“So this is your place huh?” Bo said as he ducked under the small doorway. “Well it was I guess, but like you said I’m better off on the move now. Especially with your little bird friend promising she’d be the one to kill you. Seems like everyone else after someone named Cheek has to settle with me.” Jacob said, the slight edge to his voice told Bo to drop the conversation. He could smell the scent of women, of cheap booze, and of gunpowder. Shaking his head, Bo wondered what lot they had drawn to be so close yet never had met. He saw wanted posters pinned to the wall. Wandering around the mess on the floor he looked at each poster. Some were big time criminals he recognized; some were specific to this moon. He listened to Jacob mutter and shuffle around with his things. He smiled as he walked to the window. “Well at least one of us isn’t a wanted criminal.” Bo said, lightheartedly. “Yeah just a hit man moonlighting as a bounty hunter.” Jacob grumbled as he placed the first gun case on the floor in front of his door. Bo shook his head as he lifted the gun case when Jacob came around the corner with his bag of clothes and what looked like another gun case. “That it?” Bo asked. “Everything I need.” Bo nodded and walked out the door. Jacob squeezed by him and headed down the stairs. The door locked behind them with a blue light over the handle. Bo could hear the machines inside tearing things from the walls and cleaning the apartment. Looks like the only people that would know that Jacob Cheek used to live here would be the furnaces. He wandered down the stairs after his younger brother. He found him standing at the entrance of the building. “I thought we were in a hurry.” Bo held his finger to his lips as he descended the stairs and set down the gun case as he laid his hand on his 1911. Jacob’s hand went to the .357 that Bo had leant him until they got his guns. Jacob looked at him with confusion. ‘I smell flowers.’ Bo said inside Jacobs mind. Jacob’s eyes flew open as he realized that he hadn’t actually heard Bo say that. He was about to say something when he ‘heard’ it again. ‘Say nothing. Raven may have been giving last time but that will make her twice as angry this time. That and I saw her vulnerable. I’ve seen her beaten a lot, but that was the first time I saw her vulnerable. She’ll be down right venomous now.’ His teeth sharpened and his nails blackened as he turned to the area between the stairs. His hand lashed out as she fell through the air. Her blade slashed through the stairs, cutting the metal to shreds as she attempted to kill him. He jumped from his step and grabbed the railing on the next level, using it to propel him up to the next level. A shuriken left her hand and pinned Jacob’s shooting hand against the wall. He yelled in pain as it slammed against the wall with the blade in his palm. Raven raced over to him, her long legs carrying her to him in an instant. The katana was at his throat with a hiss as it left its scabbard. She locked her mahogany brown eyes on his. She mouthed words slowly as she stared at him. “Don’t move. I’m only after him.” Her katana proved that she would sacrifice him for her ends, however. Her eyes scanned and Jacob could tell she was using her mind too. She had the same far-away look in her eyes that Bo had just had. Jacob slowly pulled on his .357, trying to draw it from his holster. The gun left the holster, and then fell from his hand as her foot slammed into his wrist. She glared at him from one eye as he felt her mind intrude on hers. ‘I understand you think you’re hot shit because you’re this amazing sniper, but you have no idea what level of the field you’ve just stepped into with your brother.’ “Of course he doesn’t. Wasn’t that their plan?” Bo said stepping from behind the wall, his 1911 trained on Raven’s face. He watched her eyes get big as she stared down the barrel. He could feel his fangs lengthening in his mouth as his nails blackened and lengthened. He waved the gun, signifying she needed to remove the blade from his brother’s neck. Raven shook her head with a slightly malicious grin. Her blue-green eyes met his with indignation. “I’ll kill him before you pull the trigger. You know that.” She said, her Asian features splitting in a smile. His fanged smile must have shocked her. He cocked the hammer back as he nodded. His eyes went behind her as he inched the 1911 so that it was aimed just past her ear as the bullet ripped from the chamber. The glass shattered, spraying into the empty street in front of the building. Bo smiled as he pulled out the microphone and placed the receiver in his ear. “Morse? You got her?” He pulled out the earpiece so the response could be heard. “Now that you got the glass out of my way. She’ll lose that arm before she hurts the kid.” He saw the anger flood her face as he put the radio back in his pocket. “Really thought I wouldn’t play this smart. You knew I’d be coming here, and I knew you knew that. So I set up a defense. So you ready to back down from this, Kiri?” He asked as he eyed her. The sword began to shake. Jacob looked down at her arm as the woman let her face fall forward. Her whole body shook as she spoke. “How?” Raven whispered. “How what?” Bo asked, looking confused and concerned. “How did you get so much better than me in only a few months?” She snarled as she looked up, tears welling down her face. Bo shook his head, realizing now why she was so tenaciously pursuing him. He reached out and grabbed the blade of the katana and pulled it away from Jacob’s neck. Jacob immediately reached over and yanked the shuriken from his palm with a gasp of pain. He looked over to see Bo’s blood pouring down the blade of Raven’s sword. He reached for the gun as Bo began to speak. “Jacob stop. Kiri, this is why you can’t beat me.” He pulled his hand from the blade, showing them the wound on his hand as it began to seal itself. She dropped the sword as she stared at his blood covered hand heal itself. Her knees shook as she her eyes moved to his nails and his teeth. “I-I-I never had a chance, did I?” She muttered. “They made me and others like me to be perfect killing machines. You and some of the others were the steps before me.” He said as he licked some of the blood from his fingers. She shuddered as she looked down at herself. “So… I was a failure.” She muttered, tears still pouring down her face. Bo swung around as he leveled his 1911 on the door he had come through. He snarled as the man walked through the door. “Damn, was hopin you’d kill the chick so I didn’t have to. That’s why they sent her. To take you out long enough for one of us to retrieve you.” The man said as he stretched his arms. “A handler. I should have smelled you coming. Means you’re using BH tech to cover yourselves like the guy on Highgate.” “Smart mutt. What was it they put in you? Grey Wolf, Artic Wolf, Red Wolf? Nice little combo there kiddo.” The man said with a laugh as he scratched at his tattoo. “You’re forgetting my special ingredient.” Bo said as he pulled the trigger. Bullets tore from the chamber as the man jumped to his left. Now Bo could smell him. He snarled at the smell of another Hybrid. “I knew I had heard your voice before. That stench always irritated me, the reason Skoal and Aries wouldn’t let me train with you, eh Gila?” “Your handler’s were soft on you. They always are on mammal mixes because you’re all so fragile.” Gila Torres laughed as he showed his own short fangs with a reptilian hiss and dove behind a pillar for cover from Bo’s fire. “Reptiles are just easy because their DNA is easiest to adapt. Mammal’s take a little more finesse.” Bo said as he let the empty magazine drop and loaded a full one. His mind grabbed Raven’s and Jacob’s. ‘Get out of here, make for the ship. They don’t want either of you. Don’t argue. Take your sword and you take your guns. Get there fast. Nik will cover you. I wouldn’t doubt there are more outside.’ He said as he moved towards Gila’s pillar. They nodded as they turned, grabbing their respective weapons and dashed out the door. Chips of rock splintered off the pillar as the .45 ACP rounds bit into it. Gila’s mind invaded his. Bo felt his own defenses go up, blocking the technology that the other Hybrid would have attached to his mind. ‘Now back to our earlier conversation, what was that special ingredient they put in you mutt?’ Gila hissed in his mind. “Hyena,” Bo growled as he rounded the corner and drove his fangs into Gila’s neck. His jaw locked onto the man’s muscled neck. Gila hissed as he tried to round on Bo and bite him. Bo knew Gila had venom of some sort, but he feared the tearing pain of the fangs more. He could heal quickly, but pain wasn’t something that he could make disappear so easily, not without the beast side of his mind. Blood poured over his teeth, pooling in his jaw as Gila’s movements became slower. Gila stopped moving and continued laughing. “It won’t matter if you kill me, mutt. My boys outside are just waitin’ for a chance at your flesh.” He laughed, his voice coming harder with each word. Bo snarled and wrenched his own neck. The shattering snap of Gila’s spine echoed through the lobby of the apartment building. He spat the blood over Gila’s face. “Looks like I’ve got some fun ahead of me then.” He snarled as he grabbed the device that had been on Gila’s belt. He smelled the clean scent of it. ‘So,’ he thought, ‘this is what was hiding the bastards scent.’ He strapped it to his own belt and reloaded his pistol, putting the nearly empty magazine in his back pocket. He turned to the door that still had shattered glass lying around it and stepped through it as he looked around. “I’m really beginning to hate lizards even more than the training days.” He said as he looked around at the men waiting for him in the street. One of them held Raven. Bo scanned their minds and found that Jacob had gotten away due to Morse’s sniper fire. “Let her go Varanus.” He snarled. The Russian laughed as he tightened his scaled hands around Raven’s wrist and ran a long tongue up the girls neck. “Can’t do that Bo. She gave me this nasty little scar you see?” He motioned to a slowly closing wound on the man’s thick arm. “And we were thinking about having a little fun with her.” Boomslang, his nickname fitting him better than his given name, said as his tongue flicked out in an obscene gesture. Bo’s eyes went to the only opponent that really worried him. Damian “Gaboon” Samson’s eyes seemed uninterested in anyone or anything but Bo. Boomslang started laughing as he saw the connection between the two. “Ooooh boy, Gaboon’s got his eyes on you Wolfy.” He cackled as his thin fingers slapped his knee. The bullet ripped through the air and entered Boomslang’s forehead just above his left eyebrow, on a claw mark that had been left years ago. “That finishes that.” Bo growled as he continued to stare into Damian’s turquoise eyes. “Guess we need to finish where we left off too.” “Guess so.” Damian said as he glared into Bo’s blue eyes. Boomslang's body hit the ground, blood spilling from the bullet hole and staining the road beneath his soon to be rotting carcass.