Before anyone could say anything, there were the sounds of explosions and we turned around to see fire and rubble blocking our way back.
Ashley was coughing and gasping in Leon's arms. She looked weak, as if that chamber was draining the life out of her… I guess in a way it sort of was.
"Here… take this." Leon handed her a mixture of Red, Green, and Yellow herbs, and a few of those pills. He helped her swallow them and I watched observantly. He was so gentle, and she looked so fragile; it was sweet, really. Maybe she really was supposed to be with him instead of me. I couldn't think of anything to say, other than asking if she was alright, but Leon had beaten me to it.
"You ready?" He asked quietly and once Ashley nodded weakly we opened the doors and exited the building.
The Merchant was standing outside, his blue torch burning brightly in the breaking dawn. We simply bypassed him, not being in the mood to sell, buy, or question anything about him, and continued on down the path. There was a door in which we walked through, reentering the building. There were two big armored men guarding a large door, but once Leon took out those guys we quickly stepped into the room.
There was a dentist looking chair with robotic arms pointing at it. I immediately knew what it was.
"This hunk o' junk?" Ashley spoke, looking skeptically at the machine. "I- I don't know about this, Leon."
I nodded. "I have to agree with her on this one."
"There's only one way to find out." He said, moving over to the front of the chair. "You operate." He pointed to a control pad over in the side of the room and Ashley rushed over to it and pressed a button strapping Leon's wrists to the arms of the chair, and moving the robot arms so that they were pointed at his abdomen and glowing a bright purple.
Ashley was operating and Leon was having radioactive surgery done on his insides. All I could do was stand and watch as Ashley looked one last time at our rescuer.
"You sure you wanna do this?" She asked, her finger hovering over a bright red button labeled 'operate'.
"Yeah." He replied. He sounded nervous, like he was about to ride the biggest roller coaster in an amusement park, but he wasn't about to back out when he was so close.
"Alright, here goes nothing."
All I heard was the button being pressed and Leon's groans of pain. I had my eyes shut so tight I was seeing designs on the back of my eyelids. I knew it had to hurt, there was a chance of death, but it still came as a shock to me when I heard his gasps and grunts. Finally, after about four seconds, he arched up in his chair, and fell back with a sigh.
I rushed up to him. "A-are you alright?" I asked, tears suddenly lining the edges of my eyes.
"I'm fine." He replied, sitting up and rubbing his wrists.
"I thought you were gonna die…" Ashley's voice came from behind us. She and I exchanged glances after a while and she took a deep breath. "Alright, guess I'm up."
I watched intently as she gasped and grunted about as much as Leon, and when it was over I sighed knowing what was about to come next.
"Guess it's my turn, huh?" I knew I was going to have to do one of the hardest things I was ever going to do in my life, I was even risking death, but that didn't matter to me considering it was either that or to turn into one of those freaks and lose control of my body to a parasite. I sat down in the chair and once my arms were strapped to the chair I tried to control my heart rate. The robot arms were lowered and pointed to my torso.
For a split second nothing happened, but then lasers were emitted from the arms and I felt a shocking pain flood through my body. I'd never felt anything like that before, it was a thousand times worse than when Saddler did his little hand thing. I was struggling in my chair; I wanted to get away from that thing, if it hurt that bad something had to have gone wrong. But after about six long seconds, the pain slowly faded and my arms were released.
Leon had rushed up to me like he had done Ashley and crouched down in front of me. "You okay?" He asked for about the third time. When I looked up, the first thing I saw were his lips but I knew I couldn't be tempted. That didn't stop me from biting my own subconsciously, though.
Apparently he noticed and stood up. "Come on." He said and he offered me his hand. I took it gratefully and he helped me stand up, but didn't keep holding on like last time. There was an automatic door facing the operating chair and we entered it and walked up a flight of stairs. There was a note on a table in front of two doors leading back outside. Next to the note were some shotgun shells and a yellow herb. The note read…
Our mission
The real power of the United States lies in three areas. The
Justice Department, the Administrative bodies, and the Military.
In order to take control of these areas, we must influence the
minds of the people who advise the President. After this is done,
the rest of the departments will quickly fall under our sway.
If by chance the United States were to figure out our plan, the
damage caused should be minimal. We will still be able to conquer
the country as planned using our backup plan. Once we control the
country, we will use their international influence to our advantage.
The rest of the world will fall swiftly.
As already stated, if our first plan doesn't go as smoothly as
expected, we'll proceed with our secondary plan. By sending in
our "special" forces we will infiltrate the country from within.
Fear and chaos will spread through the nation like a virus. It'll
only be a matter of time before the country loses its stability.
At that time, when they're most vulnerable, we will strike.
Rejoice my brethren; the world shall soon be cleansed.
"That's horrible!" Ashley shrieked once I finished translating the letter.
"We won't let that happen, Ash." Leon said, placing a comforting hand on her shoulder.
"Yeah," I agreed. "We're going to stop Saddler one way or another."
She smiled, looking a bit more relieved and we headed out of the doors to the left. It was starting to get bright and I could see another Merchant standing outside, and because we ignored him last time, we decided to buy some First Aid Sprays, another Rocket Launcher for Leon just in case, and upgrade our guns. All of our guns were now at full capacity, fire power, and firing speed. I normally would have been excited, but I had this overwhelming feeling of doom slowly dawning upon me.
"Hey," I said, after we were finished bargaining with the masked man. "How did you get out here so quickly?" We all eyed him suspiciously.
He only chuckled darkly. "I have my ways, Stranger…"
I was too creeped out to say anymore.
There were a few steps and then an elevator about fifty feet east of that.
We walked straight up to it before Leon stopped and turned to us. "You girls wait here. I have a bad feeling about this."
"What do you think's up there?" I asked looking at him with fear and curiosity in my eyes.
He looked at me and I couldn't tell what he was thinking. "I don't know…"
"Let me come with you." I stepped forward. His 'feelings' were almost always right, and if it was as bad as he thought it was, I wanted to be there.
"No, Emily, I don't know what's up there. You could get hurt."
"But Leon, there could be nothing up there, and then this argument would've been pointless."
"Then you should have no problem staying behind."
The truth was I had that bad feeling, too. I felt like whatever was up there would end this whole thing, and somebody was going to die, whether it was me, Leon, Ashley, or even the Merchant. I didn't want him going up there alone.
"Leon, wait." Before I could fully process what I was doing, I walked up to him, stood on my toes and grabbed his face with both of my hands. I brought our faces only inches apart and hesitated. My plan was to kiss him, to prove how much he meant to me, but I didn't want him to be angry with me, and have this demolish any chance I'd ever had with him. I couldn't tell if he knew I was worried or not, but it felt like he was waiting. He wasn't pulling away, but he wasn't moving towards me either.
About three seconds had passed, I finally decided to just do it. I tilted my face up to his, and his lips met mine with the smallest taste of dirt and blood. Ignoring Ashley's gasps behind us, I kissed him with all my might.
Sorry guys, that's it for this update! And I hate to say but the next will be the last for this story. But I'm still trying to work on my next one so you'll just have to bear with me until I get everything sorted out how I want it. And with school and my niece on the way, it may be a while. But I promise I'll try to get it up as soon as I can. Thanks again and I'll see you next time!
