Eddie held Rey tightly to his chest, back against the wall as tightly as he could manage, edging along behind D'Amore, who was carrying a plastic broom...the closest thing to a weapon he could readily get his hands on. As troubling as Rey's catatonic condition was, he was at least silent and not putting up any struggle, which was a major plus for them for the moment, as it was turning out not to be a matter of simply walking out of the school and breaking for it...it seemed around every corner and behind every door were more scientists and brutes.
D'Amore glanced around one corner carefully, then leaned back, looking at Eddie and holding up one finger. Eddie nodded, and D'Amore glanced back out, waiting a moment before motioning for Eddie to follow him, scurrying along the wall and past the doorway as fast as they could. They avoided detection once more, as D'Amore froze, then whipped open a door to what turned out to be a closet, yanking Eddie in behind him and pulling the door shut, even as the sounds of footsteps made their way by.
"How many of these guys are there?" D'Amore whispered, quiet but obviously agitated.
"A lot..." Eddie answered just as softly.
"This is some serious bullshit..." D'Amore muttered, but he let out a breath, putting his ear to the door, listening a moment, then cracking the door just enough to peer out, scooting back to look through the hinges as best he could as well, then opened the door, heading down the hall again. "Just a little further..."
"Where do you think you're goin'?" a voice barked behind them, and Eddie froze, glancing back towards the sound, seeing one of the khaki-clad scientists, brandishing what looked like a metal rod at them.
"Hey, c'mon, man, I'm just trying to get a couple of my students outta here," D'Amore said plainly, stepping around in front of Eddie and Rey, even though even Eddie stared at him for the sheer blatantness of the lie. "I don't know what's going on with you folks busting in here, but let me just take them outside and I'll-," His grip went tight on the broom and he smacked it into the side of the man's head, then continued to beat him furiously with it, only letting up on the assault when the man was sprawled on the ground, and finishing with a swift kick to the head. He immediately swirled around, grabbing hold of Eddie's arm and sprinting for the door, dragging Eddie behind him.
"Where are we going?" Eddie grunted, stumbling a bit as he tried to match D'Amore's frantic pace.
"Anywhere that's not here! Like I said, this whole situation is serious bullshit!" D'Amore kicked open the front door, rushing out into the parking lot-and grunted when the butt of a rifle smacked into his face, knocking him backwards into Eddie and Rey, sending all three of them to the ground.
"Oh God, no..." Eddie murmured, clutching Rey tighter as he stared up into the faces of three armed thugs, two men and a woman, gathered around them, glaring down at them.
"Sorry, boss's orders," one of the men said, a skinny fellow with thinning blonde hair, smirking as he aimed the gun at them. "Anyone tryin' ta'leave gets brought straight back to the doc. She figgered ya'll might try to pull somethin' sneaky like this."
"That's the subject right there," the woman, a chubby redhead, said, pointing at Rey. She gestured to the second man, a large fellow who seemed to almost resemble Mark Henry, if he'd shaved his head. "Ain't it, Brad?"
The man nodded, a deep scowl on his face. "That's him all right."
"What the fuck..." D'Amore muttered, starting to get up, but the woman punched him in the head, knocking him back against the ground.
"Just shut up and get up," she snarled. "We're going back inside now. You're gonna have to forget all about all this."
"Screw you, lady," he shot back as defiantly as he could manage, even though he was laid out on the pavement, holding his temples in pain.
Eddie clung to Rey tightly with one arm, keeping the disturbingly unresponsive smaller man close, scooting backwards and away from them as best he could with the other. "No...please...you can't, you...please let him go, please...you can't do this, you have to let him go..."
"That's not our call, buddy," Brad replied, advancing on them, as Eddie hit the wall of the building and curled up there, hugging Rey as tight as he could, practically wrapping into a ball around him. "Get up, we're going now."
Eddie shook his head, turning his back to them, putting himself between Rey and the thugs. A minor, meaningless resistance at this point, he knew. But it was all he could offer, he had promised that he would do anything he could to protect Rey, and he would. He felt hot tears stinging behind his closed eyelids, both frustrated and crushed at his failure to uphold the promise, that it came down to this, he would lose Rey again, this was all for nothing...
There was the sound of running, and then grunts and exclamations, then a loud frenzy, blows hitting, kicks connecting, grunts and shouts of pain from their attackers. Eddie wasn't sure what was happening, he just gritted his teeth and held Rey tighter, too afraid to look-
"Eddie!"
Eddie let out an involuntary yelp when someone grabbed his shoulder, throwing back an elbow, which was deflected at the last second. "Get away, holmes, you can't take him, I won't let you!"
"Hey, hey, calm down!" He was grabbed again, but this time he recognized the voice, and glanced backwards, seeing familiar blue eyes, and letting out almost a sob of relief.
"Kurt, I've never been so happy to see you before in my life, esse," he said, turning around to Kurt Angle, who was kneeling next to him. Behind him, Eddie could see Eric Young crouching to check on D'Amore, and behind them were Jeff Jarrett, Chris Sabin, Alex Shelley, Samoa Joe, AJ Styles, and ODB, who was in fact still steadily kicking the female thug in her ribs.
"I think she's down, O," AJ said, rolling his eyes a little.
"Just makin' sure, boy toy!" she shot back, with one final kick to the female's side.
"Are you okay, Eddie, what the hell is-?" Kurt's voice trailed off as he glanced down at who was in Eddie's lap, eyes going wide and his mouth hanging open. "Whuh...what...what the..."
"What is it, Kurt?" Jarrett asked, coming over, but freezing as well when he also caught sight of Rey, hugging onto Eddie, eyes squeezed closed. "Oh my God...is that...?"
"Yes, it is," D'Amore muttered, sitting up with some help from Eric. "It's a very, very, very long story, but the short version is that Rey Mysterio's alive, and all these bad people have done horrible things to him and want to do more horrible things to all of us."
"They've got the others in there..." Eddie said, getting to his feet, cradling Rey close. "They're all in trouble...The bad guys have them and they wanna hurt us, they wanna hurt us all..."
The TNA group stood in apparent shock for a moment, but then Jarrett reached out, putting his hands on Eddie's shoulders. "Okay. Okay, so your other guys are still in there and need to be rescued, right?" At Eddie's nod, he guided Eddie over to the group, glancing them over again. "Sabin, Shelley, you guys help train here, so you know the building and the layout and all pretty well, right?"
"Yeah, man," Sabin said, still staring at Rey. "We got run of the whole place."
"All right, you'll lead us in." Jarrett glanced over the group, then gestured to Joe. "Joe, I want you to take them somewhere safe and protect them until we can take care of this. Don't trust anyone that's not one of us, and if we don't make it out, you gotta take care of everything yourself so far as...whatever Eddie will need you to do. Can you handle that alone?"
"You know I can," Joe said flatly, raising an eyebrow.
"Right. Counting on you to take care of them. This is obviously a really serious-,"
"I can protect them," Joe replied, narrowing his eyes slightly.
"But..." Eddie glanced back towards the building, down at the beaten thugs, over at Joe, then down at Rey, obviously torn in what he should do. "I should help..."
"You've done enough, Eddie," D'Amore said, still rubbing his wounded face. "You've been through Hell in the last few days and whether or not you realize it, you're probably too exhausted to do much. Shit, you're running on nothing but adrenaline right now. Go with Joe, keep taking care of Rey, and we'll save the others and stop these scientist motherfuckers."
Eddie had tears streaming down his face already, even as he was all but snuggling Rey against his chest, starting to murmur softly. "I gotta take care of Rey...he's not doing good..."
"Right. You take Rey and everything will be okay," D'Amore said, coming over to put a hand on his arm. "You're done fighting for now, Eddie. Go be safe. We'll save your friends and we'll take care of everything from here on out. Your war is over."
Eddie nodded slowly, practically sobbing in relief and hugging Rey tightly, turning as Joe gripped his shoulder and guided him, running for a set of vehicles parked on the other side of the lot. Joe opened the door of a red compact car, and Eddie crawled into the backseat with Rey, and Joe got into the driver's seat, started the car, and peeled out of the lot, roaring the car down the street and out of sight.
"Thank God," D'Amore said, turning back to them. "Rey's safety is what was the most important, and now that's taken care of. We gotta concentrate on the others now."
"Once we rescue the guys, you better explain all this to us," AJ said, voice tinged with something between dismay and annoyance.
"You'll find out all about it, I promise. All you need to know for now..." D'Amore pointed down at the thugs on the ground. "These gray-suited ones are bastards. The ones in khaki pants are bastards. They have weapons, including guns."
"Oh shit, man," Shelley said, shaking his head. "We gotta fight people with guns and with our bare hands?"
"Hey, the WWE dudes have been doing it for days now. We just gotta do it right here, right now. We want to beat up on all of them, and save everyone else, and when all the dust is settled, what the hell, we can crow about how awesome we are."
"That's all I need to hear!" ODB said, grinning and smacking one fist into her hand. "I'm all about this party now, boys!"
"Is this everyone who's coming?" D'Amore asked, glancing around.
"Well, we sent out to everyone in TNA, most of them didn't want to get involved in any WWE stuff..." Kurt replied. "Since we didn't really know just how serious things were..."
"I understand, but then who's that?" D'Amore asked, pointing to an old, battered black truck that was pulling around and into the lot, screeching it's brakes as soon as it came into sight of them.
They turned to look, and the doors of the truck swung open. Out of the driver's side stepped a familiar face...Shannon Moore, face concerned, his hair out of it's usual mohawk and hanging loose around his shoulders. And out of the passenger's seat, looking worried, somewhat disheveled, yet as though he could bite right through nails, was Matt Hardy. Both of them were carrying large suitcases at their sides as they rushed towards the group.
"What are you doing here?" AJ asked, as the two came over to them.
"You called me," Shannon said, as though it should have been obvious. "Looking for people to come here and help WWE people with something."
"I came to find Jeff," Matt replied, voice gravelly with what sounded like barely contained fury.
"Well, he's in there, apparently," ODB said, pointing to the school. "But there's-,"
Matt brushed past her without a sound, heading for the door, and when Sabin and Shelley grabbed him to stop his advancement, he practically bared his teeth at them. "I don't know what the hell is going on here, or why you're all here, but I'm going to get my brother, damnit!"
"Well, there's a lot of trouble in there," Jarrett said. "There's a bunch of bad guys in there, from the sound of it, and we need a plan before we can just go barging in!"
"I have a plan all right," Matt growled, turning and slapping down the suitcase. "I have a plan right here."
Shannon silently set his down as well, and they both opened them, revealing smaller cases, the types of which the others recognized as soon as they were opened as well.
"Did you sneak your guns into Canada?" Kurt asked in astonishment, as Matt and Shannon each began loading the first of what looked like several handguns. "Oh my God, Matt, I know you guys from North Carolina are insane but that's a major international offense, you know how much trouble you could-,"
"Look!" Matt glared up at him. "All I know is that my little brother called me, sounding scared out of his wits, begging me to take our family into hiding, which told me there was something horribly wrong, and then Shannon gets a phone call that WWE guys are meeting here and needing TNA backup, so you know what, I don't know what's happening, I don't care, but-," Matt punctuated this sentence by slamming a clip into the gun he was currently working on "-whatever the trouble is, if I have to blow it's head clean off it's neck, then I'm goddamn gonna do it!"
"All right, Hardy!" ODB said, laughing and slapping her hip as she did. "I always knew I dug your style!"
D'Amore glanced around at the ground, over at the three thugs, chewing his lip, then shrugged slightly, crouching down. "Hand over a gun, Matt. This'll be better than just charging in there without a plan."
"We still need more of a plan than this," Jarrett replied, studying the building, arms crossed. "But I think I have one..."