Alone in a tent in the army camp, Sig and Squad are engaged in a heated argument, the latter slamming a wooden trunk in anger.

"You so do not understand!"

"You don't want to face the truth!" Sig screams, voice cracking like an angry bark of thunder. "You can't take it! You can't take it!"

"I know what's true!" Squad shouts back. "I know what's at stake!"

Anya enters, clearly perplexed by the argument. "What's wrong? Has something terrible happened?"

Both men look sheepish.

"It's nothing," Squad assures her.

"It's just..." Sig begins.

"What!?" Anya demands.

"Okay, I'm going to tell her—" Sig begins, breathing deeply.

"No, don't!" Squad interrupts.

Sig blurts it out. "What would win in a fight: a lion the size of a squirrel or a squirrel the size of a lion?"

A numb silence fills the tent, broken by an astonished Anya.

"...You've been fighting about this for six hours!?"

"Ye...s," Squad answers, looking at Sig as if to say this is all your fault.

"We're just two chilled-out pimps trying to work out a science fact," Sig explains, to the bemusement of everyone.

Anya shakes her head. "Sometimes I can't tell the difference between you and a pimp."

"Pimp's dress better," Sig tells her. "Anyway, what's your opinion?"

"On the squirrel/lion thing?" Anya asks, Sig nodding. "I don't know what to say."

"Say the squirrel would win," Sig suggests.

Squad butts in. "The innate ferocity of a lion—"

"IT'S A BIG SQUIRREL!" Sig screams.

"It's still a squirrel!" Squad shouts back. "It's still a squirrel! It doesn't have the inborn instinct of a fighter, needed to—"

Anya raises her hand and the fighting males immediately fall silent.

"Wait a minute...does the squirrel have nuts?" she asks. "The eating kind, I mean."

"Yes," Squad quickly responds and Sig frowns.

"He's trying to cripple my squirrel with giant nuts!"

"No," corrects Anya. "I was actually thinking, if the nuts were huge too, the squirrel could use them to crush the tiny lion."

A jubilant Sig immediately switches position. "Ah-ha! I knew you agreed with me! I knew it!"

"Only the animals are mutants, not the objects," Squad swiftly corrects.

"What?" Sig asks, flabbergasted.

"You heard me. If it had nuts, they would be tiny nuts."

"This is bullshit!" Sig declares, as a soldier enters and speaks to Squad.

"Sir, an officer from the O.S.S. is asking to see you."

"The Office of Strategic Services? I wonder what the spies want with me," Squad flippantly says to Anya and Sig, exiting the tent.

When he's gone, Anya turns to Sig. "What I'd give to be a fly on the wall in that meeting..."

"Flies don't own property, so you couldn't give anything – also, flies can't speak, so you wouldn't understand what they're saying."

Placing a gentle hand on Sig's shoulder, Anya explains. "It's just an expression."

"Like 'frog-stupid' or 'dirty as a khaveezel?'"

"Er...yeah."

"That's good," Sig tells her. "But, remember, don't try to teach me new things. My teachers made that mistake..."

*

Child Sig sits in an office, his teacher coming to the end of a long rant about Sig's behaviour.

"It astounds me that you believe this behaviour is acceptable! I don't know what planet you live on."

"...You're not a very good geography teacher, are you?"

*

"Squad is such a goody-two-shoes, backing a tiny lion to beat a giant mutant squirrel," Sig complains about his best friend.

Anya smiles consolingly. "Squad's got a few skeletons in his closet, believe me."

"...His gay skeleton fetish gets more disturbing by the day," Sig agrees

Without looking at each other or having any further interaction at all, they fist bump.

*

Inside one of his brothels, closed for business since the war with Quivermass started, Steven Shryke watches a hundred or so of his people, a mixed bag of fighters, prostitutes and other associates representing several races, preparing for conflict. Dressed for battle, Arkady approaches, her lithe but powerful Roenan limbs primed.

"How's the mobilisation going?" Shryke asks.

"Our people are massing at several key locations and no one's going home until this thing's settled." She notices Shryke's smile and asks. "Why are you so happy?"

"Well, here we are: happy, warm and packed like sardines." Shryke eyes the cleavage of a passing working girl. "...Sexy, sexy sardines."

"You are aware that you just implied sardines are sexy?"

"It was a metaphor, dear lady."

"A metaphor which implied sardines are sexy?"

"...Yes. I'm a bad man! Leave me to my contemplations! My quiet, intellectual contemplations."

"Your cock's slipped out of your trousers."

"You better believe it, baby!"

Arkady sighs, though with a smile. "And, on that note, I'm leaving to escort a supply convoy."

"Wait!" Shryke calls. "Do we have a location on Quivermass or Dante yet?"

"No."

"Damn! That's put a dampener on my erection."

"I only wish that were true, sir."

"You cheeky—" Shryke begins, but she's already gone. He almost bumps into one of the working girls. "Oh, sorry," he smiles.

"That's alright," the girl says. "Are you new here?" she asks, clearly not recognising the big boss.

"You could say that," Shryke suggests. "I haven't worked in a brothel for a few years now – since my early days, in-fact. I need to find my feet around working around so many strong women again."

She taps him on the back supportively. "Don't worry: this place will soon kick the balls off you."

"...Thanks," Shryke replies, accepting it as a form of support.

With Arkady gone, and no one to perform for, his expression changes and the woman notices, sitting down beside him. "You look sad. Is there something wrong?"

Her voice is warm and melodious, full of vague comforts she's paid to dispense every day. Something in it touches Shryke, who bleakly exhales and speaks with his eyes on the floor. "I've come a long way from where I started, in Uetre. I'm originally from the north but fighting broke out, so I was raised as an immigrant in the south. We were their countrymen but they treated us like beggars," he explains, face flushed with fire. "When I was five or six there was a riot, the biggest riot that ever happened in that region, after a preacher passed through telling people that their woes were the fault of immigrants. Tens of thousands of local people rose up and stormed our defenceless neighbourhood."

Ashen with anger, Shryke continues. "They killed us with joy and...anger. A kind of booming terror took over the population, new fears and prejudices jostling each other to be heard, to be avenged; every beggar, every loser, every poor soul who had lost his job had a vendetta against the immigrants and each was settled in blood. Hundreds of immigrants died and the authorities arrested many of the survivors, because the local population needed scapegoats for the disorder and they didn't want to look to themselves. Blood washed the innocence from my eyes."

Shryke's eyes glitter like metal, tightening as if for some assault that's long past. "After that, basically every immigrant kid grew up to be in a gang. We were forging against years of prejudice and, in those days, I never did anything to harm the community; my heart ached with conviction. I was deported from Uetre and, somewhere along the line, I fell over an edge into pure criminality, not caring anymore about injustice or poverty but just focussing on the next scam, the next idea, the next kill."

Shryke is tense, from his grim, concentrated eyes to the rough eloquence of his hands, down to the feet that carried him in flight and fight; he looks into a dark corner nursing its secrets, as if histories are playing out there, the bloom and suffering of his years. Then he turns back to the young woman and his eyes are cold again, his face shuttered by resolution.

"Don't let me keep you," he says, light-heartedly.

She goes to walk off but he can't resist asking. "So...the big boss: have you heard much about him?"

A shake of her head. "That part of the business is way beyond my paygrade."

Shryke nods diplomatically, subtly inserting an idea into the conversation. "I hear he's got a massive horse cock. Tell all the girls that." He slips some money into her grasp. "Seriously, tell them Shryke's got a massive cock."

The windows, boarded-up for security, crash inward and fighting sounds boom from the outer hallway, attackers leaping through window spaces and engaging Shryke's fighters. Shryke launches forward and cuts down two enemies with ferocious speed, the others stopping for a moment, bludgeoned by the force of him, but then pressing forward in numbers, killing several guards and causing chaos as people run for cover. Shryke fights with a secret, angry pleasure.

Spinning, he sees an enemy fall right behind him with a knife in his back – one of his fighter's has just saved Shryke's life. She pulls her blade out of the man's back.

Thank you," Shryke nods. "How can I ever repay you?"

"If I die, tell my family—"

"Busy!" Shryke complains, slicing through an enemy's tendons.

He ducks a crossbow bolt aimed at his head and looks up to see a Ghoul in a dark trench coat step into the club through a broken window. The Ghoul looks around. "Nice place...if you're into shit."

A sudden animal grin springs upon Shryke's face and he charges the Ghoul, knives slashing with pristine purpose, the newcomer dodging every strike. The Ghoul kicks Shryke in the chest and the gangster falls back, rolling straight to his feet as his opponent leaps through the air, swinging a one-handed axe down at his head.

Knocking the heavy hit aside, Shryke quickly nips the Ghoul in his side with a knife, jumping out of range of any counter; the Ghoul wields dual axes, attached to his wrists with chains. Several of Shryke's fighters charge at the Ghoul, who lifts up a gloved hand and kills several of them with an explosive blast that sends them smashing into walls, knocking wood, brick and other materials loose. Not magic, some sort of gadget.

A knife slams into the Ghoul's shoulder, knocking him back a step and Shryke charges to follow up his attack, kicking aside a swinging axe hand and thrusting his other knife at the Ghoul's face, which shoots out of range as Shryke grapples an axe-wielding arm. The Ghoul's strength is incredible, throwing Shryke into a wall with one arm and then charging in with both axes at the ready.

Shryke quickly springs to his feet but, before he can lob his last knife he's caught by the Ghoul's thrown chain-axe which, though he pulls his hand back, strikes two of his fingers heavily, cutting them off and dropping the knife from his grip. Shock crashes across his consciousness, though Shryke is still determined to carry on the fight and stoops to pick up the knife but, looking up, he sees that all his people are dead. They were the main reason he planned to stand his ground, so instead he throws the knife at the Ghoul, picks up his severed fingers and runs for the stairs.

The Ghoul and several of his men pursue Shryke onto the roof, crossbow bolts flying over his head as he ducks. With no weapon or means of defending himself, Shryke looks around the roof, the dark niches of his eyes searching for an answer. He runs full-pelt to the edge and launches himself onto the roof of an adjacent building, landing awkwardly and gripping onto the tin surface with both hands, his maimed limb sliding bloodily where the missing fingers should be.

He throws himself to the side and a chain-axe slams into the roof where he was, metal sheets flying loose as it's pulled back. Thuds indicating where enemies have landed on the roof in pursuit; looking over his shoulder, Shryke sees the Ghoul foremost among them.

He jumps onto another roof and lands well, gaining ground on his pursuers, but feels a sharp pain in the back of his ankle, stumbling and falling to the ground. Turning, he sees a shuriken embedded in his ankle, clearly thrown by the Ghoul from among the gadgets in his trench coat.

Cornered, Shryke uses his good hand to prop himself up but doesn't try to run. Grief gathers and burns in him: but it's not grief for himself or any potential suffering, it's grief for his ambition, grief that someone has gotten the better of him and will have the last word. He stands and looks the Ghoul straight in the eyes, worries dropping away from him like turbid mountain currents.

The Ghoul points a chain-axe at Shryke, who halts him with a raised hand. "Hold on." He reaches into his pocket, extracts a bottle and takes a massive swig. "I've got a bottle of absinthe left over from yesterday."

"What was yesterday?" The Ghoul asks.

"...Wednesday," Shryke answers, after a moment's thought and the Ghoul smiles.

"You're a funny guy, Shryke."

"Well, I have to be brave in front of my audience," Shryke says, indicating the people hired to kill him. "I want them to admire me for the person I'm not."

One of Quivermass's men steps forward, irritated. "If you keep acting like a smartarse, Shryke, I'm going to take out my sword and make you pay for it!"

"...You want me to buy your sword?"

The fighter growls. "Your kid's gonna grow up a widow!" Everyone laughs, including Shryke, who smiles.

"I don't have a kid – and, if I did, I wouldn't marry them."

"Anyway," says the Ghoul, pretending to check his watch. "Time and dignity are slipping away, so..."

The killers advance and Shryke stands his ground, helpless.

A lithe figure leaps into the group, cutting the head off one attacker and spinning around his torso to evade an attack from the Ghoul's axe. Arkady grabs the Ghoul's wrist, slams the hilt of her sword into his metallic face and barely blocks an axe attack, forcing her to take a step back.

Sensing his chance, the Ghoul springs forward and Arkady spins, kicking him full force in the midriff and off the roof. Blocking more attacks, she severs numerous limbs in a hail of blood, dives over a sweeping strike and lands behind her opponent, slitting his throat with graceful power.

Throwing the last body over the side, she approaches Shryke and supports him on her shoulder. "Let's go," she says. "I hope you kept hold of our fingers – we can get a healer to reattach them."

"Nag, nag, nag." Shryke smiles. "Anyway, you're late. You should have saved me earlier, if you like my fingers so much."

"Trust me," Arkady assures him. "I don't want to go anywhere near your fingers – I know where they've been. Besides, I was only a little late."

"A little late!?" Shryke complains. "That's like wearing a condom at your kid's birth. You were totally late!"

"But I was on form," Arkady insists, as she walks on, supporting him all the way. "You have to give me that."

Shryke nods. "You have the eye of the tiger...and the toe of the camel."

She cuffs him lightly around the head ("Ow!") and they walk on, into the darkness of the city that would be theirs.

*

Banners choke the air, rising above rows of tents and reaching for colourless and careworn clouds. Sig and Squad walk through a military camp, the spectre trying to remind the Dwarf of a mutual acquaintance.

"He was in the hussars."

"Whose arse was he in?"

"The comedy stylings of Sig Hammerhead, everyone!" Squad declares, to an invisible audience.

"I'm here all week."

"Noooooooooo!" They laugh, Squad changing the subject. "So, this Night Elf informant who told us about their plans – I hear you and Anya met him. What's he like?"

"Massive arsehole."

"You'll enjoy that."

"I did," Sig smiles, rubbing his crotch. "But, seriously, Anya knows more about that clandestine world than I do because, as we all know, I'm a choirboy who goes to bed at 9.30 every night."

"...Which is why we're going to a hypnotherapist to cure you of alcoholism."

A finger flies up in correction. "My chronic fear of not drinking."

Squad sighs. "Remember when I said I care about you and I'd like to help?"

"Yeah."

"I take it back."

"Don't be a petty small-balls. Besides," Sig adds, clearly nervous about being cured. "Other than alcohol, beloved alcohol, how can I make myself more attractive to women?"

"You could wear a beekeeper's mask.

"It's exactly those kinds of careless comments that" Sig laughs suddenly. "—Actually, I just got that, it is quite funny."

A long knife of sun sticks into the ground in front of the hypnotherapist's tent, Sig turning to Squad. "Maybe you should get hypnotised too – as a kind of moral support."

Squad laughs and places a guiding hand on Sig's back. "That's alright, buddy. You're my friend, so I'll heroically stand aside and heroically let you take all the danger, then heroically laugh if something goes wrong."

Clasping Squad's hand in friendship, Sig smiles. "Thanks, mate. And remember, if I die, I'll haunt you relentlessly – I'll stick to you like pubes on soap, and my soap is covered in pubes...although some of it might be beard hair, because I clean my face with it too."

Squad nods supportively, all the while trying to erase that image. "And if I fall in the coming battles, I'll haunt you too."

Sig laughs uproariously. "If you haunt me during sexy-time, you're going to see some sick shit – it'll be the first haunting where the ghost is more haunted than the survivor."

As they enter the tent, Sig warns Squad. "Don't let them make me do anything stupid, like stand on one leg or fuck a camel again."

"Again?"

Sig looks around shiftily. "Did I say again? I meant for the first time. Fuck a camel for the first time ever."

"If they make you do anything stupid, I'll be the first to tell you: at which point, if I'm lucky, you won't understand and I'll get to explain it to you again."

"Fuck you very much," Sig grins sarcastically. "You're such a good friend."

"No, you're such a good friend."

"No, you are."

"No, it's you. You're the good friend," Squad insists. "You're Mr Good Friend."

"If you taught at a university, you'd be Professor Good Friend."

"I could never teach at a university. You, on the other hand, have a PHD in being a good friend. You're Doctor Good Friend."

"We both are," Sig purrs. "We're both good friends."

"Good friend buddies," Squad agrees, as they lock pinkies together and giggle like school girls. By this point, neither man knows if they're still being ironic. Or if they ever were.

As they walk in, a voice plucks at Squad's shoulder, a pale young man standing at a right angle to the entrance. "Please have a seat," he says.

Their view of the hypnotherapist is blocked by a screen, some movement detectable behind it. Sig literally growls at the young assistant, who watches the Dwarf in terror. Squad reassures him. "Don't worry about Sig, he's harmless. Although he does have one little eccentricity: if you look him in the eye, he'll attack you."

The young man scurries off behind the screen and whispers are audible. A tall, thin brown-haired woman in her forties wearing a simple white coat, the hypnotherapist, emerges. "Come on through," she welcomes them with a professional smile.

Behind the screen is a long psychiatric couch, plus several normal seats and Squad guides Sig into the psychiatric couch, the Dwarf fighting back. "This involves putting me to sleep," Sig protests. "I know things! I could reveal sensitive information!"

"Yes, maybe you'll start snoring in code," Squad laughs, gritting his teeth as they wrestle, Sig trying to get off the couch. "You're such a baby," Squad complains, trying to keep Sig on the couch.

"You're such a baby," Sig responds, with his usual wit.

There's a gentle cough and the psychiatrist's voice breaks in on them. "Perhaps my son and I could demonstrate that hypnotherapy is neither dangerous nor invasive?"

Sig pushes past Squad and sits on a normal chair. "Yes, do that," he suggests.

Squad stands at Sig's shoulder, blocking his escape as the assistant sits on the couch and closes his eyes. The hypnotherapist pours some water into a bowl and the water's glass-like voice floats through the room like a vibration. She speaks in a husky voice, allowing the water's sound to flow across the room.

"You are feeling very relaxed. Empty your head of thoughts and just listen to my voice." The hypnotherapist's son relaxes and Squad feels a pleasant numbness in his own head, as if he could drift off at any moment.

Sig gives Squad a sharp, fierce look. "I don't think this will work on me."

The woman's voice sounds again. "You are feeling sleepy."

Sig snores loudly and Squad picks him up, putting him on the couch. The woman's voice floats down, calming and confident. "You are in a field—"

"That's weird...I hadn't planned to be in this empty field for another two weeks," Sig comments in his sleep.

"You rub your hand gently over the grass."

Still sleeping, Sig laughs loudly. "I'm acting so weird! Why am I rubbing the grass like a total prick?

"Because the relaxation is so powerful—"

"Is it?"

"Yes!" Irritation seeps into the woman's relaxed tone. Breathing deeply, she continues in her formerly relaxed tone. "You are in the field—"

"I don't even like fields."

"You are on a beach," she quickly corrects, anger lifting her pitch before she wrestles it down again. "Now, I've been told you want to give up drinking alcohol and, if that's the case, I just have one question to ask you. It's perhaps the most important philosophical question you'll ever be asked—"

"Do cats realise their anuses aren't normal?"

"...That's not the question," she responds, trying to remain calm. "We'll forget the question for now. You are on a beach. You can feel the sand between your fingers. Its warmth is pleasant on your fingertips."

Sig smiles, clearly more comfortable with this dream. "I like sand. It's like dust but sandier, you know?" The hypnotherapist stays quiet, letting the dream do its relaxing work. Sig frowns. "...I SAID IT'S LIKE DUST BUT SANDIER, YOU KNOW?"

"I heard you, Mr Hammerhead," she whispers in an assuaging tone. "You are feeling so relaxed you feel yourself slowly drop—"

"Oops!"

"You are sinking—"

"THERE'S FUCKING QUICKSAND OVER HERE!"

A short time later, Sig and Squad are walking through camp.

"I can't believe I've just been physically assaulted by a medical professional," Sig complains.

"I don't think she likes you."

Sig sighs loudly. "I don't blame her. I wouldn't wish me on anyone: I can only apologise for the things I've done."

"Are you going to carry on doing them?"

"Yep."

***

Thank you for reading. All feedback and votes are appreciated. Leave a comment and I'll check out your stories.