"Omi!" Three voices ehoed over the radio headset now resting against the floor. A disdainful blue glance found it, and a moment later the radio was nothing more than a pile of crushed plastic and metal pieces.
Omi struggled against the invisible hold that had pressed him into the wall moments before he could inform his team that he'd found what they came for. The man, one Hashitaka Maroku, was already dead, a knife protruding from his throat. The lithe telekinetic calmly surveyed the damage, and yanked the knife out of his body with a small grunt of effort. The body jerked as the weapon slid free of the new sheathe it had found in his neck. Nagi scowled, irritation written across his features.
"This is disgusting," he commented dryly, wiping the blade on the dead man's suit. "This isn't your style, is it. Someone was here before even you." The comments were directed towards Omi, but the other boy carefully avoided looking at his captive.
"What are you doing here, then?" Omi ground out, gasping when the pressure against his chest was increased. He knew that his ribs would start cracking if it became any harder, and whined for a moment to himself that they'd just healed from the last confrontation the two had had.
//Oh doesn't that just bite the big one?// A condescendingly familiar voice flickered across his mind, and Omi sighed, resigned to his imminent death.
//Such faith.//
iWhy the hell should I have faith in anything involving you?/i Omi retorted, knowing that the telepath would pick up the thoughts. He heard laughter echo through his mind, and shuddered. Shoving away thoughts of the German, he wondered what would happen, if Nagi would finally kill him or if he'd get some time to at least say good bye and get his things in order before his demise.
He was dragged abruptly back to the here-and-now when the firm grip on him lessened, and then fell away altogether. "Crawford says I can't kill you today," Nagi said mournfully. "But - what? What do you mean?"
Omi decided that ignoring him in favour of getting back out of the room was the best plan of action, and was in fact executing said plan when Schuldig entered through the only available door. Thwarted, he sighed when the telepath flicked the light on, momentarily blinding both teens.
"Hey, turn that back off, I thought I saw something," Nagi said, and Omi wondered if they'd forgotten his presence, to converse so easily. Or maybe it just seemed strange because Schuldig was silent and Nagi was speaking, and it was so very often the other way around.
//Don't get any ideas, Weiss.// Schuldig said condescendingly. //He's more aware of you than you are.// Omi flicked him a dark look, ignoring the older man and deciding that while he was still alive he'd do something about it, and wandered over to the small psychic where he stood beside a large window. At first sight, Omi had assumed it opened up to the outdoors, but closer inspection revealed a large open work-space, the majority of which was taken up by something liquid and faintly luminescent.
"Our estimates seemed to be correct," Nagi was saying, mostly to himself. "The goo is glowing, and possibly radioactive." It wasn't until Omi drew even with him that he realized that the other boy was speaking into a small microphone hooked to the collar of his shirt. Together, they looked into the pool below them, each thinking their own thoughts.
Omi was ready to voice his - why hadn't they killed him or left, or done isomething/i other than stand around twiddling their thumbs? - but he didn't get the chance, as a choked off noise from behind him alerted him to the danger.
Ken had come in behind Schuldig, somehow taking the telepath by surprise. Razor-edged claws rested against the pale skin of the German's throat in a clear warning. "Let Omi walk away from this, Schwarz, and I won't kill you."
Nagi reacted in a predictably unpredictable way - he grabbed hold of Omi, not with his gift but his hands, holding the older assassin close against him. "Get your hands off of my team-mate, and yours walks away," he said threateningly. Omi took a catalogue of the places their bodies touched, and decided that the other boy didn't eat much, and would possibly be easy to overthrow so long as the damnable telekinesis was kept out of the fray. A click from the direction of their other team members drew his attention, and he could see Crawford behind Ken and Schuldig, gun drawn and aimed -
Directly at Omi's face.
He didn't have time to think, or plan, he just reacted, throwing himself into Nagi's body with barely enough time between his movement and the bullet passing through the space his body was just occupying. The bullet went through the glass window, leaving a small hole and numerous cracks, and Nagi, thrown off balance by the unexpected lunge, pushed back and forgot to let go of his captive because suddenly they were both falling, and Omi hit the glass first, shattering it and slicing his back and legs open but it didn't matter because a moment later he hit the greenish liquid in the pool he hadn't known was there and he was sinking in because the psychic freak had landed on top of him when he hit, and their combined weights pushed them both easily through the substance. Nagi pressed up with his gift and his hands, shoving Omi further into the mess, and propelling himself upwards at the same time.
Ken, surprised by both Crawford and the gunshot, relinquished his hold on Schuldig, who took advantage of his freedom to follow the two youngest through the broken window.
He landed on the metal grating that ran across the pool, and knelt to pull his flailing team mate out of the goo.
Nagi came up coughing and sputtering, grateful for Schuldig's help. In the room above and behind them, Ken and Crawford watched the goings on almost peacefully, worry for their respective teams driving away the need to fight one another.
"Schuldig! I know the said not to do it, to keep our powers away, but I couldn't help it, that stuff is like honey, I freaked, I pushed myself out, I-"
"Sh, Nagi, chill, you're alright, where's the Weiss kid?" Schuldig knew very well that Weiss was critical to their current mission, and if any of the florist-assassins were injured it would be on their heads.
As panicked as he was, Nagi didn't have a spare thought for the other body who'd fallen with him.
Under the fluid, Omi was struggling wildly upwards, aware that he hadn't taken a deep enough breath to sustain himself for long without a fresh influx of oxygen. Swimming through the liquid was almost too much to handle, and as his lungs began screaming for oxygen he began panicking.
iOh my god, I'm going to die, I can't breathe, I can't breathe, I'm going to die I can't I can't I can't I'm not going anywhere am I even moving - how can I still be alive- I'm not going to make it - I.../i
"Nagi! Grab him!" Schuldig directed the trembling telekinetic, pointing to the vague shape they could see below them. Nagi took a moment to collect himself, and then reached out with his gift. The viscous fluid offered some resistence, but he ignored it until he could 'feel' the larger mass of the youngest Weiss. Instead of pushing, he wrapped his gift around the boy's body and ipulled/i, yanking him neatly out of the strange liquid.
Behind them, Crawford and Farfarello had engaged the remaining members of Weiss in battle, and Schuldig was faintly aware of their thoughts in the back of his mind.
Omi's face was bluish, and his goggles were missing when Nagi finally got him onto the platform.
"shitshitshitshitSHIT," Schuldig said eloquently, kneeling down beside him. "Get that shit out of his lungs, Nagi," he murmured, wishing that the fluid wasn't messing with their gifts. Nagi had been lucky enough to be able to use his to rescue them.
Crawford had warned them before they'd gone out that night, that something Hashitaka was involved with would fuck their gifts up. Schuldig had already felt it warping his telepathy, just being near it - the voices in his head from the thoughts of those around him were alternating between far too loud and almost non-existent. He knew that earlier Nagi had lost control when he'd been holding onto the boy they were currently going to try to save.
"He'd better have a good excuse for this whole 'Weiss must not die' shit when we get home," Schuldig griped, and Nagi looked up at him from where he was pressing down with his hands on Omi's chest, trying to force the liquid he'd inhaled back out through his mouth. "Fuck it," Schuldig said after a few unsuccessful moments. "Use your gift, and try not to rip his lungs out with it."
"You know I've got perfectly good control over it-" Nagi began retorting, and then gasped as he tried to excersize his PK and failed. "Shut up," he growled, cutting off Schuldig's smug 'I told you so' before he could say it. Angry and worried, Nagi slammed his gift into the blonde assassin, not caring about the force. The green stuff they'd fallen into dribbled out of his mouth, and a moment later he was coughing the rest of it up. His lungs worked frantically to restore oxygen as Schuldig frowned.
"He should be waking up," Nagi said. "That's what happens in the movies, they cough up the water and open their eyes. Why isn't he waking up?"
Schuldig tried frantically to regain some measure of control over his telepathy, opening his mind almost completely in order to pick up some sign or signal of life from the unconscious assassin. When the thoughts of everyone else in the vicinity assailed him a moment later, he slammed his shields closed over his mind, reeling as he tried to figure out what had happened.
He heard everyone in the entire iblock/i as clearly as if they'd been screaming in his ear, but still there was nothing from the boy they'd just saved.
"Nagi, I think we're in trouble," he said, staring down at the trouble itself.