Because Aisha is A Bad-Ass Chick. Not that she needs anyone else to say it for her. Contains a few random OC bad guys, but don't worry, they're not important, just cannon fodder.
Disclaimer: I don't own The Losers. If I did, it would be playing in XXX theaters.
Damsels in Distress And the Saving There Of
It was dark. It was dark, and cold, and she was alone. That was all she could tell about the world around her. There was a dripping noise in the background, and the muffled, far off noise of a conversation. She tried opening her eyes, but the distinct feeling of material over them told her she was blindfolded and wouldn't be able to see anything anyway. Aisha experimentally tugged at her wrists and ankles, to find that they were bound tightly together. Her wrists also seemed to be tied to something, that upon further exploration, seemed to be a water pipe. For a few moments she tugged ineffectually at the bonds, in hopes that her captors really just didn't know how to tie a knot, but to no avail. With the luck she had been having in the last week, it was more than just a shot in the (literal) dark. The left side of her face and jaw throbbed relentlessly, and there were at least two broken fingers on her left hand. She could feel the blood matting her hair, and running sluggishly down the back of her neck. Her bottom lip, swollen and split, had once dripped blood down her chin. Now she could feel the tight, itching sensation of the blood drying.
There were at least three different voices speaking what sounded like Russian in a separate room, but they all sounded fairly far off. She could have tried to reach for the lock pick, hidden in her hair, but considering that she was tied down with a thick rope, it wouldn't have done any good. She could hear the sound of heavy footsteps, moving towards her. Seconds later, there was the sound of a rusted out door opening, and then slamming shut. A masculine voice, deep, angry and holding a heavy Russian accent, called out to her. "You are not so tough now, are you Miss Alicana." It wasn't a question. Luckily for her, these idiots had no idea who she really was. She was slapped roughly when she didn't respond, and the right side of her face began to throb along with the left. The blindfold was jerked off, pulling more than a few hairs out with it. The man in front of her looked like the poster child for the 'Big, Stupid, Russian' stereotype. As he stood back to admire the bruises littered across her face, she took note that he had to have been well over six feet tall, and heavily muscled, with a blonde buzz cut, and beady brown eyes. He crouched back down again, and she saw over his shoulder that he hadn't come alone. The second man seemed to be nearly a copy of the first; big, stupid, and angry, but otherwise completely unremarkable. The first man slapped her hard when he realized her attention had wandered, "Answer me, bitch."
She rolled her eyes, and met his stare again, "Actually, it was more of a statement than a question. So I didn't think that you wanted an answer, dumbshit." Her mouth earned her another slap, this time her ears started ringing and for a few moments, and darkness seeped into the edges of her vision. She stared at the grimy, green tiled floor and blinked away the blackness in order to focus back on the moron in front of her. "If you're done smacking me around, you wanna tell me where I am and what's going on?", she asked as she turned her head back towards him.
The last thing she could remember, she had been walking down the slush covered, broken sidewalk, leaving a contact's house, in a bad neighborhood just outside Leningrad. She hadn't been walking for more than fifteen minutes, when she heard the sound of booted feet trying to walk softly. The idiot attempting to sneak up on her was about to get a nasty surprise.
She palmed one of the several knives hidden in her clothing, and waited until the would-be mugger was close enough to stab. As she crossed between two buildings, she spun suddenly and made a blind slash at the assumed height of the mugger's head, leaving a deep but non lethal scratch across a stubble covered cheek. The man she had cut looked nothing like a filthy mugger, but more like a hired thug. Aisha took a step back and aimed a single high kick for the man's head, only noticing a second too late that the fool hadn't been working alone. As soon as her leg came into contact with her attacker's head, she had been hit over the head several times from behind, and she briefly registered the cold and wet feeling of dirty road slush against her cheek before her world quickly went dark. The little weasel had probably called these bastards when she punched him in the face, and refused to pay him what he had asked. Though in her own defense, the man had no useful information, and was extremely annoying.
"My name is Rokel, and this is Aleksey." Rokel gestured to the man still standing in front of the door. "It is a pleasure to meet you, Miss Alicana." His voice sounded heavy with lust for a moment as he stroked a thick, gun calloused thumb gently over her jaw. Aisha simply gave him a bored stare as he continued speaking, "You are here because our employer wants you here. Beyond that, I couldn't care less what's going on. Especially seeing as we are getting paid quite well for so little work. You were not half as hard to capture as he said you would be."
"Well, you snuck up behind me and beat me over the head. Not exactly a master strategy." Aisha got slapped. She could feel her split lip start to bleed freely again. She waited a moment, for the spots to clear from her vision, before focusing back on her captor. "Do you want to tell me who your boss is, then?"
"Desya Ikranas."
Ah, so it was the Little Weasel she had punched in the face. Who knew Little Weasel had this much pull in the underground? Aisha should have, that's who. Next time, she promised herself, she'd do more research work before jumping head first into a potentially deadly situation.
"And where is Desya?"
"On his way here. Or at least, he should be. He called less than an hour ago, said he wanted us to get you ready for him. No idea what that meant, but I figured it would be best just to wake you up. You've only been out for about two hours now. How's that head of yours? You took a few hits before you went down." He spoke with mock concern as he gently pulled her head forwards, and inspected the injury one of his men had inflicted.
"I've been better. Thank you for asking." She sighed, pulled herself out of his lax grip, and began wracking her brain for any possible way out. She was supposed to check in with Clay at two, so he and his little pack of morons were probably on the way to her last known position. She thought to herself, 'Sure as shit not waiting for those idiots to come to the rescue.'
Aisha began mentally making a list of everything she knew about the situation. She had been attacked and out cold for more than two hours, so it should have been about 3 a.m. There were two men in the room with her, both of which were massive, but stupid, and armed with only a single .35mm between them. From what she could hear, there were at least two other men just outside the room, size and intellect unknown, possibly carrying multiple weapons. She was mildly injured, weaponless, and possibly sporting a mild concussion. Getting out without dying was going to be difficult, but not impossible. Since Rokel started his little conversation, she had gotten the ropes around her wrists half untied. All she had to do now was wait for dumb and dumber to leave, so she could start looking for a way out that wouldn't get her killed. "If you really wanted to help though, you could go get me some aspirin and a pillow." Her mocking tone didn't earn her another slap, much to her own surprise.
Rokel stood up again, wearing a disgustingly smug smile, as he pulled a silently vibrating black cell phone from his pocket. The overbearing ape flipped the absurdly small phone open and held it to his ear. There were a few 'Da's' and one 'Nyet:' mumbled into the speaker, before it was snapped shut, and shoved back into his pocket. "Boss man is half an hour out, Miss Alicana. I think that means you should be begging for your life at this point. It won't help, of course, but it will make it funny for my companions and me." He and his friend looked at each other and chuckled, then turned expectant gazes on the woman bound before them.
Aisha just gave the two a disbelieving stare, before closing her eyes for a moment and willing her spinning mind to focus on somehow getting the two out of the room, so that she could start on her escape. As it turned out, she didn't need to. Both morons huffed at her lack of response, then turned and left the room all on their own. 'Perhaps my luck is turning around.' She thought, 'It's about damn time.'
After an initial sweep of the walls in the small, metal lined, storage room she was held in (how appropriate) she determined that there were no cameras to watch her, and therefore, no reason to be stealthy about getting loose. Her two broken fingers screamed at her in defiance of being forced to work at the knot, but the ropes still only lasted a few minutes under her skilled hands. (apparently no one here did know how to tie a knot) Since she had no idea how many other men were on the other side of the door, or how well they were armed, just busting out the door in front of her wasn't an option. In the top corner of the room, there was an open air vent that went God knows where. But God Knows Where was better than her current position. The lock pick in her hair was used to remove the two screws holding the vent cover in place, and she noted that the vent itself was just big enough for her to fit in if she crawled along on her stomach. Aisha had to jump up on a stack of cleaning supplies, then lever herself up in order to get in. She pushed herself forward, grabbing onto corners and seams in the dirty, cobweb riddled vent work to pull herself along, trying to keep her weight off the middle of the vent to keep it from bending outward and making any noise.
According to her own internal clock, she had been dragging herself through the cramped maze of metal for about twenty minutes before she ran into an intersection that lead upward. Upwards was good. Upwards meant roof vents, roof vents meant open roof access, and open roof access meant she was home free as long as she could find a way down to the ground. She dragged herself forward on her elbows, flipped over, and pulled herself up into a standing position in the cramped space. She gave a light jump upwards and held herself up by pushing her forearms and knees outward, suspending her weight for a moment, before making a slow crawl towards what she hoped was freedom.
Moments later, she heard quite a bit of loud shouting in Russian, and smiled to herself. 'Looks like Little Weasel finally showed up' She thought, and after a moment, 'Wonder who's gonna catch Hell for this?' Aisha almost laughed at herself, but figured it wouldn't be worth the possibility of getting shot if one of the goon squad happened to hear her through the wall.
It was only another five minutes before she felt a gust of cold, fresh air wash over her face. She smiled to herself, and with renewed strength, crawled her way through the small, dusty, space to the rusted vent hatch only a few feet above her head. She beat on the rust covered unit until the single screw holding it in place finally gave, her broken fingers shooting pain up her arm with each strike. Aisha slid out of the duct work, and almost oozing onto the freezing tarmac of the rooftop, where she lay still for a moment in the hazy moonlight, trying to catch her breath as it steamed out in front of her. The freezing temperatures of the light wind and the frozen roof reminded her that her thick coat had been taken by the goon squad downstairs, and she made a mental note to come back and kill them all when she had the chance. She even decided to cut off their ears, just to see if she could freak out Jensen.
Aisha flipped herself over, just in time to hear the rusted roof door bang open, and the stomping of angry footsteps not far away from her position, which happened to be just behind the roof access door. She had just managed to roll behind a row of several large heating units when a man stepped into her line of sight. The moonlight made it hard to tell, but it looked like Alekesy had been given roof patrol, which made it all the more satisfying when she snuck up behind him, jumped on his back, and snapped his neck like dry kindling. She gathered his gun from the tarmac, and after a moment, decided to take his winter coat as well. The thing was laughably oversized on her, but it was warmer than just her t-shirt, so she rolled the sleeves to a better length, and started looking around for a way down. 'Bingo! Fire escape. My luck is turning around.' She smirked to herself, pocketed the gun, and started down the metal ladder, occasionally stopping to listen just incase anyone decided to come check on The Late Aleksey. The building was apparently some abandoned apartment complex, about ten stories high, with rusted out metal fittings and crumbling brickwork.
Three flights down, she noticed Little Weasel through a window. He seemed to be pacing back and forth, in front of a decrepit, rotted out, old sofa in one of the more spacious apartments. Upon further inspection of the room she realized that he was alone. Aisha briefly considered going in, and teaching Little Weasel a lesson, but reconsidered. This man was the breed of Little Weasel that wouldn't do anything without security present, so if they weren't in the room, they were close by. She wasn't sure she could get across the room and shut him up before she got charged by more of the goon squad, wherever they might be located. And with the way her vision was starting to blur together at the edges again, that would almost certainly end badly. She made a promise to herself to come back and teach Little Weasel a lesson as soon as her head was on straight, then continued silently down the fire escape. Or, at least, she tried to. Just as she pulled her head back away from the rotted wooden frame, she heard the sound of glass breaking, and the window she had just been in front of shattered inward. Aisha ducked, pressed back against the brickwork and hopped over the railing to swing down to the platform of the floor beneath before looking to see what had caused the window to break. On a roof three buildings over, she saw a faint light flash twice.
Aisha said a Very Bad Word.
Because if she was right in her assumptions, then it was Cougar that had taken the shot. And seeing as Cougar never missed, and there had only been two people in his line of sight, the Spanish bastard had taken her kill. Aisha shook her head and said another Very Bad Word. 'Well, here comes the cavalry.' she thought, 'Too late to do anything useful, too. Dammit, Clay.' Aisha only got to move down one more floor before one of the Russian gorillas hired to catch her leaned out the broken window and started shooting downward. Which was rather stupid, really. Aisha was only spurred along slightly faster as the metal grating of the fire escape above her head protected her more than adequately. She didn't have to look up when he screamed to know that he'd probably been caught by the ricochet.
The bullets stopped, but the sound of gunfire didn't. She had no idea where Clay was, or what exactly was happening. But she was almost certain that he and the rest of the team were shooting their way through the building, either still looking for her, or looking for a way out now that Cougar had spotted she was alright. As if to remind her that she was not, in fact, alright, her broken fingers throbbed around the gun handle and her vision swam, forcing her to one knee for a moment. The infiltration specialist took a deep breath, pushed the pain to the back of her mind, slowly stood, and moved for the stairs again. Straining against the recent abuse against it, the metalwork groaned and shook with every movement, but held her weight easily. Upon reaching the slush and ice covered ally floor, the woman didn't even bother to wait for her missing team, before heading on a zigzagging path to the safe house that the Losers had set up shop in several days ago. If they could get in without her, they could get out just the same.
Only twice on the way back did she have to stop in the shadows and force her hazy thoughts back into order, the adrenaline fading from her body making her feel weaker and less alert, her injuries more pronounced. 'I hate concussions' ,drifted briefly through her thoughts as the safe house came into sight. She had shoved her hands in the pockets of the oversized coat absent mindedly, and as they regained feeling, she again stopped to make sure they were set properly, before binding them tightly together to keep from harming herself further.
The caramel colored woman absent mindedly wiped the dried blood from her chin as she pushed open the metal door, noting that the faint candle light from within signaled that someone had gotten back before her. She had barely taken a single step inside the door before she registered a blur of green and black coming at her at high speeds and her body reacted on it's own. Her vision blurred and darkened again at the stress she was putting on herself, but when it she could see properly again, she had Jensen in a painful arm lock, pressed up against the dirty wall of the shack. Her stolen gun was pressed to his right temple, and his glasses had been knocked crooked. He grunted, and tried to look back over his shoulder at her, "No 'I'm Happy You're Alive' hugs for Aisha. Got it. Sorry. Hey, you wanna let go now? Because, seriously? Ouch."
She could hear Clay and Pooch chuckle from one corner of the room, and pushed the tech geniuses' arm up further, just until she heard him grunt in pain, before she let him go. The infiltrations specialist pocketed her gun for a final time, and gingerly set herself down in an abandoned corner of the room. She only had to wait a few moments before Cougar knelt down nearby, and began a short inventory of her injuries. He left to get the proper supplies to treat her wounds soon after. When he returned, Aisha was fast asleep on Clay's shoulder, half curled into the older man. The sniper didn't even bother trying to wake her as he patched her back together. Only hoping that helping her now would somehow make up for the team not being there when she needed them.
As Cougar was rewrapping her fingers, she twitched in her sleep. Her dream world filled with images of Jensen's face as she presented him a handful of Russian ears. Her mouth stretched into a smile as she slept, and for a reason he didn't understand, Jensen felt a sudden sense of foreboding.