A human figure clad in red stood solemnly amidst the bellowing sandy winds of the treacherously dry desert battle zone.

Not five yards away stood a second figure facing the first, this one much more openly muscled and covered with striped fur and slathered in random bits of armor that suggested the vandal had snatched it off of an ancient, incomplete corpse from ages ago.

That, or it was custom.

"Attack, subspecies!" The cat bellowed, most of it's voice carried off by the sharp winds that lashed at the both of them, however, the message reached Vert's ears and he scowled.

"What are we even doing here!" He yelled back, voice dripping with hatred and mixed versions of apathy.

"Why would you ask such a question!"

"Because it needs asking!" Vert then did something that Kalus would have never, in his entire life of fighting humans, would have expected. The blond sighed dejectedly, then spun in a neat little semi-circle on his heel, and sat. He plopped down, back facing the ravenous beast which craved his blood.

Kalus immediately saw this as a sigh of surrender and smiled deviously, but then his intelligent mind pushed the animal one aside and identified the red leaders actions as a trap. He grew quietly cautious.

"What's the matter?" Vert yelled over his shoulder wearily. "I don't think you've ever been this quiet!"

"Don't mock me!"

The blond jumped, in spite of himself. Between the loud winds and the sand in his eyes, he senses had been dulled considerably, he hadn't even heard Kalus sneak up on him. He could practically smell the leopards breath. "Why do you surrender, human?"

Vert hesitated, his body filled with a cold, desperate sort of feeling as he searched for his answer. "I'm not. I just don't want to fight anymore. Everyone is dead. My guys, you're guys, all that's left is the two of us with nowhere to go and nothing to do. Quite frankly, I don't really care anymore."

It was Kalus's turn to hesitate.

"You humans are so weak in the mind and sprit!" he finally yelled. The cat lifted the feeble human body off the ground by the neck with one furry paw.

"Are we really?" Vert made no move to look at his capture, but cast his eyes to the sandy ground with little interest. "How are we so different….?"

"We are nothing alike!"

"Yes we are!" Vert felt fresh, hot anger replace the muddled despair. "We're both mammals, you and me! We both speak, lead, and lose! How are we different! Tell me, you big stupid pussy!"

Kalus dropped him to the ground, where the Battle Force leader promptly resumed his position, legs crossed, arm's folded, and stubbornly turned his back to Kalus again. Kalus hadn't the slightest clue he'd just been insulted. Usually, when someone took a good crack at the vandal's dignity, one of the other subspecies, (more often than not the kicking yellow one) would yell out as loud as possible "BURRNNN!"

After their first few encounters, the vandals had learned the this was a sign of insult, this 'bern' signaled that a successful tongue lashing had been served, but at this point, no one said anything about 'berns' henceforth, Kalus didn't know better, and reacted in a way Vert hadn't expected.

The cat sat in front of him, mimicking the Indian-style pose he had taken up.

"Piss off." Vert snarled.

"You're redundant human curses do not affect me."

"All the same. ."

"No."

Vert was ready to rip his antagonists lowed jaw clean off the rest of his feline skull, but stopped himself and though.

He had convinced himself that everyone he knew and had come to love had perished, but didn't think that maybe, during that heart wrenching five minutes of dead air after which he had requested a response, that they could have been unconscious, or even unable to respond via broken transmitter or being pinned down.

Sure, he had seen the Tangler shut down in the middle of battle, trapping Agoura inside , Zoom pinned under his own cycle, and heard the Cortez brothers scream as the Buster was capsized…

However the team had experienced many incidents of total radio silence many a time in the past, and they had never given up on him before, even when he spent an entire day on the vandal home world, they still showed up to rescue him. It would be ludicrous to give up on them now.

He jumped to his feet, startling Kalus, the depressed Vert now replaced by a sudden energetic one. A Vert with a purpose. The latter made a mad dash for the Saber, only one thought on his mind;

"Maybe they survived!"