Raenef wasn't entirely sure what it was that had awoken him from his dream. Just a moment before, the image of a cruel, dark, blood-thirsty version of himself was grinning down at him as it watched him shatter like glass. Though his waking up had saved him the terror of his nightmare, he wasn't used to being awoken by outside noises.
He blinked a few times, his eyes and mind still foggy from sleep. Glancing around, he found Train and Creed still sleeping soundly. That would be most humans for you. Unobservant, just because they're asleep. Eclipse would have been furious with Raenef for not noticing..
He blinked again. Noticing what, exactly? What had woken him up? He looked around, pleased to see that his sight was getting stronger as he shook the sleep away. It might have been the sunlight that had crept into the room at some point during the night. It could have been the chilly breeze that seemed to have materialized out of nowhere and bite at his face. More likely it was the sound of boots scuffling at the window sill as the window itself was jarred open.
He was sure he should be doing something, saying something. Maybe alerting Train and Creed that someone was sneaking in their window again. He found himself ignoring that impulse and watching as a girl dressed like a knight dragged herself up onto the sill and dropped down into the room with incredible stealth and grace. She straightened up and locked eyes with him for a second. Grinning hugely, she stepped aside to make room for another infiltrator to make his way in. The contrast between their entrances was almost satirical. Where the girl had entered with professional precision, the boy scrambled at the window, stumbled back, nearly fell out, balanced himself, then fell inward. He landed with a loud thud and an exhalation of his held breath.
The knight laughed quietly, jabbing at his side with her boots.
"Good job, Chris. You were born for this."
Raenef perked up at the name, and now that he looked them over again, was disappointed with himself for not recognizing them at first glance.
"Chris! Erutis!"
The knight looked up from her partner, who was lying in a grumbling heap on the ground at her feet.
"Yeah yeah. Good to see you, Rae."
Glancing around himself, Raenef was surprised to find that Train and Creed had been stirred not by the loud entrance, but by his enthusiastic greeting. The two were still blinking sleep from their eyes when Erutis crossed the room to scrutinize them and their restraints.
"You got yourself in pretty deep this time, huh, Rae?"
Raenef smiled cheerily and nodded for her.
"Yep! And you're gonna get us out cuz you're a good friend, aren'tcha?"
Erutis chuckled breezily.
"Yeah, I think I can manage that."
Train and Creed watched the two quietly for a moment, keeping their eyes on Erutis as she pawed around behind them at the knots binding their wrists. After a few moments, she stood back up and looked around the room. She didn't seem to find anything interesting until she started scanning the walls and ceiling, at which point she noticed the security camera.
"Oh."
Chris gathered himself off the floor while they talked, grumbling about how this wasn't his job, the stupid demon could find him himself, and about the overall state of the world's spirituality. Raenef never understood the complaints of an aggravated Chris. The boy wandered closer to the captives, attracting the attention of both of Raenef's partners, who were already satisfied that Erutis wasn't a threat.
"Oh, dear god, Raenef, what have you done?" Chris sounded panicked as he finally took in the whole of the situation.
"What?"
"You got arrested? We let you out of our sight for a few months, and you've already come to this! But.." he paused, perking up. "But that means you're an evil demon lord now. I was right! And, as a priest, it's my civic duty to elimina-"
"I'll push you back out that window, Chris."
He paused, glaring at Erutis, but not willing to challenge her. She was considerably bigger and stronger than him, after all.
Creed snickered quietly.
"If that's a priest, heaven must be in a desperate state." He muttered under his breath. Train smirked and nodded knowingly.
"What did he say?" Chris demanded loudly, taking a semi-threatening step toward them. His advance ended abruptly as Train lifted his head, and his gaze was met with the glare of a killer. Chris stayed in the corner for the most part after that.
Erutis clicked her tongue scoldingly, laughed, and drew her sword from its sheathe.
"Keep still, boys." She warned before circling around behind them and going to work hacking the ropes apart. Raenef hadn't realized before how thick the knots had been until it came to his attention that she was spending the whole of two or three minutes on each knot. When finally he was free, Raenef jumped up, stretching his arms out above his head. How long had they been there? He had no idea anymore, but the feeling of being able to move again was so delicious, he was having a hard time thinking it had been anything less than an eternity. He paced the floor while he waited for his partners to be freed, making each step long and drawn out and just so pleasant.
A few minutes later, Creed was up and about as well, although his movements were a bit more measured, almost restrained, as if he was putting forth an effort not to behave like a child and go bouncing around the room just because he could. Just like Raenef had.
She began cutting Train free now. Impatient with how close they were now, it seemed to be taking the longest time, the quiet of which was becoming uncomfortable as it slowly dawned on Raenef that it was bright outside. Their captors would be waking up. Possibly awake already. He wasn't sure how long it would be before they came in again, to interrogate them, to give them food, maybe. He'd also been waiting a long while for them to come in with a knife and torture them, but as of yet, that hadn't happened. He let his mind wander for a while, to recap the time they'd spent in this room alone. Nothing interesting had happened since they'd gotten caught. That was unacceptable.
As his mind traced over the days, a nagging feeling in his head begged him to remember something, an event out of place. Something was off.
"Wait.." he mumbled and Chris looked over at him.
"Hm..?" Erutis mumbled back, her focus remaining on the ropes.
"When you called, we didn't answer. We were tied up."
"Yeah, I know."
"So how did you find us?"
He glanced over at Creed for approval. The Gray Cat was completely still now, narrowed eyes burning questioningly into Erutis' head.
"Eclipse spazzed out when you didn't answer the phone. He dragged us out here to get you."
"But we didn't answer. You couldn't have known where we were." Raenef persisted.
Erutis finished with Train's ropes then and straightened up, sheathing her sword. Train stood up slowly, turning to face her.
"How did you find us?" he reiterated Raenef's question without pause, and Erutis found herself the focus of two assassins' attention, which was uncomfortable to say the least.
"We followed the tracker we put on his phone." She shrugged nonchalantly and motioned to the cut ropes on the floor. "Don't I get a thank you?"
"You put a tracker on Raenef's phone?" Raenef could only begin to imagine the murderous heat his glare was probably putting on Erutis. She really didn't deserve to deal with it.
"Can we go? They could come in any time now." The assassins' attention fell on him, vicious glares softening.
"Yes, let's go." Creed agreed, turning and heading for the window. "I'll go crazy if I spend a minute longer in this goddamned room." Train glowered at Erutis for a second longer, then paced over to take Raenef by the wrist and lead him toward the window, too. He followed quietly, happy, at the very least, to have taken the predator's eyes off of Erutis. Creed stood to the side of the window like a soldier, eyes boredly tracing the movements of everyone in the room. Train went down first, landing easily on a separate level of roofing several feet below. He straightened up and looked back to the window.
"Come on." He called to Raenef in a loud whisper, the kind you get when you need to be quiet but for some reason also feel like yelling. He held his hands up and Raenef jumped down easily, too. Train caught him by the shoulders and steadied him, and they both waited quietly there for the others to follow. Once again, Erutis appeared to know perfectly what she was doing, while Chris required the help of all three of them to avoid falling off the edge.
Once they had all gotten down to that lower level of the roof, they spent what felt like a million times longer shimmying down a drain pipe. Raenef and his partners got down rather easily, but it was with Chris' slow progression down that he realized with a sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach that his friends might not be welcomed by Train and Creed. He glanced over at the two, but they were both very busy quietly encouraging Chris, assuring him with unconvincing certainty that he would be fine. Despite their best pep talks, he did fall, at least twenty feet off the ground. The yelp he produced before he was caught by Train and Creed below nearly gave Raenef a panic attack, but there was no audible response from within the house. Though he was relieved, Raenef found himself sighing in exasperation. How much noise did they have to make to wake up a few lousy soldiers?
Erutis eased down the pipe with more confidence and let go at about five feet off the ground, landing gracefully on her feet and starting off across the lawn with a sense of entitlement, as if she had every right to be there. Looking very annoyed with her lack of caution, and with a quick shove at Chris' back to get him moving, Train followed, Raenef and Creed close behind.
Raenef cast a few glances over his shoulder, admittedly a lot less worried than he should have been at that point as they went. Nothing happened. He found himself a bit disappointed. The escape hadn't been nearly as exciting as he'd hoped. The movies had lied to him.
Okay, this would be the solution I found. Yes, Leeche is here, she's just not shown yet. I'll be finding a way to use Sven and Eve soon, as well. Anyway, the next thing I submit will be a second explanation, like the one in the beginning. This was originally meant to end somehow, around here, but I thought of quite a few things I could do. Consider this the end of part 1, I guess.
Thanks for reviewing, and please continue to do so.
MT