Chapter Fourteen: Disillusion
(Exterior access hatch, Mausoleum, Garderobe)
"… One. All teams in position, rush, rush!" The commander ordered repeating the countdown she heard through her GEM as the hatch was blown loose and pushed open. The assault team went in first, followed by the commander, and her second kept pace with her.
"One hundred and fifty feet to target point, one hundred forty-five…" the second rattled off. Assault was ten feet in front of and behind them.
"Get down! Get down now! Surrender!" One of the assault members barked and then there was the sound of gunfire.
"Cease fire! What's going on up there?" The secondary ordered trying to see ahead, but there were several Valkyrie blocking her view.
"We have the man, but Woods got away from us. She may be injured," the line squawked as the member finished speaking.
"Is he dead?" The commander asked they need to get the key from the Director and this man could be useful as leverage.
"Negative. He's been subdued," the Valkyrie said putting a pair of flexi-cuffs on the man as she dragged him to his feet. He stumbled a little; the round that hit him had grazed his calf. It was only a flesh wound, but he wasn't a soldier, and was unaccustomed to pain such as this.
"Roger, leave someone with him and continue. Hold fire unless you are fired upon. That's an order. We came here to neutralize the Founder, not kill everyone here," The lieutenant spoke again.
After a few more seconds, they passed the Garderobe technician and the guard, who had been left behind to watch him. "One hundred feet … ninety-five feet … ninety feet," the count continued as they moved on down the massive hall.
"Commander, a blast door just sealed about fifty feet in front of us," one of the assault team said again.
"Demolitions, do you have enough explosives to get through?" The commander asked annoyed, this door hadn't been on their blueprints, it must have been installed after Tomoe had stolen them.
"Negative, but one of us thinks she can get it to open," the leader of demolitions stated. "Clock?"
"Five minutes, twenty seconds, and counting," the second said.
"Damn it, alright, get your person up there. She'd better hope for both her own and our sake that she can get it. Or we'll all end up chained in the dungeons begging for death," the commander said.
There was very little room for error. They all knew of the torture rooms kept by their leader. She gave them every opportunity to advance, but failure was not tolerated. The Valkyrie tasked with opening the door swallowed hard, by far more afraid of her commander then the enemy.
"Confirmed," crackled the reply across the line.
(Central lab chamber, Mausoleum, Garderobe)
"Great, there is an assault team on the other side of the door. They couldn't have picked a better time. Sara-onee-sama was right, they bloody shot at me! I can't let them in, I've got to jam the door," Irina thought as she fished around in her pockets, looking for something thin, long and metal.
"I'm sorry, Adam. I can't risk them getting in here. If they don't kill you, you can make my life a living hell after this," Irina mumbled as she found what she was looking for.
Adam Kaine was her Assistant Director and the first male in the history of Garderobe, not to mention Irina's boyfriend and soon to be fiancé, if he ever worked up the nerve to propose to her. She pulled out a small screwdriver and slid it along inside the door panel's card reader slot. Holding the star button on the keypad, she found the reader, and pushed on it until there was a cracking sound. Irina cursed as she was shocked by the momentary zap from the panel. She looked at the flashing error message on the screen and frowned.
"Now I'm gonna have to fix this, too. But, it can't be helped. This will buy me enough time to lock down the lab and close the secondary blast doors to the Founder's chamber. Not even Arika would be able to get though it after that," Irina spoke to herself again as she began to run for the main control panel.
The labs had been low on staff, meaning mostly just her and Adam, since school was out of session. Even though classes were supposed to start in a few weeks, no one knew whether or not that was going to happen with Natsuki, Shizuru and Nao missing. She didn't even notice the bullet wound on her side. It wasn't bleeding very much so it was probably just a graze or so she thought, figuring she could bandage it later. As Irina began the lockdown program, the system began to voice each action in the sequence.
"Lockdown process has begun under emergency clearance: Woods-six-seven-seven-five-Tango-Golf, beginning to secure the main external system," Fumi stated as the computer stations began to descend into the floor and were covered with heavy steel access panels. "Process one: complete. Begin sequence: sealing off all outside routes to lab and chambers." This time, the blast door sealed the path into the school, the outside grounds, and finally, cutting off the infirmary. The blast door that Irina had jammed began to move upwards, jerking every ten seconds, as the panel fought to keep the door closed because it was being overridden from the outside.
"Process two: complete. Requiring fingerprint and code verification before sealing outer blast doors," Fumi said as Irina broke her attention away from the opening door, thinking that if she completed the process in time, it wouldn't matter what they did to her, she still wouldn't give up the codes. As she ran for the panel on the wall, next to the Founder's main entrance, she pushed her hand onto the scanner. Irina was trying to forget about the fact that she had about fifteen more seconds, at most, before the door was open enough for the intruders to get through. "Fingerprint identification complete: please speak your access code," Fumi stated.
"Woods-three-five-three-four…" she didn't get to speak the last part of the code before being tackled to the floor and restrained with her attackers hand over her mouth.
"Identification incomplete: process is incomplete," Fumi stated as Irina was dragged away from the panel to somewhere in the middle of the floor. She managed to get the first one off of her, but then she was pinned by two others.
"Director Woods, it is a pleasure," one of them said as she began to peel off her face gear, after she removed it, Irina recognized her.
"Elisa! Elisa Tromgrotten! Twenty-second Coral of the class shortly before I became Director," Irina said while glaring at her as she instantly remembered the girl. Irina had thought the girl was nice, had often tried to help Elisa in her studies, but some people just weren't meant to be Otome. Despite the extra tutoring, Irina and several of the Pearls gave her; Elisa had still failed out half way through her Coral year.
"You remember me! It warms my heart to know that somebody cared enough to remember my name," Elisa said as she pulled up a lab chair and sat in it.
"Commander, clock time is eighty-five seconds," Her second said. Irina's eyebrow arched.
"It can't be … but then you two were always close, Wendy. So it is true, she is collecting all the washouts," Irina said as Elisa bent down and pushed on her wound. Wendy's story was much like Elisa's; she had been the twenty-third Coral. There had been all kinds of rumors about Tomoe spreading around Earl one of them being that she was building an army out of would be Otome.
"As much as I enjoy your memory, I still have a job to do. I need that key, and I know you have it," She said as Irina bit her lip, trying not to cry out.
"What key? You mean the Founder key? Sorry, I don't have it. And even if I did, you'd never know," Irina said as Elisa sat up for a moment and pulled a knife from her back pocket.
"Don't kill her! Just tell them where it is!" Adam yelled just as he was dragged within eyesight of the two. The Valkyrie holding him threw him to the ground, none of them noticing a ring case falling from his pocket.
"Seventy-five seconds," Wendy said as she seemed to get anxious.
"Shut up Adam! I am an Otome. I can't tell them where it is…" Irina cut herself off to scream as the knife sliced her wound more open.
"I have every belief that you won't tell me. But he doesn't seem as strong as you. Roll her over so he can see," Elisa said as the other two rolled Irina on her belly, her wound now facing Adam.
"Now then, where was I? That's right. The location of the key, now let's see how long this will take. We don't have much time to fool around," Elisa said as she cut Irina's shirt open and poked at the wound with the tip of the blade.
"Don't tell them Adam, I'll never forgive you! …I swear I'll never speak to you again if you do," Irina said in between gasps.
"Fifty-nine seconds, the explosive needs ten seconds to place, two to charge and ten to get clear of. We won't make it!" Wendy said clearly losing her professionalization.
"Blessed! I don't have time to play with you!" Elisa said jabbing the knife about halfway into Irina who nearly passed out from the pain.
"I'll tell you! God! It's in a secret pocket in her vest," Adam said as Irina looked at him in disbelief and betrayal. Her face strained both by the pain and the shock of his telling.
"Now, was that so hard?" Elisa said as she quickly found the pocket and removed the key before tossing it to one of her troops. "I have no need to kill you, I just wanted the key. If you hurry you can stop the bleeding," she said as the Founder's door opened and three rushed inside and placed the charge and then got out.
"Twenty-five seconds, let's get out of here, the timer has been set," the demolitions technician said as the door sealed again and the team made their retreat. Adam began applying pressure to Irina's wound as she railed at him.
"How could you!? You just handed them the key to the world. This is on you, Adam! I won't forgive you … I can't forgive you. Get out!" She yelled at him as the charge went off and everything shorted out around them.
"You can hate me all you want, but I'm not going to let you die for something so stupid!" Adam said as the lights went out.
"You stupid fool. You have no idea what you've just done," Irina said crying as she finally passed out.
(Airspace above the Capital, Aries)
"We're almost there. How long do we have?" Itsuko asked as they flew over the business district.
"Not long. The Hexagon is in sight, just a little bit further…" Sara said as her cloak failed and then her robe started to fade.
"What's happening? Our robes are …"Itsuko said as her robe faded after Sara's. Not long after both landed on the roof of a skyscraper harshly.
"Are you okay, Itsuko-san?" The first Column asked as she checked herself for injuries. Because she was on the bottom, Sara's pants had torn and she got a nasty scrape to one of her legs.
"I think my arm is dislocated. I can't move my shoulder. But I can still move everything else," Itsuko reported as she noticed her right shoulder was also bleeding. Sara looked at the wound checking for severe lacerations and other wounds.
"It's just a small cut. I'll have to put your shoulder back though," Sara stated as Itsuko nodded and bit into the sleeve of her good arm as her mentor reset her shoulder.
"Did our signal go out again?" Itsuko asked as she rotated her arm it was very sore but at least she could move it.
Sara took out her phone looking at the screen. They had been unable to communicate with Garderobe, but still had status data coming into the phone. Until now the screen read that the system was unavailable. "There is no Founder, or at least not anymore. Fumi must be down. We have to keep moving. Our major priority is getting to the Hexagon," Sara said as she went to the roof door and kicked it in. "We have to get going. We will run there if we have to," Itsuko nodded and both began to run down the stairs.
(Airship: Bridge, Capital, Aries)
"The Garderobe system has crashed. Both Columns, one and five, have crash landed somewhere south of the target," an officer stated as she read the report.
"We have crossed into Arian radar range. They will be able to detect us," another reported.
"The Founder?" Juria asked, her spies had run through a list of former Otome who now had children and Massyo Jardine, Florence's previous Otome had been chosen. Her spies had quickly captured her and brought her to Tomoe to do the honor of killing her.
"Online in thirty seconds, operation to begin in thirty-four seconds," the second reported again.
"Continue on course. We will be fully deployed before they even get units in the air," Juria said as they closed in on their target.