In Case You're Just Joining Us: The Warriors failed in their attempt to prevent oil giant Roxxon's sabotage on one of its own devices. Roxxon escaped unscathed, as did their contracted saboteur, Spymaster. Out of sorts, and disillusioned, the team returned to the Crash Pad, only to be confronted by the all-new, very angry Night Thrasher.

The Crash Pad.

The New Warriors--Turbo, Bolt, Ultra Girl, Ricochet, and Spider-Woman--and Hornet (who was really just along for the ride) stared in astonishment at the heavily-armored man who had infiltrated their adopted headquarters, and who had just questioned their right to call themselves the New Warriors.

Bolt was the first to react. He stepped forward, fists clenched, little bolts of lightning zigzagging over his curled fingers. "Who are you? And what are you doing in our headquarters?"

"Your headquarters?" the armored man demanded. "I'm the founder of the New Warriors, Bolt. The real New Warriors. This is my headquarters."

Bolt's eyes narrowed. Whoever the guy was he knew his codename, and that meant he probably knew what he could do. Still, the guy was wearing armor, and no matter how well-insulated it was, a sufficiently strong lightning bolt would probably short out something. He took another step forward.

But then Spider-Woman was standing in his way. She gave Bolt a look, an I'll handle this look, and turned toward the other guy.

"Night Thrasher, right? That's a different look, more Iron Man than Batman, but it's gotta be you under there. Look, maybe you didn't get the memo or something, but Turbo over there cleared our staying here and using the name with the last team."

Spider-Woman looked over her shoulder, waiting for Turbo to verify this. But Turbo was looking away, not quite able to meet any of their eyes. Slowly, everybody in the room realized exactly what that meant.

"You did actually clear it with the old guys, didn't you?" Spider-Woman asked.

"I couldn't find any of them," Turbo sighed, pushing a lock of hair out of her face.

"Couldn't find any--" Bolt straightened, looking around the hangar. "You mean we've been trespassing all this time?"

"I talked to Justice and Firestar, but they didn't know how to get ahold of any of the others." She looked across the room. "Including you, Thrash. I was sure you wouldn't mind, once I actually got in touch with you."

"Except he apparently does mind, Turbo!" Spider-Woman said. "What the hell!"

"I'm sorry."

There was a beat of silence as everyone in the room took this in, and then Night Thrasher said, "You can't just waltz in here and call yourselves the Warriors. I don't even know any of you people except Turbo, and I'm not going to let you tarnish our na--"

"Tarnish?" Ricochet demanded. He'd been quiet up until this point, still dealing with what had happened at the Roxxon plant in Cairo, but now he exploded. "Who the hell are you to--?" He stopped, and waved a hand dismissively in Thrasher's direction. "Man, forget this. And forget you. You want the name all to yourself? Fine. I don't need this garbage."

He turned and leapt onto a nearby packing crate. From there, it was another impressive leap to one of the rotors of the War-Chopper. Springboarding off of that, he managed to snag the edge of the skylight, and a moment later he'd scrambled onto the roof.

"Rico!" Hornet cried. He willed his armor to take to the air, to follow his friend, but nothing happened, and he remembered his flight apparatus had been fried back in Cairo, courtesy of Sunturion.

"He's got the right idea," Spider-Woman said at Hornet's elbow. Then, to Night Thrasher, "You're a jerk."

She turned and leapt, following Ricochet's path---crate, helicopter rotors, skylight--and then she was gone too.

There was a beat of silence, and then Night Thrasher spoke again. "Turbo, I think we should talk alone."

Turbo nodded, but Bolt was shaking his head, slicing a hand palm-down through the air. "No way. It doesn't matter whether we're the Warriors or the Young Allies or freakin' Power Pack...we're still a team. And we're not going to let you get one of us all alone without knowing what your deal--"

A black-gloved hand fell on his shoulder, and he turned to follow its line up to Turbo's face. "It's okay, Bolt. I can handle this."

Bolt's mouth tightened into a line, and for a moment Turbo thought he was going to disregard her. But then he nodded stiffly, shot a scathing look at Night Thrasher, and then turned on his heels and moved toward the door. Shrugging, Hornet followed after him.

"Uh..." Ultra Girl said, realizing she was alone in the room with Turbo and the black armored skater guy, and further that she was standing directly in-between them. She raised a hand toward the departing backs of Bolt and Hornet, shouted, "Hey, wait up!" and hurried away across the hangar floor.

When they were alone, Turbo reached up and lifted her silver helmet off her head. As she was shaking her long black hair out, Night Thrasher did the same, opening his armor with a hiss of pressurized air.

Dwayne Taylor looked down at her from the Night Thrasher suit and sighed. "Mickey. What the hell did you think you were doing?"

"Rico! Hey Rico, wait up!"

Johnny Gallo paused in his headlong plunge down 7th Avenue and looked back. The man whose car he happened to be standing on immediately began blaring his horn, but Johnny gave him the hand. Spider-Woman was swinging toward him on a strand of psi-webbing. He frowned and turned away, leaping to the next car.

"Go away! I don't want to talk!"

"Yes you do! I can tell!"

Ricochet bounded off the hood of a conveniently-placed Honda, and just made the roof of a city bus as it blasted through a yellow light. He turned, watching with satisfaction as Spider-Woman lost ground in her pursuit. "If I wanted to talk to you, I would have brought up Spider-Man. Now buzz off!"

Scowling, Spider-Woman released her webline, letting it dissolve behind her as she touched down on the brick facade of a nearby building. She ran along the side of the building for a moment, picking up speed, then launched herself toward the traffic light Ricochet's bus had just passed, grabbing it and flipping gracefully over until her feet were braced on the aluminum arm of the light. Then she snapped her legs straight, sending her body rocketing out over the mid-afternoon traffic. She twisted once, and with a soft thump, landed on the bus' roof directly in front of her teammate.

"What the--? But you..." Rico looked back over his shoulder to where she'd been a moment before. "How did you do that?"

"Are you quitting?" she demanded.

"What?"

"You heard me. Are you quitting the team?"

"You heard Darth Vader back there. We can't be the New Warriors, hence there isn't a New Warriors to quit. Watch it. Low bridge."

Spider-Woman leapt straight up, and Rico did the same as a low-hanging traffic light swept over the top of the bus. They landed without incident, and Spider-Woman didn't miss a beat.

"You're going to listen to him?"

"You know what, Spider-Girl? I'm really not in the mood for this right now, and--"

She clenched her fists and shook them up by her face. "God! Why do you do that? Why do you call me anything but Spider-Woman?"

"To get reactions like that out of you, of course."

Ricochet suddenly leapt from the top of the bus. As Spider-Woman watched, he caught a lamppost and twirled halfway down it before launching himself towards a nearby building. He needed to bounce off an awning, but he managed to reach the fire escape he was aiming for without touching the ground. He began to scramble upward, toward the roof.

"Hey! Come back here!"

"What did I think I was doing? I thought I was keeping the Warriors alive."

Turbo pushed through the doors into the Crash Pad's main living quarters, flinging her helmet onto the kitchenette counter and moving toward her duffel bag. Night Thrasher followed, the bulk of his armor forcing him to duck through the doorway. The two of them were the only ones left in the building, it seemed--Bolt, Hornet, and Ultra Girl had already left.

"That isn't the issue," he said. "If you'd brought Vance or Robbie or Rich back, that would have been fine. I would have known the name and team was in good hands. Instead you've got this...motley assortment. I mean, do you even know anything about them?"

"I know they stood with me against the Super Skrull. I know what they lack in experience they make up for in heart. Turn around, Dwayne."

She was shucking the top of her uniform and, with another sigh, Night Thrasher put his back to her. As he listened to her changing behind him, he began disengaging the hermetic seals and clamps that kept his own armor securely fastened about him.

"You know," she said--and even though he couldn't see her, he could tell by the rough sounds she was making that she was really starting to get mad--"the original Warriors weren't always the honed, well-oiled team they eventually became. How can you sit in judgment on this group when they've been together barely a week?"

"The difference is that I handpicked all the originals. Nova, Marvel Boy, Firestar. I knew everything it was possible to know about them before I even approached them. And even when Speedball and Namorita came along, I made sure I found out all I could about them before giving them the key to the executive washroom. Has it occurred to you that maybe you don't know everything you might need to know about these people?"

"Stop beating around the damn bush, Dwayne. Do you know something I don't?"

Dwayne gave no reply, the soft sounds of his disengaging armor the only indications he was still there. With a sigh, Turbo zipped her capris up and turned.

Dwayne Taylor was standing next to the Night Thrasher armor, wearing a polo shirt and a pair of Dockers. He must have been wearing all that inside the suit, but everything looked like it had just stepped off the ironing board. He slapped a flat panel on the side of the armor, and it slid aside to reveal a pair of brown loafers. The size and the shape of the compartment suggested that this was exactly what it had been built to carry. He leaned over and slipped them on.

"Let's go for a walk."

The Coffee Bean.

"Uh...should you really have that out?" Suzy Sherman, aka Ultra Girl, asked. "What about your...you know..."

"My what?" Eddie asked, looking up from his work.

Suzy leaned over the table, cupping a hand to the side of her mouth. "Your secret identity."

Eddie looked down at the tabletop they were seated around--he and Bolt on one side of the booth, Ultra Girl on the other--and regarded the flight component he was currently in the process of peeling apart with a tiny Philips screwdriver. The component, which had been fried by Sunturion up in Cairo several hours earlier, was about the size and shape of a Palm Pilot, but it was the bright purple of the Hornet armor. The rest of the suit was in the duffel bag at his feet. Eddie shrugged unconcernedly and went back to work.

"I don't think it's much of a problem," Bolt said, making sure to keep his voice low. "Nobody's likely to see that thing and go, 'Oh my god, that guy must really be the intrepid hero known as Hornet!'"

"Never been called intrepid before," Eddie said.

Ultra Girl looked around them, unconvinced. The Coffee Bean was a social hub for nearby Empire State University, and the place was packed with late afternoon study sessions and social gatherings. A couple people had seemed to recognize her from her day job already, despite the totally unflattering overcoat Bolt had scrounged up to cover her costume. It was always possible some superhero groupie was hanging about. Those people freaked her out.

She wasn't entirely sure what the three of them were doing here, or why they were even sticking together after that bombshell they'd had dropped on them back at the Crash Pad. Bolt seemed a little shellshocked by it all, and she supposed she was too, but the guy with the palsied arm, the guy working on his Hornet suit even now, wasn't even really a member of the team. They all seemed to be hanging together, more than anything else, out of a lack of anything better to do.

Her thoughts were interrupted when the cute kid she knew only as Bolt stuck his hand across the table at her. "I'm Chris Bradley, by the way."

Ultra Girl blinked in surprise. She waited two or three beats, wondering what the proper etiquette was when someone just revealed their identity to you like that, then she went ahead and took his hand.

"And you're...Eddie?" she said, pointing to the handicapped guy.

He gave a distracted smile, still bent over his equipment. "That's what they tell me."

"Wow." She straightened. "Well, I guess teammates are supposed to know who each other really are. My name's Suzy."

"Did I mention I'm not really a part of the team?" Hornet asked.

"Suzy Sherman," Chris said, ignoring Eddie and grinning across the table at the beautiful blonde girl.

Suzy's brow furrowed. "What? How did you know--?"

Chris cleared his throat and looked straight down into his drink, finding whatever was there fascinating enough to hold his attention while he swirled it around. It took Suzy a moment to realize he was embarrassed. "Well...I've, uh, kind of seen you on Secret Hospital."

"Oh, you're that Suzy Sherman?" Eddie asked, looking up sharply and pushing his glasses up with his good hand so he could get a better look at her.

Suzy just gaped at them for a moment, and then burst into musical laughter. Eddie and Chris couldn't quite bring themselves to look at each other, so each of them patiently waited until she was done.

"Boy," she said, wiping her eyes, "the people who guess the target demographic for the show are all wrong, aren't they?"

Chris cleared his throat. "Yeah, well uh...do you, y'know...with you being on the show and all, do you plan to stick with the team?"

She shrugged, taking a sip of her coffee. "Sure, why wouldn't I?"

"Well...you haven't really made much of an effort to keep in touch, after all. And with what Night Thrasher said..."

She leaned back, crossing her arms in front of her ample chest. A small--very small--smile touched her lips. "I've got a horrendous shooting schedule. You know that, right?"

Chris put both hands up. "Nobody's calling you a slacker, Suzy. Especially not with the way you hit. I'm just wondering if you really have time with all your other commitments."

Suzy let her eyes drift away from them and settle on the kids crowded at the coffee shop's counter. "It's up to you guys. If there's a team to be a part of, I guess I'll be there, regardless of what we call ourselves." She looked around at Eddie, ignoring Chris' obvious discomfort. "What about you? Are you sticking around, or is this a one-time team-up deal?"

Eddie paused in what he was doing, but kept his eyes fixed on the gutted technology on the table. He thought about how relieved he'd been after that business with Mephisto, when he realized he'd never have to put on this armor again.* And yet...he'd rebuilt the lost components in the time since, so there had to be some part of him that still wanted to do this kind of thing. And, really, it had been good today. Good to help people again.

[* See Marvel's Slingers #12 - David]

That was what he told himself anyway. And all along, the image of Turbo flitted teasingly across his memory. Strong, lithe, and beautiful. Like somebody else he'd had a crush on not so long ago--and he really should have learned his lesson about pining for super-women after what happened with Cassie, but he couldn't deny this new attraction anymore than he could deny he'd been waiting to put the Hornet suit on again.

"I guess..." he said, finally looking up from his work, "as long as the team will have me, I'm in."

Ricochet picked up speed, darting across and over the rooftops as fast as he could without breaking something. And still--still--he could hear her voice coming from close behind him. Pacing him, not letting him gain even an inch of ground.

"Like you're one to talk about Spidey!" Spider-Woman shouted. "You're such a closet Spidey groupie."

That finally got a reaction out of him. "What?"

"I mean it. Look at that costume. At least I'm honest about my influences."

"Somebody gave this to me!"

Ricochet came to the edge of this latest roof, and paused at the mad drop below and the vast open space between this building and the next. For just a moment, his confidence faltered.

"Wait up!" Spider-Woman cried again, and that decided him.

He launched himself out into space. His mutant powers supposedly included only his danger sense, but some days he thought there was more to it because, brother, he had a helluva long-jump. But it wasn't going to be enough today. He only made it about three-quarters of the way across the gap before gravity told him to sit down and he began to drop below the level of the next roof.

"Oh no! Is this the end of Ricochet?" he asked. Since it was a rhetorical question anyway, he didn't sweat the lack of a response. Instead, he reached out and snagged a makeshift clothesline. It held his weight, and he used it to whip himself at a nearby window ledge. With his nimble fingers hooked on that, it only took a couple of quick hops to reach the roof in question. Turning, he saw his pursuer stop at the opposite ledge.

"Ah ha! Try that, Spider-chippie!"

Spider-Woman scowled, then jumped. She arced downward at the same angle that Rico had, snagged the same clothesline, hooked the same window ledge, and gained the roof in a series of similar hops and jumps. A moment later, she was standing in front of him, arms spread like an Olympic gymnast who just completed a textbook dismount. Rico could only stare.

"Okay, Miss Proportionate Speed of a Spider. Fine. But can you do this?"

He leapt up onto a nearby cylindrical smokestack. Balanced on the domed metal top of it, he leapt straight up, flipped forward, and landed on the stack again. Without pausing, he leapt up again, flipped backward this time, and landed again, this time on one hand. He balanced there for a moment, then leapt down, bowed, and crossed his arms, waiting for her retort.

Spider-Woman leapt onto the same smokestack, and repeated his movements perfectly, only instead of flipping once, she flipped twice, both forward and back. And once she was balanced on one hand, she slowly drew her fingers in until she was balanced on just one finger. Then, with her free hand, she twirled herself gently on that finger, like a top.

She leapt down. Ricochet was tapping his foot.

"Fine. But how strong are ya?"

"I know about what happened in Cairo," Dwayne said as he and Mickey Muashi strolled south down 7th Avenue together.

"Big surprise there," she replied, looking in shop windows as they passed. When she ran out of shop windows, she began watching her feet, and when that became too much, she looked at the sky. Anything to keep from looking Dwayne in the face. "I don't suppose it matters to you that we were set up. That apparently Roxxon intended for us to be there, to keep Sunturion busy while they sabotaged his--"

"Mickey." Dwayne sighed. "Look, I know I came off as a hardass back there, but remember who you're talking to. I'm not your enemy. I'd just feel more comfortable about this if you had some of the old guard onboard to back you up. You weren't even a Warrior yourself for very--"

"Wait." Mickey had stopped, and Dwayne had taken a couple extra steps before he realized it and turned back. She had her head cocked, listening.

"What is it?"

She put a hand up to silence him, and then she heard what she'd been listening for. They both did. A soft cry of pain drifting out from the next alleyway.

The two Warriors shared a look. Then, without discussing it, they started to run.

With the groan of stressed metal, the huge, fully-loaded green dumpster, coated with slicks of grease and oil and other less identifiable fluids, rose into the air, casting a bouquet of rancid meat down the length of the alley. On one end, supporting this entire mess in her thin arms, was Spider-Woman.

"In case you're wondering...this doesn't smell any better up close." She gagged and slowly, careful not to spill anything out of the dumpster and onto her head, she set the weight back down again. Then she turned to look at Ricochet, cocking her head back toward the garbage bin.

"Your turn."

Standing nearby, Ricochet cleared his throat uncomfortably, then turned and looked up toward a nearby roof.

"Okay, fine. But how's your aim?"

It didn't take Mickey and Dwayne long to find the source of the cries. Once they'd descended into the twilight murk of the alley, they nearly tripped over a trio of teenage boys. Each of these three was wielding some kind of weapon--one had a knife, but the others were carrying lengths of iron piping--and they were standing over a fourth teenager, a boy curled up on his knees on the pavement, covering his head with both arms.

They didn't bother to ask whose side they should be on. Dwayne put his shoulder down and drove it straight into the knife-wielder's left kidney, disarming and dropping him before his friends had even realized they weren't under attack. One of them turned and took a backhanded swipe at Dwayne with his length of pipe, but in his haste he missed, and Mickey had planted her foot in his sternum before he could swing again. He went flailing backward into his friend, and the two of them fell over each other.

"Stay down," Dwayne said, yanking the pipes out of both their hands. One of them went for him anyway, so he chopped a hand across the kid's throat. He didn't want to seriously hurt the guy--not until he knew exactly what was going on here--but he still hit him plenty hard enough to drop him.

"You," Dwayne said, pointing one of the pipes he'd appropriated at the only kid who hadn't really been roughed up yet. "You can stand. Come on, up."

Nearby, Mickey was kneeling next to the kid who'd been beaten. She guessed him as the same age as the other kids, but not as powerfully built. There was blood on his fingers and in his hair. Mickey put a hand on his shoulder and said, "Are you alright? What happened he--?"

The kid had turned his head cautiously, peering out at her from beneath his quavering arm. He looked like nothing so much as a very nervous turtle at that moment, but Mickey didn't find the comparison funny at all. She noted the color of his skin, the direction of his lineage, immediately. The kid was middle-eastern, or maybe Indian.

Mickey's face darkened, her eyes narrowing and her lips drawing together tightly. She stood suddenly and whirled on the one thug who remained standing.

"Why did you do this? Huh? Why?"

Dwayne, taken aback by her ferocity--he was supposed to be the bad cop, after all--took an instinctive step between her and the boy. "Mickey..."

"Was it because he's Arabic? Did you beat him and knock him down in this filthy alley because of who his parents are?"

The kid hesitated, eyes flicking nervously from Mickey to his victim to Dwayne and back again. "This is none of your business," he said finally. "You or your boyfriend."

"The hell it's not my business! You racist pieces of--"

"Hey, those ragheads killed my dad, lady!" This from the thug Dwayne had hit in the kidneys. He was still grimacing every time he drew breath, and holding his side in pain, but he was able to speak again, and he was slowly getting to his feet. "He worked in the towers..."

Mickey stepped forward, and by the time the punk had regained his feet, she was standing there, staring him down. "And my people killed more white Americans than any lunatic with a plane ever has or ever will. It was called World War II. Pearl Harbor? Any of this ringing a bell? You want to punch and knife me now?"

"Mickey," Dwayne said. "That's enough."

She ignored him. "Think you're man enough? C'mon, little boy! I'm just a helpless girl. And I deserve to be held accountable for the actions of everyone who's Japanese, right? Even though I was born in this country?"

The kid didn't reply, just stared at her stonily, wincing every couple seconds as his expanding lungs jarred his bruised kidneys.

"Coward," Mickey decided, and put her back to him without a second look.

She moved toward the wounded boy and crouched down next to him again, reaching out a hand to gently shake his shoulder.

"It's okay now, they're not going to hurt you. What's your name?"

The kid peeked out from under his arm again, saw that the coast really was clear, and slowly began to straighten. He knuckled some blood and grime out of his eye and said, "Arman. My name is Arman."

"Are you okay, Arman? Did they break any bones?"

"I--I don't think so."

Mickey pulled out her cellphone and dialed 911. "We're going to get you some help. Just sit tight." She looked around at Dwayne as she waited for the emergency operator to pick up. He was still holding the two standing thugs at bay, making sure they didn't try to run for it, but the rest of his attention was now focused on her. He was looking at her like that, thoughtfully, when Mickey asked the woman on the other end of the line to please send an ambulance and cruiser.

The Coffee Bean.

"So we're in agreement?" Suzy demanded, slamming a fist on the tabletop. Across the booth from her, Chris grimaced as a noticeable crack appeared in the surface of the table. "We go back there and tell that jerk he can't take the name from us. We're the New Warriors now, damnit--it's not like he's got a legal patent on the name or anything--and if he doesn't like it, he can take a big, fat hike!"

"That's right!" Chris agreed, amused and honestly jazzed at the idea all at once. Funny that Suzy hadn't made much of an effort at all to be part of this team before today, and now she was acting even more the cheerleader than Spider-Woman. Chris aimed a finger at the door. "You go, girl!"

"Pack up your gear, Hor--Eddie," Ultra Girl said, rising to her feet. "I'll get the check."

Eddie looked up from his work and watched Suzy stomp off. Then he turned a puzzled look on Chris.

"You heard the girl, man!" Chris roared, really getting into it now. He sprang to his feet and moved off after Suzy with a purpose. After a moment, Eddie sighed and began stuffing his gear back into the duffel bag.

"Like hanging out with a team full of Ricochets," he muttered. Then he zipped the bag up and got up to follow.

The incident in the alley had been dealt with. Both Dwayne and Mickey had given their statements to the police, and both had suffered through the requisite lectures about calling the police before involving themselves in a street brawl next time. Mickey wanted to tell them that, after fighting Dire Wraiths and Super Skrulls, a couple of punks in an alley were literally nothing, but somehow she managed to restrain herself. Arman was put in an ambulance, his attackers were put in squad cars, and all was well that ended well. Mickey and Dwayne continued their walk in silence.

Not surprisingly, their path had then taken them to where the World Trade Center had stood not so long ago. They stood there for a while, looking across the street at the fledgling reconstruction that was underway. Mickey put a hand out and swiped a finger across the brick facade of the building they were standing next to. It came back black with soot, and she rubbed it between her thumb and forefinger thoughtfully.

"Were you here when--?"

"I was in California," Dwayne replied. "With Stark-Fujikawa. I had to watch it happen on the news."

"I put on the armor and came out to help when it happened. It was the first time I'd worn it since the Warriors broke up, but I only got to help for a few hours before the mayor asked all metahumans to stay away. He was afraid we were doing more harm than good." She paused, as if waiting for Dwayne to comment on this. When it became apparent he wasn't going to, she sighed and said,

"The Warriors have never been about being a superhero and fighting Dr. Doom or Ultron for me, Dwayne. At first I thought it was just because Michael seemed to expect it of me. And then he died, and I thought that I was doing it to honor his memory. But I just realized recently--today in fact, and it took Spider-Woman to show me when she dragged us into that Roxxon business up in Cairo--that it's about this." She waved at the construction, and both of them saw the wreckage that had been piled stories high there not so long ago. "Preventing things like this. Fighting the fights that the Avengers can't or won't. And if you don't want us to be the Warriors, that's fine. It's your call. But we'll just go do what we're doing now under another name." She grinned suddenly, pushing a lock of hair back over her ear and looking around at Dwayne from below it. "Somebody's got to try to change the world."

They both knew she was quoting a tagline, but Dwayne didn't immediately comment on this. Instead he just looked at the place where two proud towers had stood for almost another full minute. When he did finally turn to look at her, she was surprised to see him wearing a grin that matched her own.

"And that's all I wanted to hear, Mickey," Dwayne Taylor said.

"C'mon, concentrate!"

Spider-Woman squinted, unconsciously poking her tongue out as she took careful aim at the row of empty beer bottles lined up on the edge of the next roof. After a moment, she held her breath, and a burst of bioelectric power flashed from her extended hand. The venom blast sliced across the gap between the buildings...and passed at least a foot above the row of bottles. She slapped her hand down on her thigh in exasperation. "Damnit!"

Standing next to her, Ricochet was grinning--she couldn't see his mouth with that stupid mask covering it, but she knew he was grinning. He nodded once, then plucked one of the weighted metal disks off the sleeve of his leather jacket.

"Now watch the master," he said, and flung the disk at the next building without looking. The projectile moved so fast it almost disappeared from sight, the crash of an exploding bottle from the roof opposite the only sign of its passing.

"Voila."

Spider-Woman crossed her arms, trying not to sulk and failing utterly. "I'll be impressed when you can make them come back to you, Captain America-style."

"Oh, I can. But I figured we'd better start you off with the baby stuff first."

He was gloating now, apparently forgetting how badly she'd beat him in the agility and strength portions of their impromptu competition. Sighing, Spider-Woman ran both hands through her hair and looked across the city toward the northeast. Toward Uncle Jonah's apartment.

"So...you're probably gonna head home now, huh?" she said.

"Nah...well, I don't know." Rico rubbed the back of his neck, and seemed to be wondering if he should say anymore. Eventually he must have decided that doing so was better than letting the silence stretch out, and he said, "Nothing really at home except my dad. And we don't get along well since mom died."

"Oh...sorry." Pause. "My mom died too, and my dad and I don't get along that well either. In fact, I kinda ran away a while ago."

"Huh. Whattayaknow. We do have something in common."

Spider-Woman brightened. "Weeelllll...if neither of us are going home, we could head back to the Crash Pad and tell skateboard boy to stick where the sun don't shine!"

Ricochet looked at her blankly for a moment, then slowly began to nod his head. "Yeah. Yeah, that sounds like a great idea. Race ya!"

He took off for the opposite side of the roof and, without a moment's hesitation, leaped off. Spider-Woman let him go, and when he was out of sight, she turned, raised her arm, and proceeded to pick each of the remaining beer bottles off the far ledge with her venom blast. When they were all gone she smiled and, figuring Rico had enough of a headstart now, turned to follow him.

The Crash Pad.

Dwayne had the exterior engine compartment of the War-Chopper open, and was poking around inside while Mickey watched from inside the cockpit, idly flipping through the helicopter's hefty maintenance manual.

"So you guys got this thing running again all by yourselves?" he shouted, his voice muffled by the metal between them.

"Ricochet's friend Eddie did. The guy in the purple armor?"

"He's called Hornet."

Mickey stuck her head out of the cockpit, all she could see was his backside and dangling legs hanging out of the engine. "Boy, you really did your homework, didn't you?"

The doors on the other side of the hangar, the ones that led to the Crash Pad's living quarters, boomed open suddenly, and Eddie and Chris came striding through, led by an angry Suzy Sherman.

"Night Thrasher, Turbo! We have to talk!"

Dwayne pulled himself out of the engine compartment and dove for the other side of the copter at the same moment Mickey was crawling through to that side as well. The two of them regrouped, out of sight, while Suzy continued to yell at them.

"Apparently," Mickey said, "the others have unmasked in front of each other."

"I'm not quite ready to do that," Dwayne replied, reaching for the Night Thrasher armor.

"Yeah, me neither."

"This isn't going to wait!" Suzy cried. "C'mon out, don't make me fly over there."

"Ultr--Suzy," Eddie said. "Maybe we should come back later. The way they ducked out of sight--"

"You think we're interrupting something?" Chris asked.

Eddie shrugged, trying to hide the disappointment he felt.

This gave Suzy pause. For a heartbeat, she lost her momentum, then she shook her head decisively. "I don't care. This is important, and we need to discuss it now. There's plenty of time for...that later."

"Plenty of time for what?"

The three of them turned back towards the War-Chopper, and saw that Turbo and Night Thrasher had both emerged from behind it. They were fully dressed in civilian clothes, but their faces were covered with the masks from their respective armors.

"There you are!" Suzy said. "Look, Mr. Dark and Mean, we decided. We're the New Warriors buddy, and if you don't like it, you can--"

Suzy paused, and turned to look at her backup. Both Chris and Eddie were bent over nearly double with the giggles. Suzy's eyes bulged in exasperation.

"Guys..."

"They--they look ridiculous!" Eddie gasped between chortles.

"Do you mind keeping it to yourselves? I'm trying to make a point here!"

That pushed them over the edge. Both Chris and Eddie roared laughter, Chris having to put an arm out to steady himself against Eddie's good shoulder. Suzy gave up on them and turned back toward Night Thrasher and Turbo.

"We're pissed and we're not going to take anymore," she said, sending Bolt and Hornet into fresh paroxysms. "We--"

At that moment, there was a thump from above, and all eyes went toward the open skylight. In a matching ballet of movement, Ricochet leapt down from the portal, followed by Spider-Woman, touched off one of the War-Chopper's rotors, flipped and rebounded off the crate they'd used earlier, and landed on the concrete again. Spider-Woman was talking almost before they'd touched down.

"Night Thrasher, Turbo! We have to ta--" She stopped in mid-spiel, gaping at the two people wearing their contextually ridiculous masks over civilian clothes.

Eddie and Chris continued to gasp for breath between guffaws. Ultra Girl rolled her eyes toward the ceiling and threw her hands up in surrender.

"Guys," Turbo said, adjusting her mask. It didn't fit quite right without the rest of the armor to fasten to it. "Calm down for a minute."

"What, they forgot to put their costumes on?" Ricochet demanded. "That's worse than walking around with your fly open."

Night Thrasher looked at Turbo. His helmet had fallen backwards, exposing his chin. He tilted it forward so she'd be able to hear him through the mouthpiece. "I'm pretty sure Nova and Speedball never laughed at me."

"Did you--did you go the full monty in front of them?" Bolt asked, and he and Eddie were done after that. They collapsed to their knees, Eddie clutching at his stomach and begging them to stop.

"Guys...look, just stop for a minute, okay?" Turbo pinched the bridge of her nose between her thumb and forefinger, took a breath and said, "Me and Thrash have settled our problems."

"Your problems?" Ricochet demanded. "You mean his problems."

"Okay, his problems." This earned her a sharp look from Night Thrasher, but Mickey just pressed on. "We're still the Warriors, guys. If we still want to be."

Suzy smiled, crossing her arms. "Well...okay then."

"Wait a minute," Ricochet said. "I don't know if I want to be a New Warrior any--" Spider-Woman elbowed him and he shut up.

"And best of all," Turbo continued, having to raise her voice over Eddie's and Chris' slowly declining laughter, "we've got a new leader. Night Thrasher founded the team and he's got loads more experience than I do, so maybe we won't have our butts handed to us next time we fight somebody."

This announcement brought the mood down considerably, and everyone eyed Night Thrasher suspiciously.

"We'll also have some actual funding through Night Thrasher's contacts. We won't have to rely on Eddie and Rico to fix the 'Chopper."

"I don't like this," Spider-Woman said. "You were doing a great job, Turbo. There's no reason he should come in here and--"

Turbo waved her down. "Spider-Woman...thanks. Really, thanks. But this is a relief to me. I never really wanted to be the lead guy, it just kinda fell to me by default. This way we'll have someone with actual credentials telling us what to do. It's for the best, trust me."

"Fill me in," Chris said, letting Ultra Girl help him to his feet as he knuckled tears out of his eyes. "I was a little distracted. So we're still the New Warriors, right?"

"I guess so," Suzy said, and she smiled when she said it.

"That'll do," Rico said. He reached over and tousled Spider-Woman's hair and she good-naturedly slapped his hand away. "Evil better watch out, 'cause we're gonna kick its ass."

"Hell yeah," Eddie agreed.

Everyone laughed at Eddie's unexpected outburst, everybody but Night Thrasher. And as Turbo moved over to join the others in a general congratulations, he hung back, too much the new guy to feel welcome in the gathering of soon-to-be friends. He wouldn't have wanted to join in anyway, because if he had, it might have meant turning his back on Bolt.

Dwayne eyed the mutant kid now through his visor, watching for any sign of instability. Turbo was right in one respect--he had absolutely done his homework before coming here, and the most disturbing thing he had deduced was that Bolt had, not so long ago, worked for the mutant highlord named Apocalypse. He had killed dozens of people as one of the madman's Dark Riders, had helped level Seattle.* Dwayne suspected he'd been under some sort of mind control at the time, but that didn't change matters much. It was still something he--Night Thrasher--was going to have to deal with sooner or later.

[* See Apocalypse: Ageless Fury - David]

But not today. Today, for all his misgivings, it just felt good to be part of the team he had founded again. To feel like he really could help change the world.

One way or another, the New Warriors were back in business.

DISPATCHES FROM THE WAR

My goal, way back when I pitched this book to my buddy Mike Exner III, was to recreate that feeling of "New" in New Warriors. To bring in an all-new group of characters and try to work some of the magic that Fabian Nicieza and Mark Bagley did with the old crew in Marvel's New Warriors series.

Whether Mike and I actually succeeded is for the readers (I know there's one or two of ya!) to decide, but I'm more than satisfied with our work here. I've learned to love characters I started out knowing next to nothing about (Ultra Girl and Turbo), as well as at least one character I knew just enough about to dislike (Spider-Woman). That's good enough for me.

It'll have to be, because this is my final issue of this title. Doubtless, there are still stories to tell here. I never got around to explaining how in the world Crux (Cristal Lemieux) is alive after her fatal stint with Cerebro's All-New X-Men. I never explained where Night Thrasher's new armor came from, and what he had to do to get it. And Ultra Girl...oh, man, you woulda loved the "Return to Hala" storyline I was planning for our little Tsu-Zana.

Maybe I'll come back to those stories, and maybe I'll even get Mike to come back with me, but for now there aren't enough hours in the day. Hopefully you've enjoyed the issues we actually finished (despite the massive lag-time between them), and you'll be sure to keep an eye out for the David Wheatley-penned switch month special that'll be hitting the cyberracks any time now.

Thanks for reading.