Chapter 40:

Ten shots are fired as the swat team waits outside the door for the signal to go inside, only able to just stand there and listen to them. The leader stands to one side of the door, watching the live feed of the cameras in the room and waiting for all the bodies of the mentors, escorts, and rebels to drop to the floor – either knocked out or dead. She barely flinches at the gunshots, just counting each one silently as she waits for the command to come through her ear piece.

"Swat team can enter now."

The leader waves the team forward as soon as she gets the command, two soldiers using a battering ram to knock down the door. The first shot left a mark right next to the door, just on the other side of where the team leader was standing.

One.

Soldiers rush in immediately to get the rebels arrested and under control first, securing the situation as per orders. Crimson blood pools on the floor next to Rona, the rebel shot in the neck. Not from her own scuffle, but from Larisa and Ain fighting over her gun.

Two.

But Rona isn't the only casualty from the fight between Larisa and Ain. Just to the side of them, Kanzi lies gasping her last breaths from a gunshot to the lungs from when she tried to grab Ain to pull him back to safety. Back to the person he loves to keep him safe for Pinova. And the soldiers reach her just as she takes her last breath.

Three.

The second team quickly enters after the first has secured the rebels, this one full of medics that quickly assess the room. Amelia and Roo are the first to get taken out, having been ordered to be first rescues with their previous gun shots. But shielding Roo is Sloan, their right shoulder shot and bleeding from where they threw themself over Roo to protect him. A shot that would have taken his life if Sloan wasn't there.

Four.

Another escort wasn't as lucky as Sloan. Slouched in the armchair she was sitting in when the gas came in, Priscilla sits unmoving and eyes staring up blankly at the ceiling. A rogue gunshot struck her in the chest, and she bled out quickly.

Five.

One who usually was so stupid acted in a way some might call stupid, others might say was the only brave thing he's ever done. But Mord didn't think when the chaos started, he just wanted to protect his friends. The first real friends he's had who didn't push him to do illegal shit and get in trouble. Maybe he did save someone, maybe he didn't, but the gunshot wound to his stomach has put him in a rough spot, and the team has to get him out quick.

Six.

If only Mord had been trying to protect the right people. Then he might have stopped his Gramps from taking a shot to the chest. And poor Fonio in his old age went quick from the injury, laying face down on the floor from where he was heading towards Astrid and Iris to try and protect the two people his daughter cares about the most.

Seven.

Another mentor shot in the leg, shielding one he'd call his sister at this point who couldn't even see the commotion to protect herself. Elias is still hugging Anastacia tight as the soldiers pry him off of her, getting a tourniquet on his leg to try and save what is left of it.

Eight.

Two career boyfriends who both tried to grab the other one to protect them from the rebels. Misha only succeeded in blocking Odyssey because the younger boy couldn't grab him well enough with his prosthetic hand to hold him back. He shielded Odyssey, his back taking a shot.

Nine.

And the worst injury of all. A stupid idiotic career with nothing to lose who despised the rebels. Drazen was fighting with one of the rebels for their gun when the shot went off, aimed up towards the ceiling and through his head.

Ten.

And yet…

"Another alive one over here!"

The soldier checking Drazen's pulse not expecting much springs into action when there is one, quickly pressing on the wound and shaking his head in dismay. "Lucky son of a bitch."

"Count of fatalities!" the leader calls out to the group as she stands near the doorway, watching the pairs start to take out the wounded. And it was pretty obvious which ones were fatalities from the bloody bodies left behind to focus on those still barely living.

"Four dead, including one rebel," a soldier calls out to her. "Six if you count the two killed initially by the rebels."

"And six more shot," the leader adds with a sigh as she scans the room as the last shot victim is carried out of there. She's pretty sure that death toll with increase seeing the state of some of them… "Get the rest out of here before they wake up and see all the blood. Room is secured, four fatalities, six injuries."

"Understood," Ishani's voice comes through over the radio, hiding her grimace at the bloodshed that has her questioning if she made the right move.

But it is done now, the lives lost, the survivors barely holding on.

Ishani Kostas, Head of Security

Control was such a fragile thing, Ishani is learning very quickly. And at this point…she's starting to doubt if they ever had it in the first place. They certainly never had it in the arena, and only made things worse when Seraphim stepped down. And they never had the rebels under control, that was painfully obvious now.

And they didn't even have control over how the rescue mission went down.

She stands in the hallway, trying to stay out of the way of the people desperately trying to save the lives of everyone who was shot. But they were even unprepared for this, not enough rooms and doctors ready for how many were injured. Beds had to be wheeled into the hallway to triage the less serious injuries, and despite staying pressed against the wall, she still feels in the way.

Ishani watches the room of the mentors and escorts that weren't shot start to recover from the gas slowly, and she has a slight twitch when she sees Odyssey start fighting the restraints and the panic in his eyes as he asks for Misha. And she watches the nurse look around a little before leaning in to whisper to him, no doubt telling him what happened even though she told everyone to wait so she could tell them all at once. Yet again, no control over her people.

When she sees the hollow look on Ain's eyes as he realizes what happened – and what he inadvertently caused, she has to move away from them. She presses back against the wall as a new doctor arrives and hurries past her to scrub in, before she pushes off from the wall, unable to watch the living mentors and escorts any longer and see the despair and horror on their faces. She keeps her face as clear as she possibly can as she walks past the bed where a small team is working on Elias's leg as he's groggy from the gas. "An-ana…" he coughs a little bit and a nurse shushes him as she runs a hand over his head, before reassuring him that she's just fine.

Ishani just shares a brief nod with the doctor before he keeps working diligently, and she weaves around the other staff members working on Sloan's shoulder. One they had to keep unconscious so they wouldn't keep fighting them to know where Roo was and if he was safe. And he is, just down the hall getting his arm fixed and a blood transfusion.

But when she gets to the operating theater, she has to just stand there and stare in shock. Two victors from District Two in there, a neurosurgeon between them as she waits to see which one is worth her effort to try and keep alive. And her focus turns to Misha as a team is just desperately trying to keep Drazen alive, and she gets to work taking x-rays to learn if the bullet damaged his spine or not.

"Ma'am? I have Commander Cordessi on the line."

Ishani nods her head at the interruption from one of her officers and holds out her hand for the phone. "Yes sir?" she asks with a heavy voice and turns away from that operating theater, instead watching a team dig out a bullet from Mord's stomach. Somehow that seems easier to watch. She's seen her share of stomach wounds, he would be just fine with surgery happening so quickly. A full recovery is ahead for him, luckily for him.

"Any changes in status?" Theodosius asks her, straight to the point, before pausing to yell commands at other people wherever he currently is.

"Some are stabilized, there's not enough doctors, and Drazen is still a possibility right now," Ishani replies as she glances over her shoulder through the window, staring at the heart rate monitor and shaking her head in disbelief. "I'm sure you've seen it before too, one of those crazy cases where he might just survive by dumb luck."

"He'll probably wish he hadn't," Theodosius says and Ishani lets out a sigh in agreement at that. "Still no contact with Seraphim?"

"No sir," Ishani says as she turns to head down to the end of the hallway, hoping to get away from the people and listening ears. She couldn't focus on the arena team like she wanted to, and she hates how worried she is for her closest friend. "I think we might have made a mistake with sending them in."

"There will be casualties in war, it's inevitable if we want to win," Theodosius says coolly, but Ishani just can't find herself agreeing with him. "Question that rebel you captured. All methods of gathering information are allowed, I don't care what you do to her, I want to know where every last rat is right now. My team is surrounding the President's Mansion, I don't know what Calisto knows but he has to know something if he went there. And if he helped those rebels, I'll kill him myself."

"He wouldn't," Ishani protests immediately as she starts back down the hall to the exit, pointing at her officer to follow her. "He probably just went to Mendalius, you know this."

"Doesn't matter, we're going in. Call me with any rebel updates."

And with that, the phone call ends, not even letting Ishani respond. She shuts her eyes for a moment and takes a deep breath, trying to prepare herself for what she's about to do to this girl, and also trying to accept that unspoken statement. The rebels are the priority now that the hostage situation is over.

"Keep the one hovercraft by the arena waiting to see if there's any communication or they find a way out of the arena," Ishani instructs her officer as she starts towards the stairs, going even further underground to the holding cells. "Keep the mentors and escorts here with no outside communication until we can debrief them and figure out how we're going to spread this information." She rolls up her sleeves as the officers nods their head, before stepping out onto the floor and hearing the screams already from Larisa, desperately trying to escape.

Calisto is on his own in the mansion.

Seraphim and Julian are on their own in the arena.

There's no helping them now until the rebels are stopped.

Short update in the interest of just keeping up with updates. And finally time to end the mentor room hostage scenario - but of course, not without a share of casualties. RIP to Kanzi, Priscilla, and Fonio (not Rona, fuck them rebels lol).

Still debating if I'll write that angst of the mentors and escorts waking up as a chapter or a deleted scene, but probably will know that answer next time.

Spring fever has also given me that writing bug again so going to try to ride that out as long as possible - which may not be long since I'm in my busiest time of year for work, but who knows? I might surprise myself. Good news is I have one of the next couple of chapters done, just after the next lol. But next will probably be another short one like this, just for the ease of keeping plotlines separate.

Next up, two siblings reunited.