The Hunt for Sviederbach

Disclaimer: I do not own Shake it Up

A/N:

Chapter 13 (Aveline's First Kill)

The two teleported just outside the gates of the private park, amazed that the device got it right and didn't shoot them all the way to some foreign country. Without waiting to scan her surroundings, Aveline started to push open the gates. Astor was watching from behind, looking up at the two trees at the gate. Just as she was about to step through, she was grabbed and pulled back from behind. "Watch out sis!"

"What are you-" Arrows shot out at the gate, startling her. "Okay, future reference, check surroundings…" Of course Martin would lay traps for her, why would he want to make it any harder on her? She looked up to the trees and narrowed her eyes. "Motion sensor arrow machines. How many of those arrows do you think are packed in there?"

"I don't know, but I don't think I want to find out, do you?" Perhaps using the teleportation device wasn't the best thing to do. What would have happened if it put them right in between those trees? "If they're motion sensors, then remaining completely still would help. Not sure how helpful it would be in order to actually move." She narrowed her eyes and started looking around the street. Driving a car through would be good, but it might not help with the glass windshields. What could they use? "We need some sort of shield, sis…"

"Thank you, Mister Obvious." Astor rolled his eyes as Aveline turned her gaze to the machines in the trees. If they detected motion, then could they catch an arrow, or would that be too fast? "I'm going to test something." She withdrew her bow, then grabbed an arrow from her scabbard. She aimed directly in between the two trees and closed her left eye, steadying her aim. A bead of sweat ran along her neck. She slowly pulled the arrow back, counted to three, and fired it off.

She lowered her bow, watching the arrow whiz by the trees, generating a gust of wind. The two machines snapped in the direction and began firing at each other. Astor exclaimed in surprise as Aveline's heart swelled with pride. Because the arrows were shooting at one another, they were detecting the other motion as the other arrows entered the machine's range. After several hits, the machines began popping, then finally fell out of the trees and crashed into the ground. "Nice one, Sis. How'd you know that would happen?"

"I call it…" She moved into a mock dramatic pose and swept her hair from her forehead. "'Lucky Shot'." He was unimpressed, so she moved on. Of course, she would remain careful, so as not to trigger anymore traps. "I can only hope Martin hasn't put traps like those everywhere, no innocents need to suffer from this mess."

"Yeah really." She wondered if walking along the path would be too obvious, perhaps they needed to stay off of the park's sidewalk trail. "Do you think they're holding Kuno at the lake, or was that a clue just to mean 'within the park'?" Her eyebrows rose and she quickly looked to Astor. He had an interesting thought there, what if the clue was intentionally misleading?

"We still have to check the lake." Seeing as how Kuno was held at the lake, and Michael was held without Mia, she had a sinking suspicion that Martin was using their memories as a weapon against them. If this pattern were the case, she had a bad feeling about where some of the people would be held. "I just pray Martin isn't doing what I think he's doing…"

"And if he is, whatever that is?"

"Then I'm going to be extra pissed off. I'm worried he might be using fears and memories against everyone. Think about it, Kuno's at the water, and the twins are separated." Astor's face dropped and he quickly looked off to where the lake was. He was well aware of how bad such a thing could be. "I don't know what everyone's fears are, but I'm pretty sure we can find them depending on the clues."

"We'll find them all." He was afraid, she could see it in his eyes. As much as he was trying to be brave, as much as he were trying to fight back those tears, he was still just a young boy whose entire family could die in a single instant if they did the wrong thing.

"I promise we will, Astor." She had to be strong for him, for their country, and for their family. "Even if it kills me, we'll save them. God knows I won't rest."

"Then neither will I." Not only did their father's life depend on them, but their own lives depended on him. She didn't forget Martin's chilling words that he would kill them if they failed to rescue Gunther and Ander. Winning was going to take every ounce of their strength, of that she was sure. "Can we hurry up? I'm not sure I trust Martin's word on that two days…"

"Well he did say he valued his word, but you could be right." Since they found the loophole that was the teleportation device, he might automatically shorten the deadline they had to rescue Kuno. "Astor, do you think they'll be in the same exact place?"

"What do you mean?"

"There's clues to everyone, just because they're captured together, does that mean they're in the same holding location? For instance, Kuno could be at the lake, but Michael might be on the other end of the park." His face paled at the thought. She didn't want to think like that, but unfortunately they had to consider all avenues. "I don't know what trick that snake has up his sleeves, but we need to prepare for anything."

She started walking, keeping her eyes peeled for anything that might be a problem, but there were no further traps. When the lake came into view, with a few trees blocking them from the lake, she stopped walking and held her hand out against Astor's chest. She put her hand to her lips and looked over to the tree next to her. There was a chance Martin was in communication with the people holding onto her family, so they could very well be prepared for her.

"Why are we stopping, Sis? I'd like to get my brothers back now."

"Patience is a virtue. Why do you think he put cameras at our collar? It's not just so Sviederbach can watch us, but he's watching too…" She narrowed her eyes and let out a low growl. "I hate to admit it, but Martin isn't an idiot. He knows that his family is in just as much trouble as ours."

"You're saying he's watching just to see if they appear on screen?"

"If they do, he could try to contact them to get out of the way. We have to rely on stealth and cunning. We have to outwit him." Yet that didn't mean they could sneak up behind the person. If they did that, Martin could always send word that they were coming up from behind. If they tried to cover the camera up when they found the people, Martin would know what was going on then as well.

"So what are we going to do?"

"I have an idea." She removed two arrows from her scabbard and walked over to the tree. The arrows were very durable and strong these days, so they could take quite a bit of abuse. She slammed the arrowheads into the sides of the tree, gripped the stem tightly with her hands, then wrapped her legs around the trunk. "Here we go, stand lookout, Astor."

"All right…" With each grunt, she slowly pulled herself to the top of the tree, taking about fifteen minutes to scale it. Carefully she crawled along one of the branches and looked out to the lake. "What do you see up there, Sis?"

"Hold on!" She narrowed her eyes and scanned the lake with her eyes. The closest edge of the lake was approximately twenty feet from the base of the tree. They were at the bottom edge of the lake, shaped like an eight. On the right shore, close to the middle of the lake, was a long dock. The dock was about forty feet from where she was, and on the dock was Malisa Lamont. She was seated in a small crane that held a cage in the lake. Kuno was seated in the cage with water touching his pants, the poor boy was rubbing his eyes, a sign that he was crying out. "The bitch…"

"What do you see?" She was well aware the branch was blocking the collar's view, so she would have to use that to her advantage. "Come on, I don't like being stuck down here with nothing to do but twiddle my thumbs…" She rolled her eyes and pointed to the lake.

"Here's something you can do. There's a dock out by the lake, go to it, but keep your hand on your sword."

"You're serious?"

"You wanted something to do, didn't you?" She grabbed an arrow and started adjusting it with her bow, holding the weapon in a sideways fashion. The woman was within. Days like this made her grateful for her mother's rigorous archery training. Archers measured their shots in meters, and she could shoot an arrow from about ninety-five meters away from their targets. That was an equivalent of three hundred and eleven feet. The dock being forty-five feet was close to fourteen meters away. However, that was on the ground, she was at an angle.

Now Astor was just a decoy, to get the woman away from that crane, and away from her brother. She turned her eyes a few feet behind the woman and saw Michael in a cage near some trees, he was calling out to the woman, possibly trying to tell her to let Kuno go. "Don't worry little brothers," Aveline whispered while locking her aim on the woman, "Big sister's here." She clicked her tongue and watched Astor make his way towards the dock, stopping halfway to call out to the woman in the crane. "Yeah, big sister's here, and she's pissed off."

Malisa stepped out of the crane and started to walk towards Astor, mocking him. It was almost too easy! She wasn't sure she could stomach killing a real person, but the fact that the woman was a criminal attacking her family, it made the kill a little easier to take.

The woman stopped halfway between the crane and Astor, grabbed a radio from her waist and froze. She looked up at the trees surrounding her, and started running for the crane. Aveline clicked her tongue and aimed a little ahead of the woman, then swiftly fired off the shot. "Come on, hit the target…" This was a lot different than shooting arrows at large birds or animals, hunting with her father.

The arrow pierced into Malisa's left hip, causing her to fall towards the ground. Aveline swallowed her disgust and fired two more arrows that pierced into Malisa's legs.

Thinking fast, she descended from the tree and ran out to the groaning woman. Astor ran up, his eyes wide. Aveline's heart was racing as the older woman cursed the two of them. "I knew I shouldn't have left that crane!" Malisa exclaimed. Aveline looked to the blood flowing from the woman, cringing at the smell that struck her nose. This was too much, far too much, and she really hoped Astor wouldn't have to take a life. Like her, his only experience at taking a life was from hunting with their father.

"What are we doing, Sis?" Astor asked. His eyes glazed over and Aveline's expression grew harder. She could hear both Kuno and Michael screaming out from their cells. She spotted a key chain with two skeleton keys, most likely they belonged to the cages holding her brothers. "Aveline? Are we really going to kill her?"

"Yes…" Slowly, she lifted the bow and arrow to the woman. Malisa would die anyway, and the pain she was going through was likely excruciating. Even if she lived, she'd be paralyzed from that first arrow. "Malisa Lamont?"

"What!" The woman snapped, swinging her hand at Aveline's leg, still trying to kill her. Aveline closed her eyes and breathed in, muttering softly beneath her breath.

"Father above, have mercy on this woman's soul. May this be a merciful arrow, be with her as she stands judgment before our ancestors…" Malisa continued her rant of curses, never once halting in her speech. Aveline released the arrow, putting an abrupt end to the woman as the arrow shot into Malisa's forehead. When she opened her eyes, tears burned her cheeks as she watched the blood flow from the wound.

Nausea and rage bellowed from her stomach as she took one step backwards. She lifted her head up to the sky and let out a powerful, rage-filled scream. Never before had she thought herself truly capable of taking human life, even that of someone truly inhuman. She was afraid to even touch this corpse. "Martin. You did this!"

"My god," Astor muttered. The boy fell to his knees and put his hand to his mouth. "This is real. This…is real…"

"This isn't a fucking game, Martin! Not if we're both losing family for it! That was your own grandmother, wasn't it? You put your family in this situation, you coward…" She reached down, taking the keys. "Astor…come on, I know it's hard, but we have to move…"

With tears in her eyes, she worked fast to free Kuno from the cell. She pulled the toddler into her arms, letting him wrap his fragile arms around her neck and weeping gently. Next was Michael, who was very grateful to be out of that cell. Astor and Michael hugged close as Aveline submitted Estelle's address into the teleporter once more.

As it began charging up, she turned her gaze to Malisa's body. It was hard pushing down the urge to vomit, and she would need to call paramedics to come pick up the woman's body. She opted to leave the arrows there, not daring to touch the items that drew first blood

She had to remind herself what this was for, and that she herself was being forced to carry out Sviederbach's strict execution laws. Now she knew how her parents felt whenever they had to take someone's life. God how she wanted someone else to be the executioner. Today, September 20th, 2030, she had taken her first life.

"Damn this," she whispered as tears drenched her cheeks, "Damn this to hell. And damn you, Martin. Damn you for this."

Looks like it would have been a bloody fight, but they rescued two of their siblings. Tell me your observations.