Singing for His Supper

[Hellbound]

"No..." Came a sudden voice from the darkened regions towards the back of the bar.

"Why don't you let me worry about that?"

Everyone turned in surprise to see who'd intruded on their private band meeting. Sid was about to tell the visitor to sod off, and that this was a private function, but something about the way that he held himself made the punk rocker back down.

It was a tall, slim and well dressed figure that stepped out of the shadows then. Had any of them been looking in the proper direction in the proper ways, then they may have spotted him following last night's impressive brawl. He'd been the watching figure that stood unnoticed at the side of the street and vanished without anyone even knowing he'd been present.

"Your new singer's managed to do some unfortunate things to one of my lieutenants last night. Impressive things, I'll give you that, but unfortunate nonetheless. Though he did have help towards the end..."

He let the words trail off with the unspoken threat that Avenger hadn't escaped his notice, either. Both heroes now had become marked on the Mutant Mafia's radar.

[Hellbound]

Hellbound stood quickly, knocking his chair to the side as he spun to face the intruder. The rest of the band followed suit and stood in formation behind their new lead singer. Apparently the choice was proving to be a good one after all as the members naturally fell to him taking a position of leadership.

"I don't think I've seen Tony B. take a beating like that for..." The sarcastic tone in his voice gave light to the fact that he was just playing with the band. "Well, to be honest, I don't think I've ever seen him take a beating like that. And he's done a lot of work for us in the past. Very hard, physical sort of work that ended up with a lot of medical insurance claims. The fact that you lasted as long as you did impresses me greatly."

The intruder's face took on a darker cast. Though the lighting in the ruined bar hadn't changed, new shadows crept over his features as if displeasure were growing over his very soul.

"The fact that you managed to have him arrested, on the other hand, upset me even more. I wasn't happy with the loss of his crew, but to allow a trusted lieutenant like that to sully his own record and lose valued time while incarcerated is just..." He shook his head. "Unforgiveable."

[Hellbound]

Hellbound shot him a look of incredulous, and sarcastic, surprise. His arms went up as if making a theatrical attempt at placating the mob boss.

"I wasn't aware that I needed your forgiveness for beating the crap out of one of your thugs. You say he's never been beaten like that? At least not that you know of? Well, maybe if someone had long ago, then he wouldn't have been such a jerk last night."

The other members of Blackavar stood behind him, though they weren't sure as to how things were going. Granted, this was supposed to be part of their reputation now. They had a lead singer that tended to slap criminals around from time to time, but they weren't convinced they needed to be caught up in it every night.

Further, there wasn't anyone else here to help out or serve as witnesses once the police showed back up, and given how bad this was likely to get then it was a fair bet the cops would be making an appearance.

"Avenger told your boy last night. Stay the hell away from this part of town, okay? It's being watched, it's being protected and your kind of crap's not going to fly anymore. Keep it up and he won't be the only one stuck behind bars, wearing a neck brace."

The dark stranger grinned as if he knew the reply was coming. Hellbound wasn't exactly hard to predict. He only had a few different responses in his repertoire, and being challenged like this was one of the more common variety.

[Hellbound]

As Hellbound crossed his arms defiantly, waiting for the guy to either back down or start throwing punches, the stranger half-turned from the hero and raised one hand in a casual gesture. His fingers flexed into an odd set of gestures and, for just one moment, the image of a pentagram could be seen glowing as if an aura around the appendage.

Suddenly a dark surge of energy seemed to flow from the handsomely dressed man and rocketed across the room. There was a bolt of deep violet ripping through the air and smashing into Hellbound's chest, knocking him backwards and bowling the heavy hero through his band like they were bowling pins.

"You have no idea, do you?" The stranger was still half turned from his targets. He hadn't even bothered to fully face them, but his hand was still gestured in their direction even though the mystic aura had vanished.

"You... Hellbound... are f'cked." It sounded strange to hear such sudden vulgarity to come from a mouth that, as of yet, had spoken nothing but well mannered and cultured tones.

"You should be dead now. Dead, cold and forgotten, but I'm not that nice of a man. We're going to be watching you from now on, do you understand? We're going to be watching and learning what you value. We're going to be finding out what you love, what you cherish and what you can't live without.

"Then we're going to burn it all to the ground. Those you love will die. That which you think you can't live without will be destroyed. Your life... or at least that part of your life that exists outside of your own body... will be crushed. And once you see it crumble before your eyes, then we will kill you."

Hellbound was picking himself up from the stage along with the help of his bandmates. He had to admit, they looked a little scared. He didn't feel so good himself.

"We do this because you choose to get involved with something you shouldn't have. You think you're a badass, Hellbound? Well, you don't know what Hell actually is. But you're about to learn."

The hero choose that moment to strike back. Snapping out of the half-crouch that Blackavar had helped him into, the Hellbound charged at the well dressed stranger only to find himself cruising through empty air as the man had simply vanished.

Once again, the antique bar suffered more abuse as he rammed into it at full speed, putting one more deep indentation next to the one he'd made last night.

[Hellbound]

By the time that Hellbound managed to extricate himself from the new hole in the antique bar, there was still no sign of the mysterious stranger and Blackavar was deep in animated conversation. Apparently there was some debate raging concerning everyone's level of safety.

Everyone knew that this would be coming eventually, but nobody had expected it to happen the second that Hellbound signed his name. Superheroes tended to get into super-trouble, and that meant a lot of danger for the mortals who gathered around them. It was just natural for them to acquire enemies who were larger than life and largely insane.

That was something they could accept. What had caused a little concern, however, was the speed in which it'd happened. The first night Hellbound sang, he'd gotten into a fight. That fight, it seemed, now had led to greater threats. Even though nobody knew just exactly who had threatened them, there was no doubt that he was a pretty scary dude.

In the end, however, it was agreed that this was a fact of life they'd accepted even before making Hellbound their offer. Whether it happened tonight or years from now, they knew that eventually they'd fall into the line of fire. Fortunately, they were okay with that. At least for now.

"Besides..." Tweak had expanded the debate to now include Hellbound. That hero had moved closely enough to the musicians that he could overhear every word, anyway.

"He was bluffing. 'Trying to scare you into backing down, maybe running the other way. If they really wanted to destroy your life then they'd just do it, not send some goon over to tell you it was about to happen."

The theory made sense to Hellbound, but as luck and dramatic tension would have it, that's just about the time that a cell phone on Morley's bar (curiously close to where Hellbound had just made a new impression), started to ring.

[Hellbound]

"I'm all dressed up with nowhere to go. Walkin' with a dead man over my shoulder", the ringtone sang. "Waiting for an invitation to arrive. Goin' to a party where no one's still alive."

That was certainly ominous enough. Hellbound threw a couple of curious looks at Blackavar who could only shrug in return. Not knowing what else to do, Hellbound moved towards the bar so that he could answer. The phone was into the chorus by the time he managed to pick it up.

"I was struck by lighting, walkin' down the street. I was hit by something last night in my sleep. It's a dead man's party, Who could ask for more? Everybody's comin', leave your body at the door.

"Leave your body and soul at the door . . ."

"Yeah?" Hellbound snapped open the clamshell and practically barked into the device.

"Hey, old buddy." There was a sarcastically chipper voice on the other end which Hellbound didn't recognize. "Maybe you don't remember me, but we met last night. Shook hands, even. One hell of a grip you got there, pal."

[Hellbound]

That rang a bell with Hellbound. It was the desolidifier... whatever they called that class of power. The guy who kept phazing in and out of the crowd, and the one who's hand Hellbound had crushed for pulling a gun on him.

"What." Hellbound was keeping this short, but not so sweet. There was a sinking feeling in his stomach that he wasn't going to like the way this went, and there was no way he felt like playing things out as if it were a game.

"Whaddya mean, what?" G.D. replied, acting as if this were just a social call. "Can't buddies call each other up from time to time? Especially when maybe, just maybe, one of them has something reeaaallly important to tell the other one?"

Hellbound let his eyes close slowly, dreading whatever news was about to come next.

"What did you do...?" He asked.

"Do?" G.D. was all innocence and pleasantness. There was nothing wrong in his world, certainly. Hellbound's, on the other hand, could use some help.

"Hey, I didn't do nothin'. What's wrong with you? 'Acting like someone's out to get you, maybe? Like they had a beef with you and wanted to make sure you knew it?"

Hellbound had been tired of the game even before it started. Apparently the Mob liked to toy with their prey before delivering the bad news. Something had been done, he was pretty sure of that, but finding out just exactly what that was might have to wait for G.D.'s sick sense of humor first.

"Fine. What happened then?" Hellbound asked, unable to keep an aggravated tone out of his voice.

"Ah, well, you must'a heard, then. You know that place you go once a week to pick up a li'l extra cash? What do they call it? Superslams? Yeah, well, turns out they had some bad fire code violations. 'Guess you can't really blame them, what with it just being some old abandoned wharehouse and all. But, man, you should'a seen how fast the place went up when..."

That was enough for the hero. Snapping the phone close he barely even registered it vanishing just like the dapper stranger earlier.

[Hellbound]

"Well that was a little rude." G.D. Badman chuckled as the line went dead.

He threw his own phone out the window of his car and drove on only the rural highway. It was a pain trying to steer with one hand in a cast while the other worked a cell phone, but somehow the bright orange glow behind him made it worth while. The pain wasn't quite so bad when he overlayed the image of a blazing Superslams lighting up the night sky.

This Hellbound guy might think he was ready to take on the Mutant Mafia, but they were going to show him what messing with the Big League meant.

"Bring it on, tough guy!" G.D. called out to no one in particular. "We're just gettin' warmed up!"

[Hellbound]

By the time Hellbound's cab had dropped him off at Superslams, the fire had mostly burned itself out. A few damp embers from the late-arriving firemen smoldered in the darkness, and it was clear that the bout he'd been scheduled for later on was canceled.

Well... unless they wanted to start a new class of contest, but that wasn't very likely. There was a good chance that the club would be out of business for a few days.

Unlike Morely's, the didn't have to make much in the way of repairs. This was an underground, quasi-legal fight club, after all. They could pretty much hold their bouts wherever they wanted as long as they didn't make too much noise about it. Eventually someone would be in touch as to where the new setup would be located and everything could start all over again.

But the message had been delivered and made clear. This Mutant Mafia didn't play games. That old, hackneyed line of "they put one of your boys in the hospital, you put one of theirs into the morgue" came to his mind. The gangsters weren't going to forget the defeat he and Avenger had handed them last night. This was likely to be only the first of a series of strikes.

As he stood with the gathered crowd, watching the last of the wharehouse burn, he wondered what his next step should be. There was always the possibility of getting his fellow Knights of Freedom involved, but somehow this seemed too personal for that.

[quotemyname]

Captain Knievel had done some digging. He had looked up some more information about that underground fighting ring he had been involved in a few months ago. It had certainly been a smashing start to his super-villain career and made him pretty famous, especially with the ladies. He had been craving a good fight recently, and wanted to see if that place was still around. He had gone to all the usual places, including the service door where the event had originally been held. To his surprise, the service door wasn't even there anymore.

A little more time and effort had resulted in some more information, however. To Captain Knievel's surprise and excitement, that event had simply been a special event of a small time underground fight ring called Superslams. He had talked to all the right people, and finally it had led him here. He looked upon the venue that Superslams was reported to be held in.

He would have been very happy with what he saw, had it not been going up in flames.

"Oh now that is just depressing. It took me a lot of work to find this place, and now it is burning to the ground. I am seriously going to screw somebody up for this..." The captain grumbled from the alleyway where he stood, watching the blaze. "Nothing I can do about this now. It is far to out of hand for me to put out..." The Captain said, thinking. Then he got an Idea, "Hmm...There has to be somebody around who knows who did this. Either they have already left, or they have yet to show up..." The Captain decided to hang around. He kept his eyes peeled for anyone suspicious looking.

[Hellbound]

And suspicious looking, he found. A scruffy looking time, dressed in worn, bargain-bin clothing and a tattered leather jacket had started poking around the ruins of the building. That wasn't truly odd, after all there would probably be a number of people interested in why the place burned down.

For that matter, as an underground fighting club, scruffy looking ne'er-do-wells were most likely a regular feature of the place. This one, however, was acting a little more curious than most. Rather than standing towards the edge of the dying blaze, he walked around the ruined building without fear of injury from collapse, burns or even smoke inhalation.

It was as if the nosey schlub either didn't care about getting hurt, or was tough enough to not even notice the hazards which surrounded him.

[quotemyname]

As far as not caring about getting hurt, Captain Knievel definitely qualified. Though the stranger that he saw was something of a curiosity. He certainly didn't look like the super hero type. Most heroes Knievel knew were the outgoing types. None that he knew of dressed in such shabby clothing. Either it was someone who didn't want others to know who he was an why he was there, or it was just some drunk bum. Either way, it would certainly be a fun experience meeting the fellow.

Captain Knievel decided to circle around the burning warehouse from the other direction and head him off around the back.

[Hellbound]

Hellbound, not being the most observant individual in Freedom City, managed to miss the relatively stealthy approach of the Captain. Instead he continued his 'investigation', for lack of a better word, to try to figure out what he could do about that creeps responsible for burning down the building.

Of course, his investigative skills amounted to little more than simply kicking over a few burning embers and poking his way through curtains of flame and smoke. To his unpracticed eye, however, there wasn't anything he could find that would be of any use.

Gripping one burning, wooden support in frustation, Hellbound ignored the heat coming off of the flaming wall stud and gave a hard squeeze. The damaged wood made a small explosion of charcoal and embers, but the figure didn't seem to care. Nor did he notice when part of the back of his jacket managed to catch on fire.

It was about then that he noticed something on the ground. Bending to pick it up, Hellbound realized that it was a nearly empty can of gasoline. The metal container had survived the fire intact, and what small amounts of fluid left inside had long ago reached its flashpoint and was spewing a dying jet of flame from the thing's spout.

"Aha!" Hellbound announced... though he wasn't sure at all what to do with it next.

[quotemyname]

"Normally, I love watching things burn," Captain Knievel said as he approached the figure. "But when you want information out of something, it usually is not best to let it go up in smoke." Captain Knievel stood a few paces away from Hellbound amidst the wreckage. The Captain folded his arms in front of his chest and stated quite flatly, "That being said, you should be careful: Your jacket is on fire and you are holding a can which looks to be still full of gasoline."

The Captain ran a few things through his head. The man had not heard him approach, and didn't seem to mind that he was nearly ablaze. Therefore he was either extremely thick in the head, extremely unobservant, or both. But he had found that can of gasoline...

"Who are you?" The Captain asked, deciding to keep it simple.

[Hellbound]

Hellbound shook the can, sounding out just how much fluid was left inside. There wasn't much, just enough to generate a small jet of flame from the spout. Soon it'd run itself dry.

"Nah, it's almost empty." He informed the newcomer. "And don't worry. These things never explode if they're allowed to vent like this. 'Worst you'll get is burning gas shooting all over the place."

He discarded the can with that, not really caring where it landed. The entire building was already a loss. By the time G.D. had called him, the blaze was well beyond the point of controlling. Having to take a cab all the way out to the sticks had only made things worse.

Really, as long as long as the bystanders kept their distance then there wasn't much more damage the can could do. His jacket, on the other hand, provoked a stronger reaction.

"What?" Hellbound asked, not realizing that the garment was ablaze as well. "Dammit, that was my best jacket."

He stripped the leather off and, after a quick examination, decided it wasn't worth saving either. He'd worn it to impress Blackavar, but it looked like that was the last time he'd wear it anyplace.

"Name's Hellbound." He informed the Captain, now turning a scrutinizing eye in his direction.

The guy was wearing a costume, talking about investigations and had shown up just after it was too late to save the building. Clearly the man must be some kind of superhero, even in spite of the comment about watching things burn.

Heck, there was a bit of a pyromaniac inside of Hellbound himself. Quite literally, given the unique qualities of his blood.

"You look familiar..." He said. "Do I know you?"

[Hellbound]

Before the Captain could answer, however, Hellbound was smacking himself in the forehead with an utterance of 'Holy crap!'

He then rushed over to where the burning jacket had been discarded and started searching through it. Located within the inside breast pocket, apparently, was a silver matchbox. When Hellbound retrieved this device he was happy to see that it was unburned. In fact, the matches inside hadn't even yet gotten hot enough to ignite.

The cigars in the same pocket, on the other hand, didn't fare so well. Most were a smoldering ruin, but two were still salvageable even if they were already burning. Puffing on the ends of both to extinguish the premature lighting, he then placed one into his mouth and offered the second to Knievel with a shrug.

After all, it'd already been lit. No point in letting it go to waste.

[quotemyname]

"Yes, you do." Captain Knievel said plainly, answering the question and accepting the cigar at the same time. After placing the cigar in his mouth, Knievel continued with what started out as a cryptic response. "I practically own this town." He said, pointing to something above and behind Hellbound. Turning, Hellbound saw one of the many bill boards posted around Freedom City.

"Name's Captain Knievel," He said, puffing on the cigar, "Came here looking for a fight. Kind of upset this place burned to the ground, but I got here after it was too late to do anything." The Captain had not smoked in a while, and he puffed pleasantly on the cigar. "Thanks for the smoke. But I gotta know, you really don't seem like an idiot, so how did you not notice your jacket was burning up? Seems to me a thing like that would be pretty obvious pretty quick, what with the whole being burned alive thing..." Puff, puff, puff.

[Hellbound]

"Oh, yeah..." Hellbound looked up at the billboard, realizing that's where he'd seen the guy before. He thought it strange that one would be built this far out in the sticks, but truckers read ads just as well.

Personally, Hellbound himself paid little attention to advertising. Seeing as how he rarely had any money, he rarely had the chance to buy much of anything. So what was the point of paying attention to things he couldn't buy anyway?

As for the question about the coat....

"Well, " Hellbound puffed on his own cigar. "It's not like I have eyes in the back of my head, do I? And you're in the business."

He gestured vaguely at the Captain's costume.

"Leather doesn't actually burn hot enough to hurt. Felt a little warm, yeah, but we are standing in the middle of a burning building. Or at least what's left of one. Kind'a hard to notice the difference.

"But now that you're here..." Hellbound looked for a place to sit that wouldn't ignite his clothing any further. They had some thinking to do for a moment.

"What are we gonna do about the mutant prick that set the place on fire in the first place?"

[quotemyname]

So fire doesn't hurt him... I'll have to remember that in case I end up fighting this guy... Captain Knievel thought to himself...

"A mutant, you say..." Captain Knievel mused, NOW we are getting somewhere. He thought.

"Well, I do love kicking me some mutant ass..." The Captain met Hellbound's gaze, and his eyes narrowed, just in case... "So if we can find him, I imagine that I will probably open up a can on him. Gotta find something else to do in place of the entertainment I had planned." Captain Knievel made a gesture towards the burnt out building they were standing in the midst of. "What about you?"

[Hellbound]

Hellbound liked this guy's attitude. He didn't seem the type to sit around when crimes were being committed and doing nothing. Maybe he'd be a good candidate for the Knights of Freedom.

"I was on the card tonight." Hellbound admitted. "Defending my title, but I don't think that's happening tonight. Bigger things to worry about, anyway."

He shook his shaggy hair, dislodging a few embers and some soot that'd been building as the structure burned down around them. Some ashes from his cigar added to the debris.

"Kicking this guy's ass might be trickier then you think, though." He warned. "If it's the dude I'm thinking about, he's got these freaky ghost-type powers. I got lucky and caught his hand when he pulled a gun on me, otherwise I couldn't touch the bastard.

"He runs with some gang called the Mutant Mafia. Never heard of 'em myself, but me and a friend beat the crap out of four of his crew last night. Hopefully they're still locked up, but I have no idea how long the cops'll be able to keep them. Guys like that always have good lawyers."

He rubbed his neck, ignoring the heat and smoke of the fire and cast his gaze around. Hellbound needed a detective at this point, or at least someone who knew the underworld. That sounded like Avenger, but he still wasn't sure he wanted to bring the other Knights in just yet. In the end, he may not have a choice, but for now it was his war to fight.

Well, his and Captain Knievel's.

"So we got a guy who can walk through walls and has a lot of friends. All of which have mutant powers and most of which probably have guns. How do we track that down?"

[quotemyname]

Oh yea... I am SO glad I came out today... Captain Knievel thought to himself. This is gonna be REAL fun.

"Far as I know, Mutants tend to have a penchant for blowing stuff up. Especially when they are the type that travels in packs and carries guns. I am hoping that if we follow the trail of blood and or explosions, we might find something." Captain Knievel really wasn't used to tracking people down. He usually let the trouble find him. However, he DID have an idea.

"Doubt we will find too much poking around this mess, however. Let's get to the street and see if we can turn anything up there. Lighting this place up would be a job for more than one person, mutant or not. If we are lucky, maybe they left some tire tracks down at the road. If we are unlucky, they might have just flown away. But one thing is for sure, any evidence the might have left in here will all have burned up." It was a long shot, but a chance nonetheless.

Captain Knievel turned and began walking towards the street again. This guys still hasn't used any powers. Besides his possible immunity to fire and possibly heat in general, he doesn't seem to have any outward signs of powers. I'm still not sure if he is a mutant or not. Captain Knievel was distressed. His skin curdled at the prospect of making a mutant into a companion. Mutant or not, however, if sticking with him means that I get to take out other mutants, I guess I can tolerate him for a little bit. Captain Knievel thought, Besides, I can always kill him later...

Captain Knievel threw Hellbound a sideways glance as he left the building. "You coming?" Puff, puff.

[Hellbound]

Captain Knievel threw Hellbound a sideways glance as he left the building. "You coming?" Puff, puff.

Hellbound glanced around the building, taking in its ruined condition, and then rose from his seat.

"Sure. Can't see how we can do any more damage here tonight. Don't underestimate these guys, though. They don't seem the type to blow things up without reason. They might be mutants, but they're gangsters first. At least that's what I've gotten, so far.

"Seems like there's a couple of guys in chrage. I thought I'd taken down the leader, but I guess he was just a lieutenant. If they're anything like The Godfather then I'd guess the troll-looking-muther-f'er was answering to some kinda Don."

Hellbound paused in his tracks to shoot Knievel a serious look.

"Now that dude's freaky. Like some sort of son-of-satan mojoman. Never got his name though, but if he really is a Don and answers to a Cappo? Then we may be looking at one heck of a major mess. Who knows how long they've been building up an organization, you know?"

He flicked some of the ash from his cigar as they made their way out of the building and to the streets outside. Fortunately, there was only one real way to get here and that was a gravel road just a mile or so off of the main highway. If they were lucky then there actually would be some fresh tracks to follow.

"But we don't really gotta do that tonight. All I'm intersted in is the guy who took away my fun for the night."

[quotemyname]

"But we don't really gotta do that tonight. All I'm intersted in is the guy who took away my fun for the night."

"Amen to that!" The Captain replied as his feet crunched along the gravel road. He looked back and forth a couple of times. "Oh who am I kidding? I am no good at this crap." Captain Knievel took the mostly burned out cigar out of his mouth and threw it to the ground in frustration. "I couldn't follow tire tracks even if I were standing on them." which he probably was.

"I do have another idea though," He carried on, spitting some tobacco residue out of his mouth. "This one actually just popped into my head. And I rather like it." he said, tapping his noggin.

"Tell me what you think: We head over to their turf - I'm assuming you know generally where that is - and start a fight. Or rather I start a fight. You sound like you have been dealing with these guys for a while, so if you're involved in the fight this may not work. See, they don't know me. If they think some random guy has just come into their turf starting trouble, they will send someone to confront me. Much like you having gotten into the fight with one of their higher ups." There was no stopping him now. Captain Knievel was on a roll. The Idea may have been a good one, but at this point he was just listening to himself talk..."When they send their man to get involved, I beat him 'till he is s****ing sideways. Then we ask him where we can find the rest of his gang is." Captain Knievel stopped pacing just long enough to consider just HOW good of an idea this really was. He was now standing in the same place he had been when he had originally thrown the cigar to the ground. "I think this is a good plan, because everyone wins. I get to kick some mutant ass, you get information, and the mutant gets the S*** kicked out of him," *WHAM* Captain Knievel ground the cigar into the ground with a powerful stomp, "Just like he should. Everyone wins."

Captain Knievel looked off towards the rest of town for a second, "What do you think?" he looked at Hellbound.

[Hellbound]

Holy crap..., thinks Hellbound. That's actually a damn good plan.

"I wanna make some suggestions, though." He considered. "Don't just start a random fight. Go in there like you are the competition, not just some random loon looking for trouble. They already know that I've put a dent into their employee base, so it wouldn't be that much of a stretch to say that I'm doing it for a rival gang.

"But if you come in, playing the role of my Don, and we start shaking down high profile targets, then it might just draw them out. Then, like you said, we grab 'em and shake the crap out of 'em until they tell us what we need to know."

It was sort of undercover work, he considered. Though it might look bad for a while, he was fairly certain he could explain to both the press and his fellow Knights just so long as they managed good results and nobody was hurt.

That, of course, was the tricky part. Attempting to play the bad guys without actually causing damage wasn't going to be easy. They'd have to select their targets carefully and do a damn good job of acting the part of the villain.

"The big bastard I fought seemed like he ran the west side. That might not be a bad place to start."

[quotemyname]

"Hmmm...It is a little rough, but I like it." The Captain scratched his chin for a moment. "In fact, I think I saw that on TV once."

"If west side is where the hang out, then that definitely IS a good place to start." The Captain took the first few steps down the gravel drive. "Unless you got some other way of getting there, It looks like we are hoofing it."

I don't get it, Captain Knievel thought, He doesn't even seem to notice the fact that I can't stand mutants. Maybe he isn't one after all. It certainly would tone down on the headaches later if that were the case. Well, might as well try one more time...

"So, you got some other way of gettin' there? Or are you just going to try and keep up with me?" Captain Knievel grinned *SHEEN*