"I have to fight you?" Even with her enhancements, Jade knew that she couldn't win this. She had a chance, but Monk was far stronger and a better fighter than her. "You said yourself that all you're good for is fighting with your fists. I have to say that you walking into my mind would have been an easier choice, but if I have to fight you I will. I'm sorry that I took the light away, and with your trust, I'd like to give it back. If it means me fighting you, even dying, I'll do it. Whatever it takes." She assumed a fighting stance and waited for the onslaught that was ot follow.

Monk smiled and looked away. "I'm glad that you have chosen to fight me, but it might not have been wise on you're part. This is you're last chance." She stood still. "All right then." He prepared an attack, "I guess this will be goodbye." He charged up and started to throw his fists at her, something which pained him to do, but something he knew he had to. He started off slow, she was actually able to prevent most of them from reaching her face and body, the others would only be grazes, nothing that would hurt too bad. Monk picked up the intensity and began fireing his fists faster and faster, until they became nothing but a blur. Jade did her best, but there was nothing she could do. of a hundred fists that were thrown, she could only block five. The others hit.

But Monk pulled his fists back, only touching her copmpared to other fights. The pain was real, but a lot less than what it should have been. Monk stopped the bombardment after several minutes and let Jade catch her breath. She could feel her heart beating against the inside of her chest. A heart that she wished she could show Monk. If only Monk knew to look for it. She fell to one knee. "Monk... You are too strong. I can't defeat you."

"If you are pure of heart, then you will know how to." He now tilted his head down. "It is time for the test. If you can defeat this, you can defeat anything. Three souls walked out of Monk, but soon gained color, then became actualy bodies. Before Jade stood four Monks. "You now must choose. They all said in unison.

"What? How?"

One Monk started to walk behind her. "It is easy. We are all only copies of Monk."

Another took position to her right. "You see, we match strength, but we cannot take a hit. If you attack wrong, you will just make us disappear."

One moved to the left. "Make sure you chose wisely. If you chose wrong, We don't know what will happen to you."

One stayed right in front of her. "You must now choose which of us is real before we strike at you. There is only one real Monk, the other three are only spirits of him. It is up to you to know which one is real."

OOC: Now...was MC playing the Legend of Zelda when he came up with this idea? <shudder> Goddamn ghosts and phanton Ganons...I'll teach them to play shell games with me (hits self)...but I digress.

BIC: 6 hours later (I know I probably shouldn't fast forward like that) The skies cleared up, and Mastermind's search team was dispatched to the mountains. A Heuy Attack Chopper backed up the platoon of ten soldiers as they trudged through the fresh powder the snowfall from the night before had dropped. Up in the Huey, the pilot noticed a cave, with a suspicious snow pile next to it.

"I've got a suspicious looking cave on Mt. McHale. Ground Unit, check it out." the pilot radioed. The chopper flew on to the south.

***

The noise of the patrolling Huey woke Wolf from his slumber. Shit...they're back. He nudged Katlin awake. "Wake up...we've got problems."

"What is it?"

"Mastermind's search teams are headed this way."

"How do you know?"

"Heard a chopper." Wolf said as he picked up his PSG-1S.

"Are you sure it isn't SAR?"

"I've had no word back from Cyber Force or FLAG; and I know nobody else on our side is searching for us."

Wolf walked out to the entrance, and took a look through the scope of his rifle. "Yep. 10 Mastermind soldiers are headed this way. I'm taking em out."

Wolf centered his sights on the lead soldier, and pulled the trigger.

***

With sniper rifles, you never hear the one that kills you. The lead soldier took a round through the face and fell backwards, dead. By the time the other troopers realized what was happening, it was too late for another three of them. They all died from headshots too. The other six scrambeld for the cover of the cliff wall that separated the level they were on from the cave. Methodically, Wolf eliminated 5 more with bullets to the sternum. The last guard hefted his AK, trying to find the killer, but Wolf put him down with a shot to the carotid artery.

***

Wolf lowered the rifle. "Well, I'm out of sniper ammo, but fortunately, two of the soldiers were carrying Dragunovs. The rest of them had AKs. I'm going to go down there and salvage their weapons."

"What about that chopper?"

Wolf handed her the M16. "Take this. Cover me with it. Fire on the chopper if it shows up. I'll have the cookie-cutter rounds on me, so I can take it down if it's damaged enough."

Katlin took the M16. "Be careful Jason." she said.

"Hey...I'm always careful." Wolf replied with a grin as he donned the climbing claws, exited the cave, and began to scale the cliff.

***

The dead leader's radio crackled. It was the Huey pilot.

"SkyEye 1 to Groundling 1. What is your status? Groundling 1, respond please. ...Aw hell. Groundling 1, if you can hear us, we're circling back to your position."

Wraith walks into the hangar bay with Hikaru in tow, where he sees one quite unhappy-looking General (as if anything else was new) turn around and march towards him, walking away from someone he was talking with. "You've got some nerve, arranging this mission, Lieutenant!"

"Sir?" Wraith asks blankly.

"Don't you pretend like you don't know what I'm talkin' about! The last I heard, you don't have command authority, so I'd like to know why in the hell you're setting up an extraction mission!" yells the General as he waves his cigar at him threateningly. After he's done screaming, he puts it back in his mouth and chomps while he waits for an answer.

"Commander Jade authorized the mission and gave me command, sir," Wraith calmly states.

The General removes his cigar and points it at Wraith. "You mean to tell me Jade set this up? Show me some proof, soldier."

"I only just received her communiqué a few minutes ago, perhaps the orders're being held up in processing?"

"Don't give me none of that bull," the General responds, putting the cigar back in his mouth and chomping. "I would've known about this as soon as she arranged it."

His PDA beeps just then. They stare at each other for a moment as it beeps, then Wraith points down and tells him, "You should probably answer that."

The General growls and removes his PDA, his face going from a scowl to an even deeper scowl as he reads. Wraith notes this and asks, "Troubling news, sir?"

The General closes it and puts it back in his pocket, glancing back up at Wraith with a displeased frown. "Apparently, you have been given this command on Jade's personal authority."

Wraith smiles at him satisfactorily and nods. "Why, thank you, General."

The General snarls at him, then removes his cigar and points it at him menacingly. "You use whatever you need to use on this mission, but you listen to me, mister: you so much as screw up the tiniest detail and I will nail you to the wall! You got me?"

Wraith straightens his posture and answers sharply, "Sir, yes sir."

"Good. You and your team are already on thin ice with me. I don't want any more screwups tonight, y'hear?"

"Yes, sir," comes the reply.

The General looks at him for a long moment as he draws his cigar back up into his mouth and chomps on, then growls silently and walks past him and out of the hangar. Wraith stands for a while as he leaves, waiting for the door to close, and when it does he steps out towards the row of stealth helicopters and addresses the pilot waiting at attention there. "We need this chopper, Sergeant."

"Ready to go as soon as you give the order, sir!" he replies enthusiastically.

"The order is now; go on and fire her up."

"Sir, yes sir!"

The pilot salutes and spins around, climbing into the cockpit in a hurry alongside his co-pilot. Wraith turns and addresses the team while he walks behind a large table stacked with equipment. "Here's our equipment for this mission. We're using submachine weapons, SSB body armor, and tranq guns, but since you're all familiar with the weapons and SSB body suits, I'll skip the briefing on those."

"Dark light mission, sir?" asks one soldier.

"Yeah, why do you ask?" Wraith says, putting his hands on the desk.

"Just curious about the SSBs, sir," he replies.

"All right. We'll need to see in the dark on this mission, night vision and thermals and such. I'll brief ya'll on our way," Wraith says, then stands up and addresses everyone. "Okay then, suit up and let's get the hell out of here!"

A resounding chorus of, "Yes, sir!"

***

There hadn't been much time to prepare any plans, so Wraith looked over any and all maps and information that Coyote's AIs could provide on the complex and came up with a plan en route. He fiddles with a few padds in his hands during the ride, glancing between several to make sure he's keeping things straight, then looks around at his team. "It'll be nighttime when we arrive in Moscow. The night shift will just be coming on, so we'll be arriving in the middle of a shift change. First Coyote's AIs and J2 will disable the power grid over a large portion of the city. Normally that would cut off all power to anything in the building, but they probably have a separate power supply for themselves. If that's the case, the AIs will shut that down, too, but when that happens their security will know something's up and go on full alert. So, our AI friends will again disable their security net and create enough diversions to keep them occupied. We're dealin' with the KGB here, so don't assume they don't know what they're doin'.

"Meanwhile, we'll land on the roof and prepare to deploy. This stealth chopper shouldn't be detectable with their sensors gone. We'll rappel down the face of the building to this point--"

He shows a padd to everyone and points to a specific window. "And breach. Two teams of three will fan out ahead of me, Hikaru, and Sergeant Waters and secure the rooms on either side of the hallway in order until we reach our target. Our team will go down the center and eliminate anything in the hallways, and breach our objective. It'll be J2, Gabe, and Tycho's job to release Angel so we can get him ready for transport."

He looks around at everyone, pausing for a bit to collect his thoughts. "It's possible that Mastermind might have elite troops guarding Angel, or if he hasn't gotten to him already, he might be planning an incursion of his own. We're using lots of deadly equipment and force, but use your tranq guns first. The bottom line is, be prepared for anything, but this mission is all about speed. We get in, get his body, and get out before they know what we're doing, with a two-minute time limit, preferably one minute... there's no room for heroics here. Are we clear?"

A resounding chorus of "Yes, sir!" answers him.

"Good. ETA?" Wraith shouts to the pilots' compartment.

"Eleven minutes."

Wraith cocks his rifle and looks around. "Lock and load, soldiers!"

***

All is as it should be in Moscow. Hookers sell their wares, merchants peddle their goods, the Mafia keeps an iron grip on things, and Russians get drunk on good ol' Vodka in numerous bars. Aside from an unusually thick snowstorm during the day, a pretty average day. However, deep in the power plants' main computer banks, a few unwelcome guests are wreaking silent havoc. Programs get deleted, screwed with, and generally messed with until the power grid finally goes down in a vast area around KGB headquarters. People panic and wonder what happened to the lights, while overhead a long black chopped descends across the city, remaining blank to sensors and the naked eye as it blends into the background as either a black smudge against a black sky, or as noise on radar screens.

It flies low and approaches the foreboding spires of the KGB complex, going under radar range but staying silent thanks to a silent mode perfected by black ops chopper designers for such missions. Lights kick back on in the KGB complex, but soon go dark again just as the chopper lands on the roof and opens its doors, spewing forth nine soldiers clad in deep black full-body suits and donning binocular headsets with green-glowing eyepieces. All armed to the teeth and carrying personal rappelling gear, they charge over to the edge and immediately latch on, then set up and hop off, rappelling upside-down in a rapid but controlled free fall until they reach their target and halt. One of the soldiers swings over to the side of the window and places a charge, then kicks off and away, arming and then blowing the explosive.

A muffled boom rattles the building and shakes the walls as the window and parts of the wall around it explode and fly off into the hallway, scattering debris everywhere. The nine men then swing over towards the opening and right themselves, then unhook and leap off into the hallway, shooting anything that moves. Two teams of three fan out and pacify anything moving in the rooms adjacent to the hallway while a third team -- Wraith, Hikaru, and a third man -- storm through the hallway and shoot anything that shows its face. Some bullets fly past them and strike the walls, but in the dead black of night, they can't see or hit their targets. Bodies drop left and right, tranquilized, and none of them Cyber Force soldiers.

Within less than thirty seconds of landing they've reached the right room, and Wraith hurries over to the door and plants a charge, then stands back as it blows in the three-second timer limit. The door is blasted from its hinges and thrown into the room, knocking one man out as it flies into him. The bright flash coupled with the pitch black darkness blinds anyone in the room, and the team immediately rushes into the room, guns drawn. Wraith leads them and glances around for Angel's body, and quickly finds it...

Jade just stared at the four Monks. They were all exactly alike in looks and voice, how was she supposed to tell the real from the fake? This was hopeless, she closed her eyes and waited for the blow to come. Her heart was pounding like a jackhammer, with loud and irregular beats. [I]Wait...irregular? That can't be right. No, it's two heartbeats.[\I] She strained to listen harder. One was hers and the other was Monks, ok that was normal. But wait...If there are four Monk's there should be four heartbeats...The one with the heartbeat is the real one! She gathered her energy up for an attack and opened her eyes to see Monk flying at her, poised to strike. Time moved in slow motion for her. Jade had never moved that fast before in her life, but the adrenaline kicked in. One of the Monk's swung at her, but hit only a breeze. Jade had moved out of the way and pinpointed the Monk with the heartbeat. The one on the left! She put all of her energy into her punch and swung, hoping that she was right.

Two hands came from nowhere, and grabbed the fist. "Jade..." It said, looking down the hair covering his eyes. "I can't believe it." She could feel water drip onto her hand as tears fell from Monk. "You did come here for me. You were here to find the real me. The others vanished as the entire room lit up, a door opening on the side. "You knew which one I was." He finally looked into her eyes. "You came looking for my heart, the heart which you had hopes of mending." He smiled through the tears. "As you can see, it is already mended, and it now beats with life. Thank you." He dropped her hand. "And I have decided that I do have much left on this earth that needs to be done. All right Jade..." He wrapped an arm around his back. "Let's go home."


Hikaru looked at all the weapons the others were carrying, all the armor they were wearing. He refused it al, and used only his skin and bare fists to make the infiltration. He did enlist to help out in battle, but he didn't expect something this soon. He was sent to check on Monk, if he had hit his phase yet, he would replace him for a while. Phase! He thought aloud as he took out his own PDAP. He might have been a monk, but that doesn't mean he couldn't have technology. He inputted his message and sent it away.



Dr. Oedupe sat and watched the two. It had been a while, and there was no change. C'mon you two. His phone beeped, so he answered it. It was the other monk asking about Monk. He shook his head. Too many monks! He sighed as he submitted his reply. "No condition change yet..." He was just about to his send when something beeped. Monk's mind was starting to reboot. "Cancle that! Monk's back!"

Hikaru got the message, shot open his eyes, and sent an urgent message back. "Get Jade out of there!"

Dr. Oedupe nodded and looked around. Knowing a little about this kind of stuff, he set to work getting Jade out of Monk's head the only way he knew how. Pull the plug.



The two got to the door as it began to suck them in. Like a vortex it pulled the two towards it. "Jade! Get behind me." He stepped in front of her and tried to plant his feet, but it soon became too strong, and it pulled him in, the door closing behind him.



He slowly opened his eyes and saw the light of the hospital room. Aw great... I'm here again. He sat himself up and took a quick look around, finding himself... sitting... in a chair?

"Jade? Are you all right?"

Monk looked at him in confusion. "What? What are you talking about? I am Monk. Don't you recognize me?" He looked down at himself to make sure he was still who he was, but he found out... he... wasn't. His view had been blocked by somehing jutting from his chest. In fact, his silver hair was tickleing his neck. He grabbed it quickly. Silver? I have... brown hair... He got up and looked in a nearby mirror and saw himself... or rather... herself, in the mirror. "Oh my God! I'm Jade!!"

Dr. Oedupe gave him an odd look. "Yes... and the man in the bed is Monk... hopefully."

Coyote had managed to hack through mastermind's security network. He was busy giving him false video, putting hydra, trojan horses, and generally nasty Virii allover Mastermind's systems. He then closed his network connection to prevent reprisal.

"Great now I'm bored again."

Jade opened her eyes. Her entire body was wracked with pain, and she was lying down for some reason. Sitting up, she saw turned to the doctor. "How is Monk?" She slapped her hands over her mouth. The voice that was coming out of her mouth wasn't hers. Now that she thought about it, she didn't feel her hair falling over her face. She also felt...funny. Getting up, she saw Jade staring into the mirror in shock...Wait....Jade?! She ran to the mirror and saw Monk's face staring back at her. "Oh...my...God!" She turned to the doctor furious, "what did you do!!!"

Dr. Oedupe took a few steps back. "W... What did I do? I didn't do anything! I swear! I was told to get Jade out of Monk's mind.

"Good job." Jade's body said.

"Which one are you?" Jade's body looked around. "Uh... could you give me and J.... Monk... here... a moment, alone... please?" The doctor looked scared, and was happy to grant them a moment alone. After the door closed. "Jade!? What do we do!?!?"

OOC: From now on, I'm still Jade but I'm in Monk's body. But I'll be using the name Jade to not confuse us.

BIC: Jade turned to Monk. She couldn't believe this was happening. "I don't know what to do! This has never happened to me before!" She tried to calm down as best as she could. "I guess we have to deal with this later, there was a reason why the doctor unplugged us and we need to find out what it is." She looked down at her body. She was taller now and built, she definitely felt a lot stronger in this body then in her normal one. She tugged the bandana on her head off and handed it to Monk. "Here you might want this, you're not used to my hair. I guess we'll have to suck it up and deal with it. I only hope we can get used to each other's bodies for now." She looked at Monk, who was in her body and was visibly shaken. "I know this is wierd, but we'll get through this, just like everything else." She then shot Monk a look. "And no funny stuff with my body!"