WWF

Seven

With a yawn Ethan wakes up.

"Morning sunshine." Jules comments.

"Morning. Are you still reading that?" Ethan asks pointing at the book in Jules' hand.

"It's a good story. I'll lend it to you sometime." Jules replies.

"I don't really read comics." Ethan counters.

"It's not a comic. It's a manga. I'll lend it to you anyway." Jules chuckles.

Only then does Ethan notice a weight on his right shoulder. Looking down at what's causing the slight pressure, he sees that it's Alice, sleeping soundly with her head on his shoulder.

"You two have gotten pretty close haven't you?" Kyle asks.

"We have a lot in common." Ethan replies with a cheerful smile.

"Making friends is a good thing. It builds trust and trust helps keep soldiers alive. But, it can also cause pain. A lot of pain." Gray says while polishing a gun.

For a moment everyone is quite.

"I've never seen a weapon like that before. What is it?" Ethan asks, looking at the weapon.

"This is a six shot repeater. It's part of a pair." Gray replies, turning the gun so that Ethan can see it more easily.

"My dad gave it to me before he passed." He adds.

"And you're probably gonna give it to your kid.'' Ethan says, unable to tear his eyes from the weapon.

"I doubt that." Gray replies with his voice sounding sad.

Ethan is about to ask why when the truck suddenly starts swerving before crashing into something.

"Off the truck now! Find cover!" Ace orders as he wakes up from his nap.

Everyone is about to do just that when the barrel of a Scatter Shot appears in front of them. And behind it a male wolf fur who appears to be in his late twenties early thirties.

"Hands where I can see them." The wolf barks.

Realising that their lives depended on their ability to follow his orders they do as he says. They continue to comply even when he orders them out of the truck without their weapons.

Glancing at the side mirror Ethan sees that the driver only has about a fifth of his head left.

Then he sees two more furs walk out of the woods.

"Hey Gwen." He greets, not sounding very enthusiastic about seeing her again.

"Hey Ethan. It's good to see you again." She greets back, being honest.

"You sure have a funny way of showing it." Ethan remarks.

"I'm sorry, but this is the job." Gwen replies.

"So what, you guys hunt down Nanos now?" Ethan asks, hoping to get some information from her.

"What are Nanos?" Gwen asks, sounding as confused as she is.

"Wait, you guys know each other." The cheetah suddenly asks.

"Veera, this is Ethan. He's the human who fought against Clint with me." Gwen explains.

"He didn't run away did he?" Veera asks, looking slightly disappointed in Gwen.

"No, I was the one who ran. I'm sorry." Gwen apologizes.

"Sniper." Alice suddenly says shoving Ethan to the side just as a high powered round whizzes past his face.

"Stand down. This is not the plan." The wolf says into his radio mere moments before his head is blown off by the sniper.

"The fucker got Kyle!" Veera exclaims as she jumps behind a tree.

"I knew there was something fishy about this op." Gwen adds from behind her own cover.

"Thanks for that." Ethan thanks Alice once him and his team are in cover behind the crashed truck.

"So what the fuck are we gonna do about him?" Grease asks, jabbing her thumb in the direction of the sniper.

"If I can get to my weapon I can eliminate the sniper." Alice says, her voice almost impossible to hear.

"But your gun's in the truck." Jules reminds them.

"That won't be an issue." Gray says showing them a small knife.

"Always come prepared." Ace chuckles as he puts away his own knife.

Gray then cuts open the tarp that's covering the back of the truck so that Ethan can lift Alice inside. A few seconds later she jumps out of the hole, gun in hand.

"Throw a rock just before you want me to shoot." Alice tells Ethan.

"Sure thing." He replies picking up a nice large rock.

Then, with his fingers he counts down. Three, two, one.

Without putting too much strength into it he throws the rock, which almost immediately explodes as it's shot by the sniper. As soon as it explodes, Alice peaks out from behind the truck with her gun. She waits a mere instant before a loud *BOOM* echoes around them as she pulls the trigger.

"Eliminated." She says after a brief silence.

Simultaneously everyone gives a sigh of relief.

"Hey Ethan?" Gwen asks coming to Ethan.

"What's up?" He replies, momentarily forgetting that they're technically still enemies.

"Can we call a temporary cease fire? We'd like to bury our dead." Gwen asks.

"Sure. We have our own dead to bury anyway." He agrees, remembering the dead driver.

"Thank you." Gwen says before she and Veera go to Kyle's corpse.

"Are you alright?" Alice asks, lifting Ethan's arm as if to inspect it.

"I'm fine. You did good Alice. I'm proud of you." Ethan replies, with an almost paternal smile.

Alice responds with a small smile of her own.

"C'mon guys, let's bury the driver." Ace says, standing up.

Ethan decides that he'll wait a bit before asking Gwen who had sent them after him. Although he already has a feeling he knows who it is.

And he'd rather not hear that name ever again.