Who the Hell Knows Where, Cape York Peninsula, Queensland, Australia 04:12:59
"Who's hand is that?"

"Not mine."

"Would you mind removing yours?"

"That's me."

"Oops, sorry."

"Why aren't there any damn lights?" Santana asked as she finally managed to extricate herself from the three-person jumble they had created in their not-so-quiet fall down some sort of chute with rather painful rungs.

"The better question," Kurt commented as he pushed Blaine off him, "is where the hell are we?"

"Stheno laboratories, probably," Blaine asked, apologizing for landing on top of his boyfriend and helping him.

"If you two are done giving me cavities," Santana said with a roll of her eyes, "we should probably talk strategy."

"Agent Lopez, we're who the hell knows where, we stole a helicopter, we've been shot at-" Blaine began, but Kurt quieted him with a hand on his arm.

"So, we're obviously underground, at the bottom of a chute. There are no lights, which way does the tunnel go?"

"That way…" Santana said slowly, and Kurt could hear her walking around, shoes heavy against the metal floors since she wasn't trying to be quiet. "Definitely that way." She was probably pointing, but it was pitch black in the tunnel, and the door had closed on them so there was no light from above.

"So, we go that way. There's nothing more to strategy that we can plan than that. We'll have to rely on clever tactics."

Santana huffed in frustration. "Because that's gotten us so far."

"It's gotten us here," Kurt replied, and she couldn't argue with that. "Do you think they know we're here?"

"They probably are expecting us," Santana said, and Kurt heard Blaine's quiet whimper. "Those helicopter guys must have recognized you, though hopefully they didn't see Blaine. Those guns probably go off all the time, killing wildlife, so I doubt that tipped them off."

"But so many times?" Blaine asked, his voice shaking. Kurt wrapped an arm around his waist, wishing he could see his boyfriend. Blaine sounded terrified.

"Well, if those guns shot an animal and it died, they would continue to shoot at it until it cooled to air temperature, so probably," Santana reasoned. "I doubt they know we're down here though. That trapdoor seemed very low-tech."

"It was a safe, I had to open it with a laser," Kurt replied, ignoring the mutter of 'we know, you moron,' from Santana. "Still, you don't think there are motion detectors or cameras around here?"

"Maybe not around here, but there will definitely be some later on," Santana said, then sighed. "We're in deep, Hummel." Blaine whimpered again, and Kurt squeezed his waist, having nothing else to say in front of Santana.

"How about you scout the tunnel, San?" he asked her, and he was willing to bet anything that she rolled her eyes at him. However, he couldn't even see her silhouette in the overwhelming darkness.

"You just want to talk to idiot here," Santana replied, and he didn't have an argument abut that, but he heard her walking away all the same. Though with the slight echo and the sleeper ears, she would probably be able to hear them anyway.

"Remember to shut off the signal from your phone," Kurt called after her, and he heard her scoff as she walked away. Santana was better trained than he was, admittedly, but she was also terrible at impromptu, so Kurt didn't take her obvious discomfort personally. "Are you all right?"

"I'm guessing that's a question I should be asking you," Blaine said, surprising Kurt as he placed a hand on the right side of Kurt's neck, and then the agent dimly realized that his ear was still bleeding a little. "You got shot."

"It's just a scrape." Kurt was telling the truth. There was no bullet lodged in the side of his head, but the top of his ear would probably never be the same… which was possibly a good thing, with his pointy elf-like ears. "I'm fine."

"Kurt, you were shot," Blaine said again. "This is… I'm sorry I made you do this. This was…"

"Blaine, you didn't make me do anything," Kurt insisted, putting his hand over Blaine's and removing it from his neck. "I was planning to come after your father anyway. The only difference is now I have Santana, who likes you and cares about you more than she's willing to admit, even to herself, and you're here."

"And what help is that?" Blaine asked rather sourly. "I'm a handicap."

"I thought you would be," Kurt said honestly, "but you're smart and you take direction, a hard combination to find, and right now that's all I need from you, okay?"

"Mmm-hm," Blaine said absently, but it didn't sound like he believed Kurt.

"How are you holding up?" Kurt asked again, not removing his arm from Blaine's waist.

"I'm fine." Kurt didn't quite believe him. "I guess I was just shaken up. I mean, you got shot and we fell down a chute and… this isn't much different from an action movie," Blaine said with a laugh.

"Except in real life, your ribs hurt more."

"Speaking of your ribs," Santana said from far down the tunnel. "Anything I need to snap back into place from the fall? Dislocated shoulders? Broken ribs can be dangerous, punctured lungs and shit like that."

"Santana!"

"What?" she said, and Kurt could tell she was rolling her eyes. "It's not like I can help hearing you. So, once again, I request you stop giving me cavities and instead tell me about your injuries."

"Kurt was shot," Blaine said helpfully.

"I got that," Santana replied rather dryly. "I mean breaks or scrapes."

"You're really not concerned that he got shot?" Blaine asked, incredulous.

"Not even a little bit, he's fine. There are three types of shots: innocent, incapacitating, and fatal. Kurt's walking around, so he got the easy one." Santana was very clinical about injuries, which was kind of nice on a mission, but obviously didn't sit well with Blaine. "Any other injuries?"

"Scrape on my ear, bashed my head, bruised a few ribs, a little winded and broke two bones in my wrist on a rung," Kurt answered, realizing this as he cracked his fingers. "Other than that, fine. Blaine?"

"'Other than that, fine,'" Blaine mocked, but he let it go. "I'm fine, though my back hurts a little."

"And I'm dandy, probably since Kurt was my pillow and yours," Santana said, obviously grinning. "Ready to go? The tunnel seems relatively safe, but I have no idea what's on the other side."

"Awesome," Blaine said rather sarcastically, but he stood up, extending a hand to Kurt than the agent only found because it smacked him on the uninjured side of his head.

The tunnel wasn't that long, probably a few hundred feet, and the door at the end of it was another bank vault type door. Apparently, Stheno was big on safes. Kurt, Blaine, and Santana were within ten feet of the door when Santana halted them. "This is too easy," she said, taking something out of her belt, and Blaine coughed when the smoke came out of the sphere she threw. "Cameras," she said once she could see the intersecting areas of coverage thanks to her gadget.

"Use the laser to open the vault," Kurt said to her, reaching for Blaine's belt.

"Woah!" Blaine objected, making Kurt roll his eyes.

"I'm not trying to grope you, babe, I'm just grabbing your frequency jammer. I used mine in the hangar." Kurt pulled the tool out of Blaine's belt, glad Blaine hadn't reacted to the spontaneous pet name. "I'll hit this as soon as the door opens, and then we run."

"Agreed," Santana said, pointing her laser at the door, right where all the gears were and waited for a few moments until the telltale click. Santana leaned down, getting on the floor like a track runner on her starting block. "Ready?"

"Go," Kurt said as he hit the frequency jammer. Santana ran and hauled open the door with a mighty pull, Kurt grabbed Blaine's arm and ran to the door after her. All three ran through the open vault just in time to run into a solid wall of muscle.

"Hello, miscreants."

Stheno Laboratories, Under Arafura Sea, Queensland, Australia 04:12:39
Kurt looked down from the platform, thoroughly convinced by Santana's struggling that there was no way for them to get out of their restraints. They were sat in chairs that were more like steel chair skeletons, with their feet chained to the legs. Their hands were in handcuffs through the back of the chair, and the position was incapacitating, to say the least. Blaine was still with them, which was kind of relieving, considering the whole point of rescuing Blaine from Stheno was to make sure he wasn't being used to manipulate his father.

Kurt had to be impressed with what he saw, though it made him kind of sick to admit it. There were glowing tanks of water died navy and green and red, some marked with the same 'luey para' that Santana had seen on the mysterious delivery to the Anderson residence. The laboratory was two stories tall, a balcony running around the ten foot mark, various doors leading off into other areas on both floors. One set of sliding automatic doors led into a mostly-glass area where Kurt assumed a smaller-scale lab was. The platform on which Kurt, Blaine, and Santana were restrained was in the middle of the floor, raised about five feet off the ground. Dr. Anderson was nowhere to be found, but judging by Blaine's wondering eyes, he was also looking for his father. There were also big scary machines of all metal and chrome that Kurt couldn't identify, some of which looked rather dangerous and a few that looked fatal to anyone who bothered Stheno.

"Great plan, Hummel," was Santana's comment, and she had stopped struggling.

"You're the one who doubted they knew we were in the tunnel," Kurt shot back, but there was no vitriol in his comment. He was the one who had gotten them stuck in this situation.

"Don't blame Kurt," Blaine defended him. "This is my fault."

"Shut up, Blaine," Kurt and Santana said in tandem.

Kurt still didn't see Dr. Anderson, but Sue Sylvester and Dustin Goolsby were on the floor, and headed for them. Sue Sylvester had been there to greet them when her goons had caught them at the entrance, but she had let Goolsby order the goons to tie them up and put them here, giving them all the steel chairs to sit in, and had ignored them ever since. Kurt wasn't sure how long they had been in the lab, but it didn't really matter now when the sun came up. They were caught.

"I must admit, you're clever for getting this far alone," Sue Sylvester said casually, "though I would expect more of a show of force… one that didn't include exactly who I want." She stroked down Blaine's face with sheared-off fingernails, and Kurt saw goosebumps appear on Blaine's arms.

"Don't touch him," he said before he thought about it, and Sylvester turned to him.

"Very protective… interesting. One would think that someone so protective of their target as you are wouldn't bring him into the field." Kurt knew Sylvester was trying to get a rise out of him, but that didn't stop it from working, Kurt jerking so hard in his bounds that his wrists started to chafe. "So, exactly who is it that's on to me?"

"Everyone," was Santana's rather sassy reply, and she seemed unbothered by Sue Sylvester.

"Fine. I'm sure Dr. Anderson will be excited to see his son, and very… motivated," was her last comment. "Keep an eye on them," she said to Goolsby as she stepped down from the octagonal platform.

"You need to calm the hell down," Santana said to Kurt quietly. Dustin Goolsby was leaning on a railing off to the side, and if they talked quietly, he couldn't hear them and they could hear each other thanks to the sleeper ears they still had. Sylvester hadn't bothered to check them for gadgets, besides taking away their belts. "Sylvester's trying to get a rise out of you."

"I know that," Kurt hissed to her, "but that doesn't mean it isn't working. She needs to keep her hands to herself."

"I think you need to stow the boyfriend crap right about now. She's going to torture Blaine if we don't get out of here," Sylvester said rather helpfully. Blaine's eyes went wide and he paled considerably.

"Thank you, San, for mentioning that," Kurt hissed, because it was obvious Blaine hadn't figured out his fate before she had verbalized it.

"Whoops," was Santana's only comment.

"T-torture?" Blaine asked, his voice shaking.

"Relax, Blaine, we'll get out of here."

"Had you seriously not figured that out?"

"Santana!"

"What? I thought he was smart."

"Focus, please."

"She has some sort of flesh-eating virus in those red tanks," Santana said, pointing to the ones marked 'luey para,' all red, and they were obviously color-coded.

"The leucochloridium paradoxum?" Blaine asked, sounding slightly more calm, and Kurt and Santana both turned to look at him.

"You know what those are?" Santana said, speaking both their minds.

"My dad told me about them over dinner once, when he was really frustrated," Blaine replied.

"And you couldn't have mentioned this before?"

"You didn't ask."

"Jesus, Anderson."

"Santana, stow it. Blaine, what are the leuco… whatevers."

"Leucochloridium paradoxum," Blaine repeated, "and they're kind of disgusting."

"Blaine, this is important."

"Fine, fine. I don't remember all of what he said, but they begin life in feces, are ingested by snails, migrate to the snail's eyestalks, stretch them into caterpillars, meaning they're large and swollen with stripes, and they take over the snail's mind, forcing it out of its shell; the snail is eaten by a bird and the microbes feed on its inside, producing eggs that the bird will defecate, completing the circle." Blaine wasn't kidding. They were disgusting, but the information was helpful.

"How is this dangerous to humans?" Santana asked.

"He modified them. They were supposed to feed on certain organic materials for the creation of compost and… I don't remember what he intended for the process to be, but the experiment went wrong. They became man-eating."

"So, she has man-eating bacteria."

"Microbes," Blaine corrected. "My father never let them eat someone, obviously, but they were capable of eating meat, and he assumed they would have some of the capabilities of taking over minds as well, though the human brain is much more complicated than a snail brain."

Santana sighed, leaning her head back against the steel of the chair. She was obviously panicking, but she only did it for a few seconds before she shut down her nerves. "Okay, we need a plan. Anyone think about shoving some gadgets in places other than their belts?" Santana looked at Kurt and Blaine, who both shook their heads. "Fantastic."

"Blaine," Kurt heard a voice suddenly, and when his head whipped around at his boyfriend's name, he saw Blaine's father. "What are you doing here?" Dr. Anderson sounded surprised but not horrified to see Blaine, lending credence to Santana's theory that he was here without knowledge of how much danger he was in.

"Being stupid," was Santana's reply to Dr. Anderson's question, which made Blaine's father look at the two of them in confusion, clearly noticing the cuffs on all three of them.

"What's going on, Sue?" Dr. Anderson asked her as she followed him up onto the platform.

"Your son decided to aid some FBI agents in trying to take down my company."

"Why would the FBI be involved in business investigations? Wouldn't that be the Better Business Bureau?" Dr. Anderson clearly was clueless. What exactly did he think Sue Sylvester needed technology like this for besides terrible plans?

"Dad, she's not a business, she's a supervillain from a terrible movie," Blaine said before Dustin Goolsby grabbed him, slapping a hand over his mouth and muttering in his ear. Kurt wouldn't be able to hear it except for the sleeper ears.

"Shut up you little turd. You may not be expendable, but your little friends are." Blaine went quiet. Kurt resisted the urge to struggle against his cuffs, clenching his fists.

"Your son is here to… motivate you," Sue Sylvester said casually. "I told explained to you that you had two weeks, and you have yet to make enough progress to make the deadline."

"I told you that was impossible."

"Well, yes, I understand that's what you think, but nothing is impossible to Sue Sylvester, and that's the attitude I need in my employees. So, I was just going to try a little experiment on your loving son. Uncuff him," she said to Goolsby, who grabbed Blaine roughly by the arm as a warning before unlocking his cuffs with a key on his belt. That key was the only way they were going to get out of anything, and Kurt needed a plan. Quickly.

Sue Sylvester pulled out a vial of red water, and both Andersons went pale. "Sue, that's my son. You know what those particles could do to him."

"I am well aware," Sylvester said coolly, grabbing Blaine's arm from Goolsby. "So, here's a new deadline. In twenty-four hours, you will have the antineutrinos able to survive in an airless environment, or your son here will drink these leucochloridium paradoxum, and you get to watch as they eat him from the inside out." Dr. Anderson gagged and Blaine looked close to it himself. "Get to work." She turned to Goolsby. "Keep the father away from his son… and deliver the agents to my office." That didn't sound good for Kurt and Santana's future, but Kurt was more worried about being separated from Blaine.

Sylvester tossed Blaine to the ground, without cuffs, and stalked off. Goolsby led Dr. Anderson away, obviously not concerned about Blaine's hand-to-hand combat skills, since they were still surrounded by goons. Blaine went right over to Kurt, touching his face, and judging by his boyfriend's expression, Kurt looked as terrible and ragged under proper lighting as he had expected to. "You okay?" Blaine murmured, so low Santana probably couldn't hear him.

"Asks the one who was just informed he was going to be eaten from the inside out by microbes," Kurt said rather sarcastically, but Blaine responded by kissing him.

"It's gonna be fine, okay?" he assured Kurt, still holding his face, and Kurt was willing to bet Blaine's head was filling with possibilities of what Sylvester might do to them, much worse than being eaten by leucochloridium paradoxum.

"That's what I should be telling you."

"I know, but I have faith in you and Santana." Blaine gave him another kiss as Goolsby walked back up on the platform.

"Get off each other, slime," Goolsby said, disgust in his eyes. "Transport the prisoners, don't uncuff their hands. They're much too smart for them to be uncuffed. Come with me," he said to Blaine, grabbing his arm roughly again and dragging him off the platform. Goolsby dragged Blaine off the platform, up the stairs to the balcony, and through a door to Lorde-knows-where. Kurt's stomach churned as his feet were uncuffed from the chair, and a plan occurred to him almost as soon as the agents were close enough. Without hesitating, he grabbed the bar of the metal chair behind him with his still-bound hands and swung it with all his might, knocking three of the guys assigned to them away. Keeping his hands around the bar of the chair, he also swung it by Santana, who ducked so Kurt only got one of the chair's legs into the temple of a fourth man, and the other into the sternum of a fifth.

"Kurt, you idiot, you should have waited until I was uncuffed," Santana complained. Goolsby was gone, and the other goons seemed wary of the two of them.

"Turn around," he said, a plan forming before the other goons came into action or Goolsby came back. Santana followed his advice, and Kurt swung his chair at the cuffs between Santana's arms, snapping them and possibly dislocating one or both of shoulders, judging by her scream of 'fuck!'

"You idiot," she complained, obviously not too injured because she was able to pull the pins out of the cuffs on her legs. Kurt didn't worry about his cuffs for the moment, letting go of the chair and letting it drop to the floor. "So what do we do now?"

"Run," was Kurt's suggestion when an alarm button was hit and red lights and sirens started to go off, the doors that Kurt presumed were exits locking with clicks and bangs and snaps. Santana and Kurt sprinted up the stairs, Santana using one of the bars above the railing to spin-kick a guy into unconsciousness like the perfect avenging angel, and they dashed through the first door that didn't have anyone coming out of it. "Bar it, bar it now." Santana did as he said, grabbing the nearest instrument (a ski, which made Kurt wonder where the fuck they were), and sticking it through door handle. There was some clanging and then orders were yelled, and Kurt headed back into their area, Santana right on his heels.

"Where are we?" Santana asked, the light in their hallway dank. There was sports equipment lining the wall, which made Kurt wonder why they needed it, or where they were. "This looks like a cell," Santana said, looking to their right.

"Looks more like a cage," Kurt said, but he was focused more on their left. The light coming from that room was swimming slightly. "More tanks."

"Luey para?" Santana said, unbothered with the scientific name like Kurt was.

"This water isn't dyed," Kurt replied, but there were three tanks, all unlabeled. "What the hell are we going to do?"

"I thought impromptu was your thing," Santana said, but she sat down, leaning against the wall. "There are going to be a lot of them out there, at all times. We only have our suits, bulletproof vests, x-ray contacts, and sleeper ears."

"And the floors are made of metal, so x-ray contacts aren't going to help at all. We don't have bombs or guns or cameras or anything. All we have is a bunch of sports equipment and whatever this is." Santana suddenly smiled at him. "What, you lunatic?"

"What do you think is in these tanks?"

"Maybe nothing," Kurt answered.

"What do you bet that they know there's nothing in these tanks?"

"That's… kind of a big gamble." She sighed.

"I know. I'm all out of ideas."

"Me too."

Cell C, Prison Block, Stheno Laboratories, Under Arafura Sea, Queensland, Australia 06:12:39
The fact that Sue Sylvester had a prison block in her laboratory was concerning. The fact that the only other thing that appeared to be in the prison block was a skeleton… was terrifying. The fact that the skeleton was not entirely decomposed was both horrifying and disgusting. Dustin Goolsby had Blaine's arm in a death grip, and Blaine would have been positive that he would find bruises there later if he was positive he would have a later. Unfortunately, if Kurt had run out of ideas, he had exactly twenty-four hours and probably an hour or four of mind-numbing agony until his later was over.

He had always found the phrase mind-numbing agony kind of oxymoronic. Absolutely nothing about pain was numbing.

Blaine would estimate he had been sitting in the cell for about an hour. Goolsby had stayed with him for a few minutes to whisper poisonous thoughts about the fact that his boyfriend wasn't coming to rescue him anytime soon, but then an alarm had gone off and he had raced away with a collection of four-letter words, a few of which did not sound like English.

He would be willing to admit if anyone was there that he was starting to doubt whether he was ever going to be rescued. It was kind of sad that he was a damsel in distress, but that had thus far been the role he played, and since all he had was some spy clothes, super-sensitive hearing, and contacts that allowed him to have awkwardly-sexual encounters with his boyfriend (who wasn't wearing underwear), it seemed like that was all that he was going to be.

But why was it called a stealth suit? Blaine wondered to himself, having nothing else to think about. Yes, it was gray and rather embarrassingly form-fitting, but did that really make it stealthy? It seemed to have electronics and wiring through it, but Blaine had absolutely no idea what they were intended to do, and Kurt and Agent Lopez hadn't done a terribly good job briefing him.

He was still sitting in his cell, musing about the wiring in his suit when he heard a scream from outside, the pounding of feet across the balcony, and a pepper of gunshots that made him nervous. There were a few more yells, and then the door of his cell block slammed open.

"Hey, there, Princess Peach." Unfortunately, it was not Kurt who came to rescue him, but Santana had a rather wicked grin on her face and a knife in her hand. "Stand back a little bit." Blaine did as he was told and Santana shoved the knife into the lock, jerking up with some force until the door popped open. "Time to go, Daisy."

"How many Mario games have you played?" Blaine asked dryly, but he did appreciate being rescued so he didn't take the insults too long. "Where's Kurt?"

"Doing what he does best," Santana replied, "playing it by ear."

Stheno Laboratories, Under Arafura Sea, Queensland, Australia 06:34:59
Kurt dumped another helmet-full of water over the laboratory, wondering how long it would be until Santana pulled Blaine out and grabbed their gadgets. After all, it wouldn't take the guards too long to realize there were no luey para in the water they were throwing, and then the gunshots would return. He had three bullets in his vest already.

While Santana was taking her sweet time in a high-octane situation, probably insulting his boyfriend again, Kurt was throwing helmets full of what was probably just water out onto the laboratory floor, scaring guards away with the notion of luey para. Admittedly, it was a risk, but it was the only plan they had come up with, good or bad, and they had to get Blaine out of that cell.

"Coming at ya," Santana said, almost tossing Blaine into his back as she rushed off down the balcony. She was heading for the office she had seen Sylvester coming out of, with the hope that their gadgets would be in there. If not, they were pretty much screwed.

"Go fill this helmet with the water in those tanks!" Kurt yelled to Blaine, making sure the guards could hear. "It's filled with luey para." He winked at Blaine, who probably didn't get it, and sent him off with two empty helmets.

Meanwhile, on the deck below, the guards were ducking for cover under desks, water splashing on the ground around them. Those that had been doused were running into one specific room, probably for showers or decontamination. They seemed to be believing, but the illusion wouldn't hold for long.

"Santana!" Kurt yelled out to her, but she was still trying to open the door to Sue Sylvester's office.

"Untwist your panties, Hummel, I'm working on it!" she yelled in reply as Blaine brought back two helmets supposedly full of man-eating microbes.

"Is this going to work?" Blaine asked, obviously having picked up on their plan.

"Not for much longer," Kurt whispered in return, "unless we're lucky and this water is actually filled with man-eating microbes." It didn't seem likely, judging by the increasingly calm reaction from the guards being doused, and it looked like their illusion wasn't holding up. "Santana!" he yelled to her, but she was in the office.

As Blaine went in to get two more helmets full, Santana yelled out, "They're not in there!" She was referring to their gadgets in Sue Sylvester's office, but obviously the guards took it in a different way, straightening up and no longer running like scared little chickens from the water.

Kurt was jerked backwards roughly from the railing, two large hands dwarfing his arms. "Nice try, little shit," Dustin Goolsby whispered, the first man to brave the water, and Kurt really only had one option.

He threw all his weight into an elbow to the stomach, simultaneously spinning out of Goolsby's grip and turning to face him with fists raised. "So you're the one who's been telling everyone to call me that." Blaine had given up on the helmets and had run over to Santana, the guards slowly advancing on them as Santana raised a gun she had clearly stolen from Sylvester's office and handed Blaine her lock-breaking knife.

Kurt didn't have the time to worry about how they would fare, turning back to his own fight, ducking a punch, and throwing one of his own at Goolsby's solar plexus, which was easily blocked. Agent Berry's words rang in his ears. 'Six four, two hundred and thirty pounds, tenth degree black belt in various forms of martial arts… you will not beat this man. Don't attempt it.'

Well, he had thrown every other rule out of the window. Might as well work on that one.

Kurt threw his weight into a punch to Goolsby's gut, while reaching up to knock him out with a pressure point, but Goolsby was faster. He jumped up on the railing, balancing perfectly and grabbing Kurt's hand that had gone for his neck, twisting Kurt's arm viscously behind his back and hissing swears in a language Kurt didn't understand. Kurt threw his torso backward, breaking Goolsby's perfect balance, but the grip he had taken on Kurt was tight and they both tumbled over the railing.

Kurt and Goolsby toppled end-over-end, Kurt ignoring Santana's shriek and Blaine's cry of his name, Goolsby trying to land a punch mid-air but Kurt kicking himself far enough way from Goolsby that they landed a few feet from one another, Kurt crashing into a water tank that was thankfully green and probably not going to eat him.

Kurt threw out a few swears himself as glass shards dug into his stomach, but he twisted up just before Goolsby pounced on him, kicking the man's side and breaking a rib judging by the harsh cracking sound. Goolsby toppled over but grabbed his foot, using his momentum to throw Kurt into a desk and possibly breaking a rib in return, judging by the spike of pain through Kurt's chest. Kurt struck out with his legs as Goolsby came up behind him, throwing the man off balance just enough that he could vault over the desk he was bent over and land on his feet, the desk between him and Goolsby.

"I could kill you with a punch, you little shit," Goolsby growled, sizing Kurt up or waiting for the pain in both of their sides to cool, rather than trying another move. "You're lucky Sylvester wants you alive so she can kill you herself!"

"Well, hate to break it to you," Kurt said casually as if he wasn't locked in battle, "but I could probably do the same, and I have no reason for holding back."

"Of course you do, little shit," Goolsby said with a laugh. "You don't have the guts to kill. You're a kid."

"You wanna bet?" Kurt asked him, and Goolsby used his hold on the table to launch himself under it rather than over it, knocking Kurt's legs out from under him. The agent landed on top of Goolsby with a rather embarrassing 'oof,' Goolsby grabbing his sides and driving his knee up, making Kurt see stars as pain shot through his body. Goolsby threw him off and before Kurt got the chance to get up, Goolsby slammed his fist into Kurt's face, then stomach, then solar plexus before karate-chopping his neck. Kurt's vision swam, then blackness overcame him.

A/N: Ouch. I note with happiness: this is probably the first time I've posted a chapter on time. I... don't actually have anything else to say, so more next Friday!

Reviews are Love.