Fearless
Disclaimer: Well, er...*looks around* ...I own my laptop? That's something, right? It's the secret to my success! *strikes dramatic pose*
A/N: Darn it, one day behind schedule :/ It needed editing! Well...alright, I'm gonna be honest, that and I've been texting my long-distance boyfriend pretty much 24/7... ^^ Hehe. Hehehe.
Anyhow. Seriously. This one's rated for Diana's mouth, I guess o_O And corresponding mental freakouts. et cetera. Though I have to say, it's quite justified here. Other than that, I have exciting news! :D If I didn't get the PM out to you, then I apologize, but I'm on Tumblr now as run4life! It's not up on my profile yet but the link isinfamousrun4life .tumblr .com. It's almost entirely focused on my writing, mostly meaning this story, plus random stuff that I basically reblog from UnderdogAngel aka Kelsey xD But yeah, so you don't have to be a member to see the blog, but it's basically the backstory that goes into the storyline and chapters so y'all should totally check it out :) That's all for now, enjoy the chapter!
Chapter 50: It All Goes Out the Window
If Diana had just gone on the assumption that Ten was grumbling over the unexpected lack of communication among their ranks, and taken advantage of his agitation to charge in with all guns blazing, logical probability said that there couldn't have been too many complications ensuing.
However.
Everyone knows that it's always the extra second spent listening at the door that provides the real kicker, so to speak. The classic eavesdropping scenarios. Be it an open window or an air vent, those little coincidences never quite seem like they're just that, stereotypical though it may seem. It does happen. And it usually results in a veritable explosion.
This was no exception.
And what Diana heard next lit the fuse.
The muttering was becoming slightly louder, more frantic; almost feverish. It was a bit unsettling, and only a few words were coming through.
"Not this time...snow. Isn't cold, escape…down. Can't go…this time…"
Diana reeled back from the door, horrorstruck. She was breathing hard, staring at the floor, boring holes in the wood with her eyes, trying to drown out the words, telling herself that wasn't what he meant.
Snow. He said snow. The snow. That day. Oh, gods. Escaping, no way, no, goddess, NO.
She looked around at the walls wildly now, not really seeing, not believing that she had actually heard that, clutching at her stomach like holding down her guts would help anything at all, panting as her ribs felt like they were constricting the tightness in her chest even further and yet feeling like she was trying to choke down something nasty at the same time.
"So, you never considered…possible causes?" He was trying to tell me. Oh, gods, he nearly told me, and why WHY DIDN'T HE SAY IT but no it would've killed me and oh no IT WAS THEM.
All this time of thinking of hunting down a random squad from the enemy country, and that hadn't been it at all, and they had just been lying in wait so close to her all along. And had the game somehow changed?
They killed him. THEY KILLED HIM but why want me alive is it different now—
I DON'T EVEN CARE, I WANT TO KILL THEM.
She was almost surprised by this new, violent, very forceful feeling, but nevertheless she felt it was in order, and her breathing got even heavier, her brows drawing together and her fists clenching while her arms were still wrapped around her core.
"Diana. Diana!" Five was still there. He was still there and reaching towards her, as she had backed down the short hallway in pure shock. He was only mouthing the words, though, and while it was unlikely that Ten would hear them over his mad tirade, if they gave themselves away too soon they were both dead.
"I know. I knew, and I tried to tell you, but there was just so much, and—" He took a real look at her still slightly blank expression tinged with unadulterated rage, stuttered to a halt, and began again. "Everything, it's changed so much, you know so much more now, and gods, you're in shock. I know. I know you have every right to know and every right to kill someone. If I had felt then how I do now, I would have done something, but you know—you know I was only a mindless follower then."
She accepted with her eyes, and while she still shook and then swayed slightly when Five grasped her shoulders, she was a little more with it. She didn't say a word but it was clear she was listening. She was just in shock, and could still be rational. She would remember these moments quite clearly later, as parts of a traumatic shock tend to stick in the brain rather stubbornly.
Five knew he only had so much time before she got past the accepting and would feel the need to do something about what she had just figured out. In other words, she would need an outlet, and…well. He almost pitied Them.
Only, not.
"I was one of the few chasing you. You got away from me, you smart, smart girl, and I didn't see…" He swallowed hard. "I didn't see what happened. The people protecting you came after us for a little bit. The enemy soldier disguises were just a ruse, our helmets were wired to scramble our speech and make it sound foreign, all that trouble and it's come to all this now—you— and, I almost wish I knew so I could tell you, you deserve to know, gods, you deserve it, but…" He stopped babbling even in a near-silent voice and glanced over his shoulder at the door uneasily, his hands still firmly on Diana's upper arms.
He knew what she wanted to know. What single fact she would latch onto in a fit of grief and rage. "I don't know who did it," he stated firmly. "I just don't. But he—" he jerked his head toward the door— "he'll torment you with it. He plays mind games—he'll hold things over your head and dangle things in front of you, but you never know what's really true, and it's—it's awful. Just…do whatever you need to do. Don't let him get into your head. Okay? I'll follow your lead. I'll trust you." He gave her shoulders a slight shake.
"…Okay," she said faintly. He wasn't sure her lips had even moved. "Zack doesn't know," she stated unexpectedly, mouthing the words like Five was (lip-reading came in very handy at times like these) but somehow making them firm. Maybe it was in the set of her jaw, or the tilt of her head. Maybe it was in her eyes, which kept going in and out of focus and flickering an odd color somewhere around and in between rust and moss and amethyst. "He doesn't know about my double life. I'm waiting for a certain time to tell him. So keep it down if you can." Five knew the story Diana had been telling about her cousin dying instead of her brother—they knew everything, after all.
He didn't voice the observation that she was acting unnaturally calm all of a sudden. Not to mention eerily rational and accurately synthesizing all the important information apart from what had caused her the shock. Maybe that was an ordinary response to shock for most people. He wouldn't know. "…Okay. I will. And, once Zack's free…whatever direction you take, I'll follow."
What he meant was, if Diana went on a half-delirious killing rampage as partial retribution for what had been done to her and her brother, he would be her wingman. Which was one hell of a commitment to make, but Diana wasn't exactly focused on the depth of the statement at the time, so she didn't fully comprehend his meaning. She nodded, though, and the movement was jerky, like she was tightly wound but her muscles just wouldn't respond.
"But right now, I'm going to walk through that door and pretend you're being watched by someone else. It won't do any good to charge in if there's a gun pointed at Zack or something. I'm going to stall. Whatever you want to do, do it when you want. Okay?"
"Okay." She was firm again. At least she appeared stable. That was something, right?
"Okay. I trust you." So he turned on his heel and stepped almost silently down the hallway, Diana right behind him. She flattened herself against the wall next to the door, out of the way, assuming no one looked up the stairs. But there would be a proper commotion in a few moments anyway, so it didn't really matter.
Five opened the door—it swung towards her—and confidently strode inside to be greeted by a bark of "Five! What are you doing here?"
He replied to Ten, but Diana tuned it out. She trusted him to stall for a couple minutes, and so she took a chance and closed her eyes for a moment.
I know who killed my brother. Okay, not the actual being who did it—hell, maybe even they don't know—but whatever, I know that it was Them. But they want me alive. Why? Maybe they screwed up by killing him, or maybe the game changed partway through. Maybe it's just a ruse so they can kill me…no, they would've done that a long time ago. Wow. Is this really what shock's like? I'm in shock.
Oh my gods, I'm in shock. I didn't really remember what it's like. Huh.
Okay. Well. I can't change anything, but someone is going to pay. And with Five on our side…maybe we can find the viper's nest. It'd be stupid to try an interrogation or something here. Let's be rational. But.
Zack. Need him. Right. That'd be good. Then they're going down. Right. One step at a time here. Rational. Yeah. That's good.
The words came drifting through to her as she opened her eyes with an exhale.
As it turned out, not even half a minute had passed. The two inside the room were arguing over the lack of signals from base, and Five was successfully getting Ten pretty steamed about it.
Zack sniggered fitfully, nearly choking on his own tongue. Damn piece of dumpster sock shit. He began gnawing on one of the edges again. He was getting closer to a breakthrough, even if it did taste like chewing on what remained of a hobo's shoe.
The one who had been guarding Zack and muttering to himself like a freaking lunatic brought himself up short all of a sudden. "Hold on, if you're here—"
"I told you, she's probably still unconscious—" Five noted but didn't acknowledge the fact that Zack strained against his chains and built up a low growl at that— "but I put Seven and Nine on watch!" He had taken a chance and named the former, whom he had encountered in the alley between the houses, and the latter, whom was never too far from the other.
It was logical, considering the thinking on his feet that he was doing. But he really didn't like the smile that Ten got on his face at that.
"So those two were right," he gloated. "Something was wrong. Where'd her presence go? Did her heartbeat just…drop off the face of the earth?"
Five had begun swearing profusely in his head—who in their right mind forgot about his own ex-team's senses that were his as well? !—and Zack stiffened sharply.
"Something did seem off, they said…" Ten drawled, dragging it out. Five didn't even know what face to try to make. Any time now, Diana… "So they scaled the side of the building…and imagine their surprise when nothing came from inside! That plus an unconscious operative on the first floor, well…"
He let out one cold laugh and spread his hands. Then he dropped his voice eerily. "So where'd she get off to?" he whispered.
It was then that the wall exploded.
Diana had been waiting for an opportunity, a good time to enter and let loose all seven circles of hell. Then with the revelation that someone knew she was gone, she decided it was time to step back to the edge of the stairs, take a running leap forward, and quite literally blast through the wall via a double kick with her arms crossed in front of her head. When she landed amidst the smell of mold and splinters of rotting wood, she rolled and came up standing, facing the enemy in the middle of the room.
"Where you least want me!" she snapped, fists up.
Zack had used the cover of the explosion to snap the gag off the rest of the way. Finally. Gross. Double gross. It fell away and he shook it off his shoulder and onto the floor.
And then he saw an angel in the middle of the debris.
And holy shit, was she infuriated.
But Ten only laughed, after a brief pause where silence reigned supreme. "I have to say that was a little unexpected. You got past all three of them, then?"
She and Five both took pause at that. Three?
Oh, shit, Seven and Nine and the one downstairs. Maybe more. Five wavered. He'd walked them straight into a crossfire. Well, only one thing to do now.
So he bellowed "ATTACK!" sounding quite mad, and charged Ten.
Diana didn't ask questions, just ducked over to where Zack was sitting, wide-eyed. "What vat of toxic waste have these guys jumped into lately?" he demanded.
"Nice to see you too, you're welcome for rescuing you," Diana grunted, locating a piece of wood the size of a two-by-four that she'd knocked out of the wall. She pulled out a throwing star and thunked it into the end of the wood, then picked it up and turned back to Zack. "Put your feet apart," she instructed him. Mostly ignoring the severely property-damaging fight that was going on a few yards away and appeared to be migrating out the door, she swung the makeshift axe and chopped through the chain in two swings. There were a few crashes behind her, as the battle had indeed moved all the way to the stairs and seemed to be on its violent way down.
"Okay, now turn around and give me your hands—" she started to say, not really noticing how Zack was staring at her. He got to his feet in one motion, stepped right up to her, and kissed her firmly on the mouth. Diana's eyes widened and then closed, throwing away caution entirely, and she reached around him to hack off the chains around his wrists. She tossed the tool across the room as Zack's arms came around her in a tight embrace.
He broke away after a moment to bury his face in her hair. His next breath shuddered slightly. Sure, he acted like a total screwball. But in all honesty, he had been pretty near terrified. "I thought I might have lost you. Or that I would… I tried to act like I didn't even hear him, but, he said things. He was saying things, screwing with my head, and…and I…" He coughed once. It might have been covering something. "It scared me."
"No, I'm okay… I always was. It's okay," she murmured, running her fingers through his hair. "Well, I mean, I got attacked, but I beat his ass into the pavement."
"Number Eight, right?" Zack confirmed, making an attempt to get back into business mode.
"Yeah, the idiot with the mace. Payback. Oh, yeah." She grinned, almost viciously.
"Well, what now?" Zack wanted to know.
Diana fell silent for a moment. Then her back suddenly went ramrod straight and she gasped out loud. "Five! Oh, gods, we have to help him!"
Zack gave her a strange look. "Er, what? The crazy dude?"
"No no, well, yes, maybe, all things considered—he's on our side! He freed me so I could take Eight down, and he told me a ton of stuff and he might expire soon and he doesn't know everything but he can help us!" she babbled, tugging Zack towards the door.
"No offense, but are you sure he's alright?" Zack wrinkled his nose as he reached over his shoulder for a broadsword that wasn't there.
She turned to look right at him. "Trust me on this one."
Somehow, he just did.
"And you know what these people did, right? Or some of the others?" she went on semi-casually.
"Uh, no, what—" Then it hit him. He had guessed, from the conversations going on around him, and apparently Diana had figured it out, too. "Your cousin."
She hesitated but nodded tightly, part of her tension coming from something entirely different, unbeknownst to Zack. Then her expression hardened. "We're gonna kick some ass. Make a lot of noise. Scare the living goddamn shit out of them and whoever's sending them. It'd be stupid to try to kill them all or something. Besides, there are too many. We'll get out with Five—he's essential, and he needs help now—and do it with one hell of a bang. Are we clear, soldier? !" she barked in an impressive imitation of Angeal.
"Sir!" Zack yelped back before he realized what he was saying.
"Good! Now execute!" she grinned evilly.
"You said there were too many—do you know how many?" he asked as Diana checked her supplies and edged towards the stairs.
"Better. I know where most of them are," she replied. "Twelve of them are available to operate in the field; Four through Fifteen are here. We met Three in Kalm," she remarked, like it was an offhanded point of interest. Zack blinked in recognition and shivered slightly as she continued. "Dunno where Four is—he lost contact a while ago. He was patrolling. Five is on our side, Six is somewhere out on the streets a few blocks away or so, Seven and Nine are together and were supposedly called in by Ten—that could be a bluff, though, so I dunno—Eight is probably dead, severely incapacitated at the least; well, you met Ten; umm, Eleven is unconscious in the other building, Twelve is probably with Six, Thirteen should be around here somewhere, and if not him then Fourteen or Fifteen if they're not out on the streets. There," she declared, quite proud of her memory.
"Wait, then how am I supposed to tell which one not to attack if they all look the same?" Zack whined suddenly, having a thought.
"They do not look the same," Diana scoffed. "Just generic."
"Oh, right, 'cause that makes all the difference to a person," Zack muttered.
"Whatever, I'll show you somehow. C'mon, let's go. And remember, think ostentatious. I know you can do it." Diana waved for him to follow her out the door. "LET'S GO KICK SOME ASS!" she roared.
Not two seconds later, she stopped dead on the stairs. Someone was tearing up the steps toward her, obviously on a mission. She hadn't seen this one before, and she raised her fists—until he stopped abruptly on the fourth or fifth step to smoothly pull out a gun and point it without delay straight between Zack's eyes, who was standing off Diana's left shoulder two steps up.
Now, Diana was already angry.
She was unstable over the shock she had experienced, and hyped up on battle adrenaline, which can feel completely unlike the adrenaline that most people experience in a state of nervousness or exhilaration or a fight-or-flight scenario. And she had a feeling that someone was about to take a flight, via her fight.
Because now some bozo was pointing a gun at her boyfriend, on account of the fact that they were under orders not to kill her. Zack counted as significant leverage.
Yes, Diana was very angry. Irritable, for sure; fuming, certainly. Livid and irate, well, quite possibly.
She was pissed.
So she pointed a finger right back at the man's face. "You pull that trigger," she stated menacingly, "and you will be defenestrated."
He pulled the trigger.
Zack nearly gave himself a concussion on the ceiling by leaping up and sideways with his lightning reflexes to land on the creaky stair rail and slide down it on his feet, in order to avoid the bullet and land behind the other man. It was like he had rehearsed the stunt in a producing studio a dozen times before.
Said other man looked incredibly, almost comically surprised, mostly because he found himself airborne literally before he could blink.
This was because Diana flung herself forward and down the stairs to drive a foot into his stomach and grab his arms on the way, using the outgoing momentum from her kick to swing him up, over her head, and around 270 degrees counterclockwise to smash through the filthy window in the stairwell and take a flight path that arced out and down a considerable distance.
And so he was defenestrated.
Zack whistled.
"Go!" Diana yelled, vaulting the railing and landing on the flight below, in front of Zack. They took the stairs as many as they could at a time, following the sounds of Five and Ten's battle. Diana winced as they passed a section of the steps and previously attached rail that had been completely smashed away, and then all too soon they slammed to a stop on the first level.
There were three doors. One was the front door. One was at the far end of the fifteen-foot-long hallway, presumably to a spare room and a back door.
The remaining one had been opened quite forcefully, possibly by a flying body. The top hinge was lying several feet away, the pin having popped straight out of the mechanism's joint.
But the true problem lay in the sudden lack of noise.
There was no backdrop of crickets sounding, no cacophony of birds screaming as they took flight from these strange creatures who traveled on two legs and destroyed things. Not in the city.
There was no hum of computers, no creaking of tubes as air circulated through ducts hidden from view. Not in this building.
There were no sheets of rain splaying their fingers against the blocked windows, no tree branches scratching their way along the wood of their neighbors. Not today.
There was just the raw human sound of breathing, and two of these exchanges of oxygen and carbon dioxide belonged to two humans in particular who were desperately straining their senses to detect these same signs of others.
Nothing came for a time that really took the space of an average human heartbeat but seemed to take eight ticks of the second hand on the clock in the hall that was no longer running.
And then, four heartbeats could be heard. And in time with these, running footsteps outside the front door. But they passed by, which didn't make any sense at all.
What made Diana's head snap to focus straight on the sound was a low chuckle.
It was dim inside the third doorway, but her eyes had no problem adjusting instantly. And the figure taking slow steps toward them was most definitely not Five. In fact, it was clearly Ten.
Diana was tempted to snap a where is he line at the psycho, but at the last second she snarled, "Who killed him?" scarcely of her own volition.
Zack would have blinked had he been inclined to openly show emotion in this conflict. He wasn't—he wasn't having anyone or anything used against him, really—and so he didn't. Of course his first thought in response to Diana's demand was of Five. He wasn't dead; Zack could clearly hear a fourth heartbeat and labored breathing, and he feared it was coming from the dark shape huddled on the ground against the far wall of the room beyond, by a window so dirty it was nigh unrecognizable. The wall around it, or him, was cracked as if a wrecking ball had made an impact. A wrecking ball…or something thrown by a SOLDIER, he thought abruptly. Or someone of our strength. Gods damn.
And then he realized that Diana was talking about the one whom she had lost, so many days ago, so few months in the past. And his chest ached for her, for them both, for all three of them, and his fists began to shake.
She had made the connection. He had to admit, even he hadn't seen that coming. But it made sense; all of it. They killed their cousin—and now they're coming after the twins.
And clearly the game had changed. Whether it was the players, the chess pieces, or the strategy to capture the king and queen, he wasn't sure. But it didn't really matter.
Because Zack always had had a knack for being the knight to come flying in out of left field, no longer disguised as a mere pawn.
Ten was laughing, but Zack smirked.
"Who was it? And while you're at it, point me in his direction," Diana growled, poised to lunge forward and barely keeping herself in check.
"How should I know?" he inquired gleefully, his arms spread wide. It appeared he was vulnerable to an attack, but it was always the one without all their marbles that you had to watch out for. They're unpredictable, Zack thought, praying that Diana was recognizing this as well.
"I was chasing you, not shooting him down!" he cackled. "Nearly got ya, too! Alllllllmost took out that pretty little eye of yours." He pointed at the right side of her face.
A breath hissed over Diana's teeth and she suppressed the urge to grab at her scar. Zack knew that if he turned his attention to her he would see the thin pinkish-white line that invaded upon the skin of her right cheek.
"That…was you," Diana growled. She went to say something else, but abruptly stopped herself and her spine straightened slightly.
And she got this really creepy smile on her face that unnerved even Ten.
"I guess I have to thank you, though." She dragged out the words, clearly enjoying this.
Zack knew what was coming. Gods, she freaked him out sometimes, but it was usually 1) worth it, and 2) at some creep's expense. This was one of those times.
She wasn't just pissed. She was feeling murderous.
"Without this," she went on, "I wouldn't have anything to remember it by!" She shrieked the last words, and launched herself straight at him like a savage animal.
He backpedaled fast, but not clumsily, as she tried to land a punch about a dozen times in a row. He blocked them each time, like this was a plotted sequence, and Diana was about ready to scream in frustration when she was reminded to keep her head and not get wound too tightly. That led to deadly mistakes.
She snap kicked at his right side and missed giving him a dead arm by just that much, and Ten turned away and tried to grab her leg. He missed but got ahold of her wrist in her distraction, and with a simple twist he had thrown her onto a table on her back. Diana gasped for air, the wind knocked out of her like it had been so many times before, and a few thin tears flew from the corners of her eyes as she choked.
Ten leapt onto the table, cracking it down the center and sending them both crashing down to the floor, but not before Diana got a knee into his stomach, still struggling to inhale.
Now, Zack had had every intention of helping Diana, taking the creep out, and tending to the lump that was indeed Five. However, that was before two more guys came crashing through the front door, almost literally.
He yelped and ducked under the swing of one's sword, and met the second's charge with a very solid foot to the stomach. Snatching up a chunk of wood, he narrowly blocked a downstroke from the first one, and with a distractingly fast flurry of punching and lunging, he grabbed the wrist of the hand grasping the sword and dug his fingers in, twisting hard. He was fairly sure the bone snapped as the man yelled, and Zack quickly pivoted, grabbing the sword hastily, to hurl it straight through the left foot of the man coming up behind him.
They keep coming and we're screwed, he thought absently as the first one came at him again with his usable fist raised.
Ten let out a slight gasp of his own, but managed to whisper into Diana's face. "Ever feel guilty, Diana? You got off with only that little scar, didn't you? Hmmmm?"
Diana found her breath then. "Don't fuck with me!" she screamed, arching her back and throwing him off her—he was heavy—to grab one of the crushed table's legs and snap it clear off. It was light in her hands, but it was solid and it was a weapon. She didn't have time to grab for anything legit in her bag.
The kick to her stomach left her gasping all over again, but she looked up with rage in her eyes just in time to catch him coming at her again and drive her free fist up under his chin. His head snapped back but he came right at her again, trying to grab for both of her wrists. She danced away and drove the table leg in her hand into his oncoming outstretched hand, the splintered wood hopefully breaking the sensitive skin or stabbing a nerve. Offhandedly, she tossed the stick away in the direction of the flurry of movement coming from the hallway where Zack was engaged in a battle of his own. Ten struck again, and while she almost broke his ankle when he tried for a kick, he deflected her strike just as easily.
Diana was not going to win this.
She was a wreck already, emotionally more so than physically, and it was severely unnerving fighting someone like him. She didn't know what to expect, and when he wasn't throwing snide comments at her and messing her up more, he was just as fast as she was on a good day.
And it was not exactly a good day.
It really didn't look good.
And he might have won the fight, too, were it not for one very important factor.
A/N: ANOTHER CLIFFY I'M SORRY BUT IT HAD TO BE DONE! Yeah, so, this was my friend's face after I summarized this chapter for her 0_O I feel bad for torturing my OC sometimes... But this is so not the land of the Mary-Sue, sooo there ya go. Review please, and remember to hop on over to check out the blog and drop me a line! (Psst...you don't even have to be a member for that, you can post anonymously!) See you all soon, and thanks for reading! :)
