A/N: Sorry about the lateness of this chapter I've just been very busy with family stuff. One of my relatives just had a wedding/engagement shower all day Saturday which caused me and my family to have to stay at my grandparent's house all of Sunday, then yesterday I was busy doing chores, and as for earlier today, I had family over. Anyway, I better let the chapter get started before this becomes longer. Enjoy.
"Come on! Let's go! We don't have much time before they wake up." Tamera rapidly ordered.
They then ran out into the brightly lit hallway only to be met with a group of about ten guards.
"You take five and I'll have five." Aaron directed, getting into a battle stance.
"Sounds good to me." Tamara whispered back, getting into a fight stance of her own.
Seconds later, all that could be heard was the sound of shots being fired every which way, trying to reach their intended target(s).
Things were moving so fast it was hard to keep up with who was getting injured and how severely.
"How are you doing Aaron?" Tamara called a few minutes later, dodging a well-aimed kick to her stomach.
"Well I'm a little tied up at the moment but I'm fine. What about you?" Aaron called out breathlessly, firing his gauntlet at the three guards who were restraining him, and the two coming at him at the same time.
"I've been better." Tamara responded, jumping up and giving a spinning kick to all the guards around her, knocking them in all directions, which in turn, knocked them into each other hard enough to make them pass out. For how long, she was unsure. She hoped it was long enough to help Aaron and then get the heck out of there without being caught.
Finished with her opponents, Tamara ran in Aaron's direction in exhaustion, asking him if he needed help.
Gasping while trying to twist out of the guard's hold, Aaron choked out, "Uh, yea…a hand…would be…nice right now."
Upon hearing this, Tamara quickly jumped in to help.
About a minute later, Aaron's gauntlet stopped working for no apparent reason.
'What why isn't this thing working?!' Aaron urgently thought to himself, rapidly switching over to hand-to-hand combat until he could figure out what was wrong with it.
As soon as he could, he shot Tamara a look that screamed 'Help, I'm not sure how much longer I can last!'
"What's wrong with your gauntlet, Aaron?" Tamara called, delivering a double set of punches to the guards closest to her. She would have used her gun, but now that there were fewer people between her and Aaron, she didn't want to run into the risk of hitting him.
"I don't know. It just stopped working for some reason." He responded, giving the three guards around him a spinning kick that made them stumble into, who in turn finished them off two well-placed roundhouse kicks.
"Here, give me your arm and let me look at it." Tamara stated in a voice that allowed no argument.
Despite her voice, Aaron replied saying, "Actually, I think we should get going. For my plan, I need to get to the weapons storage area so I can get the hypercrone. With it, I can freeze time long enough to save everyone."
"What about me, Aaron? When you freeze time, I will get frozen with it. You can't do this alone." Tamara strongly protested, realizing Aaron's true plan. "What if they made another one, or two, or three? If that happens and you're alone, what do you think will happen?"
Not wanting to put her in any more danger than necessary, he gravely replied, "Emma I'll be fine you just have to trust me. I have been in this situation before. Well, it was a little different, but my point is, I was able to use the hypercrone and win. So please just trust me."
Right as she was about to respond, they heard two sets of footsteps. One was heavy, sounding like boots hitting the cold, hard tile floor. The other was lighter, sneakers perhaps, advancing toward them at the same pace as the other set.
"Come on." Aaron commanded in whisper, grabbing Tamara's upper arm and dragging her in the direction he hoped the weapons were in.
"Aaron let go." She commanded pulling her arm out of Aaron's strong hold. "Do you even know where the weapons are?"
"Not really, I'm just hoping I'm going in the right direction; A guess and check sort of thing." Aaron admitted, turning his head over his shoulder to quickly tell her.
For the next few minutes, the only sound that could be hard was their footsteps, ragged breathing, and the buzzing of the overhead lights.
A few wrong turns and run in with guards later, they finally reached their destination.
"Finally." They breathed together.
Now the only thing standing between them and their freedom was a big, heavy, metal door. To get past that, they had to crack a 15-digit pass code.
"Emma?" Aaron quietly questioned, forgetting that he had swiped Necrose's key card.
"Working on it." She answered, stepping up to the keypad and hoping for the best.
Just as she was finishing her first attempt, Aaron remembered that he had Necrose's key card in one of his pockets.
Quietly reaching out a hand to stop Emma and grabbing the card out of one of his many pockets, he swiftly scanned it. Seconds later, they were in.
They both guessed that the key pad was just to trick people like them, set off an alarm, causing them to get caught. But thanks to Aaron's memory, they just barely avoided that.
"Ok that was too easy." Aaron noted, pacing around the massive, brightly lit room, looking across the many fully stocked metal shelves for the hyper crone and anything else that may prove useful in the event he was attacked before, during, or after freezing time.
"Any luck Emma?" Aaron asked about five minutes later.
"Not really. Wait…I think I got something." Tamara called, looking up at a shelf full of assorted weapons and gadgets.
In response to Emma's words, he walked over to see what she was talking about.
"There it is." Aaron gasped, seeing how close freedom really was.
'But it can't be that simple... can it?' Aaron thought to himself, backing up a few steps then using his x-5's to jump high enough and grab two hypercrones; after all, he didn't want to hear it from Emma when he landed.
"Ok Emma, lets grab some weapons and get out of here. As soon as you have everything, activate your hypercrone. Well, alert me before you do so that I'm not frozen also. I'll tell you when I'm ready to activate mine." Aaron quickly called to Emma, landing lightly on the floor.
"Got it." Tamara answered, taking her hypercrone from Aaron and walking over to a near by lab table to collect the promising looking weapons, on top the laser gun she already had.
About six minutes, and many weapon grabs later, Emma and Aaron were ready to begin the hardest part of their mission. Everything until now had been fairly easy. They basically just had to trick a few people. But now came the part they were least looking forward to, the fight. Now they had to worry about what would happen if the Defiance had figured out how to move in stopped time without being the holder of the device. If that happened, they were effectively on their own since weapons didn't work in stopped time. Going up against the Omega Defiance in hand-to-hand combat was definitely something they wanted to avoid at all costs, especially if they were using Zero's enhanced suits.
Turning and giving each other a silent look, they twisted the top on their hypercrones, successfully freezing time, but still leaving them free to move.
"Lets ditch this place." Aaron called to Emma over his shoulder, already walking toward the door they came through.
Once he turned his head around, he realized that they had company and it wasn't the good kind.
All of the seven were lined up waiting for them. The only good thing was that Aaron saw them before they saw him and Emma.
Quickly realizing this, he grabbed Emma and pulled her behind one of the crates into a crouch, with one finger to his lips, affectively silencing her from saying anything.
"The Defiance is just on the other side of these crates. Now, I'm not sure if they're frozen or not, so be on guard for anything." Aaron tensely whispered, leaving a hand on Emma's shoulder but slowly getting up himself. "Ok, let me make a quick scan, then I will signal if we can go. But remember even if I say it's safe, doesn't mean it is, so please be careful. I wouldn't be able to forgive myself if something happened to you." He added, whispering the last part to himself. But Emma caught it anyway.
Hearing what she guessed Aaron didn't want her to caused her to blush. But she quickly got a hold of herself so she could be ready for Aaron's signal.
After a quick scan, he signaled Tamara that they could move to the crate in front of them.
"Any plans?" he quickly and quietly asked her.
"Yea, here is what we do." She whispered back to him.
"Got it?" she quietly, almost silently, asked him after finishing explaining her straightforward plan.
"Yes, lets go." Aaron absolutely responded, hoping against hope that Emma's plan worked. If it didn't, they were on major trouble because their opponents out numbered them about four to one.
A/N: What is Emma's plan? Do they get captured again? Only I know. Muhahahahahahahaha. Stay tuned for the next chapter if you want to find out.