And Then There Were Two

by Mega Ghost

Nick Williams was an ordinary American kid until it was discovered he could pilot an IS. Chosen to be the Representative Contender for the US, Nick and his brand new, vastly divergent, personal IS are shipped off to Japan. He thought he knew what to expect, but he's in for the danger and shock of his life. Especially when he meets some of the most beautiful girls he's ever seen.

7. Chapter 7

Chapter 7

An hour after she had made the call to her assistant, Chelsea, about the plane, Cecilia, Rin, Charlotte, Laura, Nick, Rin, Houki, Ichika, and Natalia were loading into it. Nick finished securing the straps through the wheels of his Viking Z2R sports-bike and stepped back out through the hold's hatch door. He walked down the luggage ramp, removed the protective earmuffs that one of the crew had given to him, and then went back up the stairs into the main cabin. His six friends and Natalia were all gathered in the open sitting area.

"Okay, bike's secured, hatch is closed, and they're taking away the ramp. We can leave at any time." He said.

"Hey, Nick, why are you wearing that?" Ichika asked.

Before leaving the IS academy, Nick had zipped a heavy, thermal, faux fur lining into his leather jacket, turning it into an efficient winter coat.

"We are going to Russia. The average temperature for this time of year is around eighteen degrees Fahrenheit." Natalia said.

Both she and Laura were the only ones besides Nick who were wearing cold weather appropriate gear. Laura's coat was a dull, silver colored wool that nearly matched her hair, while Natalia had on what looked like an expensive, designer number.

"Wait! That cold?! I didn't even think of that! I don't have much more than this!" Rin exclaimed, gesturing to the short skirt and her exposed shoulders in her school uniform.

"I didn't bring a coat, either." Houki said.

"I too overlooked this." Charlotte said, looking sheepish.

"Me too." Ichika said.

"And I." Cecilia finished.

"It doesn't matter. When we get there, I'll buy you guys everything you need. I've got my emergency platinum card." Nick said.

"Alright everyone, we should strap in." Cecilia said as she hung up a cabin phone. "The pilots tell me they're ready to take off. This is a super-sonic jet, but even so, it'll take us at least six hours to get to Moscow."

"I'd suggest we all try to get some sleep, mes amies. We will be entering a very different time zone and it will help with jetlag." Charlotte said.

"And besides, once we're on the ground, I get the feeling we're gonna be having a lot to do." Ichika said.

"Ve can mitigate zhat somewhat. Before ve take off, I can call my comrades in zhe Black Hare Squadron und have zhem go to Moscow as vell. Zhey can collect us from zhe airport und possibly even do some initial reconnaissance if ve can tell zhem vere to go." Laura said.

"I don't think that'd be a very good idea. Like Nick said, they don't even know where to look yet, and besides, if Phantom Task somehow heard that there were German military officers asking around Moscow about them, it could throw off our element of surprise, which we're probably gonna need." Houki said.

"Houki's right. If we're going to pull this off, it's gonna have to be just us. We can't tell what kind of pull Phantom Task has and they've already mounted two separate attacks against us." Nick said.

"Sounds like the start of a plan." Ichika said. "Now, come on guys, we need to buckle in so we can take off."

They all moved to sit down. Houki, Cecilia, Rin, Charlotte, and Laura all shared a look between them. The five girls could each see that they all equally wanted to take a seat next to Ichika. To have him all to themselves for the next seven hours was an opportunity that all of them saw. If one of them could take that seat, they would have the chance to possibly insinuate themselves into Ichika's mind as his one true love a little more.

"So, Nick, you and Natalia probably need to sit together to plan out what we need to do when we get there, right?" Rin asked, trying to eliminate Nick getting in their way at this juncture.

"No, we don't. I think we know the place to start, right?" Nick said, looking to Natalia.

"Dimitri." Natalia said with a nod of her head.

"Dimitri." Nick confirmed. "We'll see him first. He should be able to help."

With that, Natalia sat down in the seat closest to her. She looked back at the others and it was clear to the five original girls of the group that she was hoping for Nick to sit with her regardless. Sergei For his part, Nick sat down on the opposite side of the cabin and a row further up than her, sitting in a section with the seat in front of him facing his front instead of pointing away.

"There you are, Ichika Dear." The girls heard said.

Rin, Laura, Charlotte and Houki all whipped their heads around to see that Cecilia had taken advantage of the situation to sit Ichika on the loveseat couch to the right and buckle his belt around his waist. She then sat down next to him and immediately strapped herself in as well.

"Cecilia, what-" Houki started.

"We really don't have time to argue, Houki. The pilots are waiting for us to take our seats and there are lives on the line." Cecilia interrupted.

Houki started to fire back, to say that she thought she should get to sit next to Ichika, that she had the most right to since she was his first childhood friend and that they had almost kissed once. She opened her mouth to say all of it, but then remembered that Cecilia was right. They were on a mission to try and save the life of Nick's friend, and Nick was their friend. He'd been a good friend and fought beside them since he had come to the academy, so they owed it to him to act as a team and try to cut out the bickering, if only for a little bit. Houki looked at Charlotte, Rin, and Laura and could see that they had come to the same conclusion. They all then sat down in whatever seat was available. Houki saw that Rin ended up sitting across from Nick. They all kept a not so subtle distance away from Natalia.

A minute after they all had their seat belts secured, they felt the plane begin to roll, the pilots receiving the notification through an automatic alert system. Within five minutes after that, they were in the air and winging their way towards Moscow.

OOO

At three o'clock p.m. local time in Paris, France, Albert Dunois sat in his presidential office of the Dunois Group company. Despite all the pressures and pains of running his company, Albert could always look out across the skyline of Paris and feel at ease. Seeing the Eiffel Tower standing proudly, thinking of how many centuries, turmoils and wars the city of his birth had been through and that it was still alive and thriving always reminded him that anything could be accomplished.

Albert Dunois needed those reminders. He had a lot to contend with. Running the largest Infinite Stratos company in France was rife with pressures. His company barely managed to hold onto a position of the sixth most advanced IS company, having lost their fifth place position to England two years earlier. They simply couldn't compete in almost all areas. Japan's IS research was simply too cutting edge, Sergei Williams IS Production in America was so innovative with their releases it kept them firmly at the number two spot, Germany's machines were so unbreakable it almost couldn't be believed, and China's manufacturing numbers were staggering. Compared to all of those, the Dunois Group seemed almost like an ant, and especially when the fact that all the others were producing third generation IS' and Dunois was still making second generation machines was taken into account. It had been so long since Albert Dunois' company had released anything new that they were in danger of losing their research and distribution permits.

Despite all of the hardships in his path, Albert Dunois felt that he was up to the task. With how the IS had changed the world, putting women at the forefront of societal power, he felt it was more important than ever for a man to achieve. Albert was not a misogynist by any stretch. He loved and respected women and did not begrudge them filling the types of positions that had used to be male majority ruled areas. He simply thought that with women being in control, it was a necessity for men to show that they could contribute to the world in a positive way. At fifty years old, Albert felt he could do just that. With a medium height of five-foot-nine, a muscular frame on the slim side and a weight of a hundred and seventy pounds, he was still as fit as he had been in his early twenties.

Watching the city and the lives of the millions of Parisians pass in front of him, Albert wondered again how they were going to salvage things. It would have been a different story if Charlotte had done the job he had sent her to the IS Academy to do. The private, first hand data on the Japanese, American, Chinese and German Infinite Stratos she could have secured for them would have been invaluable in pushing their own research forward and allow them to release something which could have kept them relevant. Albert had been greatly disappointed when he had received her email telling him that she would not be sending the information he wanted and would be staying at the Academy for the full three years.

The sound of an electronic alert drew Albert's attention away from his musings. He turned from the window in his plush office chair to his wide, antique desk. The alert was coming from a small monitor on the left-hand side of the desk. The device was a single screen, standing by itself at a tilted angle near the far corner. Albert reached out, tapped the screen once, and it changed from the opaque screen telling him of a visitor at the outer chamber to a high vantage view of the outer office, allowing him to see who the visitor was.

Standing near to his assistant's desk in the outer office was Claudette Rousseau, the head of security for the Dunois Group. Claudette stood at a not exceedingly tall, yet also not lacking height of five-foot-seven. Her dark brown, nearly black hair was tied back in its customary bun. Her suit was immaculate, and the expression on her face portrayed the consummate professional that she was. A former investigator with the DST, the Directorate of Territorial Security, and a highly competent IS pilot herself, the forty year old woman was more than qualified to handle all internal Sergei and external security for the company and to oversee for any additional intelligence concerns. Albert tapped the monitor again, bringing forth a panel of icons and then selecting the speaker icon.

"Entrez." He said.

The woman on the small screen moved the last few feet through the outer office and opened the door to Albert's.

"Bonjour, Claudette." He said congenially from behind his desk, standing as he did so.

"Bonjour, Monsieur Dunois." She replied.

She walked across the length of the room to him, her low, fashionable but sensible heels muffled by the carper beneath her.

"What can I do for you?" Albert asked.

The question was merely a pleasant formality, but Albert felt the pleasantries were usually worth wading through. He knew very well that if Claudette was coming to see him, something had either gone wrong somewhere, or it was about to.

"As you requested, our technicians have been continuing their covert surveillance of the immigration and transportation hub networks of Japan." Claudette said.

This captured Alan's attention. Ever since Charlotte had said she would be staying at the academy and would not spy on him, she had virtually cut off all communication. Having heard almost nothing from her since then, Albert had directed a portion of his computer science division to engage in clandestine work to try to keep tabs on her as best as possible.

"Two hours ago, the immigration system in Japan registered an outgoing flight leaving Haneda airport. It's flight plan has it heading for Moscow, Russia, and the manifest listed this passport in the file." She said.

Claudette laid the tablet computer in her arms down on the desk and slid it across to her employer. On the screen was a small picture showing a digital scan of a French passport issued to one Charlotte Dunois.

OOO

Charlotte stepped through the door from the main seating cabin into a section further up the plane. It was a compact dining area with several tables bolted to the floor, but with no seats at the moment circling them. A short bar was attached to the left side with four barstools lining its exterior. Nick was sitting on the second stool from the far end, sipping from a can of coke. He looked up as she entered and gave her a nod of his head and a tiny, tired smirk.

"Can't sleep?" He asked.

"Rin." Charlotte said to explain. "You were right about her sleep shouting. Mon dieu! It is unbelievable!"

"I know." Nick's smile grew a little wider. "It's even worse than the city noise back in New York. I'm kinda surprised you're the only one back here with me. I expected everybody to try and get away from that."

"Well, Ichika and Cecilia both put in headphones and I assume music to drown her out. Houki is I think stubbornly trying to sleep despite it. Laura said she would use it to try to accustom herself to irritating noises, and as far as I could tell, Natalia isn't affected by it at all." Charlotte reported. "Now I know what you have been going through since you started living with Rin."

"Eh, I think I might eventually get used to her sleep shouting. It isn't easy, but I've already started to adjust a very, very small little bit. Besides, that isn't the worst part about living with her." He said.

"What is the worst part?"

"Her temper. For such a tiny girl, she has one of the most volatile natures I've ever known. Everything with her is a federal case. I mean, she's my friend and I like her a lot, but she's exhausting. You know, she makes me go out into the hall every morning Sergei and night when she wants to change her clothes. I get wanting more secure privacy for that, but you would think I could just go into the bathroom and shut the door. But, the two times I've suggested that she's accused me of just wanting to get a peek of her either naked or in her underwear."

Charlotte gave a short, quiet laugh in response to that.

"That sounds like Rin. She means well, but she could stand to try to smooth out those outbursts of hers. However, I don't think she really thinks you want to peep at her. You are not a pervert, after all. You're both still just getting used to living together." She said.

"I guess you're right."

"It takes a while to get used to living with someone. Laura and I had an adjustment period when we became roommates. Not to mention how awkward it was when I was still pretending to be a boy and living in the room with Ichika."

"Yeah, I heard a little about that. Did he really walk in on you in the shower?" Nick asked.

Charlotte blushed. Both the memory of Ichika seeing her naked body in their shared bathroom and Nick asking for a confirmation of the story caused the blood to rush to her face.

"Uh, sorry, I didn't mean to make you uncomfortable, Charlotte."

"No, it is alright. Oui, that did happen. Ichika came in to give me soap for the shower and he saw me." She said.

"So, he really just threw open the shower? Thinking you were a guy?"

"Oui." She said.

"Geez!" Nick explained. "I swear, I don't know what's going on in his head most of the time."

Charlotte smiled both with amusement and bewildered agreement.

"I concur." She said.

"Bringing in a bar of soap, that's kinda okay, but just opening someone's shower to give it is entirely different. If that had been me, I would have punched him in the face for that."

"Yes, he can be quite difficult to deal with at times. But at others..." Charlotte trailed off with a dreamy aspect to her voice.

Nick took another sip of his soda. He waited a moment, and Charlotte thought his face looked like he was considering something.

After a few seconds, he said, "Hey, can I ask you something?"

"Certainly, Nick." She replied with a slight, partial hesitation. His tone surprised her.

"Well, its a little bit personal."

"You can ask me anything you like. We are friends, aren't we?"

Nick's face relaxed by a small margin.

"It's just, for the almost four months I've known all of you, I've seen you girls constantly bicker and fight over Ichika. I see that all of you want him, but I don't get why. I mean, he's a good guy and all and I like him a lot, but I still don't see why you five all seem so determined to have him for yourself. I'd just like to know."

"You're thinking of Cecilia, aren't you?" Charlotte asked.

Nick smirked. "Is it that obvious?"

Charlotte reciprocated his smile. "You did ask me about who I like, so it wasn't a far leap."

"Well?"

"I will tell you. You see, before I even met Ichika, two years ago, my maman died."

She saw Nick's face change instantly from its friendly curiosity to something far more sullen as he looked down and away to his left. It was only for a split-second until he recovered.

"I'm... I'm so sorry to hear that. That's terrible." He said.

"Oui, it was. After that, I did not know what would happen to me, but it was not for long. You see, I am really the illegitimate daughter of Albert Dunois, head of the Dunois Group in France. Even though I had never met him before, after my maman died, he came to get me. At first, despite my grief, I was somewhat happy to be going to live with my father. I was glad to have a place to go. However, my father did not turn out how I was expecting."

"How so?" Nick asked.

"He is a cold man. A distant man. I was mostly taken care of by servants. Butlers, nannies, tutors. I was even shunned by my father's other family. I never saw his wife or my half siblings more than once. I'm not even sure they lived in the same house as I was put in. And as to my father, even after it was discovered that I was highly IS compatible and started to work for his company, in the year I spent before coming to Japan, I don't think I spoke with my father or saw him for more than an hour in total."

"I'm so sorry, Charlotte. That's... so lonely."

Nick's tone peaked her curiosity. It almost sounded like he was not only sympathizing with her, but that he understood. She thought about asking him about it, but decided that with everything that was about to happen, it'd probably be better to not dredge anything up.

She went on. "So, when I did come to the IS academy, I will admit, most of the reason was that I was trying to please my father. I suppose I thought that maybe if I could help the Dunois Group, he might pay more attention to me, allow us to be closer. As you can probably imagine, deep down, I felt very alone when I started there. That's why I was so surprised when Ichika made such a concern out of my situation regarding my father. It may sound corny, but in a very real way, he came to my rescue. He pointed out that it is illegal for any person, company or government to prevent me from attending the IS academy. Because of him, I have time to just be me. No one looks down on me anymore, or avoids me, or expects anything from me. When Ichika found out I was really a girl and was so kind and worried for me, it made me feel like someone really wanted me, really cared about me and my well-being for the first time since my maman died. And as we spent more time together, and he accepted me entirely and continued to be so nice and kind to me, it just happened. For myself, that is why I love Ichika."

"You... love him?" Nick asked.

Charlotte's face blanched, realizing what she had said. It didn't last long, but for a moment, she looked both shocked and panicked, as if her words could somehow carry back and awaken both the object of her affection and all of her competitors with their meaning. She then settled down and gave a contented little grin, happy to have said it.

"I do. I love him. If I did not, I would not be trying so hard to make him mine when there are so many others after him as well. Does that really surprise you so?" She asked.

The French girl watched her friend as he seemed to think it over. After almost ten seconds, he looked like he came to a decision over the question.

"Both yes and no, I guess. I guess I kinda knew you had to be in love with him. I mean, it could be true for Houki and Rin, although now that I think about it, I kinda doubt it, but you've never seemed to me the type who would go through so much trouble just out of sheer stubbornness or competitiveness. But, still, it was a little surprising to hear you just say it." He said.

Charlotte grinned with amusement. "While I do not think that those aspects of their personalities are their sole motivations, you have a point about them. None of the five of us have ever spoken openly to each other about how we feel about Ichika. After all, it could give someone an unfair advantage in the pursuit if they were so inclined. However, I think we all know that for our own reasons, we are in love with him."

Her sentence finished, Charlotte noticed Nick's eyes drift away from her again and he snorted an exhale out through his nose in an unmistakably frustrated fashion.

"And you're now thinking about Cecilia again." She said. "I am sorry, mon ami. I did not even think about your feelings for her when I said that."

"It's okay, Charlotte. I know you didn't mean anything."

The two then lapsed into an awkward silence. For a little over three minutes, the only sound in the small dining cabin they were in was the wine of the plane's engines. Neither of them looked at each other, staring more or less straight ahead. Charlotte shifted uncomfortably on her stool several times, feeling guilty for exasperating the situation between Nick and Cecilia, no matter in how small a way it was. When she couldn't take the quiet anymore, she spoke up.

"Nick, can I now ask you why you like Cecilia so much? It's just that you seem as determined to try to win her as the rest of us are with Ichika."

Nick waited a few more moments before sighing and opening his mouth.

"I guess that's fair. When it started, when I got to the school, I'll admit that at first it was her looks that drew me in. She is absolutely the most beautiful girl I've ever seen, Hollywood stars and pop singers included. I also really have a thing for blondes and her English accent is just intoxicating. It was superficial at first, but then I got to know her. I know I don't know everything about her yet, but what I do know, I like. Cecilia is so elegant. She's never vulgar, never uncouth, and even when she does get angry, it always has something of a touch of politeness to it. Just something in her voice. I don't know, but, the more I've gotten to know her, the more it seems to me like she's kinda underappreciated."

"'Underappreciated?' What do you mean? Wait, you can't possibly be talking about her toxic cooking."

"It's not just her cooking, but that is one thing. You guys are pretty hard on her about that."

"Nick, do you really enjoy Cecilia's cooking? Honestly."

"I'll admit it isn't the best food I've ever had, but its not as bad as you all make it out to be, and I've enjoyed it every time she's made something for me. But more importantly, she enjoys cooking and I like making her happy by enjoying the food. She's a very sweet person, and she's graceful and refined. Watching her use Blue Tears is closer to watching a ballet than an IS match. And she's so kind. She cares about all of you, not just Ichika." He said.

"What do you mean? I'm not saying you're wrong, but I would like you to clarify."

"Well, take this for instance." Nick said, gesturing to the plane around them. "Despite the fact that she's upset with me and this has nothing to do with her, she's spending thousands to take us all to Russia just to try to help a friend of mine who she's never met, and that's not all either. One time when I was walking back to the rooms with her and Ichika, Ichika separated from us for a minute for some reason I can't remember, but the point is, while we were waiting for him, Cecilia's grip on her things slipped and she dropped her tablet and books. While I was helping her pick them up, I happened to see and skim over a hand written piece of paper that seemed to be Cecilia's thoughts on the best ways she could work together with all of us during combat. She really cares about doing her best in all things, and I admire that. I understand it too, cause if an extreme sports nut like me doesn't do his utmost at all times, it'll eventually kill him."

Nick lifted the can to his mouth to take another sip.

"I see. It really isn't too different from how I came to fall in love with Ichika." Charlotte said.

Nick sputtered and spit up his drink a little bit, causing coke to run down his chin and dribble onto the chest of his shirt.

"Whoa! Back up!" He said as he continued to choke and cough for a moment. "I'm not in love with Cecilia, okay? I like her a lot and I would love for her to be my girlfriend, but I'm not in love with her. At least, I don't think I am."

"Very well. I apologize for assuming."

"Still, we did almost have something going there. We were really good friends, we had that one date, and if things had just kept going how they had been, I was planning on asking her out again soon. I would have taken her out into the city the next time. I think there was a chance she would have come around to me instead of Ichika, but then Natalia had to show up with all her 'muzhenek' crap and ruin it." Nick said, finishing with a clear resentment.

"Nick, can I ask? Did you-"

"I don't know!" He exclaimed, interrupting her. "Sorry, Charlotte, I just, I don't know. I don't remember."

"Do you hate Natalia now for doing this?"

"No, I don't hate her. While I was in Russia before, she and I were friends. It was mostly me and Sergei during that time, but she hung out with us too. I did like her in that way, for about a minute, but at the time, I knew I was leaving in a few weeks, so I just didn't get into her much at all."

"And what will you do if you find out that you and she really are somehow married?"

"Start figuring out how to get it annulled or us divorced or whatever needs to be done."

"I assumed as much." Charlotte said. "I didn't think you would have any intention of staying married to her if you found out its true."

"No, definitely not. I don't know if things will work out with me and Cecilia or not, but I for sure don't want to have a wife at 16."

"Yes, I know what you mean. I love Ichika, but I'm not entirely sure if I would want him to marry me tomorrow."

Nick chuckled.

"Well, obviously. You'd have the other four all shooting at you less than a second after saying 'I do.' They'd just osmosis in from wherever they were to get you."

Charlotte laughed out loud at that a little too loudly.

"Moscow would turn into a battlefield just from them trying to get me!" She laughed out.

Nick joined her, and they laughed together for several seconds.

"You know, we probably should try to get some sleep. Which reminds me, I forgot to ask why you are not sleeping." Charlotte said.

"Part of it was wanting to get away from Rin in advance, but mostly, I just usually don't sleep on planes. I don't know why. Just some kind of body clock thing, I guess." He answered.

"I can understand that, but like you said, we should try to get some rest. We are attempting a rescue when we land, after all."

"Yeah, we should. It was nice talking to you Charlotte. I actually feel a little better about things." Nick said.

"I do too. And I want you to know that I am rooting for you and Cecilia. I think you would make a good couple."

"Thanks, Charlotte. Glad to have someone on my side."

"It isn't just me. You know that Laura, Houki and Rin are behind you as well. It may be a little selfish, but we would all like our competition to decrease." She said.

"Good night, Charlotte. I'll come back in a little bit."

"Very well. Good night, Nick."

OOO

Squall Meusel worked diligently at her laptop computer. For the last three hours, she had been working to hack into London, England's CCTV feed. While it was a closed circuit network, her people had recently at one of the city's monitoring hubs installed a remote access node into the hardware to provide them with both surveillance of the city and the ability to hide their own activities for any future operations.

Squall's entry into the system was going tediously because it was the first time Phantom Task was invading this system. The software she was employing utilized a slow moving method of identifying weak points within the firewall, identifying the authorized access points, taking time stamped entries into the system and then using those to trick the system into thinking that Phantom Task's entry was the same as a previous, legitimate one. In that way, their trespassing would go unrecorded.

It would have been easier to just pay some technician to give them the access codes, but that would employ an entirely different set of procedures. In that case, not only would they have to apply software in order to either erase or cover their intrusions into the foreign computer, but there would also be the risk that law enforcement could possibly catch onto the lowly worker they had bribed. Phantom Task always worked as clandestinely as they could, and with the exception of informants placed with some of their human acquisitions, they never engaged new people outside of their organization when they didn't have to. With the majority of the world's IS corporations and no less than four world governments all gunning for them, they had to be as careful as possible.

The computer beeped and Squall was in. She easily found the window for pulling up specific video feeds and entered the street and time of day given to her by the cutout, who had in turn received it from the secretary of Sheila McLoughlin. Thanks to London having multiple cameras on every street corner, covering virtually every angle, it was painfully easy to get a view of the front doors coming out of the building housing the English law firm.

Squall took the video back to five minutes before the time specified to her and watched it play. Approximately two and a quarter minutes past the time code originally put into the search, she saw a man matching the description given to her by the cutout exit the building by its primary entrance. The angle of the video she was looking at couldn't be used, having only captured a side of the man's face before he turned his back to it. She had the playback switch to a camera stationed at the other end of the street. The man in the footage approached the monitoring device, unaware that the inanimate object recording him was potentially sealing his fate. To Squall's surprise, the closer the man got to the lens, the more blurred and nondescript his whole body became in the video until the point that the entire picture itself began to fade out with fuzz and static.

It threw her for only the briefest moment before Squall knew exactly what was going on. The corners of her mouth turned up in a wide, satisfied smile. She had found her target. The man on the screen was, in her mind, Tyler Williams without a doubt. If Williams were really trying to pull something off against them, against Phantom Task, then he would know that walking through London and talking to one of their assets would be one of the easiest ways to get himself identified. Squall didn't think he would have hacked into the CCTV himself, but not for lack of ability. She thought it more likely he had a device on his person that sent out some kind of interference signal to cause the cameras closest to him to fritz out. To any English technician, it would just look like a roving glitch and would keep his face out of all the footage. Too bad for him that he had already been recognized by their mole.

Squall quickly switched devices to her mobile phone. She needed to arrange a flight to London immediately. M and Autumn were already occupied and they needed to find out as quickly as possible what Williams intentions were. It wasn't a certainty that he was attempting some kind secret offensive against them, but the tactics he had employed to obscure his presence on camera and the fact he had made the appointment with McLoughlin under a pseudonym all pointed in that direction. If that were the case, it would be so easy to take him out, and Squall would gladly do it.

OOO

Tarasov sat motionless against the wall in a windowless room. It was a six foot by six foot box of a room with metal walls. The shelves on either side of him made Sergei think he might have been put into a walk-in freezer. He wasn't entirely certain of that for the dual reasons that the shelves had been cleared of any previous contents and that the temperature in the small space was not that of a freezer. It had felt on the cold side when they had first thrown him in, but it had gradually warmed as time passed.

had no idea where they had taken him. Despite being able to see the whole time he was bound in the back of his abductor's SUV, because every time he had moved his head in the slightest to try and look at something besides the floor of the trunk, the blonde woman with the evil, frightening eyes had shoved him back down again. They had driven for at least two hours from the point that Sergei had awakened. After the car had finally stopped, they had tied a black bag around his head before lifting him out of the trunk, ensuring he didn't see anything of where he was before being tossed into the freezer. He had heard a few sounds of the city on the way inside, but they had been a little muffled and distant. He could assume he had been taken into Moscow, but with the drive time from his father's estate in the outlying forests, he knew he could be anywhere in the city.

He was trying to keep himself composed, to think of a way out, but inside, Sergei was struggling to not panic. He was not a fighter and he had never been in anything like this before in his life. Sergei knew that his father was gruppirovka, a criminal, but no opposing criminal organizations had ever clashed against his father or tried anything against him. With the exception of occasionally being escorted by burly bodyguards with full-auto pistols hidden underneath their suit jackets, 's childhood had been normal and ordinary in every regard.

He had never been a part of his father's criminal enterprises in even the smallest way. In fact, Anatole Tarasov had always strongly encouraged his children to find their passions in legitimate, respectable fields. 's request to his father to look into Phantom Task on Nick's behalf had been the first time he had ever asked to take advantage of his father's connections and resources. At the time, he had been happy to do it for Nick.

The two had met while Nick had been on vacation in Russia the previous year and had made an instant connection when they'd both messed up while snowboarding down a dangerous path and had nearly killed each other. They'd been inseparable for the three weeks Nick had been in Russia after that, doing practically everything together. There was a time in that second week that was a bit fuzzy, but some things stood out, and Sergei knew they hadn't done anything too bad. What had impressed him the most about his American friend was how much of a daredevil he was. Sergei was a bit of a thrill seeker himself, but after hearing Nick's stories of motorbiking across deserts, bungee jumping into crocodile infested waters and skydiving after parachutes he'd thrown out of the plane ahead of him, Sergei knew that he was a featherweight. Nick appeared to have some kind of near addiction to adrenaline that in the course of their friendship since Nick had left Russia seemed a little manic to Sergei at times. He didn't know what was the root of it, but whatever it was, it seemed to make his friend unable to go longer than a month without doing something that would get his heart pumping and possibly endanger his life.

knew why he was in his current situation. He didn't regret doing his friend that favor, but knew that he was likely soon going to pay for his loyalty. Phantom Task had somehow discovered that 's father was asking about them. Probably by interrogating or torturing one of the contacts Anatole had gotten in touch with, and now they were going to do the same thing to them. Sergei knew he had been taken as an additional inducement. If they couldn't get their answers out of his father easily, they'd threaten and then possibly torture him to convince his father to talk. Sergei felt torn about all of this. He could save his father from being tortured by just saying what he knew, but not only would he be betraying Nick to do it, but it would almost certainly result in his and his father's deaths. No, that wasn't an option. Sergei was only seventeen and he wanted to live a long life. All he could do was trust his father to endure whatever they inflicted upon him, try to think of something to help them, and hope that something would happen. At least Nick and Natalia were far away and safe in Japan. He couldn't even imagine how much worse it might become if those two were on the scene. He loved them both, but with how they could get, his sister a thousand times worse, and both being IS pilots to boot. It made him shudder to think of it.

OOO

M and Autumn dragged Anatole Tarasov from the owner's office in the back of the restaurant. For their safe house and base of operation within the city, they had instructed the local mafia they had been able to take over to secure them this location for a time. The mafiosi had told the owner of the restaurant, who was a part of the organization, to take a hike and also gave her money to pay her people for an entire week without coming in. M and Autumn had decided to use the restaurant because they knew they'd be doing an interrogation and if things got messy, which they almost always did when Autumn was involved, they could just run some water and bleach across the tiles and all the evidence would wash away into the drains in the floor.

The restaurant was also located ideally within the city. While the Infinite Stratos was an excellent machine for both combat and short term travel, it became increasingly uncomfortable the longer it was used at any one time. The restaurant was on a street with multiple, easy accesses to the motorways, sat with a view almost directly over the Volga river. Either of the two choices gave them the ability for a quick egress, just in case it was needed. Both women of Phantom Task knew they could handle anything the local authorities could throw at them, Sergei but it would not be long before the Russians would dispatch IS pilots of their own to deal with them, and that would only bring more trouble than the women had orders to deal with.

Autumn pushed Anatole down gruffly into a chair taken from the dining room. M cut free the zip-tie holding his hands together and then bound them again individually to the back slats of the chair. She stood back up and walked back around to stand beside her associate.

"Here's how it's going to work." M said matter-of-factly. "I am going to ask you questions about what you know about our organization. At first, you will refuse and resist, at which point I will begin to make you uncomfortable. Afterwards, if you still refuse to answer us, my associate will begin to make you uncomfortable. I feel I should tell you that unlike me, activities such as these are her passion and pleasure to do. She will delight in causing you as much pain as she can. I find her and her methods distasteful and wasteful of my time. I would appreciate if we could conclude this before she becomes necessary."

She said it all in English, knowing that Anatole spoke it fluently.

"YA ne proderzhalsya tak dolgo, govorya. Prosto prodolzhay." Anatole replied in his native language. "I have not lasted this long by talking. Just get on with it."

He accentuated his point by leaning his head forward and spitting down onto her shoe.

"While I respect that resilience, I again ask that you reconsider before my associate will have to take over." M said, her face remaining as stoic as ever.

She walked a few feet behind herself, took a chair off a stack of them and returned with it. She placed it in front of their victim and sat herself down.

"Let's begin."

OOO

Laura sat in Cecilia's jet, thinking things over. Even with Rin's never ending shouting, everyone else had somehow managed to fall asleep. Laura had slept for a while herself, but had awakened close to thirty minutes before from a particular yell from the Chinese girl that had sounded like she was chasing down Ichika in her dream. They still had about two hours left to go on the flight, so she might go back to sleep, but maybe not.

Laura was thinking about what they were heading into and who they would soon be going against. She, the man she loved, her five friends and Natalia were all heading into a foreign country to mount an unplanned rescue operation with no support from anyone. While Laura had nothing but faith in her and her friends abilities as IS pilots, and with Nick and Natalia able to get information and maybe even help from her father's network, they could possibly pull it off. What worried her was that they knew for sure that Phantom Task was behind the kidnapping. The criminal enterprise was also made up of IS pilots, had already attacked them twice and clearly had the resources to try anything they wanted to.

Laura thought that they might be getting in over their heads with this. Before they had all begun to try to sleep, Nick had filled them in on what Sergei had told him of Phantom Task on the day of the school festival. The information was nothing but rumor and innuendo, but it was more than enough to cause Laura concern. She had been the commander of the Schwarzer Hase also known as the Black Hare Squadron for over two years. They were a squad of soldiers within the military comprised entirely of the best pilots Germany had to offer for the eventuality of an emergency extreme enough to warrant the IS.

The Black Hares worked closely with Germany's intelligence service, but in all that time, Laura had never heard the name of "Phantom Task" ever mentioned by anyone and never saw it on a single report. According to Nick's information, they had worked and murdered with impunity for years, she had more than sufficient reason for pause. The fact that she had never heard of them before could only mean that either German intelligence had classified them top secret above her pay grade, or that they didn't know about the group either. Neither option served to give Laura any reassurance.

Phantom Task's operatives had so far only attempted to steal their Infinite Stratos from them, but she felt confident that if given half the chance they would kill all of them. That did not scare her, but she was by the fact that she was the only one in the group formally trained to detect an enemy's presence. If any of the opposition managed to get the drop on them, one of her friends or possibly even Ichika might pay the ultimate price because of it. That was unacceptable.

Laura reached into the inner pocket of her school uniform, extracted her phone, entered it into a mode that would not interfere with the plane, opened a military grade encryption app on it and placed a call. It rang on the other end five times before the call was answered.

"Jawohl?" The voice asked.

It was Clarissa Harfouch, her second in command of the Black Hares.

"Clarissa, it is Laura."

"Yes, commander, vhat can ve do for you? Zhe Black Hare Squadron is ready to receive your orders."

"I vant you, our best technician, und zhree more pilots on a plane to Moscow as soon as you can. Here is zhe situation. A group of enemy hostiles has taken captive zhe friends of a comrade. I und my friends are currently en route to attempt a search and rescue. I vould like you on zhe ground vith us to supply logistical support, investigative aid, und if needed, additional manpower." Laura explained.

"Understood, commander. Ve vill report back vhen ve are in play on zhe ground."

"Very good, Clarissa. Zhis vill be a Code: Deep operation."

Code: Deep indicated to Clarissa that they would be working under the radar. They would not be alerting the locals to their presence and would communicate only via encrypted, send and shred texting to prevent any breaches in operational security.

"Understood, commander." Clarissa said again. "Und commander, I vish to say how pleased I am to be vorking vith you again."

"Zhank you. But, if everything goes according to plan, ve vill not see each other."

"Of course. Auf Wiedersehen."

"Auf Wiedersehen, Clarissa."

Laura ended the call. She felt the muscles in her body relax some. Knowing that she had just ensured they would not be completely on their own set her mind at ease. She sat back in her seat and felt like she could peacefully sleep the rest of the flight away.

OOO

Forty-five minutes after Cecilia's jet touched down on Russian soil, she, Ichika, Natalia, Laura, Rin, Houki, Charlotte and Nick had disembarked and they had all successfully passed through customs.

"Gah! I'm still freezing! How stinking cold was it out there?!" Rin shouted as they walked though the light crowd of travelers. She kept rubbing her arms, trying to warm herself.

The sun had already long set by the time their plane landed and the night air at nine-thirty-nine p.m. had dipped to seventeen degrees. Everyone except Nick, Natalia and Laura had blanched at the temperature, Houki, Rin, and Charlotte shrieking out loud when the cold touched the bare skin of their legs beneath their short skirts.

"About eighteen degrees, I would say. By the feel of it." Natalia said in answer.

Houki shuddered. "I'm used to cold winters in Japan, but I usually get the time to adjust before its like this and have the proper clothes on!"

"Yes, it was frightfully cold." Cecilia said.

"Don't worry. We'll get you all kitted out with the right stuff before we leave the airport." Nick said. "First, we just have to find-AH!"

He pointed to a spot on the wall sixty feet away. As they neared it, the rest of the group saw that it was an automatic bank kiosk.

"Natalia." He said.

The redhead nodded. "Of course."

Standing in front of it, she removed her wallet from an interior pocket of her jacket, took a single card out of it, and inserted the card into the machine.

"I know it might sound kinda cheesy or maybe even stupid, but I have some idea of how to do this stuff from all of the action and spy novels I've read. I know I said I had my credit card, but we'll need cash to operate. Both for if we need to bribe anyone and to keep Phantom Task off our trail. They don't know we're here, but if they somehow figure it out, my credit card might as well be a chip in my neck." He explained.

Natalia went through the steps of the process and extracted a prodigious amount of Russian rubles from the device. The wad of bills ejected themselves and Natalia passed out twenty thousand to everyone present.

"Here. This will cover all of your clothing needs and in case we need to split up while we're here, you'll have funds to help you get by."

"And speaking of chips, we should all disable our mobiles." Ichika said. "Take out the SIM cards and batteries. If we do have to split up, we'll communicate via our IS network."

"Oui, that is a good idea." Charlotte said.

They all took a minute to stand there in a loosely formed circle, extracted their cellphones and made them untraceable.

"Okay, now that we have that done, can we find a clothing store?! I'm still cold!" Rin declared.

"There should be an adequate outlet this way." Natalia said, pointing in a roughly south direction.

They all set off, following the native born girl. It took a fifteen minute walk for them to reach it, but the group eventually found an outlet for an expensive, designer clothing line. Cecilia, Houki, Charlotte, and Rin all immediately started their shopping. It didn't take them long, each of the girls just picking out one thing each they liked to make up a new, cold weather outfit. One by one, they changed clothes in the dressing room.

Charlotte dressed herself in a gray pullover, a dyed pink wool coat, black pants and tan, calf length boots. Houki chose a pair of thermal leggings and jeans to replace her skirt and go over her thigh high stockings, gloves, and a red, doubled breasted jacket, leaving her uniform top on underneath. She also bought a toboggan hat that matched her new jacket. Rin picked out the same for her legs as Houki, a light, zip-up hooded sweatshirt along with a brown, quilted parka and bright green scarf.

Nick waited with no small amount of anticipation to see how Cecilia would look in her new outfit. As he had expected, the clothes she picked achieved nothing short of tasteful, chic, exquisiteness. She came out of the dressing room in a white, cashmere coat with black buttons, a sash tied in a bow around her waist, and a faux fur lining on the collar. The coat ended in a billowing out ruffle that resembled a skirt. Underneath of it Cecilia had on a cream colored, turtleneck sweater dress. She had kept her black stockings on, the contrasting colors working together harmoniously. Along with her blue headband, the whole ensemble served to make her look as beautiful as Nick had ever seen her. The pure white of her coat caused her blonde hair to practically glow with angelic light. For a few seconds, 's danger and everything else in the world faded away as Nick just stared at her. The feeling of an elbow into his arm brought him out of it.

"Earth to Nick." Ichika prodded. "What are you gawking at?"

"Oh, uh, nothing." He stammered out.

In the open doorway to the greater airport, Laura looked around at their group of eight.

"I do not zhink ve could have made ourselves look more conspicuous if ve tried." She commented.

"Well, at least we're not all in matching outfits or anything. We look normal." Houki fired back.

"I agree. Looking less uniform, we'll stand out less in a crowd if we should happen to need to blend in." Cecilia added.

Laura considered for a moment. "I suppose you have a point."

"So, now that we can survive the elements, what do we do first?" Charlotte asked everyone at once.

"We should probably find a place to stay while we're here." Ichika suggested.

"No! We need to get started to save my brother and dad!" Natalia exclaimed.

"I vould agree. Time is of the essence." Laura said.

"Nick, you and Natalia said something about some guy named Dimitri back in Japan. Who is that?" Rin asked.

"Dimitri Zaitsev. One of my father's top lieutenants. All intelligence flows through him and he is below only my father in ordering the men. If anyone will have any sort of information on what's happened, it'll be Uncle Dimitri." Natalia said.

"So, we're going to see him first, then." Charlotte said.

"Yes, but we still have a couple things to do before that. You all need to go bribe someone at the car rental desk while I get my motorcycle." Nick said.

"I didn't even think about that, but you're right. We're gonna need wheels while we're in the city." Houki said.

"With that in mind, since we don't have our mobiles to use the usual navigation apps, I'm afraid we'll have to have Natalia drive since she presumably knows this city." Cecilia said.

"Not only that, but thinking about it, when we do get a car, depending on the model, the most it'll fit is six, and that's with someone sitting on someone's lap. One of us will have to ride with Nick on his bike." Ichika noted.

"Hey, no. Don't even worry about that, guys." Nick said with conviction. "I got a helmet for me and all the clothes I need to stay warm despite the weather and the wind. Besides, I'm the one who drives a motorcycle instead of a car, so none of you should have to put up with it because of me. Just get a big SUV or something you'll all fit in. Really, I'm used to uncomfortable conditions because of the bike."

"So, that's settled. Let's get moving. Nick, we'll call your IS for you to meet us once we have the car." Rin said.

With that, they all temporarily split up.

OOO

In her apartment in Tokyo, Chifuyu Orimura awakened at five-thirty a.m. It was an hour and a half earlier than she usually got herself up, but she had a long trip to make that day and she refused to skip her workouts for even one day. Today more than most, Chifuyu needed the calming toil of her exercises. What she had ahead of her was going to be a day of emotional turmoil and upheaval in which she knew for certain no good would happen.

Chifuyu started her day with the same smoothie she always did, packed with protein, vitamins, and full servings of fruits and vegetables. It gave her the jump start she needed to power through her intense routine. She started off by running flat out on her treadmill for twenty minutes followed by weight training with bench-presses and bicep curls. She finished with a short ab workout and yoga to cool down. This was her practice for keeping her body toned. On a normal day when she didn't have so much to do, Chifuyu would have devoted another hour of her time to her martial arts and swordsmanship, making sure to keep those skills as polished and sharp as when she had competed.

Walking into her bathroom, Chifuyu stripped off her workout clothes. She turned on the water from her shower head to nearly the hottest it could be and spent half an hour scrubbing the sweat from her body and making sure her long hair was thoroughly clean. Stepping back into her bedroom, a towel hanging around her naked shoulders, before doing anything else, Chifuyu went to her computer. She checked the status of the weather and the train to make sure everything was on course. She confirmed that the Tokaido-Sanyo Shinkansen train had no issues this day to prevent it from running. She could have booked herself a flight to Hiroshima. It would have gotten her there faster, but she didn't really want to get there any sooner. For the sake of knowing the enemy and Ichika's safety, she needed to know, but that didn't make this any easier. The two and a half hour train ride to Hiroshima would allow her to build her anger and turn it into steely resolution.

OOO

The professional's flight touched down at Moscow's Sheremetyevo International Airport at eight-thirty p.m. local time. She exited the plane along with the other first-class passengers. She normally would have preferred to charter small craft such as a Cessna to bring her into the country. It was easier to avoid customs by bribing a private pilot to fudge the filed flight plan to not show any passengers onboard. But, this job was a rush order and she hadn't been able to enact some of the normal precautions she would have preferred to.

Four hours earlier, the professional had received word from her broker in Monte Carlo over her secured website. The broker told her that there was a job available in Moscow. It was short notice, but due to that, the employer was willing to pay three times the professional's normal amount if she would agree. Normally, these circumstances would have raised red flags within her. Short notice and an offer of high pay could often be the bait needed to pull someone like her into a trap. She had made her fair share of enemies in her career, so the possibility was one she had to consider.

It wasn't until her cutout sent over the specifics of what the employer wanted that she thought this job might be legitimate. It was not her typical kind of work. The employer wanted a foreign national who had entered Russia only two hours before the professional located, tailed, and abducted at the earliest opportunity. While she was more than capable of expertly fulfilling the first two requirements of the job, the third presented some issues. The professional's usual kind of assignment did not involve the subject she was tasked with finding to be left unharmed, and in fact, was always the opposite.

The professional had been about to turn down the job when her broker had forwarded a dossier from the employer on the target. The target in question was nothing but a high school student who, according to the files, had no experience in unarmed combat, only very little experience in specialized, armed combat, and no identifiable tradecraft whatsoever. Given the specifics of the assignment and the amount of money on the table, the professional had decided to accept. Her last two jobs had ultimately devolved into firefights with nothing going right for her, forcing her to have to make new enemies out of several intelligence services just to survive. An easy, high paying snatch and grab sounded like just the thing to her to get her back in the game without risking her life and liberty.

The professional passed through customs easily, her forged credentials from her paper man holding up to scrutiny. She breathed a silent sigh of relief as she left the customs desk behind. It had been years since she had worked in Russia, but there was still more than one person in the country who would love to see her dead and getting flagged and arrested at the airport would have made that very simple for them. She walked straight through the airport, only stopping to pick up the suitcase full of clothes she had checked as a mere prop.

Outside in the cold, the professional hailed a cab and climbed into the backseat. The driver was a middle eastern man of average height in his early fifties.

"Hotel Baltschug Kempinski." She said with a flawless Russian accent to make her stand out less.

"Konechno." The driver replied. "Sure thing."

During the ride, the professional opened her suitcase and extracted the one item of worth within it, her tablet computer. Using her mobile wifi hotspot generator, the professional connected to the internet and engaged her encryption software. She went to her secure website, typing the address into the navigation bar from memory. On the other side of it, her broker in Monte Carlo was waiting to chat. Given the time sensitive nature of the assignment, the professional had been given no choice but to leave several aspects up to the cutout to procure.

"Online." She wrote.

The cutout's message came in less than twenty seconds.

"Supplier: Altayskaya Ulitsa, 9 building 2."

"Understood." The professional replied.

She then closed the chat and entered a separate inbox on the secure site. Before leaving France, the professional had contacted a hacker she had occasionally used who specialized in accessing Russian computer systems. She found several links waiting for her. Clicking on the first, she found that it got her into the closed-circuit surveillance of the airport. The professional needed this in order to start the search for her target. She tracked back through the feed, using military grade facial recognition software to scan for her target.

It took twenty minutes of the cab ride, but the professional eventually got a hit off of the search. The security camera video showed the target along with a group of two boys and five other girls all standing around between a rental SUV and what looked like a high-end sports-bike. The professional used the software she had on the tablet to not only take digital scans of the faces of every member of the group, but tagged the license numbers of both vehicles as well.

She sent the information back to the hacker through the secure site and then closed the tablet. The hacker and his team would scan all the cameras they possibly could, looking for for the flagged material. For her part, the professional would check into her hotel, go to the supplier to secure her armaments and other needed equipment, and as soon as a location was identified, she would head out to secure Charlotte Dunois.

OOO

awakened to the sounds of hinges squeaking violently. He had no idea when he had fallen asleep or how he even could have with everything happening. With how jarring the squeal of the hinges was, his head lifted from where it had slumped so suddenly that he cracked the back of it on the metal wall he was sitting against. While rubbing the back of his head, he saw the door opening and his father getting thrown in with him.

"Dad!" Sergei yelled.

He scrambled over to his father and helped him to sit up against one of the shelf racks. Most of Anatole's face was drenched bright red with blood that had partially dried into place. His shirt was gone, showing where their captors had extinguished cigarettes on his chest. All of his fingernails had been ripped out.

"Dad, your-"

"Don't worry. It looks worse than it is." Anatole interrupted his son.

He straightened himself up further, groaning with pain.

"That girl's stronger than she looks. She broke at least three ribs with just body punches."

"Dad, you didn't tell them anything, did you?"

"Give me some credit, . I was worked over harder than this in the army."

"So, then why did they stop?"

"They want me to think about what they're going to do to me next. Old scare tactic and usually works, but only if the one you're torturing is weak minded enough to start with. They'll have to take me right up to death before I tell them anything."

"Dad, we've got to figure some way out of here. They're gonna kill both of us, and you know that."

"Of course they are. I've ordered the deaths of enough men myself to know how it works." Anatole said.

"Then you know we have to escape."

"No, . You have to escape."

"What?"

"Son, those women out there are not only IS pilots, but are hardened like soldiers I've seen, and that blonde is a psycho bitch. I can see it in her eyes. Only one of us can get out of here, and it'll only happen with surprise and swiftness of action."

"But, they'll kill you."

", as long as you get away, that doesn't matter. Besides, I might be able to find another way to get out. They'll still try to get info out of me, and that'll give me time and opportunities. What's important is that you be gone before they start threatening you to make me talk."

didn't know what to say. His father had always been loving, but tough as well. He'd never hit Sergei or tried to push him into anything, but he had always been intensely stern. That coupled with the fact that his father ran the biggest and most powerful criminal organization in the city had all worked its way into 's mind so that he never thought his father would place him first like this. Of course, they'd never been placed in a situation where their murders were only a matter of time without decisive action either, he told himself.

"When you get out of here, you go see Uncle Dimitri. Tell him what happened, and that I said for him to send you to your sister. In case I don't make it out of this, you tell Natalia I love her, and you two take care of each other." Anatole said.

Even if he had wanted to, there was no helping it as Sergei reached out and hugged his father tightly. He didn't say anything, but in his mind, Sergei was trying to steel himself. If he got out of here, he wouldn't just be going to Dimitri in order to run away. He'd get Uncle Dimitri to put together some men to come back and save his father. He had to.

OOO

Clarissa Harfouch and her team arrived in Moscow. After three hours in the air, Clarissa, Anna, Leonie, Claudia, and Anke were energized to get to work. It had been almost a year since their commander of the Black Hare Squadron, Laura Bodewig, had gone to the IS Academy in Japan, and in all that time, the special forces squad had done practically nothing but alternate between sitting around and training to keep themselves from going soft.

Back before Laura had gotten the chance to follow Chifuyu Orimura back to Japan, conditions for the squadron had been a little bit better. The Black Hare Squadron operated largely the same as the former Delta Force in the US had. The women of the unit were always on perpetual standby for if they ever needed to be deployed. While a majority of the planet was more or less at peace with each other, there were still ongoing issues in many middle eastern countries, some new and growing unease in India and of course, intelligence gathering and spying on other nations by most all nations never stopped.

Under Laura's leadership, the Black Hare Squadron had mostly trained to stay in shape for the eventuality that they might one day be deployed to action. However, they had other duties as well. As the top tier of Germany's special forces, they were often dispatched to foreign countries to perform reconnaissance on military outposts, suspected secret outposts, and even buildings in metropolitan areas. The girls would spend a few days watching their target location, identifying its security personnel and particular countermeasures and would then quietly exfil back to Germany and would give their findings to their superiors. They had no idea what was ever done with the results of their work, but could safely assume that it was passed on to German intelligence where it may or may not then be used to send other assets into the locations or to plan possible attacks on the structures.

Clarissa had enjoyed that time of her life. Although Laura was a difficult person to get close to, always keeping people at arm's length, Clarissa considered her to be a great friend. Laura had also been a brilliant soldier and the perfect commander for the unit. Her tactics and agile, quick thinking mind had saved both Clarissa's life along with many other girls in the squadron more than once. In all of the missions they had gone on before Laura left, the Black Hare Squadron had never once lost any of their ranks to either death or capture, and it was all due to Laura's leadership. It was for that reason that, to show their respect for Laura, they all wore patches over their left eyes despite having no need for them.

"Clarissa, ve are here." Anke said from the driver's seat.

"Understood."

They were outside a plain, two-story brick house that German intelligence owned through a shell company. Located at Twenty-One Ulitsa Prudovaya, the house had the tactical preference for multiple nearby avenues for escape. For a quicker ingress, they had flown in straight to the Ostafyevo Airport, only minutes away from their safe house. Leonie, the squadron's computer expert and resident hacker had altered the details of their flight plan while en route to make it look like nothing more than a domestic transportation of auto parts from St. Petersburg into Moscow, allowing the women to bypass customs and immigration. The alteration wouldn't stand up to a thorough scrutinization, but if anyone official did look into it, they would certainly find evidence of the hack, but would be unable to discover the true origins of the flight thanks to Leonie's encryption and IP bouncing.

The five women climbed out of the SUV that they had temporarily appropriated for the mission and walked the short path to the front door. Clarissa unlocked the front door with the code to the security system and electronic lock provided to her and they all entered. The inside of the house was nicely and thoroughly if not generically furnished.

"Everyone, get to vork." Clarissa ordered in a strong, but not severe voice. "Leonie, set up your equipment und begin accessing local networks. Anna, Claudia, Anke, begin unloading and readying zhe gear. Ve vant to be ready. I vill contact und coordinate vith Commander Bodewig."

"Verstanden." The four other young women said in chorus. "Understood."

Clarissa stepped off to the side. She extracted her phone, launched the encryption app and began to type out a text message.

In the first row backseat of their rented car, Laura sat between Rin and Cecilia. As she had expected, when they picked up their car from the parking lot, there had been a disagreement. It had taken nearly five minutes of her, Charlotte, Rin, and Houki specifically as to who would sit next to Ichika in the car. Cecilia had joined into the shouting as well, but she hadn't fought very hard. She had put on a good show of it, but Laura thought she had sensed that Cecilia's heart wasn't quite in it.

For the months since the new school year had begun, Laura had thought she'd seen Cecilia slowly but surely growing to like Nick, but since Natalia had arrived, that had been threatened. Cecilia's being so cold towards their American friend, and her trying to secure Ichika for herself for a time hours earlier had all made Laura worry that maybe Natalia's declaration of being married to Nick had shattered the fragile foundation for which Cecilia's new feelings were being built upon. But now, Laura was confused. Earlier, Cecilia had seemed to have reverted to her previous ways of fully competing with the rest of them for Ichika, but her subtly lackluster fighting about the seating arrangement in the car could also indicate that she had not. Laura didn't understand.

"Oh!" She scoffed in her mind. "Vhy must Cecilia make zhings so much more complicated?! It is so clear zhat she has feelings for Nick, so vhy can't she just accept it, go to him, und leave mein bride to me?! It isn't like he vouldn't happily accept her advances. Any einfaltspinsel could see zhat straight away!"

A tiny light then illuminated itself in front of Laura's left eye. It was the screen on the inside of her eye patch. Created by the army's R&D department to work in conjunction with her cybernetically enhanced eye. The patch used micro burst technology to discreetly send messages back and forth.

Clarissa's message read, "We have arrived. Setting up. Awaiting orders."

This was good news. Clarissa and her comrades being in play could only help the group. Not only would it allow them to save Nick's friend more quickly, but it could help the other equation as well. The sooner they could get Nick's friend back, the sooner they could get an answer on his martial status, and the sooner she could get him and Cecilia back on track. Using her cybernetic eye with her pupil acting as the cursor, a wink acting as the selector action, and a holographic keyboard on the screen, Laura wrote out a response.

"We are currently en route to Dmitrovskoe sh., 107 building 7. ETA approximately twenty-seven minutes. Move in and be in position to render assistance or continue surveillance after the fact."

She sent the message. A response came in less than a minute and consisted of only one word.

"Jawol."

The screen on the inside of her eye patch switched itself off. Laura felt safe and secure with her squadron backing them up, and with any luck, no one would even need to know she'd gone against the group's decision by calling them. It had been a little bit of a ridiculous decision anyway. No one on her squad could possibly work for those thieves and murderers.

OOO

M watched as Autumn prepared the equipment for the next round of torture for Anatole Tarasov. She was resting her hands with ice packs to numb and soothe her knuckles, tied in place with dish cloths. M had to give a bit of begrudging respect to Tarasov. Hours of almost continuous beating and other methods with only pauses long enough to make sure he would not pass out or for her to not hurt her own hands against him, and the Russian mafioso had barely given so much as a grunt of pain in response. She had broken his ribs, fractured one wrist, almost given him a concussion, but he hadn't said anything.

Of course, she hadn't expected him to break from just the beatings. Tarasov was built like an old world warrior defending his nation against invading barbarians. M had only gone ahead with the first stage of punishment to soften him up for the real stuff. She had wanted his body weakened and his metabolism already working to try to repair the damage before the real process began.

Next for the Russian would be a process of electrocution and water boarding to soften his mind. M wanted him as weakened as possible before pulling out the trump card guaranteed to make him talk, his son. As soon as Tarasov was at the point where his will was still holding but he was too weakened to physically resist or form any sort of coherent idea, she and Autumn would bring out the boy, either break or cut off something relatively inconsequential from him, and promise to keep going and give him an extremely unpleasant end if the mob boss didn't talk. M didn't like this approach. She'd prefer to focus on just the primary target, but couldn't deny the efficiency of this method. Of course, it didn't really matter, because she was still going to kill the both of them at the end of it all anyway.

From a nearby stove top in the restaurant's kitchen, M's cellphone vibrated. M herself could not pick it up as she was busy at the moment wiring a car battery and jumper cables to a chair and a trigger button so that it could be used without having to frequently fiddle with the alligator clips.

"Autumn, get that for me." M said.

"I'm busy!" The blonde shot back.

Unsure as to what Autumn meant by that, M turned her head to see what she could be busy with. Autumn was just sitting on a bar stool, staring at the door to the walk in freezer where they were keeping the two hostages.

"With what?"

"I'm brainstorming!"

M rolled her eyes. Autumn was almost always the primary muscle of Phantom Task. The woman seemed to have no conscience, no filter, and no compunctions about anything. On top of that, she was the most sadistic person M had ever come across in her life. M had no idea what sort of life Autumn had led which brought her to be like this, but the woman's sole source of pleasure in life seemed to be from inflicting pain and death onto others, and men in particular. She had no problem with the other woman's brutal pleasures, but it often got in the way of the mission.

"I told you, you don't get to have them except in the last resort." M said.

"And I've told you before, that I don't work for you!"

M stopped her work to turn to the hitwoman she was forced to work with.

"You'll have your turn on them and get to do anything you want, and you'll even get to kill one of them, but for now, I'm busy, and that could be Squall calling." M said with cold, precise, logic.

Autumn shot her head around to glare at her partner with murderous eyes. Squall was the only one who could exert any sort of control over her. Autumn hated to be told what to do, always hated when M argued against her predilections, and most of all when M did it with unimpassioned, pragmatic, rationale. Even so, the unpredictable woman couldn't deny the chance that it could be her lover, Squall, who was probably the only person on Earth who Autumn wouldn't enjoy seeing dead. Still projecting her animosity at her, Autumn stood from her seat, crossed the short distance to the counter top, and answered the phone.

"Yeah?" Autumn asked in a tone somewhere between hostile and politely disinterested.

She listened to the other end silently for two minutes. She lowered the phone again, holding it down at the full extension of her arm, near her hip. Her face showed an uncharacteristic stillness and thoughtfulness, as if the weight of whatever had been said was pressing down and crushing her usual priorities.

"What is it?" M asked.

M watched as the corners of Autumn's lips twitched upwards and spread themselves into a smile showing all of her teeth, coming to the furthest reaches of her face, and filled with excitement and pure maliciousness.

OOO

Between bad traffic, stop lights, speed limits, and distance, it took the group an hour and a half from leaving the airport to reach their destination. Their target in question was a two-story number in the functionalism design of architecture. It was positioned in a long row of conjoining buildings of the exact same design, but a head taller than the rest. Leading out from over the front door was an awning stretching halfway to the street. The awning's material was a blood red colored vinyl-laminated polyester. Lined along its outer edges were six, one and a half foot long neon tubes leading back to the door, glowing a daisy yellow. Along the same route on the ground below the awning was the usual type of velvet rope. An Armenian man of fighting age, large bulk, and a disinterested countenance stood as the bouncer just in front of the door. Six feet above the bouncer, spelled out in more neon was the name of the establishment. White and pink light pronounced that the newly arrived group were looking at the "Lusty Leopard." The outline of a naked woman, kicking one leg up and down in endless repetition accompanied the words.

Halfway up the block from the club, Natalia parked their illegally rented SUV. Jack placed his motorcycle in the space just behind them. All eight of them got out or off of their vehicles and congregated around each other. They walked until the building was less askew in their view and looked up at the club.

"The 'Lusty Leopard.' Is this... a strip club?" Houki asked with clear disdain in her voice.

"You... can see that it is." Nick answered.

His body language showed that he wanted to shrink away from her glare.

"This is Uncle Dimitri's very own business. Subsidized and allowed by my father, of course." Natalia said nonchalantly.

"Nicholas, how did you know that this was where we'd find this man?" Cecilia asked.

Her voice dripped with accusation, forming a spear that stabbed itself into Nick's heart. If Houki's glare had made him uncomfortable, than Cecilia's tone made him want to disappear entirely. Laura and Rin were then giving him dirty glares as well.

"Hey, that's not really a big deal, right?" Ichika asked.

Everyone slightly turned their heads to give him their attention. Ichika felt he needed to intervene. He wasn't sure why, but he felt like the girls were starting to turn on their friend. It seemed to him like the girls image of Nick was starting to change and degrade, like they were starting to judge him as some sort of degenerate just because of an unconfirmed claim by Natalia and a couple incidents that took place before they knew him. As far as Ichika could tell, Nick was a good guy who hadn't ever really done anything bad.

"Don't you think you're all maybe overreacting a little?" Ichika asked them. "Places like this used to be common. Just because Nick came here once doesn't mean he did anything wrong. And it isn't like he can help where this mob guy hangs out, right?"

"Ichika, you're not defending a place like this, are you?!" Rin yelled.

"No, of course not. I'm not saying the place isn't sleazy, but maybe we could cut Nick some slack. It was close to a year before he met us that he would have been here. Maybe just take it easy on him a little."

"Right! And, I've never been to another club like this since. To be honest, I found it really kinda pathetic and not enjoyable to me. And that one time, I also made sure to leave a big tip to the waitress."

"Well... I suppose that Ichika does have a point. Maybe... maybe we are being a tad harsh, ladies. Perhaps we can let this one trifle by the wayside." Cecilia said.

She then walked past them all, approaching the club. The six other girls slowly filed after her.

"Hey, Ichika." Nick said, tapping him on the shoulder. "Uh, thanks man. I appreciate that."

"It's no problem. I've been on the hard side of their attitudes plenty of times, so I know what it's like. Also, I know how much I would have liked to have a little support at those times. I know I'm not always the most aware or intuitive guy in the world, but I can at least have a friend's back when he needs it."

Nick gave a small smile and nodded. Ichika could see in his face that he was truly grateful for the support, and that filled Ichika with soft, warm, satisfaction. It pleased him and made him feel like he had really accomplished something by giving the small amount of relief and comfort to his friend. Ichika only wished he knew how to do the same thing for the girls during all the times they became upset about something. The two guys then followed the girls.

At the door to the club, Laura, Charlotte, Houki, Rin, and Cecilia had all bunched up at the door, held there by the bouncer.

"Get lost! This is no place for-"

The man stopped talking as Natalia pushed her way to the front.

"Miss Tarasova. Please, come in."

He stepped to the side and held the door open for the young woman. Inside, the club was everything the girls expected it to be, and they liked none of it. The layout was designed for everything to point towards the large stage in the center, jutting out from the south wall in an unmistakably phallic depiction. Dark red carpet was spread to every inch of the floor. It smelled strongly of detergent, washed frequently to try to dispose of the inconceivable layers of alcohol, food, and whatever else may have been deposited on it. Garish neon, posters, and other ornaments adorned the walls, meant to try to keep erotic atmosphere at its strongest possible. The ostentatious stage in the middle of everything had brass railings all along its outline and the customary poll at its tip for the strippers to spin and gyrate. Small, circular, single stand tables and cheap chairs dotted everywhere. The air was thick with smoke, heat, and the scent of excitement. Up above the stage, the second level was an open plan, lounge area that looked out at everything.

"Well, this is everything I figured it would be. I hate it!" Rin declared.

"In zhis place, you vould never know zhat zhe IS came along and zhe world changed." Laura said.

A collection of hoops, hollers, and catcalls drew everyone's attention towards the stage. At the head, grinding her pelvis into the pole in tune to the beat of AC/DC's "Get It Hot" was a dyed blonde girl. She couldn't have been a day older than eighteen. Her dye job was badly done, her hair color mismatching with her skin tone. She had a mostly convincing expression like she was enjoying herself plastered on her face, but her eyes revealed that it was a lie. They were glazed and distant, envisioning herself being anywhere else but where she was. The men surrounding her on the edges of the stage were leering at her with looks of savagely depraved lust. The hunger wafting off of them was so palpable it could be tasted on the air.

Houki clenched her fists and her face twisted and scrunched itself into a mask of clear and present vehemence. The shameless bestiality of the men made her blood boil. The girl on the stage was Sergei a person just like anyone else, but the way they were ogling her, looking at her like she was nothing more than an object to satisfy them made her temper skyrocket to soaring heights.

"There is something I should tell you." Natalia addressed the group at large. She had to speak loudly to be heard over the music. "Uncle Dimitri will be up there in the VIP lounge. Up there, all of you will need to hold back, let me and muzhenek do all the talking."

"What? Why?" Charlotte asked.

"My father is a good man who has kept up with the times, but not everyone who works for him feels the same. Uncle Dimitri will talk to me because of my father, but he is not someone who appreciates the changes in the world."

"So then, he's every bit the misogynist pig that this place would suggest." Cecilia said.

"His head's a bit in the past, yes. I won't deny that. He doesn't like being considered inferior to women."

"Then that's all the more reason we should go up there and inform him of just how wrong he really is!" Houki declared with flaring anger.

"That won't work. He'll only have his men throw us out at gunpoint, in the best case scenario, and then we'll lose time saving my father and brother. We need to do it this way. I promise you, its the best option. He'll only talk to me, muzhenek, and Ichika should come with us as well. Another man with us can only help."

"You condone zhis sort of behavior?" Laura asked.

"Of course I don't, but there's nothing to be done about it, and certainly not right now."

"She's right, guys." Ichika said. "We can disapprove all we want, but it won't get us any closer to doing what we came here to do."

Laura, Charlotte, Rin, Cecilia, and Houki all instantly hit him with looks which effortlessly conveyed that they were not happy with him not supporting their disdain for the club. Ichika blanched, wilting a little under their collective displeasure.

"And, maybe we could somehow bust him on something to the cops later and get him shutdown?" He added, trying to stop five pairs of laser-eyes from boring holes into his head.

Cecilia was the first to break contact.

"I suppose Ichika is correct, and we are merely wasting time right now. As much as I detest this abominable establishment, we have more important things to do."

"Fine. But this isn't over!" Rin declared.

"Since we have that settled, the stairs are over here."

Natalia guided them over to a metal staircase, open to the room, handrails on the wall and on stands along its ascent. Another bouncer stood at the bottom of the steps, but he cleared the way without a word, having been informed by his counterpart outside of Natalia's presence and company. The eight of them went up the stairs in single file.

OOO

Clarissa was set up on the roof of a building across the street from the Lusty Leopard. As Laura had ordered, she, Anna, Claudia, and Anke had all dispatched to the given location. Clarissa looked through her scope to the strip club across from her. The six by forty-two rifle scope gave her a crystal clear image of anything and everything she set her eye upon. With its six zoom options, allowing her to shoot anything from five hundred to four thousand meters out if she so chose, she could easily see the faint discoloration on the lapel of the bouncer's blazer where he had spilled on himself somewhere in the past.

Her weapon was a Tepelor VS-X sniper rifle. The latest in rifle technology from Germany, it fired seven-point-six-two NATO rounds at nine thousand, two hundred and fifty feet per second. Clarissa had no intention of using the weapon, but it was better to have it and not need it than the other way around.

She and the other girls had all taken their positions. Claudia was expertly concealed in the doorway of a store a hundred feet away from the club entrance, while the twins, Anna and Anke, were on the other side of the block, covering the rear of the building. Their current orders were only to be in place, but Clarissa expected they would be updated once Commander Bodewig and her friends left. Laura would most likely order them to keep shadowing her group to provide unseen support, or, if the commander felt there was something more to be learned from the offensive club across the street, they would stay put and watch. Either way, Clarissa would follow her commander's and friend's orders to the letter.

OOO

The professional weaved her way through the city traffic. She was very careful to not draw in anyone's eye. As a matter of practice, whenever she drove a car herself, she used a practice of keeping it at a steady three miles over the specified limit. Traffic police only looked for people grossly violating the limit, but those keeping it bang on the mark, in her experience at least, could also bear scrutiny at unpredictable times. By keeping the vehicle at her current speed, she projected the image of someone trying to get to a destination as fast as possible but without endangering anyone in the process with reckless driving. In other words, a harmless, law abiding citizen to be ignored and left to carry on.

The professional had picked up her car along with the rest of her tools from the supplier at Altayskaya Ulitsa fifteen minutes earlier. Just as she had been leaving in her nondescript sedan which was the same make and model as the most common car in the country, she had received an alert from her secure website. The hacker she employed had sent the address of and pictures taken from an ATM. There were nine pictures in total, the timestamps showing they were taken over a three second window. They showed an SUV driving past with a motorcycle following closely behind. The professional then looked at the blown up and enhanced shots, showing the faces of her target's friends through the windows.

The professional had considered her options first. She did not operate rashly or without intelligence. She would not rush into a situation without the slightest plan or knowledge of what she was walking into. She assumed that Charlotte Dunois and her cohorts would find a place to bed down before long. Whatever reason they had for being in Russia, they had to have a place to rest and recuperate when they weren't doing whatever they were. The professional decided she would take this opportunity to follow them and discern their lodging location. From there, she would be able to work how she knew best and would work out a capture to be pulled off with flying colors.

OOO

Chifuyu Orimura disembarked the train. It had taken a quarter of an hour less than she had expected, and she was in Hiroshima. She still didn't like it, and expected it to take every ounce of her strength and self-discipline to get through it, but it had to be done. Since Genshirou, with all his resources hadn't been able to find out, there was no other way she could get the answer to this question.

Her shoulders tense with the anxiety she was currently feeling and what was still yet to come, Chifuyu wound her way through the crowd, working to keep her composure. After three minutes of gentle maneuvering, she made her way outside. Standing on the line outside of the front entrance, Chifuyu hailed a taxi. One of the many passing cars stopped for her almost instantly and she gracefully slid herself onto the backseat. She gave their address to the driver, and settled herself in. As much as part of her wanted to, she'd come too far to back out now.

OOO

Natalia, Laura, Rin, Houki, Ichika, Nick, Cecilia, and Charlotte climbed the club's open staircase one at a time. The second level of the Lusty Leopard was not much different from the ground floor. The walls were the same color, it had more, identical tables with identical chairs and even a second, if smaller bar. The noticeable differences were the plush armchairs and sofas scattered around. They looked like expensive pieces, or at least once had been in their original incarnations. All of them had visible signs of wear from unaccountable numbers of posteriors sitting in them and whole bodies gyrating on their surfaces. Several of those chairs were displaying the evidence at that very moment, men in lust filled hazes of ecstasy as the strippers were giving them lap dances. Two of those men were even being treated to a service which the club was neither legally allowed to advertise nor provide.

As the eight of them passed in between the furniture, being led by Natalia to the far end of the floor, everyone had different reactions to the things they were seeing. For her part, it was genuinely nothing Natalia hadn't seen before, no matter how distasteful she found it. Cecilia was trying to maintain her dignity and not let it affect her. Charlotte was openly aghast. Even though she entirely knew things like this happened, or at least had used to, she had never seen anything like this spectacle before. Laura was unfazed, taking in the scene and moving on from it, keeping her mind on the mission. Rin was disgusted and shocked. She couldn't believe that prostitution like this still existed. Houki, for her part, was utterly appalled. If what she saw below made her want to punch someone in order to vent, this escalated her anger to the point she would need to blow up a building to release her wrath. Houki felt her self-control starting to slip and knew she was on the brink of losing it. To keep herself contained, Houki balled her fists and closed her eyes, continuing to walk straight by sensing her friends in front and behind her.

In the large, open area against the wall over top of the front entrance, they found Dimitri Zaitsev. The Russian oligarch was sitting in the center of a couch in a little better condition than all the others. On either side of him was a girl, one redhead, one raven haired, both topless, and both stroking his shirt as if they were really lusting after him. Dimitri himself was a medium sized man in his late forties. Even though his countenance showed he was half out of it with drunkenness and satisfied libido, his eyes were still sharp and like they could regain all focus on a moment's notice. They were all black and looked like they did not contain any irises, like a shark's. His height of five-foot-ten had him shorter than the girls surrounding him when sitting down, and even an inch shorter than Natalia. He had a very rounded head with pale hair that was visually thinning. His body was composed of muscle which could only have been built from a lifetime's worth of fighting and conflict, but was just starting to degenerate from steel into flab. Everything about him portrayed a man of long and hard won experience.

The group was stopped at a distance of twenty feet by a young man who, by his dress, was obviously Dimitri's personal security instead of working for the club. The break in the atmosphere caused by their arrival was enough to pull Dimitri out of his reverie and make him look up at them. He scanned their faces one by one until his eyes fell upon Natalia and lit up in pleasant surprise.

"Natalia!"

The man extricated himself from the two young women and moved over to them. He opened his arms wide and pulled Natalia into a tight, affectionate, bear hug. Natalia gave a wince at the heavy odor of alcohol seeping out of his very pores, but she didn't make it obvious enough for Dimitri himself to detect. After nearly ten seconds, he let go of her and took half a step backwards.

"What are you doing here? I thought you went to that fancy school in Japan." Before Natalia could answer, Dimitri looked around at the others again. "My, you certainly have made some attractive friends, wherever you've been."

The vulgar appraising that his eyes washed over them told the five other girls with no room for error that he was undressing them with his eyes.

"Any of you looking for a job? You'll get top dollar, tips, and a couple more perks. You'll all be big hits with our customers."

"Excuse me?!" Rin howled.

She took a step forward, impulsive hostility written all over her. Rin lifted her fist halfway, already preparing to attack for the Sergei filthy offer. Laura stepped in front of her, holding out her arm.

"Nein! It is not worth it!"

Rin huffed and scowled at the man three times her age, but stepped back nevertheless.

"A feisty one, I see. I like a girl with a little fire!"

"Uncle, please! We have something very important to talk about!" Natalia declared.

Dimitri looked at her with newly questioning eyes and then responded in the way she had predicted.

"Very well, you and the boys may come over."

With a jerk of his head, Dimitri simultaneously indicated for them to come with him the few feet back to the furniture and told his bodyguards to let them through. Natalia, Ichika, and Nick followed him. With a curt snap of his fingers and a flick of his wrist, Dimitri ordered the two girl who had previously been servicing him to leave. They got off the couch and walked away. Dimitri sat on the middle cushion and spread his arms out over the back. His posture made it clear that while he was glad to talk to them, no one was welcome to sit with him on the couch. The seats neighboring the couch were made up of a single armchair and a loveseat. Ichika lowered himself into the armchair first among the three of them, leaving Nick with no choice as to his selection. He sat down on the left side of the loveseat, and Natalia joined him, sitting too close, their hips touching. Uncomfortable with the touch, and having noticed how Cecilia gave it a dirty look, Nick scooted away as far as he could.

"So, what are you doing here and not in Japan?" Dimitri asked. He said it in English to account for the other two. His accent was thick and more native of rural Russia, as if he hadn't spent decades living within the city. His demeanor had shifted to be all business, as if all of the alcohol in his system had dried up on command.

Natalia stared at the older man for a few seconds, her eyes a little wide with mild shock.

"Uncle, do you not know what's happened?"

"What's happened?"

Ichika answered him, determined to help his friend.

"Natalia's father and brother were kidnapped about eight hours ago."

The icy steadfastness Dimitri had been demonstrating was momentarily broken by sheer astonishment that was too spontaneous to be anything other than genuine. He turned his head and addressed one of his bodyguards in Russian.

"Get a couple boys out to Anatole's mansion now!"

Dimitri readjusted his gaze back to the teenagers, his steely eyes looking even more fierce with the news of the situation amplifying everything.

"What do you know?" He asked, returning to English.

Nick spoke. "Have you heard of Phantom Task?"

"The IS broads? Anatole had us asking about that name a few days ago. Don't tell me a bunch of suka are responsible for this." Dimitri said.

"That is the case. Sergei was video calling me at the time they were taken. Didn't see it actually happen, but he confirmed it was them." Nick said.

Dimitri gently shook his head from side to side with a mixture of weariness and disgust.

"I swear, the world's gone to hell in a hand-basket ever since that damned Infinite Stratos machine came out. Things were barely tolerable before, but now they're downright insufferable! All these little girls and unqualified suka being placed in charge of the world, and for what? Because they can make some stupid machine with fancy guns fly around? It's practically impossible for a man to even be a man now! They're choking the life out of us when we've kept this planet spinning since the beginning of time!"

Ichika tensed his muscles in reflexive anger to this diatribe. It was the most disrespectful, misogynistic vitriol he had ever heard. He hadn't thought men like this guy still existed. For his part, Ichika didn't have any problem with the current state of the world. He liked and respected women and had never once thought he was better than any girl just because he was male or even considered they wouldn't be able to do anything he could. Ichika had to remind himself they needed Dimitri's information and connections to help them, otherwise, he'd tell Dimitri all about how the strongest, toughest person he had ever known was his older sister. Looking to his right, Ichika saw the look in Nick's eyes and thought it possible that his friend was thinking along the same line as himself.

Dimitri went on. "You sure those girls who came with you don't want work? That feisty little one would bring in the exotic loving crowd, and the blue-eyed Japanese girl, we'd make a fortune on her tits alone. There could be a handsome finder's fee in it for you gentlemen."

The three young people shared a look between each other and silently communicated. They were all appalled by that proposition and none of them dignified it with any kind of response. They sat there in relative silence for ten seconds until Dimitri spoke again.

"Eh, worth asking. And I always need to be on the lookout for new t&a to bring in. It keeps getting harder and harder to find girls willing to take their clothes off for money. If things keep going how they are, we'll either have to close or get into that brainwashing, human trafficking shit. Anyway, you said you were talking with Sergei when it happened?"

"That's right. The feed cut off before I saw anything happen, but we have reason to believe that, at least for the moment, both Sergei and Anatole will still be alive." Nick said.

"You have any leads?"

"From what they've told me, Phantom Task likes to use local muscle in addition to their own people. Sounds to me like they don't have many goons of their own to send out." Natalia said.

"Hmm." Dimitri rubbed his chin in thought. "After us, the next biggest organization is the Voyushchiye volki Gruppirovka. They don't have the numbers that we do, but they're close. Also have a bunch of women in charge. Come to think of it, about six years, they were getting cracked down on by the cops, losing money left and right. Seemed like they were really going to be broken. Then, out of nowhere, all the investigations, the raids, and everything else against them stopped and they were flushed with new cash. Anatole and I haven't ever been able to figure out how they did it."

Natalia, Ichika, and Nick all glanced to each other.

"Sounds like a good suspect." Ichika said.

"And it matches up with the little we know about how Phantom Task operates." Nick added.

"Where can we find someone in the Voyushchiye volki to talk to, uncle?"

Dimitri took a pen out of pants pocket, leaned forward to the table in front of him, and scribbled something onto a cocktail napkin.

"You should find a few of their more senior lieutenants at this address. Anyone in a good suit or that looks like someone you wouldn't want to fight."

He leaned forward and handed the napkin to Natalia. She stood to take it, and Nick and Ichika stood up along with her, the meeting coming to a conclusion.

"Thank you, uncle." She said.

"Of course. Anatole is my best friend and you and your brother are like my own children. If you need anything else, you just need to ask." Dimitri said.

Natalia took the napkin, gave the man a small, warm smile, and then leaned over and hugged him across the short table.

"We will." She said with emotion, her eyes beginning to mist.

They hugged for five seconds before separating.

"You're a very brave girl, Natalia. Best of luck in this."

She gave an appreciative nod, and then she, Nick and Ichika turned to return to the others. They had a lead, and they were going to follow it.

OOO

M made the final test and found that everything was ready to really go to work on Anatole Tarasov.

"Bring him out." She said.

Autumn nodded, for once happy to do as she was told. She crossed over to the walk-in freezer and pulled back on the handle. The door had rolled out only a few inches when a thudding impact struck the other side of it and sent the door reeling into Autumn's face, hitting her on the right side and on her temple. She fell back, momentarily stunned by the blow.

Anatole rushed out of the locker, moving faster than was expected for a man of his size and age. M, having been forewarned by the assault on her colleague was already reacting.

"Silent Z-" She began, trying to activate her IS, but Anatole was closing in on her before she could finish.

The man's face was implacable and unyielding with a glint of cold, nearly emotionless conviction dancing in his eyes. Despite her time with Phantom Task and her previous life before the organization, M had never seen such a cold-blooded expression before in her life. It caused her to experience a moment's feeling of something she had not felt for she couldn't remember how long and had thought she never would again; fear. Her inaction lasted the briefest space of time it possibly could, but it was enough to allow Anatole to get within five feet of her.

Anatole pulled back his left arm from the shoulder, twisted his body, set his hips back, and M knew he was gearing up to throw a haymaker punch into her face. If it connected, she had no doubt that it would floor her. M instinctively lifted her right leg off the floor, transferring all her weight to her left, intending to hit him with a swift crescent kick to the head before he could follow through. Half a second after her balance had been compromised, she knew she'd made a mistake. Anatole slunk down, further lowering his knees, abandoning his feint of a haymaker and continued on, grabbing her around the waist like an American football player in charge and lifted her into the air with no effort of any kind.

The Russian mafioso, who according to their files was a former Spetsnaz soldier carried her the remaining distance and slammed her back into the wall with the full force of his run. His shoulder ramming into her stomach along with the impact punched all of the air out of her lungs. Anatole allowed M to sink down to the floor. She was not dead or unconscious, but was out of the fight nonetheless, and they both knew it. She gagged and spluttered, trying to catch her breath and focus her mind.

"Sergei!" Anatole shouted.

The man's son came out the freezer now, scared and anxious, but also resolved. He stepped over the still prone body of Autumn. Anatole lowered himself and pat his big hands all over M's body, giving no consideration to where he felt her. In the left side pocket of her jacket, he found the key fob he was looking for. Anatole turned without getting off of knees and tossed the small, plastic device. Sergei caught it one-handed. Anatole tried to push himself up to try and accompany his son, but his knees shook and it took an effort just to stand. The short attack he had just executed had worked together with his previous torture to exhaust his reserves. He had meant to go with Sergei if he could, but that wasn't going to happen.

"Go!" Anatole commanded.

Sergei darted off. He went a single step before he was sent careening to the floor. Turning his head to look, Sergei saw that Autumn had lifted herself enough to reach out and clasp her hand onto his ankle. Her eyes were alight with such absolute venom it gave her the atmosphere of some ancient, terrible god of vengeance. With a reflex, Sergei kicked out with his free foot and hit her right in the center of her face. Autumn let go of him instantly, Sergei jumped to his feet and made a beeline for the door. With her nose bleeding, Autumn got up to her knees, seemingly unfazed by the injury she had just received.

"Arachne!" She shouted.

Her Infinite Stratos designed to resemble a spider materialized around her body and brought her instantly back to her feet. Just as she ready to move, Sergei was bursting through the doors to the outer section of the restaurant.

"Little bastard!" She yelled.

She deployed her IS' carbine machine gun and lifted it to shoot through the doors, aiming for where Sergei would be in a moment. Before she could squeeze the trigger, Anatole jumped in front of her field of fire. Autumn paused. If Phantom Task was going to find out who was interested in them, they still needed Anatole alive for the moment, and both of them knew it. That didn't stop her from using her IS' spider legs to violently sweep him out of the way. Their files said the Russian had two kids, so she could go kill this one.

OOO

Sergei burst through the doors from the kitchen into the dining room of a restaurant. Never having been in this one before, Sergei had no idea where he was in the city, but he didn't have time to worry about that. Standing eighty feet away from him and forty feet away from the front doors were two burly men who Sergei recognized as mob from his many years of interacting with that sort. He never broke stride, running at the two men with all the speed he could muster. He was no fighter. He knew he couldn't possibly take these two in any sort of conflict, and far less with the two women he had just left behind. All he could do was keep going.

As he approached, Sergei thought the two men in front of him must have been told to ignore everything they heard from the kitchen. The sounds of his father's assault had apparently not captured their attention and even now were only just turning towards the sound of his running. Sergei barreled through them, throwing his arms out as he did to push them off balance. He pressed on, heart pounding, adrenaline surging, will carrying him towards the front doors.

"Little bastard!" He heard a woman's voice yell.

He knew that voice. Her name had never been spoken, but her voice identified her to Sergei immediately. He had seen her eyes and knew what she was capable of because of it. Instinct took over, warning him of danger and throwing him to the floor at the same time. The sound of strafing, automatic gunfire roared from behind. Gusts of whooshing air told Sergei that bullets were ripping through the space he had been in. He heard the men he had just passed exclaiming in pain and surprise and then the sounds of heavy thuds. Six seconds passed before the gunfire stopped and a clicking and angry exclamation told him that her weapon was empty.

Sergei instantly got to his feet and with a burst of speed to bring envy to an Olympic gold-medalist, he traversed the last bit of space. The front doors disintegrated against his shoulder, their stability having been chewed up by dozens of bullets.

The cars he was aiming for were almost right in front of him. A pair of black, plain SUVs. Using the fob, Sergei made the engine turn over and the driver's door open. He jumped in, threw the transmission into gear and put the pedal to the medal. The car rocketed off with a piercing squeal, the momentum of the jolt slamming shut the door Sergei had left hanging open. Sergei kept the car at top speed, weaving in and out of traffic, nearly toppling over at corners, not daring to slow down. It wasn't until five minutes had passed without him being shot at or anything else dramatic happening before Sergei dared to slow down and look back. Nothing. No one was coming after him. Sergei didn't know what could have stopped them, but it didn't matter. He had to move fast. There was still work to do.

OOO

The sound of her associate's gun going off was just the trigger for revitalization that M needed to haul herself up, her mind and faculties partially recollected. She saw that their primary hostage was unconscious on the floor, his head bleeding slightly. That could only mean that Autumn was trying to kill their bargaining chip. M could not believe how stupid, hot-headed and unthinking she could be. Tarasov's only other child was in Japan and they needed to get the information as quickly as possible.

"S-Silent Zeph...yrs." She wheezed out through ragged breaths.

M's IS constructed itself around her body. She used the jets to propel herself towards Autumn. Her mind still hazed from the hits she'd taken a moment before, M was unable to maneuver her exo-skeletal suit with the deft crispness she usually could. Instead of turning through the doors like she was threading a needle, M bombarded her whole body through the wall and right into the side of Autumn's energy shield. She'd collided with her associate just as M was firing her jets to fly forward to go after the runaway. The two of them together crashed into the far west wall, creating a hole to connect the restaurant's interior to the outside world.

"M! What the hell did you that for?!" Autumn screamed at her at top volume, their faces less than a foot and a half apart.

"Maybe we can discuss that after we get away from the site where you just created a small war zone and two fresh corpses. Before the cops show up."

"Are you nuts?! We have to go get that little shit and take him out!"

In response, M pointed her arm and activated her Star Breaker cannon, the barrel coming to rest three inches away from Autumn's head. The whir of charging energy was all the testimony needed for Autumn to understand. A full blast of that weapon from point blank range would eat through her shield energy and then do to the same to her head in a matter of seconds. Autumn's temper sobered enough for her to know that even though she'd probably be able to get away before the beam would kill her, it would do nothing for the remaining problems facing her. She'd still have M to deal with, the Moscow police when they showed up, and then IS would eventually be dispatched to handle them. It enraged her further to not be able to express her rage at that moment, and swore that she'd get even with the bitch, M, sometime.

"Fine."

Star Breaker whirred down and deconstructed itself.

"Get moving."

OOO

Houki, Charlotte, Rin, Ichika, Nick, Laura, Cecilia, and Natalia exited the Lusty Leopard en masse. Outside of the club, away from all of the smoke, loud music and carnal desire, everyone took a moment to breathe, take in the clear air, and enjoy the still and quiet.

"I never, ever, EVER, want to go into a place like that ever again!" Rin exclaimed after a moment.

"No offense, Natalia, but that guy was a real jerk. I couldn't believe the things he was saying." Ichika said.

"I did warn you. I've tried to get him to evolve and change his mind several times, but there's nothing to be done with him."

"I have to agree with, Rin. I try to usually be understanding, but that place was très horrible." Charlotte said.

"And that's why I haven't been back to any of the few remaining places like this since I visited this one. I didn't like the experience, the way the women were, or really any of it. I'd rather have a good talk with a girl than pay her to pretend to be interested in me." Nick said.

Nick looked at Cecilia. What he'd said was the complete truth, but he worried he'd maybe oversold it. The British girl was looking at him with a considering stare. He couldn't tell if she believed him or not. Her expression was entirely inscrutable to him.

"I guess I'm back to square one with her. Not even that. I'm at square negative ten." He thought.

"Let's get going. Ve have a lead to follow und ve should get to it." Laura said.

Everyone agreed, and they started across the street on a diagonal, heading for their vehicles. Coming towards them from the other side of the road was a group of four young men. They were of varying ethnicities, but were all speaking in Russian. They looked like just a group of friends, just regular guys. Their clothes were standard winter gear, and the four of them were talking happily amongst themselves. Halfway across the four guys took notice of the opposite group, and the six beautiful girls contained therein. They stopped and gawked leeringly at all of them.

Nick, Ichika and the girls passed between the four young men, trying to ignore them. The Russians were all speaking at the girls in their native tongue, presumably saying vulgar, suggestive things. The group of IS pilots from Japan all had the idea that the four young men probably assumed that the girls were workers of the Lusty Leopard coming off a shift and therefore would be promiscuous enough to respond favorably to whatever they were propositioning. As Houki passed by one who was a full foot taller than her, with a hungry, lascivious glint in his eye, he said something and reached out and swatted Houki hard on her butt.

Houki gasped and stopped in her tracks, her muscles seizing as if she had been flash frozen. She couldn't believe what had just happened. She could feel the blood rushing to her face. In the very short time since she had received her Akatsubaki, Houki had been threatened, punched, shot at, and fallen out of the sky, but none of that had affected her like this. She felt violated and humiliated. Thoughts of everything they had seen in the club minutes before came rushing into her mind. The club these guys were heading into. A place that they probably frequented. All of the anger the Lusty Leopard had triggered in her ripped itself to the surface in an unstoppable frenzy.

"Why you!"

Houki turned on the balls of her feet and punched the man in his cheekbone, just beneath his right eye, with a strength akin to a heavyweight world champion. The Russian man was sent clean off of his feet, hit the pavement, and rolled for over fifteen feet before coming to stop. He was out cold. The way his body was prone made it seem like he could be dead. His friends stared at his splayed out form on the road and then back to Houki. All their jeering and catcalling was gone. They were looking at Houki as if the possibility of what had just happened was an entirely foreign concept to them. One of them, a man of about twenty-five with harsher, more chiseled features than the rest, his face tightened in anger as well. The man reached behind his back and pulled a small, nine millimeter semi-automatic pistol from his belt. He moved in Houki's direction, his intention clear. At the same time as his arms and gun were traveling through their arc, his two remaining friends moved as if they were going for guns of their own, and the explosive crack of a bullet rang out...

OOO

A/N: So, here it is, the newest chapter. I know I'm slow with this, and that's probably not going to change, but I haven't given up, so just stick with me and I promise I'll keep it going. Hope everyone enjoys.