Disclaimer: Don't own, not making money of this, and if you want to sue me, get in line.

Summary: Yorgi's thoughts as he tests Silent Night on the scientists.

A/N 1: Why is it that the antagonists are always much more fun than the good guys? *amused*

Italics indicate thoughts.

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Silence

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It was silent.

The sound of frantic footsteps was gone, along with the screams, the pleading, and the begging. Even the desperate hammering against the doors had stopped, the last of the echoes fading away along with the lives of the scientists within the room.

It was silent, and for someone like Yorgi, complete silence was a rare occurrence. There was always something...music, loud and trance-like. Talk, sometimes business, sometimes not, and on rare occasions even the humorous talk between old friends and comrades-in-arm. Gunshots and radio-noise. The drunken laughter and giggling of the sluts that willingly came from the clubs, in the hopes that they would be able to take part in the almost obscene wealth that the members of Anarchy 99 surrounded themselves with.

But for the moment it was silent, and Yorgi found himself marvelling that one fact. So little it had taken, too - two chemicals, fairly harmless alone, but deadly when mixed.

No wonder the scientists had been proud...this nerve-toxic was truly the work of a genius.

Almost a shame they will not see the world they helped me create.

But they had served their purpose and were no longer needed - they worked for the highest bidder, and thus could not be trusted. They were too dangerous to be allowed to live, and their deaths meant as little to Yorgi as the deaths of the white mice in the lab.

And white mice, they were. Now, we know how Silent Night works.

"So quiet..." Yorgi remarked, almost to himself, and watched as the poison gas in the room vanished, mixing with water inside the ever-present Plexiglas pipes to once again become completely harmless.

He was aware of Yelena's presence, of the shock in her eyes, of the horror she felt. Despite the training he knew she'd gone though, she was still unable to hide all of her emotions. Despite the best of her efforts - despite the best of her teachers' efforts - she had never been able to completely become the ice queen they wanted her to be. She could keep up the facade most of the time, even when they had met for the first time, but every once in a while he saw the facade crumble, revealing a bit of her true self. It served as a reminder to him - that no matter how loyal she seemed, no matter how beautiful she was, no matter how cold-blooded she acted, she would one day betray him. It wasn't a matter of if, only a matter of when.

Dismissing her from his thoughts, he watched the room for a long moment, searching for any signs of life, satisfied that he found none.

"I know now why they call it 'Silent Night'," he said quietly, his words clear in the silence, morbidly gentle compared to the indifference with which he'd just executed the scientists in the laboratory.

Yes, the nerve-toxic would do its job nicely. It had been well worth the price and effort he'd paid for it, and soon, the rest of the world would witness that, too. As the name that had so aptly been chosen, night would descend, and silence would follow. Prague, London, Berlin...dying, dead, followed by chaos and confusion, and from the chaos would come freedom.

True freedom - from governments, and systems, and rules. Yorgi smirked faintly in the silence. True freedom...within his grasp.

Someone behind him spoke, and the silence was broken, along with the spell of death as the last remains of the poison gas vanished from the room, making the air once again safe to breathe. The doors opened, a few, swift orders followed by footsteps and talking as his men returned to their duty, uncaring of the dead bodies that surrounded them.

And in the old passageways beyond the solid walls of the lab, an alarm went off.