The man who had called himself The Urban Commando for nearly twenty years looked into the woman's eyes. She repeated herself. "You're dying."

"I heard you," he said.

The explosion had nearly ripped him in two, if not for his armor he would already be dead. "Got those people out?" he asked again.

She nodded. "Most of them."

Which meant not all. So Baron Stryker had won, innocents had died and Urban had failed. He already knew that Stryker had escaped, riding that doomsday device he had stolen from Hermetic Labs.

"'S'funny," he whispered. "All I wanted to do was stop the street crime, people getting shot. Who knew I'd end up fighting a fricking mad scientist for half my life?"

She didn't laugh, pushing her silvery hair away where it almost fell into his face. "I can save you," she said.

"Do it, Lady K," he said. "I still have to get that bastard Stryker."

She nodded. "You know you will die as Urban Commando? But you'll live on as someone else, someone who would have died without your life force?"

"Got it," he said. "Be quick."

Lady Karma put her hands on his face and everything went dark.

* * *

"She's a fighter," someone said.

Tessie heard them talking about her.

"Broken ribs, concussion, pneumonia, she could have died in the plane crash, let alone walking out of the Cascades with her injuries in the winter."

They probably didn't know she could hear them.

"Pretty remarkable for a little girl," one of the voices commented.

"I'm only eight now," thought Tessie. "I could use a long vacation but you've got less than a decade, Stryker. Then I'm coming for you." She snuggled with the enormous Raggedy Anne her new parents had bought for her and went back to sleep.