Nine months ago.

"It turned blue," Lisa said, holding up the pregnancy test strip.

Richard gasped, pleasantly surprised. He swept her in his arms and whirled her around.

Lisa squealed. "P-Put me down, Richard!" She was blushing.

"I'm so happy!" He gave her another whirl.

"Trust me, I can tell." She giggled.

He finally put her down and kissed her deeply.

Lisa couldn't stop blushing. They'd been married for six years now. Yet their love felt like it happened yesterday--still young, still full of hope.

She looked down at the test strip and felt a fist of nervousness clenching her heart. "Are we doing it right though?" She looked out the living room window, the purple sky was like a sore bruise glaring down at the city. "Is this really the right time to have a child, Richard? Especially the way C3 has become?"

His gaze never left her face, neither did it lose its tenderness. "Is that really how you feel?" He took her hand in his. "Are you getting second thoughts, honey?"

Lisa couldn't look him in the eye. She knew he was regarding her with the utmost fondness that she sometimes found terrifying. "Being a mother is hard, Richard," she said. "But being a mother in a warzone is..." she trailed off.

Richard gazed at her for a moment longer. Then he looked at the purple sky outside. "We can still abort," he said.

Lisa clutched his hand tighter, almost as if she'd fallen off a cliff, and his grasp on her was her only anchor. Richard stroked the back of her hand with his thumb. "Y-You're just saying it for my sake, aren't you?" she said.

He frowned at her. "Your sake is my sake." he said. "How am I supposed to be fine with it if you aren't fine with it?"

Lisa laid her head on his lap, her fingers gripped the hem of his shirt. "You always wanted to be a dad," she said, barely whispering.

He smiled down at her, stroking her hair. "More than that, I want to have a family. With you," he said, "and when we do have it, I want both of us to be excited for it."

There was that feeling of nervousness again, clenching her heart. She nuzzled his shirt, feeling almost like a child in his caring proximity. Richard kept stroking her hair.

They stayed that way for a while before Lisa finally looked up at him. "I want to have this child, Richard," she said.

Richard's tender expression was like a lake at dawn. "Are you sure?"

Lisa smiled. "How can I ever be unsure with you by my side?"

He leaned down and planted a soft kiss on her forehead. "I'll be the best father there was. And a better husband."

"You already are, my love," she said. "You already are."

###

Cathy and Erik were at the first floor stairwell when the big crowd of inmates came down. Cathy raised her hand. They all came to a halt when they saw the red and white fist of the Last Hand that was painted on her kevlar vest. "We're all heading for the armory before we walk out!" She bellowed out at the crowd.

One of the inmates at the front of the crowd, Gary Wan, spoke up. "So you're the new guys who took the leadership after the siblings?" he said.

"I'm the only new one here," Cathy said.

Gary raised an eyebrow and looked at the man standing next to her. He read the name tag that read: 'Marllowe'. Gary scoffed. "So you're an official member now, Greg?" Gary said.

Erik shook his head. "It's me."

Gary almost didn't believe he was hearing that voice again. "We all thought you died," he said.

Erik shrugged. "Not the first time everyone thought that," he said, "not the first time I proved everyone wrong."

Gary couldn't help but laugh at the statement. "You didn't change one bit!" He stepped forward and wrapped his arms around Erik. "I'm so glad you're back."

Erik was stiff for a moment before he finally hugged Gary back. "Of course I did. I will never abandon my people."

###

Five minutes had passed since the warden had made that surrender announcement. Gemma sat behind the wheel of the firetruck, staring at the digital clock set in the dashboard.

None of the operatives had fired in the past five minutes. Erik's strategy of fear had turned out to be way more effective than she'd expected. This was a High Security prison with about eighty-something operatives at work. That was a lot of manpower along with a lot of firepower. And just four people had broken through their defenses and wrestled them into submission. Any minute now, all their friends would walk out of the big blasted entrance of the main building, their unfair sentences cut short.

She found it a bit hard to believe that the plan had gone so well. But then again, they currently had the strongest weapon that the Ardvenian army had to offer. She looked at the peacebringer truck that was right in front of her firetruck.

The vehicle stood in all its ominous glory. A metallic beast branded with the Last Hand's insignia. Its guns still hot after its last barrage on the prison building. Lisa had really made that truck her own. Gemma remembered the condition of the truck's operating manual that Lisa had ploughed through in the last month. The hefty tome Erik had brought along with the truck was now tattered and the pages were thumbed to death.

This mission would've been impossible if not for Lisa's mastery on the vehicle. The "test drive" that Erik and Gemma took Lisa to had been...quite the annihilation.

The food processing warehouses in the industrial zone were laying in a pile of ash and mortar. And Lisa had only used about seven percent of the peacebringer's ammunition. It had been a terrifying experiment. She couldn't believe the Neville woman had gotten this dangerous from all the time she spent with the operating manual.

Gemma almost felt a bit disappointed that despite all that prep and Lisa hadn't really gotten a chance to use the peacebringer to its true potential. But she pushed away the thought just as quickly as it came. Displaying their artillery wasn't as important as freeing the inmates. This was a rescue mission for a reason. "Keep the casualties to a minimum," she'd said to everyone the previous evening. She was glad they'd stuck to that objective.

Gemma kept gazing at the truck as all these thoughts went through her head. She wondered what was going on in Lisa's mind right now.

###

Abigail, Janine, Martha, Jennifer, Rose, Nina. Lisa had scribbled all the names in the back of her notebook. The same notebook that was filled with all the combat and defense sequences of the peacebringer truck. She scanned the list of names, trying to find the one that sounded best for their daughter.

It had been ten minutes since the warden's announcement. Soon, all the inmates would be walking out of the main entrance of the prison building. The mission was pretty much in the bag for the Last Hand. So Lisa had let her mind wander away to the thoughts of her daughter.

But that was a lie. Her mind hadn't been on the mission since the beginning. She had been thinking of her baby girl before they even started blasting the reinforced gates of the prison. She'd gotten bored of staring at the words embedded in the wall of the prison building: Protection of the law is service to humanity. So she had gone back to reviewing names she'd put down in the notebook.

They'd left the kid with Brendan. She wondered if he was tending to her right. She shouldn't have doubted him. He was a great guy, no matter whom you asked about him. But it had barely been a week since she gave birth. She couldn't stop worrying for the baby no matter what.

Lucia, Roberta, Opal, Hannah, Rebecca. She scoffed. In the middle of a prison-takeover and she still needed a better distraction from the thoughts of her daughter. She found herself chuckling at the situation.

But she knew, that was a lie too. It wasn't really the worry for her daughter that kept bugging her. It was Richard whose thoughts she was trying to keep at bay.

But how could she? Now that their baby girl was born and healthy, Richard wasn't here to hold her and cradle her and rock her to sleep. He wouldn't be here to comfort her when she would imagine a boogeyman in her closet. He would never get to teach her how to ride a bicycle. This child was going to grow up without a father. And who was the one responsible?

Protection of the law is a service to humanity.

Lisa scoffed at the words stamped on the stone wall of the prison building. These were the same people who chased her husband like bloodhounds. The same people who came after her when she was six months pregnant. Same people that almost killed Cathy. This was their service to humanity?!

Shame on them and everyone who believed these monsters!

Lisa's hands clenched the steering wheel, perspiration dotted her forehead. Her frantic gaze kept flitting back to the sequence panel.

14797 would unleash a barrage of high powered machine guns with incendiary projectiles that explode after penetrating their target. 3186 would launch two cluster bombs that can obliterate the ground floor and in effect bring the entire structure of the building crashing down like a house of cards. She would then simply soften the rubble and take out any remaining survivors by shelling whatever's left. The world's strongest weapon was in her hands. And the people who'd wronged her and taken away everything she loved were right in front of her. Why shouldn't she use it?

"Why shouldn't I?" She muttered. "Why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't–"

Shadows appeared in the main entrance of the prison building. People stepping out. People with guns. More than a hundred of them. Cathy and Erik were leading the big army. The mission had been a success! They'd rescued their friends from the prison.

That meant no one important was inside the building anymore. No one who deserved to live at least.

Her fingers twitched, itching to enter the rapid sequences she'd practiced so much throughout the past month. "Why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't I? Why shouldn't–"

###

Macie saw the huge crowd of people walking out of the prison building. Two silhouettes in battle gear were leading them towards the gates. She couldn't believe this was actually happening. Sector 25's High Security prison had been breached by only a couple of people and they'd bent the government to their will. She'd only heard the rumors about the scale of destruction the Last Hand had caused in the Sector 21 riots. She never expected their strength to be this...terrifying.

And that truck that stood menacingly by the entrance. It had blasted through the reinforced steel like it was made of paper. They could take down the entire government in a few days. Now they even had the numbers. Was Ardvenia on the brink of anarchy?

Macie's reverie was interrupted when she noticed a single figure diverging from the crowd, arms waving wildly. It was one of the prison operatives. "It's Hal!" She gasped. She remembered what she'd almost forgotten. She rushed down the watchtower. "Hal! I wanted to tell you something!" She descended as quickly as she could, only to find Hal on his knee, smiling under his gas mask, eyes brimming with hope and passion. And he had a ring in his hand.

Macie couldn't believe what she saw. Her voice trembled as she said, "H-H-Hal...is this...?"

He smiled. "I was afraid of dying before I could say this," he said. "I'm glad I'm still alive, if it's only for me to say these words: Macie Bell, will you marry me?"

Macie couldn't stop the tears. She charged at him and tackled him with a hug. "I love you, Hal!" She could've kissed him right there if they hadn't been wearing the gas masks.

Hal lay under her in the dirt, holding her in his arms, feeling content that his love for her wasn't something disposable. Not something that would fade with time. Not something that succumbed to circumstances. He was glad that it was as real as he'd felt it from the start. And that's how it would always be.

BLAM!

Macie looked up and saw the main prison building catching fire as the brick wall exploded. And the armored truck was preparing to fire a lot more.

###

Gemma had just backed the firetruck out the shattered main gates when the explosion rang like an ominous gong. The prison building's facade came crumbling down in a sea of smoke and fire. She could feel the tremors through the footwell of the truck. The freshly rescued inmates looked on in horror and fascination surrounding her.

She couldn't believe what she was looking at. The armored truck had discharged the cluster rockets, the missiles, the machine guns on the prison building and kept firing until the entire five storey structure turned to a huge pile of mortar and rubble. There had been more than fifty operatives who had been working there. They all were buried underneath it now. A shiver ran up her spine.

"What the hell have you done, Lisa?"

###

Erik and Cathy shouldered their way through the crowd of rescued inmates the moment they heard the explosions. By the time they entered the prison grounds, the armored truck was already moving around the big pile of rubble, now targeting the northeastern and northwestern watchtowers.

"Why is she doing this?!" Cathy yelled over the roaring machine gunfire.

"She's gone berserk!"

"Then how are we even supposed to stop her?!"

"We can't just stand and look!"

But it was too late. The mayhem and destruction had already quadrupled by the time they got anywhere close to the truck. Whatever they'd seen of the prison facility earlier was now leveled to a heap of nothing. Blasted to oblivion. The structures were gone. And the people were landfill. In just fifteen minutes.

Cathy and Erik stared in horror as the truck finally came to a halt. Smoke rose out of its guns, mingling with the smoke rising out of the rubble. The driver's side door swung open. Lisa climbed out.

She gazed at the chaos she'd caused, the fortress she'd felled, the people she'd killed and let out a sigh of content. Can you see this, Richard? Are you at peace?