Well, time to introduce two new side-characters. Hope you guys like them.

Chapter Six: Ultor's Strongest

"Amber... Amber! Don't you dare pass out on me. Understand?"

"C... Caid..." Her voice was low and slurred, and by examining the blood leaking from the bandages on her scalp, she was suffering a concussion. Glassy eyes, tears streaming casually. She couldn't even speak his name without stumbling over it. Shit. This was serious.

"I promise we'll get outta this shit hole and back to HQ, but you gotta be strong. You just have to wait for me, okay?"

"C..."

The android panted heavily and stared at his partner with pale blue eyes, hands restricted behind his back and lying down on the stained floor, next to Amber who was broken and bruised beyond repair. He knew she wasn't going to survive if this kept up, Ultor fucked with the wrong syndicate. He remembered this room like it was yesterday, bloodstained floor and walls, a shit bucket at the far side and no windows so you could choke on your own air. He was here 2 years ago, when he used to work for Ultor, beating someone's face irreparable for trying to place down stupid accusations.

At the wrong time, the steel door swung open and blinded her for a moment, the figure entering the musky room chuckling darkly under their breath. "Your turn, Ca-1." Roughly latching onto his arms, they hoisted him off the floor and onto his feet, noticing his sudden resistance as he pulled forward, his consciousness reaching out for Amber's. So close, yet so far.

"Amber? Amber! Wait for me, okay! I promise I'll come back for you! Just stay awake!" I made a promise to the Saints, he thought as a rock-hard fist smashed into her abdomen and forced him to double over in agony, a calm cry escaping his lips. A mark of his oath was tattooed on the nape of his neck, the fleur-de-lis.

In another room, the Masako agent that had been handling the Saint dropped him into the metal chair and snarled before stepping back, a woman appearing from behind him and making her way towards the android. "Since Amber wouldn't say anything from last interrogations, I'm having to get intelligence from you. So Caiden," she leaned in so closely, their noses were touching, but Caiden's expression didn't falter from calm. He blinked slowly, a cold, cutting edge gently stroked her cheek. "Baby...you don't want your beautiful face-"

"Fucking hate small talk..." he mumbled and looked down, loud enough so his interrogator could hear, and she flinched before stepping back.

"I've been told that you have information strictly against your parameters. Is that so?"

"Considering the fact that this is actually the third time I've stepped into this building, no. It isn't so."

"Don't fucking tease. Or do you want me to kill your girlfriend?"

Caiden almost laughed, "Wow, your predictions are shit. You'd be an awful psychic." The woman laughed, glaring at her blue-haired accomplice with blissful eyes, before landing a heavy punch to his face, splitting his lip.

"You sure you wanna do this, Caiden? I mean, if your girlfriend can't handle this, what's that saying?" Spitting out the coppery taste from his mouth, he cocked her head up at the man and admired her features. Short, honey-brown hair with the bangs clipped back. He could imagine how soft it was. Intense, coral eyes and sunkissed skin, piercings on her face and tatted tear drops on her cheeks. Even her smile was gorgeous. Such a shame he was gonna kill her though.

Just when the interrogator was about to ask another snarky question, her blue-haired friend rolled her eyes in annoyance. "Oh, fuck this." She jumped back and twisted her body, her heel of her Koala Kiks crunching into the gut of a Masako agent, and he bent over just for his visor to meet her knee. The other standing by the door didn't have time to react as she punched his visor, the glass shattering on impact and scarring his emotionless face, before turning into him and flipping him over her hip where the honey-haired woman landed the finishing blow by striking his jaw. The pop of cartilage was all they needed to be sure of his death, his body collapsing onto the floor.

"The hell, Vinie," Neon said, shaking off the blood dripping from her hand while Vinie rubbed her head in embarrassment. And to believe that Ultor's strongest were standing before him, the air letting off that scent of something unachievable by every other person in this entire building, even the CEO. And what was that? Unwavering drive. "You take your acting way too seriously."

"What? No I don't."

"You punched Caiden in the face."

"But that idiot on the floor did too."

"Yeah, and now his spine's broken along with his pride. You really need to take some classes."

"Yeah, yeah...need to take some classes, fuck you."

"Please," Caiden intervened. "She's suffering from a concussion and internal bleeding. She won't survive for more than 15 minutes if she's kept like this. Please..."

Vinie and Neon looked at each other for a moment, before the Latina nodded once and moved. Witnessing the woman's prowess as she swung open the steel door with ease and melted into the shadows, his attention was brought onto his creator who had whipped out a knife from her back pocket. Attending to the material wrapped around his wrists, she moved the small blade and the pressure vanished almost instantly. Just when he rubbed away the soreness, she was already by the desk, putting something in her hand before showing him.

"Urm, what is that?"

"It's your own health kit in a pill. Speeds up cell regeneration when you get injured. Aren't I just the best creator ever?"

"It's hard to take you seriously when you sound sarcastic."

"Well, you wouldn't be the first to say that. So," she started as she handed him the little pill and he threw it in his mouth, his tongue already tingling. "How are you?"

"Fine, actually."

"And the Saints," she moved from him. "How do they treat you? Do I need to kick someone's ass down there?"

"And start a war? Noo. No. They, well, actually...whoa, this pill works...they treat me like family."

"Your code?"

"Fight to protect."

"At least you're not failing on me...but, what are you doing here?"

"That's what I wanted to ask you."

"Huh..." Neon tapped something on her waistband and holographic screens flashed to life, showing her the sign-ins and sign-outs of every Ultor figure, the times in which they arrived and departed and also which room. She raised her brow when a familiar name popped up. "H-Hey, Vin, you need help in here? Vin? What's-"

Vinie emerged with Amber, a neglected ragdoll, in her arms with her eyes fixated on her face, swollen and beaten. The wrist that was once upon a time injured was actually popped out of place, her hand now hanging by the muscle and not the joint. Vinie took that into account. "Who did this? Who beat up Amber Collins? We were told not to touch her, so who the fuck disobeyed?"

"Last person with authorised access was Vanessa, but the mainframe indicates that she's already left with Alpha."

"That prick? She fucking touched Amber? Does she want to die? I'm pretty sure she's asking me to kill her..." She trailed off as she heard Amber exhale slowly and, thanks to Neon's teachings, instantly knew what that was. "Shit. Where's the breathing mask? She's stopped breathing."

"It's not on this floor, that's for sure. We have four minutes until she falls under cardiac arrest... Caiden, how many?" The blonde-haired android blinked once, the change to his visual spectrum allowing him to spot people through walls thanks to perfected backscatter.

"4 on the left, 3 on the right, and 1 straight ahead." Neon reached for the padded gauntlets hanging off her waistband, before bashing her fists together to activate the mechanism that sent electricity through the metal knuckles.

"Our main priority is Amber-Leigh Collins. We have less than four minutes..."

"Finally, I can kick some actual ass," Vinie grinned as she handed the Saint over to Caiden and rolled up her sleeves.

"But, you do know you two are defecting...right?" The British side-glanced at the Colombian.

"We always were defective," Vinie said, pivoting her body with her kicking leg behind her whilst Neon prepared behind her, rolling her shoulders and clicking her stiff neck. "Ultor's just afraid of losing their strongest assets."

"They always have been," Neon added. "Tried to leave once, gave me complete access to their tech. Give us 30 seconds."

"Hmph. Thought you'd be quicker than that."

"They'll be lucky if they even survive."

Caiden only smiled as Vinie's boot ripped the door from its hinges and knocked an android off his feet, and within moments he found himself sprinting to the elevator with Vinie coming up from behind him, Neon smacking her back into the elevator wall as the doors closed thanks to her AI.

"Echo, total override." She waited momentarily for the panel above the buttons to change colour, and software, and only a pair of green eyes could be seen. Caiden was always impressed by his creator's skills, it never ceased to amaze him with how much she could do. Being able to create a software capable of full access to a high-security bank in less than a minute while peacefully throwing the whole company and the law off-course was something only done by Neon.

"Overridden."

"Take over floor 17. And set the androids to default and erase their memory storage of the minute, we don't want any witnesses."

A robotic yet realistic chuckle. "Affirmative."