Damian crawled through the vent, with Yor right behind him. He tried not to think about how they were basically going in blind to a laboratory where they experimented on humans. What if they got caught, and the scientists experimented on them too? What if they got stuck in the vents? What if they got trapped here forever and then she could never go back to Eden College and he never saw Anya again for real?

Damian shook his head in an effort to clear away the thoughts. No, he had to focus.

Behind him, Yor dragged herself slowly through the vent. "You doing okay?" she whispered to him.

Damian nodded before realising that she couldn't see him. "Mm hmm," he intoned, and continued further.

Voices floated through a particularly bright vent just ahead of him. They sounded important.

Just ahead of him there was a clear crossroads in the vents, so he used them to twist directions and shuffle back round to Yor, and come face to face with her.

Yor seemed to understand what Damian was hinting at, as she stopped by the delicate slats as well, and allowed Damian to get a bit closer.

They both peered in, trying to see what they were looking at.

Mumbling voices drifted up through the slats, and the shuffling feet of hurried scientists, and Damian could see the top of what looked like a gigantic vat full of water. Dozens of tubes filtered in through the top of the vat, and spread out on a metal platform around it.

If Damian squinted, he could see something pink.

"Mrs Forger," he whispered warily. "I think that's her."

Yor caught her breath and wiped her eyes with the back of her hand. "It might be," she said. "We need to figure out how to get down there." Her voice turned into a hoarse whisper. "We're coming for you, Anya."

They quietened as they heard voices coming from the entrance of the room.

"Orders from the Director!" they called. "We're to move on to Phase Three of the experimentation process ahead of schedule. Prepare to seal the capsule!"

There was a flurry of movement, and something twisted in Damian's gut. 'Sealing the capsule' did not sound good.

There was a space as the original speaker consulted their notes. "We have to take measurements of her current state, before we continue the phasing."

"But this is 007 we're working with!" The bald-headed doctor continued: "She has so much value for us to learn something new, something different! Why are we conducting standard tests on her when we could be pushing the limits of superhuman abilities?"

"For God's sake Dr Parker, 007 isn't your personal project!" Spat the other man. "She belongs to the government and the Director, so you have to make sure that she doesn't get hurt in the process. Once we get those tests out of the way, you can do whatever you like with her - but not until the Director gives her direct say so."

Damian and Yor made desperate eye contact. "Did he just say 007?" They both said at the same time, and glanced down again at the blurry figure in the tank.

Pink hair.

It was her.

Damian started to sweat. If he didn't get her out immediately, they were going to seal the tank and experiment on her!

"You stay here Damian," said Yor gently. "I'm going to go down and get her, and then we'll make our way out of here."

"But there's so many of them!" he hissed, panic building in his veins. "How are you going to go up against so many of them all at the same time?"

At her tight smile, Damian sucked in a breath, as he suddenly remembered her capacity for violence, and the fact that she carried knives, knew about locks, and taught him how to use a gun in five minutes.

The vision of Mrs Forger holding Adrian by the throat crossed his mind. "Actually, nevermind."

The vents groaned hazardously beneath them, and Damian gasped.

"Mrs Forger, we have to move -"

There was a shudder, and a crack.

And the ceiling broke beneath them.

"You handle the sedatives and anxiolytics," ordered Dr Parker. "I can deal with the serums today. We'll even get it done before dinner. You were given the schedule by the Director, correct?"

Loid was beginning to think that he needed to find out who this 'Director' was, and possibly murder them. Violently.

"Uh-" he started, when a huge groan came from above. It sounded like a cruise ship turning.

Dr Parker's head snapped up. "What the heck is-"

A huge weight bulged in the ceiling, and a burst of debris spilt into the air, producing a gigantic cloud of dust.

As other scientists raced for cover, coughed up dirt and attempted to close their eyes and mouth, Twilight used the cover to its full potential. He raced up the fragile stairs to the top of the platform. Several huge pieces of debris, and a couple of bodies, blocked his path.

Twilight considered leaping over it all, but then both of the bodies sat up coughing.

"Damian! Are you okay?"

Even with all the smoke and piles of debris around them, Twilight sucked in a breath in surprise, and then immediately regretted it as he started coughing too.

"Who's there?" Yor sharpened her attention at Twilight's silhouette in the cloud of dust, and whipped out her knives.

"I'm here to help," Twilight coughed. "We need to set her free-"

A groan from the side, and Yor snapped her head to the side. "Damian? Damian is that you?"

Another figure sat up in the cloud of dust, and wheezed a little. "Bruised," he said eventually. "But I'm alive."

"This way," said Twilight, cursing internally. What he initially mistook for a welcome distraction was actually two human sized problems.

He only had a small window of time to rescue Anya, and now he had both Damian and his wife to worry about. If anything happened to that boy, Loid would never hear the end of it.

Twilight found Yor and Damian in the dust and helped them both up. "Quickly, up the stairs. We need to remove the tubes, and pull her out."

In the epicentre of the dust cloud, they could see each other a bit more clearly, and Twilight was astonished by Yor's appearance. She had been dressed entirely in black, with a cluster of golden stiletto knives gathered at her hips.

Twilight paused. Since when does Yor carry weapons?

Twilight's hand curled into a fist as he resisted asking her outright, then he glanced over at Damian. He was looking a little worse for wear, and still in his fucking Eden Academy uniform!

Twilight groaned inwardly. What bad luck that these two would show up and make his job a lot harder.

Twilight calculated that it had been fifteen seconds since the dust cloud had formed, and they were quickly gaining visibility. There was no time to waste.

"You two focus on pulling Anya from the tank and making sure she's safe, I'll try to hold them off."

Yor grabbed his shoulder. "Not so fast! Why are you helping us? Don't you work here?"

"Do you really have time to be asking me questions like that?" Twilight snapped. "We're out of time!"

"No, you're right," and her eyes narrowed into slits. "You and Damain here pull her out. I can handle the rest of them."

Twilight would have argued with her, but after twelve years of marriage, he knew that look, and he knew that there was no point in trying to win an argument with her. He rushed over to Damian.

"Over there," Twilight directed Damian round the side of the tank.

It was so much worse than he thought. A huge collection of tubes and wires sprawled at his feet, and Loid couldn't tell which ones were vital and which were not. How does anyone not label anything in this damn place?

"We're going to have to pull her up," Twilight said, but then he looked at the tubes and tried to gather them in his hands, but they were too big, and too many of them. They fell helplessly through his hands.

"Is that really safe?" worried Damian.

Twilight gritted his teeth and looked at the water. He couldn't go into the water without taking off his disguise and revealing himself.

But he didn't have to.

Damian pushed forwards, and threw his Eden Academy jacket at the stunned figure of Dr Atkinson, and kicked off his shoes. "Here, hold this," he said, and jumped into the water.

All Twilight could do was stare after Damian in amazement. No hesitation!

But as Damian pushed himself off the platform and into the water, something heavy skidded towards him. Twilight picked up the gun that had landed at his feet.

Where did Damian get a gun from?

Then he heard the sounds of screaming, and he jerked his head up quickly. The cloud of dust had long dissipated, and he was looking at a warzone.

Yor held her stiletto knives at people's throats, and the scientists trembled in a huddle before her. She had everyone backed up against the wall, and she brandished her stiletto knives generously.

"Nobody move!" she roared. "If you move, I will cut you. We are going to take my daughter, and bring her back home and you are going to let us - do you understand?"

As one, everybody in the room gulped, including Twilight.

He knew his wife could be scary, but this was on another level.

In the silence, a woman's voice screeched over the intercom: "Seal the capsule now!"

Damian didn't even feel the chill of the water as he dived in. He was so close to saving Anya, and being able to bring her back home.

She looked so ethereal, suspended in the water like this. He wanted to reach out and stroke her pink hair that radiated from her like a halo of roses. He wanted to caress her face, tell her that it was okay, tell her that they were going home.

The salt in the water stung Damian's eyes, but he kept them open and he tried to trace along the tubes and the wires that had been placed in there along with her. How was he supposed to lift her out if she was connected to all of that?

His hands grazed her face, and he felt the oxygen mask over her nose and mouth.

Under the water, Anya's eyes drifted open.

Anya didn't have any dreams. She had been in a drug induced sleep for who knows how long, and she hadn't used her senses for such a long time, she almost felt like she didn't exist anymore. She drifted into an endless and euphoric slumber, where the only thing that had kept her connected to the world was the series of lights and colours surrounding her, although it was hard to see any details through the tank.

Other people's thoughts flashed and fizzled in her mind like lights, but only a few stood out to her. She recognised their voices, their love for her, and they told her that they were coming for her. They told her they would get her out. That they were going home.

The disturbance in the water rippled over her skin. Her elevated sense of touch picked up the waves of movement rolling towards her, but she felt too sleepy, too drugged to respond.

A hand gently skimmed along her arms, over where the tubes had been connected to her. And then it grazed her face.

In her drugged haze, she imagined that it was Sy-on boy, telling her to wake up from her dreams.

She opened her eyes blearily. Even with the water blurring her vision, she would recognise him anywhere.

Damian floated before her.

She gasped, and the oxygen mask fogged up.

Damian is here? How?

There was no time to think. Pain tugged at her arms as Damian tried to pull the tubes from her. Bubbles fizzled from his mouth in a frustrated, steady stream. The wires disconnected easily, but the tubes had affixed her relentlessly into place.

Shit shit shit! I can't get them out!

While everything else was a blur to her, his thoughts resonated clearly in her mind. She wanted to reach out and touch him, if just to make sure that it wasn't all a dream.

I have to save her!

Pain burst in Anya's and Damian's ears as something grinded above them, and darkness closed over them.

Loid had never heard anything like it in his life. Certainly not from her.

A beastly scream clawed its way out of Yor's body. It shattered the air. Rattled the blood in their veins. It grabbed everyone within hearing distance and shook them by their throats.

The lid sealed over the tank with a final and deafening hiss, trapping Damian and Anya inside it.

"You bastards!" she seethed.

Yor unleashed her rage.

She turned her back on the collection of shivering scientists and tore her way through the labyrinthine layout of desks, tossing them aside as though they were cardboard. She closed in on the tank, and raised her fist to -

A gun clicked by her temple.

Yor stopped in her tracks. The airflow generated by her oncoming attack swirled around them.

Blinded by rage, she had failed to notice the bald-headed doctor raise his weapon.

"Step away from the experiment," he ordered sternly, but his finger trembled on the trigger.

Though Yor bared her teeth in a menacing, beastly growl, he shakily stood his ground. "I'm warning you-"

Bang!

Yor's ears rang as she watched Dr Parker step back, and a red flower bloomed rapidly across his shoulder and chest. His eyes met Yor's as he fell backwards, and his head hit the ground with a crack.

A shout from above: "Yor! Go, now!"

She shook the ringing out of her head, and spared a grateful nod to Dr Atkinson, before she squared her shoulders toward the gigantic water tank in front of her.

Aim forward, hips follow through-

Yor channelled the strength of a meteor screaming to earth.

"STRIKE!"

Her fist slammed into the glass, shattering it on impact. Water seeped in streams from the cracks.

She leapt away before the wave thundered outwards, spraying saltwater and glass everywhere.

The water flow tried to pull Anya from the tank, but the remaining tubes held her fast. Damian had wrapped his arms around her as if his life depended on it as he, too, was pulled by the current, before the water disappeared and their feet touched merciful ground.

When they landed, his lungs gasped awake. Damian wheezed for breath and spluttered up mouthfuls of water.

"Damian!" Yor ducked under a large shard of glass and stepped towards him. "Are you okay? Can you breathe?"

Damian vaguely nodded as another coughing fit spurted from him.

There was a whirring noise that penetrated Damian's eardrums, and then in a cloud of steam, several of the tubes detached from Anya's arms on their own while she lay curled up on the cold metal floor.

Her eyes fluttered open.

Light set her eyes ablaze, and she tried to close them again against the harshness of it. The oxygen mask fell from her and she sucked in the lab air in a strangled gasp.

Every sense was alight. The metal floor of the capsule pierced her with frigidity, and the lights blinded her. Closing her eyes against it did nothing. Even the hands that had grabbed her elbows were too painful for her, but she felt too weak to make a sound.

Then the tremors overtook her. The water had leached the warmth from her body.

Damian didn't even see Dr Atkinson enter the sheltered, broken capsule with them, but suddenly he was there, holding Anya close to his chest.

In his arms, Anya stirred. "Papa?" she mumbled.

"Shh," said Dr Atkinson. "It'll be okay."

To Damian's astonishment, Anya settled herself in the arms of Dr Atkinson almost instantly.

Damian snatched his jacket back from Dr Atkinson and draped it over Anya, in an effort to stop her shivering, and at that moment a piercing noise screeched through the facility.

A siren. Shortly followed by the flashing glow of red lights, and an incredible groaning sound.

Twilight cursed. "We have to get out of here!" He turned to Damian. "You take her, I'll watch your back."

Damian gently picked Anya up from Dr Atkinson's offering arms and cradled her close to his chest. She was so cold to the touch. He tried to tuck his jacket around her, and followed Loid out the capsule.

The groaning sound continued ominously. Damian clutched Anya tightly as he followed Loid from under the glass remnants of the testing water tank.

Twilight sucked in a gasp when he realised what they were doing. "They're shutting down the building! They're going to have us locked in here!"

And both wondered the same thing: Where did Yor go?

When Twilight heard a bear-like roar, he oriented instantly towards it.

Yor held open the closing doors of the lab with her sheer brute strength. She strained against it with all of her might, but the thick metal around her hands dented with the effort of trying to crush her.

She was giving them an opening!

"Through there!" Twilight shouted to Damian. "Hurry!"

Together, they dived through the doors before Yor leapt away, and the heavy doors of the lab slammed shut behind them.

Yor sprinted down the corridors first, knives out like claws.

Damian followed, keeping Anya secure in his arms.

Twilight held up the rear, gun in his hand.

As they rounded another corner, Yor stopped so abruptly that Twilight nearly bumped into her, and Damian's face hit Dr Atkinson's back. He stepped back and tried to see the whole picture in front of him.

Security guards lined the corridor like beetles, all guns aimed at them.

An unmistakable murmur of: "That's Damian Desmond."

Damian gulped. Shit. They knew him?

"Get Anya out of here!" Yor shouted to Damian. "I'll handle them!"

Damian retreated behind Yor, his heart hammering in his ribcage. Staring down the barrels of so many guns pointed right at him dried up his mouth completely. His legs rooted through the floor.

The lead security guard stepped forwards. "Release the property, and put your hands behind your heads."

A paternal voice murmured to Damian. "Take care of her," said Dr Atkinson out of the side of his mouth, and he clicked the safety of the gun.

"Damian, Go!" shouted Yor. "I'm right behind you!"

A burst of adrenaline shot through him, and Damian ran without thinking, clutching the soaking Anya to his chest, while the sound of gunshots rang out behind him. He sprinted through the corridors as fast as his legs could take him.

But even more than adrenaline, it was one thought that kept him going.

Hold on, Anya. I'm getting us out of here.

He ran into the maze of corridors. It only took one minute before Damian felt the panic starting to rise in his chest. There were so many corridors, so many ways out. How was he supposed to know which way to take?

He skidded around another (blissfully unguarded) corner, when his heart leapt into his mouth.

A man leaned heavily against the walls, and started as soon as he saw Damian.

With the white overalls, he could have passed for a scientist in the lab, but Damian recognised the pattern of buttons on his uniform, the hairnet snapped over his blond hair.

A chef?

The man's eyes flickered down to Anya, and Damian instinctively retreated, turning her so that her face was obscured from this new threat.

"Relax," the man panted, and waved one hand in the air in surrender. He was dripping in sweat, as though had just run a marathon. "I can't hurt you."

As if to emphasise the point, the man sagged further down the wall, and leaned his back against it, trying to catch his breath. "You wanna follow all the paths that go left."

Damian eyed him with suspicion, but then he heard the pops of bullets echoing down the corridors, and his feet moved on instinct.

Yor snapped open her stiletto knives in a fan formation. Her eyes flicked over to inspect Dr Atkinson's gun, as he eyed her knives warily.

"What are those?" he gulped. Twilight was pretty sure that he had never seen them before. Did she keep them in the house?

She was the picture of innocence. "A present from my husband. Just the tools of a housewife!"

She flicked her wrist and threw the first knife, and true to its aim, she sliced a man clear through the throat. Blood spurted from the wound in his neck - almost comically - before he buckled and collapsed to the linoleum floor.

Twilight realised that he had no time to interrogate his wife, and he started blasting bullets as more and more security guards made their way towards them, all cylinders firing.

"Behind you!" shouted Yor. She leapt and stabbed a man holding a gun right against his forehead.

Twilight gulped. How did he miss that? And how was Yor keeping up with him?

As they fought, trying to buy Damian and Anya as much time as possible, it dawned on Twilight that he had never seen his wife fight to this extent. She was a true beast - and he knew he had made a terrible mistake underestimating her.

She wasn't just keeping up with him. She was overtaking him by a thousand miles.

Yor spilled blood mercilessly, while Loid fought to stay alive.

He was certain that she had never shown this side of herself before, but while Yor fought beside him, he couldn't take off his disguise, and he couldn't make the emergency call to WISE.

"I'll handle the rest of them!" he shouted to Yor, and wiped the blood off his brow. "You get Damian and Anya out of here!"

Yor turned back to Dr Atkinson, and speared another guard in the throat without a second glance. "Right!" And she wiped her knives on the guards clothing, folded her knives together, and flew towards the exit.

Beneath the silicone mask of Dr Atkinson's face, sweat dripped down Loid's brow. Yor didn't even look phased when she had killed so many people, and even left the fight with not a single drop of blood on her.

As soon as she was out of eyesight, Twilight ripped away his disguise in relief. He felt the spy-nature return to him, and his character as Dr Atkinson fell away.

The guard stared at him in shock.

"Who - who are you?"

Twilight didn't even dignify them with an answer when he fired the gun at them.

As soon as the guards had dropped to the ground, more appeared to take their place. Twilight narrowed his eyes and he dropped his lab coat. It was just dead weight anyway.

I'm Anya's father.