For the half dozenth time this evening, as he was cautiously making his way along the ornately decorated narrow second floor landing, Behemoth couldn't help but wonder how he'd imagined this was a good idea.

"How in the hell do I keep talking myself into situations like this?"

He moved carefully, doing his moderately impressive best not to make too much noise. He even managed to stifle the long winded and impressive stream of expletives as a hoof slipped on a loose shingle, sending it skittering down off the roof where, thankfully, it landed on something soft with a dull crump. The fact that it hadn't exploded with all the subtlety of a cannon shot was little comfort as he scrambled to not follow in its wake.

"This is insane, she probably doesn't even know anything..."

Of course, probably wasn't good enough, not anymore. Any lead needed to be checked, no matter how unlikely. After taking a steadying breath, he continued along the narrow landing until he found his target. He flattened himself against the side of the circular structure, peeking around the corner cautiously. There. As he watched, his target came into the room, mane wrapped up in a towel, she'd obviously just stepped out of the shower, a faint billow of steam following in her wake. If his information was correct, this window wouldn't be locked.

- - -

It was a quiet morning, as the last half a dozen had been since his trip to Canterlot. It wouldn't last, Behemoth knew that well enough, but whatever atrocity the 'Order' had planned next, it didn't seem to be put in motion quite yet. He was thankful for that apparent delay, and had used that time to make some preparations of his own.

This time of day, Sugarcube Corner was full of just enough bustle and background noise that the two stallions seated near the back of the main room had no concerns about being overheard. The elder of the two was speaking, sitting ramrod straight as he did so. His pale blue eyes never stopped moving, lingering on the new arrival every time the cheery little bell over the door chimed. Neither of them expected trouble, but neither of them stopped watching for it.

"The first group is set to arrive on the eleven pm train, two nights from now. The rest will trickle in over the following week or so, two or three in a group, never from the same direction, never at the same time or using the same mode of transport."

"How many total?"

"About a full platoon, twenty eight, pulled piecemeal from the Company."

"Not enough. Send at least forty, fifty would be better."

Incredulously, the thin unicorn looked across the table to his years younger, and significantly bulkier companion.

"Why so many?"

"Because, frankly, not all of them are going to survive training. I want a full, preferably over strength platoon after I've finished with them, and I expect a roughly twenty six percent attrition rate. If you cant pull them out of the current platoons without their absence being noticed, get me more from local law enforcement, private security, I don't care. Hell, send me particularly foul tempered janitors if you have to, but at least forty, and the Company needs to keep its strength visibly the same."

The stark white unicorn nodded slowly and shifted his position, turning to face the battered blue pegasus sitting across from him. He made no attempt to mask his annoyance as he met the eye of the stallion just over half his age.

"Twenty six percent...one in four...damn. I don't envy them the hell you're going to put them through. Never thought we'd have to move like this in our own nation, stealthily, under the cover of night...it doesn't sit right with me, Capt... Behemoth."

The scarred, midnight blue pegasus nodded, taking a moment to refill the mug sitting on the table in front of him before he replied.

"No, Dusk, it doesn't sit right with me either. It would be much...simpler if this was a stand up fight, but its never that simple dealing with zealots. They're crazy, not stupid. They wont come at us straight, wont run the risk of being caught in the public eye, seen for what they are. No, they're going to come at us sideways, and we have to be ready for that."

Dusk Shields annoyance faded a bit, and he took a sip from the mug levitating in slow orbits around his head as he considered this.

"I know you're right strategically, we cant be seen as the aggressors here, the public wouldn't stand for it, so..."

Behemoth picked up where his mentor, former commander, former subordinate, and friend had left off.

"So, we wait, and make certain that when they act, we're ready for it...or as ready as we can be under the circumstances."

Dusk spoke again, his eyes and voice showing the slightest bit of uneasiness as he broached this next subject.

"You know...I could have the First scoop up one of them, quick and quiet. Bring em down here, bring your...tools out of storage. We could get all kinds of infor-"

"No. I'm done with that. That aspect of my life is one I've gladly left behind."

"Behemoth, its-"

"No. I'll advise, I'll train, and I'll help from the sidelines, but I'm done with that life. I'm retired. I've given enough of my life. Enough of myself, bits and pieces...all I want now is to rebuild my family, what little of it is left, and try to find a peaceful life here, out of the fight for once."

The finality of his statement ended that branch of the conversation as silence took hold, and they both looked down. Resting there on the table, between the two mugs and the still steaming tea kettle, nestled under the edge of the serving tray, was the green on black of the 'Childrens' chosen motif. After a few moments of introspection, it was Dusk Shield, the current Captain of the Royal Lunar Guard, who spoke again.

"Its going to be bloody, Behemoth. The 'greater good' insanity they spew is too addicting to the ignorant and the angry. They never stop to think, never suspect that all that nonsense is just a way for their masters to talk them into throwing themselves on the pyre... I always wondered, who got to decide what that 'greater good' was..."

Dusk looked across the table, locking eyes with Behemoth.

"You know, of course, that this could very well result in straight up civil war...tensions haven't been this high since...Hell, I've never seen it this bad. Everyponies on edge, wound tight, and with Luna's public departure from Canterlot... Even the ones without a side in this mess know that something is coming...random bouts of violence are breaking out all over. Shining Armor had to send a full platoon to Manehatten yesterday, riots got so bad there the locals couldn't handle it...and we don't even have any idea what set it off..."

He shook his head with a grunt, taking another sip before he continued.

"Those in the middle, the angry civvies, they're gonna walk right into the fire lines...this isn't going to end without one hell of a body count."

"Its already climbing Dusk, that's why we have to do this. The count is ticking up every day, more and more are disappearing, more and more having horrible 'accidents', and more and more being coerced into joining their ranks. It falls on us to stop it. If not us..."

Theirs eyes met again, sharing a weary, sardonic smirk at this phrase, well and long used between them. Dusk finished it.

"...then who?"

With that, their meeting was over. With little more then a departing nod, Dusk rose and walked out, the little bell chiming once as he slipped through the slowly diminishing crowd and out into the beaming sunlight of mid morning. Behemoth sat at the table, pulling his mug back to him, and a thick sheaf of paper from the worn bags tucked under the table. There was much left to do before the first of his "guests" arrived.

It was times like this that his...less then friendly countenance worked to his advantage. Although many whose arrival were announced by a cheerful ring looked, some blatantly staring at him, none approached. And although they spoke, occasionally about him, none spoke TOO him.

As mid turned into late morning, and crept into early afternoon, he sat. His only movements the regular turning of a page and the rare sips from the increasingly tepid pot of tea. He had grown accustomed to the cooling of the slightly bitter, slightly citrusy flavor, so when he refilled his mug and took a sip only to find his throat filled with delicious molten heat, it was enough to snap him out of his focus.

The first thing that caught his attention as he pendulous head swung up, was the undoubtedly delicious and rather monstrous sandwich that had been set on a small plate scant inches beyond where his vision had been focused these last several hours. The stealth in which it had appeared, without his notice, was marginally troubling. With a enthusiastic and audible rumble, his stomach reminded him that he hadn't eaten yet today, and that ninja sandwiches were probably just as tasty as their less sneaky kin.

Reluctantly leaving the sandwich behind, his gaze continued across the table, catching on the manic, puffy madness of pink curls that denoted the top of a particular pastry chefs head. She was looking down, her attention on the oft scrutinized scrap of fabric. She was spinning and twirling it around on the table, quietly humming a cheerful little tune to herself as she did so.

"Pinkie, when the he...I mean, hello Pinkie, good to see you again."

She looked up, meeting his dour expression with a huge, infectious Pinkie grin, her blue eyes twinkling. It wasn't possible to stay in a sour mood when that much unbridled happiness was looking at you. Subconsciously, he smiled back.

"Hi there Behemoth!! You looked really really focused on what you were reading so I didn't want to bother you, Twilight keeps telling me I shouldn't bother ponies when they're really focused on reading stuff but you also looked really really hungry so I brought you a sammich an your tea was getting all cold and not good so I brought you a fresh pot an set it down really quietly so's not to bother you an refilled your mug cause I didn't think you'd mind so much-"

Still a bit in awe at her apparent lack of need for respiration, he nodded politely as she continued, his eyes fixed on her as he acquired the sandwich and ended its short existence in a few quick bites. It was even more delicious then it had looked, and served to silence his grumbling stomach nicely.

"-ooking at your little flag-y hanky napkin-y thing here and,"

She stopped here for a second, taking a huge gulping breath in one of her rare nods to being a mortal and having to do that whole breathing thing. She continued without missing a beat.

"I've seen this big green sunny symbol before a coupla times-"

As fast as the verbal avalanche was coming, it took Behemoth a moment to catch up to what she had just said. When he did however, the sudden jerk of him straightening to bolt upright and the instant gleam of hard focus in his eye was just startling enough to Pinkie to cause her to miss a beat in her cheerful monologue.

"-and I...whats wrong Behemoth, you look all super duper serious all of a sudden. Even more then usual, and that's a whole lot! Did you eat the sandwich too fast and get a tummy ache, cause I hate it when that happens! T his one time Mrs. Cake baked a whole batch of-"

He spoke over her, ignoring her ongoing verbosity. Leaning across the table, he tapped the symbol that had caused so much grief in such a short period of time, drawing her attention back to it.

"You mentioned you'd seen this before. Would you mind telling me where?"

"Oh sure! Rarity mentioned that... you know Rarity right? Everypony knows Rarity she makes the best dresses in all of Equestria!! She even made one for me that had a great big cupcake on my head! And Fluttershy's had a birds nest! But those turned out to look kinda silly so we-"

"PINKIE."

Behemoths voice, while not quite a shout, was loud enough to earn him a few disapproving glances from the customers, while Mrs. Cake, who was currently running the counter craned her neck to look over. The alarm on her face suggesting that she expected to witness her part time assistant being devoured alive. For Pinkies part however, she showed not the slightest bit of concern.

"Behemoth?"

"This symbol, Pinkie. What about it and your seamstress friend. Does she have something to do with this group, is she one of them?"

Pinkie let loose with an ever cheerful giggle at this.

"One of them? No way! Rarity's never really been big on joining clubs...I think...unless there's some super secret fashionista club she never told me about... hmmm...but no, they just hired her to make them some big fancy robes with the green sunny thing all over 'em. They wanted them all fancy, and expensive, and a whole lot of em, like, thirty or something!"

"Thirty...well shit... Anything else you can remember about it?"

"Hmmm...lemmie think..."

Pinkie frowned deeply, her brow furrowing in furious concentration as she obviously wracked her physics disrespecting mind. After a moment, her reply was...

"Nope! Not a thing! Ohh, but if you wanna know more, you can always go ask Rarity yourself!! I'm sure she'd love to meet you, you being all big and large an not small an what not. Just swing on by her boutique tonight after closing. I'm sure she'll tell you aaaaaallllll about those robes. Oh, and I almost forgot. She doesn't lock her bedroom window, up on the third floor. You should probably go in that way, all sneaky and ninjalike, oohh!! I've got some super awesome nightvision goggles if you wanna borrow them!"

"Hmm, I might just do that, pay a visit to your...wait a second, did you just encourage me to sneak into her bedroom window in the middle of the night?"

Pinkie bounced up, showing her usual aversion to more traditional forms of locomotion, and bounded off towards the staircase leading up to her apartment.

"Yup, sure did!! Byyyeee!!!"

And with that, she was gone. Leaving Behemoth slightly confused and with a whole new tangent to explore come this evening. He would be lying to say the implications didn't concern him, but at the same time, more information was more information.

"Well, looks like I'm going to have an interesting evening..."

That would turn out to be a...bit of an understatement.

- - -

He slipped in, his large frame blending perfectly with the night sky behind him, so that the only visible sign of his entering the room was the momentary fading and then swift reappearance as the pin pricks of light emerged from behind his silent bulk. He pulled the window closed behind him, a single black feather left in the frame serving to muffle the already quiet sound of it closure.

~Alright then, lets get a look at what I'm dealing with here.~

He stuck to the periphery of the circular room, moving as a shadow through other shadows, deftly avoiding the flickering pool of light cast by a strangely solitary candle providing the only source of light in a room far too spacious for its meager efforts. He took great care to examine every square inch of the room for any concealed threats...a task made somewhat more difficult as he found his eyes instinctively drawn back to the figure lying on the over sized bed.

~Damn, Pinkie didn't mention her friend would be this...yeah...~

He found his clinical focus to be waning slightly as his eyes ran over her body, a sheer gossamer night gown, scandalously cut and translucent even in this poor light adorned her curvacious frame. The silk was a faint whisper, hugging her tightly and leaving nothing to the imagination. For a fleeting moment, he wondered why the ADDITION of a layer of cloth proved so...appealing, especially since the vast majority of the population spent the vast majority of their time nude, but that thought drifted off into the aether as she glanced up from the book that had occupied her thus far, and her deep blue eyes looked directly into the shadows were he was certain he was still concealed.

"Is somepony there, has some vicious brute slipped in under the cover of darkness to take advantage of an innocent, unsuspecting little mare?"

She spoke quietly, her voice lovely and proper as it was, wouldn't carry beyond this room. It wavered slightly in a tone that could've been either fear...or anticipation. He decided now was as good a time as any to make his appearance. He stepped out of the shadows, moving at a slower pace then was strictly necessary. He was well practiced at using his disconcerting visage to unnerve ponies, and this was a perfect time for that particular bit of theatricality. He spoke in a low, slightly exaggerated grumble.

"Alright, Rarity, you and I are going to have a little cha-"

She scrambled across the bed, backing away from him, for just a second, he thought he'd seen a smile flash across her face, but...no, that didn't make any sense.

"Ahh!! You great beast!! I knew you had come, that you had stolen into my boudoir, no doubt to ravage and take advantage of my supple body in my helpless state!!"

She dramatically threw herself backwards onto a mountainous heap of pillows piled high at the head of her bed, the overdone display completed as she turned her head to the side and threw a fore hoof across her eyes. Behemoth was well and thoroughly lost by this point, his plans of how this interrogation was supposed to go down having flown right out the proverbial window.

"I...wait, what're you talki-"

"Undoubtedly a monster like you will make wicked use of the conveniently placed items in the next room...the door on the left. No, no, MY left..."

He crossed to the door, his gaze now turning swiftly to one of confusion as his brow knit together. His eye was on her as he moved silently through the room. One of those deep blue eyes met his for a second or two before retreating back behind a foreleg. He opened the door into a lightless black void beyond. He didn't quite know what to expect, but whatever he did expect the small, windowless room to contain didn't quite match up to what he was confronted with as he fumbled for and found the light switch.

The room was floored in a dark tile, obsidian maybe, polished to a mirror sheen. The walls and ceiling were hung in deep folds of jet black silk. The combined effect seeming to make the room smaller then its already cozy dimensions. Hanging from the ceiling, the single source of light in this chamber, was a heavy steel industrial lighting rig casting illumination from a pair of long, fluorescent bulbs. Positioned directly below that rig, facing him, was a large, stainless steel 'X', which seemed to be mounted on a pivot, allowing for movement in all axes, as well as adjustment of height. It was the only piece of furniture in this room, save a large, multi drawered wardrobe sturdily built of a dark, almost blood red wood. Behemoth sighed, speaking in a low, resigned, slightly annoyed tone.

"Oh, what the holy bearded fuck is this now...?"

Distracted as he was by the odd and more then slightly unexpected sights of this room, his normally impeccable perception had waned to the point where he didn't notice Rarity moving over behind him, or the haughty, self satisfied smirk that marked her face as her horn began to glow. He noticed as his hooves left the ground.

"Wooaaahh wait what the..."

He looked over his shoulder to the purple maned mare stepping up to fill his void in the doorway. His gaze was fixed on her as his body turned without his input, and he felt his back pressed against the cold steel cross frame.

"Rarity...what are you doing?"

His voice was level, its projected calm betrayed a bit by the twist of inflection in the last syllables. That smug, supremely confident smirk was still adorning her face as she nodded slightly, tight leather straps coiling up on their own, constricting his ankles, pulling them hard against the metal like abnormally thin serpents.

"What, you think just because I am a lady that somehow I am defenseless against a brute such as you? I think not. Welcome to my parlor, dear. Here you impertinence will be...addressed..."

Punctuated by a wooden thud, his attention turned to the armoire, and the variety of items leisurely floating through the air towards him. He spoke to her, but those poltergeist objects held the attention of his one good eye.

"Ma'am, I didn't come here to cause you any harm, just to ask a few questions about your clientele...whatever your planning, you should reconsid-"

He was silenced by a thick, hard rubber gag cinching tightly around his muzzle.

"Oh shush now beast, I cannot be bothered to care why you're here, but I certainly will take advantage of such a...magnificent male form unwittingly making itself available."

As the rest of the items she had selected took up positions around her, one in particular drew his attention as it spun end over end in mid air, the harsh artificial light caught and reflected back by its polished surgical steel surface. It looked like nothing so much as a slightly smaller version of a knitting awl, a heavy base tapered to a wicked point.

"For the rest of this evening, and as much longer as I see fit, you belong to me...do try not to struggle too much dear, if you cooperate, you might just find pleasure...of a sort, in the next several hours."

He felt the sharp edge of it press against his leg, just above where the thick leather bound him, and a reflexive shiver ran through him, making his coat stand on end as it trailed slowly up the appendage. It left a red welt rising up from his skin in its wake, visible even through his coat. It was sharp enough and applied with enough skill to just barely avoid drawing blood. Rarity tsked disapprovingly as she stepped closer, examining his restrained form with a critical eye.

"My my my, it seems I wont be the first to leave my mark on your flesh..."

She was paying particular attention to the intertwined weave of scar tissue decorating his torso, the knurls of a multitude of rough healed wounds, each a stark white slash of various lengths and widths in the dark blue tapestry of his broad chest. She traced them with the diminutive spear, tracking along some, outlining others, wire thin red weals overwhelming the long since numbed flesh.

"Ahhh, now this...this is a masterful piece of work..."

She had come at long last to the massive, puckered indentation that marked where he had been pierced clean through by the King Blade. As her steel followed more then two years in the wake of the one that had cleaved him, that had ended so many lives so dear to him, he felt a powerful rumbling building deep in his gut. The 'other', the one he fought so hard to contain, didn't like the feel of metal near that wound...no, it didn't like that similarity one bit. His vision drew back, his perception retreating into his skull, the world shrinking and melting away, narrowing his cone of vision down to her. Her and her blade. What wasn't fading to black, was swiftly fading to red. A slow, drawn out creaking issued from his bonds as the figure they contained strained them to their limit.

"Crude, brutal...lacking a certain finesse, but...its sheer scale...the size of it...so beautiful, so raw..."

As she ran her spike in circles around the physical manifestation of his mortality, she leaned in closer to it. Running through his head, over and over almost like a prayer was one recurring theme.

~Don't do this, don't do this, don't do this, you'll wake it up, you'll bring it out, don't do this, it will tear you apart, DON'T DO THIS!~

He knew she couldn't hear him, silenced as he was, but he tried to meet her eyes, tried to implore her to reconsider. It was no use, she was too enamored with his mangled flesh, too focused on the menagerie of his scars to pay heed to the eye silently pleading with her not to-

She pressed her tongue against the rent flesh, running that agile little muscle through and over the knurls of stark white. She released an almost sexual moan as she reached the upper limits of it.

"Mmmmmnnn...delicious...magnificent...I want...MORE!"

To punctuate her cry, she buried the short, steel needle into the old wound dominating his chest. He felt every millimeter of cold metal slipping into the meat of his sternum, was clearly aware of the way it scraped along a rib on its inward journey. He felt every bit of this...and then ceased to feel anything. His bonds creaked, the long, low groan of leather being stretched. Rarity glanced up, annoyed at this distraction.

"Oh, would you just stop, those have restrained much more imposing specimens then yourself. Resign yourself to this, you just might come to enjo-"

With a drawn out ripping noise and the squeal of bending metal, it turned out she was wrong. Her focus on the thin trickle of blood seeping down his dark blue chest, she didn't even have time to cry out as his massive form exploded forth, propelling her across the room and into the silk lined wall next to the door. The hard rubber gag hit the ground after she hit the wall, it had been bit clean through.

~KILL IT, STAVE ITS SKULL IN WITH OUR BARE HOOVES!! CARVE OUR VENGEANCE FROM ITS FLESH!!!~

The voice wasn't his own, but it was very familiar. His vision of the startled white mare, the deep pools of her blue eyes, shocked and now meeting his one...it was different now, it wasn't the same warm gold as before. Now, it was the dim metallic of old brass. The once bright eye had grown dark and full of a bone deep fury. His vision of her flickered and jumped, shimmering like the mirages on the glass plains of the Deadlands, where he had first encountered...no, it wasn't a seamstress, not a lovely and proper purple maned fashionista. With a snap as sudden as a bolt of lighting, she was gone, in her place, pinned against the wall by a powerful foreleg across its neck, was a jet black form with vibrant green, segmented eyes.

~AVENGE OUR FALLEN BROTHERS, OUR LOST FRIENDS, SMASH THE LIFE FROM IT, RIP OUT ITS THROAT, WATCH IT DROWN IN ITS OWN PUTRID BLOOD!!~

Its form was...wrong, strung out. Legs far too long, a body far too thin, its belly hitched up in a fashion that would imply starvation in a normal equine form. Its flesh was smooth, matte black, a far cry from the chitinous, shining carapace more commonly seen on the drones. The holes, the carved out, random indentations and pits were much smaller then those seen in its kin, but much more numerous as well. It was obviously, wickedly feminine, and a sinister intelligence flashed in its multi faceted eyes.

~KILL IT, TEAR IT LIMB FROM LIMB, DESTROY IT AND EVERY SINGLE ONE OF ITS GODS DAMNED-~

As she choked and twitched, rear hooves dangling well off the dark tile, Behemoth reared up, the twin of the hoof that held her pinned to the wall by her neck shot forward, its girth coming straight at her face with force enough to shatter bone.

~No.~

This voice was his. Calm and composed. The deep and sonorous tone of his normal speaking voice, devoid of emotion, save, perhaps, for just a bit of weary resignation. The hoof stopped in mid air, scant inches short of plowing into Rarities defenseless, lovely face. She watched as confusion filled that single eye, and, for a second, it flashed back to gold.

~She is not our enemy.~

Back to brass. The hoof shot forward again, smashing into its target with three rapid strikes, each more furious then the previous. The wall three inches to the left of Rarities head had been buckled and rent, a hole nearly punched clean through the thick wood.

~LIES!! HER AND HER BROOD SLAYED OUR ENTIRE PLATOON!! SOLSTICE, WIND WEAVER, ECLIPSE-~

Back to gold.

~No. She is not one of the hive, she is not an Infiltrator. Even if she was...the platoons blood is on OUR hooves...WE killed them.~

His form and fury sagged and wavered. 'IT' knew that he was right.

~We killed them by not training them well enough...by not preparing them for what we KNEW was coming. The hive was just a tool, the...weapon. WE killed them...I, killed them...I...I failed.~

The other voice didn't, couldn't respond, all it managed was a brutal shake of its head, and an angry, animalistic grunt of argument. That sound held no conviction. The creature pinned to the wall jumped, shivered, like a movie with a damaged projector she flickered and popped.

~Look again.~

As her vision faded to black and her eyes fought to roll into the back of her head, Rarity watched the insane fury drain from his face. She watched the eye, the single eye that had held her as immobile as the leg across her windpipe, watched the heat drain out of that lonesome orb. It returned to its natural shade...mostly.

The changeling Infiltrator shifted, the dark, abequine form drained away like water, leaving a quaking, choking mare pinned by his brute power to the wall of her own 'playroom'. A strange, unbidden thought flashed through his mind, even with her face slowly turning the same shade as her mane, and her hooves beating a slowing tempo against the wall...even now, she made asphyxiation look gorgeous.

With a strangled grunt he cast her aside, the act more to get her clear of him then cause any more harm. The folded silk of the wall slowed her arc enough that when she hit the ground, sucking in deep gasping breaths of air, the impact was hardly noticed by her trembling, oxygen starved frame. With a growl, he drove his head forward, his powerfully muscled neck working like a piston. Once, twice, three times he drove his head into the wall where she had been scant seconds before.

He left his head resting against the wall, a warm trail of blood trickling down his face from where a shattered wall board had carved another ragged cut across his brow, adding to the mosaic of his existence played out in stark reality across his body. His heart was thudding painfully, as if trying to force its way free of his rib cage. He closed his eye, focusing his attention inwards, quieting the beast and regaining what little composure he might still salvage from this debacle.

~This...did not go as I had planned...~

The sound of hoof falls on stone drew his attention to the form in the corner, his eye opening to look to her, his head not leaving the wall. A golden eye fell on her as she stood. The beauty of her form somehow enhanced by the shallow scrapes, and the welling, vibrant purplish blue bruise forming across her throat. She met that eye. He doubted his sanity, as he saw that she was smiling in an obviously pleased fashion.

"Well then, brute, now that we have the foreplay out of the way ..."