Chapter 20: The Plan and the Execution

A/N: I know it's been a really really long time but my summer got completely mad and that was rather annoying. But here I am again, on one of the last few chapters of this story! Ah!

Inside Shesta's and Gatti's room was where they met. All fifteen of them, surrounding Karina and Dilandau in the room. They sat on the beds, the chairs, a few were cross-legged on the ground. Their expressions were grim, somber, but with a suppressed excitement that could not quite be contained by their calm demeanor. They had no illusions that they were all going to come out of this alive, that would be ridiculous. They were the elite, but they were going against magic, science, powers that they knew nothing about. They knew swords and steel and fire and how to kill a man with bare hands, but they did not know magic, except that it had created their leader. And if Dilandau was afraid of the sorcerers, then they must be terrifying indeed.

"Are we all clear on what has to happen?" Dilandau's voice rang in the silence. He was standing in the center of the room, Karina by his side, still holding onto his hand.

The slayers nodded as one, and when he raised an eyebrow at them, quickly amended, "Yes, Dilandau-sama."

"Viole and Ryoun and I are to come from the back." Dallet said softly.

"Six of the others come from the sides, through the walls and the venting. Thanks for those schematics, Karina." Gatti smiled at her.

"You're welcome." Please God let me see them all again.

Dilandau spoke up now, waving a hand for silence. "I don't think we should speak any more of this. We already may have said too much. If they have surviellance on this room we're fucked already, no need to give them any more to go on."

Karina shook her head. "I don't think they have any idea what's coming. I would feel the adrenaline, it's one of the easiest things to feel."

Dilandau frowned. He knew the Sorcerers, and they weren't exactly human. Who was to say if they knew they were coming that they would feel adrenaline at all? Or would they just be lying in wait for them, with their needles and their poisons and their chemicals? Would they turn them into ghastly semblances of their former selves? Would they kill them all? But Dilandau kept his fears to himself.

Karina squeezed his hand ever so slightly, feeling his anxiety. She was carefully blocking his thoughts from her mind, despite their bare hands being entwined. She knew he was not comfortable with the fact that she could pick apart his brain in seconds, and she did not want to give him reason to fear her as he already did.

"Time to go." Dilandau said, glancing at the clock in the room. "If we don't accomplish this within the next hour, we can safely bet that we're all dead. But we won't die. We're the fucking elite. And if you fail me I will haunt you into eternity." He smiled slightly. "We won't fail."

They left individually, leaving in small groups a few minutes apart from eachother. Some used the adjoining doors and exited from other rooms so as to make the mass exit less suspicious, some left laughing and joking, staggering as if they were drunk. Technically it was the Slayers' one night off for the week, and their best bet was to pretend they were enjoying, and not possibly going to their deaths. True, there were only four Sorcerers, and fifteen elite soldiers and a telepath, but the Sorcerers were far older and more experienced than the Slayers, and they had the Strategos on their side, who was not named so for nothing.

Dilandau and Karina were the last to leave, along with Gatti and Miguel. Miguel was silent for once in his life, grim and purposeful along with the rest of them.

Dilandau nodded to them as they parted ways, Gatti and Miguel had a job to do, but so did the telepath, one that would require protecting her.

The two of them made their way to the control room, the access code to which only three people knew, and Dilandau was not one of them. Karina closed her eyes and put her hands on the security device. Numbers ran through her head, hundreds of them, thousands of them, different codes, codes that were changed daily. But the most recent code was... gone.

Karina opened her eyes. "There's no code for today. It's just not there. The most recently used code was used yesterday afternoon. There's nothing newer. We could try that one—"

"No, we can't. A wrong code and you die. Literally. There's a poison that's released by this after the first incorrect try. A small amount, but potent. After fifteen minutes it's diluted enough by the air to make it harmless, but to somebody standing right here, it's deadly and painful."

"So it's nerve gas."

Dilandau's brow furrowed. "We call it the eating gas, but yes, it is essentially nerve destroying."

"So what are we supposed to do?"

Dilandau sidled up to the tiny window in the door and scanned the room inside. There was nobody there, nor did it appear that anything inside had been touched for at least a day.

"Can you do it from outside?" he asked hesitantly.

Karina blinked. "I've never done anything like that before. I tend to have to touch things to have anything happen. You know that, I can't read your mind unless I touch you."

He looked steadily at her and his brow furrowed slightly. "Can you try?"

Her eyes traveled to the door and she closed her eyes. "What happens if the door breaks?"

Dilandau shrugged. "We die."

Karina smiled weakly. "Good to know."

Slowly she placed her hands on the door, closing her eyes and feeling through to the other side with her mind. She could see the inside of the control room perfectly, and she turned, around to the door. There it was, cold and hard and forbidding. She felt she could see herself through the inches thick metal, concentrating so hard on opening it. A jolt went through the door and it slid silently open.

Karina drew back, her breath coming slightly faster than she thought it should. "We're not dead," she observed.

Dilandau grinned. "No, we're not." He stalked quickly into the room, looking around warily to see if anybody awaited them inside. He turned, motioning for Karina to enter. His hands were at once at the controls, switching levers and depressing buttons with speed that could only be superhuman. At each change in the controls he made there came a demand from the screen for a password, and each time Karina placed her hands gently on the panel and supplied one, for these were not changed daily, but weekly, and so the codes from this week were still in the database.

After several minutes he rose and cracked his knuckles with a ruthless little smile.

"Are they all inside?" Karina asked softly.

"Yes," the smile not leaving his face.

"And all the doors are open..."

"To be sealed once we enter and enter the code."

"There will be nowhere to run," Karina pointed out softly.

"That's the point. So that they cannot escape."

"For either side."

Dilandau's eyes darkened. "I know, but we have to. We will not fail. We can't. And I don't know if all of us will come out alive, but the Sorcerers and Folken will die. I can't share Gaea with them."

"Please don't say 'us' that way. We're not going to die."

"Some of us might." he said casually.

Karina shook her head. "You won't."

His eyes flickered down to her face and he stepped closer to her. "No, I won't. And you won't leave."

She smiled. "I don't think I can."

He frowned. "But you won't. Promise."

Her eyes met him, and she recalled how she had thought that they looked like passion, like fire but soulless, so long ago. "I promise I won't leave."

A smile unlike the ruthless one he had displayed regarding the fate of the Sorcerers played about his lips and he pulled her to him with one quick motion. His lips came down on hers, hard, a rough kiss that said more than he thought he could right now.

"Good."

A/N: So how do we like this? I confess that I haven't had much time to write. School and summer have been crazy and I know it's been ages since I last updated, so please please PLEASE review for me! Last two chappies coming up.