Jerry woke up in a small space of steel so cold, his breath fogged in the air. In every direction he looked, he saw nothing but four frigid steel walls only a few centimeters from his person. His entire body was entombed.

  Jerry soon realized he was in the inhospitable belly of a refrigerated mortuary cabinet. Well then! This was easily in the shortlist of the top ten most unpleasant places he had woken up after a difficult night of violence, but the fact he was still able to wake up and think coherently was some small consolation prize.

  Jerry operated on the simple animal logic that no matter what, as long as he could breathe and think, he could wiggle out of any dire situation. But this time around, this dire situation seemed like it was more resistant to wiggling out of than usual. The leather restraints biting into his arms, legs, and bare chest helped to solidify this notion.

  “Hello?” Jerry yelled. His voice echoed in the mortuary cabinet. “I said hello! Is there anybody out there that can get me out of this Twelvedamned contraption? This thing is for dead folks, and if my yelling isn’t indicative of that simple fact, I will start yelling even louder to prove how not dead I am!”

  Jerry continued to yell and thrash about the mortuary cabinet for a few moments until he felt a slow panic grow in his guts and spread to the rest of him like a metastasizing cancer. He managed to steady his breathing and control most of his bodily functions, but like usual, his anxious mind refused to stop assailing him with mind-gnawing questions and catastrophic situation after catastrophic situation.

  What if there was nobody around to take him out?

  What if his screaming and thrashing about would just make him die tired and panicking?

  What if this was how he was finally going to go out, dehydrating to death in a cold, metal box meant for corpses?

  Some indeterminate amount of time later, the cracked mental dam of sanity within Jerry’s mind was eroded by the panic swelling behind it. This mental dam shattered in a great gush, carrying away the last chunks of his wits in a black tide of pure anxiety. Jerry lost his cool within the freezing mortuary cabinet and panicked with animalistic abandon.

  “For the love of the Twelve above and all the hate from Vullen below, somebody get me the fuck out of this thing! I am not dying in this fucking box!”

  Jerry’s mindless panic continued until he overheard the sound of a heavy door opening and closing followed by the sound of shoes stepping across tiles towards the mortuary cabinet.

  “You there,” he barked. “I don’t care what you need to do, but you gotta get me out of this metal coffin. Please!”

  There was the sound of jingling keys, one being selected, then inserted into the locked door of the mortuary cabinet imprisoning Jerry. The key turned, activating the tumbler mechanism within.

  Jerry watched as a black leather gloved hand belonging to an unseen person swung the mortuary’s cabinet’s door open, dousing Jerry’s hirsute feet and ankles with sterile, white light befitting such an environment. This unseen figure then pulled on the metal tray Jerry was strapped to with agonizing, ceremonial-like slowness.

  Bright light so intense and searing splashed onto Jerry’s sweat-drenched face, he needed to close his eyes to avoid ocular overstimulation. When Jerry opened his eyes seconds later, he saw the figure of a man standing above him—or least what he assumed to be the figure of a man.

  The figure looming over Jerry was so tenebrous and faceless, it was like somebody had carved a piece of the cosmic void into the approximate shape of a person, then plopped it down before him. The only distinguishing features of the figure was its wide-brimmed hat and its humanoid appearance. Though an eyeful of this entity turned supposed savior would’ve terrified just about anybody else, it annoyed Jerry on account of this not being their first encounter. He had seen this entity plenty of times before.

  It was the Taxman.

  “You again?” Jerry sighed. “Why won’t you leave me alone, you spooky, unknowable bastard?”

  “Because you keep doing absurd things that force me to correct the records,” the Taxman said. Its voice was the definition of perfectly androgynous—not too high to sound too feminine, but also not too deep to sound too masculine. “That is my job after all.”

  “To Vullen with you and your supposed job, whatever that is. Even if I know I won't like what I’m going to see topside, you need to send me back or finally finish me off.”

  The Taxman sighed. “I keep clarifying what I do, Jerry, but you seem to forget as soon as I tell you. It is not within the parameters of my occupation to ‘finish you off’ or ‘drag you to Vullen’ or even ‘get my due’ like I have told you repeatedly.”

  “That’s a lot of twelvedamned gum yapping and not sending me back, you whacked-out son of a bitch.”

  “One moment, my impatient, near-death-experience-addicted subject.” The Taxman used some sort of undefined, onyx-colored writing instrument on a vague, obsidian-colored pad of some sort before it snapped its fingers. “Now off you go. Do try to cease being a constant anomaly when it comes to the records.”

  A blissful, divine, but dark feeling like a lethal dose of dreamsauce shot directly into Jerry’s veins overcame him. His rigid limbs went limp, his mouth gaped open, freeing his ever-wagging tongue, and his eyes rolled towards the back of his head. And like that, Jerry faded out of the dream.

  Then he returned to the usual scene for him—the inside of a hospital room. Inside of this familiar room were three equally familiar faces: Noura, Anthony, and of course, his beloved Braxton, seated in uncomfortable hospital chairs.

  Their attention was on a television mounted on the wall, displaying a morning news program. Two handsome talking heads employed by the Neighborhood Watch Division were nattering away about a sanitized version of the abandoned farmhouse raid. The screen cut to Victor Plamondon and several of his underlings dressed in sharp, green suits that showed off their impressive musculature. They were answering various questions from various journalists in a large conference room.

  “Am I just being paranoid,” Jerry said in a voice croaky from disuse, “but does anybody in here else think Plamondon and his goons are gonna make some big problem for us sooner rather than later?”

  Noura, Braxton, and Anthony looked at him with some shock, then grinned with great joy. Braxton got up and gently hugged Jerry.

  “Come on now,” Jerry grumbled. “I know you can give me harder hugs than that, Big Man. I did just survive a continent-sized piece of ceiling falling on my head.”

  “That much is true time,” Braxton retorted. “But you never know.”

  “If you say so, sweetheart,” Jerry said. “How long was I out this time? A few hours?”

  “Don’t be a silly man. Try a few days,” Noura said. “After the paramedics scraped you out of the impression you left in the ground, some of them said your body was in the same state they found people who died in car crashes.”

  “I suppose a chunk of roof trying-out for the Mendakian Air and Spaceforce will do that to the human body.” Jerry nodded towards Anthony. “Hi, Ant.”

  “Hi, Jerry. How are you feeling?”

  “Hungry as a bastard, thirsty as a motherfucker, and of course, fiending for a few cigarettes and some stiff drinks,” he said. “But beyond that? I’m feeling fantastic.”

  “As expected and appreciated,” Anthony said. “By the way, you mentioned Plamondon and his men, right?”

  “Yessir. Are they gonna be a problem?”

  Anthony scoffed. “They aren’t ‘gonna’ be a problem. They have been a problem and continue to be one since you came to the hospital. Mr. Moon and I throw our weight around to shoo the bastards away, but Plamondon seems very insistent on meeting you to talk. And since he and his men are on administrative leave, it’s turned into a proper fucking farce.”

  “About what I expected from Plamondon and his government-backed goon squad,” Jerry said. “Does he seem like he actually wants to talk in good faith or relive his schoolyard bully days with me?”

  Anthony shrugged. “I don’t know and I don’t really care. All I know is that when I see him or his men, Mr. Moon and I get them to fuck off as they should. But to make our current matters worse, Mr. Moon is currently busy with something else today. So when Plamondon and his men try something very soon, which I know they will do, it will just be you, I, and the rest of the Rangers.”

  “Are Mallory, Rosa, and Howard around?”

  Noura got up and opened the hospital room’s door to reveal them standing outside the door like bouncers. The three gave Jerry warm smiles and waves. Jerry saluted them for their service.

  “Alrighty then,” he said. “Another day of stepping and slipping in it, I guess. But before we have ourselves another little adventure with those Exorcist Division assholes, I’ll need you to get me the biggest cup of coffaux you can, please.”

  “Why?” Anthony asked. “I thought you didn’t like coffaux.”

  “I wouldn’t worry about it.”

  Anthony sighed and gave Jerry a look that suggested he was definitely worrying about it.

  “On it.”

  Once Jerry was properly discharged from the hospital, he and the rest of the Rangers went to the connected parking lot where their cars were. Jerry’s stomach dropped at the sight of two black, hulking SUVs with deeply tinted windshields. Anthony was right—these bastards were insistent.

  A moment later, a total of eight, equally hulking men exited the SUVs. All of them wore black shades, blue jeans, thick, black sweaters, and tan tactical boots in an unnerving way that smacked of a martial cult. The most unsettling part of their uniforms were the large knives in sheathes mounted on their belts.

  That figures, Jerry thought. I would be the type to get stabbed after walking out of a hospital. He recognized all of them from the abandoned farmhouse raid, especially Plamondon, and hoped he and his men would just go away instead of starting something or stabbing someone. They approached the Rangers as one instead.

  Jerry wasn’t a superstitious man. He liked a good fight every now and then, but he had a feeling it had to be bad luck to start an all-out brawl on the grounds of a hospital.

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  “Hey there, Genovesi,” Plamondon sarcastically barked at him. “I’ve been looking for you like a son of a bitch, you son of a bitch. We need to talk. Now.”

  Jerry shook his head and pointed at his ears. “I’m sorry! I can barely hear a thing you’re saying right now! The doctors said I lost most of my hearing forever! My life is just one tragedy after another!”

  “Don’t lie to him,” one of Plamondon’s muscular underlings shouted. “When Plamondon asks you to listen to him, you fucking listen!”

  “Did Daddy Plamondon teach you how to say that in the mirror like the good little toady are?” Jerry asked.

  “Say that bullshit to my face!”

  The underling attempted to rush towards Jerry, but was stopped by Plamondon putting a large hand over his burly chest.

  “There’s no need for that…yet,” Plamondon said. “Stand down, Boucher.”

  Boucher did so, but glared daggers at Jerry. “You’ll get yours, man.”

  “Hot damn,” Jerry said to Plamondon. He took a small sip from his large cup of steaming coffaux. “You trained that dog of yours quite well. You teach him to stop humping pillows, too?”

  “This motherfucker,” Boucher snarled. “I need to stab him.”

  “Jerry,” Anthony said while pointing at him. “Don’t escalate what is already a stupid situation.” He then pointed at Plamondon. “And you, just leave. We’ve been doing this nonsensical back-and-forth bullshit for days. It needs to end today or I will report this harassment to Mr. Moon.”

  “That overgrown housecat doesn’t scare me,” Plamondon said. “Nothing is ending until I talk to Genovesi, with or without your consent, Rustio,”

  “I can believe that,” Jerry said. “You do smack of a man who considers consent an annoyance, don’t you?”

  “Are you going to keep letting this skinny faggot run his fat fucking mouth or are we finally going to beat his ass into the parking lot,” Boucher asked Plamondon.

  “Hey,” Howard shouted. “As somebody who is also skinny, but not homosexual as my lovely wife here proves, you’re way out of line, you meatheaded prick! We Rangers are like an angry octopus. An attack on one limb is an attack on all of the limbs.”

  “Brother, what the fuck are you gibbering about,” another one of Plamondon’s underlings asked Howard. “No wonder you talk like a crazy person. I would be crazy too if I had to go back home every night to that jug of gelatin you call a wife.”

  “That wasn’t a very nice thing to say,” Mallory said. “Your mother should’ve done a better job of teaching you to talk to women who are your seniors, and if your words are any evidence, your betters.”

  “At least our resident lunatic has somebody to go back to home,” Rosa said. “I’ve heard about the statistics concerning divorce and domestic violence among your cadre of mankillers. Doesn’t sound good to me.”

  “You know sweet-fuck-all about me, you stubby Zapo bitch!” the underling snarled as if he was about to suddenly cry. “Nothing!”

  “Even though I’m the kind of person who doesn’t like to issue threats, ” Noura said, “Howard is right. I promise that anybody here who harms one of us will have to face all of us.”

  Boucher threw her an obscene hand gesture. “I’d like to see you back those words up, you cardamom-eating cunt!”

  Moments after that was said, the Rangers and Plamondon’s men approached each other. They started to scream in each other’s faces in a way that suggested things were promised to come to blows, or if Plamondon’s underlings were serious, stabbings. But before that had a chance to happen, Braxton used his bulk to separate the two raging groups.

  “EVERYBODY SHUT UP!” he roared. “EVERYBODY SHUT THE FUCK UP OR START MAKING SENSE.”

  Since Braxton had one of those raised voices and presences that commanded attention with the ease of a bumblebear strolling into a room, he somehow got everybody to cease their incessant yelling.

  “How about this,” Braxton said. “Plamondon talks to Jerry. Jerry listens or at least pretends to do so. Then what happens after that…happens. Can everybody in this parking lot agree to that?”

  There were nods and murmurs of agreement, hesitant or enthusiastic. Jerry and Plamondon approached each other in a mostly civilized manner.

  “Genovesi.”

  “Plamondon.”

  “What do you need to say to me so badly, it justifies all this drama?”

  “I need you to resign from the Triple I Division as soon as possible,” Plamondon said. “Unlike my men and I, you have proven yourself to be too much of a danger to be given such authority.”

  Jerry guffawed. “So that’s it? This is what this whole shitfit is about? You want me to somehow resign…to soothe your swollen ego, hurt feelings, or whatever?”

  “My ego or feelings have nothing to do with my fully rational desire to see you resign,” Plamondon said. “What truly concerns me is the safety and security of the good people of the Mendakian Union.”

  Jerry guffawed again. “And I thought I could really bullshit myself. You want to talk about the so-called safety and the security of the good people of the Mendakian Union, man? Consider yourself before looking at me.”

  “Please expand upon that, Genovesi.”

  “Gladly! You and your men are fucking psycho hounds, hopped up on combat stims and barely kept in check with useless chokechains made of minimal oversight as long as you shoot who your masters tell you to shoot. Take it from one older killer of men to a younger killer of men, I can see it in your eyes. One day you will break, and you will break somebody or something that inconveniences the wrong people.”

  “The all-too predictable and classic counter-accusation from an agent of the Mendakian Union’s so-called finest intelligence agency,” Plamondon snarled. “Yet you stand here and have the nerve to call my men and I well-trained dogs. I will see you fall.”

  “The only thing you’ll see falling is my pants when I show you my ass to kiss. Either way, I’m simply calling a spade a spade, and a psycho a psycho.” Jerry shrugged. “Now eat your ego and fuck off already.”

  Plamondon pushed Jerry. Several of the Rangers tried to intervene to prevent the situation from escalating any further, but like most things involving Jerry’s temper, they were simply too slow.

  Jerry splashed Plamondon in the face with his cup of scalding hot coffaux. Plamondon hollered in agony and backed away. Jerry took a step forward, adjusted his footing, and launched a right hook towards Plamondon’s coffaux-drenched face. The blow connected with satisfying brutality. Plamondon hit the ground with an unconscious limpness that suggested some level of brain damage.

  Then everything went tits up and directly to Vullen.

  The Rangers and Plamondon’s underlings clashed like flint and steel in the hands of a crazed arsonist, casting off baleful sparks of conflict. Flying fists, full-throated screams, snarled slurs, and agonized wails filled the air.

  Braxton and Jerry worked as one to separate Boucher from the rest of Plamondon’s underlings, then unmercifully beat him into the ground before two underlings had the wise idea to work together as they did. One wrangled Jerry into a firm headlock while another tackled Braxton to the ground and punched at him.

  While he was dancing around, being squeezed with a well-practiced headlock, Jerry was able to see how everybody else was faring in the all-out fight.

  Rosa and Anthony had mobbed one underling. They kicked his ribs and stomped on his head, back, and shoulders as his bloodied nose oozed onto the ground. Every time he tried to stand up, Rosa would kick his legs or arms from underneath him.

  Noura climbed on top of a man while Howard tenderized his kidneys with crippling uppercuts. Mallory held her own, menacing not just one, but two men with her manifested razor claws. She held back from tearing them to shreds, but still left their forearms, torsos, and faces wounded with deep gashes that wept with fresh blood.

  Jerry slammed the back of his head into the face of the man holding him in a headlock. His nose broke like an overripe pomegranate, drenching the back of Jerry’s head with blood. The man crumpled to the ground and held his leaking face as he wept in agony.

  Jerry rushed to Braxton’s aid. He kicked the head of the man on top of Braxton like it was a rugartti ball, instantly rendering him unconscious. Braxton tossed the man off of him. Jerry helped Braxton to his feet and patted him on his bald head, which was now slick with a large amount of blood.

  “How ya feeling, Big Man?” Jerry asked him.

  “Like somebody who just got punched several times in the face.”

  “You get used to it.”

  Braxton coughed. “Not all of us have brains capable of regenerating the harm done to them, Jerry.”

  “Let’s mop up the last of these Exorcist Division bastards with the rest of the Rangers, huh?”

  Braxton grinned at that, displaying bloody teeth.

  Jerry and Braxton regrouped with the rest of the Rangers, renewed by their victory. They forced the still-standing fragments of Plamondon’s shattered forces underlings on the defensive. Bit by bit, the Rangers wrangled the last of Plamondon’s underlings towards their SUVs with kicks, claws, and the occasional punch.

  By now, a large group of civilians had noticed the vicious fracas. Several of them had their catcallers out to film the scene while a birdeye bot floated high in the air above them.

  “Did you overly aggro pieces of shit finally learn your lesson?” Jerry roared. “Or do we have to beat the rest of you damn near to death like your useless head honcho?”

  “Yes!” one of them shouted. “We’re sorry, you insane fucks!”

  “If we ever see you people ever again,” Rosa hissed, “we’ll make them find your hands, heads, and feet in different countries.”

  “You better listen to this downright demonic little lady,” Jerry said. “She knows her way around a hacksaw and how to process a body for disposal like nobody else. Nobody!”

  “Can we at least get our guys first?” an underling begged. “They’re hurt, bleeding like all over the place, and a crowd is forming.”

  “Everybody would appreciate that,” Anthony sneered. “After all, it’s unbecoming behavior to leave your litter on the ground.”

  The Rangers allowed Plamondon’s underlings to collect their wounded and wake up their unconscious members. Everything was going well until Boucher woke up Plamondon himself. Rather than him being groggy or dissociating from what appeared to be a severe blow to the head, he seemed more pissed off than a glass jar full of shaken hornets.

  “You…” Plamondon muttered. He staggered to his feet and unsheathed his combat knife so large and intimidating in size, it was nearly a machete, then pointed it at Jerry. “Cheap shot chucking motherfucker!”

  “You better drop that blade,” Jerry said. “Whatever dumb shit you want to do with it can’t be taken back, man.”

  “Plamondon,” Boucher said, “it’s over, sir. The fight is over. Please put that back before you hurt somebody.”

  “You don’t have the authority to tell me what to do, you dogshit disappointment,” Plamondon said while he wildly waved the knife around. “You let yourself get humiliated and beaten by a bunch of freaks, fags, and fucking women!”

  “Come on,” Boucher pleaded. “Just look at that big son of a bitch over there! He hits you like he’s trying to beat the marrow out of your bones.”

  “Excuses are all you have left, huh? Well then, when we get back to the barracks, we’ll see how those excuses will help you when I make you enter a new universe of nothing but shit.”

  Anthony took off one of his leather gloves and stuffed it into his pocket. His pupils turned yellow and started to glow. “Listen to your subordinate. Drop the knife. Then drop this fight. This day doesn’t have to end like this, Plamondon.”

  “Oh, shit,” Jerry muttered. “Plamondon, don’t do this! I’m begging you man! If you’re talking about making people enter a universe of shit, you really don’t want to see what type of universe of shit Anthony can make you enter.”

  “I’d like to see that pipsqueak try.”

  Plamondon charged at Jerry, but was intercepted by Anthony jumping in front of him. Anthony pointed just one finger towards Plamondon, which proceeded to generate an unreal amount of blue flames over Plamondon’s upper body. His sweater burned away in an instant as he screamed in unimaginable, nerve-frying agony. Since Plamondon made the irreversible mistake of opening his mouth while being set ablaze by Anthony’s flames, the fire scorched his esophagus, roasted his uvula, and flash-fried his tongue. When Anthony ceased his flames seconds later, his eyes returned to normal and stopped flowing.

  Plamodon fell to his knees in the hospital parking lot, finally dropping his knife. He twitched from immense trauma as he blindly reached towards nothing in particular. His arms were the texture and color of badly burned steak. His fire-blinded eyes were white and useless like boiled eggs shoved into his blackened skull. Foul smoke reeking of his burned hair and cooked flesh wafted off of his body. Since his tongue was long gone, he was incapable of screaming despite the agony he was in.

  Plamondon eventually collapsed on the unforgiving ground, face-first.

  Boucher screamed in place of his lieutenant. “Plamondon, no!” He looked at Anthony, visibly terrified at his supernatural might. “What did you do to him? What did you fucking do to him? You didn’t tell me you were a Solar!”

  “I’m not required to do that,” Anthony said, his expression flat and grim. “I didn’t want to do something like that, but that is what happens when you don't listen to people telling you to stop bothering them over bullshit that isn’t worth bleeding, much less possibly dying over. We’re by a hospital. If you and your friends are quick, you might be able to save his life.”

  Boucher and the rest of Plamondon’s men lifted him up, causing him to writhe and croak in agony. Jerry considered that a minimally positive sign of life—dead or dying men don’t croak unless it's a death rattle. They ran with him towards the hospital.

  Sirens sounded off in the distance. Things had become a little bit too real rather than fun, if a little bloody entertainment for the gawkers, and most of them had long run off after Anthony set Plamondon ablaze. Gendarmes were due to arrive soon.

  “Twelvedamn!” Jerry hissed. “You fried that poor fool-bastard up like cheap bacon. What are we gonna tell Mr. Moon?”

  “That you weren’t the one responsible for ruining somebody’s life this time.”

  “Would he believe that? He’s always trying to find new and inventive ways to pin things on me.”

  “Nobody can argue with the burn wounds given to you by a Solar like me, Jerry.”