Kaitlin nodded and smiled back. "The same to you."

She walked back to the bar and sat down next to Wolf. "No big deal that it ended in a tie right?" she asked him.

"Not at all," Wolf responded sliding her another glass of beer. "I break even, so I'm happy."

Wraith watches her walk away with a smile, then looks around the bar at everyone else. Holding his arms out to point himself out, he asks them, "So who else wants some?"

A lot of people just stare at him or shake their heads.

Angel grinned at Wraith. "I guess I'll be merciful and let you have some chicken wings."

Angel sat back, and looked around.

"See, now this. This is what the General never thinks about. Why do we perform so well? Because we have these kind of bonding sessions. That...and we've got enough dirt to blackmail anybody."

"You're absolutely right," Wolf said nodding at Angel, "Especially that last part. Coyote's data mining skills pretty much silenced the critics in the UN who wanted our unit disbanded."

Except for the General...but he's just grasping at straws

"You know, aside from the fact he's responsible for killing me, I kinda' wanna' go give coyote a big hug."

Angel stretched his shoulder, "But, for the same token, I also wanna do the same for the general. He just seems to be such a miserable person, and really just wants some lovin' *coughbullshitcough*" Angel grinned.

OOC: I'm sure we could drag out this bar scene into oblivion...but since it seems were all at a loss for dialogue by this point...I'm going to fast-forward time here.

BIC: Two hours later...Beowulf guided both Wolf's Trans-Am and Angel's Firebird back to the base's parkade. As soon as the cars had parked, the doors opened, and almost every single occupant of both vehicles fell flat out drunk on the floor. The only person still standing was Wolf, and that was mostly due to the fact that he ended up propped up against one of the Cyber Force Hum-Vees.

Almost three strait hours of drinking, followed by what Wolf remembered as some kind of altercation with some rowdy patrons from UCLA, had produced this result: The entire Cyber Force Alpha Team was wasted beyond belief, and, as Wolf managed to notice, everyone was having trouble maintaining their footing.

Wolf fumbled for his PDAP and contacted Lt. Berkowitz, leader of CF-Epsillion. "Yo...me and the rest of CF-Alpha need some help getting back to our respective quarters."

"Right away Colonel." Berkowitz responded.

Beowulf appeared on the PDAP. "Is it really eithical to have the other teams carry you all back after you get so drunk you can't see?"

Wolf slurred out a response. "Lishen, I used CF-Delta lasht week...and now ish Epshillon's turn. If any of them needed ashistance getting back after getting washted...A'hd help them. Ish called doing a goddamn favor for your team."

"Well...when you put it like that...it does make sense...in a drunken fuzzy logic kind of way."

There was a sudden thud, followed by a muted string of curses from Angel, in French and Russian as well as English. (OOC: SS, I guessed on the Russian descendancy from his backstory...it just seemed like he grew up in a Russian family, that...and the reference to his mother as being more power-mad and delusional than the former USSR.)

Lt. Berkowitz and the rest of CF-Epsillon showed up and began helping Wolf and the others up to their quarters.

Wolf waved off Berkowitz at first, "First go and drag Angel outta whatever hole he fell into," he said, then as an afterthought, "By the way, if any of you take ahdvantage of my girlfriend...I'll fucking kill yas..." Then Wolf passed out.

***

Wolf awoke a few hours later in a daze. He had a pounding headache...it felt like accountants were cranking adding machines inside his head.

He looked over at the clock next to his bed. It was 0330. Shit...what a night. he thought. Got wasted...then there was that barfight where Angel jumped a bunch of rowdy drunken Frat Guys...thank God he didn't kill anyone...still...that was one of the better barfights we got into. I think the Omega Chi house is going to think twice before starting shit at Larry's.

He tried to go back to sleep, but something was bothering him. He got up, made his way shakily over to his desk and started writing down something.

Beowulf appeared on the PDAP screen. "You're up early...shouldn't you be sleeping?"

"Can't...something's been bugging me."

"Miller's death again?"

"No...I'm starting to accept that," Wolf responded "I finally realized he may have decided right then and there that my...guarenteed survival...instead of a desperate gamble to save both of us, would make sure that I stayed alive to keep fighting...not just for my sake but for others...he did know about me and Kaitlin, after all. And maybe he also decided that I stood a better chance of acheiving the goal of Mastermind's destruction. In the end however, I will never fully understand why he did it, I just know that I can't mope about it. Instead, I can pay my respects to him, keep living my life, such as it is anyway...and destroy the bastards who caused him to die in the first place."

"So the night of hard drinking and brawling did you some good after all." Beowulf chuckled.

"I guess it did, but the reason I'm up is because of something that Devin said. After Wraith made the toast to 'all fallen allies, past and present', Devin said something about them being gone, but not forgotten. In a way it made me remember even more clearly the two falllen allies that I, nor anyone else on this team can afford to forget."

"You mean Monk and Jade."

"Yes. Then that made me realize the real reason I felt crappy about Miller's demise. We ran into a lot of logistical trouble at the Skybase. We couldn't open certain doors, Mastermind locked us out of the Self-Destruct sequence..."

"And you beleive that if Jade were there the mission would have ended...differently."

"Well, yes. After all she can go head to head with Mastermind in terms of hacking...and win most of the time. Also this isn't the first time something like this has happened since Jade was unjustly imprisoned...it just never caused so much collateral damage."

"So what, you're going to break Jade out of prison?"

"Can't. Although the thought is tempting, that probably wouldn't help our image in the long run, and besides which I don't even know where she is. The general managed to hide any information as to the location of the prison Jade was placed in. So I'll have to play the political game. Tomorrow, I'm going to try my damnnedness to convince the JAG office that Jade must be released from prison and placed back in Cyber Force in order to safeguard against unnecessary casualties."

Wolf looked at the paper he had been scribbling on. Most of the stuff he wrote was stuff he had said, except for one dark line in the middle. The line simply said; "GET JADE BACK."

Even my subconscious knew the answer... he smiled.

Feeling satisfied that he now had a clear idea of how to prevent another incident like the one at Skybase 2, Wolf went back to bed and managed to fall asleep.

Monk woke up from his meditation. He knew he couldn't actually fall asleep, the cold would kill him since his heart was beating slow. In fact, he could start to feel his limbs fade away to the cold. He decided that moving around would be a good idea. Standing up on non-existant feet, he knew that Tai chi would not warm him up fast enough, so he moved right on to phase two, which would be karate training. Keeping one arm in a 90 degree angle on his chest, the other one in front of him, be began going over the motions.

Chop, chop, gaurd, rest.

Chop, chop, guard, rest.

Chop, chop, high kick, med kick, low kick, guard, rest.

Chop, kick, kick, punch, chop, kick, roundhouse, kick, punch.

He could feel his limbs come back to him as the motions became more fluent, easy to exacute.

Chop, chop, guard, rest.

Chop, kick, kick, chop, spinning backhand, spinning kick, chop, punch, palm shot, guard, rest.

He would keep doing this for hours on end. Starting to feel a cold sweat come over him, the inside of his chest now starting to heat up, he decided to spar with his newest opponant and friend. Turning to look at the snowman that was built just last night, he put his hand on it to check its condition. There somehow froze on it a thick layer of ice. It seemed strong enough to withstand his attacks, and it would be easier to attack a solid object, not snow.

He took a step back and bowed to it. He righted himself slowly, then shot into the Hapkido fighting style. He swayed back and forth, his arms almost taunting the snowman to attack first, the way the reached out, then relaxed back. He took a step then began punching at the new foe, not making a dent in the ice. he brought his hand hard from the side into the round head as he heard a voice, "That it?"

Monk paused and looked around, but found no one watching. Resuming the fighting, he brought a fearsome combo to the snowman. "Please... my daughter could do better than that..."

Monk stopped the attack and closed his eyes, trying to pinpoint the sound's location, but all he could hear was the wind swirling about him. Resuming combat, the voice talked once more. "Come on... hit me." Monk did just that as a powerful blow found its way onto the snowman's side, but it still did not fall. "Come on Monk. You told me you were going to do better than that!"

Monk was starting to lose his patience as he changed fighting style. Bringing up his fists into a boxing position, he started to throw jabs and hooks into the ice balls, but to no avail to damage. The voice just laughed harder. Monk couldn't take it anymore as his fighting style became random, just flashes of fist and foot on the snowman, no damage on it still, but there were alterations. The face was beaten up so badly, it started to show it's true nature, the voice that was talking. Several people stepped up to the place as the punches were getting more fast and fierce. Several of his enemies, his friends, the people he had killed, people he didn't even know, even his friends came to taunt him and the lack of skills he was showing.

Falling to his knees in a fatigue he counldn't describe, every voice that was in the world started to laugh at him, taunted him, ridiculded him. The falling snow provided the spitting on him, and the blistering blows they were all sure to give.

Suddenly... the voices stopped.

Monk looked up as no sound came to him. No laughing, no voices, even the wind had clasped its mouth. He looked around him for a moment until one more face showed itself on the snowman's perfectly round head. This one was calm, and serene, the only face he saw with a smile on it. It was a face Monk knew all too well, a face he trusted about all else...

A face he had grown to loath with a passion.

It was himself...

Screaming in a fit of rage, he jumped into the air, swung his foot around, and accomplished damage on the snowman by punting its head clear into the horizon. Monk now looked at the headless body next to him, the sweat cooling him down, along with the wind and snow. The fire in his chest however was still burning strong, almost to a heat that Monk couldn't stand. He dropped to his knees as the headless man reminded him of his past, the past he was trying his best to hide from, to run from. There was supposed to be tears coming out of his eyes, but the moment they reached the outside air...

They turned into ice...

(hey guys, guess what? im back! after another brief stint in lockup, and much, much training, ive got some free time on my hands. So, where in the story are we, and what's happened to my character so far?)

(( Uh, well, after you disappeared, the team infiltrated a data bunker to get some info., and we wound up in Monk's head somehow where he fought Myst and won... and when we got out, we went right back to bargain with Coyote for help. Mastermind attacked at Coyote's mansion, but we fought him off, and Wolf met Kaitlin again, though she was a General for Mastermind. After we got back from that, Wolf went rogue and rescued Kaitlin from her prison (real world), but Jade got mad and said nobody could help. Then Monk went into some kind of coma, and Jade went into his mind to help -- which she did -- but they got their minds crossed somehow so that they were in the wrong bodies. They rescued Wolf while Wraith led a mission to the KGB to free Angel in the real world, which both teams succeeded, but right when they got back, Jade was arrested and put on trial to determine her competency. Monk and Jade switched their bodies back, the trial went on, it was declared a mistrial because Coyote presented some pretty damning evidence about the General, but she got thrown in jail anyway for three years. Skip ahead three months, and we just got back from rescuing a FLAG team on Skybase 3 (3? Or 2?) and detonating it to keep it out of Mastermind's hands. And we're all drunk now.

Oh, and your team died. >_> ))

ooc: well your team is assumed to be dead, since they completely disapeared for the entire duration of these events, and it's still up to BG if she wants cour deaths to be canon