Frost considered the room in front of him, which he had barged into scant seconds earlier, before being forced to evacate just millimeters ahead of highly accurate assault rifle fire and two frag grenades. Plainly the misguided defenders had erected a defensive position there, as common sense would dictate. He ran the blur of images he'd seen during his brief time in the room through his mind as the twin grenade blasts sent gusts of scorching air buffeting by him along with clouds of plaster dust and small wood chips, which he ignored as beneath trivial. A small portion of his mind noted that the MAGOS soldiers who'd been following like lapdogs at his heels had all thrown themselves into what scant cover the hallway provided, by far too slow to avoid harm if the grenades had been targeted at them. He smirked as he reconstructed the positions of the wayward Hellhounds... the team behind the furniture barricades on the landing between the floors, and the troops on the second floor landing, firing through their loopholes freshly broken through the floor. Someone up there had a cache of grenades too, and was apparently not afraid to use them. Frost considered all this information and then discarded it with a mental flick of irritation. It didn't affect his mission... the primary target wouldn't be up on the second floor, where it would be too easy to trapped by fire or killed by heavy weapon or even possible mobile suit fire... though sadly they'd been forced to leave the Fury behind... stupid covert operations missions.
No, Frost knew that Sai would be in the basement levels, and his grip tightened on his chainblade grips, causing the weapons to howl to even greater rpm in sympathy as he ground the pressure sensitive triggers against their stops. Through this room, down another hallway into the main hall, through a supposedly armored door into another offset hallway that would lead past several studies and office type rooms then to the door to the basement. Down a flight of stairs into the basements and then it was just a matter of discovering which of the sub-basments had been converted into the hidey hole and getting inside. Once that was accomplished the mission was as good as over... maybe six minutes tops, more if he took the time to play with the targets. Let the MAGOS meatsacks deal with the Hellhounds, he had more important things to do. He felt someone moving up behind him, and he only barely managed to restrain the urge to cut backwards and kill them for their presumption. But no... a distraction would be helpful and the more Hellhounds MAGOS tied up, the more time he could have of uninterrupted fun.
"Fortified position eh?" Top, the first sergeant of MAGOS, said, a slight hint of contempt riding a strung current of fear in his voice. "Lucky you they were slow on the draw." Frost let the provocative comment by... what did he care what this insect thought? "Don't worry, superman, we'll bust this nut for you. Just keep out of our way and let the professionals handle things, boy."
"As soon as I see some professionals, I might do that." Frost replied. He did not deign to look over his shoulder. "So far I've seen nothing but whipped dogs, content to follow and whine at my heels." He smirked, imagining the tortured expression on the Top's face. No doubt the human was angered at Frost's slight on the courage and ability of him and his soldiers, but Frost already had his measure of the man, and he knew that the human was far too scared to make a move against him. If only the rest of their pestilential population was as obliging, everything would be so much easier. Of course, it wouldn't be half the fun then, so Frost decided that he'd forgive them for making a fight of it. "Have fun here. I'll be taking care of..." Frost didn't get to finish his sentence. For one of the very few times in his life to date, he was caught a bit flatfooted by the actions of an inferior being.
Above on the second floor landing of the stairway room, Cyprus's eyes flew open, his mind and senses still ringing with the soundless, feelingless explosion of the grey seed in his mind. Epiphany... transcendance... there were a lot of names for the experience. Cyprus just called it Focus, with a capital "F". Soldiers had always had legends about warriors who could surpass the conventional limits of reflexes, stamina, coordination and mental quickness, heroes who could do things other people considered impossible. Cyprus had no proof, but he strongly suspected that such people had something like his Focus. Everything fell into place in his mind all at once... it wasn't quite precognition, but his subconscious mind took over his reflexes and conscious actions to a much greater extent than normal, making connections between his long term and short term knowledge that he could barely even see, muhc less understand. But suddenly everything was clear... Frost was going to bypass the room. He would just charge on through, heedless of the Hellhounds and their fortifications... his target was Sai and the BCPU knew that Sai would be in the sub-basements. Cyprus didn't know how he knew this, but he didn't waste any time in thinking about it. With a speed that was utterly breathtaking he turned and leaped headlong over the railing of the landing on the stairs side.
Cyprus turned a flip and roll in midair so that by the time he was halfway to the stairs below his head was facing out towards the ground floor room and his back was to the ground. A fraction of a rotation later and his feet were lower than his head, just in time to impact with the stairs, his knees bent for a moment and then, with a slight grunt of effort he redirected his downward momentum into a lateral backwards dive, propelling himself down the stairs and into the ground floor room like a line drive pass. Even as he leapt, his rifle was already beginning to aim, held in one hand while his other snatched a metallic cylinder from his armor harness. In the second or so it took for his arm and body to clear line of sight to the east hallway that led to the outside, Cyprus had primed the grenade and flicked the firing selector on his gun to fully automatic, so that when he did have line of sight he opened fire and tossed the grenade with near simultaniety. He noted the look of displeased surprise on Frost's face from less than ten feet away and the look of abject horror and shock on the mostly concealed face of the MAGOS Frist Sergeant standing behind him almost in passing, also noting the score of MAGOS soldiers behind them, just now starting to come out of cover or get back to their feet from positions on the ground, likely where they had thrown themselves to avoid grenade effects from Wayard's grenades.
The recoil from his assault rifle cooking off an entire forty shot extended magazine in about three quarters of a second drastically altered Cyprus's short term flight path, even as he allowed the rifle to be twisted out of his grip, trusting to its shoulder strap to keep it close to his body. He wasn't precisely aiming with the weapon... even when using his Focus, firing accurately on fully automatic while shooting one handed would be closer to miraculous than anything attributable to him. But he certainly got his point across, hurling the MAGOS First Sergeant back in a welter of crimson as his chest and lower torso was minced by the close range hi powered bullets. Three or four other soldiers took visible wounds from other rounds, dropping backwards with shrieks of pain or silent writhings of agony, while at least half of the soldiers had been hit in the armor and would be at least slightly slowed by the impact if nothing else. His gunfire did not hit Frost, but then again he'd been shooting mostly over the head level of the dimunitive BCPU. Frost had also managed to bring up his twin chainblades in a "X" in front of his face and upper torse, the wide flats of the blades towards Cyprus, where they could at least potentially deflect incoming fire. However, they did nothing to stop the grenade from smacking into them with a distinct "CLANG" before it detonated with a low "Thump". A huge cloud of billowing white and grey smoke burst out of the smoke grenade, almost instantly filling the entire section of the hallway and ground level of the staircase room to the point of zero visibility.
Now falling both forwards and sideways through the air, in the midst of an axial spin that left him facing away from the exterior hallway towards the doors leading to the hall that led into the interior of the house, Cyprus reached down with the hand closest to the ground and touched off, turning his half controlled ballistic leap into a handspring with a grimace of effort... a one handed handspring was hard enough when he was in practice clothes, much less the good sixty plus pounds of full battle armor and associated gear. But in the Focus, the pain in his wrist and lower arm was barely even preceptible, though he knew he'd certainly feel it in detail later. His free hand snatched at the pistol hoster on his thigh in his trademark lightning fast quick draw, a maneuver even further enhanced by the situation because he had no need or even ability to aim with the smoke around... it was still hot enough to confuse the thermal sensors in his helmet as well as all forms of visual tracking. He was already firing even as he touched ground, not really bothering to look, just blasting a steady stream of shots in the general direction of Frost and the MAGOS soldiers, to keep them ducking while he removed himself from the lines of return fire. Almost two and a half seconds after he first leaped from the second floor his feet touched ground again and he skidded into a crouch and roll, completely removing himself from line of sight to the exterior doorway. His rifle was empty and his pistol was half spent.
Frost wasted no time on regrets... he'd been taken off guard by the sudden unexpected maneuver of the Hellhound, but he refused to dwell on the momentary lapse, because he was determined to make up the insult by chopping the human into raggedy chunks in just a moment here. He cast about him with his enhanced senses, his eyes staring unblinking through the heated smoke that had the MAGOS troopers flinching in pain even with their goggles and armor. He couldn't see the Hellhound, nor could he hear him, but he knew the man was still nearby. A foolish decision on the humans part... he might have even gotten away with the insane stunt if he'd had the common sense to run like a rabbit after popping the smoke bomb into Frost's face. But no... this headcase wanted to stick around and slug it out, apparently. Frost was happy to oblige him, charging forward out of the center of the smoke bank, hopping in the air and spinning like a dervish, chainblades sweeping out high and low. He didn't hit his target, but away from the epicenter of the smoke cloud he had much clearer vision. Behind him, the MAGOS soldiers were just starting to recover their wits and their rage and several of them started heading into the room after Frost, using the cover of the enemy's own smoke bomb to advance with relative impunity.
Cyprus heard the chainblades whistle through the air off to his side and he felt more than heard the rushing footsteps of the MAGOS soldiers as they flooded forward, determined to take advantage of the smoke screen. Neither bothered him overmuch, and certainly didn't prevent him from calmly switching out magazines in both his pistol and his recently recovered rifle, which he pulled back into his grasp using the shoulder strap. He switched the rifle to single shot and then took it up again in one hand, with his pistol in his other hand and got to his feet in a slow, smooth motion, careful not to make any more noise than necessary. According to the briefings he'd attended on the BCPU project subjects, their senses, while exceptionally sharp, still did not extend to being able to see through smoke and there was so much ambient noise from the battle outside and the other soldiers nearby that hearing would do the enemy little good too, unless he made a loud and distinctive noise. Something loud and distinctive like taking aim at the dim shapes he could half see advancing towards him through the smoke and opening fire. He had the advantage of being the only friendly on the ground floor... anything else that moved was a safe enemy target. His first four shots took the life of two more Magos soldiers, who never even saw the merest outline of the man who blew their heads apart from less than twenty feet away.
The ground floor of the stairway room suddenly became an extremely inhospitable place, as the MAGOS soldiers, already nervy from the loss of their leadership and the stress of the mission as a whole, had a short term breakdown of discipline. All the remaining MAGOS troopers started to fire into the room, not quite randomly, but not coherently either. Cyprus hop-skipped a few paces back and dropped into a crouch, since most of the MAGOS fire was being directly at upper chest and head levels. He watched a blur in the smoke twist into a miniature cyclone for an instant as Frost spun his blades and body around and between the sprays of bullets, haloed by wreaths of sparks where the flats of the chainblades swept up to block bullets he could not twist past. Cyprus could not help but stare for a moment, seeing this mad engine of destruction at work for the first time. He shook himself out of it in an eyeblink and tongued his mic again. "Weapons free, repeat weapons free. Hostiles have entered the ground floor. There are no friendlies... repeat, no friendlies." he ordered, feeling the pause as his troops assimilated the last bit of the order, which told them to fire without regard to his wearabouts, as a moment of silence on the comm lines. "Weapons free aye, no friendlies!" a series of voices chorused back to him, shortly before the Hellhounds opened fire blindly, hosing down the room with full auto fire, which was enthusiastically returned by the MAGOS troops.
Frost felt a pair of bullets crease his shoulder and cheek and he snarled in irritation. It was fast becoming impossible for him to keep track of everything that was happening around him, with at least twenty soldiers firing near constantly, plus the added confusion of the smoke. They weren't shooting at him by design, but they were shooting past him and even through him, since they couldn't see to aim elsewhere, in the case of his so called alies, or were just shooting blind in the case of the Hellhounds. He snapped his blades up into a "X" guard in front of his face, feeling the hardened alloy-steel, the same material Ginn swords were made of, shudder as they deflected several more stray bullets in showers of blue and white sparks. His snarl deepened... the damn Hellhounds and the MAGOS soldiers were making everything so difficult, with their stupid gunfights. All he wanted to do was kill the annoying bastard who'd tossed a grenade in his face and then kill the target. But he couldn't do that while he was dancing for his life in the middle of a crossfire. As he saw it, there were two solutions... he could kill the MAGOS soldiers, which would be satisfying, but counterproductive in the short term; or he could bring the fight to the Hellhounds, who were no doubt feeling secure in their fortifications. Tiresome, but it was better than what he was doing. Thought became action with such a smooth transition that one might as well have been the other and he raced for where he remembered the stairway to be.
The Hellhounds in the stairway landing fortification had no time to react. They were busy maintaining a steady stream of fire into the smoke filled room below and in front of them, with always at least on of them firing while the others reloaded. Without warning a haze of blue and white sparks arrowed towards them through the smoke and then a nightmare hurtled out of the smoke, drawing bits of it after him in his haste like a shroud as he charged directly through their lane of fire, bullets whining and shattering as they struck the durable metal of the shrieking chainsaws in his fists. The female sergeant was just opening her mouth to call a warning while clawing at her harness for a concussion grenade to stop the monster's advance when Frost struck the somewhat shotworn table the Hellhounds were covering behind. The table was made from dense, heavy hardwood, and must have weighed at least three or four hundred pounds. The chainblades chewed through the table as easily as they did the doors, weakening the structure of the wood so that when Frost hit it a millisecond later the table cracked and broke in half at the midpoint, barely checking his advance at all. The Hellhounds tumbled backwards, but by then it was too late.
Frost took the female sergeant first, one chainblade spearing forward to impale her through the lower abdomen, kicking out a wash of blood that sprayed all over the area, while his second sword chopped off her reaching arm at mid-forearm before continuing on to pare off a slice of flesh from her side and hip. Her scream thrummed along Frost's nerves in a wave of euphoria as he lifted the impaling sword up through her body while hacking out twice with the other, decapitating the Hellhound to the right and splitting the one on the left from shoulder to groin. With a contemptuous twist and heave, Frost tossed the flopping corpse of the female sergeant from the end of his blad back over his head to roll disjointedly down the stairway behind him. He was just turning to continue his way up the stairs when he caught sight of a pair of small metallic objections flying his way from the direction of the second floor landing. He reacted on instinct, remembering a time not so long ago in a jungle near his "home" and just how painful close range greandes could be. Before he even fully realized what he was doing he'd tossed himself back down the stairs, much like the crazy Hellhound had done earlier, but in a far less graceful and controlled fashion... he landed in a shoulder roll, keeping his blades out wide to avoid injuring himself. Tough luck for a couple of MAGOS grunts, who went down with severed limbs and gashed torsos, but such was life. Behind him, the stairway landing disappeared in twin explosions of fire and red hot shrapnel, which did a good job of macerating the bodies lying there, and made a hash from the fortitifications, but not much else.
As Frost rolled to his feet, his blade took another MAGOS trooper behind her left knee, slicing her lower leg off cleanly. She began to mewl in terror, like humans did when they got badly hurt and Frost absentmindably crush the side of her skull in with the hilt of his right chainblade. She dropped like a sack of potatos, not yet dead but fast getting there. He regretted not being able to take the time to do things right and give her a send off everyone else would sure remember, but with a monstrous effort of will he choked back his bloodlust. With the Hellhound position on the stairs destroyed, and the Hellhounds reduced almost 50 percent in number, he felt as though he'd done enough of a good job of disrupting them so that MAGOS could tie them up for him. His comm link buzzed. "Frost, this is Asmodeus. The Hellhounds wiped out the command and heavy support squads. I'm currently en route to the main doors, and I'll link up with you once I get inside. Be warned, Ashino is fighting on the side of the Hellhounds."
"The little bastard is still alive?" Frost shouted, shocked to his core. Who would have thought such a soft skinned little pansy would have had the tenacity to live through his mobile suit's destruction, much less get all the way to Hawaii afterwards? A grim expression settled onto Frost's features... he suddenly knew who the so called "Coordinator" was. He wasn't worried... both he and Ashino knew who was the better between them, but the thought of Ashino running his too observant mouth off to Sai and his Isolationist friends for weeks now was discomfiting. Ashino was a wily weasel... he knew too much about Frost, and what he didn't know for sure, he suspected rightly. Ashino was the only other person alive who knew that Frost had killed the Doc. For that reason alone, if for no other, he had to die. Not to mention all the stuff he knew about the BCPU project, and their mobile suits and even their weaknesses. A brief smile crossed his face... of course, after so long without a redose, poor little Ashino was going to be running low on gamma glipheptim here shortly, and that was not a pleasant prospect for the lesser sorts of BCPU... it wasn't a fun way to die. Frost himself didn't care one way or the other... there was enough stuff in him that caused him pain as part of its regular function that his overwrought nerves barely even registered the withdrawal symptoms from the drug. It was funny really, that because of who he was and how he was made that he was probably the only person alive immune to coercion from that drug and yet it was supposed to be a key part in keeping him loyal.
There was no time to waste now... he needed to kill Sai and Vanai... even if he was supposed to spare her life, "accidents" happen, often two or three times in a row... and then he needed to hunt down Ashino and take his skull for a trophy, and keep him from talking to anyone ever again. And maybe the same for Asmodeus, depending on how verbal the old fuck was about what was going to happen to Vanai. Frost actually found himself hoping that the old man wouldn't force it to come to that... he found himself regarding the icy eyed bastard with a hint of fondness, if for no other reason than it was hilarious to watch such a dangerous and intelligent man let himself be led around blindly by the nose by his so called friend Cervantes. Frost bolted for the interior door, opening it with his usual panache, using his shoulder to bash the wooden portals into fragments as he barged through. He spun barely in time to weave past two bullets and deflect a third that would have taken him between the eyes if he'd been a hair slower. A man walked casually out of the smoke filled room behind him, rifle in one hand, pistol in the other, both aimed directly at Frost without even the tiniest of wavers. "It's you. You're fucked in the head, human." Frost noted.
"Interesting comment, coming from one such as you." Cyprus replied, even as he fired twice more, both shots swatted out of the air by the flailing chainblades. He tensed his muscles, watching the short killer intently, waiting for that smallest of tensings that would indicate a coming attack and give Cyprus time to react. For all his power, Frost did have a few weaknesses, such as they were. For one, he was still human in body. That is, he still had muscles, and was still forced to follow the laws of physics, things like inertia and such. His muscles still tightened before he moved and when he missed he could not instantly change direction. He could move damned fast, almost faster than the nominal human eye could comprehend, but Cyprus was not a nominal human, and that was even before the Focus was taken into account. He could feel his chest starting to pant a bit from the exertion, but he still had a ways to go before he reached his limit, and while Focusing, he never felt tired anyway. He fired four more times, the bullets cracking from his guns almost like they were on full auto, so fast did he pull the triggers. These bullets were fired in a small spread, which had the end result of one gashing Frost across his left hip while the others were dodged or deflected. At such close range not even the superhuman reflexes of a BCPU 6 could fully compensate for the sheer velocity of multiple bullets.
With a growl like a lion pouncing, Frost darted forwards, chainblades reaching for this frustrating foe, only to have the human melt backwards like a ghost, pivoting onto his back leg and kick out in a near perfect side kick that caught Frost fully in the face, slipping right in between his chopping blades. The blow didn't hurt much at all, but it did disrupt his attack and the sheer novelty of being struck in hand to hand combat by a Natural was enough to set Frost back a step. He skipped back a few strides, putting every last valuable inch of distance between him and the gun wielding Hellhound, until his back was to the doors that led into the main hall. "You cannot hold me off forever." Frost observed.
"I don't have to. You'll be dead in the next few minutes." Cyprus replied, cold as a glacier. "This is not a holding action. This is an execution."
"That's what I'm supposed to say." Frost pouted, bringing his swords back up to a more defensive postion. It was a little disquieting, the lack of fear this human was showing. Even Asmodeus had a little bit of fearful respect for Frost evident in his manner, a certain wariness that Frost only noticed in absentia. This man had none. "Very well then, lets make this an execution." He was just preparing to charge once more when there came the distinctive sound of gunfire from the main hall behind him... the loud, heavy bark of a certain customized pistol familiar to both of them.
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While Frost and MAGOS had been blitzing their way through the eastern wing of the house, the remains of the MAGOS company regrouped on the west side and furiously engaged the defenders there, keeping them tied up and occupied. Asmodeus considered joining up with them and taking direct command of the attack from there, but finally decided against it. The MAGOS soldiers were doing all they could, and his leadership would not be enough to sway things enough to matter. He picked his way slowly and cautiously through the jungle towards the front lawn of the mansion, eyes and helmet sensors sweeping around constantly, keeping behind as much cover as possible and always staying in what shadows he could find in the middle of the cloudy night. He'd already bypassed a couple of simple but cleverly disguised tripwires and he had no intention of ending this mission and his life by rushing into more. All the same, he did not exactly dawdle or take the scenic tour... there were other Hellhounds out in the woods with him, as well as the traitorous Ashino, neither of whom he particularly wanted to encounter. Asmodeus slowly turned the thought of a renegade BCPU over and over in his mind... truly, he wasn't all that surprised. The only shocking thing to him was that it was Ashino, easily the most disciplined and seemingly loyal of them all, who had turned coats, while Frost, a loose cannon if there ever was one, still was content to serve his purpose as a weapon wielded by Blue Cosmos. He quirked a brief smile, because technically speaking, Ashino still did that too, if you considered the Isolationists part of Blue Cosmos, which Asmodeus did not.
Another disquieting thought occured to him just then. If the mildest and most "trustworthy" of the BCPU's had found it possible to turn his back on Blue Cosmos, mightn't there be something to Frost's ravings from earlier, about being the freer of the two of them? He made a note to check up more thoroughly on just what Frost did during his so called off time. He paused at the threshold between the forest and the lawn and scanned his vision around again, his rifle muzzle following every jerk and dip of his gaze. On this side of the house, things were quiet. There was a massive racket over by the west wing exterior doors, and a somewhat more muted ruckus coming from within the east wing, but in the main, center part of the house there was no activity. Dark windows, devoid of glass with interiors shot to shreds by missile, sniper or gatling gun fire, stared out like gouged eye sockets from the front facade of the house. His feet whispered through the grass as he stole across the wide lawn. He was pleased to note that he had forgotten less of his field tradecraft than he'd feared, having been mostly a desk jockey or political officer for the last few years. He was nowhere near as polished as he'd been as a youngster, but he did himself no shame in his stalking skills tonight. He reached the front stairway, careful to tread around the still smoking and splintered remains of the main doors, which had taken a direct hit from a guided missile.
The interior of the house was not quite as dark as a cave... dim light spilled into the main hall from beneath several doorways and the inconstant moonlight shone in through the seaside windows to cast a pale pall over everything. His mask HUD rendered everything into shades of green, something which took some getting used to initially, but was now almost second nature to him. A digitally rendered red crosshair flickered across the roomscape, showing where his rifle was currently pointing. He inspected the room closely, but there really weren't that many places to hide... a few pillars, some ornamental shrubs and desks and that was about it. He was alone. He considered where he would go next... he'd told Frost he was going to rendevous with him here, but who knew when the madman would actually deign to show up. Probably not until he'd finished butchering every last member of the renegade Hellhounds he could find. He was close... the echo of the chainblades was quite audible, if unspecific in direction... given how shot up parts of the house were Frost could be anywhere within fifty meters, including above Asmodeus. He ghosted forward into the room, blending his body behind one of the entrance pillars, gun swinging to cover both sets of doors that led to the east/west main ground floor hallways. His only warning was a brief flicker of heat wash from over his right shoulder.
Asmodeus spun on his heels, rifle up and searching for a target, finger tight on the trigger. It was to no avail... a brutal force grabbed his rifle by the forestock and barrel and tore it bodily from his hands, even as a few silenced rounds purred off into the nighttime forest through the open main doorway. The rifle clattered as it struck the marble floor and slide well out of reach of either man. Asmodeus jumped awkwardly backwards, crashing into a desk and almost falling down a short flight of stairs that led to the central antrium floor of the main hall. His opponent closed the distance slowly and surely, his augmented vision cutting through the gloom as easily as the sensors in Asmodeus's helm did. "You really are getting old, Asmodeus. You forgot to check behind you." Ashino reproached, slipping his combat knife out from his back sheath as he advanced. He wished he hadn't run out of ammo for the pistols, but the urgency of Glory's recall order had precluded searching the bodies for more ammo or extra weapons... he and Ramierez had headed straight back... Ramierez to the west side battle and Ashino to Sai. But of course, on his way back he'd seen a lone Hellhound with a very distinctive heavy holster on one hip stealing into the house along the same route he was taking and now here they were.
Asmodeus slapped at his hip with one hand and yanked out his custom pistol, its blue laser sight winking on as soon as it cleared the holster. He was surprised that Ashino had let him draw the weapon... if this had been Frost he probably already would have been dead. He knew it wasn't a compunction against killing Naturals, like BCPU's were supposed to have, since he'd seen Ashino slaughter the command and heavy weapons teams, but something seemed to be holding Ashino back a little from finishing the deal. Asmodeus also noted that at least one of his shots from earlier had struck home... one of Ashino's sleeves was ripped off and tied around his upper arm in a makeshift bandage. The BCPU moved slowly and cautiously, knife held low and forward, eyes never leaving Asmodeus for a second. Asmodeus frowned at the uncharacteristic caution, even for Ashino, who was always measured and methodical... this also smacked of hesitancy, which wasn't an emotion the BCPU's were supposed to have. Then the answer became obvious, as it quickly would to anyone who was as familiar with the BCPU project as Asmodeus was. He calculated a few times and dates rapidly in his head and grinned a very slight grin. "Been a while since the last check-up, hasn't it, Markov? You might need to go see a doctor sometime soon, get your shots updated."
"Thank you for your concern, but I'm fine. My arm twinges a bit, but I've had worse." Ashino forced a grin of his own onto his features, even as his stomach roiled a bit and blur gathered at the edges of his vision. Coming down from the combat high of earlier wasn't as easy with low Gamma Glipheptim levels... among other things the drug acted as a stabilizer and mitigator for some of the more harmful effects of the other chemicals present in his organs and bloodstream. Nothing permanently debilitating, but he sure didn't feel at the top of his game right now. Still, he knew he was more than able to finish off a single old Natural, even one as devious and dangerous as Asmodeus. His knife handle was reassuringly dry and solid in his grip. The knife wasn't his preferred weapon, but he'd trained with it and mastered it just like he had for most forms of combat. He kept it low, where it would be easy to rip upwards with all his considerable strength behind it. One good stroke would be all he would need to put paid to Asmodeus for all time. Naturally, Asmodeus would be well aware of this and thus would do all in his power to keep Ashino from closing the distance. Ashino warily eyed the huge pistol... it wouldn't take more than one or two hits from that beast to put him down, he had no doubts.
"I'd imagine so." Asmodeus allowed, laser sight steady on Ashino's breastbone. When dealing with the incredible speed and reflexes of a BCPU, headshots were too chancy, too easy to avoid... better to shoot for the body mass and hope to knock them off balance long enough to put a couple more in there and keep them down. With a .223 caliber slug, the same caliber used in modern military squad level support weapons, his pistol would put a hole through a man big enough to stick both your hands into, body armor or not, especially at such close range. Ashino was of course aware of this, and would do his best to close quickly and either disembowel him or cut his wrist and take the gun away. He could allow neither. "How did you survive the destruction of the Bane, anyway? We could find no evidence of your body, but there was quite the inferno after all."
"I do not know. Divine providence? Skill? Luck? I was unconscious at the time. I thought I was going to die, but when I awoke I was floating in the ocean, already out of sight of land." Ashino replied, advancing one step forward for every step back Asmodeus took. "Why are you here, Asmodeus? Surely you can realize that Cervantes's time is coming to an end. His last few acts have been the desperate scrabblings of a madman whos empire is crumbling beneath his own grip... the moment he ordered Cray to break up the peace protest in Orb, it was already over for him. Sai is doing the right thing... the necessary thing. When a Mobile Suit or a BCPU becomes outmoded, outdated, or irretrievably insane, they are discarded and their flaws corrected in the next generation... the same principle applies to Natural political leaders I'd say."
"Sai is a foolish young boy, besotted with wealth and power and the importance it conveys. He hasn't the backbone or the mind to be a leader, especially a leader of Blue Cosmos. Niceties aside, Blue Cosmos is a terrorist organization, devoted to the eradication of the Coordinator menace. That's what Blue Cosmos is, and always has been, at heart. Not a political movement, not an environmental group, certainly not a peace lobby. We kill Coordinators and those who would create them, in order to preserve a Blue and Pure World for human beings, without the unnatural stain of genetic tinkering." Asmodeus retorted.
"Oh please, don't play the fanatic with me, Asmodeus Sark. We both know that's complete crap, all of it." Ashino said disgustedly. "Blue Cosmos is an economic concern, a criminal organization funded and run by mostly legitimate corporations to cut out their competitors, who can produce better, cheaper and more plentiful products than they can for the same production cost. Blue Cosmos kills Coordinators, encourages the war, because that's what is good for its sponsers and their income. Do you have any idea how much money Cosmos Weapon Manufacturers has made off this war? I don't have the slightest clue, but I'd imagine the numbers are in the tens of billions. And what about the food barons, providing for all the troops... the fuel companies, the medical supplies, the transport fees, not to mention all of the "acquired resources" from conquered or coerced world nations like the United States of South America and Orb. The Blue Cosmos sponsers are making a mint... a thousand mints... from this war, which they propogate by inflaming the fundamentally just fears of the everyday populace that they will lose jobs from competition with Coordinators. I've read a lot of history and I know you have too... the old USA faced similar problems during the late twenty-first and early twenty second centuries AD, when its highly trained but highly paid workforce was consistently undermined and underbid by the massive and cheap workforces of China and India who could make nearly the same quality for a tenth the price."
Asmodeus did not refute the claims Ashino put forth... they were, after all, true. And in this place, at this time, what was a little truth between mortal foes? Justified, in his opinion. It would be nice to drop the mask of deceit for a little bit, just for once. The house security system was nonoperational and all outside communications were being jammed anyway. No one could hear him that mattered. "What of it then? So what, that Blue Cosmos is just a big money making racket, in the big picture? As you pointed out, wars throughout history have always been the same in motivation. Politics is often blamed, but we both know its always economics that is the real blame. The American Revolution? Forget political freedom, they didn't want to pay their admittedly high taxes. The American Civil War... the South didn't want to give up slavery, a primary source of their income and economic stability and the North was planning on forcing them to pay their free labor. World Wars 1, 2 and 3, if you count the Reconstruction War... various nations wanted a bigger slice of the Trade pie and they took them by force, much like we did when we annexed the USSA and Orb... do you have any idea how many YEARS of technological advances we took from Morganroete? The price is unimaginable. My point is though, even if Sai takes over Blue Cosmos, its not going to change the war."
"That is where you are wrong." Ashino countered, very conscious of the camera on his chest that he'd borrowed from Ramierez. This entire conversation was being broadcast worldwide, most likely live. Of course the various battles between the Hellhounds and MAGOS were getting air time too, but if he knew Sai, as soon as this conversation started he would have prioritized this link. The longer he could keep Asmodeus talking, the better things would go. Already he'd gotten quite a few juicy soundbytes. "Sai is different from Cervantes. He has no interest in becoming rich... he values people more than money. It's been odd for me, adjusting to the idea that someone actually cares about my wellbeing and doesn't regard me as a mere component of a greater machine, but I can tell you this... the feeling is fantastic." Ashino did not mention Lacus Clyne, whom had originally planted the seed of humanity in his psyche... her name would not help this situation any. "He desires peace because he hates war... he fought in the last war because he had to fight to survive and protect those people he cared about. He fights now for the exact same reasons. Not for fame, not for power, not for money or property or fun. He doesn't hate Coordinators, though he does hate some of them. Just like people like food, but hate some food. He is wise enough to admire them for their strengths and take comfort in his own."
"What strengths? They are smarter than us, faster than us, stronger than us, live longer, are healthier... what advantages do we have?" Asmodeus sneered. "The only weakness they have is ironically genetic in nature and that is reproductive sterility, a serious problem but one that is combatable. What do we have? Numbers. That's all."
"We have stability." Ashino replied, calling to mind many long conversations he'd had with Sai about very similar topics. "Economic stability, political stability... discounting Blue Cosmos... and perhaps most importantly of all, emotional stability. We have a big, blue and green world with a breathable atmosphere, liquid water and hospitable temperature for human life. We have an atmosphere that shields us from deadly solar and interstellar radiation, mineral resources so vast we still haven't come close to tapping them all, living room still to spare and an environment that retains its natural balance seemingly no matter how hard we push it. Our nations have been established for so long that many people don't even remember when they were founded and our governmental systems have stood the tests of centuries. We don't need them to survive, but they, until recently, needed us to survive. Even now, they may be "economically self sufficient", but there's leagues of differences between "self sufficient" and "prosperous". Not to mention that they're still human. They may live in space, but Earth is our home, psychologically. It hasn't been near long enough for them to start thinking of the PLANTS as "home" in that sense. The live in space, but they're from Earth."
"Thought this all out, have you? This is more than I expected from a BCPU." Asmodeus admitted, his voice coming out unintentionally harsh, maybe because Ashino was still advancing on him with a knife, during the entire conversation. He was starting to run out of room to back up to... if he didn't take action within the next few minutes, he'd be backed into a corner and that would be the end of things. Ashino's eyes glittered like sparks in the green light of the HUD.
"Merely because I'm a manufactured product... an unwilling one, I might add... doesn't make me stupid or unlearned." Ashino said coldly. "I regard myself as a living, breathing example of the end result of the sickness that has pervaded the upper echelons of the current Blue Cosmos hierarchy. I was a child, stolen from my parents at the whim of a mad scientist. I was tortured and brainwashed, my memories wiped, my emotions dulled, my every thought turned towards killing those whom I was ordered to. I was unmade as a person and remade as a thing. Why? To perpetuate the war. They say my purpose is to kill Coordinators. On the general level, that's true. The Doc said we, the BCPU, were what Coordinators should have been... a quantifiable, understandable and most importantly controllable upgrade to the human race. Chemically enslaved, indoctrinated with total dependence and reliance upon my creators... yes, how perfect a tool I was. But I believe that we are nothing but a taunt. A challenge to the Coordinators, something for them to fear, to strike against and in so doing, continue to expand their war machine, which gives us all the reason we'd need to expand ours. How much money has Blue Cosmos made because we were held back at Washington DC, when we could have saved the city with our attacks but we let them slaughter the defenders to make a good presentation for the sales department? If BCPU's were truly made to end the war, then this war would already be ended."
"What about the nukes? We've tried to destroy the PLANTS on various occasions... that would have ended the war." Asmodeus watched Ashino start to gather himself... the conversation, intriguing as it was, was nearing a end.
"It would not have. Even at Jachin Due, the nukes were mostly aimed at their military and agricultural colonies... millions would be dead, but millions would have survived in the population colonies. They would have surrendered and the shooting war would have ended. But the real war would have just shifted venue. As a people, persecuted for a choice made before they were born, the Coordinators would not have taken more nuclear devastation lying down. They would have been economic vassals again in name only... everything that came out of them would be so rife with sabotage and terrorism that it would cost us more to control them than to let them be free. You can make me believe that Azrael Murata and Cervantes Zunnichi want all Coordinators dead... but Blue Cosmos doesn't. It wouldn't be good for business."
Asmodeus chuckled briefly. "All you've done is bitch and moan. You've painted an accurate picture of the truth, poked holes in the falsities that we use to appease the public and even made a few insights not even I was fully aware of. But you haven't convinced me that your way is right. What makes Sai a better leader than Cervantes? Too much blood and terror have flowed under the bridge now to make amends, whatever other reasons there are to continue the war. You commend him for his altruism and his respect for others. I damn him for the same. That sort of softness will only result in us losing the war. And what then? What then!?"
"Indeed... what then." Ashino nodded once. "Will they occupy us? Force us to pay them tribute? Police us all into camps? Nuke our cities? Gun us down at our weddings... assassinate our political leaders... bomb our houses... hold lynch mobs... what? Like you said, numbers. Theres a perhaps fifteen million of them, and more than ten billion of us. Hundreds of times their number. What will change if they win the war? Nothing. We know what they want. They want to be left alone, to be treated as people, as equals and as humans. They want space to be themselves, to be free to make their own choices for good or ill, to forge their own path... just like any nation does. In short, they want to be just like us. What do we lose for giving them their space, as much of it as they want? Nothing. We have a WORLD of OUR OWN! Maybe, sometime, centuries or millenia down the road, we might actually run out of space on Earth, might deplete all its resources, might kill its environment. But it's going to take a hell of a lot more than just ten billion of us for that to happen. And, if and when such a situation arrives, assuming it ever does, which is not assured, then we might have to worry about expanding into space. After which amount of time they'll probably be fully autonomous of the Solar System itself and there will be plenty of space to go to."
"So we all just live happily ever after, neighbors in space? In thirty years their economy will overshadow anything the Earth has to compare. They're already mining the asteroid belt and it won't be long before they hit Mars and Venus. We won't be able to compete with them, with their rate of technological advance. Our entire economy will be bankrupt compared to theirs in fifty years of peace. We don't have any option but to fight, unless we want to end up as brute force laborers for them!" Asmodeus seethed, finger tightening on the trigger just slightly.
"I never said that. We're called Isolationists for a reason, Asmodeus. They want to be free... very well, let them be free from us, in all aspects. They can have space... but we have the Earth and the Moon. There will be no trade... no communication... no travel... no emmi- or immi-gration. We will build a wall between us that neither side will be able to surmount. Like two children in a playground who bully each other... sometimes the only solution is seperation, two seperate time outs to allow both sides to cool off and calm down."
"Fantasy... pure raving madness." Asmodeus said savagely. "How could building such a thing bring peace? It would only spawn a new war when we attacked them or they attacked us... and then one side would have the wall. It would be this whole war, all over again. Might as well just keep fighting this one rather than spread false hope. What's to prevent that, eh?"
"Trust. Honor. Mutual respect."
"Idiotic." Asmodeus squeezed the trigger, exploding the calm dimness of the room into splinters of light and sound.
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Sai paced back and forth in the sub-basement/command center, hes eyes never leaving the myriad screens that showed the views from the various cameras that his friends and protectors wore. A distressing number of the screens were black out or stared motionless at a single viewpoint... those represented those who were dead and gone. Of the ones that were moving, most weren't of much more comfort, usually depicting some facet of furious close range gun combat or other that he could have easily gone his whole life without seeing in action. His Hellhounds were hanging on by the skin of their teeth, but they were making the attacking soldiers... MAGOS, was what Cyprus and Glory called them... pay a hefty price for each foot of ground they gained into the house. Sai just hoped that future history would bear out their sacrifices as being worth the rewards he was reaping for them. All their wireless communications were still down, internet included, due to the jamming the MAGOS soldiers had set up somewhere on the island. But the covert land line... more accurately sea line, since most of it was about two thousand feet down in the ocean... that led out from the house was still working just fine. It had cost an incredible amount to have the line put in on such short notice, but Blue Cosmos had the cash to spare. He'd just been worried that his father in law or more likely Asmodeus would have done a bit of digging and found out about it, but it seemed the secret still was. He glanced up at the main screen again, where the enlarged view from two cameras in particular were displayed. One was Cyprus... the other, Ashino. One man was confronting Frost, the other Asmodeus.
"Ashino certainly has learned a lot from talking with you." Vanai observed from where she was seated in a recliner nearby, in front of the computer that was the connection to the land line system. More than seven months pregnant, she was beginning to feel perpetually tired and even the pulse pounding danger of an attack from a special forces company coming to kill her husband and everyone around him couldn't motivate her body to be comfortable standing. "Might have to move him to the Publicity department, if he can toss out a spiel like that on short notice." She saw the look he gave her and laughed. "Don't look at me like that, my love. We're both political animals... we use people, that's our job. It's how we use them, and for what purpose that truly determines the good or evil of our existence. Seriously, Ashino would be a enormous boon to our cause if we had him do a few speeches. A tragic childhood, involuntary enslavement, torture, brainwashing, an uplifting struggle against the chemical bonds that his former masters placed upon him... his story sells, big time. There's not a human rights movement on either side of the fence, Coordinator or Natural that won't support a group that has him as a figurehead."
"He doesn't have much time. Unless R and D pulls a magic rabbit out of a hat within the next month or so, he's going to die. I won't have him suffering emotionally because he's being used as a tool to further my own agenda, in addition to his physical suffering." Sai frowned. "He saved my life, and your life and the twins lives. He's my friend..."
"He's my friend too." Vanai interrupted. "Maybe he and I aren't as close as you and he, but Sai, your friends are my friends and vice versa. I don't want to see him in pain any more than you do, but the reality of the situation remains. He's most likely going to die in a month. He knows this. He knows we know this, since he told us himself. He appreciates all the help we've given him, the respect we give him, the way we treat him as the real human being he is... but he cannot just forget his past. He is damaged, damaged in a way neither of us can comprehend." Her voice became even more gentle and quiet. "It isn't pleasant to say, but I believe he would want us to use him. He's been used for so long by people with immoral and unethical motives that not being used is strange to him. Uncomfortable. Being used by us to bring about a lasting peace... I think he would see that as a sort of redemption, something he has no idea how to achieve by himself. You can ask him yourself, but he's still a bit awkward about communicating his feelings... you know I'm right though."
"The rightness of what you say isn't what is at stake." Sai swallowed as he listened to Ashino continue to batter away at Asmodeus's ideological defenses using a solid mix of his own observations and Sai's own policies and notes. "I'm not questioning the rightness of using Ashino... indeed, as you say, he would most likely want us to. However, just because I can, and he wants me to, doesn't mean I should. I won't make that decision for him... if he asks me to let him speak, I will gladly do so, but to force him to speak, even for a good cause, smacks of coercion to me... and I will not coerce him."
"Even if it might mean the difference between getting the support we need to bring about peace and failing by the wayside?" Vanai countered, not enjoying the pained expression that crossed his face, but she had to make her point. "He's out there risking his life for us right now. I cannot think of any choice more serious than that. We're already using him, Sai-love. Asking him to speak for us... is it any different than asking him to die for us? No... you know he's already made his choice. He wants to be out there... he volunteered. They all did. It is us who would do them wrong by not using their gift to the best advantage of the world."
"You sure you don't want to be the leader?" Sai half joked. "Because it certainly sounds like you've got it all worked out to me." He smiled and stopped pacing, studying both screens with a much calmer, more analytical viewpoint. "Thanks, Vanai. I don't know where I'd be if I didn't have you to keep me steady on course."
"Our children should be born and raised in a world without the strife of genocidal war. All natural children should." Vanai replied with a genuine smile of her own. Sai noted the use of the word "natural" but didn't comment. Vanai wasn't as open in her deeply held, personal beliefs as he was, he knew. She publicly espoused everything he said and believed in, but between the two of them there was sometimes friction as to just how much human respect Coordinators deserved. She wasn't anywhere near as bad as her father... more an aristocrat looking down on peasants than a man looking down on an infestation of bugs.
"So that's Zacharis Frost, is it?" Sai said, studying the screen showing Cyprus's viewpoint. Ashino's viewpoint was mostly just sound and a very little picture, Asmodeus's mask and not much else in the dim light of the main hall. Cyprus was in a reasonably well lit hallway, though there was some smoke that was billowing up from behind him somewhere. The person everyone he knew referred to as the most bestial and maniacal killer of modern times certainly looked the part. Short, very short but muscled like a bull on steroids, Frost had dark, almost pupilless eyes and dark green hair that spiked up from his head, shorter in some places than others. His skin was caucasian with a tan and was liberally splattered in gore of various sorts. He wore black fatigue trousers and short sleeved tunic that strained to contain his muscle mass, the clothing was ripped and torn in several places but very little of the blood that covered him appeared to be his own. Distressingly little, considering he'd been facing off with Cyprus for quite some time now. A terrifying weapon, looking like a mix between a wide bladed machete and a chainsaw, was gripped in either hand, the teeth spinning in red-grey blurs.
"It is." Vanai gulped audible and looked away from the screen as if nauseated. "I strongly hope that this is as close as you'll ever have to be to him. He's one of the most repungent... things... I've ever been around." Certainly the most repungent I've ever slept with. I cannot imagine how I was ever attracted to him... I must have just been in one of those "phases". She thought privately to herself.
"Hopefully." Sai agreed, but his voice was full of doubt. Cyprus was holding his own, doing far better than any normal person had any right to do, but Sai had watched Frost block bullets with his swords and seemingly dodge others, right there on the TV screen. He'd extremely underestimated what the man was capable of, despite the warnings from Cyprus, Vanai and even Ashino. It just hadn't seemed real. He'd been prepared for another Ashino... maybe a bit bigger, faster, stronger and tougher... but not this Frost. He replayed the confused and traumatic couple of seconds that showed Frost clearing out a fortified position of three Hellhounds like it was a walk in the park... he'd had time to enjoy himself, made it look easy. And he'd seen the smile on Frost's face and he'd shuddered in fear and disgust. To think he'd once voiced the thought of trying to recruit Frost onto his side... now he saw why everyone else had reacted so strongly and negatively.
On screen there was a sudden explosion of light and sound on Ashino's screen and the only partly muffled sound of a gunshot from Cyprus's screen. Both Cyprus and Frost froze upon hearing the sound. Sai's heart leapt up into his throat... Ashino was tough but he'd seen Asmodeus's gun before and tough wouldn't cut it against that thing. However, the view from Ashino's camera kept moving and he didn't hear any sounds that would indicate a serious wound... though on the other hand with Ashino it might not be immediately obvious, since a serious wound to him was something to be ignored, not lamented. A traumatic amputation probably wouldn't even make him gasp. On Cyprus's screen everything was suddenly a blur of motion, too confused to make out any details from. Suddenly a bright glow appeared on Ashino's screen, the ambient light levels in the main hall suddenly increasing as the eastern doorway was battered open by a short black blur with humming swords in either hand. One sword suddenly seperated from the figure in a shower of sparks, skidding off along the floor with the sound of metal chewing into stone. Frost turned and spun, his remaining sword flickering around in a figure eight that created sparks all around him... more bullets deflected. An instant later and the second sword left his hand... voluntarily this time as he hurled it like a dagger directly at the screen... Cyprus's head in real life.
Sai and Vanai both flinched backwards, while Thomas Glory, who'd been unobtrusively guarding the door from across the room swore loudly and profanely as all of them watched the jagged teeth of the chainblade grow larger and larger with seeming aching slowness. Then a dark object, recognizable only to Glory as the stock and body of a rifle, interposed itself between the camera and the weapon and then there was a huge explosion of sparks and the camera juddered and shook and showed a wildly gyrating view of the ceiling. Again Sai found himself holding his breath in worry, but Cyprus once again proved himself at least up to the challenge and the view quickly righted itself, Cyprus expressing his willingness to continue with several shots from his pistol, one of which struck Frost high on the left collarbone, blowing out a large puff of dark crimson and giving a brief view of shiny "bone" underneath, though natural bone didn't usually have a metallic sheen to it. Within seconds the bloody wound had clotted and dried over in a scab like belt leather and Frost paid the injury absolutely no more heed than a man might a particularly big mosquito bite. Asmodeus's pistol roared twice more and Cyprus apparently was forced to make a dive for his life, because once again the camera swung wildly and showed a very close up view of the floor for several seconds.
Meanwhile, Ashino's camera had seemingly been either torn off or otherwise destroyed, because there was no picture, though the auditory pickups were obviously still working just fine, due to the grunts of effort and the sound of blows that could be heard from that screen. When Cyprus regained his feet the situation became clear, though it was already obvious from the sounds what had been going on. Ashino and Frost were rolling around and around on the floor, punching and grappling at each other. At least thats what it looked like initially, but then Sai looked closer and his hopeful expression turned sour. Ashino had tried to grapple Frost to keep him away from Cyprus, and to some extent he'd succeeded. He'd grabbed him and picked him up and slammed him into a pillar. Then Frost had broken the grab and turned on Ashino with the fury of a blood-mad tiger. A single blow from Frost's fist slammed Ashino five feet backwards into the low atrium wall and the uppercut that followed pitched him up and over that same wall. Not letting up for a moment, Frost leapt up and landed astride Ashino and laid him out on the floor with a headbutt loud enough to be heard cleanly by Cyprus more than thirty feet away. Cyprus was exchanging pistol fire with Asmodeus, who had gone to ground near the western doorway, neither man was doing much besides pin the other down wile they both watched the BCPU's duke it out.
Sai watched Ashino rally for a moment, kneeing Frost squarely in the lower back and pushing him to the side, then flipping to his feet and launching a barrage of punches and kicks that each would have stunned a horse. Frost weathered the beating without any more comment than a wide and bloody grin. It was disconcerting, seeing punches with so much obvious power landing squarely but to so little effect. Sure, you'd see the like in movies every so often, but in reality, it wasn't easy to just let someone haul off and belt you as hard as they could and just shrug it off. Especially when they were hitting you in the face. Ashino threw one last punch but hit nothing but air as Frost drifted around and under the blow with contempt plain on his features, even from Cyprus's long range viewpoint. Frost caught Ashino's punching arm by the wrist with one hand and swung him up and off his feet and into a wall like a man would swing a large doll. Ashino cratered the plaster and wood backed wall and hung there dazed for a moment. Frost gave him no time to recover, pinning him to the wall with three short jabs to the abdomen and then letting him drop forward onto another uppercut that lifted him almost three feet into the air. When Ashino landed he fell in a heap and did not move, though he was apparently still breathing. Frost let him lie and turned to face Cyprus, who fired off two shots in his direction, both of which hit nothing but wall. Then Frost was charging, headed right at Cyprus, who tossed his pistol down, its slide locked back on empty. The last clear thing Sai and the people in the basement saw on the camera before it turned to a nonsensical static of whirling images was Asmodeus, Ashino's combat knife sticking out of his lower left side, slipping through the doorway that led to the basement stairs.
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Cyprus could feel the ebb and flow of the Focus strongly inside his mind and body. He'd been going for almost five minutes now and he felt sure he had at least five or ten more in him. Assuming he lived that long anyway, which was by no means assured. He watched as Frost wiped the floor with Ashino, weathering a series of punches that would have landed a normal person in intensive care with a smile on his face before retaliating with such fervour that Ashino was probably unconscious as soon as he hit the wall, regardless of the punches that followed. And now, that same supercharged terror was coming right at him, and he didn't have an augmented skeelton, toughened skin or any other gadgets and gear to help him survive the assault. All he had was his body armor, which was of limited use against strong blunt trauma and his combat knife, a foot long blade of mono-molecular steel edge. Well, those and more than a decade of the most intensive training his body could adapt to and the incredible clarity and reaction speed the Focus lent him. He watched Asmodeus hobble away through the doors leading to the hallway that allowed access to the basement and noted the knife sticking out of Asmodeus's left side. Not a vital location, but very painful and bloody. It would slow the older man considerably, but it wouldn't stop him.
Cyprus counter-charged Frost, something that quite obviously took the BCPU off guard. Naturally, he would be unused to people charging at him... he was used to playing the all powerful killer. Well, Cyprus had a few things to teach him about that... strength, speed, toughness and bloody-mindedness were well and good, but the best killers were the ones who fought cold. For instance, yes, if Frost caught him full on with a punch or other blow, it would almost certainly be all over for Cyprus. But a full on blow was harder to land than you might think, when you were as well versed in as many martial arts as Cyprus was. Cyprus transitioned smoothly from forward charge to spinning side kick, moving between the speeding blurs of Frost's fists with hairs to spare. The impact was incredible, shaking his legs to the bone and leaving a massive bruise on the bottom of his foot he couldn't afford to feel right now. Frost's nose snapped with a crunch of gristle, but barely bled at all and didn't even begin to stop him. Cyprus kicked off with his foot from Frost's face, twirling his body up into a high tuck to avoid the whistling snatching of Frost's arms as they came back to try and grab him. Really, the man was fast, but so too was Cyprus in the Focus and Frost, for all his speed and power, just didn't have the patience to use his trained skills well. He was a magnificent brawler, but against someone almost as fast as him, and better at understanding the flow of combat, he was at a disadvantage.
Cyprus could make up for the difference in speed by planning in advance what moves he would do and how Frost would react, given his personality and previously observed fighting techniques. His knife would make up for the difference in power and toughness. And his calm, relentless logic and extensive anatomical knowledge would match Frost's hatred and ferocity. He didn't fool himself... he was scared, but he used that fear as a motivating force to increase his performance even more. He landed from his tuck and immediately dropped onto his back as Frost bodily leapt at him, now over him, now being guided over him with Cyprus's legs in his gut, now being kicked into a pillar by Cyprus as he redirected the BCPU's momentum. Stone cracked a little from the impact, but Frost wasn't even close to down, catching himself on his hands and knees and charging back at the infuriating Natural with the hound mask. The bastard wasn't doing much that hurt, but he was refusing to go down like a good victim and it was pissing Frost off to no end. Ashino had played the game by the rules and was lying in a tenderized lump over across the room to prove the natural order of things still worked. His anger rose like a molten tide inside him and his vision started to red out.
Cyprus noted how agitated Frost was becoming, and factored that into his strategy. The angrier a person got, the more ruled by that emotion they became, which led to erratic behavior, sometimes even completely irrational in nature. That was one of the reasons Cyprus kept his own anger under the very tightest of emotional bonds. Cyprus spun under a punch from Frost and slammed into the shorter man with his shoulder. It was like diving into a brick wall, but he ignored the pain, hooked one leg under Frost's own and used his own punching balance shift to toss the BCPU to the ground in a heap. Almost as an afterthought he sliced the knife down and gouged a deep cut along Frost's chest, the knife grating against bone but not penetrating any further than that. Whatever they put into the BCPU's skeleton, Cyprus was impressed... he'd cut through vehicle armor with that knife before. Frost slapped the knife away before it could more than score a few ribs and he swarmed to his feet even more enraged than ever, even as the cut scabbed over with its usual impressive speed. How in all the names of hell the Natural had managed to claim first blood in the melee was not something he quite understood, but the shame of the thought was unbearable. He'd never felt so enraged, except maybe when dealing with Pink and her stupid boyfriend, Yamato.
Cyprus was noting something of concern... the angrier Frost got, the faster and stronger he was becoming. He did not know if the BCPU had some sort of limit he had not normally reached, much like Cyprus himself did, or if this was just some temporary side effect of drugs, but in any case, he needed to end this soon. Frost came at him again and this time Cyprus meant to end it. He stabbed forward with the knife and smiled inwardly in satisfaction as it sank into Frost's chest, sliding between the ribs instead of trying to cut across them. He frowned though, at the amount of resistance he encountered... he'd not expected the organs to be so extensively armored. The knife was barely a few inches in when Frost's arm snaked across and slapped the blade, breaking it between his reinforce ribs from the force of the blow. Frothing at the mouth, Frost didn't even bother to hit the shocked Cyprus, he just grabbed and threw him, ignoring the few inches of steel still embedded in his chest. Cyprus did what he could to break the fall, but it was a hard landing all the same. Plaster broke and wood splintered and it felt like he'd shattered every bone in his back and legs, but when he flopped down onto the cold marble floor he found himself still able to move all his limbs, albeit very painfully. He felt the ruined remains of his camera unit crumple into fragments beneath him and sighed. A hand grabbed him by the top of the mask and picked him up.
Cyprus played dead for a moment, then realized it was probably futile... Frost was beyond every remit of sanity, he wouldn't hesitate to tear a man limb from limb, dead or not, when he was as angry as he was now. Still in the Focus, though his vision was a bit blurry now, Cyprus watched Frost winding up a open hand slap that would probably powder his skull if it landed. He struck first, slamming two palm strikes into Frost's head, one on either eardrum. The BCPU shook his head and winced, but didn't do much else, besides grin even more nastily than ever. "Gonna die, you..." invective seemed to fail Frost. He frowned and then smiled again within the space of a second. "Gonna die..." he repeated.
"Everyone dies." Cyprus replied calmly, spearing his right hand into Frost's chest, his fingertips finding the broken off tip of his knife still imbedded in the BCPU's flesh. The point was still facing inward, but the broken part of the blade was sharp and jagged and cut easily through his glove and the skin beneath. It wasn't until his fingerbones hit the metal that anything happened. It hurt... it hurt a lot. The most painful thing he'd done to himself in a long time, to be sure. Steel grated on bone and then the force of the blow finally punched the armor piercing tip of the knife through the armor of Frost's right lung, through organ itself, out the back armor and out through his back, leaving Cyprus with his hand quite literally inside the other's body cavity. Any human, any Coordinator even would be down and done, in incredible agony, not to mention blood loss and loss of a major organ, but Frost barely even staggered. His lung proved to be as resilient as the rest of him, the tear quickly sealing up around the edges of the knife as the blood clotted, so quickly the lung didn't even deflate. He didn't even spit blood. "Some of us just don't die as quickly as others." It was the closest thing he'd come to voicing a complaint in almost a decade. His Focused mind scrambled for some new strategy, a tactic to get him out of this situation but he'd done about the worst, most painful thing he could think of and it hadn't had nearly the effect he'd desired.
Frost slowly swam out of the depths of his killing rage, lucidity warring with hate in painful flashes across his brain a thousand times more agonizing than the puny wounds the Hellhound was inflicting on him. Nothing short of catastrophic failure of three or four major organs would do more than slow him down for a little bit. If he lost his heart he had secondary pumping devices in his legs that would last nearly an hour, if his lungs failed his blood would be chemically oxygenated for almost thirty minutes, his internal systems could reroute portions of his nervous system to deal with damage to his spine through wiring that was good for at least a week and his liver was only one of three devices in his body that purified blood. Just about the only major organ he couldn't bypass for at least some time was his brain and that was the most heavily armored thing in his entire body. He found himself holding the Hellhound with one hand, with the other cocked back and wound up tight for a blow that would probably decapitate the man, who had one hand stuck inside Frost's chest while the other wavered at his side, clenched into a fist but quiescent for the moment. "That, my friend, is one of the truest things ever spoken." Frost replied. "Everyone is going to die... but some people are going to die first. I'm going to be doing the killing." He unwound his punching blow and then used that hand to bat away a lightning fast strike at his eyes. He forstalled any further fun and games from the soldier by bringing his hand down like a hammer on the man's shoulder, dislocating the limb and shattering the collar bone with a delicious crunch. The man grunted, and Frost could hear teeth grinding on teeth, but no scream issued forth.
"I'm not going to kill you just yet." Frost announced, using his hand to break the Hellhound mask apart at the seams, levering it off the soldier's head by force. It was probably not the most painless of experiences for the soldier, but that hardly mattered, did it? Frost stared into the grey eyes of the other, noting their washed out look, framed by the sweaty grey hair. "I'll be damned..."
"Not soon enough." Cyprus managed, yanking his hand out of Frost's chest and clawing for the eyes again. For his trouble he got his wrist broken, compound fracture style. Again, he gritted his teeth, not giving his foe the satisfaction of a scream. Frost barely noticed however, staring off into some memory Cyprus would probably never understood, and should probably be grateful for that mercy too.
"To think, we went to all that trouble to capture those Coordinators, and we had someone like you already in the organization. You could have been my brother, even my better, in a few years time. Ironic, isn't it?" Frost mused. "But then, you have no idea what I'm talking about do you?" Cyprus didn't answer, just stared icily at the BCPU. Frost shivered slightly, more a quiver of joy than anything. "Oooh, I know that stare. No relation to the dear Asmodeus, are you? No... not family... a student perhaps? Yes, that would make sense, wouldn't it?" He noted the lack of any sort of reaction at all, but he was used to that from dealing with Asmodeus. "You had me going there for a moment, Grey. Only person who's ever pissed me off more is Pink." No reaction. "Bet you're wondering why I'm going to spare your life?" No reaction. "THINK FAST!" he cried, punching at the man and stopping the blow just short, so his knuckles barely touched the tip of Grey's nose. Not even a blink. Frost shivered again, getting goosebumps of happiness. "You're a lot of fun, Grey. Either you're genuinely not afraid of me, or you're absolutely senseless crazy. Which is it?" No reaction.
"All right then, since you're such an avid listener, why don't I do a bit of talking eh? Here, walk with me, my Grey friend. We'll go see Sai and lovely Vanai and Asmodeus together." Frost said cheerily, turning and heading towards the hallway to the basement, dragging Cyprus along with him by the collar of his body armor. Cyprus considered struggling, but with both his arms out of commission there wasn't much he could do. Much as he would hate to admit it, he was at Frost's capricious mercy at the moment. Frost paused once, to grab Ashino by his own collar with his other hand and drag him along as well. Ashino remained limp, well and truly down and out for the count. "See, my father, that is, The Doc, finally up and told me about my destiny in life, shortly before I crushed the life out of him. And what a destiny it is. What is it, you ask? Well, I'll tell you. You see, it all has to do with peace..."
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Glory stood and stared at the door, the only door in or out of the room they were in. His automatic shotgun was in his hands and it too was aimed at the door. They'd all seen where Asmodeus was going, right before they lost the view and audio from Cyprus's camera. That had been almost five minutes ago, and Glory knew the enemy couldn't be that far away now. Sweat beaded on his forehead and dripped down his chin inside his oversized helmet. Sai stood by Vanai in her recliner at the far end of the room, right next to the podium they'd set up for him to speak from, hoping it would never come to that. Well, that had been a vain hope. It was coming to that right now. Glory forced himself to concentrate on the door and only on the door. He couldn't let himself worry about Cyprus going up against the killer Frost. So what if no Natural or Coordinator had ever stood up to him in a hand to hand fight and won? So what if Ashino had been dominated like a little girl on a rugby field. That didn't mean that the Lieutenant would share their fate. He was the goddam LIEUTENANT, the end all, be all of the EFSOU. The ultimate soldier. Glory's best friend and commander. He would be fine... just fine. He'd beat the monster, Beowolf to Grendel style and then he'd skip along over and break Asmodeus's neck like a twig, just in a few momen... the doorknob twisted and rattled as someone tried the lock.
"DIE, MOTHERFUCKER, DIE!" Glory shouted and hosed down the door and two feet of the walls to either side with fully automatic shotgun fire, reloading three times before finally regaining control of his emotions. It had been childish and unprofessional, but he had to admit, he felt a lot better now. He had about five seconds to feel satisfied with himself before the remnants of the door blew inwards under the force of a breaching charge, the shockwave from which picked him up and threw him backwards a good five or six feet to land hard, stunned and groggy, on his back. Three flash grenades rode the shockwave into the room, their brilliant light and supersonic cracks further incapacitating any resistance that might have remained in the room. By the time his vision and hearing had returned to any semblance of normal working order, it was far too late to mount a defense. Asmodeus had already strolled almost casually into the room, pistol already drawn, field dressing in place over his wounded side, Ashino's blade tucked through his belt, a two meter telescopic rod tipped with a quick drying glue held in his other hand. Glory blearily recognized the tool, which was often used for prodding doors and other suspicious locations to test for pressure sensitive plates or traps. With a bit of glue on it, all Asmodeus had to do was sneak to the door, plant his charge, sneak away and jostle the knob a bit to provoke a reaction. Maybe there was a reason the guy had been the leader of the Hellhounds.
"I decline at this time, but eventually I'm sure I'll be able to oblige you, Sergeant-Major." Asmodeus said, his voice on slightly ragged from the muted pain of his stab wound. Painkillers were a wonderful, wonderful thing. He looked around the room calmly. "Not a bad setup, for an improvised job. Put in a new security system, did you? And what are these... camera views from your soldiers? Inventive. Sadly, I hope you weren't under the impression that all this media equipment means even a little bit of a damn all." Asmodeus continued, his voice becoming slick and hard like tomb ice. "Obviously, the first thing we did was set up a communications blackout over this island. Nothing has gone out and nothing can come in. Not for at least another few hours anyway. Your pathetic attempt to gather evidence of this intervention has all been for naught. Much like your rebellion against Blue Cosmos itself."
"I am no rebel, merely a voluble, dissenting voice. One of many, I might add." Sai replied, fighting to maintain a calm composure. He was on live TV after all, even if Asmodeus didn't know that. "Freedom of Speech is still an unimpeachable right of the EA citizen."
"Right's have no place in Blue Cosmos." Asmodeus said, aiming his pistol directly between Sai's eyes, even as he cautiously moved over and kicked the shotgun away from the supine Glory. "Especially not freedom of speech. Well, you are free to speak anything you please... as long as you agree with your superiors."
"And it is for that reason I can no longer be a part of your Blue Cosmos. The Blue Cosmos I believe in does not set the views of its members... it takes the views of its members and makes them its own." Sai said, staring into the massive muzzle like it was the most interesting thing in the world to him. At the moment he couldn't tell if it wasn't.
"Very pretty. But words are just that... vibrations in the air, nothing more meaningful than the sound of a pistol shot." Asmodeus said stiffly, becoming bored with the boy already. "Vanai, your father is extremely angry with you and is most disappointed to boot. For all that, he's still your father and he loves you, despite what he may have said in the heat of the moment. I'm very sorry, but I have orders to kill your husband, directly from your father. Next time, we'll choose someone a bit more ideologically sound for you to marry. Please, step down from the recliner and come over here, now."
"I'm fine where I am, thanks." Vanai retorted. Behind his mask, Asmodeus's eyes hardened and a frown creased his face.
"We can do this two ways, dearheart. My way, in which you walk out of here under your own power... or Frost's way, in which he carries you, willingly or not. It is your choice."
"I'll stay with my husband. Marriage vows and all that, I'm sure you understand. You had a wife once, didn't you? Or was that someone else, I find it hard to imagine a woman who could fall in love with a snake like you?" she made the question a barbed taunt... Asmodeus's wife had died in childbirth back around the time she herself had been born. She couldn't tell what expression he had behind his mask, but she would bet it wasn't happy.
"Very well then. You're old enough to have children, I'm sure you're old enough to make your own decisions, wrong or right." Asmodeus's voice was brittle indeed. Glory twitched at his feet and Asmodeus switched his aim in a heartbeat, putting a shot into the wall next to Glory's head. "Don't do that, Sergeant-Major, I'm already in a bad mood. I'd prefer not to have to kill you, though I'm afraid it's probably too late for Cyprus now... Frost doesn't tend to leave much in the way of survivors when he has his way."
"What's the point of leaving me alive then?" Glory asked sarcastically. "You're going to kill the best chance for peace the world has, but you're going to let me live?"
"Since when did you care about peace, Glory?"
"Since a good while before you guys ordered that colossal FUCKUP in ORB! But that was the major catalyst right there. I'm a Hellhound, sir and damn fucking proud of it! But that doesn't mean I eat babies for breakfast and drink blood for supper. I'm a human being and by and large, I care about my fellow humans. Sure, I'll ice 'em if they shoot at me or if the mission calls for it, but I won't bring a FUCKING MOBILE SUIT in to break up a PEACE PROTEST and ravage a goddamn CITY, full of citizens lawfully exercising their RIGHTS!" Glory snapped. "Also, I wouldn't assassinate my own son in law just because he didn't want to play ball with my strong arm tactics for prolonging a goddamn nuclear war!"
"You've become defunct, Glory. You're not nearly the razor edge I remembered you as." Asmodeus sounded disappointed. "Very well, I'll end your misery then, after I complete my mission."
"Let me get one thing straight, sir. Did you or did you not condone Purgatory Day?" Glory hissed.
"Protesting it would have been pointless. Cervantes was not of a mind to be lenient." Asmodeus answered after a few moments.
"That is another reason why I can no longer sit idly by and let Cervantes Zunnichi run the world into the ground." Sai cut in firmly. "What good is a leader that refuses to listen to his subordinates... that's just a despot, not a leader."
"Despot... maybe so. But despotic rule seems to be getting the job done, doesn't it? After all, it's what the people of the EA chose. Well, its what their leaders chose for them, but it amounts to the same thing. You're more than aware of it of course. The President and the Security council don't govern the Earth Alliance any more than the individual member state governments govern their states. Everyone takes their orders from Blue Cosmos, whether they believe it or not. And Blue Cosmos takes its orders from Cervantes. And currently, his orders run to the effect of "Kill Sai Argyle before his ridiculous efforts at attaining peace disrupt the important phases of the plan for the total annihilation of the Coordinator race from this universe." Not quite verbatim, but you understand the gist of it."
"I understand that the Earth Alliance is currently taking its orders from a genocidal madman, without a hint of morals or ethics." Sai goaded.
"Well, then you do understand. I'm so glad for you. It would be unpleasant to die without understanding why."
"I do have one question, a personal question."
"Oh really, do tell." Asmodeus was having an almost out of body experience. Probably the pain killers, but goddamn he was just so tired of deception now... his entire life was one big constant deception and he was tired of it for the moment.
"Why? Why do you allow him to act like this? You're one of his only friends... why don't you stop him? You might be the only person who can." Sai asked, his words heartfelt. He got a response quicker than he thought he would and it chilled him to the soul.
"Why should I care what happens to the world? Don't you see... my family is dead, killed by Coordinators. I had my revenge, so even that is denied to me now. My life is empty. Nothing matters to me, I live life because thats what life does, not because I want to. I follow Cervantes because that is what I've always done. I'm not sure we're friends anymore... neither of us really needs a friend. I need a boss who will give any order and he needs a subordinate who will follow any order. That is the extent of our current relationship. I have no interest in stopping him, because if he is stopped then I will have even less reason to exist than I do now and that is the one thing I cannot bear." Asmodeus replied, his voice totally drained of all feeling, so dead that dry didn't even come close.
"We are alike." Frost commented, from where he'd just walked through the door. He laid Ashino down and then dragged Cyprus along with him as he continued to walk into the room. "See, I was telling Grey here my master plan. He didn't like it very much, but thats nothing less than I expected. What can I say... plebes will always be jealous of the worthy." He glanced sidelong at Asmodeus. "Such emptiness in your soul, Asmodeus. It truly makes me feel quite brotherly. Now you just need to travel down, past desolation into madness and hatred and you'll be just like I was, before the Doc revealed to me my purpose. And what a purpose, eh, Grey?" Cyprus didn't say a word, he just stared at Frost with utter loathing... itself enough of a reaction to get Frost giggling. "See, I'm the greatest peacemaker in the room right now. How is that you ask... oops, not in front of the camera."
"It doesn't matter. Remember, the communications interdiction." Asmodeus pointed out.
"So true. And yet so not." Frost replied, grinning mightily. He knew he had everyone's attention then. He raised his hand and pointed casually off past the podium, past the recliner where Vanai was sitting. "You may not have noticed, but on that computer screen back there, there are the words "Land Line Connection Stable". I'm not sure if lovely Vanai is sitting there as a purposeful screen or if its all an terrible accident as I'm sure they didn't want to hide that information from you. You didn't say anything incriminating, did you, dear Asmodeus?"
"How long have you known?" Asmodeus asked after several long seconds, his voice unchanged but his posture slightly slumped.
"About ten seconds longer than you, I'd imagine, considering I just now spotted it. If I'd known I was performing on live TV I would have been much more brutal. Grey, you dog, you should have told me." Frost said playfully.
"You have about ten minutes before the police, national guard, Navy, Army, Air Force, Marines who will be extra pissed about you borrowing a MAGOS unit for an illegal political assassination by the way, EFSOU and probably several mobile suits arrive." Glory pointed out. "I'd imagine they're most preturbed."
"Nine minutes, forty three seconds at the outside, assuming no major incidents suffered during deployment." Cyprus clarified helpfully. He was almost smiling. "To use the idiom of some of my soldiers, I think you've gone and screwed the pooch here, Asmodeus. Whatever it was you said to Sai just got broadcast over the entire world AND to the PLANTS. As well as any other helpful conversations you may have had with anyone wearing a camera harness."
Asmodeus stared at Sai for almost ten seconds, then slowly lowered his pistol. "Well played. I'd imagine Cervantes is less than pleased with me right now."
"I'm sure there is a relatively long list, but he's probably at the top, yes." Sai said, determined to stay casual in what might become the moment of victory. "Order your troops to stand down and I'll do what I can to ensure they aren't involved in this any more than they have to be."
"No... that's all right. Better they all die. It's what soldiers do, in wars." Asmodeus replied, tossing his gun to the ground. He went over and borrowed a chair from a computer station along the wall and collapsed down into it. His sigh was clearly audible throughout the room.
"You really don't care about anything, do you, sir?" Glory said into the shocked silence. "Losing your son really destroyed you."
"Don't pity me, Glory or I'll frag this entire room." Asmodeus said curtly, touching one hand to a row of grenades along his chest. "You may have won, but if you provoke me I will make a point to not let you enjoy your victory."
"Hey, hey, I'm still here, you know!" Frost piped up. "Sure, the whole Blue Cosmos rules the world gig is dead and gone now, but that doesn't mean give up the ghost. We can still kill people! There's always that!"
"Shut up, Zacharis." Asmodeus's voice was very quiet. "If you want to kill them all, go ahead and do it. But these people are your only chance of getting off this island alive and I still get the feeling you're not ready to die yet, especially with all this babble about a purpose."
"Uhh... don't know about you, but I'm a psycho killer. What makes you think they'll let me leave alive even if I do spare them?" Frost pointed out, but his argument was half hearted. He knew Asmodeus was right, damn it.
"These people..." Asmodeus waved his hands blankly at the entire room. "They believe in these things called "Rights". One of them is a Right to a fair trial by your peers. In your case that may be difficult to enact to the letter of the law, but I'm sure they'll come up with something. Whether they want to or not, now that they've gone and babbled off to me about how we abuse their rights, they cannot very well go violating them for us. Especially because they announced everything worldwide over the TV, just like us. No, they cannot kill you out of hand... it would ruin everything they've gained today if they did."
"FUCK!" Glory cried, catching on to what Asmodeus was saying at last. "FUCK, FUCK, FUCK, FUCK! GODDAMN IT!" he slammed his fists into the ground. "You mean we have to let them live so they can go to trial!?"
"That's how it works. Your justice system at work, always willing to give the villians a better than even chance at getting away." Asmodeus said bitterly. "Not that we'll be so lucky. There's not a government judiciary in the world that would rule in our favor... they'd be lynched in a hour. I revealed some very unpleasant and deeply buried truths today, truths which lead to very uncomfortable questions for every world and industry leader, as well as most of the upper echelon military staff." He looked over at Sai, his head moving limply and almost listlessly on his neck. "I don't suppose you could shut that blasted link off now, could you? It's all well and good that you played me for a fool, but broadcasting my acknowledgements of your victory is almost more than I can bear."
"Of course." Sai replied, tapping a security code into the computer that let him shut it down. "I appreciate you being so civilized about this, Asmodeus. I'll admit, its more than I expected."
"Whatever I may have lost when Ray died, I've not lost my professionalism. Killing you all would be satisfying, but it wouldn't change anything. I don't do senseless killing. That's what Frost is for."
"You rang?" Frost looked up from where he'd gone to sit against a wall, Cyprus's un-dislocated arm draped over his shoulders while Frost held his wrist so he couldn't get away. "My killing isn't senseless. It's more of a sensual orgy. Not that I'd expect you to understand, just yet. Give it a few more weeks at this rate and maybe you and I will be able to actually hold a meaningful conversation for once. Kind of like the ones I have with my good buddy, Grey here. Isn't that right, Grey?" Cyprus didn't even deign to look at Frost anymore, he just tolerated the BCPU's games because he knew they would be over soon. He still wasn't sure why Frost was playing the game, unless it was just because he was sick and insane, which was more than enough reason. "Isn't he just a talkative little ninny? I love this guy! Did you know he's really, truly not afraid of me? I just can't get over it. I mean, two kindred souls like us... hell with Asmodeus we're almost a trinity. A father... a son... and a holy grey ghost. God, I feel like I'm babbling. Am I annoying anyone? Well tough." He kept up an almost nonstop stream of playful digs and verbal gobblygook for the next seven minutes and twenty seven seconds, at which time hundreds of soldiers from dozens of different units descended upon the island, snuffing out the completely surprised MAGOS troops with barely a struggle and taking everyone remaining on the island into protective custody.