A/N: Warning: This chapter contains reference to extreme violence. It is not graphical in nature, but I tried to capture the emotions of the other characters who 'witnessed' it. If you are particularly sensitive to this, I suggest that you skip from the second set of & to just after the fourth &.


Chapter 12:

"So, Miss Robin – you don't mind if I call you that, do you? What shall we do today? I was thinking, maybe we should progress in the same order that your partner did with his victims." The young man appeared to be debating with himself as to what to do. Robin merely glanced at the man unsure of how to respond and deciding it would be better not to.

&&&

It was 17.55 and the whole team was gathered around Amon's desk. Michael fidgeted nervously, unsure if he would be able to handle what he saw, regardless of what it was. Doujima sat off to one side so she could see what happened, but could easily turn away completely. She knew enough of how Solomon handled their own prisoners to know there was a good chance that whatever they saw likely wouldn't be pretty. Sakaki sat backwards in his chair, with his head propped on the back of it. He looked to be rather unruffled by this, for which Miho could only be jealous of. She herself could feel enough tension in the room to have her more than a little worried, had she not already been.

At exactly 18.00 a window popped up on Amon's monitor. They could easily see Robin, as well as much of the person in the room with her. Amon immediately looked to see where the water had risen to. Suppressing a shudder, he noted that it was at about 10 cm, which meant the kidnapper planned on dragging this out.

"Amon, what is that in his hand?" Sakaki quietly asked, his voice betraying the calmness he exuded.

The words were barely out of his mouth before Robin screamed in pain.

&&&

As soon as the baton touched her, Robin could feel the electricity flow through her. It was quick, but the pain was almost unbearable.

"Please..." she horsely begged, looking up at her captor as he moved to stand more directly in front of her.

"Please? Please?" he derided, a feral glow coming to his eyes. "I'm sure many of his victims have said that in the past, but if you hope for Amon to hear you, you'll have to be louder."

He snickered before shocking her abdomen with the electric baton.

&&&

"Oh my God..." Karasuma whispered, covering her mouth with one hand, while holding her stomach with the other. At the sound of retching, she looked over to see Michael leaning over the garbage pail before running towards the washrooms. Doujima had her face buried in Sakaki's shoulder, sobbing quietly. Sakaki's eyes had gone wide in shock, though he seemed to not be able to look away from the computer monitor. Amon looked as collected as always, but she knew him well enough to know that below his calm facade he was anything but.

Amon could barely keep himself composed. As soon as he saw the baton in the man's hand, he had felt his stomach churn. Robin's dress was bound to be wet from the water that she was standing in, which would increase the the pain from the electric shock. Silently he prayed to whatever god that would listen that her torture would be short, but after 10 minutes of screaming on her part, and more and more maniacal laughter on the torturer's part, Amon was sure that even the gods were against him. Each scream was heart wrenching. He no longer saw what was happening, he was staring at some space past the computer, but the usually impassive hunter felt each scream tear at him and knew that this was all to torture him as well.

Finally there was a pause in the screaming, bringing Amon's attention to the screen. Robin hung limply, shuddering slightly, while her captor stalked around her muttering something just below Amon's hearing. There were holes in her dress, showing glimpses of the burns from the electrical shocks. He clenched his fists so tightly they hurt.

"So, Amon. I hope you are watching what this poor girl is going through. Now maybe you have some idea of what it feels like to stand on the sidelines," the man calmly stated from his position behind Robin while playing with her hair. "Then again, maybe you really don't care about anyone but yourself." With that, he disappeared. While Amon blinked at the computer monitor, he frantically tried to determine if the man had really just disappeared or if it was a trick of the camera.

He barely noticed that Robin said something. He couldn't hear her words, but he saw her lips move as she spoke.

&&&

"Invisibility." Michael's calm voice belied the inner turmoil he felt. "I don't know what she means, but that's what she said."

Amon nodded his head as if Michael was confirming what he already knew. "She was telling us that his craft is invisibility."

"Ok, so what does that tell us?" Sakaki inquired.

"Not much. Sakaki, look up what hunts happened when Maya and Gretchen worked here. Specifically which hunts that either of them participated in. Michael, now that we have a face, check and see what you can find out about this guy," the dark hunter commanded before gracefully rising and crossing the office to the conference room.

Quietly Karasuma followed. "What are you thinking?" she queried, watching as the brooding hunter brought up a copy of the video and fast forwarded it to where the captor was taunting Robin.

"He said something about victims of the past. He was meaning my victims. This is personal between he and I. Maya and Gretchen could both control electricity. I'm wondering if he's mimicking powers he has seen our craft users use."

"But even if he's doing that, how does that help us?" Doujima piped in, having nothing else to do but follow Karasuma into the conference room.

"Between knowing his face, and knowing who he could have possibly witnessed that had an electrokinetic craft, we should get a better idea of who he is, which may give us a way to find him," the older woman patiently explained while Amon absentmindedly nodded his head in agreement.

"There..." Though the somber hunter had been talking to himself, he got the attention of both of his colleagues.

"What did you find?"

"If you look up here," Amon explained, pointing towards the top of his monitor, "you'll see that there is a small drainage hole. That's where the water is coming in. It seems that the water is coming in from other places as well, but that is at least one of the places."

"So where would we find something like that?" Dojima asked while Karasuma leaned in to try to get a better look.

"I don't know, but that is what we are going to have to look for."


A/N: Thanks for reading. Please let me know if you think that this chapter should cause the ratings to go up. I thought long and hard about it, and asked several others. It was deemed that a warning of what to potentially ignore would suffice.