Afghanistan Desert - 1993

Omar's boot pressed against Gale's back, forcing her to kneel in the sweltering Afghan desert. The sun blazed down, casting long, dark shadows over the jagged rock outcroppings and thorny bushes that littered the landscape.

The air buzzed with a strange energy. Gale's face was covered with a dirty burlap sack, obscuring her vision, but through the fabric she could see the faint outline of Omar's jet-black hair and sharp Uzbek features.

"Are those my boys in the background, Omar?" Gale asked slowly, trying to keep her voice steady despite the dread crawling up her spine. The sack rustled as she turned her head, looking around.

Her large, piercing green eyes strained, attempting to make out the blurred shapes of her friends nearby. She could feel their presence, yet she could not see them. Gale seemingly had been betrayed by her team - Johannes Crowe, the fire-controlling spy, King, the wealthy and connected partner in crime, and Vincent Galvani, the daredevil inventor.

The three men bantered with Omar's troops - Crowe lighting victory cigars with his fiery power, King charming the soldiers with his silver tongue, and Vincent fiddling with his wrist computer, which caught the attention of Omar's right-hand man, who showed Vincent his brand-new Newton with satellite-phone capabilities.

"You... traitors!" Gale bellowed with a surge of anger. She acted in disbelief that they had revealed her teleportation weakness to Omar. The blinding white discs that once signaled her strength and power now served as a means of her humiliation and captivity. She was rendered helpless, her fate at the hands of a traitorous team.

Omar circled around her, his booted footsteps heavy on the warm, shifting sand.

"Ah, Gale," he breathed, his voice a low rumble. She could hear the amusement lacing each syllable. "I must admit, your reputation precedes you," Omar continued, a wry note in his voice.

"Interested?" Gale responded, her voice steady and unyielding beneath the constriction of her sack-bound face.

A husky bellow escaped Omar's lips, the corners of those mysterious, dark eyes crinkling with amusement. "The woman who has systematically dismantled my contraband shipping empire! Tried to sever every tie that I had with Russian Organized Crime!? The woman whose reach even began to find me here in this Allah-forsaken wasteland!?! Oh my, yes, why wouldn't I be interested!?" He spat as his circular path around her tightened. The sound of his footsteps growing closer.

"Oh Omar, you're making me blush. You can consider that an act of courtship, or an audition, if you wanted to keep this professional." Gale said in a singsong voice, as much a taunt as a seduction.

Omar scoffed, "Oh, Gale, you are too bold! I am fond of the chase, of the hunt. And you, my dear, are quite the dangerous predator I have longed to catch. I knew you were hunting me in return, so I remained an elusive ghost. I knew how strong your powers were, so I waited until there was a weakness to exploit, and then, only then, did I set my trap."

He continued, "Now that I have you, I realize, I can find the same satisfaction placing a bullet in your skull, ending the hunt and adding you to my collection."

A chill ran down Gale's spine. The tension was palpable, and she felt every nerve in her body come alive. "A final request, then? Answers to questions that have haunted me for years?" Gale asked, keeping her voice steady and calm despite the turmoil of emotions swirling within her.

Omar chuckled, low and menacing. "You never know, Fräulein. Ask away, and perhaps you'll find the answers you seek."

Gale took a deep breath. "The first time we met - were you working for the KGB? Were you aiding their Coup by giving up our extraction routes?" she asked with a hiss.

There was a pregnant pause, the stifling silence of the arid desert amplifying Gale's shallow breaths. Omar let out a low, throaty snort, "So direct and to the point. Very well, I will oblige and honor your request." He stepped closer, his presence bearing down on her. "I have been and will be KGB, until the day I die," he admitted, a twisted sense of pride in his voice. "My duty is not just to myself or my comrades but to the motherland. I have made many sacrifices, and betraying assets, even those close to me, was one of them."

Gale's body tensed as the true gravity of his espionage unfurled like a dark cloud looming over her. Bile rose in her throat, and she desperately wished to retch after hearing that he was an active KGB agent.

"Then the ailment that killed my sniper partner, Lieutenant John Baker, that brought me to the brink of death, was caused by you. How?" Gale demanded, gritting her teeth through the burlap sack.

Omar's laughter echoed around the desolate landscape. "I'm surprised, Gale. I was sure you surmised the answer. Ever since that day, I've never seen a photo of you, without those gloves on your hands." Omar boasted.

Gale lifted her hand to her covered face, the silhouette of her gloves stretching and shifting beneath the weave of the sack. "Poison... No, a poison touch." Gale whispered, her voice hoarse with anger and humiliation. The memories were still raw and painful, like a scab that refused to heal. The bitterness of his actions was a searing pain in her chest, one she could not ignore.

Omar held up his hand, glowing with a purplish-green energy that highlighted his features even in the scorching sun, "It's not normally so visible, but for you, I reveal my supernatural power: A poisonous touch that kills all. So, imagine my surprise when your partner only suffered at first, allowing him to complete your mission; and only then eventually die. While you, you lived, with not one, but two, applications of my sweet kisses to your hand. It only fueled my curiosity about you; about how much of a demon you truly are."

Gale's eyes narrowed, and her voice hardened with anger. "Why?" she demanded, her voice crackling as the word tore from her lips. The confines of the sack stifled her, yet she refused to let it stop her.

Omar paused, losing interest in the conversation. The shift was nearly imperceptible, the air in their little corner of the desert growing heavier.

"You wish to know the why?" he asked, his voice dripping with disdain. "But I do not wish to tell you. I'm afraid this hunt is over, Gale. I've been one step ahead of you the entire time, and I must admit, this pursuit of ours has aroused emotions I had not experienced in quite some time. Unfortunately, my patience is dwindling, and I tire of it all. Auf Wiedersehen, Fräulein." Omar's words were a death sentence, a final blow, as he lifted his Makarov and took aim at...

Nothing.

To his dismay, there was no one in front of Omar; only a burlap sack on the ground. That is when a feminine, silver-gloved hand found purchase on the top of his Makarov.

"My dear Omar. Did you really believe that my boys would betray me?" Gale stated mockingly, her face free of the burlap sack. "I can see through my discs, so I'm never truly blind. Or perhaps, you are the one being blindsided." Gale sneered, relishing the moment.

Omar's eyes widened, surveying the area, realizing he had been outsmarted. Gale's teleportation power was far more formidable than he anticipated, and she had used it to her advantage.

The fear in his voice betrayed his usually steely demeanor, "You little---! Don't just stand there gawking you idiots..." Omar called out to his troops, but it was too late. Crowe had reduced them to a pile of ash, flames still licking the edges of the scorched earth. The youthful King played with the decapitated head of one of Omar's henchmen, throwing it up and catching it with a sinister smile. Vincent, however, remained absorbed by his wrist computer, next to Omar's now cowering right-hand man.

Gale stood confidently over her defeated foe, the weight of victory surging through her veins. Her eyes bored into Omar's as she reigned over him with a devilish grin.

After a blinding flash, Omar realized he was without his Makarov, and Gale had gained distance between them. She stood confidently now, her fingers casually toying with the grip of her stolen weapon of choice, relishing the fear she had instilled within her foe.

"Impressive, right? I can choose what comes with me through my teleportation discs. Me, but not the burlap sack. Your sidearm, but not you or your deadly touch." Gale said with a satisfied glint in her eyes, and she turned and placed a bullet between the eyes of Omar's right-hand man, Vincent's gaze finally flicking up from his wrist computer.

"Gross." Vincent lamented, wiping the blood splatter from the wrist computer's screen.

Gale lowered the pistol, savoring the taste of victory. "You're the last one standing, Omar. You must admit, I make for a formidable foe." She gloated, her voice dripping with pride and sensuality, as she prowled around him, still toying with the Makarov. The hot wind rustled her flaming red pigtails, giving her an almost devilish appearance.

Omar stuttered in a flustered bewilderment, "This cannot be. Why?! You are one of us. We, all five of us, are the same. Why would you do this to one of your people?!" He sputtered, the shock of the betrayal carving deep crevasses across his face.

With every fiber of her being, Gale savored her hard-won triumph. "Oh, Omar," she crooned, swaying her hips as she drew circles in the air with the Makarov's barrel, "Do you truly believe such a silly notion? You, me, we are not the same."

Her voice became a deadly whisper. "I have no people. I have teammates. And you killed one of them—a man I cared for deeply. I'm not just going to let that slide." Gale hissed, the cold hatred in her voice palpable.

Omar cowered beneath her fierce gaze, unable to tear his eyes away from her large, piercing green eyes and sensual curves, barely hidden under her navy-blue combat leotard and teal full body stocking.

"Victory was so close," Omar said to the windblown dunes, "I would come to power soon, a reward for my loyalty." He turned his head, as if anticipating an answer from the desert wind.

"How do you figure, Omar? Me and John stopped the coup, the KGB was dismantled, and you were just a conspirator with a short-sighted goal." Gale's voice was full of contempt, the anger simmering under her calm exterior.

"Yesterday's conspirators are tomorrow's Kings." Omar snapped back.

Holding his head up high in a situation that didn't warrant it, Omar continued, "Earlier, you wanted to know the why, Gale? It's simple, I am a survivor. I survived the perilous world of East Berlin, the fall of the Berlin Wall, and my years in Afghanistan. I had a goal, a vision, one that would bring me wealth and power. I wanted to rule over my own army, a tyrant of my making."

He forced a cold smile while staring Gale down, his eyes trying to pierce through her veil of confidence. "You too are a survivor, yes, Fräulein? Willing to do anything, sacrifice anyone, to complete your goals. You want to know the why of your precious John's death? You survived, therefore he could not." Omar's words hung in the air, an invisible knife twisting in her chest, reopening wounds that had barely begun to heal.

Gale fought back tears, her head nodding in agreement with Omar's sentiment, "You are right, Omar. As much as I hate to admit it, you are right. That's why all of this, in a twisted way, is therapy." She said as she raised the Makarov and pulled the trigger, the sound echoing across the lifeless desert.

Omar's lifeless body slumped, and Gale finally let out the breath she'd been holding. The adrenaline coursed through her veins and the weight of the world seemed to slip off her shoulders. Gale tossed the weapon next to Omar, not giving it another thought.

"Hey, uh, Red, I thought we were supposed to roll them for the passcodes?" King asked, interrupting the solemn moment with a smirk and a glint in his eye.

Gale smiled at King's brazenness, then turned to Vincent, "Galvani?" she asked expectantly.

"Yes boss." Vincent responded as he picked up the Newton and connected his wrist computer to it via satellite. He opened a network of lines to parse through the deceased spymaster's data and pulled out the relevant passcodes that Omar had stored on an encrypted government server. "Storing intel on a government server; how unsecure." Vincent tsk’ed, taking on the air of an offended and scorned I.T. specialist. He found it incomprehensible that such treasures could be left in plain sight, so easy to acquire. It was almost as if Omar Baymatov underestimated the potential for such an outcome, or perhaps even invited the inevitability of his own failure.

"I have access to all of Omar's bank accounts and every contact he has in his organization." Vincent's eyes shone with excitement as he continued delving further, unraveling the secrets hidden beneath layers of encryption.

"Cats and kittens, we just stole ourselves a criminal empire!" King roared, opening the top buttons of his khaki shirt, revealing his bushy chest smeared with dirt and sweat.

Gale's emerald eyes flickered with a triumphant flame, then she blinked, and her look turned cold, "Move all the money to our secured accounts. Send all the contact data to Interpol and that upstart S.T.O.I.C." She commanded with a calm tone that juxtaposed her next command, "Burn it to the ground."

"Now wait a minute, Red. Money is nice and all, but the infrastructure..." King began to protest, but was silenced by a raised eyebrow from Gale.

"Infrastructure that's sullied. Infrastructure that would include the type of trafficking that would get us hunted, that would come back to family. Do you want your little one to be hunted, Johannes? Do you want someone to come after the family trust, King? We take the money and build our own empire; doing it our own way." Gale murmured, her voice like velvet-covered daggers.

King's mouth snapped shut, a look of understanding dawning upon him. He could see that Gale's mind was already a few steps ahead in this deadly game of chess; he knew that crossing her would be a misstep he could ill afford. Instead, he composed himself, plastering a charming smile upon his face, and bowed his head to her.

"Looking out for us, aren't you, Red?" King said with a devilish wink, still wearing his charming smile.

"Always, big guy, always. You're my boys." Gale affirmed, nodding curtly at Vincent, Johannes, and King. Her voice was solid, her gaze penetrating. "You always have been. And you always will be."

And so, it was decided; Omar Baymatov's empire would fall, his men would be eliminated, and any trace of their operation and whereabouts would be removed from the earth.

The dry, suffocating air of the Afghan desert was filled with the sounds of fire raging through their last stronghold, a once powerful network of smugglers and traffickers now dismantled by this determined group.

Standing over the carnage was Gale, her fiery pigtails flowing in the breeze, as she watched the flames dance on the horizon.