A/N: Happy Holidays! I hope everyone had a great Christmas. Sorry if this little Christmas gift was a little late but I was celebrating the holidays. Anyway, enjoy Chapter 26!
Chapter 26: "Which Leg did I Hit Again":
Cassie and Harley made it back to the mansion with Harley carrying Darren/Scott on his back. The Iron Lad suit made it easy in terms of weight. All Cassie and Harley worried about was if Darren/Scott came to while they were flying back to the mansion, but he made no such peep.
Once they got to the Hangar, Hank, Janet and Ava were waiting for them. Harley followed Hank and Janet, with Darren/Scott in tow, to the lab where Foster was waiting to begin the process of putting Scott's mind back into his body. Hope had woken up, flown out of Cassie's pocket, unshrunk and joined the others.
Cassie wanted to go with them and see if the process was a success, but on the way there, she was told by Hank that William had escaped when she managed to shut down the Master Control to all of the Yellowjacket soldiers. Needless to say, she was still looking for a little payback.
As Cassie was about to go looking for William, Ava stopped her.
"Where are you going? Your family went that way." Ava told Cassie as she was trying to point Cassie in the right direction.
"To kill Cross." Cassie bluntly remarked.
Ava phased and appeared in front of Cassie, hoping to stop her from making a fatal mistake.
"You can't be serious?" Ava asked, hoping Cassie was joking.
"His brother's gonna die anyway and he might as well join him, and besides why do you care what I do?" Cassie felt annoyed.
Ava realized Cassie still had feelings about what she had learned the night before. Ava took Cassie by the arm and pleaded.
"Listen. You have to understand, I was a really broken person then. I was willing to do anything, whether it be good or bad, to get what I needed and by doing that, I lost being the person my own parents wanted me to be. You can hate me all you want…but I'm not gonna stop making sure you know how far I'm willing to go to show you that I can be that person." Ava poured herself to Cassie and the latter saw the sadness in her eyes, knowing she meant it.
"Just help me find him…and bring him down the right way." Cassie asked Ava, who nodded and the two ladies proceeded to scour the entire underground of the mansion looking for the man responsible for everyone's suffering.
Meanwhile, Hope, Hank, Janet and Harley had gotten Scott's body to the lab and Foster was all set to begin the procedure.
After Hank and Janet had each wired the unconscious Scott and the dying Darren to the coils of the Quantum Manipulator, Foster began going over the procedure.
"Okay, they're wired and the machine is calibrated. We are ready to go." Foster said aloud.
Hope was, for lack of a better word, hopeful that the procedure would be a success. If it worked the first time, it would have to work again.
After Foster made the final adjustments, everything was all set. "Okay, starting in 3…2…1. Execute." Foster counted down and began the process. The circular coils had begun operating and the Quantum Tunnel in the lab below them had turned on and began extracting the energy needed to reverse what the Cross brothers had done to Scott.
While this was going on, Hope noticed that neither Cassie nor Ava were with them. She worried that William might be the reason they were running behind. Hope was torn between leaving the lab to go look for them or staying to make sure the procedure was a success.
Suddenly, the final surge of Quantum Energy was blasted through the coils and like that, the procedure was complete.
Hope rushed to Scott's side, hoping this time, it was really Scott and not Darren's mind in Scott's body.
"Scott. Scott." Hope kneeled down to Scott, removing the headset and hoping for a response. "Please Scott, please be you."
The air was thick of unease as Hank, Janet, Foster and Harley were all anticipating the end result.
Aside from Hope's pleas for Scott to wake up, it was silence…until Scott breathed.
"Scott?" Hope kept pressing. "Scott, please be you?"
Scott was once again hazy from the procedure. Hope wasn't wasting any time making sure if it was truly Scott.
"What happened when we first met?" Hope tested to see if it was Scott.
Scott was still pretty hazy but mustered enough for a response. "I stole your dad's suit. I was returning it and you called the police. I woke up the next day and you were standing at the edge of, I think it was your dad's bed."
Hope was more than assured and everyone else breathed a sigh of relief. Scott was Scott again.
Hope embraced the love of her life and Scott felt a lot better.
As happy as Scott was to have his body back, all that was going through his mind was where Cassie was.
"Where's Cassie?" Scott asked Hope.
"It's okay. She's with Ava." Hope didn't want Scott to go into full panic mode but she also wasn't sure how Scott would react to his daughter being with the woman who almost kidnapped her six years ago.
Meanwhile, Cassie and Ava were still searching the bunker for William and it was proving a lot harder than expected.
"We searched this whole basement and nothing." Cassie felt frustrated.
"Maybe he's not down here? Maybe he went up?" Ava said, as she pointed upwards.
"He could be long gone by now?" Cassie replied.
"Only one way to find out." Ava remarked, as the ladies made their way towards the elevator.
Just as they were getting close, Ava stopped in her tracks. Cassie looked behind her to see Ava, frozen and unable to proceed any further.
"What's happening?" Cassie saw that Ava looked as she wanted to keep running but something was keeping her from moving.
Cassie realized William was closer than they thought. Suddenly, Ava was lunged down to the end of the hall.
Cassie tried snapping into hero mode but she soon felt the same frozen feeling as she tried to reach for the buttons on her suit but was clearly unable to.
From a dark corner, William, bloodied, bruised but still capable, stepped out of the darkness, holding the sonic emitting device, which he found following his escape. He walked up to Cassie and pulled out the particle vials from her suit.
"Yeah, you won't be needing these." William smirked, then threw her vials across the hall.
William turned off the emitter, which released Cassie from it's grasp. Before Cassie could get a punch or kick in, William beat her to it, punching her in the face.
Cassie fell to the floor, feeling like she had the air knocked out of her. William kept egging her on as Cassie tried crawling away from William.
"Jesus, I thought you would have more spirit than that." William smugly remarked before bringing his boot down on Cassie's back.
Cassie was feeling the brunt of the pain that William was inflicting on her. It was like reliving that night all over again.
"I mean, your dad had some fight in him. His girlfriend. Starr. Even the geriatrics have some fight." William continued putting Cassie down, while she was down. "You. Barely. And it's a shame too. Because if you really had a chance to show them how tough you could be, mommy and other daddy would still be alive."
William kneeled down to roll Cassie over so she could face him. The eyes on Cassie's face spelled fear and a growing rage, while William's were lusting and sadistic. Nevertheless, Cassie felt compelled to give show William she still had some fight in her.
"Do you realize what's happened?" Cassie retorted. "Your Master Plan has failed, your brother's probably dead by now and my dad is going to be alright. What do you think The Masters' are gonna do to you when they find out you've failed? You think they'll let you keep your head?"
Cassie was smug towards her enemy. William felt insulted. He tried to shrug it off but an idea popped into his head. He pulled the gun out of his holster and asked Cassie.
"Help me out here. Which leg did I hit again?" William asked as Cassie was suddenly overcome with fear again. "Oh, now I remember."
William pulled the trigger and fired a shot into Cassie's right leg, leading the girl to scream in agony.
Cassie's screams were heard as Scott, Hope, Harley, Hank, Janet and Foster all feared the worst.
William's anger emaciated and proceeded to threaten the teen girl. "YOU STUPID LITTLE GIRL. I CAN'T WAIT TO WATCH YOU SWIM IN YOUR OWN BLOOD AND PISS BUT BEFORE I DO…" William applied pressure onto Cassie's fresh wound, which caused another pained scream from the latter. "I'm going to make you watch as I drain the life out of everyone you care for and believe me when I say, It'll be more painful than this." William twisted his fingers in Cassie's wound and it was already too much for the girl…until William felt something go right through him.
William paused and looked down to his stomach to see a blade puncture his sternum. The blade belonging to Ava.
Ava had gotten back up, rushed to Cassie's aid and managed to strike William when he least expected. William, with one leg standing and the other kneeling, reacted with such confusion, he wasn't sure what to think. Ava pulled William off Cassie and continued to twist the blade further into his stomach. This was proving to be a bit hard as William was still resisting as hard as he could, even dropping his gun.
"Why won't you just die already?" Ava said with clenched teeth.
"Because you can't always kill a disease." William, with bloodied and clenched teeth, smugly remarked.
Ava and William still looked at each other. Ava hoping William would just give in to his stab wound already and William hoping to finally get the upper hand on Ava, until they heard a faint voice say, "How about this?"
Ava and William both turned to see Cassie, barely standing and holding William's gun. She couldn't register much due to the pain and blood loss but Cassie had the weapon pointed at William.
Ava tried to reason with Cassie. "Cassie, you don't want to do this. You asked me to bring him down the right way. This is not the right way."
"He won't stop. Even if we lock him up, he'll find a way to come after me and my family." Cassie, pained and in tears, retorted as she limped her way towards the two.
Suddenly, another voice was heard in the distance. "Cassie."
Cassie turned around to see the voice belonged to her father. Scott was still collecting himself from the procedure, but he had Hope with him to keep him from getting hurt.
"Dad?" Cassie was unsure if it was her father. "Is that really you?"
"Yes, Cass. We reversed what Cross did." Hope assured the girl. "Just please put down the gun."
Cassie became emotional. All she wanted was to bring down the man who ruined her and her father's lives. To kill the man who killed her mother and stepfather. To end the life of the man who wouldn't allow her a second chance to make things right in her life. She trembled and was nearly collapsing at the weight of her pain and decisions…until she felt the embrace of her father and Hope, Cassie felt compelled to drop the gun and broke down in the arms of two of the only few people who deeply cared for her.
Little did Cassie know, Scott and Hope were actually getting Cassie out of the way as Hope said to Scott, "Okay now."
Scott and Hope moved Cassie as Hope uttered another order, "MOM, NOW!"
Behind them, Janet, threw out her hand and said, "Hold still you little one-eyed prick," and fired off a large blast of Quantum Energy from her hand that sent the already dying William, flying down the dark hallway, into a brick wall, to his inevitable death.
Scott, Hope, Cassie and Ava all looked at Janet in awe, as Janet seemed to have tire herself out with that blast as Hope rushed to her side.
"Mom, are you okay?" Hope worried she may have asked for too much from her mother.
"Never better." Janet whispered, letting her know she was more than ok.
Scott was still holding Cassie on the ground as Ava walked over. Scott stood up and Ava was already preparing for more harsh words from Scott.
"I know what you're gonna say and I just want to say…" Ava was uneasy until Scott broke the mold.
"Thank you." Scott said to Ava, who now felt relieved. "I was wrong about you. I hope you can forgive me?"
Ava finally redeemed herself in the eyes of her once-former enemy-turned-ally.
Is it finally over? Now that William and Darren are dead, is that truly the end of their reign of terror? What happens next? Stay tuned for Chapter 27!