In Her Mother's Footsteps

by John Creel

Tragedy marks Holly Short's life. Her mother, Coral Short, was the last piece of family she had left, precious and irreplaceable. To lose her was to lose everything, and yet fate had no sympathy, nor did time. In this terrible tragedy Holly would find her true path in life, in her mother's footsteps, and that path would lead her to a boy named Artemis Fowl. Rated T for Lang & V.

14. Solitary Offensive

Island of Taillte

Thunder rolled its ominous drums in the fading night sky, shaking the earth and heavens with its godlike power. The flashes of its released energy rippled across this darkened firmament in sporadic waves, casting light here and there to illuminate roiling clouds and, far below, the looming hills of the lost island that stood alone upon the raging waters of the Pacific. Rain poured down in sheets, soaking the already damp forests with withering fusillades of droplets; the earth became muddy, slick, and the rivers from the mountains grew into rapids. In all of this the duality of tropical lands was shown, for where there was so much paradise there was also the equal potential for chaos; the flipside to the peaceful worlds tucked away in the blue expanse was the tempestuous character of that very same realm, the other face of the sea and its hidden gems.

At the base of one the mountains, where a cave opened up into a grassy clearing, there were the sounds of activity and the motion of many shadows. Four Laconus ships sat dormant in the center, their hatches open and their engines still warm enough to make the raindrops evaporate on contact. A number of armed fairies stood in the pouring rain, wary as they secured the area. Others saw to the bodies of their comrades, which were strewn about the grassy patch in the odd positions that their unconsciousness had left them in. Amidst all of this stood Captain Cailleach, his helmet off and his rifle slung over his back; he didn't mind the rain, if anything it cooled the burning fury within him. He eyed the unconscious fairies around him and frowned, utterly perturbed by the apparent fact that a mortally wounded elf had somehow climbed out of the cavern, ambushed his officers, and gotten away without leaving a trace. It was enough to make him growl his orders with overt anger, breaking his trademark stoicism.

"Gather the wounded and take them back to base, and make sure they are awoken as soon as possible so that they can be debriefed. The Major wants an explanation for this failure."

Vepar glared after saying this, feeling a slight amount of apprehension—far more than was normal for him under trying circumstances. He hated failing his commander, forsaking his responsibility, almost as much as he hated the prospect of losing the struggle against the humans. The scarred elf glared off into the darkness as water streamed down his head and face, and as he did so his right finger twitched; he really wanted to shoot something at the moment, preferably that vexatious elf. That Holly Short had managed to elude him was infuriating, scraping at his pride and his reputation, and it showed so clearly in his stature as he walked across the clearing, barking orders through barred teeth.

"Teams one, three, and seven, get to your ships and take up positions in sectors eight, twelve, and thirty respectively. An additional force will back you up once the Major has approved their deployment. Move out!" As three dozen of his officers rushed to their ships and took off with heavy blasts of hot air, Captain Cailleach looked to his own team, who waited in the gloom at the edge of the clearing like phantoms. His eyes, as he made contact with his colleagues, showed a predatory glint. "We have her on the run, comrades. Her objective is to make contact with Haven, so she would not stick around here, not as injured as she is now. If anything she's making her way to the shoreline, in hopes of getting out of the range of our refraction barrier." He unslung his rifle, powering it up without looking at it and holding it readily in his hands. "She's on her last legs, my brothers. She is prey. Now let us hunt her down."

The other members of Vepar's squad, Drakon, all readied their weapons and nodded silently. None of them spoke, but their expressions, hidden behind the dark visors of their helmets, would have showed the same darkness that Vepar displayed in his countenance. Together they proceeded into the jungle, half with pairs of wings to fly overhead while the others navigated through the dense brush. Soon they were gone, leaving only one ship and the medics in the clearing.

"We've got Private Zeph over here," one of the medics, a pixie, said gruffly. He knelt over the unconscious elf, and after checking his vitals with his scanner he gave him a preemptive shot of healing magic. "That should do for a while," he muttered, absentmindedly motioning to his colleague nearby.

"How's he holding up?" the combat medic, a goblin, asked as he brought over a hover stretcher.

"Stunned, like all the others," the pixie stated. "His vitals are all solid. It would seem that our enemy, the captain, is not capable of killing anything. She only uses the lower settings on her weapons."

"Typical LEP," the goblin medic said flatly as he helped his partner move the body onto the stretcher. "Still, it's an advantage for us. She's only making it harder for herself by not whittling down our numbers." He grinned, his sharp teeth glinting in the lightning. "As the humans say, conscience makes cowards of us all…"

"True," the pixie mused, before refocusing on Private Finley Zeph. "Let's get this helmet off of him…" The medic put his hands on the helmet and tried to remove it, but after tugging for several seconds he stopped, furrowing his brow and speaking angrily. "D'arvit. It's not coming off. Bloody thing's stuck!"

The goblin medic looked closely, and then whistled. "Took a laser shot right past the neck, maybe from a friendly in the heat of the moment. Melted the locking clamps right in place harder than a dwarf's spittle. Nothing short of laser cutters will get this thing off him." He shrugged, resignation in his expression. "He'll have to wait until he gets to the infirmary."

"Load him up with the others then," the pixie said, glancing around the clearing as he did so. "I don't like the looks of this place. Never did. I can smell the death from here."

The medics wasted no time in moving the wounded fairies across the clearing and into the waiting transport. A few minutes later the ship lifted off, blasting the clearing with hot exhaust and casting mud and water into the tempestuous air. Into the night the ship flew, towards the mountain that loomed over it; closer to the heart of Laconus.

The Zephyr-class vessel reached its destination only a moment later, slowing down as it approached a sheer cliff face on the northern side of the mountain. Though even by the lightning's flashes nothing appeared to be there, it all changed in an instant. The cliff shimmered, and metal replaced rock; a massive door appeared, and it opening noiselessly, allowing for the lone vessel to enter the hangar bay beyond. Many security measures were passed in the process—dozens of automated guns, numerous armed patrols, refractive shields, and a dozen others—but the ship was unchallenged, assured in its security. No one hostile was on board, and even if there was, they wouldn't have been able to make it far.

After landing in the busy hangar, the crew of the shuttle unloaded the unconscious fairies and transferred them to a waiting group of officers, who then took them into the pearlescent corridors beyond. A short elevator ride later, and they were in the core of the facility, where all of the most essential areas were safeguarded, including the medical wing. The four stunned officers were quickly taken into the emergency area, and Private Zeph was among them, still locked away in his tinted helmet and heavy combat armor, which concealed all of his features and gave him a stature exactly the same as his colleagues. A female could have worn that attire and no one would have been able to tell the difference.

It was ten minutes later that the motionless elf lay on a sterile table in a small treatment room, still in his gear and still out cold. There were no sounds save the faint report of the ventilation overhead; it was a sealed room, quarantine capable and outright cut off from everything. The walls were a featureless white as well, to accompany this isolation, and there was nothing in the small room but the medical essentials. For a few minutes he lay there, and then the door opened noiselessly, ushering in a typically dressed medical officer. The doctor, a female elf with long black hair and an unnaturally pale complexion, checked her data pad and regarded the armor-clad body, her golden-brown eyes ever filled with calculation. Her name was Aoife Vale. Having been one of Laconus' original members, she was among Belenos' elite, experienced and hardened by the many years of struggle. She was the Chief Medical Officer of Laconus, among her many other talents.

Aoife approached her patient as she always did, though with a lot less urgency than was customary. She already knew that the private was perfectly healthy, just stunned and stuck in his melted helmet—the helmet itself was functional and presented no risk of suffocation. His life was not in danger, and though such a situation did not usually call for an expert like herself, she had little else to do—the fact that the fugitive, Holly Short, refused to harm anyone, made the doctor's work quite repetitive and boring. Not that she disliked it of course. There was nothing Aoife hated more than losing comrades. It was her duty as a doctor to save lives—well, only those that mattered. LEP and humans were not on that priority list. Neither elicited a sense of compassion from her. They were enemies, and those who opposed Laconus' mission deserved to die. This sort of dark thought was contradictory to her original oath as a doctor, and in fact contradictory to the very doctrine of the People, but she did not care. Though many years ago she had lost her husband to the humans, there was no reasonable excuse for her change in morals, an assertion that she actually agreed with. Like any sort of intelligent corrupt being, she saw the wretched truth about herself and did not shudder. Killing was not new to her, as a hundred years ago she too had spilled the blood of her former LEP compatriots; the tri-barreled laser blaster holstered on her belt had been part of that. Like Belenos himself, she had long since accepted what was necessary for their cause, what one had to become.

Now let us get the bucket off of this soldier's head, the cold elf thought as she loomed over her patient. She reached over to the small table beside the bed and retrieved a laser scalpel, which she activated just seconds before bringing it to the patient's neck. Bending close and focusing entirely on her work, Aoife carefully sliced through the melted alloy that kept the helmet shut, all the while humming an old tune and displaying a bored expression. She could have dissected a live patient—without anesthesia—with the same amount of nonchalance.

Aoife finished the work in a few seconds. After putting the laser scalpel back on the table, she put both of her hands on the helmet and slowly pulled it off, minding her patient's comfort. Still she wore that bored expression, though she spoke with a little bit of enthusiasm.

"There we go, not quite as good as new, but good enough..."

She pulled the helmet off, and it was at that moment that she felt something warm press against her stomach. Her golden eyes widened, and her bored expression contorted into one of surprise, because at that very same moment she realized that her patient was not Private Zeph, or anyone in Laconus for that matter. A growling voice punctuated this discovery.

"Don't do anything stupid, doc. Otherwise they'll be cleaning you up with a broom."

Aoife felt her own blaster being pressed against her, and stared into the hazel eyes of her enemy. Holly Short stared back, her eyes narrowed and her expression deadly. For the doctor it was a terrible moment, for not only did she know that all of them had been fooled, but also that the LEP elf, regardless of her dislike for killing, would not take any chances in a life and death situation. The thing was, Aoife's laser blaster was lethal and only lethal, an old-school killing machine.

"Keep quiet, and don't move," Holly growled, quieter this time and yet with more force. She sat up slowly, keeping the doctor at gunpoint, and once she was standing at eye level with her she motioned with the pistol. "On your knees."

Aoife was clearly not one to give up so easily, because instead of following Holly's demands she burst into action, swiftly reaching out in an attempt to disarm her. It would have worked on most people, but Holly was far faster than most. With blinding speed and a terrifying snarl she avoided Aoife's attack and swung the grip of her pistol into the side of her head, effectively cracking her skull and giving her a cerebral hemorrhage. The medical officer dropped like a sack of potatoes, and Holly loomed over her, blaster aimed.

"Stay down, bitch. I don't want your life."

Magic whirled around the wounded elf's head, working furiously to heal the potentially fatal hemorrhage. Holly watched carefully, but she was not concerned. She was no fool; she knew that the injury could be dealt with by magic without any long-term disabilities. To be honest, she regretted having to go so far in order to silence the doctor, but as long as she did not permanently harm someone when there was no need, her actions were acceptable.

After checking Aoife's pulse and searching her for weapons, Holly stood tall and looked towards the door. Now she assessed her situation. Her plan, thus far, was a complete success. She was in the heart of Laconus' base, while the unfortunate private, Finley, was hogtied and hidden inside a rotting tree somewhere in the jungle. Back then, which was only a half-hour ago, she had donned all of his gear and purposely shot a lethal neutrino charge close enough to her neck to seal her helmet on. Then she had placed herself on the ground beside the other stunned fairies and waited. It had been an insane idea to pose as a wounded enemy in hopes of being taken into the facility, but that was exactly why she had chosen it. No other means would have given her access to the facility, which was a veritable fortress in its currently locked-down state. And, remaining in line with her methods, it was a strategy so insane that even Belenos would not suspect it. But regardless of its legitimacy, it had been a terribly nerve-racking experience, for throughout the entirety of it Holly had been defenseless. Had her enemies somehow managed to remove her helmet then, she would have been killed on the spot, executed without remorse. She had taken an extreme risk, placing her very life on a knife's edge, and the gamble had paid off despite all of the odds that rose against her.

It was by this feat that she found herself in the medical bay, alone in a conveniently private room. There were no cameras in the area either—it would seem that Laconus, at the very least, respected the privacy of medical exams. This allowed for her to almost casually stuff Aoife's body underneath the white sheets of the exam table and double check all of her gear. As these acts were done, she thought about the battle at hand. Her enemies were out there for the time being, searching for her in vain, chasing shadows of their own contrivance. They thought her on the run, broken, desperate, when in truth it was the opposite. Holly, like any cornered animal, was going straight for their throats.

The door loomed before her with all of its promised dangers. Once she left that room, she was in the cauldron until either she won or lost. She knew that there would be no more second chances. Steeling herself for what was to come, Holly donned her helmet once again, hiding herself behind her clever façade. Then, with a confident stride and a soldier's demeanor, she opened the sealed door and stepped out into a realm of countless dangers.

A large medical bay stretched out before her, filled with enough technology to make Haven's central hospital look like a small clinic; Holly did not gawk at any of it, though internally she wondered how the hell Laconus acquired all of its modern tech. No more than a dozen personnel were present in this room, and they paid the armored elf—a generic private as far as they were concerned—no attention as she strode confidently towards the exit. Clearly they thought their superior, Doctor Vale, was still inside the treatment room writing up the patient release form. They did not expect that an enemy was walking in their midst, or that their leader had nearly been killed by the grip of her own pistol.

With her stolen identity on her side, Holly left the room and emerged into the featureless corridors of the facility, hanging a right immediately. When she had been carried through these corridors on the stretcher, she had watched carefully from behind the opaque visor of her helmet; she had taken note of all of the key areas she would have to go, and now that she was free to move about, she began her plan of action as swiftly as she could.

Most would balk at the notion of walking through the halls of such a menacing place, but Holly did so without overt discomfort. She passed armed officers and other personnel regularly, and she never turned a head; she was Private Zeph, after all, so there was no reason for her to appear uneasy, or for others to suspect her. This was aided by the fact that Laconus' procedures mirrored the LEP's almost exactly. Due to this, Holly didn't need to guess a whole lot; she merely needed to throw on the same professional persona she wore in the presence of Haven's top brass. She saluted those who outranked her, and nodded cordially to those who were her equals, all with a fake friendliness. It was surreal, this experience, for she was walking by those who would kill her without hesitation and receiving their neutral acknowledgement. This was what it felt like to be a fox in wolf's clothing.

Her current objective was to reach the armory. She knew that it would be standard procedure, in a high-alert situation, for Private Zeph to replace his damaged gear and rearm before joining the security teams again, and that expectation coincided perfectly with her first order of business. She also knew that she would be expected at a debriefing before all of this, but none of the officers she encountered knew of what had happened, and by the time anyone did her goals would literally be in her hands. For what she needed to do, she first needed to be armed to the teeth. Her only weapon at present was her stolen blaster, which she had hidden inside one of her vest's pouches—and for good reason. It was an uncommon model, and its grips were custom made; someone was bound to notice a lowly private walking around with the Chief Medical Officer's personal sidearm. She could feel its presence, and took a slight comfort in it being close at hand. If anything went wrong before she reached the armory, at least she had a weapon, but she needed weaponry that would not stand out.

It took Holly five minutes to reach her destination, where she was met by a duo of armed sentries at the entrance. Gaining admittance to the armory was surprisingly simple. Firstly, she had all of Private Zeph's personal effects—his ID card, clearance codes, name badge, and even his outdated Atlantis citizenship card, which he had oddly kept despite it being useless to him. With these Holly had solid clearance, and it was yet another fortunate outcome that the elf she posed as had a boyish voice, one that she could imitate well enough to fool the guards. In only a minute she was inside the armory, one of the last places that Belenos would want her to be.

Suck it, Belenos, she thought as she strode past the guards and beheld the treasures that soldiers like her loved. There was a wicked grin on her face the whole time, hidden behind her mask, and through her barred teeth she chuckled lightly. Her eyes were on the weapons racks that stretched out before her, hence that wolfish smile. The racks were half empty, and there was no one but her inside the large room, leaving it silent after the door closed behind her. Most of Laconus' soldiers had already checked out their weapons and were either deployed in the field or waiting in reserve. The whole facility was undermanned due to her deception—a perfect time to make a move.

Trying not to appear conspicuous to the cameras above, Holly walked to the nearest full rack of pulse rifles and selected one. As she did so, she could not help but realize that Laconus' armory, despite being half empty, had more weapons in it than ten police plazas stacked on top of each other. Where do they get all of this? she thought as she eyed the other racks and shelves. There were rifles of all sorts, rocket launchers, plasma cannons, grenades, and such a wide assortment of pistols that she almost failed to choose one. In the end she took two compact neutrinos, placing one in a cross-draw holster on her vest and the other on her hip. She fastened a bandoleer of assorted grenades across her chest, and stuffed a number of other devices in her vest's pouches, including three high-yield detonation charges. To top things off, she selected two nice combat knifes, one for her vest and the other for her right boot. When she finished affixing her boot knife, the elf stood up tall and felt the weight of her gear fight against her efforts. Thank the gods for recon's endurance training, she thought, remembering when she had been tasked with lugging a heavy pack for miles and miles in heavy snow. As a result of her training, though her gear added many pounds to her stature, she barely noticed any discomfort; it was actually lighter than her trials in recon's simulations.

Holly checked her holo-watch—another item stolen from Zeph—and nodded approvingly. She had everything timed, and so far she was two minutes ahead of schedule. She had everything she needed, though she did not replace her helmet, and that was the one thing that was being expected of her for certain. This meant that her time was limited at best. Turning her back on the other temptations of the armory, she left with understandable haste. When she passed by the sentries and started down the corridor, she heard one of them speak behind her with evident amusement.

"D'arvit Private, what in Frond's name is all that for?"

Holly stopped dead in her tracks. She turned slowly and looked the grinning dwarf in the eye, and spoke with complete honesty.

"Payback."

Then she turned around again, and started towards her next objective. The two sentries watched her go, thinking that she meant payback against their mutual enemy, Captain Short. They had no idea that they were the ones to be on the receiving end of that masked elf's fury.

Holly was not exactly sure where she was going, but she knew what she wanted to find. Acting on a hunch and the glimpses she had caught on her way in, she walked the empty corridors of the facility, her eyes constantly searching and her hands always a blink away from drawing a weapon. She found her next target in a more secure subsection of the core level, where the floor was marked by color-coded lines. Each line led to something of importance, and Holly, despite being faced with a dilemma, chose without much hesitation. Truthfully, she just went for the door that had the most guards. There were six heavily armed fairies on duty at the door she chose, and as she approached them she read the gnomish letters above the large metal portal.

RG – 417…

The guards were chatting among themselves when she appeared, and they stopped upon noticing her approach; everyone became silent and still in the presence of the lone officer. The officer in charge, a lieutenant, took a few steps towards her, his rifle slung over his back but his right hand instinctively close to his holstered pistol. There was a little suspicion in his voice as he called out to her.

"This is a restricted area, state your identity."

"Private Finley Zeph," Holly replied as she came closer, "ID number zero-eight-nine-four."

The Lieutenant glanced at his datapad, which no doubt had Laconus' deployment data on it. His brow was furrowed. "You're not deployed on duty here, Private. You're supposed to be linking up with security on sub-level ten and proceeding to your debriefing with the Major."

Holly was now only ten feet away from the sentries, and there she stopped, her hands hanging loose at her sides and her head cocked just a little. "My apologies sir, I'm still recovering from being zapped by that LEP dog. All that neutrino energy messes with my head..."

"It sure does," the Lieutenant agreed, though he was eyeing her warily at this point.

A sudden noise, loud and repetitive, split the air and echoed through the corridor, making all of them jump out of surprise—all but Holly. She remained still, having expected the alarm and calculated the time-frame in which it was most likely to occur. Instead of looking surprised, she merely rolled her shoulders and muttered under her breath. "I guess they found the doc…"

The Lieutenant heard this and looked at her with an expression that said it all, but it was far too late. Before they could do anything about her she drew her neutrino and shot all of them in rapid succession, opting to just spray the hell out of them with neutrino shots until none remained standing. In but three seconds all of them were unconscious, and as the last one of them toppled over Holly knelt down beside the lieutenant, who lay with his pistol drawn but unfired. "Don't mind if I do," she said through a dangerous smile. She quickly rummaged through his pockets and found his ID card, which she promptly used to open the locked door. The metal barrier opened, and after glancing over her shoulder, she entered with all due haste. The sound of the alarm, and the promise of hostile reinforcements, urged her onward and gave rise to a fighting mood; her body and mind were blazing with a warrior's readiness.

The circular chamber before her was a treasure trove of high technology, containing dozens of machines and a large pillar in the middle. This looming structure was pulsating with energy and had dozens of cables and wires attached to it; energy flowed through it in colossal amounts, and its ultimate purpose was something that Holly knew very well. This was the generator for the island's refractive shield barrier and formidable distortion fields, the place that had enabled Belenos and his loyalists to remain hidden for decades. Holly took it all in with her hazel eyes, and spoke with a dark tone.

"Well, this room looks important…"

No time was wasted. She holstered her neutrino and unslung her pulse rifle. After putting it to its highest setting, she blasted the maintenance hatch off of the generator and melted part of is circuitry. Then, with an almost casual gait, she walked up to the smoldering opening and tossed one of her explosive charges inside, its timer set to thirty seconds. That should do it...

Holly spun around on her heel and began to leave, but not without dropping a handful of primed HE grenades as she went, one every few feet. She left the room with seconds to spare, closing the blast door behind her and stepping over the bodies of her enemies, and sprinted down the hallway as fast as she could. The explosion that followed, however contained and negated by the generator room's heavy doors, was so loud that it shook her to the core. The lighting overhead flickered as this chaos ensued, and more sirens and flashing red lights rose to meet it, plunging the facility into a state of complete madness. Holly intended to make the most of this insanity; destruction was her art of choice, and she practiced it in full, wreaking havoc and painting the world around her with the vivid brushstrokes of war.

Moments Ago, Command Center, Laconus Headquarters

Major Belenos Æthelryth stood in the middle of the facility's command and control center, surrounded by screens and computers and the sounds organized chaos. His officers were working tirelessly to coordinate search efforts and run detailed scans on the island's wilderness, and while their work went on endlessly Belenos watched the main screen with outward indifference, his cold eyes showing nothing of what was beneath. He was standing with his arms crossed and a fungus cigar trapped between his teeth, making his imposing figure all the more ominous by a slight haze of acrid smoke. The screen before him was split ten ways to fit all of the detailed reports and scan images that the command center was receiving; over a hundred of his soldiers, supported by a dozen gunships, were out on a simple search and destroy mission, and each team reported in every few minutes. So much effort was being made, and so many precautions were being taken, and all of it was because of a single tenacious elf, Holly Short. No one in the history of the LEP had caused so much trouble singlehandedly, at least that's how Belenos saw it. Coral's daughter was a proper pain the ass, and frankly the most unpredictable foe he had ever faced. Indeed, she was formidable, though she was nonetheless certain to fail and perish. What made it truly remarkable was that she kept going in spite of such hopeless odds. She never knows when to give up…no, she chooses not to… Belenos thought as he exhaled a thick cloud of smoke. Admirable…Tragically admirable…

"Umm, sir?" a voice called.

His thoughts now interrupted, Belenos turned to look at the speaker, an intelligence officer, who was looking up from behind his workstation. "What is it?"

The officer, a pixie, looked very nervous as he replied. "I just received a report from Captain Cailleach and his team. They claim to have come across one of the initial response team's officers, Private Zeph. They found him tied up and hidden inside a hollowed-out tree, stripped down to his jumpsuit. All of his gear is still unaccounted for."

"Private Zeph was admitted to the medical wing twenty minutes ago..." another officer said anxiously. "Sir, I think this means…"

"I know what it means!" Belenos growled, his usual composure broken by a sudden rush of anger. The realization had struck him like a rock—he had been fooled! Biting his cigar in half and spitting out the other end, he glared at the main screen and spoke firmly. "Track Zeph's helmet transponder, and bring us to readiness level zero. The enemy has breached the facility."

No one said another word. The emergency level was raised, with it coming the blaring of the alarm and the flashing of crimson alert lights. In this chaos everyone got down to the business of tracking down their cunning foe. The work was done quickly and efficiently, and in seconds the main screen was focusing entirely on a grid map of the facility's core levels. Belenos regarded it and came to a very bad conclusion. One of his officers did so aloud.

"By the gods, she's in the generator room!"

An appalling explosion suddenly went off in the distance, muffled and yet ridiculously close at hand. It shook the very floor Belenos stood on, and forced him to put one hand on a desk in order to stabilize himself. Some of the other officers at work in the room stumbled and fell, taken completely by surprise. The lights flickered for a few seconds, casting them into temporary darkness, and when they came back on Belenos stood up fully and yelled out over the din. "Damage report!"

His chief operations officer was seated in front of him, and after putting his head down during the explosion to looked back up and typed furiously on his system. "Sir, the primary refractor shield generator was hit by several explosions. It's completely down!" He paused as more data scrolled down the screen. "Secondary systems are online…shield integrity is being maintained…"

"How long was the shield down?" Belenos asked, looming over the pixie's shoulder.

"Two one-thousandths of a second," the officer replied immediately. "Even our technology would not be able to isolate such a transient signal in time."

Belenos nodded slowly, his eyes narrowed and his face contorted by a rare show of anxiety. His countenance slowly smoothed over into its usual coldness, and as this veil came over him once again he spoke slowly, almost in a whisper. "That will have to suffice. But even if they caught it, they will be too late. Our mission is almost complete." Straightening himself and looking upon the main screen, the Major smoothly refocused his attention on the most pressing crisis. "As for our vexatious guest, I feel that her welcome here has long since expired. Where is she presently?"

A number of surveillance feeds appeared on the screen, each showing an angle of where the enemy was. Belenos saw her then, dressed in stolen gear and laden with stolen weapons; an angel of destruction that should not have been possible. She was moving through the central levels, leaving a trail of unconscious fairies in her wake. She seemed unstoppable—her actions were risky if not insane, and yet she lived—but Belenos was not intimidated by her. If anything he felt anticipation. He knew what her game plan was now, and it was simple: survive, and wreak havoc until Commander Root arrived with the taskforce. Clearly she thought that destroying the primary shield generator would be enough to alert Haven, and perhaps that was, but it was a complex situation in which the opposite was just as likely. Major Belenos did not like to think about those odds, because he found them irrelevant. He had always known that the final stretch of his mission would prove to be the hardest, that his own brothers and sisters would try to stop him, and so he was prepared to ride out this last charge by the very seat of his pants. He would have his victory, no matter what.

While caught in this thought, Belenos continued to watch Holly do the impossible. All of his officers were looking to him for orders, and he did not disappoint them.

"Recall all ground forces. Half will bolster our internal defenses, and the others will establish positions around the mountain. Keep all of our ships in the air, and prep the rest of the fleet for launch. We must assemble all remaining forces and stop this elf before she does even more damage. I will personally lead the operation."

As his officers burst into action, Belenos walked calmly across the room, to where one of three doors loomed. It opened noiselessly before he could reach it, and a number of armed fairies were waiting in the hallway beyond, all of them garbed in the very best attire and gear, all cold and awaiting orders. They saluted Belenos when he emerged into the corridor, and he nodded. These were his personal guards, his most trusted soldiers aside from Vepar and his team.

"The Captain has nowhere to run," he said coolly. "Let us ensure that she gets a proper welcome."

Belenos was already wearing his officer's uniform, and he was handed a tactical vest, which he put on before accepting a tri-barreled laser rifle. This weapon was his favorite, and he held it readily alongside the blaster he had in his holster. Armed and prepared, he nodded to his officers and gave the order to advance. In unison they moved, and Belenos, leading at the forefront of the group, was the only one not wearing a helmet—the only face among featureless masks. It would have been safer to go fully geared up, but Belenos was an old soldier and had full confidence in his abilities. And apart from that, a dark motivation churned in his heart. He wanted Holly to see his face when their fateful encounter came. He wanted to look her in the eye, at that final moment, and send her to the place where Coral had so tragically gone. It was the only outcome he could envision. Holly had thrown away her last chance.

Level A4, Laconus Headquarters

A burst of neutrino fire tore through the pearlescent corridor, followed by the sound of a toppling body on the cold metal floor. Holly Short stepped over this stunned fairy without pause, her stride strong and her eyes ever watchful; her pulse rifle hummed readily, its barrel exuding a shimmering aura of heat and energy. For ten minutes she had been doing this, running around shooting everything that moved, and that was not going to change. Her plan was simple: she had no plan. After blowing up the reactor all she could do was survive in hopes that Root and the others would come to her aid. She did not know what she was in for, and she did not know where to go. To be honest, she was making it all up as she went, flying through a storm of deadly chaos by nothing more than instinct.

Holly kept to one side of the corridor as she came upon a corner, and when she aimed around it she was greeted by a fusillade of lase fire. Ducking back around the turn, she pressed herself against the wall and waited for the storm of hot energy to cease liquidating the wall opposite her. When it stopped, she burst into action, though not without wondering at how insane it all was: she could envision her mother, her father, even her likeminded mentor Vinyáya, balking at her methods. Yeah, this is crazy…

The elf primed a concussor grenade and tossed it around the corner, and she could hear the fairies beyond making surprised exclamations. The blast followed instantly, filling the air with noise and sending a tremor through the metal surfaces, and it was during this bedlam that Holly aimed around the corner and opened fire. Her enemies were scattered and on the floor due to the kinetic blast, and she shot each and every one of them before they could get up. She didn't give a shit about being fair, she never did, and most certainly not when her foes would give no quarter. She let her fury feast, though her countenance was almost emotionless as she pulled the trigger and walked past a haphazard mess of wounded officers a moment later. She was becoming numb to it all.

In this cold manner Holly proceeded, this time towards the main elevator system. If there was one thing she could do, it was to spread out the damage she was causing and find a way out at the same time. The thought of visiting the wretched laboratory came to mind, and it made her grin. Yeah, she'd love to set off a bomb in that room; send all of their clandestine research to hell. This idea, however, was destroyed when she reached the elevator, because the moment she arrived a group of thirty officers were waiting for her. She had no choice but to run, and though she struck two down in the process, she could not stop the other twenty-eight, who pursued her. Back through the corridor she ran, past countless doors, always with the sound of her pursuers behind her. More appeared ahead of her a moment later, cutting off her escape, and given their number there was no way she could take them on and survive. In light of this, Holly was forced to act quickly and desperately. As the enemy began to take shots at her, she aimed her pulse rifle at one of the doors and blasted its locking mechanism to bits. Amidst a hail of laser charges Holly lunged, and she struck the weakened door with her shoulder, making it open. She stumbled into the gloomy expanse beyond, turned around, and closed the door again, this time melting it around the edges with less powerful shots. That will keep them busy for a few seconds…

At this moment Holly turned around and began to run through the long chamber. It was poorly lit, and had a number of doors running along both sides, all locked and marked by symbols that she did not understand. The smell was what struck her the most. It reeked of sweat, excrement, and fear—hopelessness. Holly was not aware of its source until she was near the far end, where a large area was caged in by electrically charged bars, and when she caught sight of it she stopped dead in her tracks, all of her haste suddenly shattered by what she saw.

"By the gods…"

The caged in area was filled with humans. They were of all ages and ethnicities, and they all sat motionless on the cold metal floor, completely silent despite Holly's presence. She stared at them for a moment, and then walked a little closer, and as she did so her stomach churned. The smell was horrendous, but far worse was the sight. They were all naked, stripped down and left to suffer, and they wore expressions of such forlorn dejection that the very notion of hope was impossible in their midst. Holly was right by the bars when she stopped, and she could hear the humming of their electrical charge. Caged in like animals, trapped and broken, these humans were shadows of their former selves. They didn't even look at her. "What have they done to you…" she whispered as she looked at them. The nearest of them was a boy no older than ten, and despite his young age his visage was contorted by the very same brokenness as all the others, robbed of innocence. Only the sound of her enemies blasting at the door at the other end broke Holly out of her stupor, and when that happened she came to a quick decision. She could not just walk away, not from this.

Bringing her pulse rifle to bear, Holly placed three perfect shots into the heavy metal door that kept the humans trapped in the cage. The barrier shuddered and swung open, and as it did Holly waited for the humans to react, certain that they would see the opportunity to escape and take it. To her horror, they did not. Not a single one of them even looked her way. It was as if they did not care anymore, as if nothing mattered; as if they were trapped in themselves, locked away by fear and sorrow. Holly stared at this unexpected turn of events and blinked in disbelief. The sounds of her foes shooting the door made her call out desperately.

"Come on! Get out of here!"

Her words were met by deaf ears, but she could not accept it. She stormed into the cage and knelt down beside the nearest human, the boy she had seen first. After taking off her helmet, she put her hand on his shoulder and squeezed gently. She did not know what language he spoke, but she hoped her voice would be enough.

"Please, listen to me! You have to get up! You have to run!"

This time the boy looked up at her, slowly and without a sound, and when his wide green eyes locked on hers she felt a coldness rise within her very soul. She had expected them to be under the influence of the Mesmer, but this boy was not. His eyes were clear, their fear apparent and their brokenness shining in every reflection of the overhead lights. And yet, deep within them, there was no thought, no urge, no feeling. They were empty eyes.

No, this can't be… Holly thought as she stared into them, seeing through to a shattered life. Never had she seen someone so torn up on the inside, so obliterated in mind and spirit. Yet still she could not accept it. She stood up slowly, looked across the whole gathering of motionless humans, and yelled. "Why don't you do anything?! You can't stay here!" She stomped her booted heel on the floor, making a loud echo. "Get up! Go!"

"Save your breath, Holly, they are not going anywhere."

Holly spun around upon hearing this voice, and she quickly left the cage to see that her ears did not lie. At the other end of the room, where the door was not melted shut, was Major Belenos himself. He stood on his own there, surrounded by the gloom, and his emerald eyes seemed to catch all of the faint light to shine with an ominous luminosity. Holly stared at him through glaring eyes, filled with the urge to shoot him and yet pacified by her furious curiosity.

"What the hell have you done to them?!"

Belenos did not answer immediately. Instead he took a few steps closer, his laser rifle held readily and his face unsettling in its calmness, as if he was perfectly at ease around the ruined humans. "I put them back in their rightful place," he stated coldly, as if remarking about an established fact. "They are humans, mud men, the greatest filth of this earth. They are not worthy of the gift of free thought. They are not even worthy of life."

"That is not for you to decide, you bastard!" Holly growled.

"Who, then, will do so in my place?" Belenos asked. "This great duty has fallen to me, and despite its evident immorality I will carry it through. You know I will."

"You're wrong, you're all wrong!" Holly rasped. "I have seen what you do to these people, I have witnessed it. There is nothing great about your duty, it's just madness!"

"Ah yes, so you know about my final solution then? My magnum opus."

Holly's glare somehow doubled in strength, as did the fire in her voice. "A virus. You plan to wipe them all out with a virus…"

Belenos nodded. "Correct, Captain, that is my mission, and allow me to explain…" He eyed Holly for a moment, waiting for her to do something. Holly remained still, but prepared, and he carried on. "You see, if I wanted to simply destroy the humans for no other reason than to destroy them, I could have done so decades ago. All it would have taken was an elementary hacking of NORAD and other defense systems in order to make the Americans and their allies think that the Soviet Union was launching its ICBMs. A nuclear war would have them all dead or dying within hours. But alas, it would destroy the surface completely, turning all of our inheritance into ruin. That is not what the People deserve. I considered other methods, many methods. The epiphany came to me when I was studying the global influenza outbreak that happened to the humans after their first world war. It killed almost a hundred million of them with ease, more than their silly war, and that made my method clear. I studied all of the best strains that affect humanity, smallpox and Ebola for example, and with biotechnology it is rather simple to toy with the genetic structure of these entities. What we needed was a virus that would only target human genes with absolutely zero chance of cross-species transmission. It had to be airborne and extremely contagious, resilient in all environments, impervious to medicine, and perfectly deadly. And that's exactly what we have."

Belenos paused, walking alongside the cage and eyeing the humans within, a wicked glint in his eyes. "It acts swiftly upon even the most robust immune system, its general timeframe from exposure to death at only twenty-four hours. It has no symptoms, and it hijacks the human nervous system, making the patient ignorant to the effects until it is too late. What it does is simple and, oddly, painless. It infects every cell in every vital organ in the body, taking control of them in order to replicate itself, and then, when the infection has passed its incubation period, it kills all of said cells in an instant, bursting them via rapid replication." Belenos smiled a little, now looking at Holly again. "It gets a little messy when one's insides become paste, but it's better than the death they truly deserve. Am I not correct, Captain?"

Holly stared into Belenos' eyes, seeing nothing but pure honesty. It made her shiver, and she could not reply for the life of her, not until her momentary shock wore off. "You're a monster," she growled through barred teeth, sickened and horrified. "Not even the humans compare to you. You're a murderer, a devil!"

Belenos' unfeeling expression did not change, but he spoke with a slightly harder tone, as if Holly's condemnation actually offended him. "You see me as Mephistophelian, I understand. I have and will do terrible things, Captain. You have been to my laboratory, and the place beneath. You have seen the horrors of my making, the unspeakable acts that are done in secret here. You've seen it all, the veil of ignorance has been removed from your eyes and mind…" His eyes bored into her, and there was a powerful force behind their unsettling gaze, a pure strain of conviction. "You have the right to try and stop me, to kill me even. You have the right to do that. But you have no right to judge me, Holly, not a single one of you LEP pawns has that right." He was only a few paces away from her now, his emerald eyes showing a mysterious darkness. "After all my years of working to save the People, the vexatious nature of people like you has never changed. It is impossible for me to describe what is necessary to those like you, those who do not understand the nature of this war. You do not understand, Holly, nor do your leaders who so eagerly want to terminate my command and stop this necessary mission. You are all blind."

"I'm seeing things clearly now more than ever," Holly growled.

"Then what do you see?" Belenos replied softly. "What do you see in humanity, these creatures who killed Coral and countless others? What makes them worthy of forgiveness?"

Holly slowly looked back to the cage, back at the heartbreaking sight of those broken people, so callously robbed of their very minds and left as hollow shells to be used as lab rats. Her hands gripped her weapon even tighter, and her face twitched with a mixture of anger and sadness; within her mind there came a recollection of another's convictions, ones that had rubbed off on her. She looked away from the tragic scene, and stared Belenos in the eye. At that moment Coral's words became hers.

"Humanity is not our enemy. It is their ignorance that destroys the world, not their hearts."

There was a twinkle in Belenos' eye. "Spoken like a true Short, your mother would be proud."

"Shut up," Holly retorted. "I'm tired of you speaking about her. You know nothing about her!" Her words only served to make the elf opposite her speak with a slightly more deadly tone.

"I know more than you ever could, you had so little time with her while she was alive."

Holly raised her rifle, aiming it right at his forehead. "Shut up!" Only ten feet stood between them, and despite her sudden and perfect aiming at his face, Belenos did not even flinch. He simply stared at her, his own weapon not even raised; he was absolutely certain about everything, even when death stared him in the face.

"Shoot me then," he said calmly. "I honestly do not know why you have not done so already. All this time you let me talk and talk, run my mouth about things you'd rather not hear, and yet instead of taking action you just stood there. You wrongly put up with me, just like you wrongly put up with the humans and their wretched influence." He shook his head slowly, disappointed. "You let your curiosity get the best of you. You should have killed me the moment I entered this room."

"Don't tempt me!" Holly growled, raising the lethality setting on her weapon to its maximum—it was the first time in her life she had done so while aiming at a live person.

"Putting on a veneer of ruthlessness, how quaint," Belenos stated, cool as a cucumber. "Allow me to reciprocate…"

From behind Belenos appeared two-dozen armed fairies, all of them unshielding and shimmering into existence amidst the gloom; their dark attire and featureless masks made this transition startling in its smoothness, as if they were all truly born from the shadows. At the same time there was a noise behind Holly, back where she had come from, and from there came yet another two-dozen operatives, all prepared to turn her to ash. They surrounded her in seconds, forming a circle layered by a phalanx of raised weapons; she was trapped, caged in just like the humans beside her. Against such odds, Holly could only gamble. She kept her weapon aimed a Belenos and yelled out with dreadfully pointed words.

"Don't move, any of you! I will kill him! I swear it!" Her eyes remained on her target, but her hands were almost trembling, and her mind was awash with anxiety. Her opponent watched her like always, and his very expression, so calm and certain, called her bluff and dared her to do otherwise.

Holly kept her eyes on Belenos', and she refused to look away; they were locked into a mutual test of spirit, a battle of convictions, a rivalry of hearts and minds. She kept him there, with her own gaze, and she did so not only to show no weakness, but also to keep his attention away from everything but her. Though she was surrounded and apparently doomed, she was not convinced of failure just yet. She had known the whole time that Belenos had a small army of officers waiting in the hallway; the moment he had appeared she had realized she was trapped. Had she shot Belenos and tried to escape then, they would have easily killed her. Now, as she had hoped, they were all in the room with her, close at hand and within reach. It was the perfect time, the only opportunity, and she could not hesitate. She only had one more chance.

"This is your last chance," she growled. "Stand down, or I will kill him!"

Belenos' face did not change, ironlike in its certitude. "You don't have it in you. You never have and you never will."

This was the moment, the final glitter of chance before all was lost; like a transient gap in a storm, there one moment and gone the next, a pathway through certain death was presented. Against every urge in her being, Holly slowly lowered her weapon in outward surrender, holding it with one hand while the other crossed over to rest on her forearm. As she did this, she spoke softly, almost inaudibly. "You're right…" She squeezed her forearm with that hand, but it was not an act of shame, insecurity, or defensiveness—there was a button hidden there, wired beneath the uniform, and with that deceptive motion she pressed it. I will be back for you, she thought to the humans beside her, and then everything was blinded out by an appalling explosion of light and noise. All of Holly's stun grenades had gone off at once, detonating while still attached to her belt and projecting outwards their shocking power—a setup she had preemptively modified to work just right. She had closed her eyes and plugged her ears at the last moment, and though it was not nearly enough, it was a lot better than those around her, who were too busy holding weapons to do anything at all.

The ring of armed fairies stumbled back in disarray, temporarily blinded and deafened by the detonations. The few that had helmets on were impeded by their debilitated comrades, and no one fired a shot, not with such high chances of striking one of their own. Amidst all of this Holly burst into action, leaving her dropped pulse rifle where it was and drawing both of her neutrinos to open fire on what few enemies still remained unaffected. She burst through them with a devastating charge, growling like an animal and shooting like a lunatic. Her ears were ringing madly, making all of what happened in that chaotic moment surreally muffled, as if distant, like thunder flashing far away. She had lost sight of Belenos during the chaos, but she did not look for him; she ran for her life.

This insane escape attempt took all but ten seconds, and it was preceded by yet another series of explosions, these ones going off at random locations where she had hidden her remaining explosive charges. The very floor trembled at these, and it served to further disorient and scatter her foes who, by nothing more than sheer luck, had not landed a hit on her. The last stretch before the exit was blocked by three fairies, each wearing helmets and thus unaffected. They aimed at her when she burst through the throng of stunned officers, but she was fast. One shot from her neutrino hit one of them in the throat, and at the same time she ducked low and rolled beneath another's burst of laser shots. As she came up she fired with both weapons, hitting that fairy thirty times, and the last one, nearly knocked over by the former's sudden collapse, could not shoot before she bodychecked him. They both went down in a heap, but Holly shot him as they fell and was on her feet the next moment. Finally, she emerged into the corridor and its promise of escape. She had absolutely no idea how that plan had worked so well, but she quickly pushed such wonder aside and focused on surviving.

The moment she burst out into the corridor she started running, and with her would-be killers right on her tail, she was inclined to sprint like she was going for gold at the Olympics. She left a trail of HE grenades behind her, all timed to go off in intervals, and these detonations kept pursuit at bay. Even still, laser bolts screamed past her head, though thankfully they were randomly aimed through the wall of smoke her grenades had created. Things were looking up, but that good luck seemed all but spent when she came around the next corner.

Along the entire right side of that hallway was a transparent wall that overlooked the hangar bay, and there were no doors on its other side save an elevator at the far end—an elevator that opened the moment she set her eyes on it. Captain Vepar Cailleach emerged from it first, followed by fifteen others, and all of them set their eyes and weapons on her in an instant. However, Holly already had an HE grenade primed and thrown, and they had no option but to run back into the elevator before it detonated.

The explosion, however loud and destructive, did not distract Holly from a looming shadow that was appearing to her right. She looked and saw, rising slowly from the hangar below, a fully armed Zephyr gunship. The sight should have frozen Holly in her tracks, but there was no time for even fear to strike at her. With both ends of the hallway blocked by pursuing forces, she decided to go against every shred of wisdom and every grain of logic—even against her own less reckless proclivities. She charged straight at the window, directly at the gunship hovering twenty feet beyond, and opened fire with both neutrinos at once. The window blasted outwards to her shots, and the ship beyond, amidst the hail of glittering glass, opened fire at the exact same time as she was vaulting out into the open air. Two missiles exploded from their housings in the ship's wings, and with deafening roars careened towards their mortal target, who was flying through the air with a glare on her face and a roar of her own. The projectiles screamed past her, missing her by inches, and exploded violently within the corridor behind her. The resulting shockwave gave Holly a boost, taking her right towards the canopy of the hovering gunship. She stared down at it in the perceived slow motion of her flight, and growled menacingly.

"My turn!"

With both neutrinos set to their highest level, she laid down a storm of shots upon the opaque cockpit, all while she flew towards it on a wave of fire and smoke. The shots tore into the heavy material, melting it and rendering it fragile, and though none of them breached the canopy Holly was not concerned—that's what she was for. Letting gravity drop her like a rock, she descended on an angle towards the hovering ship, and made it so that her heavy combat boots were the first to meet it. At that last moment she was overcome by incredulity at her own actions, and it was clear that the pilot within was equally as astonished, because he did nothing to avoid her. As her feet met her target, Holly thought just one thing. This is insane…

The surreal slowness of the moment crashed to an end. Her feet struck, material shattered, and onward she went right into the control room itself—right into the pilot who sat there gawking at her arrival. Though Holly was not at all heavy, her gear was, and her momentum multiplied it manifold; to have all of that come down on one individual was quite painful. The next thing Holly knew she was landing feet-first on the chest of the pilot. The blow was enough to knock him out, and they both ended up in a tangle of limbs the next moment. Quite understandably, the ship they were in lost control at the same time.

"D'arvit!" Holly rasped, desperately grabbing the controls of the ship while at the same time trying to detach herself from the unconscious pilot. The floor was rushing to meet her, and the ship was scraping against the metal walls as it went. The noise was horrendous, as was the distinct possibility of death, but even more so than this was the sound of Holly's determined scream. "Come on!" Against seconds and slim odds, the ship came out of its dive and scraped the floor of the hangar, and then shot upwards on an angle. Holly gritted her teeth as she tried to regain control, and when she did she quickly tossed the pilot from the seat into the back compartment—with a curt sorry of course.

To even think of such a feat was ridiculous, let alone to believe it possible. Yet as Vepar Cailleach and his officers reached the blasted corridor and looked out into the hangar, they were treated to a bizarre show of luck. Their gaping expressions changed when the ship came around and aimed right at them. "Get back!" Vepar yelled, at the same time as a burst of laser shots came towards them. They ran, and Holly, watching from within her stolen ship, grinned menacingly.

That's for earlier, assholes!

Vepar and his officers had retreated en masse, and no one else could be seen through the cloud of black smoke that her barrage had created. It had felt good, but Holly did not lose herself in such lust; she had to keep going, she had to escape. Bringing the ship around, she set her eyes on the hangar exit, which was closed to her. All of the other personnel in the hangar had either fled or rushed towards the defensive cannons; the latter were taking aim and charging to fire. Holly wasted no time. With an eager expression she literally punched the afterburner button.

The Zephyr shot forth like a rocket, heat and fire blazing from its rear and a deafening noise coming from its engines. Cannons fired upon it, and a metal door blocked its path, but its pilot was not deterred—frankly, there was nothing else she could do. Holly went straight at the door, firing everything the ship had is in arsenal. Missiles took flight by the dozens, smaller rockets in cascading waves, and six multi-barreled cannons spat liquefying streams of laser. This deluge of fire hammered into the hangar door, melting steel and blasting a portion of it outwards into the night, leaving a large hole clean through it. Holly, braving the constant barrage from the hangar's guns, went straight for this improvised salvation.

Far behind on the level she had jumped from, Belenos emerged through the thick clouds of smoke to witness this bedlam. He saw Holly fleeing in one of his ships, and immediately knew that she would make it out alive—the impossible, and yet both she and her mother seemed to always do exactly that. Behind him stood his officers, all staring with mixed expressions and a mutual fury; they thought that they could do nothing about their enemy now, defeatist. Belenos did not spend any time wallowing in anger. Instead, he looked to the elf to his left. The officer was holding a plasma cannon—a portable launcher of sorts—and seemed too stupefied to use it.

"Give me that!" Belenos growled, taking the weapon at the same time. He shouldered it immediately, switched off its safety, and lined up the retreating ship in its scope. He did not think about the life of the pilot in that stolen ship, only the vexatious elf that was there with him. Sacrifices were necessary sometimes. A pull of the trigger shot forth a devastating burst of superhot plasma, and it flew, with startling speed, right into the rear end of the hijacked vessel, melting metal like snow in an open flame. Belenos watched as it struck, and then handed the launcher back to the stunned officer. He then looked at the ship, which was smoking and spiraling out of control, and grinned a wolfish grin.

"Not this time, Captain…"

Holly was doing anything but grinning. She was swearing aloud and desperately trying to regain control of the ship. It was now spiraling out of control over the mountainous terrain of the island, trailing smoke and leaking a tail of flame that seemed to light up the whole night like a crimson moon. There seemed to be no way of stopping it. "Not again…" Holly rasped, struggling with the controls. "I will not crash on this godsforesaken island again!" She fought hard against the forces that would bring her down, using every trick she had learned from Vinyáya while in the academy, but it was not nearly enough; the Zephyr was a model she was unaccustomed to, and its entire rear end was a deformed mass of molten alloy. A few more shots, fired from a hidden anti-air placement outside the hangar, sealed the deal, clipping off the right wing and riddling the compartment with holes. One of these shots struck Holly's seat, slicing it nearly in half and obliterating its ejection system, and after it happened she sat there in awe at the narrow miss and the implications of all that damage. Nothing, not even Holly, could slow down the resulting plunge.

"Oh gods no…" she rasped, staring with wide eyes as she plummeted towards the looming monstrosity of one of the mountains—towards rock and gloomy jungle, and a terrible death. She held on for dear life as everything trembled and fell apart, but she could not close her eyes—she would not, ever, look away from a fate that was before her. Instead she watched, with a fearful gaze, as the shadowy mountain got closer and closer. Seconds alone were all she had, and they were not enough—there was no time to think, to cry, to pray, or to remember one last time the things she had lived for. Then the seconds were up, and into the mountain she crashed, her whole world and all of its hopes shattered by a devastating impact and a chaos of rending steel.