With a dull groan Vargo picked himself up off of the damp carpet floor of the hallway, looking around in a bit of confusion. His mind rapidly caught up with him, answering his various questions with practiced ease as it awoke from its slumber.

Why was he in the hallway, Why was he naked in the hallway, Who was next to him, Why were they both in a hallway, Why were they both in a hallway naked…

His body was stiff and damp, it’s sweat hardly dried due to the short period of time that he was asleep. Although it was partly unresponsive due to the position he had been sleeping in, he was still able to free one of his arms from the pressure that was keeping it pinned to the floor.

“Mmmm…”

To his side, a soft girly moan was heard as a body rolled to its side next to him.

Vargo : “Good morning Zu…”

He spoke softly, unsure whether she was actually awake or just moving around in her sleep for he was unsure of her sleeping habits. This was something that he promised himself that he would learn later. What kind of husband didn’t know his wife’s sleeping patterns? Even worse, this was his home now, to live and die in. The real world was cut off, as far as he could discern from Sara’s vague wording, and all those he cared about were here in this world.

A soft and cute giggle erupted beside him, as the sleeping woman nearly jumped up, encasing him in her body once more as her head nuzzled his stomach. She was beaming, with a large smile plastered all over her face.

Zu : “Hehehe, Good morning Hubby…”

She took a deep breath, savoring his scent and the scent of their lovemaking, before propping herself up on her arms and positioning her body above his, in the same position that they had been in earlier.

Her still nude body was revealed before his eyes, her large chest heaving, her muscles still trembling from their previous activity.

Vargo : “Zu, We should get out of the hallway…”

She gave him a knowing smile, leaning down and placing herself on his chest as she sealed his lips with hers. After a long and deep kiss, she finally broke off, as she stared into his eyes once more.

Zu : “ Aww, is hubby shy to be nude in his own house? Well you can rest assured hubby, Tsuki has already told everyone to avoid this area under penalty of death…”

Vargo : “Wait, what?”

Zu gave a wry smile, rolling off of him and stretching out her body, before snuggling up against him again on the soft carpet.

Zu : “Yaaa… She will probably yell at me for this… Tsuki can be very possessive at times, and she might just try and kill me if you shun her in favor of me.”

Vargo, for the first time in the conversation, twisted his body, meeting Zu face to face. Her eyes were serious, but her face had a childish and happy expression, one of bliss and joy.

Vargo : “Is she seriously that bad? Should I speak to her about this?”

Zu gave a giggle, hopping up from the ground and spreading out her legs to stretch them, before turning to him once more and speaking playfully.

Zu : “Na, you don’t need to. Just take her virginity and that should lessen a lot of the rage. The sooner the better, because the longer you take, the angrier she will get at me, although to be honest, I would rather enjoy the challenge. She won’t really try to kill me unless you take a month to claim her, or do me a second time without touching her. Other then that it would just be a bit of bantering and bickering, you know, a shot here and there, some verbal fighting and possibly some physical fighting if you take a few days. Even if she does get to the point of trying to kill me, it wouldn’t really matter much, I am the stronger fighter in a straight up confrontation.”

He gave a sigh at his troublesome subordinate, but also felt a bit of guilt. She hadn’t really crossed his mind since being alone with Zu.

Zu shook her body out, her arms flailing for a second before wrapping themselves together as she stretched, revealing her limber body in the open air of the hallway.

Vargo : “I guess I should go find her later then to avoid all of the trouble and hassle, I have some rather important things to do right now…”

Zu bent down, picking up the soaked through piece of lingerie from the ground before slipping in a sultry kiss and skipping away.

Zu : “Come see me later if you want to do this again, but if you put it off too long, I might just have to come and get you.”

She gave a dangerous smile before disappearing down a hallway, leaving the nude man alone on the wet carpet.

Sara : “So, you decided to accept them?”

Vargo jumped at the childish voice that rang out behind him, the impact of her words nearly toppling him over in shock.

Vargo : “S-s-s-ara? What are you doing here?”

His hands instantly went to cover himself up, eliciting a small giggle from the person behind him.

Sara : “Oh please, it’s not like it’s something I haven't seen before, in fact I think it looks more impressive in person.”

The conflict between the body and the mentality was shocking for a moment, before Vargo remembered who he was talking too, his hands no longer hiding his shame, as he gave a tired sigh and stood up. She had been in charge of his surveillance for years, it’s not like she hadn’t seen him nude before.

He gave a nod at her joking question, before turning around and searching the floor for his underwear.

Vargo : “I still can’t get used to you in that body, any idea how you could change back? Or find the people you brought here?”

His voice was rather tense, the transgressions of those who wronged him still lingered on his mind, put off for now due to the inability to find out. Sara leaned forwards, her body pressing into his chest as she entrusted her weight to him. Her eyes closed in bliss as her hands moved across his body.

Sara : “Well… About that, I ‘apparently’ was able to leave myself a breadcrumb trail before losing control of the system, each crumb was a tad bit of power, stored away in various locations. If I collect them all I should be able to regain full control over the system, but the problem lies in how to find them and where they are. The first one was rather easy to find, as it was spread out in a place I figured I might put it, but the others... are strewn about the world? I guess that's a good way to put it…

Anyway, I found the first one, which gave me a single lead, which Tsuki is following now. I think I have found out where the next ‘crumb’ might be, but again, it’s only speculation, I wouldn’t be sure about it until I had access to their computer.”

Vargo stroked her head as he listened to her words, nodding and smiling all the while.

It was all well and good to bring him here to reunite with his friends and “family”, but the true purpose behind all of this was revenge, and he lusted for it, even moreso now that they had found the start of the trail.

Vargo : “Good… Where is this computer that you need to access? Do you need to be at it, or can you access it remotely.”

Sara gave a wry laugh, her finger circling her pectoral muscles, before she pushed herself away from his body and looked at his face, straight into his eyes.

Sara : “Unfortunately, I need to be sitting at the computer, and it’s in Greece, in a library in the Capital.”

Vargo nodded,picking up his pants and slipping them on. As he did so, Sara gave a slight frown, which was only present for a moment before being wiped away with an inconspicuous smile.

Vargo : “What do you require? Think you can do it with a small team, or should I go with you?”

Sara : “While I would like you to come with me, I think that the crime boss of the Architects of Destruction, my Master, would create a bit more attention then we need for such a simple operation. I am but a small child, who would stop me from accessing a computer in a public library… At worst I could be kidnapped or hit on, and a thug or two in escort would solve that problem easily…”

Vargo : “Sara, if you only took a person or two along with you, now that you are vulnerable and mortal, I would fear for you. I mean, I understand that a high profile mission is far more dangerous right now, but what if news gets out that you work for me, two men wouldn’t be nearly enough to protect you and unlike a player or a high level npc you wouldn’t respawn…”

He looked into her eyes, his hand reaching out once more to stroke her childish head.

Vargo : “You are my daughter, to me you hold the same place in my heart as melody, if anything were to happen to you, after all that you have done for me, I don’t know how I would live with myself…”

Sara’s face broke out into a happy smile, but her eyes remained calm, as if expecting this reaction from him. She reached up and took his hand off of her head, placing it between her own and then locking eyes with him. She spoke no words, but her eyes elicited a response from Vargo.

Vargo : “Let me call Mari, she will be able to protect you correctly, without making a big deal out of this.”

As his hands were fumbling through his pockets for his phone, her arms reached out to stop their fruitless struggle, his phone was on the ground next to them but in his haste he didn’t even notice.

Sara : “I will be fine, no need to make a big deal out of this…”

Vargo shook his head, noticing the phone on the floor, he picked it up.

Vargo : “Please Sara, for me…”

Dialing the number, he locked eyes with her again, and she broke out into a smile as she gave a slight nod.

Sara : “Understood Father…”

He reached out and roughed up her hair as his face broke into a smile. The line connected as his conversation began.

---------------------

??? : “FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK FUCK!!!”

The door slammed shut, rocking the expensive piece of machinery side to side as the man urgently fumbled his key into the ignition, each screw up losing precious seconds that he could be using to escape from his current predicament.

After a few seconds of missing the hole that the key was supposed to slow in, he finally managed to accurately insert the key in and turn it, causing a low rumble as the car roared to life.

Without any hesitation the man in the driver’s seat slammed the door closed and threw the car into drive, his ears hardly registering the screech of the tires on the parking garage floor as his car rapidly accelerated towards the exit.

He took a small breath after his expensive car broke through the gate keeping the garage private, not caring about the damage to its exterior. Money could fix it later, that was only a matter of cost, and if need be he could just buy a new one.

He knew he wasn’t out of the clear quite yet, as another rumble shook his car, almost causing him to swerve off of the road and into oncoming traffic. He could see the cracks in the street and the flickering streetlights around him as his cursing and profanity grew louder and louder.

After the car in front of him stopped in the middle of the street, he slammed his foot on the gas and shot around it, using the lanes designated for the opposing traffic.

Another tremor shook the world around him, this one causing his car to shoot off the street and into a fire hydrant. He got out and kicked the useless piece of crap before taking off in full sprint towards the nearest sturdy looking building, disregarding the cars that had a similar fate to his. Some of their drivers were worse off than others as screams and wails started to fill the chill night air.

He had hardly made it through the doorway as a massive quake and a bright flash knocked him off of his feet and blinded him for a moment.

He felt himself fall towards the floor, his body in midair suspension as his instincts caught up with the sensations, sending his arms out before him to catch himself. He waited and waited, seemingly for hours as he still felt he was falling. His arms grew tired and his vision slowly came back to him.

Before him was the vast expanse of space and a blueish tan rock that he was rapidly falling towards. His mind started to think again, as it caught up with the events that had transpired what seemed like hours ago.

He felt the reality of his situation, as his body was cold and the rapid winds grew stronger the closer he went to the planet that he was hurtling towards.

Chaos was the state of his mind, as it was drowning in thoughts of death, karma and the afterlife. He made many assumptions, all on conjecture and none on fact other than his actions which had brought him to this point. His thought pattern was sporadic and random, hardly making sense even to himself.

Why did I die, who caused this? Was it me? Why did I kill myself? Was it worth it? What lies in wait for me on the planet? Am I alone here? How long have I been falling?

After what seemed like hours he was able to finally able to recognize the planet for Earth. It was just a different angle from where he was used to seeing it. He was falling down somewhere in South America, viewed from the south pole.

As he grew closer and closer, his arms started to burn, pain lacing it’s way through his body as he entered the atmosphere.

Ironically, the pain of being burned was not a hot pain, instead it was a piercing ice cold pain, waking up his stunned mind and returning it to his control. The pain was like a million daggers, drenched in liquid nitrogen had been used to cut his skin.

A scream erupted from his mouth at this pain, but any sound that it made was whisked away by the harsh winds, all but suffocating him from their strength. As he struggled for a breath underneath the massive pain that he was feeling, a strange feeling surfaced in his mind. Something was after him… As impossible as he knew it was, something was following behind him, he could feel its hunger and thirst for blood somewhere deep inside the primal part of his brain. He could sense it. It wasn’t after anyone else, just him, it had been following him for hours, but only now was it close enough that he could palpably feel it. His vision started to fade to black as this demon took control of his body.

He could hear it’s hateful cries echoing from behind him, telling him loud and clear what it planned to do to him, telling him through the pain and the hysteria that was actively surfacing in his mind. He could see it encroaching from the sides of his vision, dark shadows flickering across it as its screams and cries echoed into his ears, loud and clear over the howling winds. In a panic he forced his eyes closed, fearful that he would catch a glimpse of this demon as it neared him. A bolt of sharp and immense pain from his backside forced his eyes open as he gagged and lost the air in his lungs. His eyes were also forced open, and saw that he was plummeting towards the ground at a truly insane rate, far faster then he figured was possible.

His weak arms started to flail around as he saw the ground nearing. His scream growing in volume as it resonated through his skull through his forcibly closed mouth.

As the ground was less than a moment away, time seemed to freeze, as voice so cold and desolate , so vile and horrendous, that it could only have belonged to that demon rang directly through his mind.

“Struggle well Edward… Provide a good hunt for my Master…”

At that point, time seemed to unfreeze and he hit the ground.