by The Eurostar, Sonja and T5
Gorky Park, Moscow, USSR, October 3, 1988, 11:10 P.M., local time:
A young man hid behind a screen of shrubs, talking into a small mouthpiece. "This is Giorgio. I've jumped downstream and located the bio-signature of the lost agent. It seems that she has found her double just before her death at the hands of a demon. Yes, I said a D-E-M-O-N. The agent has taken the place of her double, but it seems she's possessed by the demonic entity. I await further instructions."
Then a police car arrives, lighting up the place. Giorgio disappears.
The two policemen walk to the middle of a green, where they find the dead corpse of a tall, young woman, with Oriental features. The name on her identity card reads "Nadia Ljzavet."
While the three amigos of the team ran toward the mysterious island, in the headquarters of MBL Consulting, Sonja Ljzavet approached Naecken, who was looking out of one of the main windows, staring at the perfectly blue sky.
"Nae... um..." the girl began, seeming uneasy. "Nae, Tobias told me many interesting things about the time before I joined your group. I was wondering if what he told me was really the truth. Were you really a winged blue angel, then? Are you really five people in one? You know, these things make me really curious."
Naecken's face was perfectly still, and no expression appeared on it. "So, the time has come," he whispered.
"What do you mean?" asked Sonja, somehow alarmed.
"He means that we know the truth, Sonja Ljzavet!" It was the voice of Marv Velo, who had just entered the room.
"What truth?"
"Who you are, your mission, your work..."
She was speechless.
Velo observed Sonja coldly. "Sonja Ljzavet, Russian Army Paranormal Research Agency (RAPRA), in charge of a mission to discover the outcome of a nuclear incident that occurred last year off the cost of Halè Island, Malaysia, an incident that involved the battle between an angel and a demon near the S.S. Mindoro, a luxury cruiser, an incident that, by the way, had created our friend, here: Naecken."
"There was no need to spy on me, lady. You could have asked," said Naecken, somewhat sad.
"How did you know...?" whispered Sonja.
"Easy. Thanks to our connection with Dr. Quantos, now we can tap into almost any classified computer network by using a sort of virus developed by Malvan-X, called the Lexicon. We now have complete access to any country's military database in the world."
Sonja did not retort with her usual boldness. She took her head within her hands and shook it. "No, it shouldn't have happened. No, not with you..."
She was dressed in shorts and a top, and Naecken and Velo watched, amazed, as her tattoo disappeared from her body.
Suddenly, a strong wind spun through the room, growing steadily into a true tornado that sent furniture, paper, and books all over the place, broke the windows, and even scraped the plaster from the walls.
And a huge, red, horned demon appears. "ANGEL, I WILL DRAPE YOUR SKIN OVER MY BODY!" he shouted.
It moved with lightning speed. Naecken barely got a grip around its neck, only to be covered in hellfire.
"Get out of here!" yelled Naecken as he stumbled on his knees with the demon in his right hand. "Tell the others to use their abilities to contain the damage. I will try to take this fight outside."
And with a grunt, he heaved his body out of the window and crashed onto the already rain-cracked pavement. The demon's claws ripped into Naecken, who was surprised that anything could actually hurt his tough skin. A vague memory about something forced into his forehead emerged, but quickly faded away.
The roars from the demon made all the windows open, and onlookers screamed at the sight of the combatants.
Naecken realized this was not going as well as he had planned. So he stood up and let go of the demon's neck. The demon quickly blasted Naecken with more hellfire, but Naecken ripped the roof of a nearby car and threw it at the demon, like a frisbee. The sharp metallic edge of the roof cut the head of the demon. But the demon still roared, and the body ran toward its head to pick it up.
Then suddenly it stopped. The head grimaced in both pain and surprise.
"Yaaaaaiii! Something calls... pulls me away from here! The pain! The darkness! AAaaaaeeeaaaahhhh!"
And with a scream that would be remembered by children for years, the head and the body disappeared into the rainy skies over the ocean.
Inside the house, the young woman called Sonja fell to the floor, once again herself, after being trapped with this cold entity.
With the demon defeated and gone, Neacken returned to the complex to find Tobias Christopher working at superspeed to seal the ruptures and fix the damages, while Danny Hearn, Marv Velo, Pete Glover, Kit Piper, and Shirley Francis had gathered around Sonja, who was crying hysterically, her usual boldness now totally gone.
"How is she?" asked the tall, dark-skinned being.
"Physically, she's fine," said Velo. "But she is obviously suffering a serious breakdown."
"I'll call a doctor," said Shirley.
"Yeah, and call Dr. Quantos. Ask if he could make an exception to his policy and come here. I suspect we'll need him. Shirley, please help her to her bed. We'll wait outside the door."
After a few minutes, the weeping stopped. Shirley opened the door, came out, and said, "She sleeps now. I'll call the doctor."
BANG!
The heroes ran inside the room. It was empty, like it should have been, but Sonja was on the floor, blood seeping from a wound on her back.
Outside the building, the Giorgio unit coldly walked away, his mission seemingly accomplished, but without a place to return.