Blah, blah…I blame this on the amount of time I spend talking about Mandarin on the SRMTHFG forum…you lucky, lucky people. Get two fics from me at once. Or are you all after my blood? Oh well…read and review. Or flame. Or whatever.

This fic is to explain why Mandarin misses out Nova when referring to his 'brothers'…

Mandarin's mouth went dry as a mixture of disbelief and anger flited over his face and drove itself deep into his heart.

Death…

Numbly, the lost monkey stared up at the man before him, his thoughts too big for his head and his shocked tongue suddenly feeling too swollen to utter a syllable.

The finger was raised.

A moment passed.

Then the line of flesh was brought down swiftly in a gesture that Mandarin recognised well, having witnessed it many times before. It was always the same on this planet.

Hands grabbed him roughly, shoving his hands down by his sides and pinching his fur. The monkeys eyes blazed open with a fiery rage that comes from those with nothing left to lose. That's when he snapped awake. With a shattering scream he spun round and lashed out with the very same move he had taught Nova not three weeks back. Ignoring the pained grunts rising up around him, he ripped through the hone of soldiers with delicate ease before racing towards the main doors and the scent of freedom…sweet freedom…

There was a sudden movement from the side and a crackle of electricity spun out of mechanical contraption. Mandarin never even had time to turn before the blackness claimed him.

When light next graced the slowly opened eyes of the former monkey team leader he found himself in a similar accommodation to the ones he had helped sent many human criminals into. A jail room with only a flicking lamp for company, small, enclosed, with absolutely no chance to break out. There was only one course of action to take.

"Shit."

Mandarin didn't approve of swearing but in his book he had been suffering a lot worse than could be usually expected. Within two weeks he had been chased out of his own home and degraded into no more than a seething fighter with rust-tinted armour and his default weapon stuck in 'locked' mode. He really should have found out the new overriding password that Otto had updated. And it was all over a dream…well, a nightmare to others.

There were footsteps, sharp clicks of valiantly polished boots pushing out against the floor. The orange monkey tensed, eyes fixuatated on the single doorway as he prepared himself for the slightest chance to escape.

The footfalls came to abrupt halt before the monkey was subjected to the clipped tones of a British sounding voice.

"You may make one last call to a planet within the specific zones according to the nimbus contract, before your sentence is carried out at the twelfth zarleck of the dawn."

There was a heavily pregnant pause.

"Speak up vermin!"

Mandarin's eyes narrowed at the insult as he stalked up to the door in a salient fashion. He stood still a moment more, his glare burning through the stale air before his metallic fingers slashed downwards scrapping against the block to liberty in harsh, growling decibels.

The human gasped , stepping back in shock and allowing Mandarin the opportunity of a satisfied smirk. There was a dull clank and the monkey stared down idly at his hand, feeling the sensation of emptiness breathing against his palm. A single grey finger lay on the floor.

"Last call freak! Do you wish to make one final call to anyone?"

The monkey picked up his finger, inspecting the various shades of russet coating the tip where rust had began to rot there. He nursed it carefully, recalling how a green monkey had once rescrewed it on with a whistle and a smile. It had been shiny then.

"No", he said slowly, "there is no one."

He dropped the digit to the floor, staring at it blankly as it rolled from side to side.

The guard made a huffed sound as he stalked away from the cell, muttering about how his wife was going to kill him.

Mandarin's lip curled in distaste, that hated word resting on his tongue and boiling his throat with obstructed rage.

'Family…'

It was all their fault. Cursing them, he crawled over to the unmoving wall and sagged against it sharply, denying the fear that crawled beneath his breast.

For out of all the things that scared him, none terrified and plagued him as much as the memory of him smiling at Otto in return.

It was dawn. The sun hung heavy and swollen in the orange of the sky, it's golden belly barely brushing against the horizon line. But the heavenly glow it bestowed on the land did nothing to soften the savage wind-beaten faces of the people as they stood jeering round the stone platform.

Mandarin's stomach did an unpleasant twist as he gazed down into their hate-filled eyes. He had tolerated the rough hands of the guards as they had dragged him out of his cell and driven him to the platform with their sticks and catcalls-he had relished the fact they were too afraid of him to meet his eyes. But the people…now he was at their mercy. And they knew it.

'They want me dead…'

It was all Mandarin could do to prevent himself kneeling over in defeat. Death had never blazed at him so openly before and now that it was scorching his soul, he found a part of him quaking like a brittle tree branch, willing to snap off at the onslaught of the wind. Time halts for no man or monkey.

And so scrapping up his pride, Mandarin held his head high, as though he were still leader of the monkey team, just returning to Shuggazoom city after performing some heroic deed, being welcome by the adoring cheering of the crowds…silence met his efforts. Yet still, even as the executer strode forwards with deadly blade in hand, the orange monkey raised his head upwards as though he had something to be proud of.

The sun's rays send chills over his face. There was no blessing.

There was a pause.

"You have been charged with the murder of the crewman piloting the RJK-180X enroute to the H.O.O.P prison. Do you have anything to say for yourself before the justice keepers of the federation planet Justistvia carry out the penalty of death?"

Mandarin stared directly into the concealed eyes of the executer under his hood. And then a crooked smile wove it's way onto his face.

"Yes", he whispered, "I danced in their blood."

A thousand shocked gasps pieced the air. A thousand silent calls for death.

The executer inclined his head.

"So be it."

He raised his blade.

"STOP!"

The scene froze as a streak of yellow plummeted from the sky.

Mandarin's eyes widened.

With a single swipe, the executer shuddered and fell from under the blow of Nova.

"What do you want sister?" snarled Mandarin viciously, "have you come to mock me in my darkest hour?"

Nova met his stare coolly, though her temper flared up within.

"I came to save my brother."

He was never sure afterwards how she saved him. Or more importantly, why.

'I came to save my brother.'

That was no reason. Just a statement. Besides he was no brother of hers.

She had done too much. She had grabbed him, flown off the platform to the waiting foot cruiser, leaving the blood-lusting calls of the people far behind. Of course that hadn't stopped her flying him straight to H.O.O.P herself, her lips taut and eyes grim. She even mouthed sorry as they hauled him away, plunged him into stasis, a sleep designed to numb him for a long, long time.

Why?

Sometimes we don't get the answers we want.

And he still hated her. Hated them all. He could not or would not spare any of their lives when he escaped.

But what she had done that day…something inside him, that had not been there before, flickered. And beat. Respect.

And when they would next meet, even as he stared at them with furious eyes, even as he addressed them all with the bite of hate in his voice…

"My brothers…"

He would exclude her from that malicious term. He would do her the honour of not labelling her among the rest. He would not let her name be touched by an expression of vocal hatred. No, never again would she be his sister.

A week before the this strange tale began, as Mandarin laughed pitilessly above the body of a dying man, a sun burst into flames overhead and approached it's last few hours of existence. The supernova frizzled out to noting long after Mandarin escaped from his destructive carnage.

Centauries later within the dust clouds of the dead star, a nursery of smaller ones came into being gradually, gradually…

Generations afterwards, a baby boy was born, his blue eyes twinkling with the promise of great things and a new-born star shimmering in their depths. It burned away in the exact place a monkey had once stood long ago.

And just like that, the candle blew out. Mandarin's chance for redemption died the moment a little boy was born. His replacement.

And now as the two stand face to face, yet again, the tight red rope binds them closely, twisted and frayed with the wounds they have caused both consciously and inadvertly. One is sorry. The other is not.

And so they lunge. They fight. One wins. One falls.

Isn't that what families do?