The three of them had disembarked and were working their way up a narrow stone ledge on a part of the island Luis was unfamiliar with. He'd never spent much time wandering around here – it was effectively Saddler's joint military/production base, and did not hold much in terms of beauty or use outside of its labs – and was therefore woefully unprepared to offer advise on how to traverse it. All he could give Leon was a general direction.
"We're on the eastern side of the island," he pointed out. "The facility is on the western end. We have a bit of a trip ahead of us."
"We'll need to take a break soon," Leon replied. "Hopefully after we find Ashley, but if we need to, we'll—"
His radio sounded off, and he grabbed it automatically.
He'd turned the volume up so all of them could hear, and while the confusion on Leon's face implied that he didn't quite recognize the voice off the cuff, Luis picked up on it immediately.
"Well, well, well. It would seem you've killed my pet. I can see it floating belly-up in the channel. How callous of you."
Leon glanced at Luis. He mouthed, Saddler.
Leon scowled. "Yeah, well, maybe you shoulda picked up a book on fishkeeping. Can't put a freshwater fish in a saltwater pond…though I'll admit the half-dozen harpoons I put in it probably sped things along. And speaking of me killing your underlings – Salazar's dead too."
"Yes," Saddler replied mellowly. "It seems that way."
"Saddler, why don't you just give up and let the girls go home?"
Saddler didn't sound impressed with his demand. "Perhaps you are disillusioned with overconfidence, just because you killed my small-time subordinate?"
"Saddler," Leon said, eyes narrowing. "You're small-time."
This guy watches too many action films, Luis thought as Saddler began laughing.
"Writhe in my cage of torment, my friend," the cult leader replied, and Luis decided that the same could be said of him. Honestly, what was it with these people and their banter?
Beep!
Leon put his radio away. "Alright, so we're heading west. First, though, let's get off this cliff – it's cold out here."
"Amen," Aurelleah said, shivering. She'd slipped into the small lee Luis provided from the wind, and he'd been happy to provide it, turning slightly to offer more protection. For now, though, they needed to move on, so he took point, leading them further along the stony ledge and into a nearby cave.
"Never knew this was here, but I never spent much time here outside of the labs," he said. They ducked under a rocky overhang and finally found themselves out of the wind, much to his relief. Even he was getting sick of this weather, and he was used to living in it.
They worked their way along a tiny inlet for a short while and could hear waves crashing up ahead of them. They must have been on a small, rocky outcropping on the edge of the island for water to be on both sides of them like this. Within the minute, however, they began hearing something far more interesting than waves.
They stopped, and Leon asked, "Did you hear that?"
Aurelleah listened closely, then her eyes widened as the faint sound of someone wailing drifted to her on the wind. "Ashley!" She gasped, and her body language suggested she wanted to run straight ahead.
Luis grabbed her and said, "Hold on, we need to be careful. This island is where Saddler decided to station many of his most dangerous cultists. You can expect plenty of crossbowmen, scythe-bearers, and those helmeted guys, too. Not to mention a lot of adult Plagas."
"Great," Leon said as he started forward. "Thanks for the heads up. Come on, let's go get your sister."
As they continued through the shallow cave system, the older Graham sibling's cries became louder and more pronounced. "…eon…Leon! Heeeeelp! LEON!"
Leon jumped over a gap in the stone and steadied Aurelleah as she joined him, all the while staring in the direction of Ashley's calls. "Did she see us approaching the island?" He asked, confused. "How does she know we're here?"
"Maybe she's just been yelling since she was kidnapped," Luis suggested.
Leon shook his head. "No one could scream that loudly for that long."
Aurelleah contradicted him. "Oh, no, you don't know Ashley. Back in high school, she was the head cheerleader, and one of the reasons was her voice. She chanted rhymes and mottos and the school fight song at the top of her lungs pretty much all week during homecoming week, and I've never once heard her get hoarse afterward. Really, she has like…super-human screaming abilities."
Leon twisted his chin appraisingly. "Well, looks like they're coming in handy now. Sure as hell makes it easier to find her."
"LEON! HELP!"
They came around the corner and saw something extremely disagreeable. This rocky outcropping happened to contain a full-on military base, all concrete and sandbags, complete with a giant floodlight that was scanning the shore in a constant sweeping motion. As they watched, it swung back around and began trailing over towards them.
They all stumbled back into the cover of the cave before it reached them, and no alarm was sounded. Leon said, "I'm going to go first. Stealth isn't exactly my specialty, but with luck I'll be able to take out a few guys before raising the alarm. Once it's raised, you two follow along behind. Luis, watch Elleah, and don't allow yourselves to get surrounded, even for my sake. I'll take care of myself. Got it?"
"So dramatic," Luis said. "But I got it. We'll be right after you as soon as you trip the alarm."
Elleah nodded. Leon waited for the light to slide away again, then he slid out from cover, jumped across the small gap that separated the caves from the outcropping, and sprinted towards the first building.
They waited. Luis allowed himself to show no nerves, though secretly he was at least moderately worried for his American friend – for all of them. He hadn't anticipated having to cross the entire island to get to the machine, and he knew that it would be a very tall order. For one thing, he didn't know the terrain well enough to guide them perfectly. For another, they were low on ammo and he didn't know where they'd be able to stock up. And besides that—
RING-A-LING-A-LING-A—
That hadn't taken long. Stealth really wasn't Leon's strong suit. As the alarm began blaring, Luis whipped out his pistol and said, "Let's go."
He darted out from hiding and jumped the strait, heading in the direction Leon had taken and pausing to shoot out the giant floodlight before it could pin them. Those things were blinding. As he ducked inside the first building, he saw that Leon had at managed to get one guy down without an alarm…but the sight of the fallen combatant was disturbing.
It wasn't the fact that his throat was deeply cut from end to end to prevent him from calling out to his brethren. No, that was par for the course at this point. But Luis had never seen a Ganado that looked like this.
He was decked out in heavy camo gear, a thick black mask covering the lower half of his face while black and green and grey warpaint covered the top half. An axe – not a simple wood-and-iron one like the villagers used, but a lightweight, black-handled combat axe – lay beside him. This wasn't a villager or a cultist Ganado – this was something new. This was a soldier.
As though in answer to the word, Luis heard a very alarming sound – the sound of a minigun spraying a good hundred rounds across the battlefield just a little ways on ahead.
His eyes widened. "Keep to cover," he hissed to Aurelleah, who had bent to inspect the axe. He went around the next corner, trusting her to keep up with him, and peeked out to see where the ruckus was coming from.
What he saw was bad. This wasn't a stationary machine-gun they were dealing with. A man, larger and more powerful looking than even the chainsaw-wielders from the village, was toting around a portable minigun, the kind that was normally mounted on the backs of jeeps. It should have been a stationary weapon, but it had been specifically redesigned for one-man use.
Luis hadn't engineered that soldier, and his mind was once again drawn to the excessively large gang of defective Plagas he and Leon had been forced to fight to retrieve the King's Grail.
How much of my work did they hijack and abuse? He thought in dismay. How many horrors are there on this island that even I do not know about?
He didn't want to think about it, but very soon, he would have to. God forbid they had gone wild with the Regenerators.
Luis pulled out his rifle and took aim at the minigun man, who was wearing a red beret—
Red beret?
—and was draped in loops and loops of ammo, enough to drag a normal man down. He wouldn't be running out anytime soon, so Luis would just have to stop him shooting the good old fashioned way.
He lined up a shot and fired. The guy, who had just begun spraying a line of bullets presumably in Leon's direction, clutched his brow…and bellowed in anger.
Well, that wasn't good. Normally one round from the rifle was enough. He lined up another shot and fired, but still, the man stayed standing. Then, from behind him, he heard,
"ARGH! TE VOY HACER PICADILLO, PUTA!"
I'm going to turn you into mincemeat, whore!
Luis didn't turn around at the proclamation, instead trusting Aurelleah to keep the failed ambusher occupied. She was already going a good job of it by the sound.
The minigun man had recovered and was glaring around furiously trying to spot his sniper, and Luis calmly lined up another shot and fired. The man's head was beginning to resemble something from a butcher's shop, and Luis heard gunfire coming from elsewhere that he was almost certain belonged to Leon's Red.
It took three more shots to drop the minigun man, and Luis sincerely hoped that he was down for good. Otherwise, he and Aurelleah were about to get peppered.
"Let's go," he said, turning around to see her quite effectively crippling the soldier behind them. She nodded, fired one more shot at the Ganado's ankle, and turned away.
He noticed she'd slid Leon's victim's axe into the back of her pants for safekeeping. It looked to be lightweight, more of a throwing-axe than a hand-to-hand or woodchopping one, but maybe that would make an ideal close-range weapon for her, at least as a last resort. Though for his part, even he couldn't imagine his little Valkyrie burying an axe in a man.
He ran carefully towards the sound of Leon's Red, which was barking out a rapid string of reports. It sounded like he was really surrounded. Luis would have to be careful approaching if he wanted to avoid getting shot. After all they'd been through, friendly-fire sure would be a sad way to go.
He heard Ashley scream once again, and she was fairly nearby by the volume, though on a higher level than they were.
"LEON! LEON, HELP! LEOOOOOOON!"
Then, even closer,
"DON'T WORRY ASHLEY, I'M COMIN' FOR YA!"
And more gunfire.
There was also a sharp, electrical buzzing coming from the same direction, and Luis poked his head around the corner of the next building to see the commotion.
Leon was surrounded. Maybe half a dozen Ganados, two of which were armed with some kind of long electrical batons sparking with lethal energy, were converging on him. The rest had axes. Four more lay dead on the ground around them.
"Stay here," Luis commanded, and ran out, keeping to the side to avoid Leon's fire as he started taking shots at one of the baton-wielders.
Leon spotted him and split off to the side to separate himself more from the enemies Luis was firing at. Together they started really working the group over, and in moments the lot of them were down.
"Thanks for taking out the big guy," Leon said. "He was really giving me grief."
"De nada," Luis replied. Then he called back for Aurelleah. "Okay, let's go!"
He looked back, but did not see her emerging from cover. He ran over and checked.
She was gone.
"Shit!" He swore, looking around. Had someone grabbed her under the cover of the gunfire? Had she been forced to run?
Outside, Leon bellowed, "Elleah! ELLEAH! GET BACK HERE!"
Luis ran back out and saw that somehow, she'd managed to get up to another level. She was faced with an axe-toting Ganado, but she didn't care. As he wound up to throw at her she shot him right in the wrist, and while he clutched the joint, snarling in pain, she put another slug in his knee and then one in his ankle. He fell to his hands and knees, and she jumped over him, ignoring Leon's call.
She's going after her sister, Luis thought in dismay, looking around to try and figure out how she'd gotten up there. He spotted a staircase and began towards it. He'd barely gotten to the top when he heard Ashley screaming one more time.
"NO! AURELLEAH! GO BACK! NO! LEOOOOOOOOOOOOON!"
Aurelleah. Luis threw himself up the stairs, gained the platform with the Ganado, kicked him over the edge just as he regained his footing, and ran onward just in time to see a heavy door in the base of the cliff sliding shut. Four enemies stood guard around it, Aurelleah facing them alone, slingshot drawn.
Luis ran up to her side and quickly shot the two with electrical batons, who had just started towards them, and a moment later Leon joined him as well. Together, they dispatched the guard.
A flood of fear-borne anger welled up in him, and he grabbed Aurelleah's shoulder, spun her around to face him, and snarled, "Do not run off like that! When I tell you to wait somewhere, you wait, damnit!"
She showed no particular reaction to his command, only staring blankly towards the door. "He has Ashley," she said. "The man in the red beret. He…"
Luis took her chin as delicately as he could and twisted it around so she was looking at him. "Do. Not. Run. Off. He could have taken you, too, and then where would you have been? Hm?"
She at least seemed to hear what he was saying. But all she said as her eyes welled up with tears was, "With my sister."
Luis let go of her, clutching his brow. This was too much for him. This was too much for her. But how could he condemn her for her distress? He'd never had anything like a sibling. How was he to know what she was going through?
Leon, never one to succumb to an emotional moment, had gone up to the doors and was inspecting them. He noted a pair of devices on either side, as well as a large button on the door itself. He pushed it, and a bright red laser beam projected itself out of one of the devices. It was directed towards a massive mirror wrought with the cult's symbol mounted on the roof of one of the buildings. At the moment it was aimed off in a random direction, but it seemed like the mirror could be adjusted, and what was more, there was another mirror on a building nearby. If adjusted properly, he was pretty sure they could angle the beam into the device on the other side of the door.
He didn't need to voice the idea. A quick look at Leon, and they nodded to each other. "Elleah, with me," Leon said, and started off towards the far mirror, leaving Luis with the smaller one.
There were a few more Ganados hiding around here and there, and these ones were damn fast. They sprinted out from behind walls and lunged at him with none of the sluggishness that the villagers always displayed, but with all of their ferocity. Their eyes glowed red, the tell-tale sign of Plaga infection. Saddler must have been pushing them hard.
He made it to the building containing the mirror, but as he ran in, he came face to face with a cruel black muzzle between his eyes.
He dropped to his knees an instant before it went off. So close to his head, the sound was literally deafening, and he found that he couldn't hear a thing for several seconds as he kicked out and brought the Ganado crashing to the ground. He grabbed the weapon, a long, sleek, heavy black gun of some kind, and pinned it to the ground as he pulled out his own firearm and unloaded half a dozen rounds into the guy's face. He didn't take chances with guns…which Ganados were not supposed to have.
But this one did have one. He saw the reason for it, too. There was a suitcase on the table in here, open, with an indentation specifically for this firearm. He was willing to bet it belonged to someone else, maybe the man in the red beret, but it had been left behind. Perhaps their sudden attack from the cave had taken their enemies by surprise. Anyways, the Ganado had probably grabbed it to deal with the attackers.
Also beside it was a small crate full of ammo, and a quick check showed him that they were shotgun shells. He checked out the gun and whistled. Hell of a shotgun.
He grabbed as much ammo as he could carry and started up the stairs to the roof, where the mirror was. He saw a flash of red coming towards him and ducked as the laser drifted over his head.
He looked across to see that Leon had already reached the far mirror. Going by all the corpses Luis could see strewn on the ground from this vantage point, and by the number of shots he'd heard Leon firing, it seemed like he'd had to run farther to reach the mirror, he'd also had to kill more enemies to get there…and he'd still beaten Luis there.
Showoff, he thought as the laser settled on the mirror, its reflection sending it shooting off towards the sea. Luis waved at Leon, grabbed the handle, and shifted the reflection towards the door.
It was strong enough to leave a black streak on everything it touched, so it was a good deal he hadn't let it hit him. He aimed it at the little device on the other side of the door, which beeped slid open.
He slid down the ladder and ran back to the door. About a minute later, Leon reached it as well. "Hey," he said, and began pulling small boxes out of all of his pockets. Aurelleah pulled a few out of hers, too. "Look what I found."
Luis took it. Red Hawk handgun ammo – good stuff.
"Great timing," he said. "I'd been getting low. And I got something for you, too. Remember that shotgun you lost?"
Leon couldn't quite keep a look of interest off of his face as Luis pulled out the weapon and passed it over to him. He also couldn't quite keep a tight-lipped, critical look off of his face as he inspected it. Luis couldn't blame him – it just didn't have the old one's charm.
He recalled Aurelleah's quip about Leon's last shotgun, and expected her to comment on the new variety – maybe say something like, Hey, that actually looks like it's from this turn of the century! But it seemed her spirit was temporarily exhausted. She just looked at it dully for a moment, then went to lean against a nearby wall, folding her arms and rubbing them in an attempt to stay warm.
That didn't settle well with him, and he felt bad about shouting at her earlier. He ought not have let his fear get away from him like that. Still, if she ran off in the middle of a battle again…
"Hmm," Leon licked his lips as he checked out various components of the gun. "Heavier than my last one. I'll have to fire from the hip. But…"
He turned towards a building, clicked off the safety, and let loose with a practice shot.
The wall was peppered with a wide spray of pellets, and Luis could tell at once that the blast was more powerful than anything Leon's old shotgun could have mustered. Little chips of concrete flew out of the wall, which was smoking and torn up.
Leon checked the clip and whistled. "Damn. This is a semi-auto, not a bad kick, and it looks like it can hold close to thirty rounds. What…?"
He inspected it closer, and finally seemed to find a name. "Striker," he read. "Well, it has a wider spread than I'm used to, so close-range only, but I think we'll get along just fine. Ammo?"
Luis pulled out everything he'd grabbed, passing it to Leon one box at a time. Leon looked happy enough. "Thanks," he said. "Good to have a shotgun again. Okay, let's get going."
Aurelleah pushed herself off the wall and scampered over to the doors, only waiting outside of them reluctantly. She clearly wanted her sister back.
More caves. They started in, emerging back into dim grey daylight on and off – the rain had stopped at some point, thankfully – and encountered nothing until they went to cross a short wooden bridge that led from one cavern to another.
Leon was taking point, Aurelleah behind him, Luis in back. Just as Leon made it across, Luis noticed movement on the ledge above him.
His eyes widened as a huge rock poised right on the edge began tilting forward, and he threw himself forward into Aurelleah, shoving her into the cave just as the boulder crashed down.
It destroyed the bridge, but thankfully missed them. She gasped in pain at his sudden tackle, but a sore back was better than the alternative. Leon turned, but when a metal click sounded in the confined space of this new cave, he whirled back around, Red out, and fired two consecutive shots.
The crossbowman, who'd sprung up from behind a stack of sandbags, fell back against the wall. After a moment, a young Plaga burst out of his head.
"Time to put this Striker to the test," Leon said, swapping guns and taking aim. The Plaga squealed shrilly as the gun was leveled at it.
BOOM!
Luis raised an eyebrow. The parasite was reduced to a veritable paste on the wall, completely torn apart by the blast, and Leon went, "Nice! Alright, maybe we can be friends. Let's keep moving."
He went ahead, but Luis hung back for a moment. "Are you alright?" He asked Aurelleah.
He wasn't just talking about his tackle, and she knew it. She shook her head and said, "I'm fine. I just want my sister back."
His heart ached for her. He went to hug her, but she pulled away, jogging after Leon, and he realized he'd reached the end of his ability to comfort her. The only thing he could do for her now was see to it that she was reunited with her sibling.
Fine then, he thought, resolve hardening. If that's what it takes to bring you back to life, I'll tear this whole island to the ground to get to her. Hold tight, your highness.
We're on our way.
Aurelleah was starting to feel very bad. She was tired, cold, and wet. Her head hurt, and she was starting to get hungry again. She was finding it hard to focus, even in the middle of life-threatening situations – case in point, the giant cart full of explosives that was trundling towards her right now while she mused over how bad she was feeling.
Leon tugged her out of the way as the burning, popping cart plowed into the line of Ganados, mowing them down before rushing past to crash into all the enemies coming up from behind. He stepped out to survey the rest of the guys, namely two crossbowmen on a ledge overlooking the pass they were storming, and clicked his tongue disapprovingly upon seeing a bright red barrel sitting between the two. Before they could fire at him, he shot the barrel, sending them both flying off the edge.
He ran up and Elleah stumbled after him, Luis on her tail firing at the last couple of guys who hadn't been blown up by the wagon. He'd had spotted it at the top of the hill and had shot the support struts out from under the front two wheels to send it rolling down the pass, which had been crowded with enemies. He and Leon worked together well.
She wondered how they could still be acting at full capacity after all they'd been through. She'd taken a figurative cat-nap earlier when she'd passed out and Leon had had to carry her, and she was still barely staying on her feet. If not for the fact that she needed to keep moving for Ashley's sake, she'd probably have just collapsed by now.
But Ashley needed her to keep moving, so she did.
When she'd heard her sister screaming earlier, she'd been unable to wait for Leon and Luis to clear the way. She'd run after her only to see the man in the red beret standing in that doorway, scanning the area, all his men in front of him covering his retreat.
He'd been scowling, but upon seeing her his expression had smoothed out to a sharp interest. She'd frozen on the spot. She would have turned and ran back to Leon and Luis and safety…
But he'd been holding Ashley.
She'd been draped over his shoulder, front-facing, furiously slapping his chest and trying to get loose. Then she'd looked up and they'd seen each other.
Ashley had immediately started yelling at her to run, and yelling to Leon for help, but Elleah had not run. How could she, when her sister was right there?
The man had seemed to understand. He'd smiled, blue eyes glinting, and had held out one hand and motioned to her.
Come on.
For a mad moment, her desire to have her sister back had been so strong that she'd considered it. Maybe she'd done something to hint at this, because he'd looked briefly very excited, nostrils flaring, pupils dilating. She'd also felt something then, a sensation from his Plaga to hers – a hot, predatory hunger that had seethed in her belly and set her hair standing on end.
Then she'd come to her senses and stepped back. He'd sobered, the feeling had dulled, and he'd secured his grip on Ashley and departed.
Now there was no telling where she was or what was happening to her. Elleah thought she was okay, she didn't think the man would hurt her, but she was still afraid for her. Beret might not hurt her, but who knew what Saddler would do? Or these Ganados, for that matter? She could feel them around her, how young their Plagas were. They still had some human kicking around inside them, and they were all men. Suppose they acted on some of their more…human instincts?
She shied from the thought and forced herself to focus. She couldn't afford to get distracted. Ashley couldn't afford for her to get distracted.
They fought their way through the rest of the cave system until they reached something that Luis actually recognized. "This," he said as they approached an actual, regular door, "Is one of the labs. It also doubled as a barracks. I believe we're entering on the barracks side – we'll get to the labs shortly."
"Anything of interest in there?" Leon asked.
Luis stared at the door soberly, then said, "I hope not. But I have several times seen instances of Saddler disrespecting my wishes regarding the disposal and discontinuation of failed experiments, so I am inclined to warn you of one potential hazard."
"And that is?"
"Regenerators," he replied, and Elleah was certain she caught a hint of unease on his face. "They were the pet project of one of my few assistants, and also the things responsible for their deaths. They are beyond anything I have ever seen."
"Strong?" Leon guessed. "Fast?"
Luis tilted his head strangely. "Strong? Yes. Fast? Not at a glance. They will shamble towards you more slowly than any enemy we've encountered, but if you allow them to close with you, they will lurch out with blinding speed. They will go for the neck, and they will not let go until they have chewed your head off your body."
Leon shrugged. "If they approach slowly, I can handle them."
Luis snorted. "That is what my assistants thought. It wasn't four months ago that I watched all five of them be systematically slaughtered by a single Regenerator, this in spite of all their countermeasures."
"What? How?"
"It is in the name – Regenerators. They are nearly unstoppable, being capable of recovering from any wound or injury in a matter of seconds. If you blow off an arm, they will grow it back in roughly four seconds. A leg takes six. Their head?" His lip twitched in disgust. "You'll get about eight seconds."
"Eight seconds to regenerate a missing head?" Leon exclaimed in disbelief. "Shit. And I take it Saddler wouldn't let you toss them?"
He snorted. "What do you think? No, they were all frozen following the…accident…" Luis said carefully. "Like the Verdugo, they are somewhat vulnerable to cold. But if they are thawed, it will not matter that they have been in stasis for four months. They will recover to full combative capacity in a matter of moments."
Leon shook his head. "So there's no way to stop them."
"There is," Luis clarified. "Each one hosts several tiny leech-like Plagas, the crowning achievement of my assistant. These are what gift it its regenerative abilities. If you destroy all of them, it will die instantly."
"How big are these leeches?"
Luis held two fingers up about an inch and a half apart. Leon pursed his lips. "And they'll be…what, clinging to its body somewhere?"
Luis shook his head. "No, inside. The only way you can see them is with an infrared scope."
Leon grimaced. "I don't have one of those."
"I do," Luis assured him. "It is in the freezer section of the lab. The first thing we'll do is fetch it."
Elleah didn't like the sound of that, though she wasn't going to object. She didn't want any more detours from rescuing her sister. But she supposed their cumulative safety took precedent. Scope first, then—
"…eon! Leooon! Help!"
Ashley.
She was in here somewhere. Her voice had an oddly tinny quality, but she was here. Where, though?
They started in, Leon pulling out his new Striker to deal with the close quarters. He had plenty of ammo for it, after all. He blasted every enemy they came across until they finally came to the source of Ashley's cries.
"Damn," Leon said, and Elleah saw why. No wonder her sister's cries had sounded tinny – they'd been coming from a speaker. She wasn't here.
They ran over to the setup. It was a bunch of security monitors that looked to display the whole lab area. Leon began studying them, but Elleah had eyes for only one.
She saw Ashley slamming her fists against the doors of a room that looked like it might have been for storage. She didn't look hurt, but as they watched, she backed away from the door in fear.
Two Ganados entered, locking the door behind them. Elleah watched her sister's fists clench, and she stepped forward in weak defiance.
One of them looked down at her for a moment, almost in contempt, then grabbed her arm and threw her to the ground. The other one stepped forward, eagerness in his body language, but then he stopped and looked around. His eyes locked onto the security monitor, and he said something to the other one.
They spoke to one another. Then one of them ran over to a series of switches on the wall, smiled up at the camera, and began flipping them one by one.
The camera went dead.
Aurelleah stood there, heart a cold, frozen ball in her chest, adrenaline racing through her as dim, horrified understanding grew in her mind. She knew exactly what was about to happen to her sister.
She felt sick. She wanted to throw up. Leon swore, fiddled with the knobs on the cameras, then turned to Luis and asked, "Where is she?"
Luis remained calm as he began explaining the layout of the building. "There's a lot between us. She will be found past the garbage chute, but the scope will be in the freezer room, which is very nearby. Both will require…"
Elleah stopped listening after hearing that he was even still thinking about getting the scope before Ashley. Didn't they know what was happening? Didn't they care?
Why were they so calm?
She wasn't calm. Her blood was rushing in her ears, her Plaga was practically vibrating in her chest, and she felt like any passing second could mark the point where they were a second too late. A second too late to make a difference.
Her fists clenched once. Twice. Three times.
She bolted.
They didn't notice her moving until she was out the door, and both of them positively roared at her as she ran, but she wasn't about to let them stop her. She needed to get to her sister – NOW.
She ran, willing there to be nothing to stop her from getting to Ashley. She had nothing on her side but the element of surprise, and as she ran through the first room she dashed past a Ganado before he even noticed he had company. Two more were leaning against the wall across from her beyond a big square arch in the wall, and as she dashed towards them, they yelped out an alarm and dove for a nearby switch.
They reached the switch and threw it down, and just as she got through the archway, a big, heavy metal door slammed shut on her heels. The Ganados wailed in dismay, grabbing for her, but she didn't have time for them. She ducked them and shot off to the right.
She ran up stairs and down corridors, picking directions at random, and every Ganado that saw her lurched at her and tried to grab her. Somehow, they were all just a little too slow. None of them managed to do more than brush her.
She reached a pair of heavy double doors and kicked them open, Leon style. She dashed through them to see a pair of Ganados nervously backing away from a corridor, down which she could hear something approaching. She didn't care what it was. She only cared about two things: What she'd heard Luis say right before taking off – she will be found past the garbage chute – and the fact that she could smell the trash heap of all trash heaps somewhere nearby. It was rank beyond reason, and it was exactly what she'd been praying for.
She couldn't hear Leon and Luis calling for her. Their cries had petered off almost immediately, overtaken by gunfire. She hated dismissing them like that, but they could take care of themselves. Ashley couldn't.
She ran towards the Ganados who were backing out of one corridor and into another. The garbage smell was coming from the direction they were heading. She ran towards the soldiers.
One of them saw her and called out a warning, but too little, too late. She rocketed into him, pushing off him to propel herself down the next corridor, and he bumped into his buddy.
She heard something snarl behind her, then both of the Ganados started screaming. Right in front of her was an open doorway, and another soldier stood staring past her with an expression on his face that looked like it would have been horror if he'd had more humanity remaining inside him. He wrenched his gaze away and looked at her instead.
He reached for a button on the door after one last glance at his buddies, who were probably dying by the sound of it – she didn't care at all – and she was still a few feet away. She silently screamed at the idea of him locking her out, but thankfully he ended up pausing just long enough for her to blow past him into the next room.
He growled dully, closed the door, turned, and came after her. She was already gone, sprinting down the long hall and shoving open the door at the end.
Empty room full of control equipment, big glass window to her left. Bad smell was stronger. She ran through to the next door, pushed it open, slid down the ladder to the right of it and didn't care when she was met with four more soldiers, all leaning against—
Dumpsters.
She was close. She was so close, she was sure of it. She ran between them all, and they all stared at her in dim surprise for several seconds before chasing after her. She was running on pure adrenaline now, though, and not even their Plagas could match that. She sprinted through the facility like a madwoman, and only felt the burning in her lungs and legs in the most detached of senses.
Finally, she heard it – screaming, coming from up ahead. And this time, it wasn't from a speaker.
And it was more full of terror than she could possibly have imagined.
She dashed past more soldiers, down a few more corridors, and rounded the corner on the room she needed. The only problem was, the door was closed, and she knew it was locked. She'd seen them lock it before attacking her sister, hadn't she?
That thought nearly drove her mad. The idea that she might be forced to stand there, right outside the door, listening, nearly drove her mad. The simple, indisputable sight of that closed door nearly drove her mad, and deep inside she howled in silent fury,
OPEN THE DOOR OPEN IT NOW OPEN IT OPEN IT OPEN IT YOU GOD DAMNED MONSTERS OPEN IT!
She heard something moving on the other side of the door – saw someone through the bars, and she ran towards the door.
It opened, one of the two Ganados on the other side. He looked dreadfully confused – and shirtless.
And pantless.
Elleah didn't even think. She just saw red as her sister screamed again. She reached behind her, pulled out the axe she'd grabbed off the ground earlier for no reason other than that it had been light enough for her to carry, drew it back, and brought it down between the man's eyes.
They crossed, keeping the head in sight, and he toppled backward as she tugged it out and ran into the room.
The second Ganado hadn't even turned around. He was still hunched over Ashley, who was on the floor, and who had obviously been hit several times going by the scuff marks on her body – most of which was clearly visible.
Her skirt had been tugged off and was lying several feet away, though she'd managed to keep her thong on. Her shirt and bra had both been pushed up, and she couldn't pull them back down because her attacker was pinning both hands over her head as he groped at his crotch with the other hand. He was pinning her down with his body, and the sounds he was making were downright animalistic.
Aurelleah walked up behind him, raw hatred pulsing through her body, and at last he went rigid and turned his head just in time for her to bury her axe in it.
He coughed and toppled over to the side, and Ashley screamed again. She kicked at him and began scrabbling away, pulling her clothes back into place. Aurelleah tugged the axe out and brought it back down, this time on his neck, which she had a good angle for. Perfectly perpendicular. Blood sprayed out of it in a high-pressure sheet as she tugged the axe loose again.
She went on autopilot, body and mind, one single word bouncing around in her head like a powerful echo trapped in a dark cave:
DIE. DIE. DIE. DIE. DIE.
The Ganado didn't even fight back. He just slumped to the ground, shaking, and laid there as she brought the axe down on his neck again and again and again.
Ashley had backed away even more and was sobbing incoherently, clutching at her chest, trying to curl up and hide under a storage shelf that was too low for her to hide under.
Elleah brought the axe up and down several more times. It was more difficult now, she kept hitting something hard—
That's his spine—
—but she kept going, ignoring the pain in her arm, her legs, lungs, heart, head, chest…
Die, she thought as she brought it down once more, and the soldier's head rolled right off his body.
She stared at it for a long moment. There was something pulsing in his neck, and it flopped out and started wriggling weakly on the floor. It was a Plaga, very young and very small. It had been unable to keep its host in check, hence the man's activities. She could practically feel its pleas hanging in the air.
Please.
Please.
Please.
Please.
She considered it for a moment, checked her depleted emotional shelving for mercy, found that she was fresh out, and brought the axe down on the dying Plaga. It only took one blow to kill.
She dropped the axe.
Turning around showed her that the other Ganado hadn't been killed by her blow. He had recovered and fled the room, closing the door behind them and locking them in. Never mind. That didn't matter.
She looked around for Ashley's skirt and saw that it had been thrown far enough away that it thankfully wasn't bloodstained. Her own hands were, though. She spotted the first Ganado's discarded clothing and wiped the worst of the blood off of herself with the shirt, then went over and retrieved her sister's skirt. Ashley had retreated around a storage shelf and was huddled, shaking, in the corner, out of line of sight from the door.
She stared up at Elleah with wide eyes. Elleah didn't say anything. She was tired. She just tossed her sister her skirt and sat down against the wall. She crossed her legs, settled her elbows on her knees, put her head in her hands, and started to cry.
She wasn't sure how long it took for her sister to realize that the danger had passed, but when she finally did, she crawled over, now fully clothed, and wrapped an arm around Elleah's shoulder. She hugged her close, and Elleah could hear the tears in her voice as she started saying,
"Thank you,"
Again and again and again.