"The princess will be mine and so will her pathetic little kingdom, before I surprise attack its allies and build a gargantuan empire all my own. As long as these bumbling henchmen do the job right, I can't fail!"

"You'll have to go through me, first! You'll never get away with this General Thane!"

"But I already have. Do not kill him yet. I want him to watch me kill his comrades, destroy his home, his people, and...His own dear mother."

"You... fucking MONSTER!!! I WILL HAVE MY VENGEANCE!!"

"Heh, you? What do you care about this nation? The princess? She doesn't love you, you were only another rookie soldier to her. I've no time for your silly fairy tales, happy endings. No one cared to just... Give me what I wanted. I lost everything, my dearest, my sister, my fucking arm. So I'm going to make my own happy ending, I'm going to be remembered. But you, you've sealed your fate coming into MY castle today."

"Your castle? You dare? You come into MY home? Kill my family? Take away everything I hold dear? No, you fate was sealed the moment your ships invaded. I swear to you, no matter what you do, you will fall. And I will be the one to slice your head from your neck."

Without warning, he headbutted the guard holding him. The guard drooped him, holding his nose in pain, as the man jumped out the nearby window, and into the waters below.

"Bastard!" The burly man reflexively fumbled for his sword and released it from its scabbard. He stood at the window, reaching his head out, but the man swam farther and farther from the building. "G-get him! Damn it, don't let him get away! ARCHERS!!! TOO THE ROOF!! I WANT HIS HEAD!!"

At once the archers obeyed, readying their bows. There were about a dozen, heavily armored from head to toe. They had a clear shot of their enemy; several blows were nearly guaranteed. If they didn't kill him, he was sure to be incapacitated and drown. But not a single man released their grip, and instead turned to Thane.

"Heh... What are you doing?"

The archers fired at the tyrant, three bows striking him. One in the abdomen, one in his synthetic arm, immediately cutting the circuit, and one straight through his left eye. He shambled before falling to the ground, scooting back and gripping his sword as one of the archers inched towards him, removing their helmet, revealing a mess of short Auburn hair and dark brown eyes.

"It's over," she aimed her arrow nearly point blank, and he shakily held his sword to her, unsure of whether to strike.

"P-princess... How did you escape? Where are my men?"

"Dead. And soon, will you be as well. Drop. Your. Sword."

The fallen king dropped his weapon and fell to his knees, hanging his head in defeat.

"You have lost. Your men have turned against you, your ships have fallen, and we have taken back the castle. You're alone."

The king, still hanging his head, let out a low chuckle. Soon it turned into a full blown laugh. "Oh, my dear, sweet Natalia. Who said I was alone... Assassian?" he sneered at her as her eyes went wide.

Faster then the men could react, a flurry of arrows rained down from the sky. Natalia spun around in shock as her men fell, dead. Those that weren't we cut down by a lone soldier, his sword a blur, cutting down all in his wake before the could blink.

As the Princess spun forward, she felt a small knife enter her abdomen.

"You know, you Assassin's were a bane in our side for many years. Now, the great Natalia Pines has finally fallen."

She writhed in pain on the ground. He winced as he stood, but nonchalantly pulled the arrow from his prosthetic and repaired it with a multi tool, wiggling his brass fingers.

"If you kill me, my men will take you down, they are loyal to me."

"I don't want you dead," he chuckled as the Templar stood by his side, his body clothed with a gray skintight suit and several belts that held an array of knives and other weapons, a large red Cross on his chest. "He didn't strike any vital organs, as I ordered. I need you to tell me where the Finns are."

"Who?"

"Don't play dumb with me. The family of... alchemists. The ones you are sworn to protect, from men like me who want their... goods. I know they're the reason your men could take out my army. But no elixer will save these men from my arrows. Tetrodotoxin has it perks."

"How do you know? Who told you about them?"

"Of course, it was an inside job. I have my ways," he scratched the stubble on his chiseled face. "But that's not important. You can refuse to talk, you can resist the torture to come, but if you do talk-" he was cut off by the pain shooting from the arrows in him, and he winced and choked before continuing. "If you talk you can live, you can still be the princess. And the royal blood running through the veins of our children will ensure them the throne in time. But if not, your sister is to be removed from the dungeon and killed."

"I'm not going to speak."

"Listen," he pulled the knife from her body, causing her to yelp. "You and I both know how this ends. No matter what you do, we will find it and when we do-"

Suddenly, she struck his face with a small blade, making him cry out. He pulled it from her, and scoffed, putting it in his pocket.

"Pathetic weapon. Maybe I'll butter my bread with it," he turned to the hooded man. "Get her back to her cell, make sure she can't escape this time. I need my wounds tended to. We'll make her talk, and soon the Finns will be our captives! And then…we can finally be at peace."

The king groaned on pain as he sat down on his "throne".

Pssh. Throne. If that was a word for it.

This. This was pathetic. All this. A lie. All of it. The tales of kingdoms and kings and queens. False lies conceved by him. And they all fell for it.

Except for her.

She knew who the Finns truly were. That blasted woman. He had lived too long to see her kind return. But he had to admit, she was a damn good actor. Maybe The War hadn't happened she'd be one.

The War. A true tragedy. It had been too long now. So much time had passed now, he couldn't remember the true year. And it pained him.

He was no king.

She was no princess.

There were no kingdoms. Only the lies that he conceived. It had been that way for years. Centuries. He ruled over the ashes of a barren wasteland. He could not remember much, but The Flash... that was burned into his retinas.

He shot up as he heard a door open, grabbing a hidden pistol he kept in his boot. He didn't know why he kept it. He knew it was useless her. But out there…

"She isn't going to talk." A voice interrupted his thoughts.

"Then make her talk! I've waited to long to stop now! The Finns are the only ones who know where The Book is!"

His associate paused before continuing. "Forgive me, but why?"

"Why what?"

"Why do you still lie to them? After all this time, and you still don't trust your own people."

"You don't understand. You'll never understand. That book is more powerful then anyone will ever understand."

"And what if we find The Finns? What will you tell the people when the find out your fabled elixir is a lie?"

"But it isn't. It's just hard to come by. Extremely."

"So..."

"So, I'm going to worry about it for now. I'm sure she'll escape, and when she does, she'll lead us straight to The Book, and when I have it... Everything be better. Like they were before." He paused.

"Send a truck out to The Outpost on the north side. Have them send their best men. When Pines escapes, we'll follow her. I want. That. Book."

"And the rouge soldier?"

"Leave him. He's no concern to us."

"The Pines is a trained Assassin. She'll kill everyone when she escapes."

"Expendable. Now go."

The storm brought darkness to the desert sooner that it would otherwise have arrived. Frequent flashes of lightning illuminated the scorched and shredded fragments of the day's reckoning: bits of bone, limbs both human and metal that had been divorced from their owners' bodies, pieces of machine that had served humans, pieces of machine that had been motivated by their own ruthless and uncompromising drive. Among the organic and metallic debris, nothing moved save clouds and bursts of torrential rain.

Even the birds and insects had fled.

Amid the destruction, a patch of water stirred and bubbled. Wormlike shapes emerged from the water and thrust skyward. Not snakes, not centipedes—human fingers. The fingers were attached to a hand, the hand to a wrist, the wrist to...

A shape arose, cloaked in mud and dripping fragments of debris. Eyes opened, vitreous but not glowing. Dazed by the reality of itself, arms at its sides, the figure tilted back its head to stare at the storming night. Driving rain lashed mud and dirt from face and ribs, limbs and torso. The shape was that of a man.

Clothes torn and soaked and in shock, Marcus Northwest parted his jaws wide and howled at the sky.

Shivering slightly, Marcus wrapped his arms around his chest and lowered his gaze to the tormented earth on which he stood. Then he noticed the crashed helicopter. Slowly, cautiously, he started toward it. Leaning into the ruined aircraft, a disoriented and bewildered Marcus found himself gazing upon the dead body of one of the pilots, a bullet hole punched neatly through his helmet.

Wet, cold, and very, very alone, he could only stand, stare. But he knew he couldn't go back. He could only hope for the best, and hope he didn't die in the ruined wastelands. But he knew what he had to do. At least... He hoped he did. With everything going on, Natalia entrusted him with one job: find The Book.

And survive.

He brushed the soaking brown hair from his face.

It had seemed easy enough, Natalia knew more than most how to find the book, and the ones who kept it safe. The Finns never stayed in one place, but always left clues to their location that only their allies knew how to decipher. The first key was sent to them whenever the family had moved and the rest was up to the recipient, should they need to find them. He'd used the key given to him to decode the scripts sent by them, and destroyed the key once he knew he'd memorized the decoded message. He just wished Natalia could have explained its meaning, or helped to elaborate, but there was no time for any of that.

He looked at the wrinkled scribes, the rain making some of the characters now unreadable. No matter, he still remember what it said, cryptic as it was.

"Straight through the desert, follow the biggest star out of the forest. The ruins will appear when the sun illuminates 'Her'"

Everything depended on this, but it hardly felt like a mission, or an adventure. It was a fucking scavenger hunt. He looked up at the clouded sky. No stars, no direction. And if he did make it out, with no sun in sight, the rest of the clue would likely be impossible. What kind of idiots were these people, to make the task of finding them only possible if the sun and stars are visible?

He sighed, trudging through the endless terrain, his boots sticking to the mud and making his task that much more excruciating. If he could just find his way out of the desert, he'd be that much closer. In now nearly pitch darkness, Marcus lost his sense of direction more and more, until suddenly a glint of light behind him illuminated a small amount of space surrounding him. Perhaps the moon finally finding its way through the clouds. He was thankful for this, until he felt something press against his back and heard a voice just as cold as the unforgiving night itself.

"Don't move, asshole."

Before he could turn around, he was roughly thrown to the ground. He grabbed his assailants wrist, and brought her down with him.

They tumbled together behind a heavy forklift as a hail of heavy-caliber shells tore into the pavement where Wright had been standing a moment earlier. How they missed them Marcus could not understand. Rising to the fore, half-forgotten instincts took over. Rolling deeper into cover, he found himself face to face with a teenager. When the girl spoke, she did not sound young.

"Come with me if you want to live!"

More slugs ripped the air around the forklift as the figure that had trained its weapon on Marcus started toward them. Red eyes flickered; scanning, seeking, looking to exterminate. The teen led Marcus back around the corner of one crumbling structure. They were out of sight of their attacker and out of range. For the moment.

Facing his young companion, Marcus jerked his head back in the direction from which they had come.

"What the hell is...?"

Despite the difference in their ages and the disparity in size, the teen did not hesitate. She open hand clamped across Marcus's mouth, shutting off the older man's query. In an earlier time and place the blatant physical imposition would have caused him to rip the youth's head clean off. Under the present circumstances, however, he was too confused to do more than accept the gesture.

Pointing in the direction of the bipedal creature that had fired at them, the teen then gestured at her own ear. Only when Marcus nodded that he understood did the youth lower her hand from his mouth.

Time passed: not much of it, and all of it fraught with tension. Advancing toward them, their pursuer was barely visible, and inclined its head in their direction. The muzzle of its rapid-fire weapon rose. That was when the teen slammed her arm down on something metallic protruding from the side of the building against which she and Marcus had been pressed.

The wire that looped around the stalker's right foot was not thick, but it was unbreakable. Machine and machine gun were turned upside-down as the contracting cable yanked it completely off the ground. Frustrated but not disoriented, it struggled violently at this unexpected interruption of its pursuit.

Not waiting around for the machine to free itself, the teen grabbed Marcus's arm and led him down the alley where they had taken cover.

There was barely enough room at the top of the mound of rubble that blocked the entrance to the ruined factory for the youth to wriggle through. Marcus had a harder time, having to rely more on brute force to make his way to the other side. Standing at the base of a disintegrating stairwell, the youth gestured impatiently for him to follow. Too stunned to argue, the older man complied wordlessly.

On the street outside, the stymied machine fired twice at the cable that had wrapped around its right foot. Most shells missed the gleaming, slender target. Those that struck it glanced off. Responding to the overriding resolve of its pursuit programming, it proceeded to shoot off the restraining foot. Thus freed, it slammed into the pavement below with enough force and weight to buckle the old concrete.

Proceeding to right itself, it limped toward the entrance to the factory.

By the time he and his guide reached the roof of the building, Marcus thought he ought to be out of breath. That he was not he attributed to the inevitable surge of adrenalin that always accompanied being shot at.

Halting, the teen flashed a succession of hand signals across the flat surface. A second figure emerged from the shadows. Slight of build and grimy of appearance, the boy as clad in layers of salvaged clothing, child-sized cowboy boots, and an old police hat with a flipped-back brim. A single metal star gleamed on the front of the hat, above eyes that were preternaturally hard. With blonde hair that exploded wire-like from beneath this singular chapeau, he looked to be about 13 or 14.

In response to the older girl's gestures he turned toward what looked like an old railcar wheel assembly. The enormous hunk of rusting metal sat on the edge of the rooftop where at one time it might have handled cargo deliveries. Having long since eroded away, a portion of the underlying structure had been replaced with a series of shims and props.

As he leaned over the edge of the building, the boy was intent on something below. When the moment suited him, he shoved hard against a pole that was centered on the mass of shims. They promptly gave way, followed immediately by several tons of abandoned industrial manufacture. The noise this all made when it struck the street far below was eminently satisfying.

Hurrying to the edge, Marcus peered over and down, and drew back as a burst of automatic fire erupted from below. When none of the shells whizzed in his direction, he took a second look. Pinned beneath the mass of metal, the exposed gun arm of the crushed machine was still firing, but wildly and seemingly without control. It continued to do so until the weapon's magazine ran out.

Shaking his head, he straightened and turned to his youthful savior.

"What the hell was that?"

Stone-face, the teen shook her head curtly. She had the build and look of a lone wolf.

"You first. Who are you?"

Ignoring her, Marcus shifted his attention to the boy.

"What was that?"

Taking a step forward, the youth partially interposed himself between the ingenuous stranger and the boy.

"He doesn't talk much anymore, but you need to. Who are you?" Her voice did not change. All the emphasis it required was provided by the gun she drew and aimed. Marcus regarded it as dispassionately as he did the question.

"I'm—Marcus. Northwest."

This concise response was inadequate to reassure the teen.

"Why are you wearing a Resistance uniform when you're obviously not a member of the Resistance?"

Marcus glanced down at himself, then back up at the youth.

"I—needed a shirt. The dead guy I took it off didn't."

Still wary, the teen began rifling the pockets of the older man's jacket with one hand while keeping the pistol trained on him with the other.

"Well, if you're one of those crazies whose brains turned to oatmeal from radiation poisoning, jump off this roof right now 'cause I'm not letting you get us killed." She continued fishing through the jacket pockets and continued coming up empty.

Marcus stared blankly back at her. Everything that had happened, everything that was happening, was happening too quickly, giving him no time to analyze, no time to digest—only to react.

"I—I don't know where I am," he explained sincerely.

His honesty was insufficient for the teen.

"Nice handle on reality, roadkill." She licked his lips. "Where's your food?"

Marcus mumbled a response. "Roadkill?"

"That's what you're gonna be, you don't start waking up to certain facts. Like who's looking to smoke you and who isn't."

Marcus might have been shocked and his perception stunned, but there was nothing wrong with a lifetime of instinctive reactions. In a single swift, smooth motion he reached out, grabbed the teen's wrist, twisted her around, relieved her of the gun, and shoved. Barely aware of what had taken place, the teen abruptly found herself lying on her back on the rooftop with the muzzle of the gun positioned frighteningly close to her face.

Nearby, the now terrified boy had retreated several steps.

Marcus gazed down at the prone teenager. The girl was shaking, and Marcus knew exactly what she was feeling. Because there had been a time, long ago, when he had all too often found himself in similar situations.

"You want to rip a guy off, make him empty his own pockets. If you do it yourself, you get too close, it gives him a chance to turn things on you. Never get closer than two arm-lengths to whoever you're locking down." Taking no notice of whatever the teen might chose to do, Marcus turned slightly to one side, popped the clip out of the gun, pocketed it, and tossed the weapon onto the teen's chest.

"You point a gun at someone, you better be ready to pull the trigger." He stared down at the youth, who stared back a long moment before finally nodding.

"Right," the teen muttered.

Reaching down, Marcus extended an open hand. As she picked up the gun that had been stripped from her grasp the teen regarded the powerful fingers warily, but decided to accept the offer. The stranger, helping her stand, all but lifted her off the ground.

"Now I'm gonna ask you one more time." Wright indicated the edge of the building. "What the fuck was that thing?"

Back on familiar ground, some of the teen's former boldness returned.

"It's called a Terminator. A T-600. It kills anything that breaths. And once it locks on to you it won't stop—ever. Until you're dead."

Lifting his gaze, Marcus surveyed the surrounding devastation, letting his eyes roam across the ravaged basin as far as heat and haze would allow.

"What day is it?" When the girl looked at him as if he really was crazy, Marcus revised his question. "What year?"

"2078."

"Where am I?" Marcus asked.

"What's left of San Fransokyo" the kid replied.

Marcus stared at the panorama of destruction.

"What happened here? To—everything."

"Judgment Day happened." The teen was eyeing him curiously. "Are you just stupid, or...?"

He didn't finish, probably deciding that the "or" really wasn't important when all that mattered anymore was surviving to the next day.

Marcus rubbed the back of his head, as if the thought itself was painful.

"Gotta get out of here." He muttered to the teen. "Away from this area."

The younger woman's shrug seemed to suggest that geographical designations like "away" no longer held much in the way of relevance.

"Can't go on foot, that's for sure. Machines will cut you down. If you expect to get anywhere you're gonna need speed."

Something, at last, that made sense.

"I need a car."

"Good luck." The teen squinted over at him.

"You're serious, aren't you? Well, it's your funeral. Moving car is just a bigger target." She gestured ahead, toward the nearby hills. "Last time I was up that way I saw a few of 'em by Griffith Observatory that didn't get incinerated. You can try. None of 'em run, though."

"Take me there."

Coming to a halt, the youth was ready with another acid response when the boy suddenly stopped as if shot and dropped to the ground.

"Get down!" she yelled at the stranger. "And when you're down, don't move. Act dead—or you will be."

Marcus complied. Lying motionless, he was starting to feel like a fool when a low rumble became audible. It rose quickly in volume if not pitch. Not daring to raise his head, he caught a glimpse in the broken windows of a nearby building of something in motion. It was enormous, purposeful, and now almost directly overhead.

As the airship moved with lethal deliberation through the canyons of the ruined city, it scanned its surroundings with an assortment of sensitive instrumentation. Seeking sound or movement, it passed by the three inert figures splayed on the ground without reacting.

Marcus winced slightly as a nearby still-standing tower crumbled from the effects of the airship's vibration.

The three humans stayed motionless even after the giant machine's last aural twitch had receded into the distance. Taking his cue from his younger but far more knowledgeable companions, Marcus didn't rise until they did. The teen explained before Marcus could ask his question.

"That's an HK—a Hunter-Killer. Can't stop that with an improvised spring trap." She nodded forward. "We should keep moving."

As they resumed their march Marcus glanced toward the boy.

"How'd he know? That it was coming."

The youngster looked uncertain.

"Not sure. Just glad he does. Better than talking. She's got a sixth sense or something about the machines. He's kept me alive plenty." She lengthened her stride. "We're too exposed here. Pick it up."

Marcus matched the teen's pace effortlessly.

"You know my name now. Who are you?"

"What's it matter?" The teen dodged around the scorched wreck of a city bus. "You had my gun. Why didn't you shoot me?"

"Why would I have done that? I don't shoot people just because..." A memory came rushing back. A bad one. Marcus voice trailed away without finishing the declaration.

The teen frowned at him, appeared to hesitate, came to a decision.

"My name's Elizabeth Butterfly. Come on. Let's go."