In the Dark

By Lalita

Disclaimer~ Megami Kouhosei isn't mine, blah blah blah.

Summary~ Ikhny is tormented endlessly by Hiead, until… *evil laugh* Read to find out!

Author Notes~ Well, here's the re-edited fourth chapter! ^____^ Sorry it took so long, but I've been away from the computer for a couple of days… You know, been busy and all. I'm hoping the rest of the chapters will be out shortly, so I can get down to business and finish writing the rest of the fic! Oh, and, as always, PLEASE READ AND REVIEW!!! I don't know how to make that any clearer to you! Just… READ AND REVIEW!!! PLEASE!!!

Chapter Four~ The Second Lesson

            Just as things were starting to return to normalcy- or, rather, as normal as the life of the hassled crew on GIS could get- an alarm shrieked throughout the halls, signifying yet another attack.  Hiead, ever alert, was instantly awake.  In the next seconds, he had managed to jump out of his bed and into the corridor that was teeming with several staff members and the other pilots. 

            They reached the Goddess Hangar in a matter of mere moments, taking the emergency life down.  Hiead cursed softly as he saw Allecto was not yet there.  The anger that had found surcease before sprang to life, and the contempt he felt for his foolish repairer increased.  It was impossible she had not been freed from the closet.  A significant amount of time had passed, and Hiead could also tell by the looks Enna had been sending him, which were considerably darker than usual.  The only other logical reasoning would be that she was hiding from him...

            Hiead's blood boiled and threatened to roll over the surface.  He felt the need to punch something, anything, and quickly too.  The bumbling idiot should have let nothing, absolutely nothing stand in the way of her duties.  But then again, that was Allecto.  She never had her priorities straight.

            His frown slightly decreased as he watched her stumble into the hangar, eyes bleary and steps unsteady.  The other repairers threw her sympathetic glances but did not abandon their posts.  They, unlike Allecto, knew how to do their job.  She brushed aside their concern and continued towards Hiead, knowing that he will only become angrier if she delays further.

            " S-Sir," she whispered, bowing slightly. 

           Hiead felt his patience snap.  " Damnit, Allecto, this is no time for that! Hurry up!" he growled.  Instantly, she obeyed.  She ran to her post and tripped over her own feet in the process.  " Clumsy fool," Hiead thought, narrowing his eyes.  Deciding to let her moronic behavior go for right then, he stood in front of the Himato- Kallisto, waiting impatiently until she was ready to board.  The red and black Goddess loomed tall before him, looking foreboding as the shadows masked its face. 

            Finally, finally she was ready to board.  Hiead stepped inside, eager to feel the sense of control being with his Goddess brought him.  The shadows enclosed around him until a dim, almost unnoticeable light illuminated his harsh features.  There was the slight sensation of falling as he was jettisoned into space, and then the pleasant tingling of weightlessness.  Allecto's face appeared in a side-screen, and then Enna's command reached his ears.  Group together and circle the VICTIM leader...

           Hiead sneered.  He needed no one's orders to know how to defeat a VICTIM.  Despite Enna's almost frantic call of, " What the hell do you think you're doing, Hiead?" and Allecto's repeated pleas, he launched himself full speed at the leader.  It was large, menacing and had Hiead not been frightened of nothing, he would have cringed.  Pulling out the gigantic sword of the Himato- Kallisto, he gave a cry of victory and plunged, aiming straight between the VICTIM's bloodshot eyes.  He would have succeeded, too, if not for the fact that Allecto decided to cut off his visual. 

            His sight went blank.  There was nothing but black around him.  Had he bothered to wave his hand in front of his face, it would have been useless.  He could see nothing, but, judging from the sounds around him, the others were finishing off the battle- alone.  He hoped they would meet painful deaths, so that everyone would realize the so-called team was nothing without him.  Once or twice, he attempted to join back in the fight, taking blind, violent swings with his sword, and each and every time he would be knocked out a good way from the VICTIM. 

            After the battle, the Goddesses drifted back to GIS, Hiead being shamefully towed by Enna.  It was almost too much humiliation for him to bear.  When he unboarded his Goddess, he was barely able to hold his frustration in check.  Allecto stepped timidly towards him, apologizing profusely. 
            But for once, it wasn't really her that his anger was directed at.  Of course, she would pay later for her mistake, she always did, but what Hiead wanted more than anything was to torture Enna and his interfering bitch of a repairer.  Allecto would not have stopped him if Enna hadn't ordered Tolleyk to butt in.  More than likely, his repairer had been hoping for him to get sliced into a million pieces by the VICTIM leader. 

            Unfortunately for the both of them, nothing of the sort had happened, and now Hiead was stuck with the dismal humiliation of being rebuked by Enna as if he were a three year old child.  The embarrassment was nothing compared to what he planned to do to Enna later, and it was only the sweet thoughts of revenge that held him in his place and not strangling the annoying idiot.

            Hiead watched as Allecto slipped away while the other repairers were hard at work.  As he had not been able to participate in the battle, his Goddess had sustained little, if any, damage.  Allecto was probably grateful for the chance to rest, but Hiead would soon make sure she wasn't.  He glowered at her retreating back, the words Enna kept saying falling upon deaf ears as he contemplated ways to enact his vengeance.

           When he was finally allowed to leave, with one last, final glare from Enna, he sauntered casually through the hallways, quickly assessing where his repairer could be.  He ducked briefly into the serving room, but she wasn't eating.  He waited for several minutes outside the public restrooms but she did not emerge from there, either.  After checking her room twice, when he was considering giving up his search to be continued later on, he saw her back, stooped in an obvious pose of rejection.

            Hiead's lips curled into a would be smile, but it came out looking more like a grimace.  He stalked her so quietly she didn't even realize he was there- that was, until his hands clamped firmly over her mouth, stifling any sound of surprise or cry for help.  Oh yes, it was much too late for help.  No one could help her now, and no one would want to, after he was done with her...

            Perhaps she was too exhausted to care or too used to his attacks to protest as he dragged her into another empty corridor.  When she looked up, Hiead met eyes almost as haunted as his were.  Almost.  His grip on her right arm tightened as he snarled, " You fucking bitch."

            She flinched, as if his words hurt her.  Hiead grunted in satisfaction.  Good.  But then something happened that had never occurred before: she tried to get away from him.  Allecto twisted and writhed, fighting as hard as she could to break free of his grasp.  Hiead was so shocked he released her and she fell hard to the floor, panting heavily.  Just as she was scrambling to her feet, he stepped on her hand with all his weight.  " Bad move, Allecto," he whispered, his voice deadly soft.

            She froze, like she had just been turned into a statue.  Hiead ground his foot into her hand, watching the way her skin turned red and irritated, watched as it wrinkled into several folds on either side of his foot.  But still, she did not react, and Hiead reached down and clenched her hair in a painful grasp.  Allecto closed her eyes and remained motionless.  Tired of the game she was playing, Hiead proceeded to drag her down the corridor, her back sliding on the floor and legs flailing helplessly.  " You shouldn't have been so disobedient today, Allecto.  It appears I have to give you another lesson."

            " P-Please, s-sir! P-Please! I-I-I'm..."   She broke off, unable to go on.

            Her words were barely understandable through her tears.  Not fazed in the slightest, Hiead asked, sarcasm dripping off of every word, " You're what?"

            Allecto wailed again.  Her face was pinched in pain.  She clawed at his hand, trying to force him to release her, but her futile attempts were laughable.  Hiead drew her up to her feet, still keeping a hold on her hair.  She looked up at him, her expression mournful.  " I... I-I... I really t-tried to s-stop h-her, s-sir, I d-did!" she protested, and Hiead closed his mind off to the rest.  Allecto was merely babbling apologies and excuses, all of which he had heard before, and it wasn't what he was interested in hearing.  What he wanted to hear was screams of pain.

            " Poor Allecto," Hiead murmured, mocking her.  She stopped talking abruptly, ending in mid-sentence.  Hiead realized that if his smirk was any wider, it would most likely fall off of his face.

            He looked down, expecting to see Allecto's usually meek and pale face.  Instead, he found something that shocked him beyond belief: defiance.  Albeit, it was defiance laced with a sickly fear, but it was still there, shining in Allecto's usually mild brown eyes.  Her next words were so soft, Hiead could hardly hear them, let alone believe them.  " Y-You... J-J-Jerk!"

            But a mere moment later, the consequences of her words hit her full force.  She seemed more stunned than Hiead at what she had said.  A dread began to creep over her features, making her face fall and cringe as she watched Hiead's own face change into a contorted mask of rage.  He would not have disobedience in her.  She was nothing but a stupid fool, too idiotic to think before she spoke.  True, the words she had spoken were not new to his ears, but coming from her...

            She was going to pay.  Adrenaline pumping in his ears, he slapped Allecto so hard her head jerked back and a piercing scream rent the air, a scream loud enough to alert half of GIS.  Smacking a rough hand over Allecto's mouth to keep her from further outbursts, Hiead darted his eyes around the hall, his hearing more sensitive to the faintest noises.  He waited for a full five minutes in silence, his repairer's heart beating a dull rhythm against his chest. 

            When he was absolutely certain no one was going to come to Allecto's aid, Hiead allowed himself to revel in the surge of power he got, crushing Allecto to his chest and terrifying her beyond her wildest nightmares.  And, as perverse as it was, he thought of her as his slave, with no purpose but to serve him until he disposed of her.  A slave...  Yes, she was a slave, his slave, and he was his master.  He was a master who had to teach his slave a lesson.

            Allecto remained quiet, sensing the danger thick in the air.  She knew that by all means if she dare speak another word, Hiead might kill her then and there.  When he turned a cold smile in her direction, she shivered visibly.  " Yes, slave," Hiead thought, satisfaction rushing through him. " Fear your master."

            Then, quite unceremoniously, he slung Allecto over his shoulder, knowing he could run faster without her lack of speed dragging him down.  But the rush that had filled him when he began tormenting her abandoned him as he felt a rib jounce painfully into his shoulder.  She was light, way too late for a girl of her age, Hiead realized with displeasure.  What was the damn wench doing, starving herself?  The thought made his blood run cold.  He wouldn't have her dying.  He would be the one to kill her, only him.  As sick as it sounded, Hiead Gner wanted to be the sole reason of distress to Ikhny Allecto.

            She had long gone silent, barely moving except when he shifted her weight.  The only reason he could tell she was alive was by her breathing, ragged and shallow and harsh.  Her heart beat frantically against him, as if struggling to break free. 

            Hiead broke into a full speed run.  Maybe he was just paranoid, but hadn't that been a footstep behind them?  Or was it several?  The rush he got when eluding an enemy and capturing his prize filled him once again.  A sharp intake of breath followed by a lack of breathing from Allecto made him glace over his shoulder at her.  He supposed his shoulder must have hit her in the stomach, knocking the breath out of her.  Served her right.

            At last, they reached his destination- his room.  He observed as Allecto's face dawned with realization, then transformed into a mask of terror.  Elation, or, the closest feeling to happy he could ever get, swooped through him as he punched in the code to his room. 
            This will be the best lesson yet...