A/n: I had way too much fun writing this chapter... hope you enjoy. ;)
The door creaked open on rusted hinges. Cortes kept his eyes fixed on the floor. He'd already taken the time to survey the room the Guardian had placed him in. The only pieces of furniture were two chairs – one of which he'd been tied to. Cortes had considered tipping this to the floor, something that would have been relatively easy. But then what? The walls were smooth, bare, and grey. There was nothing to slice through his bonds with. A minimal amount of tugging had assured him that they were sturdy – probably cable ties or something similar. He probably couldn't snap them but he'd started working his wrists against them anyway. If he was lucky the plastic would stretch a little. So far he'd only managed to dig the ties into his flesh.
Another noise as the door was closed, and then locked. The Guardian stood right in front of him. Cortes looked up at him then and scowled. The man's features were accentuated by shadow, but clearly visible in the sunlight streaming in from the window directly behind Cortes. The presence of natural light was something that may have seemed strange in an interrogation room. But this was the Sphere. Sunlight would be one of their tools.
Blake's face broke into a smile. "Well, I hope you're comfortable…"
Cortes said nothing. God, how he wished he'd shot the bastard earlier!
"What was your name again?" Blake asked. He grasped the loose chair by the back, and swung it around in front of Cortes, then sat down on it. He was close enough for Cortes to hit, should he be able to get an arm loose. For what good that would do him.
"I didn't say," Cortes finally said.
The corner of Blake's mouth went up, turning his smile lopsided. "Well?"
"Cortes."
"That's it?"
"Cortes. Captain of the Saint Nazaire," Cortes growled.
Blake seemed to think a moment. "I think I may have heard of you. You're a bit of a nuisance, aren't you? Run around in your ship, stealing peoples' water and destroying our ships. Getting you out of the skies will be a blessing."
Cortes snorted at that. He couldn't help it. "A blessing for the Sphere, maybe…"
Blake's smile disappeared momentarily. "Getting you out of the skies isn't all that we want, Cortes. Now, you're Captain of the Saint Nazaire. That's great, really. But we need to know more. Can't have you lot running around doing what you please, you know?" The smile had crawled back onto his face. "How about you tell me where your base is?"
Cortes glared at him, looking the Guardian right in the eye, unflinching. Then he looked away. "I have nothing more to say to you."
He barely saw it coming. The blow caught him in the jaw, flinging his body against the bonds and lifting him slightly from the chair before he crashed back down. Damn thing must've been bolted to the floor he found himself thinking as the room came back into focus. He spat a glob of saliva and blood to the side.
"You're really not in the right place to decide what you get to say, Captain," Blake growled. He'd stood to his feet, and was now pacing about the floor. "We are the Sphere. And we will not tolerate your kind doing as they want. This world is too fractured to handle that sort of chaos… pardon the pun. Now, let's try this again. If telling me where this base of yours is is too hard, then we can try something else. Battle strategies…"
Cortes didn't bother looking at him. Damn trying to play it tough. He knew what was coming and found he didn't really care. "I still have nothing more to say to you."
Blake struck him again, this time in the stomach. Twice. Then he smashed a fist again into his head.
The world spun. Cortes shuddered. If he wasn't tied… Well, he couldn't really do anything against a Guardian. But he'd like to have the chance to.
"Well?" Blake growled. His frustration was evident to Cortes, even through the daze from the slight concussion he suspected he had.
Cortes glared, as much as he could with one eye starting to swell shut. "You expect you can just beat something out of me? I thought… I thought the Sphere was a bit more advanced than this…"
"Of course we are," Blake snapped. Again, that smile. "Don't you get it, pirate? I'm doing you a favour. I'm sure you're more than aware we have far more advanced techniques to get the information out of you. Some of them you won't even know when you've cracked. Others… well," he flexed his right hand, wincing slightly. "They'll do far more damage to you than I could ever inflict. If you talk now, you won't have to endure those. The Sphere might even be lenient with you."
"Don't… don't give me that garbage," Cortes swallowed. He'd meant to keep quiet. Nothing but 'I have no more to say to you.' But he was getting too angry. Or maybe just after the amount of force Blake could put behind a single blow, he wasn't thinking straight. "You and I both know they won't be 'lenient'. Especially because I'm not telling you anything!"
That earned him another blow. This time in the chest. Cortes doubled over, as much as he was able in the chair, and coughed.
"It's up to you," Blake growled. "I'm just trying to be reasonable."
"What? By… by beating me to death?" Cortes gasped.
Blake chuckled. "You'd like that, wouldn't you? I mean, after that stunt you pulled with the gun. Grief, I was almost scared when I walked back in here that you'd have found some way to string yourself from the ceiling." He shook his head. "I honestly thought pirates were supposed to be gutsier than that. But I guess if you're all so willing to make martyrs of yourselves… no wonder you're dying out. I can't hurt you that much anyway. I promised Emily I wouldn't do too much damage."
Cortes couldn't help but shudder. He wanted to get up right there and flatten Blake, forget the fact the man was a Seijin. He had a sudden flashback then. The gladiator ring. Perhaps it was the pain that brought it on. This sort of a beating, back then, had always kicked him into a calculated rage that meant his opponent was in serious trouble. Some of those opponents had been bigger than Blake. But this was not the gladiator ring. A part of Cortes dearly wished he could give in to that same animalistic rage. But this was not the sort of situation that sort of simple instinctual reaction could fix. He couldn't fight anyway. Even if he could, Blake was a trained Guardian. He would stand no chance. Cortes lashed out with the only thing he had, his words, even though he knew these could betray him. "The Sphere has no right to try to rule Skyland. I don't care what you or the Sphere does to me. But I am not going to give you any information that will hurt my people!"
Blake opened his mouth to reply, but Cortes was not done yet.
"Look what you've done to Emily! You have her convinced that she's doing what's right for Skyland. You and your bloody Guardian school… I… I don't know what you do to those kids… asides from taking them away from their families." He paused briefly, gulping air so he could continue. "At least she seems to have the sense to ask you to not hurt me too much. Maybe there's hope for her yet."
Blake laughed. "Are you serious? She doesn't want you damaged because it'll look bad if she hands you over barely alive! Maybe she cares about her father, I don't know. If he's real, real lucky he'll get released with nothing more than a broken heart. But you… don't expect that girl to put in a good word for you. She told me, you know? About how you wanted to kill me…"
"Is that what this is about…"
Blake grinned lopsidedly again, and shook his head. "I really couldn't care less. But if you were trying to convince her that you pirates had the moral high ground, you failed miserably. 'The only good Guardian is a dead one', I believe she told me were your words. She's a Guardian too you know. Would you kill your own niece, your family, because she was one of us?"
"No…" said Cortes, but his voice was less firm now. The way Emily had referred to him as 'the pirate', her voice dripping with hatred… now it made sense. What had he been thinking? He swallowed hard, looking down at the floor.
"At what point do those poor little kids we 'steal and brainwash' become Guardians that you kill just for doing their jobs!" Blake snarled. He grasped the back of the second chair, his knuckles turning white. "You know how many students I've trained up and sent out… only to hear they've been killed when some pirate has attacked the water carrier they were trying to protect?"
"Then why don't you just leave us alone?" Cortes growled.
"Maybe if you'd leave our ships alone…" Blake snapped back. "You complain about us taking water and then take it yourselves! If you stopped fighting this hopeless fight of yours neither of us would have this trouble." His shoulders shuddered, and all trace of that infuriating grin was gone. His nose wrinkled as he scowled, and then he lifted the chair one handed and threw it into the wall. "Enough of this. This is an interrogation, not a debate! Tell me where your base is!"
Cortes drew in a breath. "I can't tell you that…"
Blake stepped forward, holding his fist up into the sunlight streaming in through the window. He waited until it glowed bright blue before smashing it into Cortes' middle.
The journey through the bowels of the water carrier was largely uneventful. Christophe would almost rather have had a bit of action. It would be a welcome distraction. Mila moved in front of him down the corridors, her arms glowing a dim blue. For the moment, she was the only one with a 'weapon' so he let her lead, giving directions from the rear. He was grateful she'd come for him. Even creeping through the corridors was better than sitting in that room by himself.
"I think we should be close…" he said, his voice low. "Try the next left…"
"You're sure?" Mila asked. Christophe had taken a few wrong turns before. She appeared to be getting a little nervous.
"Yeah. I can hear the engines."
Sure enough as they turned the corner the big heavy doors that could lead to nothing else but the engine room came into view. They both approached them cautiously. When no threats presented themselves, Christophe stepped forward and pushed them open.
A single Brig was in the engine room, leaning over a console. It straightened as it detected the intruders' presence. "Halt!" it intoned.
"Make me…" Christophe growled, stepping forward.
The Brig raised its arm and fired. Christophe threw his arms in front of his face. Nothing happened. He lowered them to see a dome of Seijin energy in front of him. The dome flickered and dropped, then was flung forward into the Brig. The machine jerked as if it had just been electrocuted and dropped the floor.
"Try and be a bit more careful," said Mila, grasping Christophe's arm briefly before moving to the console the Brig had been monitoring. She briefly looked it over. "It may have raised an alarm. The console's locked out."
"Don't worry," said Christophe. He surveyed the room. The ceiling was high to make room for the chugging generators. There were two of these. Interconnecting wires, as well as coolant pipes ran about the room. There were more of the pipes than on the recent water carrier models he had seen, but there were enough similarities that he could quickly tell what was what. "We don't need to use the console. Here…" he pointed to a junction box on one of the walls. "Why don't you start here?"
Mila smiled ever so slightly. She built up a ball of Seijin energy and blasted the box.
"Those ones too…" Christophe pointed. "And those gauges."
There were two more loud whomphs as Mila shattered those too. A klaxon began to go off.
Christophe went to the pipes, and turned a few valves that he knew were important, thought might be difficult to locate. Then he went over to the console, and put his fist through the screen. The klaxon went silent. "Damn…" he muttered, extricating his hand and shaking it.
"I could have blasted that for you, you know," Mila sighed. "And I think they might know what we've done."
One of the generators let out as whistle, like vented steam. The steady hum that had so far filled the engine room dropped to nearly nothing.
"Now I think they definitely know what we've done…" said Christophe.
"What? Report!" Emily shouted at the Brig monitoring the ship's vitals from the bridge.
The Brig had already done so once. But being a machine it had no issue with having to repeat itself. "We have lost power to the engines. There is a fault in the coolant system."
"Then bypass the fault!" Emily snapped. Damn it. Again she cursed the higher ups that had given her this stupid ship.
"The system will not allow a fault bypass. The fault may indicate an issue with the engine. Restarting it may destroy the engine completely."
Emily scowled. This was all she needed. "Then what is the recommended procedure to fix it?"
"The engine and coolant system itself must be investigated. If the issue can be fixed or proven to not be with the engine then it can be restarted…"
"Well, there's a Brig down there, isn't there? Get him to look at it." With any luck the issue would be simple, and even one of these dim witted machines could fix it. That's what it was down there for anyway.
"Communication has been lost."
"What?"
"Communication has been lost with the engine room," the Brig clarified. "The maintenance console also has a fault…"
"What?" Emily screeched again.
"It is not responsive. As is the Brigadier stationed there…"
Emily suddenly had a very bad feeling in the pit of her stomach. "And it didn't occur to you to connect all these faults?" she said coldly. "Of course it didn't. Now get back to your station, and I want you to let me know how many other Brigs are unresponsive!"
Her hands were shaking now. All she had to go on now was her training. That training told her that so many faults were not a coincidence. Heck, her common sense told her that! Stupid Brigs. She took out her handheld communicator and contacted Blake.
"Blake, come in. This is Emily." She had to repeat the call again before she got a response.
"What is it?" Blake snapped. He sounded frustrated. Or angry.
Guess he isn't having much luck with my uncle. "Can you check the other cells? I think we may have a problem."
She heard the clank of deck plates. Blake had already begun to move. "What sort of problem?" Some of the anger had gone from his voice. He was now back to business.
"We've lost power to engines, as well as some other systems. A Brig is down in the engine room…"
"Say no more," Blake growled. "I'll check on it." Emily's communicator clicked as the connection was shut off.
She drew in a breath and let it out slowly. Perhaps it was only a coincidence. If it wasn't, Blake would take care of it anyway.
"Two other units are down," one of the Brigs said to the air.
Emily tensed. It must be one of the prisoners! They must have escaped! But Blake would find them… but if they had already gotten into the engines. They wouldn't do anything that was easy to fix…
A flash of light came through the windshield. Emily blinked, and then looked out the windshield. It was nearing twilight, the sky was dimming, but the sun still had a few hours to go before going down. It shouldn't be this dark… "Viewscreen on!" Emily shouted. "Show me rear view." The windshield flickered as the normal view was overlaid with an image from a rear camera. Behind them a bank of clouds boiled and lightning flashed.
Emily pushed the Brig at the radar aside and peered at his console. The storm she had noticed earlier had picked up speed. But that much was already obvious. "You didn't think to report this?" she snapped.
"At our cruising speed we were in no danger…"
"Well, we're not cruising now, are we?"
Blake was gone. Cortes was left alone, shuddering in the chair. He could feel a few stray tendrils of Seijin energy still crackling through his body, trying to find a way to ground. He hacked and spat to the side. Damn it. He knew he was rattled, and despite Blake's words he had probably done some damage. Cortes was sure one or two of his ribs were cracked. Of course, that might not be considered permanent. And he wouldn't have let that sort of damage stop him in the gladiator ring. Those thoughts again! It was the pain that was doing it. And some amount of shock. And possibly the concussion. Cortes no longer felt like just giving up. Memories of fighting for his life had been brought up and he wanted to do so now.
He shuddered again, this time with pent up rage. He felt his wrists push against the cable ties. Fighting wouldn't do any good! Blake would crush him with his Seijin powers. I don't care. The shudder ran through him again and he let it work its way into his shoulders. His hands tensed into fists and the cable ties bit deep. That didn't matter either. He was already in more pain than those could inflict. He felt a trickle of blood run into his hand. He continued to push his wrists against the ties, ignoring it.
Mahad had tried. Multiple times. But it was only giving him a headache.
"Why won't you come off!" He'd noticed the vent in the ceiling after spending twenty minutes poking around the walls and door. He had no doubt he could fit inside, but he had to get the grating off first.
This had proved to be far more difficult than he could have imagined. The walls and door were rusty and obviously old. But the grating must have been recently replaced. The steel was bright and shiny, and the four rivets in each of the corners held it fast to the ceiling.
At first, seeing as it was out of reach, he'd started throwing his boomerang at it. But even with his skills, he quickly realised he would have to throw the boomerang right into the crack between grating and ceiling. But that crack was nonexistent, or at least far finer than the width of his boomerang. Not to mention the room was so small that tossing his boomerang about with growing frustration was starting to get dangerous.
So then he'd dragged over the single low cot under the grating. It hadn't been high enough. There was also a chair in the room. He stacked this on top of the bed. Immediately upon climbing on this stack, the chair leg punched through the thin mattress and send Mahad sprawling into the wall.
Mahad removed the mattress and climbed up again. Now he could just reach the grating with the tips of his fingers. He tried to get a grip with his fingers. This failed. He went at it again with his boomerang. After hacking at one of the rivets with his only tool, and mostly only succeeding in putting scratches in the metal surface, he hit it with a growl, toppled and tumbled to the floor again.
It was at this point that he began to verbally abuse the Sphere's ducting system. "You're supposed to be able to come off for maintenance or something!" he shouted as he stood to his feet, rubbing a bruised elbow. "So why won't you come off?"
There was a clatter at the door. Mahad jumped and spun around. Without thinking, he hurled the boomerang.
Blake stood in the doorway scowling. He held a hand up, a field of Seijin energy emanating from and holding the boomerang still in the air. "Are you serious?" he growled. The blue glow increased and suddenly the boomerang split in two.
Mahad's jaw dropped. "My… my…" he stepped forward and snatched the two broken pieces from the air.
Blake didn't smile. "Come with me. It seems your friends have escaped."
Mahad was still a little upset over the boomerang. "My father gave this to me… wait, did you say…"
"Yes," Blake snapped. "I may need your help to get this situation under control."
Mahad let out a short laugh. "Help you? Why would I do that? And you just…" He glanced at the boomerang again, shook his head, and shoved it into his shirt. "I'm not going to help you."
"You don't have a choice." Blake grabbed Mahad by the collar and dragged him out into the corridor, then flung him ahead of him.
"Alright, alright, I'm going!"
