The four of them arrived at a seemingly deserted part of the town. He looked turned towards her as she shook her head and let out a faint gasp. They were alone, for now. Things were not going the way they were supposed to. But then, things hadn't been going the way they were supposed to for about six months now. He ran his fingers through her shoulder-length hair. He was getting too old for this life. Only the thought of revenge has sustained him this long. He will not be stopped from achieving his goal.

"We make our stand here," commanded Sebastian Shaw to his operatives. In the past six months they had been working hard at taking out pieces of Black Air. The Human High Council's covert attack group. The ones responsible for the decimation of all that Shaw had achieved. He and his people had scoured the Earth, tracking down fellow survivors, hunting down those who had ruined his life.

"No arguments there," agrees Pete Wisdom, standing behind Shaw, his hot knives ready for the fight. "How many are there, darling?"

"I scan about fifteen of them," answers Elizabeth Braddock, her hand reassuringly laid on Wisdom's shoulder. Her long fingers begin sparkling with psionic energy; ready to unleash a psionic blast of her own, as deadly and as accurate as any hot knives Wisdom could hope to produce. "And the two of them."

"Fifteen to one?" said Pale Flower, her white death mask unable to hide her obvious oriental features. "Not much of a challenge." She produced two three pronged sais from her sleeves.

"The plan is simple," instructs Shaw. "Flower, you take the hired help. I'll take Roughouse. Wisdom you and Lady Elizabeth are on Bloodscream."

"Terrific," said Wisdom. "Ready for a little one on one with an immortal, ducks?"

"Wouldn't miss it," said Elizabeth. Then she stiffened. "They're here."

"Head's up, Hellfire," said Shaw as the small mob came towards them, fronted by Roughouse and Bloodscream, the appointed rulers of this small island nation. Sebastian then turned to Elizabeth and softly said "Milady."

She smiled as she called upon her considerable psionic abilities and unleashed a blast of pure energy at the oncoming crowd. Bloodscream and Roughouse took the brunt of the blast but some of it leaked through to the rest of the mob. It didn't stop them for long but it did slow them down in time for Hellfire to go to work.

Pale Flower leapt in to the fray attacking the enemy at each turn, her powers to copy people's abilities by penetrating with their own personal bio-fields with her own, usually achieved by touching them, getting through the thin bio-field with her own presence. They retained their abilities but she got a copy of them while she was in close proximity. In such close quarters as they were fighting in now, she had the fighting skills of fifteen men added to her own martial arts skills. Bloodscream recovered before Roughouse did.

"Give up now, foolish mortals," he said. "I cannot be killed by such as thee. I cannot be slain by any mortal forging."

"Really?" said Pete, his hands cupped together as he lit up a cigarette. "Guess that means we don't have a hope, eh?"

"Surrender now, and I will make thine endings swift."

"Problem is, these things aren't forged," said Pete, as if Bloodscream hadn't spoken. Then he fired up his hot knives - ten streaks of white-hot energy streaming out from the tips of his fingers, extending for about an inch - swirling and displacing the air around them with their immense radiating heat. "These are the forger." He continued. He then extended his reach towards the immortal, freeing the knives from their standings, sending them wildly towards their hapless target.

"Show off," laughed Elisabeth, taking the protruding cigarette from Wisdom's mouth and helping herself to a drag.

"Cheeky bint," snorted Pete, as three more hot knives manage to connect on Bloodscream, knocking him to the floor.

Meanwhile Sebastian Shaw was standing over Roughouse, who was shaking off the after-effects of the psionic blast. "You should have listened," said Shaw. "All I want is the location of the Black Air contingent in Rumika. We both know they wouldn't be so foolish to hide in Madripoor."

"And I told you they were not here!" said Roughouse, his giant fists coming up with him as he gets to his feet, walloping Shaw with a mighty thud!

"You just made an even bigger mistake than having us locked up for your masters or the Human High Council," said Shaw, getting back to his feet.

"By the breath of the frost giant!" said Roughouse as he looked at Shaw. That blow should have done more than knock him to the floor. Any lesser man would have been crippled for sure. Not Shaw.

"Just because I don't advertise my mutancy, it doesn't mean I don't know how to use it," explains Shaw. "I absorb kinetic energy. The harder you hit me, the more powerful I become. Stronger, and faster."

"Everyone has a limit," snarled Roughouse, as he swings another of his clubbing fists at Shaw, catching him yet again. "Let's find out who has the higher tolerance, then." Then the slapping contest begins, each hitting the other with ever more increasingly powerful blows.

"Perfect," whispers an enigmatic figure, watching these events from his secret hiding. "Absolutely perfect." This enigmatic being, who had watched these four for months. They, the last true survivors of the Hellfire Club massacre. It had been only a combination of luck and skill that had allowed them to live, to keep the ideals of the Hellfire Club alive. Shaw had survived as he had always done, but he had lost everything - his power, his position, his money, his family. The culling of the Hellfire Club was seen as a grand coup for Black Air. They had thought they had made no mistakes. They made one. They let Sebastian live.

He had formed his 'Hellfire' to take on Black Air. To hunt them down, and systematically destroy them as they had destroyed the Hellfire Club. The other survivors were Peter Wisdom, one of the operatives for the British contingent of the Hellfire Club. It was he who had first found out about Black Air's intentions, but he was far too late to save the majority of the Club's members.

The irony of it all was that the person he did manage to save was his lover Elisabeth Braddock, the Club's former Black Queen. Elisabeth was the last of the Braddock family, and gained the title by right of succession. Her father had been Black Bishop, but she had her sights set on a higher position and used her psionic abilities to get what she wanted. That in turn begged the question did Wisdom truly love her, or was he doing what he was 'told'?

Finally there was Pale Flower. Shirohana was the Blue Queen of the Japanese branch of the Hellfire Club, her own powers allowing her to survive where the rest of the Club had not. Shaw had found her, not long after he had met up with Wisdom and Braddock. She had been living on the streets as a geisha girl; keeping her real identity hidden for fear that the assassins would return. He promised that she would know fear no longer.

The four of them were the last of the Hellfire Club and Shaw christened them Hellfire. Their prime goal was revenge, but they also took on other 'jobs' to pay their way through the world. They didn't take a lot of jobs but those that they did paid well. This enigmatic man knew that if he were to hire anyone, these four would be the ones and with what he knew - and what he could find out - it would be child's play to get them to accept.

The mission he had in mind was fraught with personal danger and personal treasures. The small group known as Hellfire would suit his purpose more than adequately. He no longer needed to watch the conclusion of this battle, as his decision was already made for him.

"What does it take to put you down," groaned Wisdom, knocking Elisabeth from the grasp of Bloodscream, allowing her to fall to the floor. Bloodscream's touch had already managed to drained much of her blood, yet left her without any scars of any kind.

"More than you have," stuttered Bloodscream. "As I said, you cannot kill me."

"Don't bloody count on it," Pete answered defiantly, as he unleashed his hot knives yet again, Elisabeth joining him with a psionic blast. Her powers - and blood supply - already drained, this act of will proves to be too much for her, as she passes mere moments after the attack.

Bloodscream fell to the floor, as he had done before, except this time there was much more damage done to him, and the life he had drained from Elisabeth only helped defend him from her psionic blast. His wounds began to regenerate and Pete knew that he'd be up again in a moment.

"First I'll make sure you don't get up, then I'll go make eyes with the missus." Wisdom joked, as he produces more hot knives. This time, however, instead of firing them through Bloodscream Pete fired them across him, igniting clothes, skin and hair in one swift action.

Bloodscream became a human torch, Pete turning up the temperature, pouring his own hot knives on as Bloodscream lived up to his name, letting out an unearthly howl. After a few moments there was the stench of roasted flesh and melted bone, as Pete fell to the floor, his powers spent, but his objective accomplished.

"Let's see you return from a pile of ashes," Pete smirked before crawling across to where Elisabeth lay, and resting his head on her bosom.

Pale Flower stood amongst the dead bodies, blood flowing freely from her wounds. She was the only one left standing and chose to simply watch as a tired Shaw hit at an even more tired Roughouse. They were almost wasted, Shaw's mutant power barely able to keep up with the kinetic energy it was processing and Roughouse's stamina was almost unearthly.

"Give up!" demanded Roughouse.

"Never!" returned Shaw, and he put his all in to his final blow and Roughouse finally fell to the floor. Shaw wiped the blood from his lip, and felt his face, which was bruised but not broken. His powers had kept him from serious injury. "That was harder than I thought it would be," he said looking at his fallen foe. "There is obviously more to you than meets the eye."

Then he looked across to Flower, who still stood amongst the dead, dying and wounded.

"Good work, Shirohana." Then he walked across to Wisdom and Braddock.

"We'll be fine," said Elisabeth, without opening her eyes. "Give us a moment, then we'll finish up and we can make the journey back to Madripoor." Shaw nodded. Before they left Rumika, they would burn the small island nation to the ground.

Back in Madripoor, in the area once known as Hightown, Hellfire regroup to repair their wounds, ease their tired bodies and recharge before they moved on to the next place…the next mission.

"You really ought to relax more, Seb," said Pete as he wandered in to the living area of the apartment, where Shaw was looking out of the window, a cigar in one hand and a brandy in the other. "You need to stop thinking about work once in a while."

"I don't have anything else," said Shaw, quietly. "And I've told you before about calling me 'Seb'."

"He does it to wind you up," explains Elisabeth, coming up behind her lover, wearing only her dressing gown. "Pay him no heed. I don't."

"Yeah, right," said Pete, grabbing her arm and pulling her round to face him before kissing her, which she naturally returned in kind.

"Of course you don't," he whispered as they finally disengaged their lips from each other. "If you're quite done," said Shaw, "can we at least think of where we go now. I was thinking of Australia."

"Sounds interesting," said Pete. "What's there?"

"I hear there's a HHC training facility there. Codenamed 'ACADEMY X', if my spies are to be believed."

"Or," said another voice, "you could do as I ask."

Instantly the three of them were on guard, powers primed.

"I don't sense anyone," said Elisabeth, a nervous anticipation in her voice.

"And I don't see anyone either," said Pete, his voice edged in darkness.

"Come out," demanded Shaw as Pale Flower entered, her face devoid of its usual battle mask make up. He held up a finger to silence her before she could say a word.

"Certainly," answered the hidden party, as he seemed to appear out of nowhere. "My name is unimportant, however you may call me the Doctor. I would like to hire your unique service in finding something of great importance to me."

"How did you find us, 'Doctor'?" asked Shaw, wary of making any moves until he knew exactly what the man was capable of.

"I have my resources," the man - this 'Doctor' - then replied. "Allow me to explain myself." He took the silence as a cue to continue. "I want you to find 'The Children of the Atom', two very powerful mutants with powers over reality. One of them commands the physical reality; the other commands the natural order. Together they have been hidden away from the being known as Onslaught."

"Why?" asks Wisdom. "And how is it they aren't found by him? His powers are more than capable."

"They were hidden away because of what they represent. If Onslaught found them he would have total dominance. They were hidden from him by the Human High Council as their ultimate weapon against him. Except something went wrong, and they vanished from their hiding place. Now they have lost them, Onslaught knows of them and neither can find them."

"And so how can we?" asked Shaw. "Their identities have taken me a long time to discover. One of them is a living island known as Krakoa. The other is a man, called James. James Braddock."

Elisabeth's eyes opened wide at this. Jamie and Brian had both been killed when they were all young, she and Brian being eight or so. She remembered little of the attack; save the attackers were some kind of terrorists. It had been the deaths of her brothers that had unleashed her latent telepathic abilities and turned her hair purple.

"How is it possible?" she asked. "The Human High Council knew of his powers before he did and used the attack to capture him. You and your siblings have great power, and they tried to eliminate you and your twin Brian. They claimed one of two."

"What do you get from this?" asked Shirohana.

"A weapon for my own cause. I have ties to nobody and scores of my own to settle on both sides. Whomever holds the Children of the Atom has the balance of power on the planet."

"I'm not happy going up against Onslaught when he finds out," said Shaw. "The answer is no."

"No, it isn't," said Elisabeth as she hit her three team-mates with a telepathic shot, erasing their doubts and restructuring their minds. "The answer is yes."

"Interesting," said the Doctor. "Will they break your hold?"

"By the time they do, we'll be where we want to be." Then she freed them from her hold and Shaw spoke again.

"How do you suggest we find these mutants?"

"Onslaught cannot find them because there is a psionic veil over them that he cannot penetrate. However, as James is your brother, you can get a feel of their location. Your powers are great, one of the three. James has power over reality, you the mind; Brian would have had the physical. You are linked in ways Onslaught cannot conceive, and though you cannot pinpoint James exactly, you can tell where he is. Just open your heart."

Elisabeth closed her eyes and reached out and a moment later opened them. "Antarctica. He's in Antarctica."

"Then it can only be one place," said the Doctor. "The Savage Land."

"That's just a myth," said Wisdom. "There's no real proof it exists."

"It does," said Shaw. "I've seen it."

"When?" asked Pete. "There were no mentions of it in the Hellfire Club records."

"Shaw Industries did. The Savage Land is one of the premier sites for vibranium. I know where it is, I know how to get there."

"I will pay you fifteen million dollars and provide you with all the locations I have of Black Air bases. How does that sound for a deal?"

"We do need the money, and the information," reminded Shirohana.

"Alright," said Shaw. "Next stop, the Savage Land."