Episode:
12: Of Mice and Mewmen

As Star continues to explore Badam's memories, she is scared by what else she might find. Who is Angel? Why is so important? Does Star really want to find out?

One more memory to go. That had to be it. The only problem was, Star had no idea where to go. The door from the last memory led to one of the upper floors of the mansion, but otherwise there was little else to go on. If she were to guess, she felt like this mysterious ghost was trying to help her, but Star had no idea why. She'd caught a glimpse of the black silhouette shifting through the hallways of the house, but the princess never got a clear view of them.

To become an assassin at only eleven years old…Star just couldn't comprehend it. Whilst she was living the high life, playing with Warnicorns and sentient floating clouds, Badam was in the seedy underground, committing murder and getting paid for it.

She couldn't get the image of Wilson's dead, discarded body on the ground out of her head. Never in her life had she seen so much blood. The image was burnt into her memory. A dark pool of crimson liquid trickled across the ground, reaching out desperately to touch her.

Her breathing hitched. She couldn't afford to mull over that right now; she needed to find the next unlocked door.

She looked up at the ceiling of the hallway she was in. Dim lights hung loosely from it, idly swinging in tandem with the uneasy shaking of the house. Several of their bulbs were blinking uncomfortably. There was a shift in the ground for a moment, and she almost fell over. She caught glimpse of that same flickering silhouette, walking up a set of stairs at the end of the hallway.

Nonplussed, Star raced towards the stairs. The hallway bent and extended, as though space and time itself was working against her. Thinking about it, maybe that was exactly what was happening. Although Badam's conscious mind was not in control of his mindscape, his subconscious most definitely was. One part of his subconscious was helping her, for some reason, whilst the other was doing what it could to prevent her from reaching this third memory.

There was only one conclusion to make: this last memory must contain something Badam was guilty about.

Immediately, the princess picked up her pace into a sprint, trying to ignore the headache the bending corridor was giving her. If only she could cast spells here, then she could get there in five seconds flat. As it was, this was Badam's mindscape, not hers. His mind; his rules.

Racing up the steps, Star saw the strange figure again, calmly walking up the steps. Every time she reached the end of the first flight of stairs, and turned the corner, the silhouette had already reached the next one. When the princess finally reached the top of the stairs, she was greeted with a dusty hallway that somehow looked less maintained than the rest of the house. Everything – the mantlepieces, the windows and sills, the floorboards, even the lights – was covered in thick dust and grime.

Star felt a cold breeze blowing gently on her back. One by one, the hairs on the back of her neck stood up. She froze on the spot, quickening her breathing. Star could feel her heart beating faster and faster in her chest, as though it might explode any second.

'Please. Help me…'

'I'm trying.' She squeezed her eyes shut. 'Just…tell me how.'

'Don't leave me. Please! I'm begging you!'

'Tell me how!' she cried.

A massive gust of wind blew past her, sending her tumbling onto her knees. Star groaned and stood back up. Immediately, she noticed the ghost's answer.

A ceiling panel had collapsed, fallen down to reveal a set of steps leading straight up into the dingy attic of the building.

From where she was standing, it didn't look as big of an attic as you would expect for a mansion of this size, but Star supposed that in Badam's mindscape, architecture didn't really count. Either way, the darkness that the steps led into did not seem altogether inviting to Star.

However, if this was going to help Adam – and the mysterious ghost – then the princess's mind was already set. She hesitantly walked up the steps into the attic.

The attic wasn't as dark as she expected. On the contrary, it was actually quite soft. Rays of sunlight softly shone through the small windows on either side of the room. If she looked closer, she could see the specks of dust delicately gliding through the air to a rest on the old, grey wooden floorboards. The room itself was trapezoidal, as the wall to her right and left were slanted inwards and the wall opposite her was shorter than the wall behind her.

One single light bulb – unshielded and solitary – hung loosely from the ceiling, blinking every now and again. Not that the bulb blinking was really that noticeable; the bright white light of the sky outside made it harder to see. The walls of the room looked more fragile than they were, riddled with cracks and splinters across their grain. As for the floorboards, they were caked in dust and cobwebs much like the hallway below.

Someone had evidently done a poor job managing this part of the house, almost as if Badam were just trying to forget it. Perfect if she wanted to find a memory with all the juicy details inside.

It was hard to miss where the door with the memory was. In fact, Star had been trying to avoid it since she entered. Opposite her was a scratched up, dilapidated old wooden door with a rusty handle. It was covered in deep red, almost blackened, blood. Even the handle had splashes of blood on it.

Not exactly the most inviting kind of door, but Star felt drawn to it. She reluctantly approached the door, which seemed to whisper things to her.

'You know too much,' she heard it whisper.

Star reached for the door handle. Can't stop now, she thought, as she slowly turned the handle.

A sickening creak ruptured through the hinges of the door and its handle. This had to be the last memory. Whatever it entailed, she was ready for it. No more playing games. There were lives at stake here. Adam's life.

Again, a dazzling white light enveloped her, drawing her inside.

At first, everything was dark and lonely. Star opened her eyes slowly. The first thing she registered was palette of greys and yellows. And a banging headache. She sat up, groaning in pain. Looking around, she was somewhere not exactly inviting for a princess.

She was in some kind of hallway with walls of concrete and metal, illuminated by yellow strip lights on the ceiling. A network of pipes ran along the walls, up into the ceiling, sinking into the railing below her and even through the walls themselves. In fact, the wall on her right wasn't a wall at all: it was a network of pipes so wide and so thick that it was big enough to make a hallway.

A light gust of heat rose up through the floor grating, warming her butt. If she had to guess, she was probably in the basement of a factory compound somewhere.

There was no telling what dimension she was in.

Echoed vibrations of metal became less and less distant, louder and louder. Alerted, Star jumped up and turned in the direction of the noise. They sounded almost like…footsteps, getting closer, and closer. Hushed whispered soon followed that Star couldn't make out until she saw who was coming.

Four people, laden in Dímios uniform, were walking down the corridor towards her. Unsurprisingly, one of them was Badam. He looked in his teens, probably about the same age as herself, just a little younger than his present-day self. Which meant one thing was for certain: this was a recent memory. Had to be the most recent one she could find.

One thing Star noticed was one of the people beside Badam. It was a short guy, stubby legs and a cropped cut. He was the only one wearing the Dímios-issued mask, and he was looking around the corridor rather warily.

The man's eyes darted around in all directions. 'Are you absolutely sure there's nobody down here?'

'100%. All schematics and schedules point to this area being deserted,' another of the agents replied, staring at a holographic display on her arm. 'Still. Wouldn't hurt you to be a bit quieter, wouldn't it?'

Something about that voice seemed familiar to Star.

She was thin and lean in stature, with jet black hair and a starkly pale complexion. Part of her hair was shaved back to reveal shiny metal pieces, which blinked blue along with her eyes. Her right arm was constructed entirely of metal, with a computer built into it. Cybernetic implants, Star discerned.

'Trust Angel, Blake, she knows what she's doing,' said Badam, glowering at him. Star's eyes widened.

Angel! That's…her! The person I'm supposed to be looking for!

Well…she found her. Now what? Watch and wait? That seemed the only way out, considering the last two ended much the same way. With any luck, she might find the location of their headquarters based on this memory.

Angel smiled softly. 'Thanks, Adam.' She looked down at the holographic display on her arm again. 'The ship blueprints indicate a vent system leading directly into the vault.' She began typing into her arm again. After a second of input, she drew back in surprise. 'Oh. I've…disabled the security system for this level. That was easy.'

'Where's the nearest vent access?' the fourth agent asked.

'Not too far up ahead, Nines,' answered Angel. Badam nodded absentmindedly and bent down to inspect something. Agent Nines and Agent Blake continued past him, walking through Star and walking through a gap in the pipes on the left.

She said ship blueprints, right? So, I'm not in a building, I'm…on a spaceship! Woah...must be some high-tech dimension!

Angel stopped and waited for Badam, who was carefully touching one of the pipes.

Badam hummed suspiciously. 'It's cold.'

'Cold?' said Angel.

'The pipes are cold,' clarified the agent, shuffling to look down at the railings in the floor. 'But the railings are venting in heat.'

'Weird,' she remarked. 'Maybe the heat from elsewhere is being redirected here. This ship has a lot of engine rooms, after all.'

'Maybe, yeah…but why? For what purpose?' questioned Badam. Angel shrugged her shoulders.

'Adam, Angel! Hurry up!' Nines called for them, in a hushed tone.

'Yeah, we found the vent,' added Blake, keeping his voice quiet. Badam stood up and nodded for Angel to follow. Star watched as they walked through a passage through the pipes towards their compatriots. She followed the two of them through the pipes into another hallway.

By the time Angel and Badam had caught up, their teammates were already getting to work. Blake was leaning against the wall beside Nines, folding his arms and looking about the pipes cautiously. Nines was crouched down in front of something, producing sparks. Upon closer inspection, Star saw that he was using a laser incision tool to cut through the clamps around a vent. His hands were so unbelievably steady that Star thought that, for a moment, he might be an android.

'Ow!' Nines seethed, recoiling his hand. Okay, maybe he wasn't an android. Or he was actually that steady with his hands. For an agent, he sure was reckless.

Blake glared at Nines. 'What happened?' he demanded.

'Nothing,' he replied. 'Just a bigger spark than I expected. I got a little burnt, that's all.'

Badam rolled his eyes, asking, 'How long?'

'Just give me a minute, okay?' Nines snapped, prompting a glare from Badam that the agent merely ignored. He completed the full perimeter of the square vent. Once he was done, he turned to glower back at Badam. 'Done.'

Nines gestured to Blake to help him, and the two of them pried the vent off the wall. Fumbling through his pockets, Nines produced a small flashlight and shone it down the vent. He inspected it carefully.

'Looks like there's enough space for all of us,' claimed the agent, looking over at Angel. 'What's the route?'

Angel pulled up a holographic display from the metal prosthetic. She pressed a few buttons and turned it 3D, displaying the full outline of the ship hovering over her arm. Angel interacted with the display, zooming in on their location in the lowest level of the ship. A huge network of vents led from the bottom in all directions, almost like branches of a tree. At the base of one of the vents, there was a flashing red dot, which Star guessed was their location.

'We're here, and the vault containing the data-chip is in here,' Angel explained, pointing to a wide, open room on the display that was above their location. 'If we take the starboard route along the right, then work our way up, we should be there in the shortest time. Then we can retrieve this data-chip from HyperCorp's clutches.'

'How much is the senator paying for this?' asked Blake, folding his arms. 'HyperCorp's a high-profile company, and I doubt they're gonna wanna give up this data-chip that easily. So I'd sure as shit like to know how much I'm getting paid. White never told me the exact number.'

'Nor me,' Nines agreed. Angel shrugged her shoulders and glanced at Badam, who sighed.

Badam rolled his eyes. 'He told me it was ten million credits, split between us.'

'How come he told you and not us?' criticised Blake, raising a sceptic eyebrow.

'Because he's Mr White's golden boy, remember?' Nines pointed out. 'Fifteen years I've been doing this, and then some kid comes in and gets all the attention.'

'You're picking now to whine about not getting a promotion?' Badam derided coldly.

'Yes! I am!' Nines argued. 'Mr White tells you everything and tells us nothing. He puts you, a fourteen-year-old boy, in charge of this team and then turns around and tells me that I need more "experience" before getting a promotion. How is that fair?'

Blake nodded abashedly. 'He's got a point. You're just a teenager. Full of…hormones and shit. Hardly the kinda person to hold our lives in their hands.'

'He's kept us alive so far,' said Angel. 'And he's been trained from birth. He's always had my back, so I've got his.'

Nines threw his arms up in frustration. 'Oh, please! You trained with him!' He pointed angrily at Badam. 'What kind of assassin are you, anyway? You've only been doing this for a few years! Bones was right! We should have just left you at that tree to die! Your parents certainly want–!'

Badam didn't let him finish, grabbing him by the throat and slamming against the metal wall. A rather pronounced dent wedged the agent between him and the wall.

Badam's voice became frighteningly quiet. 'You better chose your next words very carefully.'

'Fuck, you're…strong!' rasped Nines.

'Mewmans usually are,' Badam replied, narrowing his eyes. 'You're only human. You snap like a twig.'

Adam came between them, holding their hands out in front of them.

'Okay, okay, I think we all need to calm down,' she placated. 'Adam…let him go. Please.'

Badam's facial expression flickered between the two of them. He sighed in annoyance and leaned in close to Nines.

'Do your job and you take your cut,' he instructed. 'If I hear so much as a sigh out of you, I will show you exactly the kind of assassin I am. Got it?'

Nines swallows his breath bitterly. 'Got it…sir.'

'Good,' he replied, releasing him from his grip. He gestured towards the open vent panel. 'You: in, first. Now.'

Nines nodded and climbed into the vent. Badam turned to glare at Blake, challenging him to object. Before he could even speak a word, the agent hurriedly shuffled into the vent behind Nines. Badam himself spared a glance at Angel, before he entered the vent next, leaving the techie to climb in last.

Aside from Star, of course, who reluctantly climbed in the vent after them. It seemed the only way she was going to find out what happened that Badam was so afraid of. And where the Dímios Headquarters were.

'You know, whatever's on this chip must be pretty bad for Senator Kayde to pay us TEN MILLION CREDITS to get it back,' said Blake, his voice echoing through the vents.

'He's a senator; he's got money to burn,' Badam pointed out.

'Whatever,' Nines dismissed. 'Let's just get this assignment over and done with.'

'What's your deal?' asked Blake. 'You've been rushing us all day.'

'None of your business.'

Badam clenched his fists. 'If it affects the team, then it is our business.'

'Leave him alone,' Angel groaned. 'We've got more important things to worry about than Nines's obsessive timekeeping.'

'How do you lot even function as a team?' Star thought aloud. Unsurprisingly, nobody heard her.

'Regardless, the senator's paying us to locate and destroy it, and that's exactly what we're going to do,' Badam persisted, unimpressed. 'We're not paid to ask questions; we're paid to get the job done.'

'I can see why Mr White likes you so much,' Nines commented flatly. 'You don't care about anything other than the mission. By any means necessary, right?'

Badam looked him in the eye.

'The ends justify the means.'

Star wished that Badam hadn't said that. She really wished she weren't currently thinking of Adam saying the exact same thing in the exact same way. Yeah, the princess understood they were doppelgangers, but did they really have to be so similar?

'You know, the person who first said that came from my dimension,' Nines claimed, almost noncommittally. 'Nowadays, people describe him as the "teacher of evil".'

'Is that supposed to make me feel bad?' he ridiculed. 'I don't care what you call me, Nines. Besides, you speak of evil, but you're just as much an assassin as I am. What does that make you, in your eyes? A saint?'

'Can it, both of you!' Angel snapped. 'Nines, stay professional! Adam, if we're here to get the job done and nothing else, then stop antagonising him!'

''Ugh, fine,'' Nines and Badam said in near unison.

A long silence followed, aside from the clanging of the metal under their weight. Star followed them, not that they would ever notice her existence. Badam was worse than she thought: he wasn't just willing to kill his targets, but also his own allies. Adam might be many things, but he wasn't a cold-blooded killer. Sure, he had little qualms with killing, but this was different. Badam had probably racked up a kill count that could match Dark Star, and that was not to be taken lightly.

Whatever she had done, Angel had definitely left a lasting impression on him. Enough so that she seemed to persistently haunt his subconscious. Star was more than curious to find out what.

The group of Dímios operatives explored the vents for what seemed like hours.

Most of the vents were quite linear, only turning right or left at random. Every so often, if they were lucky enough, they would go upwards, climbing from one level to the next. Despite that, Star didn't strongly feel like they were making any progress, and the silence among the agents didn't give her much indication how much further it was.

The silence was ended when Nines reached an intersection, unsure which of the three routes to take.

'Take your next left,' instructed Angel, reading off her biomechanical computer display. 'There should be a –'

'You sure you got that arm thing working?' Nines replied irritably.

'Yeah…why?'

'Because it's just a dead end.'

Angel looked up and frowned. 'What? The schematics show it leads to a ladder…?' she uttered. A thought suddenly came to mind. 'Wait…look at the walls. Do you see some sort of…cut-out in the metal? Like a tile?'

'Um…yeah. Why?'

'Pry it off.'

Nines didn't look convinced, but nevertheless he complied. He reached out and tried to tighten his fingers around the edges. The panel was too thick for him to get his fingernails around, so Nines took out a small crowbar from his bag and attempted to pry the panel off of the door that way. Unfortunately, no matter how hard he tired, it simply refused to give. It barely even wavered in its resolve to stay sealed to the wall.

'Oh, just let me do it!' said Badam impatiently, shuffling past Blake and in front of Nines.

'Hey–!' Nines protested, but Badam shoved past him anyway. The miffed agent watched as his so-called leader effortlessly ripped off the heavy metal panel and threw it aside like it was nothing. It revealed a set of circuitry and wires underneath.

'So, what do I do now, Angel?' Badam asked.

'Uh…just flick the three switches at the bottom,' she told him, abashed. He nodded and flicked up the three switches on the access panel. Above each switch was a green light, which lit up green with each individual switch.

There was a beeping noise of affirmation and abruptly the wall in the vent rumbled metallically. It slid aside to reveal a short compartment with an open top. A ladder led upwards from the open top to parts unknown, but judging by Angel's countenance, Star presumed this was the way to the vault they were looking for. Badam gestured ahead.

'You first, Nines.'

'Ugh…yes sir,' grumbled Nines, muttering complaints under his breath. Whether Badam didn't hear or just didn't care, Star didn't know.

Once Nines had ascended far enough up the ladder, Badam nodded for Blake to go next. Blake did not protest, although the glare on his face hardly indicated he was pleased to be compliant. Badam was next to climb up the ladder, allowing enough space for Angel to follow him soon afterwards. Star climbed the ladder after them.

'This ladder should lead to the vault,' Angel told him, her voice echoing up the vents to her compatriots.

'I can see the top from here,' Nines hollered back. 'We've been navigating these damn vents for too long; this better be the right way!'

Badam rolled his eyes at his ally's blatant impatience. Despite being threatened accordingly, Nines still persistently annoyed him throughout this entire assignment. He made a mental note to make a complaint to Mr White and Dr Bones when he returned to the Dímios Headquarters. No doubt Nines was going to receive a deduction for his indiscretions. That would teach him a lesson about disrespecting a superior.

True to what Angel had said, there was an access panel at the top that led to the vault. Nines removed it in haste, climbing onto the metal catwalk overlooking the vault entrance. Blake followed him, then Adam and lastly, Angel. Technically Star was the last, but in the context of this particular memory, it was Angel.

Badam hummed warily. 'Angel: scan the area for all security.' She nodded and tapped away on her metal arm.

'Area's clean,' she identified. 'I've deactivated all security measures and fail-safes.'

Blake and Nines gently vaulted down onto the ground. At the end of the room, built into the wall, was a large, metal vault door. It was round and jagged, looking much like in classic banks of Earth. Each point on the door had a red LED on it to indicate it was locked. An access panel built into the wall was similarly crimson red, with the words "[LOCKED]" written on it.

As Badam was about to follow the two of them, Angel stopped him.

'Adam, don't you think this is a little…weird?'

He shook his head in confusion. 'No, why?'

'I mean, don't you think this was little too easy?' she pointed out, gesturing to their two allies down below. 'I took me three seconds to crack their security. Isn't this supposed to be one of HyperCorp's highest security vault ships?'

'Maybe you're better at this than you think.'

Angel shook her head and leaned on the fence, staring down at Blake and Nines. Blake reached out for the access panel and placed his hand on the scanner. It twitched for a moment, before beeping and turning green. One by one, the lights on the door turned green, as the sound of air releasing reverberated through the air.

Slowly, but surely, the bulky vault slid open.

'But…why would they make it so easy to get here?' wondered Angel. 'To open their vault and take their most prized possession?'

Her eyes widened when she realised the truth.

'Unless…'

'Angel? What's wrong?' Badam interrogated, perturbed. She looked deep into pupils, her heart pulsing with fear.

'They wanted us to.'

Before either of them could say anything else, there was a massive explosion that boomed through the air. The two of them ducked by instinct, narrowly dodging a stray piece of metal debris. Star herself ducked as well; despite the fact she wasn't in any danger. Angel looked over and saw the vault had been destroyed, along with the surrounding concrete. At the far wall opposite the vault, Blake and Nines lay on the ground. They weren't quite unconscious, but definitely disoriented.

Badam grabbed onto the fence for support, groaning in pain.

'They put a bomb in the vault?!' he wheezed, taking shallow breaths. 'You alright?'

'I'm fine,' she replied curtly. 'Nines and Blake are going to need medical attention stat!'

'Never mind them, we need to get out of here!'

As if to answer him, a swarm of soldiers stormed into the room, pointing their laser-pointed guns everywhere. Instantly, several red dots were trained on the pair of them, and things weren't looking so good for Blake and Nines either. Blake was kicked down the second he tried to get up and Nines was shouting obscenities at everything.

'I'm sorry, are we interrupting you?' someone said.

Badam turned to the source of the voice. A shadow appeared by the now open door in the back, and its owner soon followed. Blake rolled over and leaned against the wall to get a good look of the perpetrator.

'Kayde,' Badam muttered angrily under his breath.

'Senator Kayde?!' Blake exclaimed in shock. 'What the hell?! You're supposed to be the one paying us for this!'

'This, my boy, is what we in the business call a "trap",' Senator Kayde retorted condescendingly. Curtly, he turned to point up at Badam and Angel. 'And don't you two even think about trying to run away. Any sudden movements and I'll light you up like a Mertmas tree. Understand?'

'What do you want?' Angel hollered back, cutting to the chase.

'You see, my constituency doesn't support assassins all too much,' Kayde explained, as he walked over to Blake and kicked him down again. 'My political party harbours strong policies against them. And who am I, but to follow the voice of the people? So, what better way than to secure my position in office than by capturing a few weedy agents of the most powerful assassin's guild in the multiverse, and pumping them for information?'

'Where'd you…get the…ship?' asked Nines, between coughing fits.

'A loan from HyperCorp,' he waved off. 'The perfect cage, really. Much harder to escape a spaceship than an ordinary building, isn't it?'

'We can get off this ship the same way we got in!' Blake exclaimed, sitting upright. He fumbled through his pockets to produce his dimensional scissors. However, Kayde stamped on his hand and forced him to release them.

'Don't bother,' he warned. 'You'll find we've already activated the dimensional stabilisers. This ship is cloaked from all interdimensional travel. Your scissors are useless.'

Whilst Kayde continued to bask in his own brilliance, Badam leaned into Angel's ear.

'I have a plan,' he whispered, trying to avoid moving his lips too much.

'What is it?'

'Use your cyber-eye to activate the comms system,' he told her. 'Increase the frequency to a maximum; enough to reach resonance. We can disorientate all of them.'

'And us, too,' she pointed out.

'Do you have any other ideas?'

'Maybe –'

BANG.

Shocked, the two of them turned their attention back to Kayde. They should have been watching him the whole time. They should have stopped him, or at least tried to do something.

Blake was now lying on the floor in a pool of his own blood, a bullet through his brain. Kayde stood over him, blowing the gun-smoke from the muzzle of his .22 magnum.

'I didn't need this one, actually,' Kayde confessed, before pacing over to Nines. He frowned for a moment. 'Nines. You're the engineer, aren't you?'

'Yes! I am!' he exclaimed. 'I'm very useful to you! You don't need to kill me!'

'Hmm…well, here's the thing, Nines,' he elaborated. 'I need the two smartest people in your team. And the fact of the matter of is, you jumped down here and went into the vault without a second thought. Not very smart, is it?'

'Perhaps, but –'

'I'm still talking,' the senator cut off. 'The one person I know I need is the techie up there. The other person really depended on circumstance, and it looks like your teenaged leader over there is smarter than you.'

'Wait, wait –'

BANG.

Nines joined Blake in death. Their two dark red pools of sticky blood trickled across the ground and met, forming one amorphous puddle of crimson red liquid. There was no look on his face left; the shot to the head hadn't preserved the look of abject fear in his final moments. He didn't look peaceful exactly, only empty. Pure emptiness.

'So, Angel, Adam – those are your names, correct?' Kayde asked, receiving a reluctant nod from Angel. 'We can do this the easy way or the hard way.'

'You need us alive,' Badam pointed out. 'You're not going to kill us.'

'True and not so true,' he said vaguely. 'Yes, I need you for information, but...if you die, the Dímios send assassins in your wake. Replacements. This is a win-win for me.' He hummed aloud in thought. 'I would consider keeping you hostage, but, as they say, the Dímios do not negotiate.'

The two of them gulped.

'So, what's it gonna be?' prompted Kayde.

Badam nodded encouragingly to Angel, and she nodded back. Instantly, she activated her cyber network and interfaced with all communications systems in the room.

A subsonic scream boomed throughout the room. Every soldier keeled over and screeched in pain, holding their hands desperately to their ears. Kayde was no different, as he doubled over too and cried out in pain. Star was the only one unaffected, whilst Angel and Badam desperately escaped through the vents as they tried to resist the vociferous noise they had made.

Star followed them through the vents.

They were rushing as fast as they could, taking haphazard short-cuts to take a different route through the vents to a different location. After all, Kayde probably knew their strategy to get in and had soldiers waiting at the vent they first entered through to riddle them with bullets.

Neither of them had time to chat, especially not over what they had just witnessed. With two of their agents KIA, the best they could do was try to escape. To survive.

Eventually, the two of them made it out the vents. They were now in a completely different part of the ship. Instead of pipes, the corridor was solid metal, cut in a wide, angular hexagonal shape. The walls were metal painted black, looking almost cast-iron. The floor was constructed of crosshatching metal tiles, much less noisy than the railings on the bottom floor. The only source of light they had were the blinking yellow sodium strip-lights built into the ceiling above.

'Okay, we need to figure out a way out of here,' Badam decided calmly, folding his arms. 'Angel?'

'Just…give me a minute…' she replied breathlessly. She was leaning on the wall and taking deep breaths. 'Oh my god…Blake and Nines…are d-dead!'

'And so are we unless we think quickly!' He pressured, leaning around her to glare at her. 'Come on, Angel. I need you.'

Angel stopped leaning on the wall and took a few more deep breaths. She let out one final big sigh and nodded.

'Okay, okay,' the agent repeated to herself. She looked up at Adam. 'This is a Leviathan-class treasury vessel, right?'

'Yeah?'

Angel responded by activating the technology on her metal arm, bringing up a bright blue holographic 3D display of the entire ship. She tapped into the onscreen keyboard.

'This ship is so big that it would take hours to get from one end to other,' Angel explained. 'So HyperCorp developed and patented transmat technology to instantaneously transport personnel across the ship in a matter of seconds.' Several red pulsing dots appeared on the ship schematics to indicate her point.

'So that's our way out?' Badam surmised. She nodded. 'But those transmats can't transport you across dimensions. And they only work within the range of this ship.'

'Yeah, but they're based off the same interdimensional technology,' she elaborated. 'They contain the same hardware, they're just fitted with dimensional safeguards and intrinsic software that keeps them within the range of this ship. If we can get to one, I might just be able to retrofit it into a makeshift portal generator.'

'That seems viable,' Badam admitted, rubbing his chin in thought. 'But what about the dimensional barriers around HQ?'

'Each dimensional generator is equipped with a micro particle accelerator,' she informed him, changing the display to that of one of the transmats. She highlighted a small round chamber hidden inside the equipment. Two red dots appeared on opposite ends and began racing around the accelerator, until they collided. 'If we annihilate fermions at a high enough speed, we might be able to generate just enough power to blow through the Dímios dimensional barriers. At least, for long enough for us to get through.'

'ATTENTION, ALL PERSONNEL,' Kayde's voice hollered through the intercom. 'TWO AGENTS OF THE DÍMIOS ARE RUNNING RIOT ACROSS THE SHIP. DO NOT ALLOW THEM TO ESCAPE!'

An incongruously upbeat jingle played across the intercom system, and Kayde's voice was replaced by an optimistic yet monotonous robotic female voice.

'WARNING: FAILURE TO COMPLY WILL RESULT IN [PERMANENT PLANETARY ISOLATION]! FAILURE TO LOCATE [DÍMIOS AGENTS] WILL RESULT IN A DEDUCTION OF [500] CREDITS!'

'We need to get moving,' Badam decided, changing Angel's 3D hologram to 2D. 'You give directions to the closest transmat. I'll take point.'

He took out his pistol from its holster and ran to the end of the corridor. As he peered round, he saw two of Kayde's men walking down the hallway towards them. Calmly, Badam spun around the corner and shot them both directly in the head without a moment's hesitation.

Star gasped as the two men dropped to the ground with a thud, dead. Badam jerked his head to the right to indicate for them to go. Angel nodded and the two of them ran down the corridor, dodging the two bodies on the floor. Star chased after them.

'Left!' Angel yelled, and Badam complied. Three agents appeared round the corner, immediately pointing their guns at them. However, Badam was quicker, and shot all three of them dead in quick succession.

Slowly, they were getting closer to the transmat room, he shot down another three soldiers. Their rifles clattered to ground with a thud. Badam glanced between his USP-45 and their M16s but ultimately kept his pistol. However, a thought did occur to him.

'Why don't you pick up a gun, too?' he asked her, as they chased down the nearest transmat.

'No way!' Angel objected immediately. 'I'm not a killer!'

'You're an assassin!'

'I'm a techie!' she snapped. 'I don't understand how you're so calm about this. Two of our friends just died right before our eyes!'

'Two of our teammates died right before our eyes,' he corrected coldly. 'You have to accept, Angel, that in our line of work, there will be fatalities.'

'You think I don't know that already?!' Angel yelled at him. 'Don't patronise me, Adam. I'm in this just as much as you are. Take the next right.'

Badam hummed in discontent but followed her instructions.

He held his gun firmly in his hands and counted in his head the number of shots he had fired. Four rounds left in the magazine. Badam reloaded his gun with one of his spare mags. He only had a limited number of spare ones available, so it probably wasn't the smartest move to use up too much of his ammo. Worst to comes to worst, he'd swap out for the M16s that Kayde's private soldiers were carrying.

When they reached a thick metal door, Angel stopped by the access panel. She began hooking up her metal prosthetic arm to the ports below the computer screen.

'Cover me while I get this door open,' Angel told him. Badam nodded and turned his back to her and keeping his gun at the ready.

'Freeze!' A voice commanded.

Badam trained his gun on his left, and sure enough, two soldiers appeared around the corner. He ducked as bullets hit the wall behind him. Badam pointed his gun fast as lightning and shot the pair of them with pinpoint accuracy. An alarm began blaring loudly through the air, signified by flashing red sirens on the walls.

The same jingle from earlier played over the intercom, followed by the same AI voice.

'ALL PERSONNEL TO [TRANSMAT 3-C] IMMEDIATELY.'

'Shit!' Badam cursed, as he gunned down soldiers coming from all directions.

Like a hydra, with each shot to the head, two more men appeared to take their place. It was a miracle he was able to avoid being gunned down himself, but Badam was very quick on the draw. However, he would inevitably have to reload, and only twelve bullets in his mag meant that was all but certain to be moments away.

'You better have that door unlocked stat!' he exclaimed, as he was reached his last bullet. Both ends of the hallway were piled high with bodies, and although the soldiers eventually stopped appearing, Badam did not think that would be for long.

'I got it!' Angel cried, as the heavy metal door slid open. Badam nodded for to enter. She waited for a moment, typing into her arm for a few extra seconds. 'Alright. Now!'

The two of them hurried through the door, the door shutting behind them. There was the sound of air releasing, in tandem with green lights on the steel borders turning red. A green access panel turned red, displaying the words "[[DEADLOCKED]]" on it. Not that the two agents were aware of it, but Star followed them into the transmat room.

'Can they break the lock?' Badam inquired.

'Probably,' Angel answered hastily, as she inspected the transmatting equipment. 'I've triple-deadlock-sealed them, so it should take them a while at least.'

'I'll stand guard,' Badam decided, as he reloaded his pistol. Angel hummed in acknowledge, whilst she took off the side panel to the transmat control plinth. She leaned inside to inspect the hardware inside it.

'I'm not as good at this as Nines is…was,' she confessed. 'But I think I just might be able to get this to work.'

'Good.'

The room was long and rectangular. Several pillars of metal supported the roof, running parallel to each other along the length of the room. At the far end of the room, there were blocks of access panels, servers and hardware, on either side of a black metal ramp. The ramp led up to a large circular archway where one would in order to be transmatted.

There was a moment of silence between the two agents. Badam leaned on the wall beside the metal doors, holding the gun securely in his hands. Angel continued to manipulate with the circuitry inside the equipment. Every so often, the silence was undercut by the noise of her tools, or the absent sparks from the live wires. No doubt, her cybernetic enhancements made it much easier to coordinate herself, but she most likely still couldn't match Nines's expertise.

'You know…there's something else about this assignment that's been bugging me.'

Badam looked up at Angel, who was staring back at him.

'What?'

'Our task was to infiltrate this ship and neutralise the info-chip that connected Senator Kayde to that oil spill in his home dimension Arcadia, right?' she summarised, receiving a prompting nod from her leader. 'Well…if that were the case, why send us to do it? I mean, why not just nuke this place from orbit? The Dímios have nukes, why don't we use them?'

'They're meant to be used only in the event of a Code-R3D scenario,' Badam explained. 'Besides, the Dímios are meant to be more covert than that.'

'Why?' She questioned. 'We could easily blame it on terrorists, or extremism, or both. And even if you don't want to nuke this ship, there's a million other things we could have done. Why send only four agents to retrieve intel locked up in – what we thought was – one of the most secure vessels in the multiverse? It doesn't make sense. Unless…?'

'I don't know what you're getting at, Angel.'

'Unless Mr White knew this would be a trap,' she accused.

'He didn't.'

'And you know that because…?' Angel criticised, folding her arms. 'Because Mr White tells you everything? I don't think so.'

'He tells me more than you do!' Badam snapped angrily.

'Oh yeah? So what did he really send us here for?' she pressured, pointing her eyebrows at him. Badam sighed.

'Fine,' he acquiesced reluctantly. 'The truth is…my objective was to secure the info-chip, not neutralise it.'

'Your objective?'

'White gave me different instructions to you,' Badam admitted. 'He wanted the chip for himself.'

'Why?'

Badam sniggered.

'Blackmail,' he stated matter-of-factly. 'Or to auction it off to other companies at the highest bidder. Mr White saw a profit and he went for it. The way I see it, we're just doing business.'

'Goddamn it, we needed to know this!' Angel shouted at him. 'We can't keep secrets from each other! We're a team!'

'We're part of an intermultiversal, multidimensional assassin's guild; secrets are common around here! If you can't understand that, then you can't see the true vision of our organisation!'

'Your secrets got Blake and Nines killed!' she snapped. However, his eyes only narrowed. Angel backed away from him in shock.

'You don't care, do you?'

'Bullets fly; people die. Get over it,' he derided harshly. 'Our lives don't matter. All that matters is the mission. Nothing else! To state otherwise is blasphemy of the highest offence!'

'Screw you!' Angel yelled back. 'White is pulling all your strings and you don't even realise it! You think my life doesn't matter? See how long you last in this room without it!'

'If a million people die, then that's a tragedy, but if one person dies, it's a statistic,' Badam retorted coldly. 'You're here to do your job, and that is final. The Dímios do not negotiate.'

Angel didn't say anything back for a moment, only glaring at him. However, she mustered the calmness of mind to say something just loud enough for him to hear.

'White must be proud of his spitting image. Maybe this time he'll actually love you.'

'What?!' Badam shouted, glowering intensely at her. Angel merely scowled at him and went back to work on the transmat.

'When we get out of here, I'm asking Mr White to reassign me to a different team,' she announced, after a little while.

'What?' he chimed in surprise.

'I can't work with you, Adam,' Angel replied coldly. 'Not anymore. Not like this.'

Badam snorted. 'Fine by me.'

Star let out a breath that she wasn't even aware she was holding. She could see some of the truth, now. Much like Adam, Badam had his own agenda, but he was far more underhanded about it. At least Adam always made it clear that he had ulterior motives. He was blunt and direct; Star liked that about him. Badam was sly and devious, and she supposed that he was exactly what a cold-blooded assassin should be. Was she really surprised?

Two of Badam's teammates died right in front of him, and he didn't even bat an eye. He hardly hesitated to threaten them himself, and he was surprisingly threatening for a fourteen-year-old. How on Mewni he'd managed to befriend Angel was beyond her. Although, it looked as though that "friendship" had now ended.

Curious, Star walked over to Angel to inspect her handiwork. She didn't know much about circuitry and gizmos, but it looked like she was connecting the wires to a circuit board attached to that particle accelerator thingy she was talking about earlier.

A thought occurred to her. Angel's apparition – or whatever it had been that occupied Badam's mind – had led her here, had brought her to this memory specifically.

Why? Did she know what Star was trying to do?

'What are you trying to show me, Angel?' Star asked out loud, despite being fully aware that Angel couldn't hear her. She began pacing about the room impatiently. 'It's…it's like you're trying to tell me something. But what?'

Star was interrupted in her thought process by loud banging on the locked metal door. She spun around and saw Badam frantically pushing against the force on the door, gun holstered by his hip.

'They're charging…the door!' Badam hollered at her, his voice straining from the stress he was exerting. 'I can't…hold this…for long!'

A second later, there was a small explosion. Badam was thrown off his feet, hitting a metal pillar on his back. Instantly, he shifted out the way and took cover behind the metal. The metal door was blown open and multiple soldiers appeared through.

'I hope you got that transmat working!' Badam cried, as he strafed round the side of cover and shot the first few soldiers to enter.

'Almost there! Just cover me!' Angel yelled back, ducking as bullets whizzed over her head.

That same annoying jingle played over the intercom system once again. Badam had half a mind to shoot the speakers if it didn't waste ammo.

'INFORMATION: YOU ARE BOTH GOING TO DIE!'

'Shut up lady!' Badam yelled back.

'INFORMATION: NO.'

Badam yelled out a cry of frustration and shot the speakers anyway. He knew it was stupid in hindsight, but he didn't care. A bullet flew past him, just narrowly grazing his cheek and giving him a thin gash across the face. Close call, he thought.

Eight bullets left.

That went down six when two of Kayde's men peered out over cover to fire in quick succession to fire their guns at them. Badam wasn't willing to let them get another hit on him.

An array of bullets ricocheted off the metal pillars, emphasised by loud metal sparks. He heard the yelling of various military men as they charged into the room two-by-two firing their guns everywhere. Badam responded with bullets of his own. It seemed the soldiers were trying to lure him into a false sense of security by sending relatively few men to raid them initially, and then overwhelm them with a half-dozen at once.

Badam managed to take out three of them before he ducked back behind the pillar to avoid their return fire.

'Talk to me, Angel!'

'I'm done with the circuits, I just need to input the code!' She hollered back, as she began typing at the speed of light into the keyboard on the transmat control panel.

A small graphic appeared on the computer screen showing the micro particle accelerator. The words "BASELINE FLUX DENSITY INCREASED TO 8.7 TESLA" flashed on the screen, followed by "RELEASE PROTON?". Angel pressed enter, and the graphic showed the protons being released into the chamber, accelerated by the magnets. "RELEASE ANTIPROTON?" popped up a second later, which she duly selected, and the diagram indicated the antiprotons entering the chamber to annihilate with the protons.

'Okay, I just need to put in the coordinates for HQ!' Angel yelled at Badam, who had just dispatched the last soldier.

Now that caught Star's attention. The coordinates to the Dímios Headquarters were precisely what she needed to pinpoint their location! All she had to do was read the coordinates off the computer and then she could use her Full Butterfly powers to open a portal directly there!

Maybe this was what Angel wanted her to see?

'Make sure they can't follow us,' Badam instructed, as he cautiously approached her.

'I'll program the computer to wipe all records of the teleport once we step through the portal,' Angel replied, as she began typing. Star leaned in to read the numbers on the computer screen.

10-0-11-0-0 by 0-2 from Zero-Point Centre, she read curiously. [32]

She began repeating it in her head until she could recall it perfectly. Star only needed to keep it in her short-term memory long enough to get there, and also to tell her mother where it was too. No doubt Moon would love to dismantle the Dímios at the earliest opportunity.

'You got it?' Badam asked, as he reloaded his last mag into his pistol.

'Just…got it…now!' She exclaimed, emphasising her point by slamming her finger on the enter key.

A bright cyan portal opened in the metal archway at the end of the ramp, to their left. Star blinked as her face was washing in bright blue light. It flickered and faltered for a moment, but eventually it stabilised.

'Come on, we've only got a couple minutes before the portal collapses,' Angel instructed, moving away from the computer into the open space. Badam nodded in understanding. 'It's –'

Bang.

A bullet pierced through the air at breakneck speed before another word could be spoken.

'ARGH!' Angel cried in pain, dropping to the ground. Badam immediately snapped to the source of the bullet: one stray soldier, lying on the floor, whom he had somehow missed.

Without skipping a beat, Badam shot them three times in the chest. They slumped to the ground, dead. He turned back to Angel and crouched down to her level.

'You okay?'

'Yeah, yeah,' she responded breathlessly. 'Agh! It went through my leg!'

Slowly, Badam began to help her back to her feet. However, Star noticed that as he was doing so, he had a contemplative look on his face. And Star didn't like that at all.

After some thought, Badam let go of Angel, letting her fall to the ground.

'Adam?' the girl called, fear welling up in her eyes. 'W-What you doing? Help me!'

'You know too much,' he recognised. 'And now you're a liability.'

'I'm not!' she protested.

She looked up at him like a sad puppy. Her eyes gleamed with fresh tears.

'Please. Help me.'

'I can't.'

His eyes seemed lost, but his facial expressions kept flickering between guilt and calculating ruthlessness. Almost like he was trying to emulate something. Someone.

'You can't just leave me here! I'll die!'

'If you return to HQ with the knowledge you have, Mr White will not be pleased,' he stated, in his best imitation of coldness. 'I'm sorry.'

'You don't have to do this!' She screamed. 'Don't leave me. Please! I'm begging you!'

'The Dímios do not negotiate,' Badam said, but his voice faltered fearfully. He turned his back on her and began walking ominously up the ramp towards the portal.

'BUT I'LL DIE!' Angel cried desperately. Tears were flowing down her cheeks like torrential rain. 'Adam! PLEASE! HELP ME!'

Badam stopped for a second. For a moment, Angel thought he might actually help. And he did, of sorts.

Reluctantly, he threw his gun at her feet.

'Good luck,' he bid her, a lone tear falling down his cheek.

With that, Badam disappeared through the cyan portal, which soon shut behind him. All that left was Angel, leaning against a wall, crying.

And Star, of course, but Star didn't even know what to think. Badam had really just…left her?! Left her to die, afraid, in pain, and alone. All in the effort to please a man who would never love him. He truly was a monster.

Star leant down next to Angel, wondering what the hell she could even do to help. This was only a memory; there was nothing that she could do. Angel was destined to die here, and Star was forced to bear witness. Angel may have been an assassin, but she didn't deserve this. Nobody did.

'I'm sorry…' she apologised sadly. 'I'm so sorry.'

'I know.'

Star did a double take, staggering back in surprise. Angel looked up her, tears still in her eyes.

'You…you can hear me?'

'This isn't real, remember?' Angel reminded her. 'I'm not really Angel, I'm just…Adam's memory of her. A small part of me lingers in his subconscious.'

'You're the one who's been helping me,' Star stated, a melancholy tone still prevalent in her voice. The girl nodded. 'Why?'

Angel sighed.

'You can't help Adam. Not anymore,' she admitted gloomily. 'But you can stop him.'

'How do you mean?'

'You want to rescue your friend, right?' Angel enquired, receiving a nod from Star. 'That friend of yours who looks exactly like Adam? An alternate version? Interesting.'

'How'd you know that?'

'A door, once opened, can be stepped through in either direction,' she answered wisely. 'I can see glimpses of your memories, too. My Adam kidnapped your Adam. You want to stop this… "Badam"? Destroy the Dímios and rescue your friend. Not only will that crush him with a failed op, but he'll lose the wretched people he calls his family. That's the only way to stop him.'

'You know, for someone who is part of his subconscious, you sure hate Badam a lot,' Star acknowledged curiously.

'I'm the only part of his mind that still has morals left,' Angel replied indignantly. 'I didn't just show you this memory to give you the location of the Dímios Headquarters. I wanted to show you…there's still a part of him that's afraid of me. Afraid of facing Angel, I mean. It's too late to redeem him, but you can use it against him.'

Star nodded reluctantly.

'I'm sorry…for what happened to you…to Angel.'

'It's not your fault,' she told her. 'Besides, I'm just about where this memory ends. For all we know, Angel might still be alive.'

'And heartbroken.'

'Better than being dead.'

'Is it?' Star challenged solemnly. Angel smiled at her.

'You're smarter than you look,' she praised, catching Star by surprise. She gestured behind the princess. 'It's time for you to go. Adam – your Adam – needs you.'

Star turned around to see that a wooden door had appeared in the middle of the room. It was the same bloody one she had entered this memory through.

She turned back to Angel and beamed at her appreciatively. 'Thank you.'

Angel nodded at her encouragingly.

The princess walked over towards the door and opened it. Immediately, she was encompassed in bright white light that blinded her in seconds. The memory faded away, melting back into Badam's subconscious, as Star was finally brought back to reality.

[32] If you got this reference, I appreciate you.

Here we are again, another chapter. This one is entirely Badam's backstory. I really, really hope you readers actually want to know about him, because otherwise you'd probably have skipped this chapter. If I come back to rewriting this story, I would probably try to write a better redemption arc for Tom...considering it's almost non-existent.

I wrote myself into a corner with the whole "ritual" idea because...well, Adam has to stay in the Dímios base because he would otherwise escape, but Tom is also gonna stay there to do the ritual. I guess I could have cut out the Badam scenes and replaced them with Tom trying to find an ingredient or something for the ritual, during which he learns a lesson. The thing is, though, Tom already knows what he's doing is wrong: it was implied by the constant giving of excuses he made in the previous chapter. I don't want to remove those because I feel like that would make his redemption more unbelievable. I don't know. Let me know your ideas in the comments, I might consider rewriting this episode later. Depends on what people think, really.

Assuming you DO care about Badam, though, this chapter gave you a lot of things to think about with him. The Dímios are tied with the Butterfly Empire for heinous acts: in the sense that they both employed child soldiers and gave literal children unfathomable amounts of power. Dark Star got her wand at nine; Badam was put in charge of an assassin team at fourteen. Badam IS smart enough to lead the team at that age, he's obviously just not mature enough. A predominant character trait of both versions of Adam is his intelligence - he's smart, and he had to be to survive. Adam had to be smart enough to survive the MANY perils of the Negative Multiverse (this will be explored in a later episode) and Badam had to be smart to survive the brutal childhood being raised by assassins and reach the point of assassin himself. He's not really a genius, but he's resourceful, creative, and forward-thinking. Adam lacks imagination, however, but only in the sense that he fails to view magic as anything other than practical. He doesn't have fun with it. Later, he'll start to loosen up and be more imaginative, but he sees magic as a tool. This probably comes from his childhood trauma, given his family were murdered by magic, so he takes it very seriously.

Badam is worse than Adam. He's downright sociopathic, instilled in him by Mr White. However, Angel kept him grounded, preventing him from going full merciless assassin. They essentially grew up together, so she's the only person besides White whom he has a personal connection with. That's why he listened to her. He clearly didn't care about Nines or Blake. Although, one thing I wanted to get right was how he reacted to their deaths. It can be interpreted that he didn't care at all, or that he was trying to compartmentalise his feelings and bottle them up. I say this because Adam would have said many of the same things Badam said, and would have acted in a similar way, in that situation. I was just trying to draw a parallel. Of course, it could be suggested that he was only a few degrees less cold because it was Angel he was speaking to.

Of course, ultimately, Mr White got to Badam, and he left Angel for dead. Does he regret that decision? Up to you to make that call. I left the door open for Angel possibly being alive purely in case I feel like bringing her back later. Would make for some interesting conflict, but by "later" I don't mean in this fic. If it wasn't already obvious, Angel is meant to represent the possible guilt and remorse that Badam feels, and the implication that he isn't totally devoid of empathy. Mr White represents the opposite side of this coin - the cold, efficient, unempathetic assassin persona that Badam is, or wants to be. Badam is caught between these two people, and it looks like he made the decision to side with White.

I'm hoping you already drew this conclusion. I have a bad habit of not simply letting my readers think for themselves, because I get excited to share my intentions with what I write.

And, as always, thank you all for reading the latest chapter of 'The Negative Multiverse: Volume II'!