Darkness pulled back, his muscles screaming in protest as he fought through lactic acid and sheer exhaustion. Dante's lower back was arched painfully beneath him and his legs were crossed across his knee, putting pressure on the injured area. In the place in his head where Dante's shadow resided, Darkness felt the echo of the pain he was inflicting. Even that pale reflection would have been enough to break most men, but Dante held on through whatever he was truly feeling, inching slowly towards the ropes.

"Give me you weapon..."

Llenlleawg stepped forward and handed Darkness the spear. It had a short haft, and a longer blade that looked out of proportion as a result. It was optimised for being thrown, but its lightness also made it a highly mobile hand-to-hand weapon.

"And yours, Revenant."

"I got two," she replied.

Darkness smiled at her. "Yes, but they count as one. Ceremonially speaking..."

She removed the heavy silver gauntlets from her wrists and handed them to him. Darkness placed the weapons on the floor and then sat down cross-legged before them. He gestured his two students to do likewise.

The three of them were on a rooftop in Daly City. High above the Bay Area metropolis, they could see glittering sea on either side as an orange sunset turned everything into fire to the west.

"The Slayer Weapon is one of the most important tools in a Shadow Slayer's arsenal," Darkness began, "combined with the abilities you will learn, it can become something far more potent than the steel and wood from which it is constructed."

He lifted his sword and held it before him. "The Slayer Weapon is as much a symbol as it is an implement of destruction. Any Slayer can summon their willpower and empower themselves with force, but the Slayer Weapon provides a focus for that energy. It is like the point of a needle supporting a thousand-ton weight."

Llenlleawg looked down at his spear. "That sounds like magic," he said, unable to keep the scepticism from his voice.

"It isn't," Darkness replied shaking his head, "it's all about awareness of your environment, which is why - in order to teach you how to use your Slayer Weapons - I must first teach you the skill that defines our Order: the Slayer Sense."

He felt Dante's hand grasp the bottom rope, clutching it desperately and shaking it to attract the referee's attention. He released him. The damage was done. Darkness took a step into the centre of the ring and turned around. Sweat and blood matted his black hair to his skin and he ran a hand across his eyes to clear his vision.

Not that he needed it now.

Dante's presence throbbed in his head. The sensation of the thousands of fans seemed to fade away. He concentrated on Dante, using both his Slayer Sense and their telepathic link. He could feel where the man was hurt and he knew what he would do next.

Time slowed down as Dante turned around, straightening painfully as his back creaked in agony. Darkness struck, his fury concentrated into his fists. Faster than the eye could follow, he doubled Dante over, sending crackles of force through his muscles and causing pain to lance through his lower back.

Electricity seemed to flow up the World Champion's spine. Darkness felt the place where his vertebra had been severed by Drakus months before, where Dante was still weak. The pain gave him a way into Dante's body, sensing every ache and pain, seeing the accumulated injuries that were part and parcel of the weight of the titles he had carried for a year.

Darkness knew exactly where he would snap.

"Close your eyes."

Revenant sighed and rolled hers instead.

Darkness raised an eyebrow at her. "Problem?"

"Yeah, this is dumb."

"Do you want to learn or not?"

"Sure, but I didn't realise that learning to kill demons involved sitting around and meditating."

Llenlleawg, who did have his eyes closed, grinned at her words and she glanced conspiratorially at him.

"Meditation is a method used by some religions to commune with the world around them," Darkness explained, "and it is exactly this skill that enables the Shadow Slayers to do what they do. Apologies for spoiling your illusions, but ‘sitting around and meditating' is our Order's main occupation."

"Great." Sighing again, Revenant closed her eyes.

"Okay." Darkness did likewise. "Now; concentrate."

"On what?" the girl asked.

"On everything..."

Darkness opened up his mind. Slowly, his perception began to spread, encompassing the concrete beneath him, then his two companions, then stretching, growing in speed to envelop an increasingly wide area. He could feel hundreds of people in the city around him, then thousands, until the sensation of life became a buzz of background noise. He felt trees and animals and air moving in huge masses of cold or warm fronts, fighting an eternal invisible war. He felt the sea, churning with life and its swirling currents, dense and thick. He felt the clouds rolling far above his head. He felt, inexorable and mighty beneath him, the strange rolling of the very Earth. He opened up further, turning every life on the planet into the buzzing of ants, ignoring the millions of pinpricks of familiar signatures that represented werewolves, demons, vampires and other Shadowspawn. His mind encompassed the whole world and then he pushed further, sensing something else; a dark presence on the edge of his vision.

A black shape hung in the heavens, staring balefully down on all below it. For a moment, Darkness held the gaze, feeling the great beast's indifference and hunger, it's alien mind that assessed him so clinically; sizing him up and deciding not whether he was a threat, but simply how he would be destroyed when the time came.

Darkness felt no fear as he turned from the monstrous Void thing, shifting the attention of his Slayer Sense back to his immediate surroundings. At such immense range, the information he could glean was essentially useless, which is why most Slayers never bothered using their trademark ability in such a fashion.

Now he felt Revenant and Llenlleawg sitting before him. Both triggered the same alarm bell in his head, so used was he to fighting ones like them. He ignored the way his muscles wanted to bunch and make a grab for his guns - which weren't even there - and instead looked into them.

The Slayer Sense did not enable him to feel emotions, but it did provide a level of exact reading that, with practice, could be used to infer mood. Just as a normal human might become an expert in body language and non-verbal cues and seem to be able to read minds, so too could the Slayer Sense be used to examine muscle twinges, eye movement and heart rate and thus provide information on the inner thoughts of its subject.

"Relax," Darkness said softly to Llenlleawg, "nothing strange is going to happen."

"That's what I'm afraid of," the werewolf said, "I'm not feeling anything..."

"You're not supposed to. But the longer you stay still and concentrate on your surroundings, the more you'll become used to ignoring yourself."

"Huh?" Darkness felt his eyes snap open.

"Close your eyes," he said sharply, and sensed the boy's shock that he had know. He obeyed.

"The biggest hurdle to this ability," Darkness continued, "is eliminating the sensations we get from our bodies. You have to be confident enough to know on an intellectual level what your own body is doing, and tune out all your instincts and the messages your body sends you so you can shift your perception to the outside."

"I feel like I'm going to fall asleep," Revenant said.

"Don't feel like you are going to do anything," Darkness told her, "feel what's happening outside instead."

"Boo!"

Darkness actually let out a yell as he felt something pounce on him from behind. His eyes flew open and his hand closed around his sword hilt. He lifted the weapon as he rolled to his feet. Revenant and Llenlleawg stood up, both as surprised as he was.

"Didn't see me coming, huh?" Freya smiled.

Darkness blinked. He turned to Llenlleawg. "Why didn't you tell me she was sneaking up on me?"

"How would I know?"

"Your nose?"

"How'd she get past your magic mind powers?" Revenant asked with a frown.

Freya reached into her pocket and lifted out a pinkish stone. "Remember this?"

"I do...now..." Darkness growled.

"I couldn't even smell you!" Llenlleawg protested.

"I know. It's very handy."

"I don't like knowing anyone could sneak up on my any time," Darkness told the new Bleeder Champion.

"Neither does anyone else," Revenant said, retrieving her weapons, "now you three know what the rest of us feel like."

"I never thought I'd have a human-vampire hybrid explaining to me what being normal felt like," Darkness remarked, swinging his sword over his shoulder and sliding it into the baldric across his back. "Do you think you could get rid of that thing?" he asked Freya.

"Why?"

"Because it freaks me out that I can't feel you. That's how Drakus put me in a coma that time. It's...distracting..."

"Fine." Freya took it from her hand and slid the small crystal into her sock. "See, it has a radius. I've been playing with it - it goes out about a yard in every direction. It shouldn't be so bad when you can't sense my lower half."

Darkness nodded. "It's not so bad, no...but it's still not great."

"It's weird," Llenlleawg grimaced. "I can't smell you properly."

"Yes, well, that just goes to show how much a man's mind is affected by sexual pheromones. You can keep your nose where it belongs from now on, Llenlleawg."

The young werewolf opened his mouth to protest, but Freya just gave him a winning smile and turned around. She grabbed Darkness by the arm and slotted her own through the crook of his elbow. She led him to the door on the roof. "We have a match," she explained."

"Against each other? Again?"

"No, we're on the same side this time."

"Oh. Well who are we against?"

Freya laughed. "Stern seemed to think the New Hellfire Club is a thing of the past, so she's put us against Aco and Misfit."

"That should be...interesting..."

"Yeah, I thought so. I figured we'd go for a drink with them, figure out how we'll do this and you can spend the rest of the time ‘till the show training up your little friends."

"That's a good plan..."

Freya frowned and pulled her arm from his. Placing her hands on her hips, she gave him a concerned look. "You got a problem, champ?"

"No."

She could smell his lie. "What's up?"

Dante's head crashed into the mat. Misfit looked stunned as Darkness pulled himself up onto one knee. Blinking the blood from his eyes, he nodded to the special guest referee and rolled Dante onto his back. He hooked the albino's leg.

One.

Two.

Three.

The bell rang, the crowd erupted. Misfit shook his head in amazement and went to the ropes to retrieve the belts that were now Darkness's.

Dante's eyes were glazed as he picked himself up. His face was slick with blood and his formerly pristine tights were now stained dark with sweat. He supported himself with the ropes as Misfit handed the ECF and 411fed World Championships to Darkness.

"You win..."

Dante's voice was barely a whisper, but Darkness heard it even over the sound of the crowd.

"Yes," was all he said.

"I knew you would."

"So did I."

Dante straightened, smiling through his crimson mask. At ringside, Selenia looked concerned for her lover. There were tears in her eyes. She too felt the pain Dante had been through, and even its echo visibly staggered her, as formidable as she was.

"You always have to be the hero," Dante spat, approaching his rival.

"Yes, I do."

"And that's all this is to you, isn't it?"

Their actual voices were hoarse and stammering, but little of this conversation was being carried out verbally.

"I told you what these belts mean to me, Jason. I told you what they represent."

"Yeah, and I thought it was just a justification for you wanting them back."

"No," Darkness said sadly, "I had to have them. It's part of it. I've been running from my destiny for too long."

"I thought we had the same destiny..."

"So did I. I think it's more complex than that though."

"Isn't it always?"

Dante turned away, staggering towards the corner. As Selenia climbed into the ring beside him, he bowed his head against the turnbuckle. The succubus shot Darkness a glance, and he was unable to read her expression.

Darkness held the World Titles in his hands, looking from one to the other and then up at the fans who were cheering for him. Fireworks went off around the arena, but he didn't mount the turnbuckle; he didn't soak up the adulation.

All he did was stand there and watch Dante go, limping up the aisle, knowing that nothing between them could ever be the same again.

Acid Misfit was looking through all of Aco's files, trying to find something, anything that would be a nice clue.

Darkness: "Hurry up."

Misfit: "Sorry I'm going as fast as I can with this shitty laptop."

The World Champ seems a bit flustered as the two werewolves chill on the couch.

Misfit: "Oh I know..."

Darkness: "What?"

Misfit: "MySpace."

Darkness: "Misfit this is not the time to be checking..."

Misfit: "Not mine, I don't even have one, but emo fucks like Aco-boy here definitely have one."

The Acidic One went to probably the only site that gets more hits a day than Google.

Misfit: "Luckily he's still logged on."

He clicks on the "Home" button and the first thing that comes up on the screen is a pic with Aco's hair straigthened with black streaks and a bloodied face, the pic was obviously taken right after his encounter with The Hammer.

Misfit: "Goddamn."

They both look at his "Top Friends" and in the first slot is a picture with the title above it reading: The Order of the Snakegate:



Misfit: "Haha."

Darkness: "What's so funny?"

Misfit: "Oh nothing, just that Panic! At the Disco & The Plain White Tees are in his top too."

Darkness: "And?"

Misfit: "Nothing...fuckin emo."

Misfit clicks on the pic and he gets a total pitch black layout and the wolves quickly turn down the volume due to the loudness of the "Black Dahlia Murder" song blaring on the page. They look at the "About Me: "

The Order of the Snakegate is a group established by Stan Iz & Jaqueline Nosnam- known around the Internet as "CuddleBug" due to her fascination with all that is creepy...

Darkness: "For some reason that girl's last name is really familiar."

Misfit: "Well forget the last name, her Internet handle..."

He then opens Cordazer's MSN friend list and checks out "Offline Contacts" and sure enough there it is-CuddleBug, and she has some gay emo lyrics as her Personal Message.

Gwen: "We're in the San Francisco area right now aren't we?"

Misfit: "Yeah."

Gwen: "Well, if they have the word 'Gate', in their little title...."

Darkness: "Their headquarters must be at the Golden Gate Bridge."

Misfit: "Let's go."

The group starts to head out the door but at the doorway they are met with a familiar face.

Who will that face be? Why did Darkness & the wolf all of a sudden know some info about the Bay Area? Find out when most likely Freya posts!

Freya could hear the crowd, but paid them no attention. They were out there, past the lights, but she could only see the man in front of her. She wiped away the blood that was running into her eyes from the cut on her forehead. She got unsteadily to her feet, her muscles screaming at the effort.

Just in time she noticed the foot coming towards her. She ducked, and as the momentum carried Kermit around, she jumped on his back, driving her knees up and pulling him backwards. She heard something shatter. She moved from under him to go for the pin when something caught her attention. The eyes looking at her were not the dark ones they should have been. They looked like shattered glass.

Freya sat up, gasping for breath. She was lying on top of her bed covers where she'd accidentally dozed off. Her eyes fell on the title belt that was sitting on top of the TV.

A bang on the door bought her back to reality and she realised that was what had woken her. She groaned as she noticed the time and pulled herself off the bed.

**

Jael stood in the hall as Misfit held open the door.

"What's wrong?" the angel asked. He was wearing what seemed to be jeans and a coat not dissimilar to Darkness's, but his bare chest was visible.

"One of the NHFC is missing," Darkness replied. He noticed a strange glint in Jael's starry eyes. "There's nothing to worry about, we'll get him back."

"Let me come," Jael insisted.

Darkness frowned slightly. "It won't be any trouble. If we need help though, you'll be the first to know."

"I will wait for you then, brother." Jael nodded as if to reaffirm this before stepping back and melting into the shadows.

"We should probably call on Freya," Misfit said, entering the corridor.

"Why?" Darkness said, distracted, looking at the spot Jael had just disappeared from.

"She was meant to meet me and Emo at the bar and never showed."

"Where's her room?"

Misfit shrugged.

"This way." Gwen and Gawain pushed past the humans and lead the way.

**

Freya looked at the four people standing in her doorway.

"What's the crisis?" she asked, suppressing a yawn.

"What makes you think something's wrong?" Darkness asked.

"Half the NHFC and a pair of werewolves..." Freya paused as an elderly couple hurried past, "are standing in my doorway. I didn't even get that for my birthday."

"Acolyte's missing," Misfit explained.

"What do you mean he's missing? How did you misplace him? He's nearly seven foot tall!"

"Well maybe if you'd turned up when you were meant to he wouldn't have gotten away from me..."

Freya opened and closed her mouth a couple of times, trying to retort but not coming up with anything. "I'll get changed," she finally mumbled.

Misfit put his foot in the door as she closed it. "Got any emo clothes?"

Freya raised an eyebrow. "I'll see what I can do." Misfit removed his foot and the door clicked shut.

"What was that about clothes?" Gawain asked.

"A way in," Misfit replied, grinning.

"I don't anticipate any serious danger." Darkness gave The Children a significant look as he strapped the baldric across his chest. They were all gathered in his hotel suite, a room significantly larger than Freya's.

"Then why are you taking your sword?" Llenlleawg asked him.

"Because he anticipates some danger," Freya explained as she twirled her own weapons - a pair of long-bladed knives borrowed from her brother's kitchen - around and thrust them into her belt.

"Right," Darkness agreed, "chances are, this is just the action of some crazed fan."

Revenant, sitting cross-legged on the bed threw him a confused look. "A crazed fan? Of Acolyte?"

"Hey, he has fans," Freya insisted.

"Sure, but most of them are twelve-year-old girls..."

Misfit laughed. "Yeah, well let's hope this is one of them. I think we can handle a twelve-year-old girl."

Apart from their mêlée weapons, the trio were unarmed at Darkness's insistence. He had continually impressed on his companions the lack of potential danger in this situation, and Freya wondered just who he was trying to convince.

"So where are you going?" Gwen asked. Freya could smell her disapproval, but the werewolf woman made no attempt to conceal her emotions in her movements anyway. With her arms folded across her chest and her oddly shaped brow deeply furrowed, it didn't take another werewolf to read her.

"We'll start at the Golden Gate Bridge," Darkness told her. "With any luck, the place they've taken Cordazer should be easy to find."

"You know," Gwen said, "if you just brought us along with you, we could easily follow his trail."

"I have Freya," Darkness said, pointing at the Bleeder Champion, "she knows Acolyte's scent better than any of you. One werewolf will be enough for this."

"And if it isn't?" she asked.

"It will be."

He turned from the uncomfortable silence of his bodyguards and nodded to Misfit and Freya. "Are you two ready?"

"Sure," Misfit shrugged.

"Yep," Freya smiled.

"Excellent. Let's find Acolyte."

* * *

The Golden Gate Bridge is not hard to find. The trio approached gingerly. It was still dark, but they kept to the shadows and alleyways as much as possible, since no city as large as San Francisco every really sleeps.

The arches of the vast construct were silhouetted against the bluish early morning sky as Darkness led them forward. "Smell anything?" he asked Freya.

She shook her head. "It's not easy in a place like this. Mostly I just smell smoke and petrol and people."

"Well I can smell that," Misfit smirked.

"Yeah, well you can't smell the Nissan that drove past here half an hour ago, can you?"

"No..."

"Shut up then."

Darkness placed a hand against a wall and looked around him. "We're looking for humans...right, Gideon?"

"Uh...they looked pretty human to me..."

"What are you thinking, Hotshot?" Freya asked him.

"It's...what? Four in the morning? There's not going to be too many large concentrations of people around at this time of night."

"Shows how much you know about San Francisco," Misfit grinned.

"Point is," Darkness continued, ignoring his stable mate, "I can use my Slayer Sense to find any large group that might be near here. That'll narrow our search down, at least."

"It can pick up normal humans?" Freya asked as Darkness slide off his baldric and passed it to her.

"It can pick up whatever I want it to. We just usually use it for Shadowspawn for obvious reasons."

Darkness dropped to the ground, crossing his legs beneath him. As Freya and Misfit looked on with a mixture of fascination and amusement he closed his eyes and slowed his breathing.

"Man, I wish I had a clever way of finding stuff," Misfit sighed, kicking a pebble across the sidewalk.

"Can you try to stay still, please?" Darkness asked him without opening his eyes.

Freya stuck out her tongue at Misfit as he shoved his hands in his pockets and leant against the wall, rolling his eyes extravagantly.

A few moments later, Darkness's eyes snapped open. He was frowning.

"What's up?" Freya asked him.

"I'm not sure..."

"Did you find him?" she pressed.

The World Champion straightened and beckoned for his sword. As he drew the strap over his head, he was still frowning and looking around.

"What?" Freya asked again, a hint of frustration in her voice.

"I think I found him, yes," Darkness said, not looking at her, "or I found a large group of people anyway. At least...."

"What?"

He shook his head. "Nothing. Just reminded me of something..."

"Like what?" Misfit asked him.

"I'm...not sure..."

Freya waved a hand. "Whatever. Can you give us a direction, Buffy?"

Darkness nodded his head towards the northwest. "That way. Less than a quarter of a mile from here."

"Let's follow the road then. I'll see if I can pick up his trail."

They moved quickly, following the steep roads in the direction Darkness had indicated. Eventually they reached a wide park area with a gravel drive leading up to a set of gates.

"Smell anything?" Darkness asked Freya.

"Kinda. I think a car stopped here..."

"How long ago?"

She considered the question. "Six or seven hours?"

Darkness rubbed a hand across his beard. "Let's see...Acolyte was kidnapped at around eight o'clock...we're about ten miles from the bar...it's now half-three in the morning...so let's say the car arrived at around nine..."

"Hey, look." Misfit stooped down on the drive and picked something up. "It's a wristband..."

"A what?" Freya took it from him. It was covered in black and white checks. "This is Acolyte's wristband!"

"Can you smell him?" Misfit asked.

"Yeah...plus it's incredibly emo. It's clearly his."

Darkness was still running through calculations in his head as Misfit slapped a hand to his back. "He's in there, champ."

"He is?"

"Yeah." Darkness turned around and saw Freya holding up the wristband.

"Oh. Fine then."

Freya nodded at the gates. "What do you think we should do? Ring the doorbell?"

"Probably not a good idea," Darkness mused, "let's try ‘round the other side of that building."

* * *

It took them about quarter of an hour to find their way around the other side of the estate. The building that occupied the grounds was a large, colonial style house, the rear of which was just a few yards from the wall that separated it from the street. The wall was around nine feet tall.

Darkness took a few seconds to size it up before running towards it and jumping into the air, catching his hand on the lip and deftly swinging himself up on top. Freya followed suit, crouching down beside Darkness as they surveyed the grounds below them.

"Uh...guys..." Misfit stood helplessly at the base of the wall, his hands spread. "Some of us ain't magic..."

Darkness smiled slightly and reached down with his good hand, grasping Misfit's wrist and hauling him up onto the wall. Freya had already jumped down to the grass below as Darkness swung himself over and landed with a roll. Misfit completed his transition back to ground level with rather less dignity and sat on the floor rubbing his ankle for a few moments as the others started looking for a way into the building.

"We need an empty room..." Freya mused.

"I don't see any lights on," Darkness answered looking over the broad, white face of the palatial house in front of them. "So take your pick, I guess."

Misfit hobbled up to them. "What are you gonna do? Smash a window?"

"Nothing so crude," Darkness began, but the sound of glass shattering interrupted him.

Freya grinned at her two companions and pointed at the jagged hole she had just made in the pane of glass in front of her. "Here. This is where we're getting in."

Darkness sighed and crossed over to the broken window. "I hope no one heard that."

"Relax," Freya told him, "it's just a pantry or something."

"How can you tell?" Misfit asked, peering into the impenetrable darkness on the other side.

"I can smell the food." Freya was already on the windowsill. She reached through the hole in the glass she had made and flicked the catch, causing the window to swing inwards. "Ta dah!"

She dropped down into the pantry, taking a second to rummage around in a jar and pull out a cookie which she bit into.

"This isn't a midnight foraging trip," Darkness told her, snatching the cookie away.

"Oh, shut up," she said, trying to wrest the cookie back from him.

Suddenly, there was the sound of a door creaking open, and the darkness of the pantry was replaced by bright light. Misfit was halfway through the window and nearly toppled down to the floor as a large figure was framed in the now-open doorway. Several more figures crowded behind him.

"Uh oh..." Freya murmured, passing the cookie back to Darkness. "I don't think they like having their biscuits stolen..."

"C'mon, man, it's just a game..."

"I don't feel like playing."

Misfit sighed and folded his arms as he leant against the wall of the basement in which the occupants of the house had locked the three of them. A single dim light bulb was the only source of illumination in the bleak room, which was filled with old boxes and mouldering pipe work.

"It's got to be better than just sitting here in silence," Freya told Darkness from her perch atop a dusty cabinet of some kind.

"Fine," the Shadow Slayer growled.

"Alright," Misfit clapped his hands together, "I've thought of something."

"Is it....uh....a person we know?"

"No," Misfit replied, holding up a finger.

"Is it grass?"

"What?"

"Is it grass?" Darkness repeated.

"Uh...no..." Misfit held up a second finger.

Freya rolled her eyes. "You suck at this game, Buffy." She turned to Misfit, "Is it an animal?"

"Nope." Three fingers.

"Is it a dinosaur?" Darkness asked next.

"No," Misfit said, shaking his head and holding up a fourth finger.

"You idiot," Freya said, shooting Darkness a scowl, "I already asked if it was an animal."

"A dinosaur isn't an animal."

"Of course it is!"

"No it's not. They're all dead; hence they're not animals. They used to be, but they aren't anymore."

Freya made an exasperated sound in her throat and made a point of shifting her position so she wasn't looking at him. "Right...not an animal. Is it a plant then?"

"No." Misfit raised all the fingers on his right hand.

"Is it a place?" Darkness asked.

"Nope." One finger on his left hand was added to the count.

"Um...is it something you use everyday?"

"Yeah, it is," Misfit smiled, now with seven fingers raised.

"Well that rules out it being a shower then," Darkness mused, running a hand across his beard.

"Hey!" Misfit gave him a glare. "This is coming from the guy who hasn't washed his coat since John Lennon died!"

"Is it a coat?" Darkness asked.

"No, it's not." Misfit held up an eighth finger.

"Is it something you'd find in a kitchen?" Freya asked next.

"Yeah...could be..." Nine fingers now.

"Is it something that could be used as a weapon?" Darkness hazarded.

"Why is everything about violence with you?"

"I'm a warrior, remember?"

"I guess," Misfit shrugged, "no, I certainly wouldn't use it as a weapon. You two might have a bit more luck with it though." All ten fingers were now up.

"Hmmm..." Freya tapped a finger against her lips. "Would it be found inside a house?"

"Yeah." He clenched his fists again and lifted a single finger.

"Is it something a woman would usually use?" Darkness asked.

"Hey, what's that supposed to mean?" Freya demanded, giving him an icy glare.

"What do you think it means?"

"Well what are you thinking when you're considering something a ‘woman would use'. Do you mean an oven? An ironing board? The sink? Is that what you're saying?"

"No I meant hair straighteners or something. Leg wax. That sort of thing."

"Men can use all those things..."

"Fine, I was thinking of tampons. That better?"

Misfit looked from Freya to Darkness. "Well it's not tampons..." He lifted a second finger.

"Alright." Freya sighed. "Ummm...does it run on electricity?"

"Yeah." Third finger.

"Does it cast some sort of illumination?" Darkness asked him.

"Yeah!" Fourth finger.

"Oooh...is it a telly?" Freya bounced up and down excitedly.

"A telly?"

"Yeah. You know, a TV."

"Oh. No." Five fingers.

"Freya," Darkness scolded her, "it's something people use every day."

"People watch telly every day, hotshot."

"Well I don't."

"Yeah, I know. But people do. I guess robots like you don't count."

Darkness looked back at Misfit. "Is it a robot?"

"Uh...no..." Six fingers.

"You're wasting all our guesses!" Freya yelled at Darkness. "Now what did he say? It's not in a kitchen..."

"No, it is in a kitchen," Darkness corrected her.

"Oh right. Um...a microwave?"

Misfit shook his head as he raised another finger, brining the total on this set of hands to seven and thus the running total to seventeen. "No, it doesn't have to be in a kitchen remember, but it can be."

"Is it a food?" Darkness asked.

"Food doesn't glow!" Freya told him angrily.

"It can do."

"When?!"

"When it's extremely hot."

"If it was hot enough to glow then it'd be inedible, wouldn't it?"

"It would still be food though," Darkness pointed out.

"Actually, I think edibility is pretty much the only defining feature of food, dumbass."

Misfit waved his hands. "It's not a food. And you only have two questions left now."

Freya frowned and pushed her lips together as she thought hard. "Hmmm...so it's inside the house...you use it every day...and it glows...is it...uh...um...a computer?"

"Nope. One guess left..."

Darkness stood up and dusted himself down. "It's a light bulb, right, Gideon?"

Misfit grinned. "Yeah, it is! Which question gave you the clue?"

"None of them, I just saw you looking at the light bulb when you figured out your answer."

"Oh..."

Darkness nodded to his companions. "Shall we get out of here?"

"Good idea," Freya said, hopping down from her cabinet, "have you got a plan?"

"Yes. I'm going to kick this door down and then leave."

"Right."

Seconds later...

Darkness stepped over the remains of the door and gestured the others to follow him. "We should find Acolyte."

"What if they try to stop us?" Freya asked.

"We'll kick them in the head until they let us past?"

"Good plan," Misfit agreed, slapping a hand to Darkness's shoulder.

It didn't take them long to find Acolyte; they simply followed the sounds of the Wii playing that was going on nearby. As they walked into the busy front room, many pairs of eyes turned to look at them.

"They've escaped!" a young girl screamed rising to her feet.

Acolyte also jumped upright, gaping at his friends.

"Acolyte, what's going on?" Darkness asked.

"Nothing! These are my friends!"

"Well," Misfit told him in a severe voice, "your friends beat me up in the bar before, and then they locked us in a basement."

"You did break into our house," a young man who was sitting on a couch to one side of them said.

"That's true," Darkness nodded, "but you kidnapped our friend."

"Kidnapped?" Acolyte looked shocked, "These people are friends of mine. We agreed to meet up if I was ever in town."

"Well you can't just go wandering off like that without telling us," Freya said, placing her hands on her hips.

"Uh...yes I can. I'm a grown man."

"Oh. Well...yes, I suppose you are..."

Darkness frowned. "So...this isn't an evil cult? The Order of the Snakegate is..."

"A World of Warcraft clan," a nerdy looking young man piped up.

"I have no idea what that is," Darkness told the kid.

"Well it's not an evil cult," Acolyte said, exasperation in his voice. "I'm getting pretty pissed off with you guys treating me like a kid. I'll see you all tomorrow, but I'm spending the night with my friends now, okay?"

Freya, Darkness and Misfit shuffled their feet and looked embarrassed before muttering their apologies and being shown to the door. As they stood outside in the early morning light, Darkness scratched at his beard contemplatively.

"I knew something was odd about all this," he said after a few moments.

Freya glanced at him. "Yeah?"

"Yeah. There was no danger at all, and nothing even slightly supernatural going on."

"So what was odd?"

"Well...that."

"Oh I see."

Misfit shrugged his shoulders and stuffed his hands into his pockets. "Well, let's go home then. We can play Twenty Questions again on the way back."

As the horizon began to turn grey, the three would-be adventurers wandered off into the night.