(the original series was a side-story to Mandy's "War Story" - it took a new direction as "Unforgiven")

           About three in the morning, on the outskirts of a small military compound. The area seems to have been a forest at one time, but was leveled for this base, going so far as to defoliate an entire 1-mile area around it. Whether this was to prevent intruders from making use of the cover of the trees, or simply a hatred of this world, is impossible to tell. Whatever the reason, this entire landscape is now nothing but bare ground and the occasional twisted corpse of a young tree - or that of the unfortunate passer-by. The soldiers didn't care either way. On this particular night in the dreary expanse, the sky is overcast, and two shapes are hidden in the shadows of a low wall on the outskirts of this compound. After watching a patrol pass nearby, one of the two turns to the other...
           The first, in a low voice, "So, you think we can pull this off?"
           The other, replying in kind, "I'd say... Probably not."
           "...So, how good is that, exactly?"
           "Going out on a limb? Maybe we could, but things are not good."
           "... How far out on the limb?"
           "... I dunno; three, four inches, maybe. But then again, that kinda depends on how think the branch is..."
           "Well, how thi--", he stopped suddenly, then picked up again slowly, "Kabe?"
           "Yeah?"
           "What the bloody hell are we talking about?"
           "I dunno," pausing to check for the guards, and seeing there are none at the moment, looking up at the sky," I don't think the clouds are gonna last much longer... Maybe we should go now."
           "But I thought you said..."
           "Eh. C'mon San, I'm bored", with which Kabe got up and walked off towards a gate in the perimeter fence, apparently completely oblivious to various warning signs, such as 'Trespassers will be shot on sight', and 'Minefield'... The other sighed and followed along, though a bit slower, as he wasn't one to put his fate into the hands of blind luck in a minefield. Most wouldn't.
           At this point, I think it would be good to describe and introduce our characters. Kabe is about 5' 11," thin but muscular, and dresses like he just got out of bed. He also has that odd sort of hairstyle that has been dubbed "the Tenchi Buzz-cut," involving all the hair being cut to one inch, spiked straight up all over, and leaving a short rattail in the back. He wears a gray tank top and fairly nondescript black pants. Along with these are a pistol in a shoulder holster and a quarterstaff strapped across his back. "San," or more correctly, Sahandrian, is an elf, only a couple of inches taller than Kabe, and with longer, blonde, hair as well as green eyes. He is also a lot thinner than his companion, and carries a smaller pistol and short sword with him. But then, his clothing is even more ridiculous. A flamboyant red rayon shirt, leather pants, and black overcoat make up his style. But enough of this. Back to the story.
           The two met up again in the conveniently placed shadows around a recessed door. By the time San had gotten there, Kabe had pulled a black marker out of somewhere, and was writing something on the wall...
           "What are you doing?"
           Without bothering to look up from the writing, "Waiting for you to show up."
           "Well I'm here now, so can we get going?"
           "You could at least wait for me to finish this..."
           "What the hell is it, anyway?"
           At this Kabe paused. He put the marker back in his pocket and turned around with a look of utter stupidity on his face.
           "Umm... I forgot a couple of minutes ago, but it was a really good idea before that." He paused again. "Should we go inside now or something?"
           Sahandrian, shaking his head at his friend's lack of a normal mentality, was already busy bypassing the door's lock. "No, Kabe, we're going to go to the moon and eat cupcakes with the mushroom people."
           "Is that where they live? I thought they came from under the table after I got too drunk..."
           At this, Sahandrian turned around to insult him again only to find he had gone back to writing on the wall. "I thought you forgot what it was?"
           "I did, but I remembered it again." Then, putting the marker back away, he walked past San and into the building, leaving the elf to puzzle out Kabe's bad handwriting. He didn't get any farther than "J00 5ux0r ~ J00 4re 4--" before realizing that he had just let Kabe go off on his own in a place where he could easily get them both killed and promptly ran inside after him.
           Once inside the building, San first made sure to check for security in this area. Luckily, there wasn't anything - apparently, they chose the right direction and entered the back way. As soon as he was confident he wouldn't be seen, he went in search of his companion, as Kabe had a habit of attracting trouble. In fact, Sahandrian had often wondered why even a force as undermanned as theirs would take someone like Kabe in. Beyond his melee combat abilities and blind luck, he was fairly useless. Never quite competent enough to actually do anything right, but never so idiotic that he wasn't given the assignment. Always forgetting what they were supposed to be doing, always drunk on the job, always sleeping in, always hitting on any women he met - even the enemy! Sahandrian rarely admitted to himself that he wasn't much better, but still...
           Five minutes of avoiding security and close calls later, Sahandrian still hadn't seen Kabe, but there also hadn't been any security alarms, so Kabe must not have been caught. The idiot's ridiculous luck must be holding. If the entire rebel army had Kabe's kind of luck, the whole war would have been over already through lucky shots and enemy mishaps... Then he saw a door left open down the hall, and decided to check it out. He crept up and opened the door just enough to see inside...
           And that's when about 6 boxes of junk of junk well off a high shelf just inside the door, landing right in front of Sahandrian, who fell backwards, letting the door swing all the way open, allowing Sahandrian to see that Kabe, in trying to get something off the shelf, was the one who wrecked the room.
           Kabe stood and stared blankly for a second. "Oh. Hi San."
           "KABE! What the hell are you doing?!"
           "I wanted to see if anyone had stashed some beer up there, but then I saw this jar of rubber bands, and I don't have any rubber bands, so -"
           "We are here on a mission, not to steal office supplies. Now get out here and help me before -"
           Which is when they heard someone yell down the hall, and then the sound of people running in heavy boots.
           "Damn it... Get out here," Sahandrian said, getting up and running down the hall to another room, dragging Kabe along with him. The room they entered was apparently a storage room. there were crates everywhere, with rows of shelves, covered with all manner of items, from weapons to canned food. The two hid behind a stack of boxes next to the metal shelves along one of the walls of the room.
           "Kabe..." Sahandrian said quietly, "Please try to shut up this time, you bloody idiot. Because if you insist on doing something stupid, you'll likely get the both of us killed."
           He got to "Um, okay..." before he was interrupted by the voice of a woman giving orders out in the hall. Sahandrian just ignored Kabe then and tried to hear what she was saying.
           "...here. You four, check the storage rooms up the hall. The three of you come with me." After that, he only heard some footsteps approaching.
           "Shit..." Sahandrian sighed. "See what you get us into with your-" But when he turned around to speak to Kabe, he realized his companion wasn't there anymore. He spent a couple of seconds looking around before he gave up, seeing light from the hall brighten the storage room. He sighed and swore under his breath again while he loaded a cip into his pistol.
           The woman stepped into the room, with three guards in the usual Assaulter uniforms. The name "Assaulters" was given to the invading army by the neutral groups in the conflict who fought against both sides. The invaders referred to themselves simply as "The Army". In contrast to the drab military dress of the soldiers, tha woman was tall and thin, very pale, and had slightly pointed ears. Her hair, which reached to her waist, was violet, and she had dark green eyes.
           "Half-elf," Sahandrian thought to himself, "or half-vampire... It's hard to tell..."
           Instead of a uniform, she wore black pants, a dark violet sleeveless top, and a black coat. She was giving orders to the soldiers to search the room when she suddenly paused.
           "...I heard something. A creaking noise. Someone's walking around in here." She turned back out the door and yelled for the other guards to head to this room.
           "Half-vampire...?" Sahandrian thought, "I didn't hear anything... her senses are definitely better than mine..."
           But at that moment, however, both of them were interrupted as the source of the creaking noise quickly identified itself. Or rather, himself. The section of ceiling over the guards head's suddenly collapsed, with Kabe in the middle of the whole thing. As he fell through the ceiling, he managed to kick one of the guards in the face, leaving him unconcious and bleeding, and grabbed the woman on the way down, knocking her to the floor... And pulling her shirt and coat down as well.
           Sahandrian jumped up as soon as he heard the crash, ready to fire at anyone. But he wasn't quite ready for the scene at hand. One guard unconcious, two staring blankly at the woman. And the woman, with no top on at this point, having just wrestled Kabe up off the floor, screaming at him. Kabe had somehow managed to tie the woman's arms up with her coat sleeves.
           "WHEN I GET OUT OF THIS THING, I SWEAR I AM GOING TO RIP YOUR GODDAMNED HEAD OFF! AND--" And that's when she realized that all four of the concious people present were staring at her. She looked down, and realized that she was topless. She paused for a moment, then managed an even more psychotically angry look at all of them. "Perverts... QUIT STARING AND SHOOT THE DAMN REBELS!"
           This was just enough to snap the guards out of their staring, and they raised their assault rifles, one towards Sahandrian, the other towards Kabe. At this point, Kabe, still pinning the woman's arms behind her back, backed towards a corner before saying "Well San... Your show for now." And then he dropped to the ground with the woman as the other four guards ran into the room, and Sahandrian got off head shots to the first two.
           In the corner of the room, Kabe had just dropped himself and the woman to the floor again. She landed on top of him, though facing away. She struggled to free her arms for a moment, but Kabe tightened his grip on her arms. He noticed immediately she drew in a sharp breath and almost froze up. But before long she was back to normal, struggling all she could.
           Kabe thought to himself, "...that couldn't have been hard enough to hurt her... heheh, hard... hey, that whole thing was good. i'll tell san later... she's a half vampire... but she's terrified. freaky..." He decided he really should calm her down before she killed them both. "Sorry about this," he said quietly, "but a mage tossing spells around in combat is a bad thing, and I don't want San to go and shoot some hottie in the head just cause he cant handle magic."
           "...how could you tell I'm a mage? And why save me? Just my looks?" The firefight had become somewhat of a stalemate. The guards were hiding behind the door and Sahandrian was hiding behind some crates. Nobody was doing any damage other than to the walls and boxes. But this was sure to attract unwanted attention.
           "...So much for stealth," Sahandrian muttered to himself while changed clips.
           "I dunno," Kabe replied, loosening his hold on her to search for something in his pockets, "Just seemed like a good idea, I guess."
           "And then Kabe ditches the fight to feel up on some enemy woman..." Sahandrian ducked behind another crate closer to the door, in hopes of getting a clearer shot this time.
           "...What are you doing?" She felt him searching his pocket for something, and kew she could get away at this point, but thought of his warning about his companion.
           "Kabe is so dead if we survive this." And then a guard stepped out from the door to get a shot in, but fired at the crate Sahandrian was behind a second ago. Sahandrian took the opportunity to get this one. "One left..."
           "Eh, just a tranquilizer thingy," Kabe said, sticking the patch to her neck, "I think San might need my help." The woman passed out from the drug's effects in a moment, and Kabe slid her off of him, rolled towards the door, drew his gun, and finished off the last guard in one shot.
           He and Sahandrian both stood up.
           "Indulge yourself a little there, Kabe?"
           "Nah... How long before the alarms?"
           "They're behind already..."
           Correct Sahandrian was, for at that moment, alarms started ringing throughout the base. Kabe walked over, picked up the Mage woman and walked back towards Sahandrian.
           "We're going now?"
           "Kabe?"
           "Yeah?"
           "Put her shirt back on first."
           "Oh."

           A few minutes later, they were both crawling around in the ventilation system that Kabe had broken through earlier. It was just large enough for one of them to carry the woman along along on his back. She was still unconcious from the tranquilizer.
           "...You used the whole thing, didn't you?"
           "Umm... Yeah?"
           "Those were designed to be torn into four peices, and each one used separately."
           "Oh."
           "Why is she coming along, anyway?"
           "Felt important..."
           "...She's not going to sleep with you."
           "Didn't expect it. Just decided that's what I should do."
           "...Are you drunk, stupid, or crazy?"
           "Huh?"
           "You aren't making any sense, Kabe."
           "Probably not." They came to a junction in the vents. "...I think we go left."
           "He can live through a mine field..." Sahandrian thought, then said out loud, "I think so, too. Now let's just get out of here."
           "Um..." Kabe sat for a moment in silence, and shifted the weight of the woman on his back.
           Sahandrian sighed again, then mumbled, "What is it?"
           "...I never got my rubber bands."

           About two hours later, they were in a stolen Assaulter transport truck full of guns and ammunition, driving back towards the nearest rebel hideout as quickly as possible. They had been out to steal any supplies they could from the nearby Assaulter base, and the one thing the rebels lacked more than anything else were weapons. Kabe and Sahandrian were sitting in the two front seats, with the mage woman lying across the bench seat behind them. She was just starting to wake up.