Alkire crouched in the woods just upslope from the prison wall. He wore night camouflage uniform, consisting of dark grey cammies with light grey and dark blue splotches. Black was not a night color, contrary to popular belief. A solid black shadow in the shape of a man was probably a man. But a bunch of random splotches… well that could be anything. Victor was crouched about ten paces to his left, while Vlad was ten paces to the right. Their target was a ventilation duct just on the other side of the ten meter wall from them. The only real obstacle was the electrified razor wire at the top, and that was child's play. Cagalli, Athrun, Kira and Ysak were position twenty paces behind Alkire, clad in ill fitting night cammies of their own.
Alkire did a last minute equipment check. His 7.62mm assault rifle with fifty round drum magazine was slung across his back, next to the eighty foot coil of cut resistant nylon rope. His 9mm pistol was holstered at his right hip, his combat knife in his left boot. A bandoleer across his chest held three flash bangs, two canisters of tear gas and four smoke grenades. He wore climbing spikes on his palms and toes and he flipped his night vision goggles/encoded radio communicator down over his eyes with a thumb. His lighter was in his breast pocket. He was ready and waiting.
"Shift change." Raine reported from her position at the front of the prison. The timing of the patrols may have been random, but the times the guard shifts went on and off duty was not. There was a six minute, twenty four second lapse in security every eighteen hours as the guards changed shifts. Raine was observing the guards mess room through her scope, seated high up in one of the thousands of trees on the mountain. James was positioned below her, waiting in the driver's seat of an all terrain jeep with the engine hot. Katie, Chanel, Dearka, Miriallia and Lacus waited nearby as reserve forces, though Alkire had no intention of calling on them, even if things went wrong.
"Moving." Vlad warned, slipping through the bushes to the wall with nary a sound. With his mechanical arms, Vlad could climb like a spider, since he could easily lift two or three times his weight with just one arm. Vlad practically ran up the wall, slowing only when he reached the top. Thirty seconds had passed. It took ten more for Vlad to create a temporary short around a five foot wide section of razor wire and twenty more after that to cut through the five foot section and drop it to the ground. "Entering." Vlad warned, dropping out of sight on the other side of the wall.
"Moving." Victor radioed. Alkire moved at the same time. They were using two ropes to expedite things. It took him longer to climb the wall, almost a full minute. He and Victor reached the top almost together. Vlad had secured a series of pitons into the wall on his way down and it was to these that Victor and Alkire tied their ropes.
"Move it kids." Alkire ordered, dropping over the wall on his rope, riding the slack down to a perfect landing on the ground thirty feet below. He felt tension on his rope almost the moment he reached the ground. Victor's boots hit the ground a second later and likewise his rope went tight. Cagalli and Kira came over first, being the slower ones. Alkire checked the time. They still had more than three minutes of safe time. By the time Athrun and Ysak had crossed, they were down to one minute and some change. Alkire dropped his climbing gear and took out his lighter. The nylon ropes had been treated with a certain volatile chemical by Victor earlier in the day. In less than five seconds, both ropes had burned themselves to fine grey ash in two smoky flashes that were barely visible even to those close by.
"Forward." Alkire commanded, minimizing radio time to reduce the chances of the guards noticing odd radio traffic within their perimeter. Vlad already had the cover on the ventilation duct off and had gone further ahead to scout and disarm security measures. Victor went next, followed by the kids. Alkire brought up the rear, resetting the cover as he did so. They were in, and alarm free from the looks of it. The hard part was over. Now for the long tight crawl through the ventilation system to cell block delta, followed by the freeing of Kisaka and then the exciting part, the mad dash to freedom through the front gates in a hail of hopefully bloodless gunfire. Alkire was about a third of the way through the ventilation system when the plan went sour.
"We have a black gov'ment SUV pulling up to the prison." Raine radioed.
"Another prisoner?" Alkire asked.
"Mayb… no. One guy got out. He's real short. Dressed kinda weird. Got a hood on, I can't make out his features. Huh… that's odd…"
"What?" Victor asked.
"He just pulled what looks a whole hell of a lot like a scythe out of the car."
"Like the farming implement?"
"Affirmative." Raine paused. "The SUV's making tracks. I mean it's flying like a bat out of hell. It just dropped this short guy with the scythe off and now the driver looks like he's trying to set a land speed record on his way down the mountain."
"This is bad." Kira cut into the channel.
"I told you kids to stay off the taccom." Alkire snapped.
"It's Frost." Kira retorted. "Frost had a scythe back at Vanai's costume party."
"You can't be sure of that." Victor said dubiously.
"There are not too many short guys who use scythe's I know of." Kira countered.
"With your depth of experience…" Victor said slowly.
"That's enough." Alkire cut in. "Raine, what's the shorty doing?"
"Walking into the prison. A patrol's coming out to him from the main gate. Five guards, two dogs. The guards have their guns pointed at shorty." Raine paused. "Oh my god." She breathed. "Oh my god!"
"WHAT?" Victor, Vlad and Alkire asked at once. The sound of shotgun blasts echoed thinly through their radios, followed by a high pitched whine that might have come from a dog in pain. The whine cut off suddenly as did the gunfire.
"Shorty just fucking killed the guards. He chopped the leader down like he was a stalk of corn and the guards opened up, but they all missed, somehow. Then shorty was on them and… well… I didn't see much of it besides the limbs flopping and the blood spurting, but shorty got all of them and both dogs in about a second and a half."
"It's Frost." Kira said again. "We need to hurry." Nobody argued this time.
"What's Frost doing now?" Alkire said as he started to speed crawl.
"He's entered the main building. I've lost sight of him… no… wait… there he is. He just entered the mess hall with the off going shift." Raine shifted her grip on her rifle to move the scope to a better position. "Oh dear lord."
"What's happening?" Cagalli asked.
"It's a massacre. Pure butchery. The guards are unarmed. They don't have a chance. God… I've never seen so much blood." Raine said, gagging slightly. An alarm started to wail from inside the prison. "One of the guards must have managed to get to the panic button. Hurry up guys."
"I'm at cell block delta." Vlad replied. "Entering."
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Frost sang the song of death, to the whistling accompaniment of his amazingly sharp scythe, which cut through wood, flesh, bone and gunmetal with equal ease. He hadn't even had to draw any of his other weapons yet. He had just finished working was way through the guards eating their evening meal. He still rejoiced in the horrified expressions on their faces when he had kicked the door in. He had stood in the doorway, blood from the guards outside trailing sluggishly down the moisture repellent treated leather of his mantle. He had basked in their fear and surprise for a full three seconds before entering the room. Most of the guards were still rising, half chewed food dropping out of their gaping mouths. Like a room full of baby birds, beaks open to caw for food. Frost had no food for them, but he was happy to ease their painful lives a trifle. Or maybe it was his painful life, Frost could never be sure. To be certain, none of the guards seemed to appreciate his gifts.
He left arms separated from bodies, legs half chopped, veins opened, arteries gaping, brains exposed, organs slashed, bones sliced and blood parted on his way across the room. It didn't take very long. The guards were all bunched together and unarmed; he could frequently hit two or three with one swing. It wasn't very challenging, but it was a lot of fun anyway. Frost hadn't been truly unleashed in a long time. He supposed he still wasn't, but at least he was having a good time. One of the guards at the far end of the room slapped a red button on the wall and an alarm began to blare. Frost didn't care. It just meant the guards would be looking for him now, speeding along their deaths.
Frost came back to himself about ten seconds later. All the guards were dead or almost there. Blood coated the walls and tables like splashed paint from an overeager child. Bodies lay everywhere, a good twenty or thirty of them; it was hard to count with the pieces being so scattered and ravaged. Frost sighed. It was time to move on. He returned to the front room of the main building and embedded his scythe into the wall where he could retrieve it on the way out. It would be closer quarters combat inside the prison proper, with too little room for scythe play. Frost drew his second favorite weapons, the chainblade machetes invented by the Doc especially for him. Frost marched quickly into the prison, following the route he had memorized from his visit the night before. Doors were shut and locked before him, gates were barred and teams of guards with unleashed dogs seemed to wait behind every corner.
None of this slowed Frost. Everything seemed to be moving in slow motion to him. Shotgun blasts barely mussed his hair and pistol rounds only fluttered at the edges of his mantle. Dogs leapt at him with fangs bared only to splatter to the ground in rains of meaty gobbets after being intercepted by the wailing chainblades. The teeth of the chainblades were made of the same material as the swords used by Ginns, and it had no trouble cutting through the simple steel of the doors and bars, not to mention the guard's weapons. Frost enjoyed the panic on the faces of the guard's when he cut their weapons to shreds in their hands, before slowly working his way along their hands and arms, flaying them with expert precision in seconds before quenching the spinning fangs of the machetes in their hearts. Frost was so superior to the guards in terms of ability that he could calmly torture them to death while they fought desperately to kill him with guns and stun batons. It was just the way of things for the BCPU 6. He wasn't a mere human anymore.
It took a while, because Frost was enjoying himself a bit more than orders strictly called for, but Frost reached cell block delta. He smiled. Kisaka was in such rough shape from last night's beat down that killing him was going to be far too easy. Frost admitted to himself that Kisaka had been a reasonably tough fighter, for a human. He'd lasted a good twenty seconds. Of course after that he'd been little more than a punching bag, but such is life. The steel door to cell block delta was shut and locked, of course, but Frost had beaten doors of this type all night. He slammed one chainblade into the left side of the door and one into the right and slowly began to cut his way through. It would only delay him by thirty seconds or so… just enough time to let anticipation heighten the experience.
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Alkire dropped through the ventilation opening into cell block delta. Vladimir was already working on Kisaka's cell door. Their exit point had been the ventilation shaft just outside Kisaka's cell, to cut down on time. Victor was standing watch, his eyes darting around nervously as the alarm continued to blare. It had been a tense ten minutes of high speed crawling through the narrow and dusty ducts to get to this point. Cagalli was standing at Vlad's shoulder, urging him to hurry. Athrun was at her side, a hand on her shoulder. Kira and Ysak watched other approach routes. It took Alkire a moment to realize Cagalli was crying.
"What happened?" he asked. Kira pointed numbly into Kisaka's cell. Alkire took off his NVG's to get a better look. "Holy fuck." He whispered. The walls, the floor, even the ceiling of Kisaka's cell were splashed with dried blood. Not gouts of it, but more than enough. The cot was a mass of red and white. It took Alkire a moment to realize the red parts were Kisaka while the whiter parts were the sheets. Kisaka was still breathing, but it was shallow and halting, indicating to Alkire's experienced eye that Kisaka was currently suffering at least a few broken ribs, in addition to whatever other injuries had caused the bleeding and laid the large man out unconscious.
"What the hell happened to him?" Victor asked, his german accent growing heavier. "He looks like he was mauled by a wild animal."
"Orb doesn't use torture in its prisons." Alkire said dumbly, shocked.
"He was not tortured. He was beaten. He fought his opponent and was totally overwhelmed." Vlad cut in. He worked at the lock a moment more and it suddenly sprang wide open.
"James, get a medical kit ready. Kisaka's in rough shape. The bad guys really worked him over good, and pretty recently too." Alkire radioed.
"Right. What do I need to be ready for?" James asked neutrally.
"Broken ribs, possibly injured spine, deep lacerations, concussion, internal bleeding, and unconsciousness… the full boat. Like I said, he's in rough shape. I've seen healthier looking corpses at a drive by shooting."
Victor edged into the cell and with Vlad's help lifted Kisaka gently from the cot. A lot of the sheets came with him, glued by dried blood. Alkire decided to ignore that, later, once they were safe they could clean him up. "Let's get a mov…" Alkire started to say before being interrupted by a hideous shrieking, ripping sound.
"The door!" Ysak yelled. Alkire ran to him. Three stories below, the door they were going to leave from was shuddering madly. Even as Alkire watched, what looked like two miniature chainsaws popped through the hardened steel door and started to chew their way downwards.
"That'll be Frost." Kira said unnecessarily. Alkire unlimbered his assault rifle, while Athrun and Kira moved to help Vlad with Kisaka. Victor, freed of medic duty, drew his saber and his pistol. Ysak and Cagalli drew their firearms as well. Everyone aimed at the rapidly disintegrating door.
"When the door goes, don't stop firing until you run out of bullets or the blood stops flying." Victor said grimly. Shockingly quickly, the vibrating and howling blades sliced their way through the door. Every ten seconds or so they would disappear, pulled back only to reappear in another location almost as soon as they were gone. Forty five seconds after the first blade hit the door; Frost kicked it off its hinges. The door tumbled into the cell block, a mass of twisted steel. Gunshots rang out before the door even hit the ground. Frost dived forward, feeling shots pluck at his mantle… one even whispered along the skin of his cheek, drawing a bloody crease. The fire was coming from the direction of Kisaka's cell. Looks like someone was attempting a rescue. Harsh luck for them.
"He's fast." Victor cursed, trying to bring Frost back into his sights. He wasn't having much luck, the small man moved like greased shadows, and his flapping mantle helped conceal the actual position of his body masterfully well. Before any of the weapons could run dry, even Alkire firing on full auto, Frost had reached cover underneath one of the two staircases that serviced the five story cell block.
"Fuck." Alkire swore, changing magazines. "He's on the left stairs. Everyone, move right. We'll try a fighting retreat. It's our only chance. We can't let the bastard get within melee range or we're all dead." Victor's pistol roared again.
"He's coming up the stairs! Gott damn, but I've never seen anyone move so fast!"
"Go! Go!" Alkire shouted, swinging back to cover the stairs. Victor was right. Frost was racing up the stairs, seeming more to float than run. He was zigging and zagging back and forth so much Alkire couldn't get a solid bead on him. Alkire started firing anyway, in the faint hope of scoring a lucky strike. He wasn't lucky tonight. In less than a minute, Frost had reached the third landing and was now only about fifty feet away, if still around a corner. The assault rifle clicked empty. Alkire knew he didn't have the time to reload it, with such a quick opponent.
"Move, Major!" Victor screamed, heaving a large brick of grey matter past Alkire's head. Alkire saw tiny red numerals ticking down steadily on one side of the brick. Alkire jumped over the railing, ejecting his spent magazine and reloading in mid fall. He'd worry about landing after he survived the blast. The explosion came like the end of the world. Light and heat dominated the left side of the building, followed almost instantly by fire, smoke and blast concussion, which ripped the bars out of every cell on the third, fourth and second stories. The concussion hammered into Alkire's falling form, throwing him across the room to land skidding into a roll on his back. The far wall on the first floor stopped his roll rather painfully. He'd be feeling that landing for a while. Alkire hauled himself to his feet. The entire left side of the building was little more than a flaming mass of rubble.
"Alkire!" Kira called urgently. He was standing in the doorway leading to the rest of the prison. "Everyone else is already out! Come on!" he disappeared into the hallway. Alkire limped towards the door. The rubble on the left suddenly shifted and Frost crawled out. His mantle was gone, as was his shirt. Blood covered him, but he seemed quite unimpeded. He had lost his chainblades during the blast, but was now brandishing a wicked looking serrated carving knife. Alkire grabbed a tear gas canister from his bandoleer and rolled it at the freak, following it with a flash bang and a smoke grenade for good measure. Alkire then bolted out the door as fast as he could.
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Frost snarled in rage. The bomb had been unexpected. And now his favorite mantle and prized chainblades were lost within the flaming rubble. Frost was angry. The tear gas did little more than make him sneeze, but it along with the smoke from the fire and grenade obscured his vision, and he was a little disoriented from the blast and the rubble falling on him. It took him nearly three minutes to find the damn doorway. He pounced out into the hall, landing in a crouch like an animal. No enemies were in sight. He'd be sure to give the one with the sword a painful death, for causing him such inconvenience. Frost took off at a sprint, eager to catch up with the enemy before they could get outside and scatter. The walls blurred into meaningless patterns as Frost pushed himself to ever greater speed. Within twenty seconds he was once again in the main building. No enemies, though the front doors still swung slightly on their hinges. Frost sheathed his carving knife and yanked his scythe out of the wall where he'd left it. Now they would pay.
James jumped the jeep out of the woods with teenagers hanging on for dear life. Raine sat in the passenger seat, sniper rifle up and aimed the moment the jeep slid to a stop. Vlad, Kira, Ysak and Athrun burst out of the front doors, hauling Kisaka. They were moving like the devil himself was on their asses. Victor followed not a moment later, sword and pistol gripped in bloody fists and smoke trailing from singed clothing. A huge pall of smoke and flame loomed from one of the prison blocks farther back, presumably block delta.
"What the fuck was that explosion!" Raine shouted as Victor came loping up.
"My fucking plastique, that's what! All of it!" he replied. "Gun's couldn't stop him and I sure as hell wasn't going to fence with that monster."
By this time the people helping Kisaka had reached the jeep and were gently loading him into the back as fast as they could. "Let me at him!" James cried, brandishing the medical kit. Alkire burst out of the front doors, his uniform ripped to shreds, assault rifle in one hand and pistol in the other. He dashed for the jeep, glancing over his shoulder every few steps. He had only barely reached the jeep when a flash of steely light at the prison doors announced Frost's presence. Frost came charging out the doors with scythe trailing point down along the ground, sowing a stream of sparks in his wake. Victor, Vlad, Alkire and Raine opened up with everything they had. A second later, Kira, Athrun, Ysak, Cagalli and Dearka joined in. A withering fusillade of fire blazed at Frost.
Frost was angrier than he'd ever been before. He was this close to failing the goddamned mission! That had never happened before. He refused to let the gunfire slow him even a little. It was only a hundred and fifty yards to the jeep. He could do that in eight seconds if he pushed himself. Bullets whip lashed past him and even into him, now that he wasn't taking the time to do more than rudimentary dodging. Bullets chewed chunks out of his arms and shoulders and thighs, a few high powered sniper rounds even flashed through his chest, but Frost didn't feel them. Unless they hit a vital implant or his brain, a few bullets wouldn't stop him. Five seconds left.
Alkire threw down his weapons. "Everyone get into the jeep!" he screamed. He dived into the recently vacated driver's seat. He waited only two seconds before gunning the jeep into a two hundred degree turn and stomped the pedal as far down as it could go. He left smoking tire marks two hundred yards long on his way out of the parking lot. "Did we lose him?" he shouted.
"Not yet!" James yelled back, his voice full of concern.
"What the fuck!" Alkire twisted around. True to James's words, Frost was still gaining on them, if slower with every passing moment. Finally the jeep's velocity exceeded that of the BCPU and he began to fall behind.
"NO!" Frost roared and leapt, scythe swinging downwards in a desperate lunge. The blade bit into the bumper of the jeep and caught. Frost was now being dragged behind the jeep. Frost began to pull himself up the scythe handle.
"It's like something out of an old movie!" James snarled, dropping the medkit and pulling out his twin machine pistols. The distance to Frost was less than six feet. He opened up with both guns, each spewing out lead at a rate of sixty shots per second. Both guns clicked empty a half second later. Frost no longer held onto the scythe, though the weapon was still embedded in the rear fender. Frost lay on his stomach a hundred yards back and lengthening. He pounded a bullet riddled fist into the ground in frustration and slowly got to his feet. He'd have to report the failure. And then he'd have to fucking get his god damn scythe back.
"GRAAHHHH!" Frost screamed into the night, a primal howl of fury unrequited and vengeance to been soon sated. He then turned and limped back towards the prison, to find a phone to call Cervantes.