--5 days later--

“Yo, I gotta say, with all due respect, old lady, you’re actually a pretty good, if not great, fighter!”

“Next time you call me that, I’ll kill you. Blow up your other leg.”

“Then, if you did that, I’d need to get another peg leg!!”

After the battle, the Bear God Army hauled not only the horribly damaged body of Bear God back to their hideout, they also grabbed the Black Viper members that were resting in their cars. Dark Cobra, Shadow Komodo, and Nightmare Gator were part of those few people, and they woke up with their injuries being poorly treated in an abandoned warehouse. Initially, they had been on the defensive, obviously worried that the group of revolutionary terrorists would react with aggression, but that worry subsided quickly.

At that point, nobody wanted to fight anymore. Their energy was too drained having gone against Cerberus.

Then, when Dark Cobra, or Evelyn Heres, told her two subordinates that the group was finished, they lost the will to fight themselves. Everything they had worked so hard for was gone, and from now on, in a position like that, they’d just be targets for other assassin groups. Disgraced and targeted, life was going to become terrible for them, so they might as well just let this group of red shirts do whatever.

Of course, Bear God was not such a heartless man.

As soon as he woke up, and realized that his past enemies had come under his lodging, accepted them into his army.

Shadow Komodo dropped his alias, joined without a second for consideration, introducing himself as Lobo Adogora. His natural chattiness and charisma very quickly made him popular.

Nightmare Gator also didn’t last long before he broke, deciding to choose his brother over loyalty to the organization. He just told people to call him Raga.

Stolen content warning: this tale belongs on Royal Road. Report any occurrences elsewhere.

Evelyn had a hard time accepting this.

Even though they were welcoming her companions without question, who had without question slaughtered other Bear God Army members, she had difficulty taking that leap. Perhaps it was because she had lived for so long as a Black Viper? To her, the death of the group was tantamount to her own death, and just letting it go so quickly was like resolving a suicide by watching a movie.

But even though she couldn’t join their group, there wasn’t any concern.

The Bear God Army was already packing itself up, planning to leave Paris. The battle would bring too much attention on them, and their membership was at an all time low. Because she was in practically no state to move, her body was hoisted onto the back of a pickup truck as they pulled out of the warehouse.

It was on the road, as they were driving, now days from that, when the truck carrying Evelyn was side by side with the one carrying Bear God.

She couldn’t feel much anger, anymore.

“Hey, fat russki, where the hell did you learn to fight by throwing tires anyway?” As she asked him the question, she gestured using the badly damaged prosthetic hand. Without Institute support, it wouldn’t be healed. Well, unless she tried to find Pandora’s Box.

“Ha! My ultimate, if not super-ultimate, technique, you ask!? Well, the answer, which you might not expect, is quite crazy! Back in the day, long ago, when I was a boy, but you were still a mature woman, we rolled tires down a hill! What a fun time! It was enjoyable, rolling the tires down, sometimes very fast, and we would get inside, and get very dizzy. Then, when my friends would, without warning, beat me up, they made me catch the tires. And I threw them! It was a lot of fun! Very much fun!”

…

“Is that literally the only reason? There isn’t anything better? You just decided one day to carry them around as weapons?”

“Exactly!”

Evelyn sighed. This was what she was going to be stuck with as she recovered. God damnit. Maybe it would have been better to die.

“Where are we all going, anyway?”

“No idea! I don’t make the rules!”

“You...how does this army even run if the general doesn’t make decisions?”

But Bear God didn’t answer and just laughed as their two trucks began to separate. For now, it would just be more silence as they drove through the chilly mountainous area. One day, she may be able to join this army. If she didn’t die first, of course. The amount of freedom they seemed to have, just doing whatever they wanted at any time was completely alien to someone so strict like her. It came with its own set of stresses. So until the time came that she was able to just accept this travelling sideshow of freaks, the only thing she could do was wait.