Chapter Fifty-One
"Normally, I'd say you can go right ahead and take him, but, right now, he's our rent-a-parasite." Sonic smirked at the trio, though, truthfully, he was more than glad to hear that they were just there for Mortuus. "How'd you guys get in here?"
"We have our ways." Cerae tilted her head. "But we're not here to chat, and we're not pussyfooting around about it, now. Give us the parasites and we'll leave."
"Well, well!" Mortuus set his hands on his hips, standing a little taller. "Seems I have more fans than I thought. Should I grab a pen and paper, or did you bring your autograph books?"
"No games. Come with us. Both of you."
Shine blinked and realized they were referring to her, too. "What, are you kidding me?"
"Where's Virgo?" Mortuus asked sharply. His nice mood had quickly evaporated. Before Cerae could give him a hard answer, Mortuus raised a hand bluntly. "No, nevermind, I know that was a stupid question. Of course she's too much of a coward to come here in person. She'd rather send you, the messengers." Haughtily setting a hand on his collarbones, he said "At least I had the decency to make my visits personal."
"Not something to be proud of…" Sonic reminded through his teeth.
"In exchange for the two parasites," Cerae said in a strained voice, "these two here will walk away safe and sound."
"We're gonna have a problem, then." Shine pushed through the group to the front to face the intruders. "Virgo's done more than enough to blow her cover in her own game. I'm not going to her, and especially not with just me and this thing." She gestured to Mortuus.
"And, needless to say," Mortuus growled, following Shine to the front of the group, "I'm not very interested in a reunion if it's on her turf."
"Well." Cerae lifted a hand ominously. The two girls on either side of her pushed off the chairs they were leaning on. "Then we'll take what we need by force." She snapped her fingers and, like they were released by tightly wound springs, they burst into action.
Jennifer and Bonnie slammed into Shadow and Kat. They easily kept both them, as well as Sonic and Byrch, under control – while they dodged attacks and threw their own jabs. Even when Byrch would get a good claw hooked in one of them, they kept going like it was nothing. If Shine and Mortuus didn't have their own problems to worry about, it would have been mesmerizing to watch them fight.
Cerae got the short stick in the draw and had to try to tackle Shine and Mortuus at the same time. She leapt at Shine first, nearly knocking the hedgehog over. Shine was able to catch herself, but not before falling into Shadow and sending him stumbling too. He shoved back on her, returning the gesture and giving her a little extra strength behind the punch she threw at Cerae.
The deer went flying and hit the floor hard. Mortuus stalked towards her. Those dark blades of chaotic energy formed over one of his fists and he grabbed Cerae by the front of her black, short-sleeved bodysuit and lifted her to his eye level. She kicked at him, her expression unchanging, but failed to force him to release his grip.
"You are a pain," he snarled through bared teeth, lifting the chaos blade to show it to Cerae. "Now, be a good little messenger and tell Virgo that she's going to have to crawl out of her hidey-hole if she wants to have a chance at getting to me." He drove the blade into Cerae's chest and twisted. She opened her mouth to cry out, but the damage had already been done. She couldn't make a noise.
Shine had instinctively stepped away from Mortuus, but now she was quickly backing up. Her confidence in his state of mind dwindled again. But he dropped Cerae and didn't turn on Shine. She found herself letting out a quiet breath of relief.
Behind him, Tails had let out a small cry of disgust, turning his eyes away from Cerae. He ducked and snuck out of the fight, rushing over to Willow and quickly untying him, removing the gag that had been stuffed in his mouth. Willow gave a terrified gasp and hurried to his feet to keep away from the fight that was taking up more and more space in the bridge.
To Tails, Willow said "I'm sorry. They just—"
"It's fine, Willow, I know." Tails hurried over to Simon, releasing him. "We have to lock the doors, keep this fight contained. I don't want anyone else getting involved."
Willow didn't take his eyes off Mortuus. "You guys… found it?"
Tails nodded grimly.
Willow swallowed thickly. "Oh, hell…"
In the midst of the fight, Mortuus, without turning to face them, pointed a finger at Tails, Willow, and Simon. "Quit talkin' 'bout me!" He ordered sharply before punching Jennifer in the face, then grabbing Bonnie and throwing her into Cerae, who had been struggling to drag herself towards the fight. A second later, Jennifer joined them.
As they three girls struggled, Mortuus, backed by five others of varying state of mood and mind, approached with tight fists and angry eyes. "You three go back to Virgo, now, and you tell her Morty sent you."
Shadow started "If you think we're just going to let them go—"
"There's no point, Sunshine. Virgo can just patch 'em up and put 'em back out. It's energy wasted to kill them."
Jennifer squirmed, wiping at a bloody nose. She gave an empty smirk at the group, but kept her eyes on Kat. "Bold of you people to assume we can die in the first place."
"Oh, yadda yadda yadda…" Mortuus made a chatty gesture with his hand before kicking Jennifer in the face and stopping her from replying any more. "You people are so boring."
"Shadow," Sonic elbowed the black-and-red hedgehog, hooking a thumb at the girls. "Wanna get rid of them?"
Shadow cracked his knuckles and narrowed his eye. "With pleasure."
After the intruders were dropped outside, the Blue Typhoon took off hastily. Once they were at a safe distance and sure they weren't being actively chased down – at least not that they could tell – they tended to Willow and Simon. They had minor injuries, but they were otherwise OK. Simon seemed in shock that Virgo's goons got onto the ship without them even noticing.
"One minute, we're sitting here talkin' about the damage from the fires, the next they were just… there…" Simon tried to explain, holding a bag of ice to the back of his head. "They came in, knocked us out, and we were tied to the chairs when we woke up. I'm sorry, man. We… we tried."
"It's fine, Simon." Tails reassured while he and Kat finished patching up a cut on Willow's arm. "At least no one was badly injured."
"Speak for yourselves…" Willow hissed as they tied off the stich on his wound.
Mortuus, who had been absently staring out the bridge's window, leaning against a railing with his arms folded, finally said "Now she's aware that I'm alive, well, and recharged." He pushed away from the railing and faced the group, ignoring the insistent stares he was getting from Shadow, Byrch, and Shine. "And she knows I'm none too happy. It's now a matter of time 'til either she comes after us, or we decide to go after her. Question is, who's going after who first?"
"We can't go after her on Koanus, that would be suicide." Kat wiped her hands off with a sterile cloth, sitting back on her heels. "That's her domain, her place of control. We go there, it'll be like flies landing in honey."
"That's something we can agree on." Kat didn't like that feeling when the parasite agreed with him. He, apparently, didn't either, because he gave a small shudder before continuing. "We've gotta either get her on our turf or find somewhere neutral where she doesn't have her little hands on the minds of the population."
"And what would you suggest?" Shine asked dryly.
"Who, me? Lil' old me? Since when did you people care what I wanted to do?"
"You know her the best. You and Kat."
Kat exchanged a sideways look with Mortuus. "Well…" She looked back to Shine unsurely. "It's hard to say. She's adaptable, and she knows that. That's why she's been so successful at what she does without getting caught."
"Not to mention she knows how to manipulate her surroundings to her advantage, she can cook up a hell of a plan, and she's got plenty of resources at her disposal."
"And," Kat tagged on quickly, "she's patient."
Under Mortuus' breath, he muttered "Another place we had our little 'differences…'"
"I don't par well with patience." Sonic tapped is foot tirelessly, his hands on his hips.
"Waiting around for her would make me too paranoid anyways." Shine nodded to Mortuus. "Especially with you around."
Mortuus frowned. "No offense?"
"Oh, no. Full offense intended."
Mortuus sighed dejectedly.
"We don't have many choices, from the sounds of things." Shadow finally put in after taking in the back-and-forth. "We either come after her first, or we wait until she gets tired of sitting around for us on her own. In both cases, with everything she has stacked against us, our odds aren't great." With a parched drawl, he added "Even with our… 'secret weapon.'" He glared at Mortuus.
Sonic sniffed. "Not so secret anymore…"
They mulled it over with furrowed brows, thinking on their feet. Willow tenderly examined his own wound during the silence before looking up. He cleared his throat and said "Why not just give her what she wants?" He pointed to Shine and Mortuus. "What she sent her goons for." When he got a room full of indignant stares, he rolled his eyes. "I don't mean to say you should sacrifice them, you maniacs. At least not Shine. But Virgo is obviously nervous with Shine and Mortuus running around, and I'll bet you she's gutted to know her little plan didn't quite work out. If you just give her what she wants, or at least pretend to, she might let her guard down." Willow shrugged and winced at the pain in his arm. "That or it'll give us a chance to get close enough to her to be able to do something."
Mortuus stared at Willow curiously. After a moment he pointed at him. "You," he said with a pleased grin. "I don't like most people. But you I can tolerate."
