Took out London stuff from Chap 20. Sorry for doing this again.

Also, used Ella's ability: Solitude against Q instead of the old lady (who was Harriet Beecher Stowe, in case you were wondering). Ella's ability made more sense to make Q face off against himself. Sorry, sorry again.

I promise these'll be the last changes. And speaking of promises...

Jo's Promise

Jo woke up with a pounding headache, parched throat, and roiling stomach. Even in her new 'awake' state, it took a few slaps to her cheek before the Brit was able to open her eyes.

A pair of hazel orbs behind rectangular lenses met her hazy vision. Despite the circumstances, it took Jo less than five seconds to recognize who it was.

"Kunikida… What…" Jo groaned, lifting her weak arms up to cradle her head. God, she had never responded well to drugs…

Wait, drugs? What did they have to do with anything?

"Take some deep breaths, Ms. Kipling."

"It's… Jo… four eyes."

Kunikida glared at her through his lenses, and the blonde felt some of the life return to her brain. Even more so when she remembered the tranquilizer darts, and what had been going on moments before she'd passed out.

"Where's Frost? Q?" she asked, sharp round eyes scanning the room.

They were in some kind of… small room. There were no windows, just some shelves with remaining paper goods on the surfaces. Jo was sitting in a chair that was bolted to the floor, remnants of rope and gagging tools at her feet.

"They're on another deck of the ship," he answered.

Kunikida, gun tucked in his waist, used both hands to examine Jo's mental state. Pulling her eye-lids back, he seemed to be checking her response time by pointing her gaze at the lamp overhead. The bright light suddenly directed into her eye-sockets was decidedly uncomfortable and almost made Jo wish she'd stayed sedated.

"Can you walk?"

"Yeah. It just sometimes takes a bit for these things to wear off for me."

Wordlessly, the Agent held his hand out, taking Jo's smaller fingers in his as he helped her to her feet.

It took a beat of Kunikida supporting her with his arm and a swig of water before she felt refreshed. "You got another one of those?" She asked, gesturing to the gun at his hip.

Wordlessly, the blonde agent pulled a semi-automatic out, pointing out the safety on the side before handing it over and drawing his own weapon. Gun pointed towards the ceiling, Kunikida stepped towards the door, body tense as he peaked out the door jam.

"There are foreign mercenaries hiding in every corner," Kunikida murmured, hazel eyes scanning the hall through the slit of light. "Kenji is providing a distraction."

"Where are we going?"

"Ms. Frost and Q are being held in the lower levels. Stick close to me."

"Right."

And with that, the two blondes stepped out into a hail of bullets.

The duo ended up combatting over fifteen of the mercenaries Lee had hired to ambush them at every turn of the ship. They were American, from what Jo could tell, whose grasp of the Japanese language was… nearly non-existent.

The duo, after escaping the ambush to the next floor on the ship, ended up cornered in a small broom closet. Neither was majorly injured as of yet, although Jo was sporting a graze to her arm that didn't want to stop bleeding.

Kunikida covered the door while the petite blonde tore off some of her flannel shirt, tying the sleeve around the wound as she tied the rest of the shirt around her pale waist.

Switching places, Jo pointed her borrowed gun out into the hall. Bang bang as she shot at the dark figure peeking out from the hall corner, around which their attackers were hidden. It was maybe twenty feet away, located far enough to make it hard to get out but close enough that the groups could shoot at each other easily.

The blonde agent at her back activated his ability. Jo stepped away from the door, and Kunikida lodged a round metal ball down the hall.

Two seconds, then another bang, more concussive than the gunshots had been.

Jo stepped out into the hallway, gun still raised.

Everything was silent.

The mercenaries that had used the burnished paneling for cover were lying where they'd stood on the carpeted floor, unconscious, bodies illuminated by the beams of Jo and Kunikida's flashlights. The group had been incapacitated thanks to Kunikida's… whatever he'd thrown.

Jo took the mercenaries' guns away, tucking two pistols of the pistols in her waistband before gathering the rest up to lock away. Kunikida helped her secure the other weapons in one of the guest rooms down the hallway.

Afterwards, the tall agent found another set of stairs. The duo descended them in silence, listening for any sounds of movement in the dead air.

Jo was just starting to think that maybe they'd bypassed all of Lee's traps when they heard a scream from up ahead.

Unfortunately, the two blondes had just come across a Y-branch in the ship hallways. Because they were so far down, sounds echoed in the enclosed levels, and Jo couldn't be positive which direction she'd heard the scream from.

"Which way?" She asked the agent, whose hazel eyes were flicking between the two branches, a frown marring his pale lips.

Kunikida seemed almost hesitant before asking, "Do you have a phone?"

Jo gave him a look, reminding the Japanese man that captors didn't leave their prisoners with such versatile devices. Sporting a contemplative frown, Kunikida finally decided, "Let's split up. Walk to the next juncture, and if you don't find anything, return here."

The petite blonde nodded once, and the two split up.

Jo walked for what felt like ten minutes or so in complete silence. The only sounds she heard were the groaning of the ship, the pad of her feet on the carpet hallway, and the faint hum of the ship's engines and air-conditioning. Cool air tickled her hair, the Brit pushing corkscrew strands behind her ears.

She'd just started down a hallway, ending in what looked like a T, two halls branching off from the ends, when she saw a light beneath the door to her right.

It was noticeable, mostly because Lee was surprisingly conservative when it came to electricity. That, or she had a penchant for night-owl activities, since all the lights in the ship were off. Even the 24/7 orbs set in the ceiling. The only way Jo could even see the carpet beneath her feet was thanks to the industrial-strength flashlight Kunikida had provided.

Suspicious of the lit room because of this, Jo tried the knob, and the dark wood swung open silently in the stale air.

The room was practically as dark as the rest of the ship, save a swinging light in the ceiling and a port-hole in the far wall. Without the flashlight, Jo was immediately able to spot the young teen standing in the center of the room.

Q was just… standing there. Midnight eyes facing forward, thin frame unmoving. At first, Jo thought he was looking at her, but his eyes were unfocused. As though seeing something no one else could.

Before Jo could do more than step inside, a bullet knocked the gun from her hand.

The gun flew from her grip, a cry escaping her lips as Jo pulled the grazed flesh to her abdomen. The blonde barely had a chance to dive towards the wall when another bullet embedded into the ground where she'd been standing.

It was then the Brit noticed a crate pile covering the corner in shadow. From behind it, a young woman in an ivory dress rose from the ground, shot-gun in hand.

"Impotent from our self-conscious fears, the plaudits of the world turn into sneers," she sing-songed, smiling sweetly despite the shot-gun held in her hand.

Ella Wheeler Wilcox stepped forward, double-barrels pointed at Jo. The blonde's gun, unfortunately, was ten feet away, lying on the ground. Too far to be any good. And, with the crack-shot ten feet away, Jo couldn't exactly reach for the two other weapons in her back waistband.

"Ah, Ella," Jo grinned, turning into a grimace with the pain in her hand. "Back to torturing little children, I see."

"We all have something we love. And something we hate," the younger woman added with a sigh, as though stating the kitchen was out of her favorite bran muffins. "Only then will we be worthy of such succulent fruit."

"I think you're fruity enough for the both of us, El. Let him go."

A smirk, and the slender woman was less than five feet away. The gun barrels were even closer than that, so close the blonde thought she could see the small riffling on the endings of the barrels. "Don't waste a curse on the Universe. Remember, it lived before you."

Jo secretly hoped Kunikida would come bursting through the doors and shoot the obviously-unstable woman, but as the seconds past, the gun barrel pointed at her forehead. A cocking motion as the shotgun was primed, Ella's soft eyes lining up with the sight at the top of the barrel. A metal sight that Jo figured was pointed right at her forehead.

It was only because she knew she was about to die that Jo broke the only promise she'd ever made in her life.

It was a good thing Lee hadn't told Ella about Jo's ability.

"Ability: Gunga Din."

Instead of setting her sights on shooting the blonde, Ella lifted the gun.

Her pale, sky eyes were clouded over with something Jo had only ever seen on the face of her targets. The targets of her ability before she'd been banned from ever using it.

The young woman with the carnation-studded hat continued to raise the gun, barrel pointed towards the ceiling. But Ella didn't stop when the metal barrels were pointed at the sky, continuing to tilt backwards until the metal of the gun was pointed into her own chin. Stretching the flesh of her pale neck, pushing back against her jaw.

A bang as Ella blew her own head off.

Of course, it was only a few seconds after that when Kunikida arrived on the scene.

Jo was crumpled on the floor, staring at the body. A gunshot blown through its skull. Strands of hair escaping the hat that had come loose of the pins, ivory fabric studded with singed threads and wine-red spots. Bone and brain were scattered on the ground from the piece of Ella's head that had blown off.

Kunikida, assured there was no living threat in the room, stopped beside the blonde. The Brit didn't object when he pulled the bleeding hand from her abdomen, noticing a through-and-through bullet wound in the center of her palm.

Jo was too busy staring at the lifeless form to notice as he wrapped up her hand. The pain, however, did bring her back to her surroundings.

The bespectacled agent glanced over at the teen still standing in the center of the room. Q looked like he was in some kind of haze, his midnight eyes slowly blinking. As though waking up from a dream.

"Oh my god," Jo gasped, wincing as Kunikida tied off her hand. "That hurts like a son of a bitch. Jesus Christ."

Jo was already squirming, as if she could get away from the pain alone by crawling away. Kunikida, now that his shooting partner was down, knew it was time to get out. "Kid, let's go," the blonde snapped at the white-black teen standing in the room.

Q's gaze snapped to attention. The teen took in the dead body on the floor, whose head was still leaking blood onto the carpet, and over to Jo and the Agent.

The teen bolted over to them.

Then kept right on running out the door.

"Hey, kid!" Kunikida called, but Q's small form had already disappeared into the hallway.

The blonde agent was just about to give chase when he felt a tight grip on his sleeve. Jo held the fabric with her un-injured hand, pained green eyes looking up at his. "Let him go. Ella… used her ability. If… he won… he knows what to do."

Jo didn't try saying anything else, just holding her hand close to her body as she cursed in pain. Kunikida, for whatever reason, decided to leave it at that and stay with the only person he was actually concerned about.

Helping the bleeding woman to her feet, the two left the death-ridden cabin and back-tracked their way out of the ship. Q still running in the opposite direction.

Side-note: practically everything I have Ella say are quotes from her poems. I feel bad for killing her off, but... *shrug* that's what sucks about Jo's ability.