Chapter V

Author's note: In this chapter, it would be exceedingly obvious just how much I DO NOT like Iris Irine, but of course, this is for reasons that cannot be divulged…anyway, I must say, I've become lightly sinister in my writing…hope you like it…please R&R…

Disclaimer: I don't own Ragnarok into the Abyss,

The hospital cameras were constantly moving side to side, capturing any one who entered and exited Iris Irine's hospital room; there were two armed guards outside the door. As expected, the security given it was fit for that of the Irine Triad's young miss.

"Hey Harley," one of the guards said, addressing his companion, "How do you suppose Boss Chaos is going to handle all this, I mean, they say the attacker on the Dragon Knight base used to be the boss's flame…"

"Don't be a dumb-bell, Dave," Harley answered back, "You know Boss Chaos, he loves the triad more than anything or anyone in his life, it's not like one of his old discarded beaus is going to be enough to bring him down"

The two guard's conversation was interrupted when a doctor came, and with a heavy and effeminate French accent, requested entrance to Miss Irine's room, the dextrose level had to be changed for faster recovery. The guards exchanged serious glances, "I'm sorry, but we have to search you first, it's all part of the procedure…"

The older one, Harley, who was a dark man with a balding head, searched the cart for any weapons, while his partner Dave, went to a nearby closet and retrieved a small white mouse.

"You're going to inject some dextrose right?" Harley questioned, while the doctor nodded in answer, "Give me the syringe,"

The doctor followed the order and watched as one of them injected the syringe into the mouse, and they observed mutely for any sign of attempted poisoning, but the mouse remained frisky and continuously bit and struggled to be free from the guard's grasp. "Seems to be okay, the mouse is fine, there isn't any poison, but we'll have to request your name first, just for the record…"

"Dr. Fen Le Risse" The doctor answered, and they allowed entrance. One guard was left to stay present in Iris's room, observing the procedure lest any advances on Miss Iris's life were made. But nothing of the sort happened and they watched as the doctor injected the added dextrose into the dripping valve close to Iris's bed, and left quietly after.

The guards had watched the procedure carefully, taking full notice of everything they were to report to Lord Irine—everything. As soon as the doctor left, they resumed their positions outside the door.

Suddenly they heard a rattle from the inside of the room, and rushed in to find Miss Iris breathing hard, her eyes dilated, while her hands clasped her chest as though she were suffocating,.. the guards only had to scream in panic…

The successful attacker infiltrated the surveillance room and watched the scene that was occurring in Iris Irine's room, mocking the guards for their indolence in allowing an attacker such as himself to have fulfilled his poisoning attempt on Iris so easily. Laughing, he could tell the faces of the two guards were pale despite the black and white television screens.

It was HE who had stolen the doctor's uniform and wore the surgical mask. The feminine French-accented voice he had used, had been pre-recorded, he only had to push a button on the recorder in his pocket to narrate his request for entrance in the voice of the opposite sex.

"Did they think they could actually test if there's any poison by injecting it into a mouse?" he laughed. Poisoning Iris had been easy; some substances didn't mix—like oil and water, it had been simple…His poison concoction had more density as compared to dextrose and stayed on the bottom half of the syringe while dextrose occupied the upper half, furthermore the coloring of the poison had been exactly matched to that of dextrose, so any differences were undetectable to the naked eye. The guards had injected dextrose into the mouse, but had they finished injecting the entire contents of the syringe into the creature…they would have seen through his technique.

He only had to inject all contents of the syringe, and bam! It had taken effect in less than ten minutes. From the surveillance room, where he could see the view the camera had in the Irine Room, he felt a euphoria that swept him into greater heights of crazed egotism, "Don't worry Miss Iris…" he said musically while he watched the doctors trying to revive his victim, "you wont die…" His crazed musical voice chanted, "You won't die Miss Iris…you won't die…just suffer…suffer until I kill you with my own hands for your betrayal…suffer…suffer…"

His eyes went wild as he caressed the sword on his hip, "You'll enjoy her blood, isn't that right, Talatsu?" he asked,

And in Skurai's crazed imagination, the sword replied, "Kill her for me…"

Fenris Fenrir's eyes fluttered open, and she saw the clock on her bedside…2:00 AM, but immediately she was aware of a nagging suspicion in her gut…she could almost feel it in the atmosphere…"They know where I am…" she decided, she felt for her gun, "I should've known someone would be attacking me soon…"

Her cell phone vibrated against her skin, and she answered without speaking, waiting for the caller to speak, "Fenris, as you may have guessed, they're after you, five men on every floor, so I left a gift for you on the vent just below the eighth floor, just how you'll get it is going to be your problem…" Sara's voice cooed on the phone.

Despite the worry she had felt, knowing that somehow, her escape was going to be hard, she immediately recalled everything she had memorized of the building structure of the Casa Reuber. "10 floors, 2 elevators, there's a banner celebrating its 10 year anniversary…." She stopped, and laughed inwardly…"I finally get it Sara…" she thought to herself, almost seeing Sara Irine's approving smile, she had figured out her means of escape. On stalking feet, she moved quietly and found the air vent of her room, her curtains were drawn, so she knew that if there were any observers in the opposite building, her movements would not be detected as long as she was in the room. She knew that there were already men waiting for her outside her door, they were still wary of her…still contemplating whether she was waiting for them on the inside just to rattle them with bullets from her guns, "Let them contemplate all they want…they can't catch me…" she thought,

The air vent had already been unscrewed beforehand, a part of her previous plans of escape, She quickly climbed into it without a sound, and scaled the vent to the eight floor. She found what she was looking for, "Just like Sara said," she smiled—a knife, a light bag of clothes, gloves, some leather belts, and a time bomb that was to explode in fifteen minutes and counting, "Damn you Sara, that takes too long…she underestimated my timing again,"

She knew the room above her on the eighth floor was unoccupied; she had memorized the number of guests and their respective room numbers. Slowly she unscrewed the air vent and dropped blithely into the room, it was dark, but she guessed it would be so since it was empty, and besides, she knew her way around, every room of the Casa Reuber was pretty much the same, even in the arrangement of the furniture…

She wore the gloves and opened the window, and there it was…her means of escape…the banner of the Casa Reuber announcing its tenth year anniversary. Using her knife, she slashed the banner and tied it to the leather belt around her waist and tying more knots and shaping it accordingly to accommodate her plan, the banner was made of light-weight, almost cloth-like plastic that would only serve her escape well.

"It won't be long now…" she thought, then suddenly she felt a presence in the room, the darkness of the room had been given light by a flick of a switch on a reading lamp by someone who sat in the lounge chair of the mini living room, a stiff smile of hostility dawned on her face as she realized who it was,

"Hello Fenris…" Loki greeted stiffly, his green eyes showing no glint of emotion, "Your little mind games wont work on me…don't think I haven't thought about any of your probable means of escape…" He walked towards her, swinging a knife in his hand…"It just happens that you've become my assignment…" he said calmly, his voice filled with slight boredom, obviously, he had considered her an easy victim.

She laughed, "Smart, Loki…I should've guessed that Chaos wouldn't be able to figure me out, so he had to send you to finish me off…"

Loki walked towards her and with the tip of his knife, he tilted her face to meet his gaze, "Sorry Fenris, its just your bad luck…"

"A few minutes more…" she thought, "this calls for a little distraction…", as she contemplated, she knew just how to make everything go well, "I'm going to get out of this, but I might as well enjoy myself…"

Fifteen minutes after Fenris escaped, Loki stared mutely at the wall, carefully composing himself to avoid from grinning, he sat on the lounge chair of the eight floor room where he had watched his attempted victim slip through the death grip he thought he had on her life. He had known Fenris, and somehow he realized that she was definitely not the same girl he had met six years ago, she was now cunning, intelligent, and proved herself to be quite an adversary, this was the first time he had been caught off guard by a woman…and how it annoyed him to the gates of Hell, and amused him to the highest heaven of the Gods.

Gingerly, he reviewed the events that took place fifteen minutes ago. Loki had seen the mischievous gleam in Fenris's eyes and was caught off guard, without warning, she had pushed his knife aside and kissed him! "By God and the Gates of Asgard!" he cursed,

Right after the shock of what she had done, a bomb had exploded and the next thing he knew, she had used the force of the blast to propel herself with a personally crafted parachute out the window and onto the next building, where somehow, she had escaped.

"this is going to be tough to explain…" His grim thoughts brought him back from his vague amusement of Fenris, and despite the din of sounds from panicking guests and employees of the hotel, he managed to hear the sound of his cell phone ring.

"Hello," he said,

"Loki Honey, I need you over here, pronto" Lydia ordered, "Guess what? It seems someone made an attack on Miss Iris…wanna hear all about it?"

"Sorry Lydia, I have a prior engagement, why don't you pick me up later with the chopper before heading to Prontera…"

"Sure honey, of course…" she answered, though her voice showed a hint of disappointment at the latter's decline of her invitation, "Where do I pick you up?"

Chaos looked over Iris's pale face on the white sheets of the hospital bed, feeling almost sorry for her…despite his lack of sensitivity towards the young lass, his father had been right, she was his responsibility and he had carelessly ignored her safety for several times over. Yesterday afternoon's attempt on her life had been too much…the doctors said she had almost died, but there had been another theory on his mind…the forensic study of the dextrose revealed that the dosage of poison allowed to circulate through her body was only half of the lethal dosage. The attacker had purposely given her just enough to make her suffer for a full thirty minutes by lack of air, suffocation, and chest pains, until the doctors managed to finally relieve her.

Iris's eyes opened slowly, her vision was vague, but though she could hardly see clearly, and her body still weak from her convulsions, she still managed to recognize Chaos, and scold him. "You jerk…you almost had me killed with the indolent guards you put on my watch…" she snarled,

Chaos stiffened, but remained silent…

"You're pulling the silent treatment, eh?" Iris drawled, "That wont work on me…I can rant and talk all I want and you can't stop me…"

But he ignored her completely, and fixed his gaze on the bedroom wall. Obviously, his thoughts had gone from his fiancé to another. Iris pouted snootily, her eyes spiteful and angry. "You're thinking about her, aren't you?"

This time, Chaos noticed her, and without giving an answer, he looked away.

"Don't try to fool me, Chaos," Iris said angrily, her voice filled with rage, yet solid and composed. "I know that you've been after that Fenris girl, looking for her for six years, even despite your engagement to me…", she laughed as a wince of pain flashed across her fiancé's face, and she gathered just enough strength to make herself sit up on her bed to face him eye to eye, "Chaos, the truth is, you're just guilty, you had only wanted to marry her for the triad, didn't you? But now that she's lost her family's triad, and went missing, you realized you actually had feelings for her…"

Chaos stared silently at the wall…ignoring Iris's taunts, knowing that though she had meant it to spite him, every word she uttered was true.

Iris laughed despite her weak self, her voice the only sign of strength, her words the only weapon she possessed. "Isn't it ironic, Chaos?" she tinkered musically, "that now, the girl you loved, and probably still love, is now on a quest to kill you, even when she probably knows our men would kill her first…she'll soon be dead…Fenris is such a loser, "

Without warning, Chaos pushed her to the bed, his eyes blazing, and in a voice of carefully controlled rage, he snarled back at her, "Don't ever talk about Fenris that way again…and if I hear you mention anything about killing her…"

"Is that a threat, Chaos?" Iris snickered, despite the mounting fear she had in her chest. Chaos loosened his grip on her, and began walking out the door. "Chaos," she called, just as he stood with his hand on the doorknob, ready to leave her, "I'm not going to lose you…what Lady Iris wants, Lady Iris gets, and you're mine…no one…not even Fenris will take you away from me without a fight…"

Just as Chaos closed the door, he cursed under his breath, his chest was heaving with the rage he had so withheld from letting lose on Iris. As he retrieved a cigarette from his pocket and lit it, he gradually noticed a change in his spirit, feeling his anger slowly ebb away, and soon…he was back to his normal and playfully laid back self, reaching for his cell phone, he dialled Loki's number and waited for him to answer, "Loki, have you got your weapons ready for tonight?"

Somewhere in the streets of Izlude, Sara Irine watched the merchants selling their trade, her eyes watched them surreptitiously with the trained eye of a hired spy. She had left nothing amiss…it was already in her nature to take note of everything, and observe everyone, a habit borne of years of experience and constant practice.

She heard the shower in the bathroom stop, and waited for Fenris to emerge. "Enjoy your shower?" she asked, noticing the calmly relaxed expression on Fenris's face as she dried her dark hair with a towel.

"Definitely," she answered,

"I finally heard about your dramatic escape…it's all over the grapevines…but I prefer it if you told me yourself…" Sara said, urging Fenris to take a seat, while she herself sat behind her desk, waiting patiently for information.

"Sara, knowing you, I'll even guess you were the one who spread all details of my escape," Fenris said seriously, though a smile edged her lips, "I'm sure you somehow kept an eye on me…"

Sara smiled, "Bingo," she chuckled, "I did sell the details of your escape for a hefty sum of money, and my intuitions are once again right—you're definitely good for my business,"

"How is that?"

"You're mere return has caused a great tumult among the triad organizations, so that even the most insignificant details of your person could be sold at high bids…"

Fenris dried her hair with a towel and leaned against the chair before Sara, "Well, spill it, what can you say?"

"Well, I must admit, I did underestimate your timing, if I'd known you were a lot quicker, I'd have set the bomb to explode much much earlier…" Sara said, and at once her eyes took on an impish gleam, "But just for the record, I made no mention of your little playfulness with that Loki guy…"

At the mention of Loki, Fenris stopped drying her hair, and let the towel fall on her shoulders, "How did you manage to spy on me again?"

"I have my ways, Fenris," Sara smiled, "But don't worry, I don't intrude on your privacy, I only spy on details which I know would help me with my trade…"

Fenris stood up and began to leave, "I'll go shopping for a while, call a hotel nearby and ask for a reservation under a false name—Ellen Romiere" she directed, and as she left, she hastily added, "And Sara…"

"Hmmm?"

"About Loki…"

"He's cute…"

"I didn't mean it that way" Fenris glared, while Sara maintained her impish grin.

"I understand," Sara smiled, "As usual I make no mention of this…but it's going to cost you…"

"I'll deposit the money to your account in Zurich," Fenris informed as she walked out the door.

As Sara took a mental note to check if the money were truly deposited in her account, she couldn't help but remember the girl she had found six years ago…

Six years ago…she found Fenris lying bloody and nearly unconscious in a ditch among the sands of Morocc. She had recognized her as the young Lady of the Fenrir clan, and knew that the young eighteen year old had lost everything. She remembered everything clearly…Sara had intended to leave her, but she had seen something and heard words that made her change her mind...

She had been about to leave when Fenris clutched her ankle…and in her eyes she found a rage that had been so powerful it left Sara speechless, and despite the bleeding and the slow dissipation of her strength, Fenris had managed to declare, with a voice of such steady solidarity, that she would have her revenge, her declaration only served to earn Sara's respect,

Now, as Sara looked back on that day, six years ago, she knew her decision had been right…after having nursed the wounded Fenris back to health, the young lass was taught the basics of being a spy, and later progressed to gain the skills of a sniper and the reflexes of an assassin. Fenris managed to get enough information and sell it for Sara as a way to pay her gratitude.

In a span of six years, Fenris managed to become a full-pledged gangster, she made herself an anonymous contractor of shady deals—gun smuggling, bank robberies, and selling stolen information through Sara. In some ways, Sara even considered her a rival, for Fenris was ingenious and furthermore, they had one thing in common—they had both lost everything, and did their best to make something of themselves and exact revenge.

Sara Irine wanted to exact her revenge on the family that abandoned her…especially on Lord Irine. She remembered with such clarity…her father's betrayal of her mother's memory. It had only been a matter of days after her mother died, that Lord Irine married his mistress, Lady Peony and took in their daughter, Iris. How Sara hated them…and now, as the memory arose to her consciousness, she felt the overpowering hatred consuming her, she frowned direly, in a matter of moments she pulled a shaft at the corner of the room, a wooden door slid open and revealed a statue of her Father.

Clasping a metal staff in her hand she raised it, and with an intense force of power smashed it against the wooden statue…breaking it to pieces before her. While Sara concentrated on the broken splinters that lay on the floor, and felt her hatred slowly dissipate, she heard a light clapping coming from the doorway, she turned and saw Fenris smiling approvingly and applauding her. "Well done, Sara," Fenris commended, "I guess you're also about to get ready to start your revenge…"

Sara walked back to her chair, and smiled, "It should be about time I did…" A phone rang in the room and Sara answered it, her face suddenly took on a look of disappointment. Calmly, she answered the caller in a cold calculating voice, "Keep me posted,"

"What is it?" Fenris questioned,

"Someone attempted to poison Iris yesterday," Sara answered, her hand on her forehead, in consternation and dismay.

"Are you suddenly attacked with sentiment, Sara?" Fenris mocked, enjoying teasing the usually unruffled Sara Irine, "Any reason for that suddenly sad expression on your face? Do you suddenly feel any love for your little sister?"

"Dont make me laugh, Fenris," Sara chuckled, "Someone just happened to beat me to her…"