The Worthy Enemy

"About that," Dawson said, curling the corners of her mouth just slightly. "I had more than one reason to check up on you, Mister Megiddo. I want to introduce you to someone."

Another person walked in from the same direction that Dawson had come, a woman of identical build but whose hair was tied back into a long ponytail. Rather than a trench coat she was dressed in a gray leather jacket, denim pants and a heavy utility belt. There was a tattoo of a heart on one side of her neck with an arrow through it and written inside the words Anything That Moves. Other than that, she was the same as Dawson in every fashion.

"This is my... Sister, Instinct. I wanted you two to meet each other."

Julius made no effort to hide his contempt. "If only I'd known you had family sooner," he stated, "I'd have had two funerals to look forward to."

Instinct smiled at him in a predatory manner that Julius found he didn't at all appreciate.

"Well about that, Mister Megiddo," Dawson went on, "Instinct isn't quite like me. She has a few, how to say... peculiarities about her."

The woman opened her mouth, revealing a set of razor-sharp teeth numbering far greater than the standard human mouth. She produced a low growl that made Megiddo push himself away from his small table.

"A biologist friend of mine," the detective continued, "Said that her cellular degeneration is basically non-existent. Simply put, she will never die of old age."

The teeth parted and her tongue rose up out of the bed of her extended jaw. It reached for Julius, extending a full two feet towards him and prompting Megiddo to spill backwards out of his chair. The bottle of scotch likewise tipped over and began dumping its contents onto his pantleg.

"Now isn't that just the most interesting thing you've heard all day?" Dawson marveled. She turned away and began to walk back the direction she'd come. "Have a nice sentence, Mister Megiddo. Just another ninety-nine years to go."

Instinct grabbed the bars in both her hands and pulled her tongue back into her head. Before following after Impulse she hissed at him, "I'll be waiting."

= = =

Ivan Ionfist was found guilty of mass murder and theft of corporate property. The Corporate Court and California didn't go easy on him.

The Cutters briefly took advantage of the fact that the Bloody Tusks were suddenly teaching themselves Shakesperean dialects and performing plays on the street to expand their operations, until Rulian and Jackie got arrested for driving around in a car with no doors.

Vayger refused Dawson's requests to curtail the Ancient's gun-running and talismongering, until she was introduced to Instinct's tongue for the first time and she became significantly more compliant.

Convicted of bio-magical terrorism, Elazar Havelock found himself in a cell from which he was forced to watch the sixth world grind onwards, waiting for another chance to enact his vision. Sometimes he was sure he could feel something staring at him.

Gang activity in San Francisco declined sharply and Neon Justice became a less public figure such that the Most Wanted board featured the name near the bottom within a few months time. Sometimes Dawson made a show of trying to apprehend the powered-armor wearing vigilante, but always seemed to be a step behind.

Instinct found a home with Mother Earth, where sometimes open-minded researchers into the nature of horrors were invited to examine her in the hopes of expanding the world's knowledge base. One day her kind would be back, and they hoped to be ready for them.

For a while--an admirable degree of time--Impulse resisted the urge that no one else seemed interested in resisting and avoided fucking her look-alike, who continued to add instances of body art to herself so that she no longer looked quite so identical. Until one night, the urging of her friends and lovers finally convinced her to give self-love a try...