[A/N]: Here's another chapter! I hope you enjoy!

Disclaimer: I do not own Arpeggio Of Blue Steel,

Also, check out Touhoufanatic's fic Daemons Of The Fog, if you haven't already

"And I do believe that concludes interrogation five of Fog subject zero-zero-four. Results from test three show that Fog have a human-like resistance to electrical current, and for safety sake we limited the current of this test to a maximum of two hundred milliamps for six seconds, with a minimum of one-oh-five for fifteen seconds."

"You… sadistic bitch…" I groan, breathing heavily from the repeated shocks that I've endured for the past hour.

"Just tell us what we want to know and we won't have to shock you." She shrugs nonchalantly, pulling the SD card out of the camera and pocketing it. "See you in a few hours~!"

She walks out, being followed out by the two soldiers. Once she's gone I fully relax, slumping to fully hang by my arms.

"Timer, four hours, begin." I mumble, feeling completely exhausted. A small holopanel appears in midair a couple feet away, counting down from four hours.

'Better sleep while I can…'

The sound of the door opening wakes me up, and when I look up slowly I find my dad closing the door behind him.

"Christ… is it time for me to roleplay a spark plug again...?" I groan, not bothering to move.

"Nope, but I got you some clothes. Hopefully they still fit." He pulls a bag off his shoulder and drops it to the floor. "I've got a pair of keys for your cuffs too."

"Oh God thank you." I mutter under a sigh of relief. He walks over to me and undoes the cuffs, allowing me to drop to the floor before he helps me into a chair and hands me a shirt.

I try to raise my arms up, but find myself completely unable to do so. He seems to notice this, and slides the shirt down over my head so I have an easier job getting my arms into the sleeves.

Then he undoes the cuffs on my ankles and throws me a pair of underwear, for which I am grateful until he wrinkles his nose. "Ugh, you smell worse than your gym bag at home."

"Well, since my clothes got taken away I don't have any spare nanomaterials that I could use for hygiene, sooooo yeah." I mutter shamefully while slipping on the undergarments. Finally he throws a pair of cargo pants and zips up the bag. "I won't ask you to get strung up again. If you want to run…"

"No. I don't want you to lose your job and get charged with treason. Go ahead, slap 'em on." I hold out my wrists and smile at him, leaving him shocked for a second before he reluctantly puts the cuffs on and helps me stand. I shuffle over to the shackle on the wall and try my best to hold my arms up while he struggles to secure the lock.

I'm about to jokingly offer if he wants me to help when a grate on the ceiling comes crashing down with a clatter, with the fleets resident sociopath sitting on it rubbing her butt as she got up and brushed herself off.

"Ah, fucking grate, of all the ones to break its the smallest one of course! Bloody useless human engineering I oughta-"

My dad turns around and drops the keys in shock, staring at Scylla while I hang from the unlocked shackle. "Holy shit Scylla. Of all the people I thought I'd never be glad to see. And dressed as a fuckin' ninja no less."

Scylla turns around to me with a grin. "Oh, Alaska, I didn't expect to find you so quickly honestly. Huh, that might make things-" she stops as she suddenly sees my dad. "Sweet, I get to kill someone now." She says as her metal arm forms a Glowing dark green blade out of its back.

"Scylla if you lay a finger on him so help me God I will tear you to ribbons."

Scylla stops before talking even a full step and just looks at me, then at my dad then back to me. "Do I really need to explain why being seen at this point is a bad thing?"

"No, but this is my dad, and he's chill. I know for a fact that he won't say anything."

Scylla scowls and looks at my dad, who at this point already has a hand on his sidearm, out of her sight. "I swear to whatever lives in the dark abyss if an alarm goes off in the next day I'm flooding these halls with blood!" She states, before the glowing blade disappears from her arm and she stands up straight.

"Dad, please, take these damn cuffs off before sparky or whatever the fuck her name is comes back."

Breaking eye contact from Scylla he removes his hand from his sidearm and bends over, grabbing the keys before helping me into a seat.

"May as well get back up there honestly then." Scylla suddenly says. "We don't have a way out just yet, and I still haven't found our other objective. So I may have to leave you here for a bit longer."

"Scylla? I just spent three days being experimented on as a punching bag and a glorified spark plug. Shut the fuck up please."

She just shrugs and leans against the wall for a moment, seeming to take in the room.

With a click the handcuffs fall to the floor, and then I feel the cuffs on my ankles loosen up a second later. I try to stand, but find I really can't keep myself steady enough.

"There. I'll leave. Is there any help you need?" He asks me.

"There is one thing."

"What?"

"Pistol."

He sighs and removes the pistol from the holster, handing it to me. "I only have one magazine."

"That's fine."

*WHAP!*

I strike him in the back of the head with the pistol after giving him a kiss, knocking him unconscious.

"... What part of we have no way out yet, and I haven't found our other objective did you miss?" Scylla said as she looked at my dad with a neutral expression, as if totally unaffected by what I just did.

"What other objective…?" I ask, stuffing the pistol in my waistband.

"The tablet aurora picked up, it had information on a weapon. A land based turreted Electromagnetic Pulse Cannon, capable of reaching nearly two hundred kilometers away from shore. It would paralyze Mental models for a time, or completely kill us Hybrids. Brisky wants it either deactivated or destroyed before we get you out of here. And we've only been here for about a day now. I've only searched half the base for it"

"He wouldn't know where it is, but let's get out of here, help me up."

"Haaa, We're going to set off so many fucking alarms." Scylla complains as she crouched down under the hole she fell through.

"Well… things might go smoothly for once, but yeah, I'm not hopeful."

"Ugh. Either get up there or chain yourself back up." Scylla says with a growl as she looks at me and then up at the hole in the ceiling.

"I'm working on it, as I said, I'm not exactly in the best of condition right now!" I groan while standing up. I limp over to Scylla and put my foot on her shoulder, boosting myself up rather painfully into the vent. "If we don't have a ride outta here yet then at least -nngh- tell me we have a place to hide."

"Um, kind of. It was sent to me a few minutes ago. But it's just one of the dorm rooms, and if alarms start going off they might get searched," Scylla explained as I climb up into the vent, almost catching on the rough edges.

"Well then let's not set any off, yeah?" I chuckle, my voice slightly reverberating in the air duct.

"Talk quieter!" Scylla hisses as she leaps up and climbs into the vent, only to turn around and do something, the sound like a cable, then a blow torch. "There, they shouldn't notice now. Maybe they'll think you left through the door. Head that way, there's a larger areas where you can sit down if you need it while i try to figure where to go, and where that room is."

I move in the direction indicated, sliding my sore limbs on the metal to avoid banging. Eventually we do indeed reach a larger area, and I take a breather while Scylla looks at schematics. Then an idea dawns on me.

"Hey, you got a way to make it seem like I'm escaping? If we can make it seem like I've stolen a car or something then that'll draw their attention elsewhere after we're already in the dorm." I whisper, looking over at her hopefully.

"Um, I didn't see to many cars around. If we could rig some kind of control to one of the PT boats at the docks it might work. Could strap a bomb on it to, just for some more effect."

"Pffft, you've got all you need for a control method right there in your arm. If we can get it out to the strait and then have it just randomly stop, that should do it."

"Hmm, might have enough extra material on me. But I might lose my shoes or pants though".

"For God sake keep your pants on. I only need like a shoelace worth to make it work."

"Oh, that's fine then, though I could just make shorts if need be. We'll need to get over to the engineering warehouse, that's where I stashed some. . . . presents I found. And the PT's were just outside it. . . . unless they went out to sea already."

"Let's just focus on getting to the dorm for now. I haven't hardly slept as of late."

"Fine, this way." Scyla says as she jumps up and crawls into an air duct, making it looks easy as she grumbles to herself. "And here I was hoping to execute an entire science division tonight."

When it's time to make a break for the dorm Scylla and I come down from the roof. While I admit it felt kinda badass, I was really too tired to care too much about it. She stayed up on the roof while lowering me on a thin cable from her arm, and once we were sure it was the correct room I lifted the window open.

With a clumsy roll I let go of the cable and look up at the ceiling, really feeling every single minute of torture that was inflicted upon me.

Then a familiar face peers down at me from the corner of my peripheral vision, followed by a meek, yet concerned voice. "Alaska…? You alright?"

I nod and grunt, trying to catch my breath. "Yeah. I think."

Then Cheyenne enters my field of view, peering down at me with a shocked expression. "My word… what did they do to you…?"

"Torture. Literal. Fucking. Torture."

"Then she decked her old man," Scylla suddenly said as she swung down through the window and sat on its sil. "It was great!"

"Why are you dressed like a sporty ninja?" I hear Mobile ask from somewhere off to my left.

"Because it fits! Why else?" Scylla chirps. "So, Alaska was serious about not staying in her cell and being an outlet, but I still haven't found that gun yet, so I'm going to go do that. She's your problem now!"

I hear a quiet crunch of boots on gravel outside, and decide to start the conversation with a bombshell for Roberts and Cheyenne. "Mobile, I now understand why you kill people so willingly, and if I find the bitch that lead those interrogations she is done."

"Heh, no offense but right now you don't look like you could kill a fly."

I glare at her before sitting up, and when I stretch my arms Cheyenne wrinkles her nose. "Yuck! You smell like sweat!"

"I don't wanna talk about it, just get me to a shower or something. And Mobile, that's why I borrowed this." I raise the back of my shirt to show her the pistol before Cheyenne starts to help me up. We manage to get me standing and Cheyenne starts steering me towards a door in the corner of the room.

"Come on, we'll get you an actual shower."

"You want me to let everyone know we've got her? I'm sure everyone will be able to relax a little." Roberts asks, putting a pink eraser under the window so it's just slightly open.

"Send Enterprise and Intrepid a message." Cheyenne responds, helping me limp through the threshold into the bathroom.

"Aaand sent."

After a nanomaterial-assisted shower I manage to get myself dressed using some loaned nanomaterials from Roberts and crash on her bed, abandoning my previous plan to make a faked escape.

I keep my father's sidearm close by, and the second my head hits the pillow I'm out like a light.

I'm awoken by Roberts, who has a cautious gaze in the low-light conditions. "Gunshots by the dome. Be ready in case we gotta hide you or squirt outta here."

I give a sleepy nod and sit up slowly, my aching body protesting even the smallest of movements. Across the room Cheyenne is snoring softly, and Mobile is sitting on the edge of her bed, continuously changing the blade style of a knife in her hand while staring at the door expectantly.

"Those were five-five-six from the sound of 'em, muffled too so they might've been inside the dome." Mobile mumbles absentmindedly, barely loud enough for us to hear her.

"I thought they were pistol shots. Shows just how much I know." Roberts shrugs and moves over to wake up Cheyenne. "Oh yeah, and Alaska? Enterprise wanted me to thank you for turning off your distress signal."

"Uhh… I turned it off?" I ask, pulling up a holopanel in front of me. "Yeah, no. I didn't turn it off. It's still running on level two."

"Run a diagnostic."

…

"Uhhh… I think there's something wrong with my core." I state very matter-of-factly.

"No shit? Run a diagnostic." Roberts snips back.

"That's the thing. It's not working."

"What do you mean it's not working? It's a union core, not a laptop." Mobile asks, looking at me.

"I mean it's not, fucking, working. The diagnostic won't start. That, combined with the fact that my klein field is still at ninety-four percent saturation and the fact that I still hurt like hell all point to something being seriously wrong with my core."

"Hold still hun', I'll run a diagnostic for you." Cheyenne yawns, having been shaken awake by Roberts. She walks over to me and places her hands on my shoulders, holding them there for a minute or so before she lifts them off. "My God… Most of your communications systems are nonfunctional, your medical systems are functional, but at this point they're keeping you alive and nothing more. And your klein field generator is nonfunctional."

"Guess the electricity did a lot more than they thought…" I mutter, putting my head in my hands. "Why does this shit always happen to me?"

"Heh. You get used to things going to hell after a while. Some of us just have the devil's luck." Mobile chuckles darkly, turning the knife she was holding into a wristwatch. "I'm starting to think I was just having a flashback of some sort. We haven't heard any sort of alarm, and there haven't been anymore gunshots."

"But I heard 'em too. Maybe Scylla had a run-in with a guard?"

"I don't know, but stay ready. She might be working on her second objective."

We continue to all sit there for a while. Each minute dragging on seemingly endlessly, until the wailing of an alarm breaks the silence.

Mobile straightens up attentively, then after a few seconds of muttering to herself she stands up. "Alright, we've got a way out of here. Let's move."

We all rise quickly, and as I tuck the pistol into my waistband Roberts grabs hold of me, lifting me off my feet and shifting me into a bridal carry.

"Shall we?"

"I hate playing the damsel in distress, but yeah let's do it."

Cheyenne grabs the window and holds it open for Roberts and I. Roberts squeezes my legs to my chest in order to fit both of us through, and we fall onto the grass with a gentle crunch. Mobile and Cheyenne jump down behind us, with the latter turning the landing into an elegant twirl, dropping into a crouch to watch while Mobile leads on.

At first nobody bothers us, but when an academy student runs up to us and grabs Robert's arm, trying to steer us towards a nearby building, Mobile completely blows cover, turning her wristwatch into a K-bar and stabbing the guy in the throat. His hand lets go of Roberts and flies up to his throat, trying to stop the bleeding as he crumples to his knees.

Not one of us say anything. Cheyenne kicks him in the chest and sends him sprawling while Roberts continues to run, carrying me. We get noticed by a soldier, and he starts to run towards us, but an explosion rocks the base, and he changes his mind, instead running towards the site of the explosion.

Mobile diverts us through an alley, towards the docks, and after a brief breather we run through the docks, somehow evading any soldiers Mobile doesn't kill, and as we approach what I'm told is our destination the domed structure above the academy explodes, sending pieces of metal and concrete showering all over the area as we scramble for a small office-looking building.

"We're almost there! Down the stairs, then kill 'em all!" Mobile cheers, leading the way down the stairs.

"Alright put me down." I tell Roberts, and thankfully she puts me on my feet without protest. I pull the pistol out of my waistband and pull the slide back enough the check if it has one in the chamber. Finding the chamber empty I scowl and pull the slide all the way back before letting it jerk forward, inserting a round into the chamber.

'Come on old man, you know better!'

Seeing my change in attitude Roberts motions for me to take the lead, and I follow behind Mobile, holding the pistol as my dad taught me.

Up above explosions can be heard, and the floor vibrates with every decent blast. Another explosion down the stairwell slows Mobile and I down to a slow walk. I pat her on the shoulder and take the lead with the pistol, walking through an open door into a large room. The biggest mistake I make is not checking to the sides.

"Hello there Alaska. Hands up!" A familiar feminine voice barks to my left. I pivot on one foot and raise the gun, to find Karla standing there, a pistol pointed at me. "I'm going to give you a chance. Give up now and we won't experiment on you any fur-"

I put the sights on her chest and pull the trigger twice, the shots echoing through the drydock as she drops to the ground. I walk towards her quickly, taking long strides until I'm above her.

Then, staring her in the eyes, I fire the first round into her stomach, then the second, and the third. I kick her in the side and shoot her in the shoulder.

"It hurts, doesn't it, bitch?! It's not so enjoyable now that you're on the receiving end!" I fire a round into her other shoulder before emptying the rest of the magazine into her chest, watching her writhe in pain with a grin on my face.

I kick her again before I feel a gentle hand on my shoulder.

"Come on, let's get out of here before the whole base descends upon us." Cheyenne mutters, a look of fear in her eyes.

'What does she have to be scared of…? Oh.'

I nod and look back down at the writhing lieutenant before picking up her pistol. "You're not worthy of mercy bitch, but here it is."

With that, one final shot echoes across the drydock, and I drop the pistol next to the now still corpse, feeling oddly accomplished.

"Ignoring the bloody pointless mercy killing, would you gals get over here already!? As soon as the doors fully open there'll be enough water to cut these clamps and get out of here!" Scylla yells from aboard the Fog heavy cruiser.

I start to step away from the corpse, then think twice and grab the pistol off of her, taking the nearly full magazine for good measure. Then I follow everyone up to the ship, across a walkway that Mobile made, to where Scylla is standing on the deck.

"I'll give you credit Scylla, you sure know how to raise hell." I chuckle, exchanging the pistol magazines and stuffing the empty one in my pocket. "So where's the Fog whom we owe our escape to?"

"I ate her." Scylla shrugs as the AA guns along the superstructure start cutting away the clamps holding the ship in the drydock. I stare at her to see if she's joking, but her expression is completely serious.

"You what?" Mobile asks, sounding slightly shocked. Before Scylla can answer the clamps holding the ship aloft break, and the entire ship drops from under our feet, falling at least a couple feet and dropping all of us on the deck except for Scylla.

"I ate her. Broke down her core and consumed it. Her core was damaged and she wouldn't survive being moved. So she asked me to consume her core so I could control her body and take it out of human hands."

"Well… That's… certainly something." I mutter, standing up with the help of the railing. "But storytime can wait, let's get out of here before we get blockaded."

"Enterprise is launching planes to flatten this drydock once we're out of here." Roberts reports. "And Guam is leading a flotilla to cover us once we reach the strait."

"Probably won't need it." Scylla says with a shrug as she literally jumps up from the deck onto the top of the superstructure, just as the ship begins to slowly move forward. "I might have lit half the dock on fire with flaming munitions from the shore gun and warehouse."

"There's more lining the strait. Lots of 'em. Tell E to swing the planes south over the Olympic peninsula, there's some anti-aircraft batteries along the strait." I tell Roberts as I start towards the superstructure.

I foolishly try to open a comms link with Scylla, and almost instantly I'm slammed with a massive migraine, causing me to stumble and grab onto the nearest object to steady myself, which is a pit shield for an Oerlikon mount.

"You okay, I felt a twinge." Scylla asks curiously.

"Yeah I'm fine." I say almost as a automatic response. "Just a headache. Could you give me controls for one of the five-inch mounts?"

"Oh good idea. I'll pass out controls for the guns. Be careful though, as this ship is slaved, there's a delay for like, everything!"

"No, not system controls, I mean like, actual physical controls. My core's fucked up and I don't want to push my luck."

"Oh. That explains the twinge then. Creating some controls now. Might be a bit stiff though."

I climb up the ladders and stairways to the wheelhouse, where there's multiple sets of joysticks set up along the front of the wheelhouse, though not clearly labeled it's easy enough to figure out which joystick controls which gun, and I grab the controls for the fore superfiring five-inch mount. "Good enough for me! So long as I'm not twiddling my thumbs!"

"This'll be just like a video game!" Mobile cheers, grabbing controls for one of the main turrets.

We sail straight out of the dry-dock and immediately come under fire from a guided missile destroyer. I quickly slew my gun over to aim at it and fire, but due to my malfunctioning core and awkward positioning of the ship the dual lances of plasma go wide, flying clean over the ship without doing anything.

"Hey Alaska, you missed." Roberts snickers.

"Shut up, it's not easy for me right now!"

"No it's the ship." Scylla suddenly says. "Because it's slaved to my core it's like a secondary connection, so everything lags a bit. It makes it a bit hard to steer actually."

"Plus I don't actually have a way to aim this thing. I just kinda have to point it in the general direction and adjust off the shots." I grumble, adjusting the gun down slightly and firing again, only for it to splash short.

"Hey Alaska, you missed again."

I let go of the turret controls and step to the side. "You want to try? I don't see you doing anything."

"Nah I'm good. I've got my ship on the way with Guam right now."

I step back to the controls and fire again after another adjustment, this time the shots hit home in the superstructure of the ship, and I make one final adjustment before laying into the destroyer, perforating it along the waterline until it explodes.

"Good shot!" Mobile cheers, firing the superfiring main turret at a frigate anchored nearby. The ship explodes with the first salvo and immediately starts to sink, the deck burning all the while.

And just like that, the resistance to our exit stops. No missiles are shot at us. No shore guns sling projectiles at us. The only sounds are those of ammunition cooking off and the fires raging on the pier, and as we put some distance between us and my would-be prison, even those fade away. I leave the wheelhouse and descend to the deck, heading fore to the bow and sitting down on a mooring bollard.

I sit there for hardly a minute before hanging my head and letting the tears flow freely.

'I wanna go home…!'