"Uhg!" Katie groaned as Amy elbowed her in the sternum, causing her to fly back and fall to the ground. Athrun tried to take advantage of the hit by grabbing Amy around the waist, but he might as well have grabbed a raging bull for all the good it did. She clubbed him on the back of the head with both fists, stunning him. She helped him get to the ground by shoving her knee into his chin. Ysak whirled back into the fight after recovering from a previous throw. He punched her across the jaw three times, right-left-right, but the combination only seemed to make her angrier.
"Aren't you worried about your friends?" she spat. "Frost is probably skinning the girls right now. That's what he does, you see. Skins them alive, keeps them skinless and alive and then brutally rapes them. You can hear the screams for miles. It's his favorite form of killing." She gloated. Ysak growled and punched her again, but this time she retaliated by punching back, catching him just below the throat and driving the air out of him.
"Damn you!" Athrun raged, his eyes going vacant as he went Berserker. In the space of the next three seconds he landed more than seven blows. Amy fell back under his furious onslaught, spitting blood from a split lip and bloody nose. Suddenly, Athrun stopped, his fists caught in mid swing by her hands. With a motion like a whip cracking, Amy rolled and slammed Athrun into the ground head first, his head cracking backwards agonizingly. His body fell to the ground and went limp. Amy looked from Ysak to Katie.
"How about I show you what MY favorite form of killing is?" Amy said with a smile. She scurried over to Katie, looking for all the world like a four legged spider as she bobbed along the ground. Katie tried to fight her off, but all the combat training in the world won't help you against someone who is far stronger, faster and tougher than you are. Amy just didn't seem to feel pain.
"If you… if you touch her, I'll kill you." Ysak spat, coughing up a wad of bloody mucus.
"Touch her? You mean like this?" Amy asked, grabbing Katie by the hair with one hand and yanking her head back painfully, baring her throat to the sky. Meanwhile, Amy used her right leg as a bar to bend Katie over backwards, so that her back was level to the ground, her throat bared and her open mouth facing Ysak.
"Kill you…" Ysak mumbled, shambling to his feet. Amy shoved her long fingers into Katie's open mouth and grabbed her tongue.
"Take one step closer, lover boy, and I'll tear out her tongue. She'll bleed to death within minutes, if she doesn't drown in her own blood first. Girls who were about to be raped used to commit suicide this way, back a few centuries ago." Amy informed him coldly. Ysak paused, torn between two desires. He hungered to destroy this beast that masqueraded as a girl in front of him, but he would not be the cause of death for Katie. His sentimentality surprised him until he finally decided to just screw it and admit it. I care about Katie and Chanel. They bug the hell out of me, but they really do like me. And I really do like them. Sure, they are a bit maniacal sometimes, like when they broke into my room. But now I can see that they only did that because they care. Sure, it's a misplaced way of showing it, but when you have had nothing, you tend to grasp onto what you can get tighter than need be. Like me and mother.
"What now, then?" Ysak asked, panting. "If I move, you'll kill her. If you kill her, I'll kill you. Stalemate."
"What makes you think I want to live?" Amy asked coyly.
"What?" Ysak said, disbelieving. "Are you crazy?"
"Yes." She replied simply. "I'm a homicidal maniac. I'm also chronically depressed and obsessive. I've had teams of experts evaluating me for most of my life, so I know. It doesn't bother me. It doesn't bother my keepers either. I was made the way I am today so I could serve their ends. That I'm a crazy bitch because of it doesn't make them feel bad."
"You seem pretty lucid and rational for a madwoman." Ysak noted. Amy smiled.
"Please, give me some credit. Just because I'm insane doesn't mean I have to gibber and drool. If you want that, you should go to Zacharis." She told him. "I'm going to kill her now. Then I'm going to kill you. And then the other girl. And then I'm going to go help Zacharis with the others."
It was at this time that Chanel, who had been sneaking up on Amy this entire time after recovering her breath, grabbed Amy by the hair and yanked her head back. "God damn you!" Chanel sobbed and drove her thumb into Amy's left eye. Amy screamed in agony and tried to twist away. In the process, she released Katie, who fell to the ground gagging. That was all Ysak needed. The chains around his mind seemed to fall away. For a brief instant, he saw what appeared to be a blue seed explode inside his mind. Everything seemed clearer… slower… more understandable. Ysak darted across the space between him and Amy. Amy had just managed to twist away and repel Chanel with a wild hand chop to the jaw, which sent the smaller girl tumbling to the ground again when Ysak hit her like a bolt of lightning. Blood streamed from her now ruined left eye socket and Ysak took advantage of her sudden blindness to give her a flying kick to the left knee, which shattered the bone like so much glass. She started to fall, but he caught her by the throat and pulled her close so he could slam his forehead into her nose, breaking the cartilage messily.
"I'm going to make you regret being born." Ysak promised.
"I already do." Amy spat back, driving her fingers into his groin and grabbing hold. She started to squeeze. No physical agony in Ysak's life had ever been greater. Not even when his view screen in the Duel exploded and gave him his facial scar. However, the emotional torment of knowing that if he dropped out, Katie and Chanel would be brutally murdered kept Ysak going, even when Amy added a twisting motion to her vicious attack. A sudden roaring sound filled the air.
"GAAAAH!" Ysak screamed, releasing a tiny portion of his pain and then driving his doubled fists into Amy's nose. Cartilage and bone splinters sprayed from the impact point deep into her brain. She twitched once… twice… and then utterly relaxed. She kept breathing, but Ysak wouldn't have bet on her ever having a coherent thought ever again. Ysak collapsed right after she fell, the pain between his legs radiating outwards in never ending waves.
--------------------------------------------
The roar of the off-road vehicle thrummed into Alkire's body, making the whole world seem to vibrate slightly. He spun the wheel to avoid hitting a clump of rocks protruding from the ground. Beside him, in the passenger seat, Raine chewed her lip nervously. Victor and Vlad shared the rear seat, while James stood on the cargo area, where the anti-vehicle minigun was mounted. Normally the team kept this vehicle, which was used for rapid insertion into dangerous mission areas, under lock and key in one of Alkire's storage hangers at the Bern International Airport. However, they had retrieved it for tonight's mission, because driving across open space was impractical in Alkire's Ferrari, and very uncomfortable in any of the other cars the team regularly used.
"I hope we make it in time." Raine said, clutching her hand rests as Alkire jumped the jeep over a small ravine.
"We still haven't ascertained whether or not there's anything wrong." Victor shouted from the back seat.
"I can't believe I let the girls go to a party at Zunnichi's house! I'm must be getting stupid!" Vlad yelled, still kicking himself.
"Hold on… we're entering the mission area." Alkire said, driving the jeep up a long incline towards a wooden fence. "I'm going to boost over it!" he shouted, referring to one of Vlad's custom additions, which consisted of three small two use rockets mounted under the body of the jeep. The jeep's engine screamed and everyone yelled as Alkire punched the button, lifting the jeep into the air on a pillar of flame. The jeep sailed over the eight-foot high fence with feet to spare before landing hard on the other side, nearly throwing James off.
"I still can't believe that thing actually works!" Raine shouted as they drove on.
"You're a genius, Vladimir!" Alkire howled in glee as they tore across Zunnichi's property. Vlad smiled briefly before returning to kicking himself for letting the girls get into danger.
"Hold on! I see gunfire!" Raine cried, pointing at the forest. Alkire hit the brakes and slewed the jeep to a stop.
"Where?" Victor asked. His question was answered a moment later as the report of continuous automatic fire resounded from the forest. "Submachine gun, full auto." Victor identified, quite unnecessarily.
"I'm headed towards that clearing we saw on the satellite map!" Alkire decided, as he forced the jeep through its gears again, tires chewing through the turf. The map hadn't been that good, but they had been in a rush too, and it did show most major features of the area. The jeep flew through the woods, trees whispering by on either side, underbrush splattering against the undercarriage. Within a minute they had gotten to the forest clearing. The jeep bounded out of the woods and Alkire threw it into a 360-degree skid. Raine leaped from the jeep the moment it stopped moving and ran towards her adopted sisters, pistol raised. The boy with the scar on his face, Ysak, was grappling with a freakishly large girl. The girl had Ysak by the balls, literally, while Ysak was just raising his doubled fists for another attack. As Raine brought her gun up, Ysak swung, impacting the girl directly on her already smashed nose. The girl collapsed like her strings had been cut.
"She's dead." Victor commented, his sword drawn. "Bone splinters in the brain."
"Are the girls okay?" Alkire shouted from the driver's seat of the jeep. Along with James and the minigun, he was mobile artillery for this mission. With Vlad and Victor flanking her, Raine ran to Chanel and Katie, who were clustered around Ysak, weeping.
"You girls okay?" Raine asked, skidding to a stop next to them. They looked at her with tear stained faces. Both looked like someone… probably the large girl… had been tossing them around the clearing for a while. They were covered with scrapes, bruises and small cuts.
"We're fine. Just a little banged up." Chanel replied.
"Ysak's hurt though. She used one of those moves you told us we should never use, except to save our lives." Katie added.
"God… damn." Ysak gritted, slowly unbending. "Feels like she crushed it." he whimpered.
"It will feel that way, for a while." Raine said, with sympathy. Meanwhile Victor and Vlad were checking the clearing.
"We got eleven dead and another kid wounded." Victor reported, holding Athrun in his arms. "His neck is sprained and he's got a bad concussion, but he'll live. As for the dead, well, eight of them got plugged from behind, clean shots, one took it in the throat, another the base of the neck and the third the left temple. I'm pretty sure the kid that got it in the temple is Sark's kid."
"Asmodeus's son? Well, at last someone got the little devil." Raine replied, not displeased at all.
"The other's are all Blue Cosmos, the really devoted ones." Vlad declared. As for the kid you got there, Victor, that's Athrun Zala. Be careful with him."
"Athrun ZALA?" Victor replied, his voice cracking slightly. "You mean the son of the former chairman of the PLANT Supreme Council… the SON of the man who tried to destroy Earth?"
"Yes. That one. He's also, incidentally enough, the one that destroyed the GENESIS laser and saved the Earth." Vlad retorted.
"How do you know that?" Victor asked.
"You know what my information network is like. I got that from several reliable eyewitness reports. This particular deed was reported not only by several ZAFT commanders, but also by Colonel Kisaka of the Orb military and Captain Murrue Ramius of the Earth Forces, the commander of the Archangel." Vlad answered.
"What… about… the other… guy?" Ysak managed.
"Huh?" Raine asked him. "What other guy?"
"There was another guy, dressed like the Grim Reaper, with a scythe and everything. He was going to kill Lacus and the rest of us before Ysak managed to distract the guards enough for Katie and I to get our guns out." Chanel told everyone. By this time Alkire and James had left the jeep and were also gathered around.
"He was going to do more than just kill us." Katie added, starting to weep. With several hitches, she explained what Zacharis did with girls, and what Amy tried to do to her before Ysak intervened.
"You are a good man." Vlad said, picking Ysak up effortlessly. "You have my thanks for saving Katie's life."
"And mine." Alkire said.
"And mine." Everyone else repeated.
"Help… Kira… Dearka. Zacharis went… after them… forest." Ysak managed before falling unconscious. Vlad gently placed him into the back seat of the jeep before sprinting off to look for tracks. Raine held her two sisters close as they sobbed, releasing the tension of combat. They had already suffered so much, and now they had been forced to kill to survive. Raine bared her teeth, wishing she could get her hands on the people responsible for this disaster.
"I found tracks! I'll mark the trail!" Vlad called from the other side of the clearing, before disappearing into the dark forest. Meanwhile, Victor had placed Athrun down in the jeep as well. He wandered over to the crater in the middle of the clearing while Alkire and James loaded up with med kits and weapons before plunging into the forest after Vlad.
"Someone detonated a bomb here. A giant flash bang combined with a little shrapnel. It was meant to disable the kids… so that the fanatics could gun them down in cold blood." Victor decided, working through the evidence and reconstructing the scene. "But some of the kids turned out to be Coordinators and didn't go along with the plan. Gunfire broke out. Katie and Chanel took the enemy by surprise. The fanatics were killed quickly, judging from their positions. Single tap, back of the head. Nice and clean. Sark's kid tried to make a move and got his head blown off for it. I just can't understand how the kids just didn't wrap up the large girl and whoever the other assailant is. They had three pistols, and all of them were good shots." Victor continued, musing out loud.
"The other guy… Zacharis Frost… he was freakish." Katie said, her voice stronger. "He knocked the gun out of Chanel's hand before she could turn it back to him after she shot Sark there. Then he took her down with a single kick. He was going to shoot Athrun, but Cagalli distracted him with wild gunfire. Athrun kicked him square between the legs and he didn't even twitch! It looked like it hurt Athrun more than him." Katie explained.
"Wait, a Coordinator groin kicked this guy and hurt his foot doing so? That's not possible." Victor said flatly.
"That's not the scary part. Another Coordinator, Dearka, picked up one of the submachine guns and fired at Zacharis. But Zacharis ran so fast that Dearka couldn't get enough lead-time on him to land a hit. He was like a blur." Katie said and shivered. "I didn't believe humans could move that fast."
"They can't. What you described is possible, but only if this Dearka was a total slouch. Given that he used the gun in the first place, I somehow doubt that." Victor replied, his mind whirling.
"I can't see a damn thing." Alkire complained as he tried to sneak through the underbrush along Vlad's trail.
"You got it easy, with just your rifle and pistol. I've got a machine gun here." James retorted.
Alkire held up a hand for silence. Slowly the sounds of a voice drifted towards them. They crept closer, until they could see who was talking. A young man in a blood slicked black robe was standing over a pink haired teenage girl who was lying on the ground. The bloody man was pulling at her clothes, ripping them off, while waving a blood-coated knife around with abandon.
"I told you I'd get you, Pink. I'm gonna start the skinning right here, just below your pretty little face. I'm gonna work slow and steady. Feel free to scream. It makes it more fun." The bloody man raved.
"Where's Vlad?" James whispered. As if in answer a shadow detached itself from a tree near the bleeding young man and crept towards him. Somehow, the young man heard Vlad and spun.
"More of you? I guess the killing just doesn't end tonight! Let's see how you squeal!" Zacharis cried, charging the dark haired man who had tried to sneak up on him. His gunshot wounds had stopped bleeding, due to his implanted medical kits that pumped him full of painkillers and blood coagulants. Zacharis swung the knife and was surprised when the man blocked with his raised arm. He was even more surprised when the knife snapped with a metallic clink and half the blade spun off into the night. "What?" Zacharis complained.
"False arm." the dark haired man explained, slamming it into Zacharis's face with the force of a piston. Frost stumbled back and shook his head. He threw the knife stump at the man, who blocked with his other arm. Another clink. "Two false arms."
"Doesn't matter." Frost decided and leapt at Vlad. They gripped hands and Vlad applied his full pressure. He had seen what the boy had been about to do. Here, at last, was someone who deserved to die more than Vlad himself did. Vlad could hear the kid's bones breaking, but that didn't stop Frost from kicking Vlad in the ankle so hard that Vlad stumbled back, his leg feeling like it was on fire.
"What ARE you?" Vlad asked, astounded. Every other person he knew would be on the ground moaning in agony but this guy was just standing there grinning.
"Death itself." Frost declared and leapt again. Vlad raised one arm to block but instead had it hit him in the head when Frost's double punch smashed it out of the way. Vlad teetered back, off balance. Frost giggled with glee and grabbed him by the shoulders and started to twist. Vlad shrieked as the mechanical leads attached to his shoulder nerve endings started to part. It felt like his arms were being ripped off… again. They were, actually.
"Holy shit, he's beating Vlad." James cursed. "I can't hit him with my weapon… I'll blow Vlad to mincemeat too." Alkire took careful aim with his assault rifle and switched the lever to single shot only.
"I'm going to hit the right side of his chest. When he staggers, Vlad will get free. Then I want you to blow that nut to shreds." Alkire ordered. He pulled the trigger slowly and evenly.
Zacharis felt the high powered bullet punch through his chest, tear through his lung and exit his back in a welter of gore. He gasped from the sudden pain… several implants had been damaged. Then he went totally rabid. He tossed Vladimir away like he was a cheap Frisbee. The man with the mechanical arms hit a tree about midway up its trunk and fell to the ground in a heap. Frost saw the heavy machine gun spit flames a yard long. He could actually make out the bullets in flight, though they still moved almost faster than he could see. Snarling in frustration, Frost felt the need to survive war with the need for vengeance. Survival won. Vengeance could always be taken later. He blurred into action, avoiding the bullets as best he could. He wasn't always completely successful, but managed to avoid taking any direct hits. He started to flee off into the forest when someone grabbed him by the ankle, tripping him headlong.
"I'll kill you!" Kira cried, dragging himself towards Frost along the ground. He was still bleeding badly from Zacharis's bite, but seemed beyond pain at the moment. Zacharis felt a moment of kinship with the other. He knew what it was like to hate someone so much you could ignore even serious wounds to try and kill them. It was, after all, how he felt about the rest of the world all the time. However, now was not the time. Frost needed to get away or he'd be killed. And he didn't want to die yet, not with his vengeance unfulfilled. He kicked Kira in the head several times, until the boy lost consciousness, along with several teeth. A machine gun bullet passed completely through his upper arm, nearly severing the limb. Cradling it, Frost took off again, moving so quickly that James couldn't lead him by enough to land a hit.
"That was impossible." James said, white as a sheet. Alkire ignored him, running out with the medpacks to take care of the two wounded boys he could see. One of them, the one that had tripped Zacharis, briefly regained consciousness when Alkire knelt nearby.
"Lacus… okay… save… Lacus." He mumbled before slipping unconscious again.
"I'll do that, kid. But first I'm gonna save you." Alkire muttered.