To celebrate this story turning 10,000 on the traffic graph, I hereby release Chapter 13 as an extra chapter for this week as a thank you to its loyal readers that made it happen (I guess that makes 13 everyone's lucky number now, lol). Chapter 14 is still under construction but should be ready to be released on this coming Friday one week from now as scheduled. Until then, enjoy the extra chapter!
Captured! Tsukune has been captured by Moka, Mizore, Kokoa, and Ling-Ling after the enemy commander, the Incubus Casanova charmed them into his mindless slaves. Imprisoned in the bunker, Tsukune paced back and forth in his cell and after some heavy thought, Tsukune figures out that everything that has happened had to of been planned out from the start, making the entire mission one big trap just for them. He then comes to the very dark realization that if all that was true, then that also meant that Omote, Yukari, and the kids back home in Hong Kong were all in grave danger and he was completely helpless to do anything about any of it. Rushing off to the bunker with Ko-chan guiding them all the way there, Kurumu, Ruby, and Kouta form a plan to rescue their family from the enemy. Ruby started the operation by destroying the guardhouse, the handful of enemy troops around the entrance, and everything else standing around the bunker's entrance in an effort to draw out and distract the enemy and to clear the way for Kurumu and Kouta to sneak into the bunker and save their family. Meanwhile, Casanova has set a layered trap for the remaining two girls.
Chapter 14: Infiltrating the Bunker
The Bunker's Entrance
March 7, 2017
"Here we go, stay quiet and hold on tight onto me Kouta," Kurumu quietly told him before they attempted to sneak past the guards at the first barricade together.
"Okay," he replied in a whisper.
Right before entering the bunker, Kurumu cast her Cloak of Transparency with Kouta tightly holding onto her back and managed to completely cloak both of them. They then snuck past the first barricade and came to another one that was in front of the elevator that they needed to take in order to go down into the bunker's interior where everyone else had to be. Seeing no other options open to her, Kurumu ducked down an empty corridor and listened at a door to make sure that nobody was inside. She then cautiously went inside and dropped her cloak. She looked around the small storeroom and found an air vent, put Kouta down next to it, and slashed the cover to pieces.
"Okay Kouta," she said and then picked him up and helped him climb inside since it was just below the ceiling. "I know it is a little cliché and all, but you and Ko-chan need sneak through the air vents and find everyone, okay?"
"What about you?"
"I'll get down there my own way. I just don't want you anywhere near my battlefield since they are not going out after Ruby. I'll call her in here and the two of will tear this place apart. You just find them and tell them what's going on. They could still be under the charm spell, so you need to be very careful and not take any chances. Kuramori would never forgive me if you got hurt."
"Okay, mom" Kouta replied and then hugged her.
"If anything happens to him, Ko-chan, you're going to have to deal with a lot of very pissed off women; understood?"
"Leave it to me, monster tits!"
"Why you-"
"Weeeeeeee!" he yells as he dodges her and flies into the vent.
"That bat better come through for his sake. Otherwise Mizore really will kill him."
Kurumu kissed Kouta's forehead, sent him on his way, and then called Ruby to advise her of the situation.
"Alright Kurumu, I'll clean out the hallway on my way inside," Ruby tells her.
2
The Second Barricade
At the barricade in front of the elevator, two grunts nervously talk to each other. [*1]
"Hey Fritz, weren't we supposed to have one of those sensor guys with us?" [*2]
"Yeah, we were. Looks like someone up the chain of command screwed up and forgot about it."
"This is so messed up. I heard that the Kiss of Death can make her whole body invisible. She could sneak up right behind us and kill all of us before we even knew she was there."
"Shut the hell up you idiot!" the second grunt quietly shouted "You'll get us both into some serious trouble!"
"Too late to worry about that," an angry voice said behind them.
"Sargent!" both grunts shouted as they saw their barricade's Sergeant-in-charge standing right behind them.
"Since you two chickens are so worried about the Kiss of Death killing us before we even knew that she was here, the two of you can stand out in front of us and let the rest of us know if she tries to get by you."
"B-b-but what if she kills us first?" the first grunt asked.
"Then you'll both die as heroes and we'll avenge your noble deaths."
"To hell with that!" the second grunt yelled. "I would rather be a live coward then a dead hero!"
"You'll both be dead period if you don't get out there right now," the Sergeant told him as he stuck his rifle in their faces. "Start marching you two."
Observing everything that was happening at the barricade from peeking around the corner up the corridor, Kurumu waits for Ruby's grand entrance.
"Come on Ruby. What the hell is taking you so long?"
CRACK! ZAP! GAAAAAAAAAAAAAH!
The sound of zapping and screaming echoes down the corridor from near the entrance and spreads throughout the entire topside of the base.
"About time you got here Ruby," Kurumu quietly said to herself.
Looking at the second barricade in front of the elevator, Kurumu sees the two grunts still out front of the others looking like they just messed themselves after hearing Ruby's entrance. She decides to take advantage of the situation and clears her throat as she starts her plan.
"D-did you hear that?" the first grunt asked, shaking.
"How the hell could I miss that you idiot? If it wasn't for you we wouldn't even be out here!"
"I-I-I know that. B-but still-"
"Shut up you two cowards!" the Sergeant yelled from behind the barricade where he and the rest of the soldiers were. "You both knew full well what you were getting yourselves into when you volunteered for this mission at the beginning just like everyone else. You wanted to wipe out the Aono Clan just as much as everybody here."
"Yeah… but, I thought that we would all do it as a group!" the first grunt cried. "Not like this!"
"Quit crying you big baby! Just stand there and wait to get killed like a good little soldier."
Just then, an evil laugh started echoing down the corridor. It started quiet, but it gradually got louder until it was all anyone could hear.
"I don't wanna die!" the first grunt cried as he threw away his rifle and ran for the entrance.
"Get back here you dumbass!" the second grunt called after him.
STAB! STAB! STAB!
Some things shot out of the side corridor and he seemingly froze in place as what looked like long fingers seemed to go right through him and then quickly retracted.
"Forget this!" the second grunt yelled out as he turned and ran back to the barricade and tried to open the elevator. "Let me in!"
The Sergeant stuck the barrel of his rifle against the back of the grunt's head.
"Get back over there right now or I'll shot you my-"
SLASH! SLICE! GUAH!
The Sergeant stopped mid-sentence and then he turned around just in time to get his throat sliced open and turned into a Pez dispenser before falling to the ground. Slowly turning around, the grunt sees nothing at first, just the dead bodies that used to be his team mates a few seconds ago. Then a beautiful woman with long blue hair slowly appeared out of thin air right in front him with streaks of fresh blood on her face and clothes, looking him right in the eye.
"T-t-t-t-the 'Kiss of Death!" he screamed. "Please don't kill me!"
"Charm!"
Kurumu charmed him and calmed herself down from her adrenaline rush before she added one more thing.
"Silly boy; 'dead men tell no tales,' and I want to hear a few tales from you."
"Good job Kurumu," Ruby said while stepping over some of the very freshly killed bodies. "However, it would be nice if you could be a little cleaner when you kill the bad guys, you know."
"You have your way of doing things, and I have mine Rubes," Kurumu replies. "For now though, we need to ask our new friend here a few questions."
3
The CNC Room
"What was that?" yells Casanova, annoyed. "What do you mean that you've lost contact with everyone topside? How the hell could the barricades up there fall so fast? What the hell happened to the sensor troops that I sent up there?"
"There weren't any, sir," one of the soldiers at the controls said.
"What?" he bellowed. "I gave out explicit instructions stating that there was supposed to be! Whose duty was it to carry out those orders? I'll kill him!"
"Too late, sir; you already did."
"What are you talking about?" he demanded to know.
"That was supposed to be Commander Toboso's job but you forgot to replace him after he died, sir."
SLASH!
The soldier fell over in pieces in front of the now enraged Casanova. He then points to some other nearby soldiers.
"You two; clean up this mess and you take his place."
"Yes sir!" they both shouted, hoping not to end up like the last guy.
"Damn it!" Casanova yelled to himself. "I was hoping that the first two barricades would've at least wounded one of those two bitches and make things easier for me later on. I'll just have to rely on my other pawns to weaken them then. I want them as weak and powerless as possible so that I can easily overwhelm them in the end. In any event, they will all be deader then that traitorous Toboso when this is all over and done with."
Casanova puffed on his cigar to calm down.
"I wish I still had some of my power absorption stones I had those foul monkeys swallow before I sent them out to battle in order to weaken Tsukune and his bitches without them even realizing it. Oh well, I still have my booster pills that allowed me to charm even the legendary Ladies of Darkness into my willing slaves." [*3,4]
"Sir!" one of the soldiers at the controls shouted.
"What is it?"
"A report is coming in from the barricade at the bottom of the elevator! They say that it is coming down to them. What are your orders, sir?"
"As soon as that door opens shoot everything in it full of holes! That's an order!"
"Yes sir!"
"Sir…?" another soldier began to ask him.
"What?"
"Do you really think that they will be able to kill them?"
"Of course not," he answered. "They only need to wound them. If everybody manages to wound or weaken them a little bit, then they will be easy pickings for me at the end."
"But… how many of our soldiers will end up dying according to your plan?"
"As many as it takes," Casanova replied and then looked the soldier in the eye with a sinister look on his face. "If you have a problem with my strategy, then you could always volunteer to go kill them yourself."
"N-no problem sir!" he answered in fright. "I think it's a brilliant plan sir!"
"Good," he replied.
"Sir!" another man called out. "Another report is coming in from the barricade!"
"What is it?"
4
The Elevator Barricade, Lower Level
As the elevator reached them at the lower level, all of the guards were extremely tense and on edge. As soon as the door opened up, revealing the figure standing inside, everybody opened fire. The figure seemed to dance as it was hit several times, despite the poor marksmanship of the overexcited guards who were all firing their automatic weapons wildly. Everyone stopped firing only when their magazines ran out of ammo. At which point, they looked again and saw that the figure had dropped to the ground.
"Did we get her?" one of the soldiers asked.
"Go find out," the Sergeant told him.
"Me…? But there's still another one out there!"
"Hey, she's wearing one of our uniforms!" another soldier shouted.
"What the hell?" a different soldier began to shout. "That's a guy!"
"What?" the Sergeant yelled.
"Lookout!" a soldier shouted while pointing towards the ceiling of the elevator. But it was already too late.
A small stream of crows burst out from the elevator's ceiling and each one of them flew at a different soldier before they all blew up into individual electric explosions and fried all of the guards.
Jumping down through the elevator's ceiling, Ruby and Kurumu take a good look around them as a few of Ruby's crows circled overhead ready for action.
"Looks like my Denki Kurō Bakudan did the trick again," Ruby comments as they step over the blackened bodies of the guards. [*5]
"It also looks like our decoy plan worked perfectly." Kurumu states as she searches the immediate area for anything that they might've missed. "They had no bullets left for either your crows or us if you had missed any of them."
Ruby puts her arm up as three of her crows came back to report to her.
"My crows said that all three hallways leading from here are clear, but that they couldn't find anything else. I have others searching deeper and should tell us something soon."
"Okay. In the meantime, I just found a security camera over here watching us. Mind shorting it and their entire security system out Rubes?"
With electricity dancing between the figures of her upward pointing hands, she walks over to Kurumu with a smile on her face.
"My pleasure Ku," Ruby happily replies.
5
The CNC Room
BOOM! SIZZLE!
After watching what Kurumu and Ruby just did to his checkpoint and the security monitors blow up, Casanova threw another fit.
"Damn those bitches!" Casanova shouted as he pounded his fists against the smoking remains of the security monitors. "Now I won't be able to track their movements or watch them get cut down by their own friend!"
"What do you want us to do sir?" the soldier at the comm station asked.
"Call in reinforcements from my army standing-by on the other side of the mountain. Have them cut off their only means of escape and to attack them from behind according to plan B. I am not going to underestimate those two."
"Yes sir!" he replied.
"I'll just have to send someone down there with a video recorder so that I can watch them get killed later."
Looking around, he points to one of his troops.
"You!" he shouted.
"Me sir?" he said and pointed to himself with a confused expression on his face.
"Congratulations; you just volunteered. Here is what I want you to do."
After he explained everything he wanted done, the soldier dashed off to follow his new orders.
"Now, let's see what happens next."
6
Somewhere in the Air Ducts
"WAAAAAAAAAAAH!"
Kouta yelled out after he lost grip and started falling straight down the air duct he was trying to slowly climb down.
Looking up from the bottom of the air duct, Ko-chan sees him falling towards him.
"You gotta be kidding me!" Ko-chan yelled.
Ko-chan transformed into a pillow and managed to cushion Kouta's fall in time as he hit bottom and knocked the wind out of poor Ko-chan.
GUH!
"Sorry Ko-san. My hand slipped."
"We-e," he faintly replied.
"Ko-san?" he asked.
A few minutes later, Kouta is crawling through the duct again with Ko-chan hanging onto his back instead of scouting ahead until he got his wind back. When they came to a 4-way intersection, they both looked down the three new shafts, but saw nothing that would tell them which route would lead them to their loved ones.
"Which way do you think we should go Ko-san?"
"Be quiet for a minute and I'll tell you, wee."
Both of them stay as quiet as possible while Ko-chan listens very carefully to all of his surroundings. After a minute of silence, he hears what he is listening for.
"Straight ahead; straight ahead Kouta!" he excitedly yells out. "The mistress is straight ahead, wee!"
"What about mommy and the others?"
"They should all be together; now get going, giddy up, wee!"
"I am not a horse Ko-san!"
7
Down the Corridor from Casanova's Private Room
Kurumu and Ruby peek around a corner and find Ling-Ling standing guard in front of a door down the hallway and talk to each other.
"What's Ling-Ling doing standing outside that room, Kurumu?"
"She must still be charmed. It looks like she's guarding that room."
"Then everyone else must be in that room. All we have to do it to figure out a way to get them out of there," Ruby observed.
"After we bring them back to their senses, yes; otherwise we'll end up fighting our own family too.
"Then what should we do? Wait around until it wears off?"
"I have a feeling that we don't have that kind of time. This guy has to be strong if he could charm Vampires as powerful as Moka and Kokoa in one shot. So that would take some time to happen," Kurumu stated.
"You're the charm spell expert, what do we do? Try snapping them out of it by getting through to them somehow?"
"Right now there is only one thing we can do. Find Tsukune and then I'll take care of the rest myself. Have your crows found him yet?"
"Not yet," she answered. "All they're finding now are just doors, doors, and more doors. So we will have to find him ourselves."
"Then let's get going Rubes."
The two of them rush off to try to find Tsukune and then rescue the rest of their family.
8
The CNC Room
"They what?" a pissed off Casanova shouted into the walkie talkie at the soldier he had sent to record them getting killed by Ling-Ling. "What do you mean showed up near my room but disappeared?"
"Just what I said, sir," he told him. "I saw them peek around the corner at the other end of the hallway a couple times but now I don't think that they're there anymore."
"Damn those bitches! What the hell could they be up to?"
Casanova thought it over for a minute before figuring it out.
"That has to be it. The only other factor in play right now is Tsukune. They must be planning on freeing him first to help them rescue the rest of their 'oh so important' family."
"Should we send reinforcements to the cell block sir?" one of the men at the controls asked.
"No, we'll let his new collar do its job and see what happens after that."
"Yes sir," he replied.
Casanova lights up another cigar to help calm his nerves and talks to himself.
"This could end up being even more fun then I thought it would be. You know, I think I'm starting to understand that idiot Yoshii Kiria and his addiction to keeping everything 'interesting' a little bit. Even so, I knew and did try to warn my old mentor that he would betray him sooner or later as soon as he thought that it would help keep things interesting for him. But I guess with his power, it wouldn't make much difference if he knew it was coming or not. He would still have no chance of beating my old mentor."
Casanova blew some smoke rings before continuing.
"That Miyabi always was a strong bastard."
9
The Base Brig
After trying a number of wrong doors up and down the corridors and taking care of a few guards here and there, Ruby and Kurumu finally find what looked like a prison and wasted no time in searching it. After a minute of going from one empty cell to the next, Ruby finds one that is not empty.
"Tsukune!" a very excited Ruby shouted. "Kurumu, over here, I found him!"
"Then open the door already!" Kurumu shouts as she rushes over to where Ruby is.
"There's an old heavy steal padlock on it!" Ruby yells back to her.
Then Kurumu reaches the door.
SLASH!
CLANCK!
"Never mind," Ruby says as pieces of what was the lock scattered as they hit the floor after Kurumu destroyed it in one swipe of her sharp nails.
Kurumu ran inside the cell and found Tsukune passed out on the floor.
"Tsukune, are you okay?" Kurumu asked and sat him up. "Speak to me! Tsukune!"
Tsukune just laid there with a contorted face that looked like he was in great pain.
"Kurumu cut the ropes on his wrists and let's get out of here! We can wake him up somewhere safer then here. They're bound to have reinforcements already on their way here."
"Okay, but what about this collar on his neck?"
"We'll worry about that after we get him somewhere besides here. Now let's get going before some more guards show up."
Kurumu quickly cut through the ropes and both of the girls took a shoulder and started carrying him out. Just as they leave the cell block however…
ZAAAAAAAAAAAP!
GYYYAAAAAAAH!
…All three of them suddenly start screaming in pain as the collar's special ability activates and sends an obscene amount of electricity coursing through all of their bodies. After a few seconds, the spell ran out of juice and all three of them dropped to the floor with a thud and lay there, completely motionless.
10
Casanova's Private Room
After crawling through the air ducts for a few more minutes, Kouta and Kou-chan came to another vent and finally found their missing family in a room altogether. They also see that the vent was just under the ceiling and would be tricky to get down from. After the initial excitement, Kou-chan transforms into a small hatchet and Kouta uses him to chop through the vent. A short while later, Kouta manages to get the opening big enough for both of them to get through and without getting cut up on the way out and Kouta then lowers himself down as far as he can before letting go and landing on the floor. He then stood up, turned around, and rushed toward his mother. He buried his crying face into his mother's chest and he hugged her tighter then he had ever before in his life.
"Mommy!" he cried. "Mommy I missed you so much! I thought something bad might've happened to you!"
Mizore looked down at him.
"Who are you?" she unemotionally asked him.
Stunned by his own mother's question, Kouta looks up at her.
"You are not the master. You need to die."
"Mommy?" he asked her, very confused and worried.
"Oh crap!" Kou-chan yelled out. "I forgot about the charm! They're still under its spell! We need to get out of here before they kill us!"
"You both need to die," Moka said.
"Die," Kokoa echoed.
Mizore raises her right hand and grows out her Ice Claws with blank and emotionless eyes.
"Mommy, don't!"
To be continued…
Note #1: Grunts – Military slang for foot soldiers or Infantrymen.
Note #2: Sensors – Ayashi that specialize in the ability to sense others through their youki alone.
Note #3: Power Absorption Stones – They are stones that absorb and seal youki within a certain radius of them. After enough youki is collected and stored though, the stones fill up and become useless unless they are drained. They are basically like youki batteries that steal and store energy from everything around them unless proper precautions (such as keeping them sealed until they are to be used) are taken.
Note #4: Booster Pills – A breakthrough that Fairy Tail R&D teams made that doubles an Ayashi's power. However, they are only effective for around 12 hours at a time. Also, the user will definitely feel its aftereffects afterwards since they are similar in that regard to human narcotics. So however great or long the "high" of the pills last, the user will eventually feel that exact opposite as he comes down from it. While normally not lethal in any event, if taken in great numbers or for an extended period of time, the user would most likely prefer death over the sheer agony of the withdrawal.
Note #5: Denki Kurō Bakudan or Electric Crow Bombs – A special type of Rubi's crows that once destroyed or slammed into something automatically transform into aluminum powder and are instantly ignited by their own electric auras that Rubi incorporated into their creation spell. It is basically an advanced version of the chain spell she used on Raika in Season II, Chapter 45.
If you have any questions regarding my story then please ask them all in the forum that I created on this site and not in the reviews. I would also appreciate it if everyone did not talk about potential spoilers or have back and forth discussions in their reviews as well. That is what the forum is for. Thank you.
Want to become one of my patrons and enjoy all the patron exclusive content available? Then subscribe to my patre0n page today! I go by same pen name there and have a link for it on my fictionpress profile page. See you there!