West dropped his last gun and pulled out a bowie knife Terrence had forced him to take, glad that for once he had listened to the former Company Agent. He swung the knife back and forth as Nikki and DL approached, their bodies riddled with bullets but still mobile.

Micah continued to tremble behind him, doing little to help his friend battle against the corpses. He could only stare at the beginning that in another life he had called mom and dad.

"You know, a frozen turkey would be more helpful right now!" West cried out. DL lashed out, backhanding him and sending him to the ground. Nikki rushed him, punching him in the gut and leaving him on the ground, wheezing.

Micah reached down, picking up the bowie knife that had fallen at his feet, holding it numbly as Nikki and DL approached him. "Its ok, son…its ok…" DL whispered. "We aren't going to hurt you."

Nikki nodded. "That's right, baby. We are here to take you home. Would you like that?"

"Home?" Micah whispered weakly.

"That's right…home." DL said. He moved to wrap an arm around Micah, the teen flinching away. "Why are you scared, Micah?"

"Don't you recognize us?" Nikki said sadly.

"Mom…"

"That's right baby…" Nikki slowly reached behind her, fingering the gun she had tugged in her waistband. "Let mama make it all better."

^&^&^&^

Joseph had ripped free a piece of old lead piping from the wall, swinging it in a lazy circle as he slowly marched towards Adriana, who was trying to get one of her other built-in weapons to work. "You know, I never liked you. Not from the moment I was forced to work with Marie…I hated you even then." He struck without warning, striking her across the face and drawing blood and oil. "Always sneaking around, avoiding fights…pathetic." He grinned like the madman he was. "Then again, I hate everyone, so who am I to judge!"

He began to strike her, over and over, laughing with glee as hot oil mixed with her blood and burned the back of his hands. Adriana curled in on herself, struggling to minimize the damage, as Joseph let her have it.

Neither noticed that their audience was long gone, Lee having dragged them back not the "nursery" throwing as many of his paper soldiers up. "Linda, how are we doing?" he called out, passing squirming, screaming newborns to a Spartan soldier before moving on to Billy the Kid.

"Joseph is beating the hell out of Adriana…he keeps this up he will be on us in a moment."

Malcolm, still leaning on Ellie, focused on the chaos lines, before reaching for a sleeping baby. "Sorry buddy, but its for the fate of the world." And with that, he ever so gently flicked the infant's ear. The baby stirred before letting out a horrible scream, Malcolm smirking as the chaos lines flared.

Joseph turned his head when he heard the scream; rage building when he saw that Lee and his team had escaped. "I told them to stay put!" He roared, readying to drag them all back into the hall and slaughter them right there.

However, Adriana took the opening, extending a spike from her wrist and driving it right into Joseph's ankle. The Master of Sound bellowed as he fell, his blood gushing onto the floor and making it slick.

"M-m-m-m-m-m-my turn." Adriana stated, twitching as she hobbled to him, her face bloody and sparking, hands not working quite right as she pressed her arm against his throat. "Ruined everything, ruined…" her head twitched violently, "…everything."

"Good…on…me…then." Joseph gasped out, Adriana just managing to clamp down on his throat before he could unleash a sonic scream.

Back in the nursery, Lee had gotten the last of the babies to one of his soldiers before he turned to the group. "Ok, lets get the hell out of here."

"Not yet." Malcolm said sternly, finally having the strength to walk on his own. "We have one more task." He flinched when he heard Joseph let loose a shockwave, Adriana slamming into the wall and nearly bringing it down. "We have to erase everything in their hard drives. Everything that they gathered on the children."

Kelly nodded, focusing. "I'm looking for the floor plan…" her eyes went white. "Got it. We got a bit of a run before us, they kept the main computers on the opposite side of the prison."

"Lets go then." Ellie said, moving forward. "The sooner we are out of here, the better."

^&^&^&^

Carter let out a roar as he drove the Kensai blade through the throat of one corpse, bits of decayed flesh hitting his mask. He pushed onward, every step taken resulting in a life-or-death struggle. His fists were forcing huge chunks of earth and bone to be ripped away, and always he was fighting against the grabby, unyielding hands of Fredrick's forces.

On his throne, Fredrick Frauzen watched the entire event with mild boredom. The living, he had found, just did not hold his attention. The dead were much more entertaining.

Though, he was annoyed that his 'family' had not dealt with the Metatron quickly enough.

He clapped his hands, signaling he wanted them to go in for the kill, the dead bodies pressing harder against Carter, trying to suffocate him.

With a bellow his flames exploded, the whammy energy forcing them back but doing little to actually get the zombies to stop. When one has no emotions, the Master of Fear was a small threat.

In that one aspect, though.

In others he was still quite deadly.

His sword sang as it ripped the air to ribbons, hewing the heads and limbs of his attackers. Every bit of training he had received upon his death, along with all the more he had gained these last few months, was put to the test. Static rang through his earpiece, making it clear he was completely cut off from his allies, but it mattered not.

"I am not going to die this day." He said to one corpse, reaching over and ripping its jaw off (for it was so decayed one could no longer tell its gender).

Fredrick continued to watch on, utterly bored to tears, as Carter reached the stairway and began to climb to the top.

^&^&^&^

"Micah!" West called out, trying to get his ally's attention. DL silenced him with a kick to the face, making West's jaw ache and feel like it had been kicked clean off.

"Come on baby…" Nikki said sweetly, slowly extracting the blade. "Let mama fix you right u-"

DL turned just in time to see Nikki stumble back, the bowie knife drive through her throat and up into her mouth. She gasped one final time before Micah ripped the blade free, the flesh of her neck stretch as he head flipped backwards and tore free.

"You are not my mother." Micah said sternly.

"You little brat!" DL roared, storming towards him. Micah slashed at him, but DL was too quick, punching Micah right in the face, blood pouring from his nose. "I am going to tear you apart piece by piece!" DL threatened. "I am going to eat your face and drink your spinal fluid!"

"And how will you do that without a head?" Tina asked as she stepped around the corner, holding up her hand. Acid shot from her palm, DL screaming as his skull melted away, his body reduced to a pile of steaming goo in a matter of seconds. "Well…that was fun." Tina said lightly.

West groaned as Micah helped him up. "Yeah, sure."

"I'm so sorry." Micah said. "It was-"

"I get it." West said. "I see my parents like that, I would have frozen up too. I'm just glad you snapped out of it."

Tina rolled her eyes. "Yeah yeah yeah, everyone has daddy issues but me." She reached down and picked up her own father's severed head, his face twisted in a look of fear and pain. "Isn't that right, ya bastard." Tina giggled the head around. "That's right Tina!" She said, voice low and with a British accent. She shrugged before she tossed Daniel Linderman's head away. "Now then, what do we do next?"

Micah touched his earpiece, forcing the static away. "We find Carter, Terrence and Sarah and then we deal with Fredrick."

West nodded. "And then we get the hell out of here."

^&^&^&^

"Well, you made it to the top." Fredrick said from where he sat, looking over at Carter. "Good on you, maybe you deserve to be a part of my family."

"No thanks." Carter grunted, slashing at one of Fredrick's guards.

"To each his own, I guess. Kill him." And with that, Fredrick turned his back on Carter, confident that his family could handle the Metatron.

Carter snarled, moving quickly along the thin strip of rock that formed Fredrick's perch, sending the bodies falling below him. He quickly sheathed his word and pulled out his fighting daggers, lashing out at the bodies that stood between him and Fredrick.

And just like that…they weren't.

Drago looked at Carter, shaking his head before he snatched the daggers from his hands. "Now now Fredrick." Drago said coldly. "My brother is our guest."

Carter narrowed his eyes. "Is that so?"

"Would you rather like to continue fighting?" Drago asked. He shook his head. "I am quite sure if you punch the rock one more time, you can bring the whole cavern down and kill you and Fredrick."

"I'm tougher to kill than you think." Carter answered.

"Then die…but then you will never learn what I have in store."

Carter, against his better judgment, stood down. "Then I guess I'm all ears."

Drago smiled. "Then come, Abaddon…let us have a truce for the next 10 minutes as I lay out my vision of our new world." He led Carter away, ignoring Fredrick's fuming.