened.

"Get up," she ordered.

Caden glanced down and tried to move, but his legs quickly gave out.

Artemis growled softly and picked him up, slinging his arm over her shoulder. His whole body was trembling. She heard the thunder of bootfalls behind her and whirled around to see a squad of Myrmidons fill the chamber, guns pointed. Artemis glanced from one end of their group to the other. They were steadily surrounding the pair.

One of them, an officer, growled, "Nowhere left to run, Amazon."

Artemis smirked. "Who says I was running?" Her right hand reached out as her left held Caden up. Her voice hardened as her smile dropped, replaced by cold fury. "Mistress—to me."

Long seconds passed in complete silence. The Myrmidons stared at her, glanced at each other, back to her. The officer raised his left arm, ready to fire. Artemis' open hand flexed. Then thunder shook the cavern so hard, half of them lost their footing. The other half angled weapons on the pair as the ceiling caved in.

A massive battle axe twirled in from above, slapping against Artemis' palm right as the first shots rang out. She let go of Caden and twirled the axe in an endless circle, shattering most of the bullets thrown their way. The rest pinged harmlessly off her armor. She twirled her body and hurled the axe horizontally. The twirling weapon cleaved one of them in half and bowled five more over—along with shattering another support pillar. The walls immediately started to buckle and crumble, raining concrete and rebar shards.

The Myrmidons panicked, most of them running for the exit as the whole building collapsed. Artemis just picked up Caden, threw him over her shoulder, and waited for Mistress to return to her hand before leaping up through the hole it made. She hit the surface right as a truck drove by with evacuating mercs. The whole complex was in chaos. Artemis smiled at her handiwork and jumped again. A few more brought them out under open skies through the cistern, and there they remained, safely nestled in a rocky alcove.

Artemis took watch for a few minutes to ensure they weren't being pursued. Apparently the Myrmidons had bigger problems right now. She sighed in relief, then turned to Caden and started looking him over. He was in rough shape, bleeding profusely from his shoulder and a few other places. His forearm was broken, probably a few ribs too. For all her poking and ministrations, he barely made a sound or reacted at all.

It was twenty minutes of work before either said anything.

"What happened down there?" Artemis asked.

He didn't answer.

She tapped his face. "Drake."

Caden blinked rapidly and met her eyes. His looked a little less dead, but they were no less heavy. He swallowed and looked away.

"…I found him…fought him. I lost."

Artemis frowned. "And the bodies?"

His face twisted as he stared at the ground. "They had masks. Weapons. Achilles sent them to slow me down. I didn't realize…" His shoulders shook, head bowed.

Artemis sighed and leaned back into a rock. It took her a few seconds to realize he was laughing. She stared at him.

"Y'know," he chuckled, "I've been doing this a long, long time. Seen a lot of messed up shit. The kind that makes you think you've seen the absolute bottom of humanity." He looked up at her and laughed again. "And then…there's always that…one time, every once in a while, when the world reminds you it can still get worse. And always in the back of my head was this…this thing, this inkling that one day…I'd turn into the kind of sick freak that gets off on it." His smile gained a hint of disgust. "Then I met him…and he was all of that in one body." Caden looked away, gave the desert a thousand-yard stare as he fell silent. "Did you know that I tangled with Hecate during the Olympus War?"

Artemis stared at him. "No."

He nodded slowly. "It was during Poseidon's assault on the West Coast. John Stewart, Shayera, and I ran right into Hecate while we were trying to head him off. She cast…" he waved vaguely, "some kind of aging spell. Shayera and John were laid out, could barely move…and I…" he shrugged, "I was fine. Hadn't even gained a single gray hair. Now, I've studied for years in ways to counteract all sorts of stuff—metahumans, magic, telepathy—so I thought, 'that's probably why it didn't work.'" His jaw tightened. "Then after the war, I got to thinking, and I had a few trusted friends run some tests. Tell me, you ever read the Bible?"

Artemis' arms crossed. "Can't say I have."

"Hm. In the very first book, there's a record, a genealogy of the first generations of Man. Has a few details in there, y'know the usual record-keeping stuff…including their lifespans. Did you know the first generations lived for centuries? The oldest of them clocked out at 969 years." He looked up at her. "Project Achilles distilled the best parts of the entire human genome into a single body."

Her eyes widened.

Caden smiled without warmth. "Yeah. Turns out they threw that one in too." He went back to staring at the desert. "Barring some catastrophe or someone finally getting lucky, I will live for…centuries." He waved toward the cistern opening. "Centuries of that. That's what I have to look forward to."

The plateau was silent for a while, save the desert wind. The sun sank a little lower, casting deeper shadows.

"I've thought about it a lot since I found out."

Artemis turned at Caden's voice. The arm not in a sling was drawing patterns in the dust on the ground.

"Thought about what I'd be willing to endure, willing to forgive," Caden said softly. He chuckled. "What it would take for me to finally snap and write off our failure of a species." Caden laughed loudly, madly, head reared back. "God, it'd be so easy!"

Artemis stared at him uneasily.

Caden turned to her, eyes black and wild. "You know that satellite I mentioned? Do you know what else I have installed on it? The same kind of binary fusion cannon the Justice League used to have on their Watchtower. They dismantled theirs after Luthor hijacked it." His head shook. "I didn't. When Hawkgirl and Lantern were knocked out of the fight, I had to confront Poseidon alone. That cannon?" His head shook slightly. "It's the only reason Poseidon didn't bury all of California underwater.

"Do you know how easily I could send up a dozen more? With my resources, with my contacts? You know how easily I could wipe the surface clean? And I'd do it too. If I ever made that decision, it's as good as done. Because there would be no warning, no manifesto, no trail of clues. Just…fine one second, and the next, everything is turned to glass. Sure, the League could try to stop me, and they might almost succeed. I'd certainly die in the process. But the work would be done, with nothing anyone could do to change it."

Artemis hadn't blinked since he started ranting, but now her eyes shut tightly. "Stop it. Just…stop talking."

"Why?" Caden laughed, his tone mocking. "Because it's just too frightening to contemplate?"

Her green eyes locked onto his, voice hard. "No. Because I know exactly what you're trying to do."

Every other sentence, his eyes had flickered to her axe. Now, they stared at the ground. Artemis laid the weapon aside, took off her helmet, and knelt in front of him. She could see his eyes welling.

"I've been where you are now." Artemis swallowed hard. "Years ago, I had a friend…someone I'd known for centuries. Someone I loved." Her eyes shut as she tried to keep her voice from shaking. "We were Bana-Mighdall's greatest warriors, assigned to guard a powerful artifact of the gods. No one knew that artifact bore a curse. It took her, warped her mind, forced her into a rampage that killed our sisters and anyone else who crossed her path. And even after I separated her from the artifact…her mind was too far gone.

"There was only one way to stop her." Artemis took a shuddering breath and forced her voice steady. "I know what it's like to sit in the aftermath of that decision and be alone with that guilt. I begged Diana to spare me from an eternal life with that pain. She said no."

The air went silent again.

"You didn't have a choice," he whispered, staring at the ground. "I did."

"You didn't know."

His eyes snapped to her, red and running. "I didn't care."

Artemis held his gaze and shuffled even closer. "You trying to manipulate me into killing you tells a different story."

His jaw trembled visibly. "They were children."

"They were armed; it was you or them."

"They were children!"

"So were many of the warriors of my day. Had I faced them in battle and cut them down to survive, would you call me a murderer?"

Caden grimaced and looked away. "The longer I live, the more convinced I am…that he is my inevitable end." His shoulders shook with manic laughter. "Day like this, I have to wonder: am I that already?"

Artemis grabbed his chin and forced him to face her. "That you can even ask the question is answer enough."

He held her gaze, face trembling. "How? How do you live with it? With…never being able to forget? Knowing that centuries of misery and horror are in front of you with only one way out, how do you keep going? Why?"

"Because we must."

He shot to his feet and screamed: "Why?! We never learn! We never change! We don't want to!"

She stood up too. "Because history is littered with the mistakes of the past. Endless cycles of atrocity repeated over and over because wisdom is the domain of the experienced, and they rarely live long enough to enact lasting change." Her jaw tightened. "So humanity forgets." She gripped his shoulder. "We are the ones who remember. That is why the Amazons were created, to remind mankind that there is a better way."

He shook her off and stepped back. "But you didn't! You hid in your sanctuaries and abandoned us!"

Artemis frowned, stared at him. Her eyes dropped. "Yes. We did."

"Because you lived long enough to understand what I'm starting to get." Caden smiled bitterly. "We're not worth saving. None of us."

She met his eyes. "Then why weep for children who meant you harm?"

He grimaced and looked away.

"Why protect Jason?" She waved around. "Why do any of this?"

"…I don't know." His voice was hoarse, flat. He leaned back into the rock and sank into a fetal position. "I don't know."

Artemis sat next to him and stared out into the horizon. "It isn't all misery and horror, Drake. Diana reminded me of that when I stood where you are now. There are those in your life who are worth all the pain and sacrifice."

"And I end up hurting them too."

She smiled ruefully and looked at him. "Of course." Artemis gripped his good arm and squeezed faintly. "You're only human."

He met her eyes for a moment before returning his gaze to the horizon.

"I lost my love for the world a long time ago," Artemis admitted. "I can't look at it the way Diana does." She took a deep breath. "But there are still those I do love who live in it…so I have to fight. To make it better. To be better. When it comes to them, there is no choice to make."

The plateau went silent once again, until the sun sank behind the mountains, and the stars began to shine.

"Hey."

Caden grunted.

"Do you have somewhere to go, where you won't be alone?"

He swallowed. "I think so."

"Will you go there when we part ways?"

Caden sat in silence for a while before nodding.

"Give me your word."

He turned to see her staring at him, eyes hard. "Why?"

Artemis' head tipped up. "Because you never make a promise you don't keep. Of the few things I do know about you, I know that. Your pride simply won't allow it."

Caden frowned.

"Your word, Drake."

He sighed hard. "I'll go there right after this. I promise."

Artemis smiled faintly and nodded. "Then it's time for me to go home." She stood and took his good hand, hoisting him upright. "You are not allowed to quit, Caden Drake. So be better. It's the only choice left."

Caden swallowed and nodded faintly.

Her smile widened. She let go of his hand and tapped her earpiece. "Cyborg…I'm ready."

Moments later, a boom tube opened, and she stepped through, picking up Mistress on the way out. She cast a single glance at Caden before the portal closed behind her.

…

Caden stepped out of his own boom tube into soupy Southern heat. Before him was the back alley of a familiar restaurant. He entered moments later to see Alexander Kaiser tossing something in a pan. Alex glanced his way and grinned.

"Hey, man! Haven't heard from ya in a bit. How's it goin'?"

When Caden didn't immediately answer, Alex took a closer look and put down what he was doing.

"Hey." Alex came up to him and grabbed his arms, careful around his sling. "What's wrong? What happened?"

Caden blinked and met his eyes. "Do you…mind if I stay with you for a bit?" He shrugged. "I can help out around the place if you want—"

"Hey, don't worry about it." Alex smiled and waved him toward the kitchen. "Come on in."

Caden managed a tiny smile and stepped past him, sitting just inside the employees only section. The other chefs glanced his way but paid him little mind. By the look of it, the restaurant was just hitting a rush. So no one had the attention to spare when he made a call.

"Hello?"

Caden swallowed. "Diana."

"Drake. This is a surprise. How are you?"

He stared at a wall for a bit.

"Caden?"

His eyes shut. "I…this uh…this war in the Middle East—it's already created a lot of orphans. I'm sure that's only gonna get worse. And uh, I have the resources to help. I just…I don't have the right contacts or infrastructure or…" His voice cracked. "I don't really know where to start." His eyes welled as he took a shuddering breath. "Can you help me?"

The pure warmth in her reply made his heart just a little lighter: "Of course."

AN: So, this took me forever to write, for multiple reasons. First, I've been in the process of buying and restoring a house to livable conditions. After four years of slumming it, I finally have my own place. I just haven't had the energy or inspiration to write until now.

Second and more obviously, the topic material is heavy, probably heavier than anything I've written about in the past. I've read about it quite a bit and seen a good few documentaries about the use of child soldiers all over the world, and the damage that does to everyone involved. The impossible decisions faced by soldiers who have to deal with that reality, and the fallout of all that is just…well, I think Artemis said enough.

At any rate, I wouldn't say I particularly enjoyed writing this chapter, but it was absolutely necessary to develop multiple characters and set up their dynamics for the future. I wrote it over the course of a couple months, so I hope everything makes sense. Please let me know.

Gonna go find something sweet to consume now.

Drake out.