Breakout
Kuo's POV
Kuo hung within the dark lab, hidden deep underground, the only thing keeping her strung up were two metallic pillars leeching off her energy to keep the soldiers in cryogenic stasis, she tried to free herself, but the pillars were too strong, and sucked the power as she tried to use it.
"Damn it..." Her eyes red from the tears, or they should have been red.
Instead of her eyes turning red from her tears, without red blood pumping through her veins, she instead took a different color, one matching the color of her new "blood" which was an icy blue.
She looked around around, trying to find anything that might help her, but there was nothing.
"I...I may really die here..."
It was a reality she knew well of from the moment she joined the NSA, but she never truly thought she'd face it. Even when her partner John was lost, she always thought of death as something she would never meet.
"John..."
Memories came back, of when they worked together, back before the Blast.
"Guess we didn't do so hot of a job, eh John?" She couldn't help but laugh at herself, even when the tears started falling again. "Here we were, thinking we could stop this mess, instead we became pawns. You died in Empire...what was it? Eradicated? Either way you're gone and I will be following you shortly myself..."
She thought back on the time they spent together, they hadn't known each other very long, but while in the First Sons they were the only people they could trust.
"I came...all they back with Cole...Cole!" She had completely forgotten about the hero.
"I...I may get out of this alive yet...but so what if I do...? I'm a conduit...worse yet I'm a conduit who is being used like a battery...what could he be trying to do...?"
Even in such a dire state, Kuo's agent mindset forced her to look for a reason, a way, anything to help her.
"Seems they bounce back rather fast." The cold voice of the monster holding Kuo captive.
"Bertrand..." Even without blood, they sound of his voice made whatever flowed through her boil, even if it was energy, or even ice.
"Glad to see you're done whimpering like a child, hardly respectable for a woman of your stature."
"Let me go and I'll show what this woman can do, we'll see how much it takes to make you whimper."
"Now, now, all I came down here is for a little for power." With a smirk he pulled out a little switch, Kuo's was suddenly filled again with absolute terror.
"Y-you don't have to do that...really..."
"Oh I do, and I need a lot more then before..." His smirk became a smile of evil, with the flip of the switch, to Kuo, agony was an understatement, and death was welcomed.
Cole's POV
It was around noon when Cole woke up, he felt the same as before, but at the same time completely different. He felt powerful
"Hey Brother, 'bout time you woke up."
"Hey man, what'd I miss?"
"Ah, not much, a few beers, 2 bags of chips, re-runs, oh, there are a bunch of militia street level shootin up the park, I would of handled it, but then I thought 'Well if Cole wakes up, maybe he'd wanna kick a little ass, see if he got anything good from the blast core'"
Cole chuckled. "Yeah, yeah, Zeke the hero could of handled a few militia with his eyes closed."
"Damn straight, and don't forget it."
"Yeah, yeah, guess i'll go handle the 'leftovers.'"
He jumped from the roof, shooting a few guys on the way down, and finished off the others with the Amp. However when one of them went down, he dropped some kind of energy, it was glowing purple.
"He man," Called Zeke on the phone. "What's that guy got on him? I can see it from here."
"I don't know, looks interesting though, i'll check it out." He advanced on the mysterious energy, he reached for it and it shot into him and was gone, he felt a surge of power.
"The hell was that Cole?"
"I don't know...but I wanna try something." he swung his arms and in a wave of energy, an electrical tornado of energy smashed it way from Cole's hands and down the street.
"Holy shit! Did you see that Z?"
"Damn, that was cool, you need more of whatever that guy had."
"I'll say, hey, I'm coming back up."
"Good thing Brother, your swamp 'friend' just stopped by...or...apparently she left- oh wait...wait...nah she's back. And gone...and back again...interesting friend..."
Cole hurried up and found Nix and Zeke waiting for him.
"Hey Baby" purred Nix when Cole joined them, "I missed you, came to give you a little help, doubt ya need any though."
"Actually," cut in Zeke. "We could use all the help we can get. I found Kuo."
"Good work Z. What are we looking at?"
"An old sugar cane plantation, Bertrand supposedly keeps all of his major uh...deviants...locked up there."
"The one with the street car in front?" Asked Nix
"That's the one."
"Ahhh, I know which one ya mean. What's more, I got me an idea."
"Let's hear it swamp sister." Zeke wasn't sure what she was getting at, but it didn't hurt to hear.
"We fill it bombs, fireworks, gasoline, the whole nine yards, packed with explosives, get it going real fast, and smash through the gates, set the place on fire." She didn't even try to hide the joy in her voice, she desperately wanted to set the place ablaze, but had no means to get the full scale of destruction she wanted.
"Fire would make a great diversion." Pointed out Cole.
"Yeah, and all those other people locked in cages get to go up with it, c'mon brother, you don't want to leave those innocent people to burn, do you?"
"Of course not, but what other options are there?"
Nix was getting impatient. "We gotta plan, c'mon!"
"Hold up, I know of a different way. Bertrand is real proud of his power over the cops, so proud he marches them around the city in cages."
"We free them, give 'em guns?"
"Hey, might make you look good too."
"Free cops? Naw, that's a bad idea, you free 'em, they'll turn on ya, knock you down the first chance they get. You freeing cop? I ain't gonna help ya."
With that Nix left, teleported to where she would get her plan ready.
"The choice is yours brother..." Zeke left the map of where to strike on the table, he didn't want to see if he chose Nix's plan, so he left the roof.
"-sigh- Great..."
Nix's POV
She had the better plan, she knew it.
"Cole knows it too... He wouldn't want to help a buncha dumbass cops...they'd just shoot him in the back as fast as giving him a donut..."
She knew Cole, or thought she did. From the reports from Empire City on the news, Cole had to be a "Take no shit, take what I want, do as I please" kind of guy.
"Nah, he'll be here..."
She set to work, collecting explosives and getting the car ready.
"Hurry up Cole..."
Cole's POV
He had two choices.
Go in with Nix and set the plantation on fire. He'd have a great partner and a great distraction. But the fire would kill many innocent people.
On the other hand, he could save the police, give them weapons, and lead them in the charge against the Militia. But Nix raised a good point, Cole and the police haven't always seen eye to eye, there is a chance they'd back stab him.
"-SIGH- I miss the times when my biggest decision was pizza toppings..."
He ran to across rooftops, weighing the decisions. He stood halfway between the location to meet Nix and where the police would be.
"I choose..." He made his decision and started running, when he reached his destination, the convoy humiliating the police had started on it's route.
"Good people of New Marais, look at these men, these fools, who thoughet they could protect you. I offered my help to them, and they denied. Look at the men who thought they could stop those monsters from attacking our fair town. The men who let Cole MacGrath, the Demon of Empire City run free. The men who thought they could protect you and your loved ones from the monsters infesting our swamps. Look at them. They can't do anything but take up space in cages. Look at these uncoordinated, overconfident drunks, and compare them to my Militia. Who really keeps you safe? Who really protects our fair city? Not the police."
"If I have to listen to this any longer, I swear i'll ram that street car down Bertrand's throat."
Cole took a spot on the roof and watches as the convoy marched down the street.
"Let's see...a vortex would probably take most if not all of them out at once...but how many civilians would be blown away too?"
Sadly, a lot of the citizens were in trapped in Bertrand's lies, a good portion of the city came to these public humiliations.
"No, it would hurt too many people...alright, guess I get to do this the old fashioned way."
He jumped down and threw a grenade to the leader of the pack, and blasted a few bolts for good measure, the driver abandoned car when he saw the grenade, the rest of the convoy swerved and crashed.
"You guys are really bad drivers." Cole laughed as he jumped down.
"The Electric Man!"
"Shoot him! Shoot him!"
"Throw rubber chickens at 'im!"
"The things people say here..."
Before the trigger happy hunters could continue their various battle cries, Cole threw a few more grenades and bolts at them, they tried dodging, but a smash from Cole's amp took them out.
"Stupid...lightning...fork...thing...!"
The last of the guards lay in the streets, moaning and groaning over the electrical blasts that knocked them down a few moments ago.
"Well if no one is gonna stop me, I reckon i'll free myself some coppers." Mimicking the hunters, Cole set to work on freeing the police, and after a few minutes, Bertrand's trophies were loose.
"Thank you so much."
"You're not so bad for a demon!"
"Freedom!"
The police praised Cole for helping them.
"How can we help?"
"Right, I didn't free you all for a coffee break. I need you all to grab a gun and follow me, we're going to pay our old friend Bertrand a visit, and attack one of his compounds."
There was a roar of approval, he had the whole force on his side.
"Let's raise so hell!"
"Let's give Bertrand some pay back!"
"Let's lock him in a cage!"
"These people really enjoy yelling things..." with a sigh, Cole lead the troop to the plantation gates, but after his little stunt, Bertrand quickly amassed an army to protect his "investments."
The police may not have totally trusted Cole, but considering he saved him, and was going to help them attack something valuable to Bertrand, they weren't going to argue with him.
The plantation was all set up as a battlefield before Cole and his army of police officers were even there, Bertrand made it clear he would not tolerate any failure. If Cole even got close to the shed where Kuo was being held, he'd personally feed them to the swamp monster they had been sending sacrifices to in Ascension Parish.
"Alright men, we got us a mission from Bertrand, we don't let as much as a snake slither near that shed. We got to keep that no good, demon yankee and his goon army far away, blow him to pieces. Now it's their asses or ours! let's roast them!" The self proclaimed first in command of the force guarding Kuo yelled.
A roar of insults, annoyance, and plain drunken nonsense flooded the grounds, but in the next minute, roars turned to cries, the battle began.
Cole's mission wasn't to take out as many Militia members as he could, he had to get Kuo, and get out.
Knocking a few heads together wouldn't hurt though.
The aged plantation had been turned from a serene artwork of time, into a zoo of Bertrand's freaks, and now into a battlefield.
In the first minutes alone, bullets filled the air, and bodies crowded the ground.
This blood bath would last for a while yet as the Militia had no end of people, some of them didn't even have guns, somewhere just throwing beer bottles and rocks.
"Almost feel bad most of this guys won't make it." Cole thought aloud, as he did though a rocket nailed him in the chest, sending him soaring into a near by tree.
"Okay..." He grunted. "Not feeling so bad anymore."
Without thinking about his own forces, Cole sent a vortex flying, the police were smart enough to hit the ground, most of the militia weren't as smart and ended up being blown half a mile away.
"Alright, that might of been over kill...But hey, they deserved it."
The fighting continued directly after the vortex faded away. Cole went to work on freeing any poor civilians locked up in the mad house.
His phone rang in the midst of battle.
"Hey Nix, missing one hell of a fight."
"Look around Cole, you're doing more harm then good here, all those men gonna die cause you had to get all noble on me."
"Have some faith Nix."
"Whatever, just remember Demon, you were wrong about this, you made a bad choice."
She hung up.
"-sigh- Women here sure can be thick headed..."
Once they were freed Cole finally was ready to get Kuo.
"Hope I haven't kept you waiting..." He overpowered the locks and opened the shed, and descended into the frozen darkness.
When he reached the bottom he was surprised to not find any guards, he ran to the railing of this large room, and in the middle found his friend.
Locked up, hanging by two machines, like some kind of trophy.
"God...Kuo!"
He jumped over the railing and hit the ground running.
"M...MacGrath..." She stammered out, the words frozen in her mouth.
"Don't worry Kuo, I've got you." Blasting the machine with a few volts released her, he caught her but her body was freezing.
"You okay?"
"Talk...later...go now..."
"Yeah...right...understood."
He carried her up to the elevator and out into the daylight.
He put her down when the reached the top.
"We're almost there Kuo, just a little further."
"Alright...god...it burns..." She stumbled her way towards the quickest way out.
Unfortunately for her and Cole, the fighting between police and militia had ended, and in the Militia's favor.
"Ice Queen's loose! Get her!" one Militia yelled
"...fuck..." She continued towards the gate.
"Don't worry Kuo, i'll handle these guys, keep going." Cole said as he drew the attention of the hunters.
Kuo moved...slower then a turtle in syrup, which Cole noticed after blasting his tenth militia member.
"I realize you've been through some tough things but could you maybe hurry it up?"
"Shut..u-AGH" She fell to her knees, keeling over in pain.
"Kuo? Kuo!" Before Cole could run to her, a man dressed like a robot jumped in front of him.
"Hey man, get out of here!" The man seemed to listen, and left.
But not how Cole imagined.
The man was propelled into the air by a small pillar of ice.
"What the...?" Cole began, but before he could finish more and more of the robotic men appeared, and jumped away on spikes of ice.
When they were gone, Kuo got her burst of speed, she got to her feet and ran to the gate, just as Zeke pulled up.
"Move your ass girl!" He called shooting at the remaining militia.
"Don't start with me!" She yelled as she got in the bed.
"Ya look like hell sister."
"Feel like it too, Cole!" she screamed, tired of this cursed estate.
He didn't waste any time and jumped into the bed and Zeke got them out of there.
Nix's POV
(Before the attack)
"C'mon man...Baby hurry up..."
Nix grew impatient, she had the street car ready to go, but no one to juice it enough to ram it into the estate.
"Cole..." She couldn't help but wonder and worry.
She called him on her stolen phone.
"You're not really thinkin of settin those cops free are you baby? You can't trust them."
"Nix, i'm sorry, but i'm not going to risk hurting those people."
"Cole! We don't need them! If they stupid enough to be in our way then who cares if they die?"
"I'm sorry Nix, no." With that he hung up.
She couldn't believe what he just...betrayed her.
"Damn it!" She refused to cry, but this betrayal brought tears to her eyes.
"Just...a bad choice...even the best a us make a bad choice or two...he'll see..."
She looked at the car filled with explosives.
"Seems like a waste to just leave this here..."
She set to work to get the explosives ready for a different plan she had been hatching.
(After the attack)
Nix looked around what remained of the battlefield.
"Damn...wish I coulda had one kill from this..."
She walked around hoping to find some unfortunate fool to kill.
She looks at the shed that obviously had been abandoned.
"Hope you got what you wanted Baby..."
She set the bodies littering the ground ablaze and left the plantation to burn.
(Author Note)
This chapter had originally been planned to be one, as it is now, but after a little computing issue I lost the progress I had on the second part, so you got the first part. You get the rest now, yay.
On another note however, i'm debating on including a little Festival of Blood arc, expanding on Zeke's story & giving us a view of what (may?) of happened to Kuo and Nix during Pyre night, i'd like to hear thoughts of anyone who has actually read and enjoyed this story so far. Skip it or include it? I'd really like to hear your thoughts.
Thanks and as always, inFAMOUS 2 and it's characters belongs to Sucker Punch.