Lacus jerked awake, hands pressed to her head, eyes full of tears she hadn't realized she'd shed. She'd been sleeping peacefully... as peacefully as she ever had in this horrible place. Ever since that first interrogation session she'd been left alone... whether because they hadn't got around to seeing her individually or because of Ashino's intervention, she wasn't sure. It had been hours and hours... it felt like days but probably wasn't. They'd given her a few meals... she'd forced herself to eat the slush so she wouldn't be weakned by hunger. She'd done a lot of thinking and a bit more singing... they hadn't stopped her this time. She'd even cried a bit, though she hadn't let herself be depressed long... defeatism would only serve the enemy, not her. And she'd gone to sleep... she'd been having a nice dream too... one with lots of Kira in it.
It had almost been like he'd been in the room with her... close enough to touch and smell. And then the dream had come to an end with the sound of a single gunshot that seemed to fill the entire world. An ocean of grief and sorrow and loss poured out of nowhere and crashed into her, sweeping her away. And then she'd awoken... hair mussed, clothing wrinkled, eyes full of tears and one of the most terrible headaches she'd ever had. Her entire head was ringing with the sound of the gunshot... it was like someone was playing an echo at maximum volume right next to her ears. Something had happened... something horrible, she knew it. Somebody had died. Sombody she knew. But who? And how did she know with such certainty? She couldn't answer those questions... no matter how much she thought about it.
Kira jumped in his bed as if electrified, rolling right off the tiny cot and slamming hard into the concrete floor. His cell was bare of filth but it had a very musty atmosphere... dust seemed to fall from the ceiling like snow, making it very difficult to breathe evenly without coughing. The burn blisters on his hands popped painfully and oozed fluid onto the floor. He swore and bit his lip to keep from crying out... both from the pain of the burns and because of the apparent bomb that had just gone off inside his head. Of the two, the headache was by far the worst... Terrible Tim had failed to live up to his reputation... he'd spent most of the session waving the soldering iron around and making threats, which Kira and Athrun calmly ignored. Apparently the man could not work up the courage to actually use the iron on them if they weren't afraid of him.
It was only at the very end, almost incandescant with shame and anger, that Tim had run the tip of the iron across the backs of Kira's hands. It had hurt a great deal... but he'd suffered worse wounds than a few second degree burns before... they were painful and the blisters awkward, but he could work his way around them. It wasn't so easy to forget the pain in his head... he felt like Flay had just died again... to wit, terrible. His dream had actually been kind of pleasant before waking up... Lacus had featured prominently, he recalled. So vivid... it was like she was in the same room, close enough to touch and smell. He slowly got up and climber back onto the cot and tried to figure out what had happened. He had the most horrible feeling... a twisting in his gut. He felt physically ill... what was happening to him? Had he been poisoned... no that wouldn't make any sense when they could hurt him or kill him whenever they wanted. Something beyond his normal five senses was screaming at him, trying to tell him something. He still hadn't figured it out by the time he heard the commotion in the hall.
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Cray smiled happily... he'd gotten to kill the girl after all. What a pleasant diversion to kick off an even better day killing Coordinator's at the front. He licked her sweet blood off his finger and paused in his capering to reach for more. It had been a little weird... she'd looked him right in the eye and he could have sworn she smiled at him while he pulled the trigger... no one he'd ever killed had smiled at him while he killed them. They generally screamed and struggled and even fainted. But she'd just looked at him with oddly red eyes and he'd pulled the trigger and the bullet had gone "bang" and "splotch" her brains were all over the floor. He was still reaching down for more of the wonderful red liquid when he heard an incoherent scream of rage come from across the room. Cray was familiar with all sorts of horrible noises... death shrieks, Frost's laughter, bone snaps, mortal blows, fatal equipment fractures, the Doc yelling... and he rated this exclamaition as positively "bonechilling".
It literally sent shivers of tension running up and down his arms and spine... raising goosebumps on his skin. He smiled even wider... it had been a long while since anything had so much of an effect on him... discounting Asmodeus's eyes. Cray looked up to find the Coordinator... Ysak... running towards him, intent to kill stamped plainly all over his face. Cray was happy to oblige him... he pointed the gun directly at him... with a closing target that wasn't bothering to evade there was no way he could miss. He aimed for the kneecap... he didn't want to kill him just yet. The gun went... "click". A sudden thought suddenly entered his mind... hadn't Asmodeus said there was only one bullet? "Click is the wrong answer." Cray told the gun. He pulled the trigger thrice more. Click... click... click. "I'm going to kill you after this is over." Cray solemnly promised the firearm.
Ysak ignored the gun pointed at him... in his current state of mind he would have charged the GENESIS Laser if it had been aimed at him, bare fisted and unarmed or not. Even if he had to swim through space to do it. He had never felt so focused and unstoppable. He knew precisely what he was going to do... the actions of Cray were irrelevant. The gun did not fire... perhaps jammed. Ysak smiled thinly and went into a sliding tackle which knocked the thin limbed BCPU off balance. Ysak had to give the guy credit... he was almost as strong as hell, almost as tough as hell and almost as fast as hell. The problem was that Ysak currently WAS HELL. He bounced up from his tackle while Cray was still staggering and kicked him in the kneecap as hard as he could... unfortunately not hard enough to break the reinforced joint, but he did knock him down. He punched him thrice in the face, feeling a cheekbone fracture under his knuckles. The BCPU struck him back... Ysak rode the backhand out, turning around with the force of the blow, adding the momentum to the spinning side kick which smashed into Cray's ribcage, popping a rib out of place for a moment before it reseated itself. Cray was knocked sideways, denting the metal railing of the walkway. Ysak did not let up... he fell upon the murderer of his love like a starving tiger leaping onto a cow carcass.
Cray was laughing... he hadn't been in a fight like this since the last time he'd sparred with Amy. Ysak was everywhere at once, punching, kicking, clawing, kneeing... it was great. He was actually feeling pain, he was bleeding. He tried to sit up and get off the railing but a kick to the jaw slammed him back down, further deforming the thin metal. Cray sneered and wiped his split lip, which was already healing. He saw Asmodeus give him a look from across the catwalk and saw the older man hightail it out of the room like he was being pursued by the devil himself. Cray didn't mind... this wasn't a fight for a natural to be messing around with. He belted Ysak in the gut with a punch, bringing the Coordinator up short and sent him staggering back with a right cross to the point of the chin. Cray stood up, ready to begin his own offensive... a beatdown that would continue until every bone in Ysak's body was soft gelatin.
Ysak recovered far faster than Cray had anticipated... the Coordinator just turned the backwards stagger into a forward charge without seeming to transition between them. Cray frowned just before Ysak's double foot jumping kick sent him literally flying backward, knocking the railing full off the catwalk and leaving him teetering for balance, a skull like grimace plastered on his face. This wasn't right... the only person Cray had ever seen fight like this was Frost... there was no way a Coordinator could fight like this. He was just a Coordinator after all... just a sack of flesh and blood. Cray was still arguing with himself about this quandry when Ysak gave him another flying kick to the jaw which overbalanced him just enough to send him tumbling over the edge. Cray made a grab for the catwalk but Ysak stamped down on the hand and broke his fingers, kicking his grip loose before he could recover. Cray dropped into the waste pit, laughing in fright.
Ysak looked around, thirst for revenge not even barely slaked. Asmodeus was nowhere in sight... he could hear Katie slowly waking up not far away. He forced himself to calm down...slightly. He wasn't looking to kill the next person he saw... now he was looking to make sure no one hurt Katie, the one remaining person who meant everything to him. He didn't even remember moving over to her... suddenly he was on his knees next to her, holding her tightly in his arms. "I... I'm... I'm so sorry. I... I couldn't... save her."
"Ysak... Ysak... Ysak!" Katie sobbed, burying her head in his chest. "My head feels like it's on fire... the echo is everywhere. Chanel's echo is everywhere!"
"Her what?" Ysak asked, lifting her in his arms.
BEEP! THE ECHO! CAN'T YOU FEEL IT RESOUNDING IN YOUR HEAD? YOU WERE CONNECTED TO HER LIKE I WAS WHEN SHE DIED... CAN'T YOU FEEL HER? the voice he heard was Katie's, but it was shouted at such a volume that it caused Ysak to stagger... he staggered again when he realized that despite the topic of the conversation, he couldn't hear any echoes at all... given that they were in a cave, he should have heard lots of them from a exclaimation of such volume. He hadn't heard Katie speak... her thought had appeared in his head, right after a slight flash of light and a feeling like someone had tapped him hard on the side of the head.
"What was that?" Ysak asked, moving towards the exit to the room as fast as he could. It pained him to leave Chanel behind, but there was currently nothing he could do for her remains... to bring them with them would endanger his ability to defend Katie and himself, and that he could not allow to happen.
"You heard my beepcall..." Katie's voice was barely a whisper. "You actually heard it... and I didn't even have to try. How... is that possible?" she asked, her voice wondering.
"Let's not worry about things neither of us understand, my love. We have bigger problems. Asmodeus no doubt has alerted the facility to our actions... they'll be sending people to kill or recapture us. We need to decide what to do." Ysak said, as tenderly as he could.
"There is no decision to make. Chanel put our feet on a path... we've currently got no other option but to follow it... unless we want to die. Or worse, be studied like experiments until we want to die."
"How do you mean?"
"Every Newtype within a dozen miles will have felt Chanel die... I'm sure Lacus and Kira did. It's an off chance, but considering the sort of conditioning these BCPU's no doubt go through, there is a chance that there might be some sort of brainwave scanning and recording equipment in this facility... such equipment would also register Chanel's echo. The likelyhood is very high that Blue Cosmos will realize what I am... what Kira is... what Lacus is... and maybe what you are. If you thought what they'd done to us so far was bad... you don't want to imagine what people like them will do in order to utilize Newtypes. I cannot give you the story now... but later I can explain. We need to escape from this facility... and we need to break everyone else out as well... to do anything else would be to condemn them to a fate a million times worse than what Chanel suffered. We need to get to the prison cells."
"That's not going to be easy." Ysak replied, though he started off in that direction anyway. "There are a lot of guards in that area, lots of cameras, and probably a lot of those automated sentry guns too."
"Guns... guards... cameras... Ysak, these people just murdered my sister. Their guns and guards and cameras mean less than nothing to me. I know you feel the same. You Coordinators are always so tightly controlling of your feelings... you're worried about what will happen if you let yourselves go. Now is not the time for worry, love. It is time for action. You can set me down, too. You can't fight with me in your arms and I cannot do so either." Katie told him.
"But... what if... I don't... I worry about what I'll do if I let myself go. What sort of person I might become... I've done some terrible things in my life, Katie. I've killed people out of hate and vengeance and simple indignation. Helpless people. I'm afraid I might become like that if I don't keep control of myself."
"It is because you are afraid and that you worry that it is okay for you to let go, Ysak. Because you worry and fear you will always bring yourself back from the brink. It is not a bad thing to feel hate... not a bad thing to have killed... not a bad thing to have done the things you have done... the reason it is not bad is because you feel guilt and remorse and fear your actions. It's only when you lose the fear of your actions that you do wrong. Only when guilt means nothing and remorse is a thing of the past is when you do truly evil. Stop worrying about it... let yourself go... you'll be there to pull yourself back from the edge... and I'll be there too, to help you."
"Okay... I don't really understand what you said... but I trust you, Katie. I love you and I trust you and I'll do as you ask. And god help the people who get in my way."
"Our way... our way." Katie corrected him as he set her down on her feet. She looked down the passageway, which was currently empty. "Here come the guards... the first wave. They're scared. Very scared."
"How do you..." Ysak trailed away... he didn't really care. He trusted her instincts... however she derived them. "Not yet they aren't. They don't know the meaning of scared." he promised, ducking back into a small niche in the wall which housed a locked panel that read "Lighting and Electrical". It wasn't easy to tear off the cover and lock, but right now he didn't even think about failing to do so... he felt like he could rip through a vault door with his bare hands. The sound of running boots resounded down the hall as he reached into the mass of circuit breakers and fuses that the panel had covered. He waited a few breaths. "How close are they?" he asked Katie. She did not reply. A soldier ran past their niche just as he spoke, head swiveling rapidly to the side when he heard Ysak speak. The man tried to stop, his boots skidding on the metal floor of the passage.
Katie wasted no time in kicking his legs out from under him, falling on him as he lay stunned and caving in his windpipe with a thrust of her hand. She took his sub machine gun from his unresisting hands and took his knife from his belt, also removing a sphereical grenade from his belt. She tossed the grenade to Ysak, who aborted trying to pull the breakers out by hand and just flipped the pin off the explosive and shoved it deep into the wall. He dived out of the niche and hit the floor next to Katie as the grenade blew, taking down the primary electrical grid on the entire section of this level of the facility. Katie opened up with the sub gun in the dark, aiming down the corridor. It was pitch black, but she didn't really need to see. She just targeted the yellow snakes that represented the minds of the soldiers to her Newtype sense. It was impossible to shoot accurately, since the mind images only approximated the actual physical location of the soldiers, but a sub gun wasn't designed for accuracy anyway... it just vomited forth lots of bullets very quickly.
Emergency red lighting came on within seconds... but it was too late for the inital force of guards, who were all down, wounded or dead. Ysak took the knife from Katie and charged the remains of the force, slicing the throats of those who looked like they might have been able to put up a fight. Katie hurriedly looted the guards for weapons and ammunition while Ysak kept watch. A soldier tried to edge around a turn about five meters away, crouched down low on the floor. Ysak spotted him and took him out by throwing the knife. He knew knife throwing quite well... he'd been good at it during training and his skills had not left him... they might even have improved, given how many objects he'd thrown at Katie and... Chanel... in order to fend them off. He threw harder than he meant to... the knife embedded itself to the hilt in the eye of the soldier. Katie tossed him another knife and handed over two sub guns and several clips of ammunition. She'd appropriated two pistols for herself and had a plentiful supply of grenades as well. She also had slung several extra guns over her shoulders. "For the others." she told him when he looked at them questioningly. They headed off together, moving towards the prison block... Ysak had struggled when carried by Cray, but not so much he hadn't been able to memorize the route he'd been carried along. Katie didn't even need directions... she could sense the location of Kira and Lacus very easily... both were awake and troubled by what they had felt.
Ysak and Katie worked as a team as they fought their way through the slowly organizing guards. Katie would pick off cameras and disable sentry guns with accurate pistol fire or grenade tosses... she was still a better shot than Ysak, despite his efforts. Meanwhile, Ysak would keep the responding guards pinned down with volleys of bullets, until Katie could pull out a few grenades and lob them into the enemy. Whenever the enemy tried to throw grenades back, Ysak just shot them out of the air... not something he would have ordinarily even considered attempting, but in his current state he made it look natural and easy. If this is how Kira feels when he's in his berserker mode or whatever... no wonder everyone else doesn't have a prayer of standing up to him. Athrun too... this ability is just incredible... its not even hard for me to do this stuff, stuff I usually consider improbable at best. The hard things were the sentry guns... they were well sited and many featured armor shields that protected their aiming systems and ammo supplies, with only the gun barrels protruding forward to fire. The sentry guns came in two varieties... one and dual barrels, mounted either on the walls or the ceiling.
The rate of fire was incredible... each barrel easily pumped out five or six hundred shots a minute... and the heavy caliber bullets chewed through anything in their path... even the walls after extended firing. Katie wondered sourly just what the guns were designed to stop... such heavy weapons were hardly required to kill humans, even armored humans. Then she thought of people like Cray or Ashino... or Frost. She suddenly found herself agreeing with the decision to mount the heavy weapons... with dangerous people like them around standard guns just wouldn't cut it. It was just inconvenient for her and Ysak... she couldn't sense the guns, so Ysak had to take point, as only his enhanced reflexes were good enough to get him out of the sudden fire from the sentry guns that he would come under upon rounding a corner or going through a door. Her heart lept into her throat each time she heard the thunder of the big guns... each time she thought Ysak was sure to get blown to bits. But he always surprised her again with his speed and agility... he hadn't even taken a scratch yet.
"It's not fair." She complained during one lull in the fighting.
"What isn't?" Ysak asked.
"I wish I could move as fast as you."
"And I wish I could shoot like you... we can't all get what we want. You have to leave me some way of impressing you."
"You don't need speed to do that." Katie mumbled with a smile. Ysak ducked around the corner just ahead of them. He rolled back a second later, just ahead of the line of sparking scars traced along the floor from the heavy bullets of a sentry gun. "Another one? How many sentry guns does this place have? This is like some stupid, bad, repetitive video game!"
"I think this is the last one... I remember a dual barrel gun mounted on the ceiling right outside the cell block... and that's what this is. I think we're close to the cell block."
"We are... they're just past the gun, still locked up." Katie confirmed after a moment's thought. "There's a bitch ton of guards right around the corner too... and they're expecting backup soon."
"You can tell all that?" Ysak asked, amazed.
"Not as such... they're nervous, that's easy to sense... but they're also excited... and the only way I can see them getting excited is if they've got backup en route."
"Well, then I guess we need to hurry. How do we want to do this? It's going to be tough to hit the ceiling turret with a grenade... I know you've done it before but we're running out of grenades..."
"Yeah, someone wised up and had them stop bringing them to us." Katie acknowledged. "But there is no point in saving them... I think we're going to have to do this one the hard way."
"What's the hard way?" Ysak asked... he noticed the look she was giving him. "Oh. That hard way." He slipped fresh magazines into his sub guns. "If we don't make it through this..."
"Don't say anything, Ysak. I can read your mind just fine. And we're going to make it through this."
"I suppose you can at that." Ysak muttered. "Rea..." he started to ask when he realized she was probably still reading his thoughts. A pair of grenades sailed past him and bounced around the corner, going up in near simultaneous flashes of fire and smoke and clouds of buzzing shrapnel. He paused a single second to wait for the ricochets to die down and then dived around the corner into a long roll that kept him low and fast moving as he cleared the smoke haze left over from the explosions. The sentry gun was still aimed high, its sensors blocked by the smoke. It started to pan down, guns shuddering with recoil as it tried to blow him apart, but he was far too fast for it, having already covered half the distance to it before clearing the smoke. He heard the bullets whiz past his head and crack against the metal floor, but ignored it. He was under the line of fire and out of danger from the gun. He dropped into a long slide on his chest... tearing the expensive material to shreds from friction with the floor but better that than his chest.
He rolled onto his side while sliding and extended both guns as he passed the corridor opening which led into the prison area. There were a good ten guards there, standing in partial cover behind the partway closed blast doors. But they were all looking up at the sentry gun, guns leveled at waist height... several feet above Ysak's position. He had them in his sights for about a second and a half... they didn't even notice him until he opened fire. During that second and a half before his slide carried him out of sight of them, his guns spewed out thirty five bullets... each emptying the entire magazine. The guns weren't much for accuracy and each bullet didn't have much stopping power, but they could certainly put out a great deal of those bullets very quickly. He didn't know how successful his shots were... he'd seen lots of hits but couldn't hear anyone fall over the roar of the sentry gun, which had swiveled around to target him again. The moment it exposed it's unshielded back, Katie was around the far corner and sprinting. The bullets were just tracking towards Ysak's legs when her tossed grenade landed neatly in the back of the gun mount and blew it to scrap.
Ysak jumped to his feet and dropped the guns... there was no time to reload. He drew a pair of combat knives instead, bounding around the corner, jumping high this time. The fire from the remaining six guards shot under his tucked up legs. They overcorrected as he let himself fall into another roll... the gunfire streaked past him for perhaps a quarter second, a bullet clipping his shoulder, another his ear and a third his hip... just grazes, barely bleeding. Then recoil forced the barrels upward and the last shots sparked off the ceiling. Then the guns ran out of bullets to shoot and the guards ran out of time to live. Katie leaned around the corner, pistol in either hand... she wasn't as accurate with two as she was with one, but at this range she didn't need to be. Ysak was still rising from his roll, left hand knife buried in the groin of the closest guard by the time she'd put two guards down with a flurry of shots into their upper chests, necks and heads. Ysak ripped the knife out and stabbed the screaming man again in the heart to finish him, slashing out with his right hand blade to disembowel the next closest soldier.
It was in the confusion and chaos of melee that it became completely apparent to Ysak and to Katie just how much superior a well trained and motivated Coordinator was to most Naturals. It may have been apparent to the guards too... but none of them lived long enough for that to matter. Those that Ysak did not slice and dice, Katie dropped with pistol fire. The guards didn't have a chance to even go for their knives... the entire fight lasted only four or five seconds after the guards ran out of bullets. Katie reloaded her pistols and set to stripping the corpses of anything useful, while Ysak picked up loaded sub guns from two of the guards he'd dropped with his sliding fire. He cautiously edged into the prison area... he didn't recall seeing any sentry guns in the prison area proper, though there were some in the entrance areas to the interrogation rooms. There was a shut blast door in front of him... obviously there was a corridor behind it, but Ysak did not know or care where it went.
"Ysak!" Katie called. He looked back just in time to catch a keycard on a chain. "This sergeant had it around his neck... hopefully it'll open the cells." Ysak peered around the two familiar corridors... the outside walls were lined with doors that led to cells like the one where he'd been imprisoned... the inside walls were blank. The blast doors leading to the interrogation rooms were shut in both corridors... thankfully blocking off the sentry guns there as well. Ysak didn't trust those doors to stay closed long though... it would be most inopportune if the guns fired on the prisoners leaving their cells. Ysak headed right first, towards his own cell. Best to get the fighters free first... no slight to Cagalli but he'd much rather have Athrun backing his ass up right now. Miriallia and Lacus were noncombatants. And Katie was already armed. The key card did indeed open the cells... he only knew which one was Dearka's, so he opened them all.
"What the hell is going on?" Athrun yelled, poking his head cautiously around the door of his opened cell. "Bad enough you have to torture us, must you fire your guns when I'm try to sle... what the HELL? Ysak?"
"Jailbreak!" Ysak called back. "Get out and get armed, guns are around the corner. Bad guys incoming soon. Katie will tell you when. No questions... I'm in charge this time around."
Dearka stumbled out his cell, still slightly dazed. He'd been beaten up pretty badly during the session with Ysak... he'd healed well enough and been bandaged so he didn't bleed excessively, but he was badly bruised all over and his eyes were still only half open. Coordinator or not, you just didn't bounce back from getting the shit kicked out of you... not after only a half day or so. He'd heard what Ysak had yelled to Athrun and he didn't need any futher explanation... payback sounded perfectly fine to him.
"What's happening?" Kira asked as Ysak opened his cell door. "What's with the shooting... oh, Ysak. How did you get free?"
"Standard way... I killed the guards." Ysak replied, not willing to say more than that. His fist tightened on the grip of his gun... Kira was indirectly responsible for putting them into this situation... without him wanting to go to the wedding of Sai, Chanel would still be alive. Ysak forced himself to push that down and onto a back burner... he could have a reckoning with Kira when they were out of here. "I don't want to hear any of your bullshit about keeping these guys alive... they may be people with lives, but if they keep living we won't. I won't stand for Katie to be tortured just because you couldn't stop the men trying to capture her. This is a last stand situation... them or us. you'd damn well better choose us, or else I'll be lumping you in with them. Understand?"
"Perfectly. I know you and I don't agree on many things, Ysak... that you think my philosophy is stupid and foolish. But you understand me... I know as well as you that there are some things in this world you cannot protect without fighting for them. Without killing for them, in extremis. And you listen to me... I'll gladly kill a soldier before I let any of them hurt Lacus... or Miriallia... or Cagalli... or even you. Like you said... it's them or us. I most definitely choose us." Kira said. He stared into Ysak's eyes, noting the slightly glazed look, the extremely narrow pupils... the pale haired Coordinator was in what Kira and Athrun called "berserker" mode. Kira and Athrun could enter it whenever they needed to... Ysak could not as far as Kira knew. This was likely his first time... Kira remembered what it had been like for him the first time. Something terrible had happened... his feeling had been right. Something must have happened to push Ysak over the edge. "What happened?"
"Not now." Ysak replied harshly. "Now we fight... later I might tell you. Assuming you're still alive."
"YSAK! They're coming YSAK!" Katie called from around the corner. Ysak glared at Kira for a moment more and then sprinted for the corner. He did not look back to see that Kira was right behind him.
"You need to send more soldiers down there... at least one Coordinator is free as is one of the commando girls... if you don't recapture them then they will almost certainly try to free their friends." Asmodeus told the Doc as they walked towards the elevator that would take Asmodeus back to the garage where the humvee was, so he could return to his jet.
"A Coordinator is free? But I thought you were going to kill Ysak... how can he be free? And what about the other girl... I know you took them both from their cells... without asking me, mind. You said one is free... where is the other? And where is Cray... he was supposed to stay with you!" the Doc protested angrily.
"I never said I was going to kill Ysak Joule... merely that I would exact my revenge upon him. My revenge has been exacted... I lost my son... he lost one of his girlfriends, the girl Chanel Belaruse. Cray executed her on my order." Asmodeus replied. "And mind you, that I'm your superior... in many ways. I don't need to ask you to do anything I want. You survive on the tolerance of Cervantes and myself... don't forget that."
"Blue Cosmos survives on my creations, Asmodeus. You'd do well yourself to remember that. Where would you be without the BCPU's? Without the Gundam's I helped build... without the many, many projects I've run for you people. You'd be dead... thats what." the Doc retorted. "And how could you kill the girl, just like that? Do you have any idea what sort of resource you might have denied Blue Cosmos with your rash revenge? I've reason to suspect that the twin girls are Active Newtypes! Do you have any idea how rare people like them are? And you just killed one, just to get back for your son's death? What a stupid waste!"
Asmodeus shrugged and turned, putting his finger in the Doc's face. "Don't mention my son to me, Doctor. If you say one more word about him in my presence or out of it, I will shoot you. I don't care how much Blue Cosmos relies on you... if you keep angering me, I will put you in an unmarked grave." Asmodeus turned back and continued on his way. "Active Newtype or not, I don't really care. I never really put much stock in the babblings of you scientists on that subject anyway. Telepathy... emotional control... mind reading... a load of bullshit if you ask me. A creative way of asking for more funding. Don't quote your facts and findings to me, Doctor... my mind is quite made up." Asmodeus cut the Doc off before he could argue. "All I care about is the very angry young Coordinator running around down there, loose and probably armed. He was beating Cray quite thoroughly last time I saw them and given how Cray has not returned yet, I'd imagine that your vaunted BCPU 5 has not emerged victorious. Hopefully he's still alive... though I doubt it... the Coordinator did not look rational when I saw him and his anger was quite plain to hear."
Cray was at that moment scaling the walls of the waste pit, pissed off and covered in decaying waste. He'd thought even he was screwed... a four hundred meter fall was more than enough to kill even him. he was nowhere near a wall either... there was no way to slow or break his fall. But he hadn't counted on the water filling the bottom of the waste pit to an unknown depth. Or the scores... if not hundreds... of partially decayed bodies and bits of bodies that were floating on the surface of that water. The soft decaying flesh and bones had somewhat broken his fall, slowing him so that the impact with the water below was merely stunning rather than fatal. His feet felt broken... he'd landed feet first... and his groin felt like it was on fire as did most of his lower body. He'd sunk too... his mechanical augmentations and lack of body fat combining to make him very negatively buoyant. He must have gone down a good ten meters before he woke up again and managed to struggle to the surface, pushing the bodies out of the way, spitting out the effluent fouled water.
Cray ignored his hurts and grasped the slick rock of the walls and started hauling himself up. He found that he'd pissed himself in fear during the fall... embarrassing and weak. He felt his rage building as he climbed... the damned Coordinator with the facial scar... Ysak. He was a dead man. A dead and mutilated man, if Cray had his dithers. He'd been caught off guard and in a tough position and the Coordinator had defeated him and pushed him into the pit, breaking his hand when he tried to catch himself. The hand throbbed as Cray used it to pull himself up, the fingers quashed and bleeding sluggishly. But nothing hurt enough to stop his climb upwards, back into the light of life, out of the pit of death. He clambered and pulled and pushed and scrabbled with all his considerable might, until he was moving up the sheer wall faster than many people could walk on a flat level surface. He'd break the Coordinator in half and take his remaining girlfriend right there in front of the slowly dying body... then he'd break her in half too. Then he'd drop both of them down the pit... he didn't think they'd climb back up. His enhanced ears picked out the sound of sentry gun fire and grenade explosions. He needed to hurry before the stupid Coordinator killed himself.
"I trusted Cray to take care of the Coordinator after I was done... it is now your responsibility to ensure the recapture or death of your experimental subjects. I don't care how you do it or how it turns out... as long as the BCPU's are in position in the forces when they are supposed to be. Now, I take my leave. Good day, Doctor." Asmodeus said firmly, entering the elevator and closing the door in the Doc's face before he could reply. The Doc grimaced unpleasantly at the closed doors... that was the rudest he'd ever been treated since he first contacted Asmodeus and Cervantes and Azrael. He paused only a second to condemn the military minds that could condone the waste of vaulable resources in the name of revenge just because the value of the resources was not commonly understood. The value of the life of a single Active Newtype was easily as much as the amount spent to grow Frost, if not more. There were probably less than fifty of them in all of humanity, Coordinators and Naturals combined. And of those fifty perhaps ten even had any clue what they were. The Doc deepened his grimace... and now another Active Newtype was likely running around down on sub level five, likely in mortal danger. He would not lose another test subject to the military mind. This situation required a quick end.
The Doc pulled out his private cell phone, which he'd modified to work only within the confines of JIHAD, rather than outside. He could control most systems remotely from the phone... a fact that only he knew about. He blocked off the sentry guns outside the interrogation rooms with the dropping blast doors... Ysak and Katie would try to free their friends he had no doubt and he didn't want the other subjects blazed down by the guns while being freed. He also checked to make sure the doors to the security center in the middle of the cell block were locked shut... they were, since it was standard protocol in break out situations like this, but it never hurt to check. The guards here were supposed to be of high quality... but the Doc didn't believe that was so... fanatics were never high quality. He locked the doors down personally... now the guards would stay inside until he let them out. No need to risk a death from stray gunfire... his subjects were important to the future of the BCPU project... and he'd already noted with frustration the accuracy of his so called elite guards. He put the phone to his ear and whispered a location code. "Can you hear me, Zacharis?" he asked.
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Zacharis took a sip of grape soda from the tube that hung over his containment table and tore his eyes away from the chainsaw murder flick playing on the wall screen about four feet away. The movie was on mute, during one of the scenes where the psycho... whom Zacharis of course sympathized with... was chopping pretty girls to pieces with his weapon of choice... a four foot long portable lumber saw. Zacharis didn't need to hear the sound... he could well imagine what it sounded like. He was mentally critiquing the psycho's work as he watched... this guy wasn't all that good, even for a pretender. He didn't put any creativity into his work... he just straight up and down chopped away... he didn't bother to cause pain or terror beyond that caused by the sight of a big man with a bloody chainsaw. This guy was supposed to be a monster... but he just wasn't artistic enough to pull it off.
Frost was of course strapped to the table, his legs held together by thick steel bands that also held him stabled to the table. His hands were fully enclosed in metal spheres and his wrists were chained down. Similar chains with half inch thick links wrapped around his torso, arms, waist and thighs, pulling tight across the inpatient garb they allowed him to wear and binding him to the table. A steel collar around his neck made it so he couldn't even lift his head to look down at himself... the entire table had to be rotated by the scientists so he could watch his movie. When he wasn't watching movies or being asked questions by his evaluators there was a big steel helmet that was locked to the collar, fully enclosing his head. There were no eye holes in the helmet and only a small grille for breathing purposes.
It was quite inconvenient for Frost, all told... but it was the only way to be sure he didn't go anywhere or kill anyone. After being denied his chance to kill Lacus Clyne earlier he'd gone on a rampage... added another four scientists and six guards to his record. Finally the Doc himself had come out and faced him down... Frost had been unable to muster the gumption to strike him down... just yet. He knew he should just kill the Doc... the man had no power over him... but something he couldn't identify held him back... not fear... not respect... but something told him to wait for a better chance.
"I hear you, Doc." Frost replied, taking another sip of soda. "I'm in the middle of a good part." The movie suddenly clicked off and the table rotated so Frost was now looking up at the ceiling. Frost glared at the ceiling... there was no point in ranting or protesting... the Doc would put the movie back on when he wanted to.
"I'm letting you out, Frost." the Doc said. He sounded reluctant to Frost. "I need your help."
"I'll be happy to kill you and everyone else here." Frost immediately volunteered. "I'd thought you never ask."
"Enough of your games." the Doc snapped. "I need you to recapture the prisoners who are breaking free on sub level five. It's the Coordinators and their friends... Asmodeus exacted his revenge on them and then let some of them go... I think the man is deliberately trying to cause problems for me."
"Can't imagine why... Coordinator." Frost said with a smirk. "And you know I don't do capture."
"You do now." The Doc retorted.
"And if I don't? What if I kill them all? Are you going to kill me? Not while there's a war on, I think."
"If you recapture them all alive I'll give you Lacus Clyne and Cagalli Yula Attha." the Doc replied. Frost opened his mouth to make a smart comment, which died in his throat. The thought was making him start to salivitate.
"I can just have them anyway, once you let me go." Frost replied happily.
"No... you misunderstood me, Zacharis. When I release you... yes you could have your way with them... you could kill them. You'd have all of minutes to do it in, because after you disable them I'll be flooding the area with soldiers... more even than you can handle. However, if you recapture them all alive... I'll put the two girls alone in the gym. Then you can go in. I'll give you until you have to leave for the war to do whatever you want. Whatever... you... want. Do you understand now?" The Doc countered. He had no real intention of keeping that promise... but Frost had real trouble telling when the Doc was lying and when he wasn't... the Doc was counting on the lust and greed parts of Frost's mind taking over even more than usual.
"You have yourself a deal, Doc." Frost agreed immediately. This was a rare treat indeed... worth actually keeping a deal for once. "Though if you are going to flood them with soldiers anyway... oh I see. Yes, the soldiers suck with guns. I get it, I get it." He licked his lips... this would be delicious... little work and big reward... just what he always wanted for a present. Maybe it was his birthday. Frost decided that it was. Now it was, even if it wasn't before. He didn't remember when his actual birthday was and the Doc had never said... so today was as good a day as any. The restraints suddenly rolled back into the table, the chains loosening, the neck collar falling open... he was free to move again. He luxuriated in it as only one who spends most of his time restrained can. Amazing how good it felt to just stand when you couldn't even wriggle your toes most of the time.
"They're on level five, gathering in the cell block... I'm sending Ashino as well, and Cray when I find him. They'll be under similar orders. You are not to harm them either... even by accident."
"They're getting rewards as well?" Frost asked suspiciously... he didn't like it when people modified a deal after the fact... he usually got cheated when that happened.
"There are extra girls... Cray will get the Natural Miriallia... Ashino doesn't require a reward. He's notably likable that way."
"He's also a notable pissant asshole. If he doesn't want a reward... well, more for me." Frost replied. "I don't suppose..."
"No weapons for you." the Doc cut him off. "The temptation may prove more than your practically nonexistant sense of restraint can handle."
"You know me too well, Doc."
"I know you as well as I can, Zacharis. I'm your creator, that's my purpose."
"What's my purpose then?"
"Your current purpose is to recapture those people on level five. Your long term purpose... well, my boy... perhaps I'll tell you later. There are too many ears around right now. Now get moving... and do me proud, Zacharis." the Doc ended the call and called Ashino to issue similar orders.
"Oh... I'll do you, Doc. I'll do you with a sword... a knife... an axe... a gun... a mobile suit... my hands... my teeth... I'll do you in good and proper and final and bloody. But not before you tell me what my purpose is." Zacharis Frost muttered as he stalked panther quick out of his containment cell and towards the elevator leading up.
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Athrun switched out magazines as fast as he could... there was no telling when the next group of guards would try to assault their position... probably with the same lack of success as the two previous waves. The corridor leading to the prison area... there was only one... was only eight feet wide and about twice that long. It was a natural bottleneck... designed that way no doubt, to make the prison hard to assault or break out of. The guards could only come at them in a limited front... they couldn't be flanked or outmaneuvered while they were there. On the other hand it was very difficult to leave either... the guards would have them in a crossfire once they got out of the corridor that connected the prison area to the rest of the facility. It was a frustrating stalemate... they'd been freed from their cells, reunited with their friends... but now they were just about as trapped as they were before.
Armed or not, there was no way they could get out of the prison area alive... there were too many guards, someone would get killed before they could take all the enemy down. It wasn't hard to gun down the guards that tried to rush them... body armor or not, the massed fire from seven people was uniformly fatal to people in the bottleneck. The guards usually didn't even get the chance to fire back before being mowed down... Athrun personally couldn't believe they kept coming... they'd killed at least twenty, plus however many Ysak and Katie had accounted for breaking them out. Speaking of... Ysak was a mess.
Athrun turned to look halfway back at Ysak, who was behind him, crouched behind a barricade of guard corpses and cots hastily dragged from cells, keeping one eye on the direction the guards would come from. His pale haired rival of long standing wasn't hurt... well, he'd been grazed several times by small calibre bullets, but Athrun himself knew well that those didn't hurt too badly... especially when you were hyped out in berserker mode. He shook his head... he'd thought himself and Kira to be the only ones who could do that... Cagalli claimed to have done it during Jachin Due, but she hadn't been able to summon it since, and he and Kira could do it whenever they wanted... it was just a matter of calling the right feelings to mind. Righteous anger and protectiveness did the trick for Athrun... he didn't know what motivated Kira. He'd considered utilizing the skill now... but the side effects were also well known to him... it was very draining on the mind and the body... Ysak was going to burn himself to exhaustion if he kept himself like this. Athrun didn't say anything to him though... Ysak wasn't in the mood for advice of any sort. Athrun couldn't blame him... the absence of Chanel was so noticable it was painful. Ysak hadn't confirmed whether she was dead or just missing... but Athrun couldn't imagine Ysak breaking him out of jail before making sure both girls were safe first.
Katie also looked very strung out... eyes slightly unfocused and posture slumped... though she had proved over and over again that her mind was working just fine and her hands were steady as ever... as ever her accuracy amazed him. By all accounts Athrun was an amazing shot himself... and she put him to shame. Just went to prove that just because a person was a Coordinator did not at all mean they were inherently better than a Natural. As Kira said... a person was not defined by their abilities alone... without motivation and hard work a Coordinator was just a person with a good immune system. Athrun frowned... Katie actually was acting quite strange, now that he had a moment to reflect upon it. Even accounting for the loss of her twin sister... Katie seemed different than usual. She always seemed to know when the guards were about to attack... even though they were out of sight and hearing, beyond even his senses to detect. And every so often her eyes would blink shut for an extended period... perhaps five seconds. During that time Ysak would always whisper something to himself... so low that Athrun couldn't hear what the words were, just that there were words... words that didn't sound like they were addressed to Ysak. But this wasn't the time to be worrying about little inconsistencies like that... he should be trying to figure some way out of this bind they were in.
"Any luck yet?" Cagalli asked, from where she was kneeling behind him, positioned so she could shoot past him at knee height. Dearka and Miriallia mirrored their positions on the far side of the hall, with Ysak, Kira and Katie behind the makeshift barricade in the middle. Lacus waited off the left, out of direct line of fire... she had no idea how to use a gun and would only be a liability during a fight... she was standing by with what first aid supplies they had in case someone got hit.
"Hm?" Athrun asked in reply, caught flatfooted by her question.
"You've got the introspective look on your face that says to me you're thinking hard about something. I gather you were thinking about how to get out of here safely, right?" Cagalli explained.
"I didn't realize I was so easy to read. But yes, that's basically right. And I'm afraid to admit it, but I'm stumped so far." he replied. Cagalli gave him a partially exasperated look. "What?"
"Athrun, dear... it's me. I can read you like a book, you know that." she told him. He chuckled and nodded... that was certainly true. Just about the only person that read his moods better than Cagalli was Lacus... and she was that good with almost everyone, so that was nothing special. "You really don't have any ideas?"
"No good ones." Athrun answered. He raised his voice a little. "Anyone figure out how to get out of this with us all in one piece?" Silence greeted that question. "We're in trouble." he told Cagalli, voice back to a near whisper.
"I have faith in you. You'll come up with something." she replied. Great... now I feel bad, on top of everything else. I'm supposed to be good at shit like this? When did that happen? Athrun groused.
"They're coming." Katie suddenly spoke up.
"Damn fools... assaulting a fixed position from a narrow front is crazy... I would have figured even Blue Cosmos fanatics weren't so eager to die as to try again." Dearka spat in disgust, readying his gun.
"Not the guards." Katie refuted. In her mind's eye she could see them approaching. Two of them. One was the conglomerate beast from the waste pit room... the one who'd shot Chanel... Cray. The other... she shied away from looking at the other. Cray was tough to look upon, his insane mind changing proportions and geometery without cease... whoever the other was, their mind was so far beyond sanity that words could no longer describe it. In the out of the corner of her mind glimpses she had of the other... well, the closest analogy whe could think of was a nest of writhing snakes upon which boiling oil had been poured. It was undoubtedly Frost... she'd sensed him before. "It's the BCPU's... Cray... and Frost."
"Frost?" Miriallia gasped.
"How can you tell?" Dearka asked. "I can't hear or see anything."
"She knows. Just trust her." Ysak ordered. "You say that Frost can dodge bullets... well, I don't think he'll be able to dodge all of us. And Cray isn't that tough... I beat him by myself."
"I hope so." Kira muttered. He looked over at Lacus, who was looking most frightened. "It's okay, Lacus. I'm here... I'll protect you."
"I-I know, Kira. I don't know why I'm so scared... I can just feel this sense of doom. It's hard to get rid of." Lacus replied. Katie muttered something Kira could not quite make out... something about "unshielded". Before he could ask her what she'd said, the lights in the corridor went out, plunging them into pitch darkness.
"Come out, come out, wherever you are!" Frost maniacal voice called from off in the darkness. He giggled. "You've been hiding long enough... it's your turn to seek!"
"Yeah... come on out and play. We just want to have a good time. Promise. Cross my heart and hope to die!" Cray added gleefully. "After I cross-section yours and you die." he added in a whisper only he could hear.
"If you come out with your hands on your heads and unarmed, you won't be harmed. You have my word on that." Ashino said from behind the other two. All the BCPU's were wearing night vision goggles, so they could see just fine.
"I thought you said two." Ysak murmured to Katie.
"Ashino is shielded... he's like Asmodeus I think... I don't know how he's doing it." she whispered back. "Cray and Frost are roughly ten meters away, directly ahead. Ashino could be anywhere."
"I think we'll hold off on that. We're having lots of fun right here!" Dearka taunted back. "Not often we get to have our own private turkey shoot... though I've been wanting a bit of a challenge. I'm glad they sent us a few chickens to replace the turkeys. Cluck cluck... chickens... cluck cluck." Dearka added a few realistic chicken noises for effect. There was an explosion of noise from out in the darkened hall.
"Goddamn it, let me go! I'll show him a chicken! I'll twist his head off with my bare hands. Fuck you guys, let me go... I'll kill him... I'll give him chicken..." Cray shouted while Ashino and Frost held him back. "Fucking midget bastards, let me go! Nobody makes fun of me and lives to talk about it. I'll blow their freaking brains out and suck the blood off my hands... just like I did for that girl. See how they like that. Chicken? I'll slaughter the bastard who said that!"
"We're under orders... the Doc will vivisection us all if you kill them!" Ashino hissed. "I don't know about you, but I'd rather not have my insides spread all over a table for a few hours while he vidictively pokes around inside my chest with a scapel."
"Later... you can have them later, Cray. We do this the way the Doc wants and you get a reward... I get my rewards... and then we can kill them later. I recognize that voice... he's a wuss. Can't even take a knife to the chest. He bleeds easy... he's a pretty boy with a pretty girl... you can have them both... just don't kill them yet." Frost added. "If you keep struggling I'll break your arm and bind you with it... it's long enough."
Ysak had responded badly to one of Cray's threats... specifically the one about blowing brains out and sucking blood off hands. He'd bolted upright and was currently trembling, gun pointed down the hall. "Monster... I'll kill him for sure this time... how dare he... how dare... bastard." Ysak pulled out a grenade. "EAT THIS, CRAY! I HOPE YOU CHOKE ON IT, YOU CHICKENSHIT!" Ysak flicked the spoon off the grenade and rolled it down the hall like a bowling ball.
"Grenade!" Ashino warned, diving back and to the side. Gunfire didn't worry him much... he was wearing an armor vest and helmet, and the small caliber bullets of the sub guns wouldn't penetrate his reinforced body very well... he could take a few shots pretty much anywhere and still be near optimal operating status. But a grenade was a different story... an explosive or fragmentary grenade could kill him just like that... he was tough but not so tough that he could withstand high explosives at close range in a cramped space. Frost did not retreat, he released Cray and charged forward, leaping over the grenade and tucking himself into a ball in midair. The grenade spun as it bounced against Cray's feet. He looked down with almost comical amazement and then jumped straight up, as hard as he could, turning so he was stretched out horizontally in midair.
Cray had just reached the ceiling when the grenade blew, momentarily lighting up the hall with fire and flash, spraying fingernail sized bits of metal in a deadly horizontal spray. The initial force of the blast threw Frost forward and down, curled up like he was he hit the ground like an extremely solid soccer ball and he bounced and rolled forward, crashing into a body of a guard and flipping to his feet only a few meters from the escapees, who still couldn't see him. Ashino was out of the blast area of the grenade, though he both heard and saw pieces of shrapnel bounce off the walls and ceiling around him. Cray was above most of the blast, which primarily threw shrapnel to the side and up at an angle, not straight up. Still, he was peppered slightly with fragments of plastic and metal... none did more than stick in his skin like splinters, he barely bled at all. He landed on all fours like a cat.
Cray made loud choking noises... death gasps, gasps of terrible wracking agony. "Bastard... killed me... blew me apart..." Cray said, voice trailing off like he had just died. "OR NOT!" he scuttled forward, still on all fours, running like a beast, speeding up so that by the time he reached Frost's position he was bounding like a gorilla. Ashino shook his head... the other BCPU's were so childish it sometimes made him sad. Why couldn't they be more mature? Sure, they were crazy asses... but did that necessarily mean they had to indulge in these posturing games, taunting their enemies, laughing at them... it was all so pointless. You killed the enemy and moved on... you didn't torment them or torture them or taunt them... Ashino didn't remember once being taught to do such things, and he knew Frost and Cray had had the same schooling as him. The escapees were firing now... but it was too late, Frost was already almost within arm's reach... what bullets he did not duck under or dodge around weren't powerful enough to do more than dent his skin, leaving small bleeding welts, with the bullet still visible from the surface.
When Cray joined the fight it really was over... unable to see, out of bullets, off balance and even already wounded from interrogation, the escapee's did not have a chance. Ashino dived into the brawl as quickly as he could, ignoring the tangled knots of Coordinators trying to wrestle with Cray and Frost. He headed towards the targets that would do the most good... the females. The pilots would stop fighting in an instant to save their loves... it was simple. Capture the girls and you'd capture the guys. A part of Ashino almost felt ashamed for using such an underhanded strategy, but he quashed it almost at once... such thoughts led to the path of pride and vanity... maybe even ultimately to the posturing Cray and Frost seemed unable to do without. He'd play dirty to stay clean... the sooner the fighting was over, the more chance the pilots would be unharmed. And also, he was far more likely to have no ulterior motive in mind when apprehending the girls... even with orders to the contrary, he did not doubt Cray would attempt to feel the girls up, if nothing else. They'd be lucky if that was all Frost did... Frost was not a sexually oriented being like Cray... he liked pain and death... those were his pleasures.
Ashino couldn't say for sure he had no ulterior motive in mind... something was driving him to be gentler with the girls than he would have been for the guys... even though two of them, Cagalli and Katie, were easily as much threat as any of the males. Well... maybe not as much threat, but close. He tried to analyze what he was feeling as he put Cagalli in a sleeper choke hold, cutting off the flow of blood to her brain with one arm while he fended off the blindly aimed if extremely efficient kicks of Katie with his other arm and legs. Cagalli went limp within a minute... far faster than she would have if he'd tried to strangle choke the air from her. He held for an extra ten seconds to make sure she wasn't faking... he did not doubt that she was crafty enough to try such a thing. when he was sure she was really out, he gently lowered her to the floor, still fending Katie off in the process... with her being blind and him not that wasn't as hard as it sounded.
He turned his full attention to Katie and downed her by chopping the nerve on the back of her neck... stunning her. Miriallia was easy... she was no unarmed combatant... she kicked and shrieked loud enough to make him turn his head when he grabbed her from behind. Another neck chop laid her low... it was almost so easy he felt guilty. Lacus was around the corner, her eyes wide and unfocused... she looked like she was seeing something else rather than what was there. He stood over her... she was crouched down on the ground or else it'd have been him looking up at her. He smiled at her, even though she couldn't see him. She really was quite a person to look upon, even in the green light provided by the goggles. Too bad she already loved another person. Ashino halted his thought process... had he really just thought that? He didn't even know what love was... how could he want such a thing for himself? Didn't he have enough as it was? He was alive... he was given a job... what else did he need? It was totally unlike him to want something... especially something as intangible and doubtlessly transient as the love of another being. He'd have to study this some more... what a strange effect these girls were having on him. His breathing was changing... his heart was racing... this was not something he'd experienced before.
"Someone's there. I can hear you breathing. Are you hurt? What's going on... I can't see anything. Where are you? Kira?" Lacus muttered, stretching out her hands. Ashino did not move, though she was moments from touching him. He found himself getting... excited. He frowned... excitement was not an appropriate emotion for him to be feeling... not when the mission was still in progress. He'd done nothing to be excited about. He had to stop this before anything else strange happened.
"It is me." Ashino said. Lacus instantly withdrew her hands, inches from his shoulders. Ashino felt his frown deepen... he felt denied. He squashed the emotion ruthlessly... he hadn't missed out on anything he didn't want to miss out on. This was not his girl... she was not supposed to touch him and vice versa. He didn't know where he'd heard that rule, but it sounded right to him. He needed to talk to the Doc about this... it migh start affecting his performance if he kept feeling like this. It was almost like... like he really was a person. "Do you surrender?"
"Ashino..." Lacus whispered. "What is going on... the lights are out, I can't see, but it sounds like a lot of fighting is going on. People are getting hurt!" Ashino nodded, belatedly aware that she still couldn't see him.
"Frost is here... so is Cray. They're currently subduing your loves. I've disabled Cagalli, Katie and Miriallia. I tried not to hurt them, but I don't know how successful I was... you girls are very delicate."
"We're not as fragile as most people seem to think." Lacus replied. "Frost is here... Kira said he'd protect me."
"Kira is currently getting his ass kicked from here to Sunday by Frost... and that's with Athrun's help." Ashino replied. "If you don't surrender to me and tell your loves to surrender then they'll get progressively more hurt... unlike me Frost is not known for his sense of mercy and restraint. Cray is the same way." He paused. "I don't want to subdue you as well, Lacus. It would not make me feel good, I feel sure. Please surrender... it is your only option."
"Dying for your beliefs is always the final option... even though I don't believe it is appropriate for the current situation." Lacus replied. "Very well... I place my life in your hands, Ashino. I surrender."
"I apologize for the way I must say this then... doubtless Kira and the others will not be happy with me." Ashino told her as he turned back towards the melee. "I have Lacus Clyne here. I'm Markov Ashino, BCPU 4. If you do not surrender this instant and cease all resisting activities I will have no choice but to break her neck right here and now. I have disabled Cagalli, Miriallia and Katie... they are currently unharmed but I will also kill them if you do not surrender immediately. Do you understand?"
"Bastard!" four seperate Coordinators cried as one.
"Sly little Ashino... if you kill Pink I'll add her pain to yours, biological impossibility or not!" Frost added. "The Doc has promised her to me."
"Don't hold your breath, Zacharis." Ashino whispered, so low only Lacus heard him... just as he'd wanted to. "You'll have her over a number of dead bodies... mine included."
"Kira... please... stop. All of you... please... I can't stand the thought of you all getting killed. Please... we can't win this fight. Maybe if you were in mobile suits... but not blind, in the dark. Please." Lacus added. Slowly the sound of struggling ceased. Ashino was amazed... he hadn't expected the strategy to work so fast... he couldn't imagine Frost or Cray or even himself giving up the fight so soon if the Doc asked them too. Truly this love emotion was a powerful thing... though he guessed he should have already realized that, given that it was affecting even him... and he was proud of the fact that he had erased all but the necessary emotions for survival from his personality... or so he'd thought anyway. The lights came back on with the sound of rushing boots... dozens of soldiers descended on the prison complex, quickly binding the slightly battered looking Coordinators and the just now waking up females. Several guards approached Lacus, but Ashino backed them down with a frown and a stare.
"The Doc wants to see them... now. In his lab." a soldier told Ashino. Ashino nodded and turned towards Lacus.
"Lacus... it is this way, if you would?" he noted her frightened look... plainly she was still very worried, despite the still good condition of her friends. Ashino did not blame her... she still had a lot to be afraid of... an interview with Doc was not something anyone should take lightly. He wondered what Doc wanted to talk to them about.