19 APRIL 1998 9:52PM
NEAR ELEPHANT BUTTE RESERVOIR, NEW MEXICO

Sheriff John Carr saw the navy blue Crown Victoria pull to a stop on the
side of I-25, and he walked unhurriedly towards it. As he expected, out
of it came two people in suits, who he knew full well to be FBI agents;
namely, Special Agent Fox Mulder, and his partner, Special Agent Dana
Scully. He'd been advised that they would be attending his little party.
For once, he wasn't upset with the federals coming in to take over one
of his scenes; in fact, he'd much prefer to wash his hands of this case
as soon as possible.
"Good evening," he greeted the two as they all met on the roadside,
surrounded by strobing lights from the multitude of police vehicles
there. "John Carr. I'm the sheriff for these parts."
Mulder introduced himself and Scully and said, "Seen any dead bodies
lately?"
Carr failed to smile. "As a matter of fact, yes. He's this way." He
gestured to an area of the brush that appeared to have been recently
trampled. "We figured this might be one of your boys," Carr said as he
led the two agents to the scene. "At least, that's the only idea we
could come up with."
"What do you mean, 'one of our boys'?" Scully asked.
"He had no ID on him, and his fingerprints aren't in any database-at
least, none I have access to." The sheriff puffed a bit of smoke out
around the cigarette dangling from his mouth. "I thought maybe he could
be one of them black-ops guys from the base out at White Sands."
Scully rolled her eyes, out of view of the sheriff, as Mulder continued,
"Okay, so what if your victim is a bogeyman-what does that have to do
with us?"
"Well.. the state of the body is a bit.. strange," Carr told them.
"Strange? How?"
Scully interrupted Mulder as she surveyed the landscape they were
entering. "What happened here, Sheriff?"
He took another drag on the cigarette. "Looks like a flash fire, or a
whole buncha lightning strikes, don't it? That's about all we can
figure. That's part of the strange stuff-one of my deputies was back in
this area last week, and it wasn't like this then-and we haven't had any
storms since then, and the fire department says they haven't had any
calls for a fire in this area in a couple of years, since the big brush
fire we had in '96."
At once they arrived at the scene, and Mulder and Scully noticed two
fluorescent-yellow tarps laid out on the ground. Scully said, "Were
there two victims?"
"Um.. no." The sheriff continued to work at the cigarette as he said,
"Maybe you should just go take a look."
Scully looked at Mulder, who shrugged and gestured for her to lead the
way. The police officers milling about let them through, and the two
agents crouched before the two tarps, Mulder at the larger one.
They each looked under their respective tarp. Scully found the head of a
male Caucasian, eyes open, severed very neatly at the neck, cut on a
slight diagonal from left to right. She averted her eyes, by chance
turning in Mulder's direction.
He looked up at the same time, to gauge her reaction to what she'd
found. When she saw his expression, she went to his side and crouched
down with him, looking under the larger tarp.
The man's body-presumably; it was headless and the line of the cut
appeared to be a match-lay there, its clothing riddled with what looked
like burn holes. Beside the body, just out of reach of the outstretched
left hand, was a longsword.

Jason Low
presents
a PROJECT HEARD fanfic

DAVID DUCHOVNY
GILLIAN ANDERSON
PETER WINGFIELD
and JIM BYRNES

THE X-FILES:
THERE CAN BE ONLY ONE TRUTH OUT THERE

Conception, ideas, and writing - Jason Low
Proofreading, continuity, and nitpicking - Jennifer Evans
X-Files characters and situations - Chris Carter/ 1013 Productions
Highlander characters and situations - Rysher Entertainment

Warning: DO NOT ATTEMPT ANY STUNT OR ACTION PORTRAYED IN A PROJECT HEARD
STORY. We are trained fanfic writers operating on a closed hard drive.

All rights are the property of their holders. I'm just a fan of both shows.

20 APRIL 1998 12:14PM
TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES, NEW MEXICO
SUPER-8 MOTEL

"Autopsy's over, huh?" Mulder said as Scully entered his motel room.
"Did they find a cause of death?"
She sighed at his joke, tossing a folder on the bed. "Did you have any
luck?"
"Identifying our mystery man?" Mulder asked. He opened a different
folder and spread out some papers. "Nobody has any information at all.
He's either a spook or someone who just dropped out of nowhere only to
have his head cut off."
"There were some oddities in the autopsy," Scully said, idly reading a
paper from one of Mulder's searches.
"I'd've been surprised if there weren't," he told her.
She looked up. "All of the internal organs were perfect-as clean and
pure as if he was a newborn. No sign of a break in any bone in his body.
Not so much as a rash on his skin. No ailments or illnesses, nor any
sign he'd ever had any."
"So this guy was the picture of health, right up until his neck came
free from his shoulders?" Mulder said. "Does that normally happen in
nature?"
"..Which part are you talking about?" Scully said, eyeing her partner
hesitantly.
"Can you think of any medical reason why our Ichabod Doe here would have
no injuries-"
"He could've led a lucky life," Scully interjected.
"-and his body showed no signs of wear and tear that you'd expect to see
on a thirty-ish-year-old man?"
She shook her head no.
"What about the burn patterns on his clothing?" Mulder fished. "Anything
come out of that?"
Scully seemed to have been waiting for that part. "Same as all the rest
of it-no markings of any kind on him. It's as if someone shot high
voltage through those clothes and then dressed him in them."
"And figured out a way to harness the power of lightning, to cause the
flash burns we saw in that little patch of forest," he concluded.
"Maybe he had some kind of.. unusual metabolic state," Scully fished,
"that caused him to heal much faster when hit with the electrical force
of a bolt of lightning."
Mulder smiled. "Oh, c'mon, now you're starting to sound like me." He got
up out of the chair. "I think, now that it's daylight, we should take a
closer look at the crime scene."

Other than the removal of the body (and its parts), and the sword, the
site was as they'd left it, with a single peculiar difference: Some of
the grass in the burned-out area had already started to grow back. One
could still tell, of course, that there had been an intense fire there,
but the ground looked as it should have days or weeks later, not hours.
The two FBI agents searched the perimeter meticulously for the majority
of the afternoon. There was little there they could find. Once or twice,
one of them found a fiber or a thread that looked like it would match
the body's attire, but otherwise, the search was largely fruitless.
However, late in the afternoon, as Scully was crouched at the base of a
tree, examining the char on its bark, Mulder called out to her. "Hey,
Scully-look at this."
She looked over her shoulder at him as he gestured to the area where the
body had been found. "I know, it's not growing back as fast," she
answered him, turning back to the tree. "I saw that already."
"I don't think you really saw it," Mulder insisted. "Or at least you
didn't see the whole thing. C'mere and check it out from this angle."
She looked back at the burned area again, but couldn't see what Mulder
was talking about, so she got up with a sigh and went to his side to
view it from his perspective. When she saw it, she stared at the burned
patches of ground before her, scanning back and forth to take in the
whole picture.
The area where the body had rested, which was severely burnt, formed one
corner of an unequal-sided triangle. Areas of strongly burned grass
reached out from where the body had laid to two similar-sized patches of
vegetation a dozen or so feet away, also burnt to a crisp.
"It almost looks like some kind of symbol used in a ritual sacrifice,"
Mulder observed.
"Don't be so sure," Scully countered. "First of all, the sides aren't
even, and second, shouldn't the body have been in the middle for such a
ceremony?"
Mulder was crouched down at one of the larger burned areas. "Check this
out."
Scully bent down beside her partner to see what appeared to be bits of
melted rubber. As she looked closer, she saw more rubber, and realized
it was roughly in the shape of the bootprint of an adult male.

Thirty minutes later, the major crimes unit of the local police had been
able to obtain decent castings of bootprints in both of the burnt-out
areas along the triangle. The sheriff had come out again, but wasn't
willing to speculate on anything shown to him-his attitude seemed to be
that it was an FBI problem now that Mulder and Scully were on the case.
The major crimes people gone, Mulder and Scully headed back to their car
as day gave way to the darkness of early evening. It was for that reason
that they didn't see the man approaching them from another direction
through the brush.
He appeared before Mulder abruptly, causing Mulder to hop back a couple
of steps in surprise. The man was scruffy and unkempt, with clothes that
looked homemade. He had quite a few months', if not years', growth of
facial hair, and eyes that seemed to have a life of their own.
For a moment, nobody spoke. Then, the mountain man broke the silence
with: "I suppose you're out here 'bout that guy from yesterday."
"Did you see something?" said Mulder.
"I live down by the reservoir," the scruffy guy explained, gesturing
over his shoulder. "I fish and trap t'get by, yaknow." He paused and
shifted his weight from one foot to the other a couple of times. "I
couldn't get any fishin' done last night 'cause there was an awful
mess'o clankin' sounds goin' on, like when the city folk who sneak out
here to camp bang all their damn pots'n'pans around."
"About what time was that?" Scully asked.
If Mountain Man heard her, he didn't acknowledge it. "I went t'see what
the hell was goin' on, and I came up to Jesper's old camp site and saw
two big guys fighting with swords."
"Did you do anything? Call anyone?"
Mountain Man looked at Mulder with a strange expression. "Hell no! Not
right off, anyway. I got down in the bushes, where I used t'hide to spy
on Jesper, when he was still alive." Again he fidgeted a bit. "This one
big guy-all in leather, with short, red hair, and lookin' like one mean
biker from hell kinda guy-he was fightin' this other guy, some city-type
with black hair and a moustache. The city slicker was screamin'
somethin' 'bout settlin' things like gentlemen, but the biker-guy wasn't
listenin', I guess, 'cause he took the city-type's head right off with
the sword."
Mulder and Scully looked at one another with surprise. The 'city-type'
guy was a perfect description of the man who'd just been autopsied that
morning.
"Did you see anything else?" Scully asked.
"Hang on, I'm gettin' t'that." Mountain Man paused briefly to spit into
the ditch, then resumed his account. "'Bout then, I noticed a couple
other people there. One of them was a lady, dressed kinda like the biker
guy, and she was holdin' on'ta a sword too."
"The other one?" Mulder pushed.
"There was another guy in the bush right near me," Mountain Man plowed
ahead. "I didn't see him until I started runnin'."
"Why were you running?" asked Scully.
"'Cause.." After a pause, he turned and shook his head. "It's too crazy."
"No, please go on," Mulder said.
"Well.. when the one guy chopped the other's head off, sparks started
flyin' outta the dead guy, and a buncha fog rolled in real quick-like.
The body lifted off the ground, like someone was pickin' it up, and
lightning started spittin' outta him all over, hittin' the guy he'd been
fighting with and the woman, mostly, but takin' out trees and things too."
Again, Scully and Mulder had to view each other's reactions. "What
happened next?" Mulder queried.
"What happened next is I turned around and got my ass outta there,"
Mountain Man said bluntly. "I hauled it back to my camp as fast as I
could. There's no shame in runnin', ya know."
"Did you notify anyone or come back to the scene?" asked Scully.
"Well, after 'bout half an hour, I got up the guts to come back, and
there was nobody around-other than the dead body, I mean. The whole area
was burnt to hell and back, and everyone was gone."
"What about this other spectator you say you saw? Can you describe him?"
"Can't say I got much of a look at'im," Mountain Man shook his head.
"One thing I did see, though, was a weird-lookin' tattoo on his arm,
right here." Mountain Man lifted his arm and pointed to the inside of
his wrist. "Looked like a big V or a Y inside two circles."
"Anything else?" Mulder asked.
"Not really," Mountain Man shrugged. "I went back to my camp and called
the sheriff on my cellphone after that."
Scully allowed herself a smirk at that statement.
"Thank you, you've been very helpful," Mulder said. He gave Mountain Man
a card and gave him the usual speech about contacting them if he
remembered anything else.
As the two agents got back into their car, Mulder said, "All right, out
with it-you don't believe him, do you?"
"Do you really want me to answer that?" Scully said as she pulled away
from the shoulder of the road. "Think about it for a minute. Bodies
levitating into the air and discharging lightning bolts into other
people nearby?"
"He did say that both of the people who got struck by lightning were
carrying swords," Mulder pointed out. "Maybe the sword of the dead man
attracted the lightning and channeled it out towards the other two. But
that still doesn't explain our tattooed mystery man hiding in the woods."
"I'd be wary of taking anything that man back there said at face value,"
Scully said. "I mean, he lives out in the bush!"
Mulder gave in. "All right, all right-let's call it a day, I'm getting
hungry. Let's find a Burger King or something."
Scully chose not to lecture Mulder on the evils of fast food yet again.
Instead, she said, "I think tomorrow we should go back to Washington, do
some research, try to find out if there's been anything like this
before." She hastily added, "I mean, decapitation murders using swords."
Mulder nodded. At least there was a chance they'd be making progress.

11:04PM
JUST NORTH OF JEROME, ARIZONA

Two Harley-Davidson motorcycles rode side-by-side down Alternate 89 as
they neared town. One was operated by a large man, with dirty, red hair
and beard, and wearing leathers from head to toe, including a
peculiar-looking, high-collared vest. His riding partner was female,
blonde, and similarly attired. Neither wore a helmet.
They were racing along the highway at speeds that should've been
hazardous to life and/or limb. The riders were incredibly skilled,
however, as if they'd been riding motorcycles ever since they were invented.
Just as they passed a rest stop outside of town, they became faintly
aware of a presence of sorts. To explain it would do it injustice; they
and their kind had always known it as the Buzz.
The Buzz was faint this time-just the way the two of them liked it-and
wasn't fading as they drove on. That meant that somewhere up ahead,
getting closer to them all the time, was one like them, possibly one who
didn't even know it yet.
They looked at each other and smiled, then each dropped a gear and
surged ahead faster.

11:06PM
TEN MILES AHEAD

Ken Parino shifted into sixth gear and left it there. The Camaro held a
steady pace of 150 MPH now, the darkened countryside a blur past the
convertible's rolled-up side windows. He didn't like driving with them
up, but if he took them down, the wind buffeting him would either deafen
him or threaten to suck him out of the car.
(Then again, he could've put up the top, but that was the point to
having a convertible, after all.)
He'd taken his six-day-old car out to the rest area and back for a test
drive, when the local police would be busy with the bars in town and not
worrying about someone doing a little speeding on the highway. He was
still five miles or so out of town when he noticed a pair of headlights
round the curve not far behind him.
Holy shit, someone's closing on me? he realized with disbelief. He
looked down at his gauges to confirm how fast he was going, and when he
looked up into the mirror again a second later, the two Hogs were less
than a few car lengths away from his bumper.
He checked the tach again, decided he could risk it, and dumped it down
into fifth gear, flattening the pedal. Numerals flashed on the
electronic display in threes as the car sped away in a hell of a hurry.
He wasn't scared, he told himself as he shifted back into sixth again,
he just didn't want to be passed by anyone.
By the time he was finished the thought, the two bikes roared up beside
him. Startled, he briefly let off the gas, then mashed it down again.
Still the bikes stayed with him, and crept closer to his driver's door.
He squeezed as far right as he could without going down towards the
creekbed; that, at even a legal speed, would certainly mean his end. He
sure as hell wasn't going to let off, that was for sure; once he got
into Jerome, the highway opened up into two lanes in each direction, and
he'd have more than enough room to have some fun with these two.
The lead biker, the woman, edged closer again, actually making contact
with the left front fender of the Camaro. Ken swerved briefly onto the
shoulder, then back onto the road, able to regain control. "Hey!" he
hollered.
Then he saw the other biker, the guy, creeping towards his door again.
He tried to urge the car to go faster, but it was at its limit. Besides,
the woman was moving in now as well.
Ken screamed as he saw that he was hurtling towards the bridge just
north of town, where the railway crossed under the road. At nearly two
hundred miles an hour, there was nothing he could do, and no time in
which to realize that; the car sailed into space to the right of the
bridge, started to drop in accordance with the laws of gravity, and
then, at around a hundred and seventy-five miles an hour, slammed into
the far bridge support, disintegrating on impact, and doing major damage
to the bridge and rail line. The remains of the car flipped over three
or four times, landing on its top a thousand feet past the bridge.
The bikes roared on into town, and then, all was silent.

AN HOUR LATER
JEROME FUNERAL HOME

The ambulance crew closed up the building and left. In the absence of a
county coroner's office, bodies were kept at the funeral home until
arrangements could be made for either burial or, in the case of deaths
like Ken Parino's, an investigation in the morning, and transport to
Prescott for an autopsy.
However, for Ken Parino, that was not destined to be. Two figures crept
up to the home just after the paramedics had departed. Jerome was a
friendly town, one in which hardly anyone locked their doors any time of
the day or night, and the funeral home was not an exception.
The two people shoved the loading doors open and entered the funeral
home, going directly to where the medics had just deposited Ken Parino's
remains.

21 APRIL 1998 6:23AM
NEAR BARSTOW, CALIFORNIA

Ken Parino awoke with a start. No, more than a start-he awoke gasping
for air, as if he was forcing his body to function again. He felt scared
out of his mind, and rightly so; he'd had a dream in which he died a
horribly violent death.
A pounding migraine filled his head, then seemed to split into two,
receding into just a pair of dull, throbbing sensations. He sat up,
realizing he'd been lying on some kind of hard ground, and opened his eyes.
Before him stood two people, dressed all in leather and looking like
they'd crawled out from under the seediest, baddest rock in the world.
"What the hell?!" Ken yelled, scrambling backwards on all fours.
"Stay put, boy," the male biker rumbled. "There's nothing to be afraid of."
Like hell there is! Ken shouted in his head, which was still pounding.
"That feeling you feel?" the woman said. "It's called the Buzz. It's how
we know one of us is nearby."
"W.. what?" Ken said, stopping short.
"We are the same as you," the man explained. "We, like you, died and
then found ourselves revived soon after. I am Kaul, and this is Luca. We
were born in 1577 and 1580, and have been alive ever since. We, and you,
are Immortal."
"You're nuts!" Ken blurted out, again trying to back up on hands, feet,
and buttocks to get away. "This is crazy-"
With a speed that didn't seem to fit his large, bulky form, Kaul was
immediately before Ken, longsword out; he reared back and ran the blade
through Ken's gut.
"Holy.." was what Ken was able to get out before he died.
In a few moments, he woke once more, gasping forcefully again. He
remembered what had happened and where he was, and looked up to see Kaul
a few feet away, standing beside Luca.
"We can repeat the demonstration as many times as is necessary," Kaul
said flatly, his sword still pointed in Ken's direction. "Or you can
accept what you are and come with us."
Ken stared in disbelief as he pieced things together in his mind.
"Let us tell you your life story," the one named Luca said to Ken. "You
were adopted-neither you nor your 'parents' know who your birth parents
were-and you've always felt you were different than all others around
you. You-"
"Enough!" Ken shouted, putting his hands over his ears and squeezing his
eyes shut tightly. "All right! I believe you! Please, just don't do it
again!"
Kaul smiled. He reached forward and helped Ken to his feet, then said:
"You're going to have to understand the Game."
"The what?" Ken said.
"The Game," Luca cut in, stepping closer. "We Immortals are in a battle
between good and evil, and have been for many centuries. We are fighting
to the last, till there is only one of us remaining."
"How does that happen?" Ken said with some confusion in his voice.
"We fight in one-on-one combat," Kaul told him. "No one may intervene in
a fight, and no Immortal may fight a fight on holy ground. Other than
that, it's a fight to the death."
"I thought we couldn't die," Ken said.
Suddenly Luca was leaning over him with her sword out, pressed against
his neck just enough to cause pressure but not enough to break the skin.
"If you lose your head, it's all over," she said through clenched teeth.
The sweat that was pouring off Ken was phenomenal at that point; his
eyes were almost crossed, trying to focus on the blade.
"S.. so how do I n.. not lose my head, th.. then?" he stammered.
Kaul smiled again, as did Luca, who retreated. "You are lucky enough to
have been found by a pair of Teachers," Kaul said. "We make a habit of
imparting our skills on the younger Immortals to train them for what is
to come." He withdrew a sword from a sheath on his bike. "Consider it
yours."
Ken caught the sword clumsily and stared at it, trying to make sense of
what had happened to him.

12:42PM
WASHINGTON

Scully was in the office, phone in hand, when Mulder entered. "Got
something?" he asked.
She looked up, nodding slightly and pushing a folder sideways on her
desk so that he might read the contents. He cocked his head to the side
and read about a series of murders in 1986 in New York, investigating
one Russell Nash, and ending up unsolved. Nash was arrested once or
twice, never charged, the file citing insufficient evidence.
Mulder took the file over to his desk with him while he continued to
read. He heard Scully talking to someone, sounding more and more
exasperated as the call went on.
Finally, Scully hung up the phone and turned to face her partner.
"Does the plot thicken?" Mulder asked.
Scully folded her arms across her chest. "The detective who headed up
the Nash case isn't with NYPD any more. He retired abruptly from the
force in 1993 after investigating more murders following the same trend,
and nobody's heard from him since."
"Sounds like someone who saw something and doesn't want to be found or
talk about it," Mulder declared.
"So what are we going to do?" Scully asked.
Mulder reached for the phone. "Find him, and get him to talk about it."

22 APRIL 1998 3:21AM
THE WOODS OUTSIDE ANGELS CAMP, CALIFORNIA

Kaul and Luca had driven Ken all the way out of Arizona and two-thirds
of the way across California, it seemed, stopping here and there to
teach him what they could. He didn't feel ready, but Kaul had suddenly
said that it was time for Ken's first test.
Ken figured he understood when suddenly he felt a monstrous headache
coming on. It ebbed momentarily, and he realized it was the Buzz,
indicating to him that there was another Immortal in the vicinity. This
one was very weak, though, much, much weaker than Kaul's or Luca's.
The bikes finally stopped in a grassy power-company right-of-way deep in
the forested area, and Kaul and Luca climbed off. Kaul motioned for Ken
to follow suit.
Kaul pointed in a direction, and Ken realized it was from that direction
that the new Buzz he was feeling was coming.
"Can you sense him?" Kaul asked Ken in a low whisper.
"Yes," Ken nodded after a moment. "I think so."
"Don't think so-know so. The Buzz is the only way we can tell ourselves
from mortals. And the weaker it feels, the more evil your opponent is."
Ken was about to ask how it could differentiate between good and evil,
but he instead shook his head slowly and started to inch forward through
the trees.
"That's it," Kaul said. "Move in and take him while he's preoccupied and
unarmed."
Ken glanced over his shoulder to see Kaul rooted to the spot. "Aren't
you coming with me?" he whispered.
Kaul shook his head. "He would sense me long before he sensed you, since
mine is so much more powerful. Besides, there are some things you must
do on your own. I cannot interfere in your battles; it is a Rule in the
Game."
Ken, after a long pause, nodded once or twice, and then resumed his
advance deeper into the forest.
Holding the sword at his side, feeling totally unprepared for what he
was about to do, Ken tried to rationalize everything that'd happened to
him in the past 30 hours. He couldn't get past First, I died.. without
having to shake his head to clear it.
This stupid sixth-sense or whatever it is isn't helping all that much!
he thought. It was like a dull headache now, fading from one area and
coming into another as he grew farther from Kaul and closer to the young
man sitting near the fire.

Jesse Sterling stared into the fire as if the answers he was seeking
might pop out of the flames and present themselves to him. He'd started
out the day by going out to the lake with his friends for some fun with
the powerboats and jetskis. Two hours had passed uneventfully, the lot
of them racing around on the water's surface, when suddenly one of
Jesse's friends had turned left instead of right, and drove his boat
right over the jetski that Jesse and his girlfriend, Lisa, were on.
The next thing Jesse remembered was waking up on the dock, up behind the
cottage, and hearing a scream. The scream came from Sharon, Lisa's
sister, who was kneeling over him and Lisa as the two of them lay on the
dock.
Sharon was babbling something incoherently, and five or six of the
others came rushing to the dock in seconds, stopping short when they saw
Jesse sitting up.
He asked what was wrong, but everyone seemed to have suddenly lost the
ability to speak. After several attempts, he finally got Sharon's
significant-other, Phil, to say: "You.. you and Lisa.. are dead!"
Jesse was about to tell Phil how stupid that sounded when he had the
presence of mind to turn and look at Lisa, lying beside him. He jumped
back when he saw Lisa's badly mangled body lying there, very still, very
bloody.
He'd scooted backwards on the dock then, in shock, and caught his hand
on a nail protruding from the dock, tearing his palm open from the base
of his little finger to the base of his thumb. He swore and held it up,
applying pressure like he'd been taught; then, after a second, he
realized he didn't feel any pain any more, and released his grip to take
a look.
After he wiped the blood from his hand, there was no jagged cut visible,
not even a scar. It was as if he'd healed instantly.
He'd turned to regard his friends then, but they all scattered, running
back towards the cottage or the cars. He was left alone with Lisa's
shattered body.
After a few moments, he went over to his friend and said his last
goodbye to her, then stood up and ran, off the dock, into the forest,
and as far away from the scene as his legs would carry him.

Jesse poked at the fire with a stick. He'd snuck back to the water's
edge later in the day to see the state police, the fire department
water-rescue team, and several parents there. He couldn't make out all
that was being said, but he understood that the others had told the
authorities about the boating accident, and that Lisa and Jesse had been
killed. They were saying that they got Lisa's body out of the water, but
Jesse went under and they couldn't find him.
He wanted to burst out of the trees and rush up to his parents and tell
them he was okay, but something in him made him stay there. By all
accounts, he should've been dead. The boat had been going about 50 miles
an hour when it'd hit him and Lisa broadside, and Lisa was probably
killed instantly.
So was I, he finally realized. I died out on the water, and came back to
life back on the dock.
Strangely enough, his mind went back to earlier in the week, when his
parents had come to him to show him something-his certificate of
adoption. He wasn't surprised then, and now as he looked back upon it,
it made a lot of sense.
I've always known I've been different, he thought to himself, jabbing at
the fire again.
Suddenly he developed the worst headache he'd ever had. Without warning,
it had slammed into his head with the force of a freight train. A
detached part of him wondered if it was his body remembering how the
boat had slammed into him, when suddenly he heard a footstep behind him.
He spun and saw some guy coming up behind him with-whatthehell?-a sword
in his hand. Jesse stood and shouted, "Who the hell are you?"
"I'm the one that's going to finish your reign of terror on this world,"
the guy-about Jesse's age, but with dark black hair, and taller and
leaner-said, while still advancing.
"What're you talking about?" Jesse said, stumbling backwards over the
fire, setting what was left of his clothes aflame, which he tried to
extinguish as he backed up on all fours.
"Don't kid yourself. I know what you are. I'm just like you."
"What am I, then?!" Jesse begged. "I honestly don't know!"
The man crawling on the ground was babbling some more, but Ken ignored
it; Kaul had said that the man would try to get out of it by pleading
ignorance, as if he was as new to this as Ken was.
After only a second's hesitation, Ken rushed forward, and with a mighty
yell and swing, struck home with the sword. The other man's head came
free from his neck and dropped unceremoniously to the ground, followed
soon after by the slumping body.
Ken had only enough time to realize what he'd just done when it felt
like a bolt of lightning had slammed into him. He found his arms being
forced out to full extension on their own, and his legs involuntarily
buckling. As he fell to his knees on the forest floor, he screamed, the
electrical storm surrounding him growing fiercer every second.
At one point he opened his eyes and realized that the electrical charge
was flowing between him and the headless body, which was levitating
almost a foot off the ground.
In a few more seconds, it was over; Ken fell to his hands and knees,
fully spent, heaving with each breath. He heard footsteps behind and
looked over his shoulder to see Kaul approaching, a smile on his face.
Behind him was Luca.
"You didn't tell me that would happen," Ken managed to get out. "What
the hell was it?"
"The Quickening," Kaul intoned slowly. "When one of us takes another's
head, the energy and power is transferred from the loser to the victor."
Kaul walked around so that he was standing directly in front of Ken, who
had by now recovered and was kneeling again. "Very well done, I must
say," Kaul said. "You only forgot one thing."
"What's that?"
Ken barely saw a glint of metal in Kaul's right hand as the latter said
quickly, "That there can be only one!"
Kaul's sword flashed out and neatly severed Ken's head. The body fell
limp to the ground, as Jesse's had moments earlier, and for the second
time in five minutes, the Quickening began.

10:50AM
WASHINGTON

It had taken a day to track him down, and in the end, it wasn't worth
it. Mulder and Scully were able to make contact with a Walter Bedsoe,
but he insisted that he wasn't the one they were looking for.
"Mister Bedsoe," Mulder said to the crackling phone line, "we understand
you investigated a similar series of murders in 1993. We think it might
be happening again today on the West Coast. We-"
"Listen," Bedsoe said forcefully. "You're mistaken. I was mistaken.
Whatever I saw, it wasn't that. Nash didn't have anything to do with it,
and if you do have something similar going on now, my advice to you is
to just back off and let nature take its course-it'll sort itself out. I
gotta go. Goodbye."
The connection died, leaving Mulder there staring at the handset. He
redialed, but it rang steadily.
"Square one?" Scully asked plainly.
Mulder nodded, tight-lipped. "We're not going to get anything outta that
guy."
"Where to now, then?"
Mulder looked up the extension for the Bureau library. "What did the
hermit guy say that tattoo looked like?" he asked Scully.

1:45PM
EUGENE, OREGON

Kaul and Luca rumbled to a stop on a residential side-street in the
sizeable city. There, working alone on a lawn-care maintenance job, was
a woman in her late twenties, riding a self-propelled mower. She was
totally engrossed in her work, concentrating on making it look as
perfect as she possibly could.
She also radiated a significant Buzz from her; not in any way a seasoned
Immortal, but rather one who just became Immortal in the past few weeks.
Kaul spoke to Luca. "I do believe it is your turn," he said with an
elaborate gesture towards the woman on the tractor.
"Such a gentleman," Luca smiled as she stepped off the bike and
retrieved her sword.
She strode confidently up behind the tractor, staying out of sight of
the woman operating it. This is going to be almost too easy, Luca said
to herself. It could only be better if she could see me coming and were
unable to do anything about it.
Luca idly wondered if the woman had any idea what she'd become or if she
even knew about the Game.
Ah, well; it'll all be moot in a few seconds.
Just then, the tractor stopped and the woman leapt off, twisting around
and launching herself at Luca, sword in hand. Luca was genuinely caught
off guard, and stepped back one or two steps as she brought up her sword.
They swung at each other for almost a minute, the only sounds being the
clash of metal and the "YAH!"s from the rookie Immortal. Luca was
surprised at the skill shown by the young lady before her.
As they parted and circled, Luca grinned. "You're quite the fighter,"
she declared. "I must admit, I was expecting an easy kill."
"I've spent three months with a Teacher," said the lady with the name
'Amber' stitched onto the front of her company golf shirt. "I can defend
myself."
"We'll just see about that," Luca said, joining battle once more.
The fight roamed all about the large lawn, each woman striking home and
being hit as well. Amber kept remembering what her Teacher had told her,
about concentrating first upon protecting her own head, and second upon
taking her enemy's. Her Teacher had also given her some hints on how to
'play dirty', since her enemies would likely do the same; for example,
hack at the wrists if an opportunity presents itself, so that the enemy
cannot hold her sword.
Sadly, the opportunity did not present itself to Amber. In fact, she
went to parry one of Luca's swings and found her sword in two pieces
afterwards. Thinking quickly, using what was available at hand, she
snatched up a nearby long-handled hedge pruner, broke it in half at the
hinge on the scissors mechanism, and used half of it like a staff with a
blade at one end.
"Ingeniously adaptive, too," Luca smiled, all the while swinging at
Amber left, right, and sideways. "It is too bad that you have to die."
"The fat lady isn't singing yet," Amber snarled, rushing forward.
Luca simply gathered the improvised weapon up with her own and sent it
flying out of Amber's grip. Amber herself fell and slid along the
freshly cut grass, ending up on all fours, a few feet away.
Luca walked casually over and put her sword under Amber's chin, bringing
the young woman to a kneeling position. Luca smiled and tilted the blade
a bit to align it directly at Amber's throat.
"Is that music I hear?" Luca said mockingly.
After a pause, she added, "I will not lie to you, Amber; I am going to
take your head. Before I do, though, perhaps you'd like to tell me the
name of your Teacher."
Silence ensued.
"He obviously betrayed you by not teaching you well enough, Amber. You
will be doing yourself a favor by allowing me to avenge your death, by
taking his head as well."
My killer's going to avenge my death? Yaright, Amber told herself.
The blade moved down from Amber's chin to rest directly on her throat.
Luca said, "What do you have to gain by keeping quiet, young lady? You
have lost. At least die with the satisfaction that the one that failed
to prepare you will be dead too."
Instead of answering, Amber simply raised her head high, tilting her
chin up and exposing her throat. She closed her eyes, but the tears
streamed through anyway. I will be brave, she repeated silently in her head.
One corner of her mind offhandedly wondered if she'd actually feel the
fatal blow.

3:39PM
WASHINGTON

FWHAM!
Scully sat up straight, jumping back slightly with surprise, as the
monstrous volume crashed down on her desk. It had fallen from a height
of about one foot, from the hands of one Fox Mulder.
She looked up at him with a dark expression. "Jesus, Mulder-"
"Sorry 'bout that. Here." He flipped it open to a section marked with a
slip of paper.
Scully found herself reading something that appeared to be a biography
of sorts. However, it didn't make sense. It chronicled one stage of the
life of an, if Scully was reading it right, immortal man named Ghalan,
one who had lived since the year 343 BC and, according to the chronicle
she held in her hands, lived until at least 1609 AD. He was in Rome when
it burned, he was on the Pinta when Columbus came across the Atlantic..
Scully looked at the cover of the book. "Mulder, you do realize this is
classed as a volume of fairy tales and myths, don't you?"
"Books get mis-classified all the time," Mulder said, leaning over the
desk. "I believe this is an historical accounting of someone who lived a
very long time."
"And who would have written this?" Scully deadpanned.
"His Watcher."
"His what?"
"Watcher. Remember, I was looking up that tattoo that the bush guy in
New Mexico told us about? I found it here." He flipped a few pages ahead
to the end of the segment, where a symbol was shown. "See? 'A V or a Y
encircled twice'." That's exactly what that is there-according to the
author of the segment, it's the symbol of a secret society called
Watchers, who keep track of these kind of people."
Scully just looked at him sideways.
Mulder nodded towards the book. "Read on."
As she did, Mulder said part of it out loud. "The segment tells of
battles that this guy Ghalan fought. All of them refer to swordfights,
and every now and then something called 'The Quickening' crops up. It
sounds to me like he somehow collected the life-force of every person he
defeated."
"It sounds to me like one of us hasn't been getting enough sleep lately."
Mulder almost laughed as he lightly rapped the desk. "Come on, Scully,
why don't you ever take these things at their face value? You and I both
know this isn't a fable or a myth, it's a true story, and we have proof
in the form of a dead guy in New Mexico missing his head, and hit with a
few million volts of electricity after the fact."
"I meant to tell you about that," Scully said, grateful for an excuse to
shove the book aside for a moment. "These are the lab reports on the
castings from New Mexico."
"And?"
"The tread pattern that remained intact couldn't be matched to any known
commercially built boot."
"So hand made?"
"Not only hand made, but apparently without any kind of template-no two
lines are evenly spaced, and there isn't a right angle anywhere-and with
very crude tools." She pulled a sticky yellow note off her desk that'd
formerly been on the report before her. "The lab's resident historian
sent along a comment that the tread is consistent, but not a match, with
boots as they would've been built in the late 18th century."
"So someone's walking around out there with their feet in boots that
were made around the time the Declaration of Independence was signed?"
Mulder asked.
Scully forced out a sigh of exasperation. "Come on, Mulder. Now we're
looking for a pair of murderers who are 225 years old? Is that-"
"What I want you to put in your report to Skinner?" Mulder finished
Scully's sentence with a smile. "I'd've thought you were getting good at
creatively stating this kind of thing in your-"
He was cut short when his desk phone rang. He stepped over and answered
it, saying only two or three words in return to whatever was said to
him. As he hung up, he turned and said to Scully, "Let's go."
"Where?" she said as she stood.
"First California, then Oregon."

3:53PM
WOODBURN, OREGON

Steven Keane stepped into the alley carefully, holding his sword at the
ready. There were two Buzzes violating his peace and quiet, and they
were getting very near.
Dammit, how come I can't even step out for a bite without getting
ambushed these days? he railed to himself. Damned MacLeod must've sicced
every Immortal he knows on me.
Footsteps from the other end of the alley caught his attention, and he
saw two people standing there. One a man, the other a woman, both in
garb befitting a member of a motorcycle gang.
And both carrying swords.
"I hope you're not thinking of a two-on-one," Keane called out. "That's
against our Rules."
"Wouldn't ever dream of it," the male biker said. His companion slowed
to a stop, and he approached Keane. "I am Kaul."
"Steven Keane."
"You wouldn't happen to be acting as a Teacher these days, would you,
Keane, old boy?" Kaul said, mocking Keane's accent.
Keane's eyes narrowed. "What do you mean?"
Kaul gave a shrug and a smile. "We just came from a burg up the road,
name of Eugene, and I'll tell you right now, if you fare as well with me
as Amber did with Luca, well.. why waste your time? Just lay down your
sword now."
Keane filled instantly with rage. "You bastard!" he hollered, charging.
Kaul grinned evilly and readied himself for Keane's onslaught. He
parried everything Keane threw at him in the first round. Then, lunging
forward, he swiped his blade across Keane's chest, slicing his shirt
open and drawing blood.
The tide turned four or five times in the first minute, each man getting
his licks in on the other, then it settled down into a rhythm wherein
the fight was pretty much evenly balanced, with Luca on the sidelines
pretending to be bored.
"I have a confession," Kaul said as the two continued to do battle. "I
wasn't sure if you were actually Amber's Teacher or not. It was just a
guess."
"You won't be as lucky with the fight as you were with your bluffing,"
Keane countered.
"Oh, please."
The fight dragged on and on; each man was trying to keep one ear tuned
to the outside world, so he'd hear the sirens approaching if someone
heard or saw their battle and called the police. For a change, though,
two Immortals were able to duke it out in a downtown area in the middle
of the day with no interruptions, for nearly fifteen minutes.
The time ran out when Kaul neatly disarmed Keane, the latter's sword
flying down the alley and clanging to the ground near a building a
hundred feet away.
"I think you should know," Kaul said, putting his sword under Keane's
chin much as Luca had done to Amber, "that we normally don't do people
who aren't pre-Immortals or new Immortals. For you, we make an exception."
"Why? Because I Teach?"
"Exactly. Your kind is helping the newcomers take the Prize away from
the rest of us, by training them so that they may one day be a threat to
us."
Keane knew he was about to lose his head; he hoped he might settle a
vendetta at the same time. He said, "For a moment, when you arrived, I
thought you might've been sent by Duncan MacLeod."
"Who?"
"MacLeod. 1592, Scotsman, vicious bastard. Killed a friend of mine."
Kaul shrugged. "Never heard of him," he said just before swinging his sword.

5:12PM
ANGELS CAMP, CALIFORNIA

Mulder and Scully found themselves in another forested area not far
removed from a lake. This time, there were two decapitated bodies, along
with a single sword.
There was a difference, though, between this case and the one from New
Mexico: These two bodies had names.
"The one nearer the sword," the agent from the local FBI office was
telling Mulder, "was.. um, I know how this is going to sound, but he was
declared dead two nights ago in a little town called Jerome, Arizona.
Local PD in Arizona reports his body went missing from the funeral home
sometime between midnight, when it was dropped off there, and eight,
when the coroner's van came for him."
"How does a dead man travel 650 miles across two states, cut off another
guy's head, then have the same thing happen to him?" Mulder said.
The local FBI shrugged. "I just work here. Besides, from what I hear,
that's up your alley." He pushed a package into Mulder's hands. "This is
his stuff." He then gestured to the other body. "This guy is another
strange one. He went missing this morning in a boating accident on New
Melones Lake. He and his girlfriend were run over on their jetski by a
23-foot speedboat. She's dead, he should've been, but his body went
missing. And now that we found him here, some of the kids at the lake
say they might've seen him, alive, after the accident."
"Well," Mulder said, looking over his shoulder at the headless corpse,
"I think we can safely say this was no boating accident. Got anything on
him?"
"Well, these are his effects, but he didn't have them when he was last
seen alive. Just the clothes he has on now."
"Gotcha, thanks."
The local FBI guy turned and left, and Mulder glanced briefly at Scully,
who was examining the body of the Arizona boy as gingerly as she could.
Mulder looked at the packets in his hands and peeled open the one from
Arizona.
"Scully-check this out," Mulder said as he looked through the wallet of
the taller victim.
"What?" Scully said, turning around.
"Oh my God," Mulder responded, holding up the victim's ID. "They killed
Kenny."

6:17PM
WOODBURN

Luca stepped out from behind the industrial mall several minutes after
the lightning storm had ceased. Kaul watched her approach, and when she
got within earshot, said, "How did he react?"
"Pitiful," she said, making a face. "Once he found out that his Teacher
Keane lost his head, he went to pieces. I could barely force him to
defend himself. A totally unsatisfying kill."
Kaul was listening, but he was also watching the two people that had
tried unsuccessfully to dart out unseen from behind a far-off warehouse.
"Hm," he said. "Perhaps we can correct that."

6:54PM
HUBBARD, OREGON

Bret Young did not stand up straight, nor did he wait anxiously (at
least not outwardly) as the two figures approached him. What he did do
was remain slouched against the light standard, seemingly uninterested
in the world around him.
Truth be told, he was so upset and excited he couldn't think.
He was relieved when the people came close enough to be identified. It
was Chris George and Tom Wright, two of his fellow Watchers. Chris
was-or rather, had been-tasked to Amber Hunter, and Tom had been
observing Wesley Remington. Bret's quarry had been Steven Keane, the
Teacher of the two other Immortals. Now all three of them-Tom, Chris,
and Bret-were suddenly more-or-less unemployed.
"So it's true?" Tom said when the other two confirmed it. "Someone's out
there taking all the new Immortals?"
"And, it would appear, Teachers," Bret pointed out.
"We've got to do something, you know."
"What do you suggest we do, call the cops?" Chris said sarcastically.
"Need I remind you, 'observe and record'-"
"Yeah, yeah. I know." Tom kicked at the ground. "What about if we find
out who's Watching Kaul and Luca?"
"The better thing to do," came a rumbling voice from the darkness,
"would be to determine who is watching you."
The three men were shocked that someone was so near and had likely heard
their every word. They'd be in some serious trouble with the Watchers now!
They didn't have to worry; Kaul and Luca sprang from the shadows and
used their swords to stab each of the three mortal men. In seconds, they
were relieved of their duties, oaths, and lives.

10:01PM

Mulder and Scully had just established a record, investigating five
crime scenes in one night. First, in Angels Camp, California; next,
Eugene, Oregon; next, two separate cases in Woodburn, Oregon; and
finally, a triple-murder in Hubbard, Oregon.
"Why are we here, Mulder?" Scully asked. Mulder was about to give a
smart-ass response referring to philosophy and the like when Scully
added: "This murder doesn't match up with the others at all."
"Not on the surface," he acknowledged. He stepped closer to the bodies.
"Yes, they've got their heads still attached, and yes, they've been
stabbed in the chest with some kind of large knife or blade.. perhaps
even a sword."
He crouched down. "But all three of them.."
He shuffled aside to let Scully see what he was doing, which was taking
hold of one man's wrist and turning it over. On the inside of his wrist,
just below the palm of his hand, was the same symbol Mulder had shown
her in the book.
She rolled her eyes. "Are you still on with that?"
"Scully, think about it. Just for a moment, concede that Watchers, and
the people they Watch, do in fact exist. It would stand to reason that
people get assigned to Watch certain members of this race of people who
live forever, right? Well, let's for a moment imagine that these three
men were assigned to Watch the three people here in Oregon that we just
found beheaded. These three came here to discuss strategy, or regroup,
or whatever it is that they do, but they didn't know that the killer, or
killers, were following them."
"Mulder.."
"Scully, it's a possibility."
"So is the theory that they came from spaceships from another dimension."
"Good, you're warming to the idea," Mulder said brightly. He looked on
the ground beside the bodies and retrieved an item apparently missed by
the Hubbard Police.
"What's that?" Scully asked.
"Looks like a micro-recorder to me," Mulder said. Indeed, it had a
microcassette in it, and a playback key. Mulder rewound it a few seconds
and pushed Play.
"..Well, that does it. He took Keane's head. My job here is done. I
think Tom and Chris're in the same boat. I guess this is my terminal
report on Steven Keane, then. However, before I close the books, I
intend to go to Seacouver and see if someone there-maybe Adam Pierson or
another researcher like that-knows about what Kaul's doing."

23 APRIL 1998 1:41PM
SEACOUVER
OAK HARBOR PARK

The two FBI agents approached the man who was standing, facing away from
them, in the garden area of the park. Long before they were within
earshot of him, though, his head snapped up and he seemed to stiffen,
then look around sharply, one hand slowly reaching in under his coat.
Scully almost had her gun out when she saw the man finally notice the
two of them and bring his empty hands out into the open. He turned to
face them. "Do I know you?" he asked bluntly.
"Mr. Adam Pierson?" Mulder asked, getting a nod in return. "I'm Special
Agent Fox Mulder, this is Special Agent Dana Scully, we're with the
Federal Bureau of Investigation, do you mind if we ask a few questions?"
Mulder said without pausing for breath even once.
Pierson threw his hands wide in a smiling, yet seemingly sarcastic,
gesture. "Ask away."
"Have you ever had any contact with Kenneth Parino, Jesse Sterling,
Amber Hunter, or Steven Keane?" Scully said.
"Never," said Pierson, not missing a beat. "Should I have?"
"Wesley Remington, Tom Wright, Chris George, Bret Young?"
Pierson shook his head no.
"Are you sure?"
"Reasonably so," Pierson said, the sarcastic tone back. "Unless I've
been blacking out or something."
"Have you been to New Mexico, California, or Oregon lately?" Mulder asked.
Methos almost snapped back "define lately"-he'd been to the area now
known as New Mexico, yes, but in the year 585 or thereabouts. "No, not
recently, why?"
"Do you recognize this man?" Mulder produced a photo of the first
deceased man they'd come across.
Pierson studied the picture. "Looks kind of like a young Charlton
Heston," he said. "You know, from before Ben-Hur."
"Do you recognize him?" Scully echoed her partner, adding some emphasis.
"Nope, not at all," Pierson said with an annoying smile.
"This one?" Mulder said.
Methos studied the police sketch, masking his surprise as best he could
when the agent showed him a seemingly recent rendition of Kaul. The hair
was slightly shorter, the overall appearance cleaned up, but there was
no mistaking the face that hid under the still-present scruffy red beard
and moustache.
"Perhaps," Pierson nodded slowly, trying not to make his response look
too deliberate. "Any one of a thousand bikers that might've passed
through town in the past few days."
"Good guess, but wrong," Mulder said. "This man hasn't been this far
north yet-he's been in New Mexico, California, and Oregon-places where
this other man and the others we named died."
Pierson tch'ed. "Sounds like you may have a problem on your hands."
"It just might be your problem, too," Scully interjected matter-of-factly.
"Oh? How so?" Pierson asked with that condescending smile again.
"Have you ever heard of an organization known as The Watchers?" Mulder
asked.
Reflexively, and as inconspicuously as possible, Methos shoved his hands
(and wrists) into his coat pockets. "I think that's a band from up in
Canada, isn't it?"
"Not quite," Mulder responded. "Rumor has it that these Watchers were
also present at every murder scene. Another rumor holds that your name
came up in the records of one of these Watcher people."
"Well, you know how rumors get started," Pierson shrugged. "I'd imagine
it's like a bank robbery-one witness sees the weapon as an Uzi, the next
a gleaming silver pistol four feet long, the-"
"You're sure you've never heard of these Watchers?" Scully cut Pierson off.
"Not unless you're talking of your own government-I believe you call it
Big Brother?-I was of the understanding that they do a lot of watching."
Mulder stared tight-lipped at Pierson. The FBI agent tried to figure out
a way to ask a question that wouldn't allow Pierson to come back with a
smart-ass, snotty response.
"Can I go now?" Pierson asked impatiently after a second or two. "I have
a rather full schedule today, if you don't mind."
"Go right ahead," Scully said, turning to one side and gesturing to the
gates with a hand and a dip of her head.
"But don't go anywhere," Mulder called out after the retreating man.
"I won't leave town, Sheriff," Pierson tossed over his shoulder as he
strode out of the park.

23 APRIL 1998 3:05PM
SEACOUVER
FRIDAY HARBOR DISTRICT

(( Jim Byrnes "That River" That River ))

Pierson approached the dark building. Once a small warehouse, it had
long since been partitioned off to make a series of rooms and areas. The
arrangement of walls inside the building had configured the place as a
meeting hall of sorts.
Or, as the people of the time would call it, a bar. Pierson pulled open
the door and walked inside, greeted instantly by the sounds of a guitar
coming from somewhere within the structure.
He smiled at the sound as he walked through the building to the area of
the bar. As he stood at it-which, he noticed, was freshly polished and
cleaned, in stark contrast to how it must've looked mere days before,
after months of disuse and abandonment-he finally located the source of
the music.
Seated on a stool on the non-illuminated stage across the room, one
Joseph Dawson hammered away on the guitar resting on his lap. Fully
engrossed in the music, he completely failed to notice Pierson's presence.
That is, until Pierson waited for a break in the music to applaud loudly
and slowly. As Dawson looked up, Pierson smiled and walked towards the
stage.
"Methos!" Dawson said happily. "When did you get back in this sorry neck
of the woods?"
"Oh, not long ago," Pierson/Methos responded as Dawson set aside the
guitar and worked his way to his feet. "Actually, late last week. I
might ask you the same thing, might I remind you."
Joe shrugged. "Mac wanted to move back. What could I say? I'm his
Watcher, you know. 'Observe and record, but never interfere.'"
"Never stopped you before," Methos countered as they gripped each
other's hand in a firm shake.
"So should I bother asking what brings you here?" Joe asked the Immortal
before him as the two sat down at a nearby table.
Methos sighed. "You've heard about Kaul, I assume?"
"Heard about him?" Joe retorted. "He's single-handedly putting most of
the Watchers on the West Coast out of a job."
Nodding, Methos said, "I assume you're aware of his methods, are you?"
Joe shrugged. "I've heard the legends, but can't say I've ever bothered
to really look him up. Never come after Mac yet, you know."
"With good reason," Methos said. "MacLeod's a full-grown, seasoned
Immortal. Kaul prefers the younger ones."

13 AUGUST 1777 12:45PM
BUCKS COUNTY, PENNSYLVANIA

Methos strolled down the street, watching the other townsfolk mill
about. He noticed that many of them had baskets full of fruits and
vegetables, no doubt destined for Moland House, where Washington and his
men were camped, waiting for an invading army that as of yet had not
shown up.
Methos shook his head and smiled. He found it amusing in his own way,
the way these mortals scurried about trying their best to kill one
another, when they had such little time on this plane to begin with. It
seemed so pointless.
"Afternoon, Doctor," someone said as he passed their storefront, and he
nodded in return. To this place, he was known as Dr. Alan Benjamin, one
of the local medicine men. He'd lived in the Crossroads area for four
years, getting away from it all, to coin a phrase. Not much had happened
in that period of time-he'd seen a lot of sick people, but none of the
kind of sick that he'd encountered so far in his life, men (and women)
who concealed a sword on their person and aimed to fight to the death
against total strangers, for the good of the Game.
Not one Immortal had passed through the Crossroads in the four years
Methos had lived there. He started to wonder if their number was
beginning to thin out after nearly five millennia, when abruptly one
day, he felt the Buzz. It was faint, which likely meant that whoever it
was was only recently Immortal, if not even still pre-Immortal.
Methos' suspicions were proven when he idly chatted with some troops on
the 11th of the month. They told of one of their number that had taken a
direct hit in a recent battle, yet got up moments later as if unharmed.
His uniform front had been burnt through by the shot, but he wasn't
injured in any way.
Methos was seeking out the newly Immortal man on the afternoon of the
13th when he was stopped in his tracks by the Buzz again-this time, in
stereo. Someone nearby-two someones-were rather seasoned Immortals, much
older than the newcomer soldier (though infants compared to Methos himself).
He looked around as he usually did, trying to be inconspicuous about it,
and saw them promptly: A man and a woman, riding horses that hauled
carts behind them. The carts were covered over, presumably holding
dozens of pounds of fresh vegetables for the troops.
Somehow, I don't believe there's anything under there, Methos thought to
himself as he first saw the two people turn to regard him, then turn
away and head in the direction of the enlisted men's camp.

Methos wondered why he was getting involved, even as he hurried through
the forest, paralleling the cart path to get ahead of the horses.
Normally, he wasn't one to give a damn what anyone did or didn't do.
What made this incident any different?
The kid was totally new, though, and deserved to live. The other
Immortals seemed intent on having themselves an easy kill. Methos had
heard rumors of a pair of Immortals who went around preying on the young
and never going after anyone skilled, and he figured perhaps it was
worth his while to get interested in this particular battle.

"This isn't your fight, old man," the male called out once Methos had
caught up to them in a nearby deserted clearing.
Methos stepped out in front of the horses and produced his sword. Having
not held it in four years, it felt somewhat unnatural to him, but he
pushed that aside while he said, "Leave him alone, Kaul; he's barely a kid."
The man looked surprised. "You know me? I am at a disadvantage, then."
"I've heard of you, and Luca, and I know your ways," Methos said evenly.
"Leave the boy alone. Let him be-he needs to understand who he is before
you go and take his head."
"Don't you see, old-timer?" Luca seethed from atop her horse. "We're the
rightful competitors in the Game-those of us who've been around for a
time. All these new ones are only getting in the way-preventing those of
us who deserve the Prize from getting to it. Every time a new Immortal
comes on the scene, that's one more that the lot of us have to go
through for what is rightfully ours."
Methos shrugged. "Some of us don't really feel a need to rush to get the
Prize. There's lots of time-I've waited 5000 years, myself."
Kaul thought about that for a moment. "You're not what I expected the
oldest among us to look like," he finally said.
Methos gave a condescending smile. "I'll take that as a compliment," he
said with sarcasm, and brandished the sword again. "Now step down or
turn back."
"What is your interest in the boy?" Luca countered. "You are not his
Teacher! Since when does one Immortal protect another from a battle?
Does that not go against the rules of the Game?"
Methos was going to say something about the pair before him, and how
their fights with others probably broke, or at least severely bent,
those same rules, when suddenly the horses advanced. The animals, their
riders, and the carts behind thundered past him at speed, passing him on
both sides, leaving little room for him to remain standing.
By the time he'd reoriented himself to face the direction Kaul and Luca
had gone, they were rounding a bend far down the trail, well on their
way to the troops' camp. There was nothing that Methos or Dr. Alan
Benjamin could do.
He began to walk back to Crossroads, pausing only briefly when the
fearsomely hot day was momentarily interrupted by a vicious, extremely
localized electrical storm.

"Sounds like they haven't changed much in 200 years," Joe observed.
Methos shook his head. "I'm not so sure. I take it you didn't hear about
the latest killings?"
"Latest?" Joe echoed.
"Steven Keane, and the three Watchers assigned to Keane and his two
current students."
Dawson's face took on a pained expression. "Aw, geezus-not Bret Young?"
Methos nodded. "I'm afraid so. The FBI told me as much when they grilled
me this afternoon."
"You were talking to the FBI about this?!" Joe exploded in a panic.
"Easy, easy! Dammit, Dawson, I'm a big boy, I know what to say and not
say to whom. However, they do know more than a little. They mentioned
that a Watcher had 'Adam Pierson' in his little black book."
"Did they name him, or..?"
"No, they said 'a Watcher'."
"Aw, shit."
"Don't sweat it, I pleaded ignorance. I'm good at it."
Joe sighed. "Any other bombshells you want to drop?"
"Well.. I fear that maybe Kaul and Luca have finally gotten bored with
new Immortals after 400 years. I think they may be turning to Teachers
to cut off the head of the proverbial snake. Kill the Teachers, and
there'll be no one to Teach the new Immortals how to do things. Speaking
of which, where's MacLeod?"
Joe looked up in surprise. "You don't think-"
Methos shrugged. "He did teach Richie.."
"Well, he's gone to a temple in Japan for a few weeks again," Joe told
Methos. "Specifically requested that I just stick around here. He's
safe, anyway; he's on holy ground."
"Then I guess I've got to do this myself."
"Do what?"
Methos stood up. "Take care of Kaul and Luca."
"Wait!" Joe protested, getting to a standing position. "Let's try to get
hold of Mac first and see if he can come back-"
"That's the whole reason he went away, Joe, was to be unreachable,"
Methos pointed out. "I don't have any conscience to speak of, but could
you sleep at night knowing we waited and two or twenty or two hundred
more Immortals and/or Watchers died?"
Joe fumed for a moment or two, knowing full well Methos was right. And
even if he wasn't, there wasn't a damn thing Joe Dawson was going to be
able to do to stop Methos from leaving the bar and doing whatever he
damned well pleased.
"You be careful," Joe finally said.
"Hey," Methos said, "Don't misread this-it is one of my patented totally
self-serving acts." He walked to the door and headed out.

23 APRIL 1998 5:11PM
OAK HARBOR DOCKS DISTRICT

Mulder and Scully pulled up in front of 3419 171st Street.
"Are you serious?" Mulder said, looking out of the windshield and up at
the building before them.
"This is the address on record for the only Adam Pierson in Seacouver,"
Scully said as she got out of the car. Mulder followed, and they entered
the lobby.
"Apartment 7-G," Scully said. "He's had it for nine days."
"That wouldn't happen to be on the seventh floor, would it?" Mulder
asked. He gestured to the elevators, one of which was tagged OUT OF
ORDER, the other sitting dark with its doors slightly ajar and the car a
foot or two misaligned with the floor.
Ultimately, they climbed the stairs to 7 and sought out Apartment G.
They pounded and pounded on the door for almost five minutes non-stop
with no results.
Mulder happened to glance out the single, cracked and crazed window that
faced the street from the hallway. He looked down and saw a pair of
motorcycles rush by, their riders helmetless.
Mulder blinked as he tried to remember the sketch that Mountain Man had
helped to create. From seven stories up, it would've been impossible to
identify someone, unless A) they weren't wearing a helmet and/or B) they
had fiery red hair.
Luckily for Mulder, both criteria were met.
"What is it?" Scully said as Mulder started to sputter something.
"Down on the street!" he finally blurted. "I just saw them!"
"Them? Who?" Scully countered as she started to follow him back down the
stairwell.

Kaul was surprised to feel a faint Buzz as he rode down the street. He
looked at Luca, and obviously she was feeling it too; however, they
couldn't see anyone around for blocks.
Whoever it was, they were pre-Immortal, and almost as far away as they
could be and still be detectable. That would mean they were at most, a
couple of blocks away, laterally.. or..
Kaul looked over his shoulder and saw the only high building in the
area, a nine-story run-down apartment block. He got Luca's attention and
the two of them turned back around.

Methos cursed the American law enforcement establishment for being so
resourceful. He'd been extra-careful in getting this apartment in an
obscure, nearly-condemned part of Seacouver, and the feds had found it
in just over a week.
Maybe I can crash at MacLeod's for a few weeks, he sighed inwardly.
Part of him pointed out that if the FBI were trying to locate him, they
must have something more to connect him to the Watchers or the killings.
Perhaps one of the Watchers had survived long enough to tell everything.
If that was the case, everything was going to get really nasty really quick.
The Buzz ran over Methos like twin transport trucks just then-more
precisely, like twin Harley-Davidsons. He heard them just after he felt
them: Kaul and Luca roared around the corner, heading toward his building.
Out of the frying pan.. he thought as he ducked behind a building to get
some cover.

Kaul felt the Buzz-a much stronger one-just before he would've turned
back to head for the apartment building. As it was, Luca pointed out a
problem with the apartments just then: A government-issue-looking car
was parked right out front. Luca gestured to the pier itself, on the
other side of the road, behind a row of warehouse-style buildings.
There, they could wait out the departure of the cops-and possibly also
find the other Immortal and take care of him.
Kaul nodded and turned left.

Three minutes later, they were coasting through the labyrinth of
buildings on the pier, unable to locate the other Immortal. The
pre-Immortal's buzz had faded away, but the other was quite strong.
"Split up," Kaul told Luca. "You go north, I'll head south. We'll work
from opposite ends and meet in the middle."
Luca nodded, dropped a gear, and roared northward.

Methos heard the bike rumbling in his direction. He reached under his
coat and gripped his sword, waiting for the right moment, trying to time
it so that he would have the element of surprise.
He heard only one bike; whether it was Kaul or Luca, he knew the other
would be near, though. He'd have to be careful not to get ambushed. Even
though it was against the Rules, he wouldn't put it past these two.
Taking a deep breath, he said to himself, Here we go, and stepped out.

Kaul was shocked to suddenly have a man standing directly in his path.
However, as a man who'd ridden bikes since their inception, he wasn't
about to drop his Hog just because someone was in front of him. He
skillfully eluded the man, noticing as he passed that the fellow was
pulling a sword out from under his trenchcoat.
Kaul stopped his bike and dismounted, twisting around with his own sword
in hand. As he finally saw the other man's face, he went back 200 years
in his mind and realized why that face looked so familiar.
"It's been a long time, old man," Kaul said as the two neared one another.
"That's such a relative concept," Methos countered.
"Yeah, yeah, I suppose. You are the legendary Methos, I gather?"
Methos smiled condescendingly. "No, not the Methos, just a Methos.
Didn't you hear I come in six-packs?"
Methos rushed at Kaul and battle was joined. The two met in a cacophony
of clanging metal and a nearly-blinding light show caused by the sparks
flying from each blade.

Mulder and Scully were stymied. They'd raced down the stairs and out
into the street, but no one was around.
"They were out here," Mulder insisted. "I'm sure I saw them."
"Where'd they go, then?" Scully asked.
The two were still trying to catch their breath when they heard an
engine revving and, after a moment, the sounds of metal on metal. They
looked at one another and headed for the car, Scully pulling out her
phone to call for backup.

Methos was impressed with Kaul's proficiency. I guess using new
Immortals for practice day in and day out helps one hone one's skills,
he decided.
The two of them fought from the point where Kaul had stopped the bike,
in through one warehouse, into an adjoining factory, into yet another
adjoining warehouse, and out onto a crane boom that jutted out over the
water.
Didn't bring my climbing shoes, Methos found himself quipping as he
fought for purchase on the wet frame of the boom. The only thing that
allowed him to keep his head was that Kaul was having as much trouble
staying up as he was.
"This can end right here, Kaul," Methos said as he continued to block,
parry, and thrust. "If you agree to stop hunting down all the pre- and
new-Immortals, and go take a vacation for a while, we can settle this
peacefully."
"This definitely will end here, Methos," Kaul shot back, "but it's going
to be far from peaceful."
Methos shrugged. "Have it your way." He launched forward again, engaging
Kaul's blade with his own.
They wrestled for a moment, and Kaul finally said, "I knew you were
going to be a pain the day I met you, old man. You should've learned to
finish things that you started."
"And you," Methos said, "should've learned to do as your elders told you."

Luca had heard the fight as soon as it started, and tried to make her
way through the maze of buildings to the combat site. Every now and
then, she caught a glimpse of a shiploading crane with two figures atop it.
She smiled when she saw one sword go flinging away from the duo, knowing
it was Kaul's traditional disarming tactic at work.

Methos was chagrined to find himself suddenly weaponless. He looked
around, then down forty feet to the asphalt below, where his sword lay.
"It's your time, old man," Kaul chortled. "Why don't you make this easy
for both of us, and just assume the position?"
After a long moment, Methos, with an expressionless face, started to
sink down, hands to his knees. He began to raise his chin, but just as
his knees touched the metal framework, he ducked and rolled through the
open lattice of the crane's superstructure, grabbing onto the bottom
horizontal support strut, ten feet below-but still thirty feet above the
ground.
He saw from this new perspective that the crane's horizontal segment was
far from straight; in fact, it arched down sharply closer where it met
the vertical support legs. He scrambled, hand-over-hand, in that
direction, while trying to avoid attacks from above by Kaul.
When he felt he could withstand it, he let go and dropped; from
twenty-four feet, it was still a hell of a fall, but the couple of ribs
that he broke in his landing were already healed by the time he'd run
over and snatched up his sword.
"Oop," he said, smiling and whirling around to face Kaul, who was mere
yards behind him now, also on the ground. "Now we're back to square one."
They fought for several more minutes, each man gaining and losing the
upper hand many times over the course of those minutes. Their clothes
started to look like bargain-basement rags, tattered and torn from all
the nicks and scratches each man had given the other.
At long last, Methos saw an opportunity, and went for it. Kaul tried to
put his blade through Methos' gut, and Methos held his own sword out,
using Kaul's momentum to run him through, right to the hilt.
Kaul's face took on a look of shock, and he went pale, as even his
Immortal physiology would need time to heal such a severe wound. Methos
pushed him off the sword and he fell to a sitting position; momentarily,
Methos' blade ended up poised at Kaul's neck.
Kaul looked up at Methos' face. He said with a sneer, "I'll do my best
to give you a Dark Quickening."
Methos smiled his annoying smile and shook his head once or twice.
"Thanks anyway, but.. been there, tried that, hated the T-shirt."
The oldest man alive jerked his sword up and towards him, the sawing
motion finishing Kaul off neatly. The body fell one way, the head the other.

Luca looked up as a bolt of lightning came from the other side of the
building. She smiled and silently congratulated Kaul for another job
well done, and she continued to walk around the building to watch the
end of the Quickening.
Then a sound came from around the corner that made her blood freeze. It
was the scream of an Immortal as he took in the power of a Quickening,
but the part that sent an icicle of nitrogen through Luca was that it
wasn't Kaul's voice.
"No.." she whispered. She bolted for the corner of the building and
stopped short to see Methos standing over Kaul's headless body, the
Quickening pouring the life out of Kaul and into Methos.
"No!!" Luca screamed, drawing her sword. She ran forward to take the
bastard's head while he was still debilitated by the effects of the
Quickening, but just then, she saw and heard a fleet of police cars
rushing down the pier.
Kaul must be avenged, but now is not the time to do it, she decided.
She'd have to wait until Methos was otherwise distracted-there was no
point of committing a murder in plain view of the police.
She ran to her left and jumped off the pier into the water, leaving
Methos to hopefully himself be caught by the police.

7:58PM
JOE'S BAR

Dawson looked up as the back door opened. Unnoticed by the patrons
crowded into the bar, Methos, soaked head to toe, sloshed up to the
backside of the bar.
"What in God's name happened to you?!" Joe shouted over the music.
"I took a swim in the blasted harbor, what does it look like happened to
me?" Methos snapped as he squished his way into the back room.
"What did you do that for?" Joe said as he shut the door; the back room
became rather quiet in contrast to the rest of the bar.
"Because if I didn't, the bloody FBI were going to pick me up for
lopping off Kaul's head." Methos took off his coat and hung it over a
chair, then removed his shirt and tried to wring it out.
"Hey! At least do that over the sink, willya?" Joe protested. Then, as
Methos got up and crossed the room, Joe added: "You got him?"
"Just him," Methos answered, shaking the water out of his shirt into the
sink. "Not Luca. She's right pissed, too."
"I can imagine," Joe nodded. After a beat, he said, "Does she know you
came here?"
"I doubt it; she jumped into the water just before I did, and headed the
other direction." Methos shook his shirt once or twice and then hung it
over a cupboard door. "I wasn't followed."
There was a banging on the door leading to the bar, and Joe and Methos
looked up. One of the bartenders was there, gesturing to the main doors
and pantomiming a badge.
Before Joe or Methos had time to react, the two FBI agents were pushing
the bartender aside and the door open.
"Mister Pierson, fancy meeting you here," the one named Mulder said with
a smile. "Get caught in a rainstorm?"
"Actually, a police cruiser went through a puddle and soaked me," Methos
said, trying to dry off his hair with a dish towel. "One minute I'm on
the sidewalk minding my own business, then, bam, I'm sopping wet."
"I wish we could believe that," the other one-Scully-said. Methos
studied her as she spoke. "However, we can place you leaving the scene
of a murder tonight."
Methos gasped facetiously. "A murder! Here in Seacouver." He turned to
face Dawson. "What's this town of yours coming to, Joe?"
"It was right outside your building," Mulder added.
"That's a new one on me," Methos snapped back. "'Guilt by community
association'. I'll bet there's someone out in the alley snorting some
coke. Does that mean everyone in the bar should be arrested?"
"Do you have anyone who can vouch for your whereabouts for the last six
hours?"
"Sure. I was right here-ask any of the two hundred or so people out
there on the floor."
"You've been here since two this afternoon?" Scully asked. "When were
you outside so this police car could splash you?"
"He went tearing through the back alley without due regard for anyone's
safety. I was helping to bring in the day's deliveries, and the back
door was open."
Mulder and Scully were obviously not convinced. "I think perhaps you
should come with us," Mulder said.
Methos was about to mouth off again when Joe, uncharacteristically calm,
held up his hands. "Enough," he said quietly. "Enough."
"Adam didn't do it," Dawson said to Mulder and Scully. "I did."
"What?" Methos said with disbelief.
"What?" Mulder echoed. "You killed the man on the pier?"
"He killed a bunch of my friends," Joe said. "Eye for an eye."
Mulder and Scully looked at one another, seemingly sorting out what
they'd heard, and then they approached Joe and started to read him his
rights.
"Dawson, what in blazes are you doing?" Methos said.
Joe looked up while his hands were being cuffed. He shrugged and nodded.
"I did it, Adam. I couldn't stand to see anyone else get killed."
"But-"
"Take care of the bar for me, will you?" Joe asked Methos.
"Let's go," Mulder said. He turned to face Methos. "And you.."
"I know, I know, don't leave town."
Mulder nodded, and he and Scully led Joe Dawson outside.

24 APRIL 1998 08:05AM
SEACOUVER 52 DIVISION POLICE STATION

Methos sat down at the visitors' desk and watched as Joe, clad in a
bright orange jumpsuit, was ushered to the seat on the other side of the
Lexan. They each picked up a handset.
"What in the hell do you think you're doing?!" Methos blurted out.
"Hi to you too; I'm just great, thanks for asking," Dawson said with a
smile.
"Listen to me-you're just lucky they were able to match Kaul's sword
with the wounds on about half the other bodies, or you'd be up on about
four or five more murder charges than you are now," Methos said.
"Doesn't matter," Joe shook his head. "Kaul won't be killing any more."
"Yes, but you don't have to go to jail for it!"
"Would you rather you were in here?" Joe hissed as quietly as he could.
"You yourself said the job was still left unfinished. You need to sort
things out, Adam. Go finish what you started, and never mind me or what
I did."
Methos sat there, staring at Dawson.
"Go, go already," Joe urged. "Before someone else gets hurt."
Reluctantly, Methos returned the handset to its cradle. He stood, then
stared down at the still-seated Dawson. Then, without a word, he turned
and walked away.

08:21AM

"Listen-I can't keep holding him here without a charge," the deputy
police chief told Mulder.
"But he confessed-"
"Is that what you're going to go on? I'm asking just so we can be on the
same page here. I want to be sure that you're implying that a Vietnam
vet with no legs danced around with a biker for half an hour in a
swordfight before he stabbed him in the gut and then cut his bloody head
off. Is that what you're saying?"
"That's what he's saying," Mulder argued.
"Does Quantico cause the rational part of your mind to go to mush?" the
chief shot back. "Do you believe that he did it?"
"It doesn't matter what I believe-"
"Do you believe him?" the chief hollered back.
"Of course I don't!" Mulder snapped. "But he signed a damned confession!"
"I'm releasing him," the chief said flatly. "I can run him up on a
charge of mischief, but that's it."
"Mulder, he's right," Scully said. "There's nothing we can go on here."
Mulder shook his head and rolled his eyes towards the ceiling. "What the
hell."

10:15AM

Joe tested the bar's front doors. They pulled open smoothly, unlocked.
Just as I suspected.
Also as he suspected, Adam Pierson/Methos was sitting there waiting for him.
"That was incredibly stupid," Methos said quietly.
"Did you take Luca yet?"
"No, of course not," Methos snapped back. "I can't find her."
"She's hiding from you?"
"Well, I haven't exactly stood out on the street waving a sign, you
know, but no, she hasn't been here at the bar or up at the prison. At
least not within range of me."
"So what are you going to do now?"
"I'm going to get a Watcher buddy of mine to make a few calls and see if
he can't weasel Luca's location out of her Watcher."
Dawson's expression was dark. "Not asking much, are you?"
"Well, it's not like you're finding her for MacLeod or anything-I'm just
another researcher, you know."
"You haven't done any Watcher work in over a year."
"Picky, picky. Gonna help me or not?"

12:34PM

Methos came back downstairs into the bar. "Still no news?"
"Uh-huh," Joe nodded. "At least we haven't received word that Luca's
taken anyone else's head yet."
Methos knew why that was: She was saving all her anger for him. He'd
been the one to fight and take Kaul; he was the one she would unload all
her fury upon.
As if on cue, the phone rang, and Dawson snatched it up. "Joe's," he
answered.
A few seconds passed, and he mumbled a few yesses and nos here and
there. Then he said, "So, Stanley Park, then?" while he looked up at Methos.
Methos mouthed a thank-you and headed for the door. Dawson carried on
his conversation. "Yeah, that's great. No, actually, just some research.
I know, but MacLeod's outta town, and I gotta keep myself busy somehow,
right? .. Okay, thanks, Elisa. I owe you one."
He hung up the phone and noticed that the door was opening again, this
time from outside. The old bastard finally did it, he told himself. He
finally forgot his sword or something.
Joe was entirely nonplussed to see Special Agents Mulder and Scully
enter the room.

1:51PM

Since Seacouver had been established, Stanley Park had expanded
somewhat. It was the second-largest greenspace within a city in North
America now.
That didn't make Methos' job any easier. He found himself traversing all
the walking paths, scanning intently for any sign of Luca.
He abruptly sensed a faint Buzz approaching from behind. Damn, not you
two again! he cursed the FBI agents. He hid his sword and turned around-
-to find Agent Scully, alone, not more than thirty feet away. He
initiated the conversation: "Where's your partner?"
"Looking for you, in another part of the park," Scully said. "What are
you doing here?"
"Enjoying the beautiful late spring weather," he answered. "Checking out
the flowers, watching the world go by.."
"Mister Pierson," Scully cut in, "Even though your friend Mr. Dawson
won't tell us anything, we have a good idea of what your involvement in
this is. I think it's time we dropped the charade and really came clean
about what's been going on here."
Methos weighed his options for a few moments, reminding himself that
Luca was still out somewhere in these very woods, no doubt looking for
him. He didn't have much time-definitely not enough to get picked up by
the police.
"All right.. I'll tell you. But you have to promise to keep an open
mind. This is going to sound rather unbelievable."
Scully nodded, implying that he should get on with it.
"Very well. I believe," he said, rolling up his left sleeve, "that
you've been looking for this symbol."
Scully's eyes widened as she saw the tattoo on Pierson's wrist. It was
definitely the emblem from the book, and identical to the ones on the
wrists of the three stabbed-to-death victims.
"That's not all," he said. "Also-"
He had been reaching under his coat, but he stopped short and looked
around with a fierce gaze to the nearby bushes.
"Go find your partner and get out of here," he suddenly said sharply.
"I'm not kidding-leave here now."
With that, Pierson fled off into the forest, and Scully first stood
there watching him, then tried to follow.

Methos followed the Buzz until he had to be theoretically on top of it.
It was at its strongest exactly where he was standing. Realization
struck him, and he looked up into the nearest tree. He saw a flurry of
arms, legs, and a sword, as Luca jumped down and attacked.
The two of them rolled on the ground for a moment, then separated and
stood, circling one another.
"I should've settled this 200 years ago," Luca growled.
"Funny," Methos shrugged. "I was just thinking the same thing."
"What stopped you?" Luca asked, sending a jab Methos' way, which he
easily parried.
"I had a different sense of right and wrong back then," he explained.
"Silly me, I had this crazy notion that perhaps the two of you were right."
"We were," Luca said. "And I still am. You could be, too, if you'd join
me, in Kaul's place."
"Hmm.. no," Methos said in a second or two. With that, the fight was
back in full swing.
Methos swung around and landed a deep gouge on Luca's non-weapon arm.
She kept fighting, even after Methos had cut deep on her leg as well.
She hobbled about until it healed, then once again was back to full
strength.
She got her own share of hits in on Methos, too. He looked down at his
fresh clothes-the only extra pair he'd rescued from his
now-under-24-hour-surveillance apartment-and saw large bloodstains,
surrounding several wide rents in the cloth.
Several long minutes passed, the both of them exchanging blows left and
right.
"What permits you to decide who is right and who is wrong?" Luca asked.
"Who are you to say that what Kaul and I have been doing for centuries
is not what was intended to be?"
"I'm the oldest of our kind," Methos answered bluntly. "That means I've
seen so much more than the rest of you. And I know that killing
innocent, unassuming children is definitely not part of the Game."
Methos noticed that Luca appeared to be tiring, as was he. "I'll tell
you the same thing I told Kaul. If you put your sword down now, you can
walk out of here with your head." He had to pause briefly to continue
defending himself. "That's the only way I'll let you out of here alive."
"We'll see about that," Luca roared. "For what you did to Kaul, you must
be punished!"
Methos let her come at him, then he made a move as if to step sideways
and use her momentum to his advantage. Instead, as she saw his course
change and corrected herself, he reversed direction again and ended up
charging her with his sword held at neck-height.
In a few seconds, it was all over but the Quickening.
Bolts slammed into Methos again and again, as they always had. He was
powerless to stop them, and found himself standing nearly erect, back
arched, arms and legs flung out to his sides as far as they could reach.
He felt the power of thousands of Quickenings enter him, and he screamed
involuntarily as he was subjected to the storm.
Finally, the Quickening ended, leaving him falling to his knees, fully
spent. It took half-a-minute for him to recover, and when he did, he
realized he was feeling a faint Buzz from nearby. He looked up and saw
Special Agent Scully tentatively approaching from the edge of the clearing.
Methos continued to try to catch his breath as he addressed Dana. "You
don't know what we are, yet, do you?" he said. "It's best that you
forget about this, I think, for now. There'll be plenty of time for
explanations later."
"You're-"
"I'm a figment of your imagination," the man in front of Scully said
with some force, as he got to his feet. "You don't know me, you never
saw me, and you never saw her, either. If you keep telling yourself
that, it'll be best for all of us."
Pierson spun and rapidly strode into the depths of the park, tucking the
sword under his coat as he called out, "I will see you around, FBI."

26 APRIL 1998 11:21PM

For the longest time, Scully sat before her computer, a half-finished
report on the screen. She and Mulder had returned to Washington; Mulder
hadn't witnessed what she had, but he was satisfied that the two who
were responsible for the string of killings that they'd been sent to
investigate were now dead.
Adam Pierson had vanished. So had the man in the bar that had tried to
take the blame for the red-haired biker's death. The bar was closed,
stripped bare, as was Pierson's apartment.
It was as if they had both never existed.
Much like some of the victims, Scully realized abruptly.
She wondered how Pierson had always been able to tell that she was near.
In addition, she reviewed the things she'd seen on the afternoon of the
24th, and couldn't make sense of it. She'd watched the gruesome sight of
Pierson cutting the head off of the female murder suspect, and then, as
Mountain Man had claimed in the original case, the corpse levitated off
the ground, the air filled with a strange mist, and lightning emanated
from the corpse and traveled to Pierson, striking him hundreds of times
in the course of about ninety seconds.
Dana looked at the screen before her, with the incomplete and
incomprehensible report on it. She began to mark a section, preparing to
replace it with new text, but at the last moment, she marked the entire
body of text, deleted it, and shut the computer off.

-fin-