Chapter 11 - Steel Pulse
By inuyashafan213
“So let me get this straight,” said Samson, gazing at the manhole before him. “This is the only way in? You mean there are absolutely no other possible ways?”
Sadar began lifting the cover to it. “Right,” he said, grunting while grabbing the cover up from the ground, sliding it to the side. “Well, there is another way,” he said with a chuckle, “but it’s right through the main gates to the Estate. I mean, you could go that way if you want to…”
Samson sighed and stepped up to the manhole. “Well, no point in bitching. This is what I get for accepting missions on the spot. I’ll go first,” he said as he dropped a flare down into the sewer. “But if my laptop gets destroyed by this filthy scum water, you’re paying for it,” he said as he took the first steps down the ladder.
“Alright, I promise,” said Sadar with a smile.
In a couple of seconds, Samson had already reached the bottom. “I immediately regret this decision,” he said as soon as he got a feel for the water against his legs. “I think that’s my dinner over there-”
“Come, Samson,” said Sadar, who had just reached the bottom of the ladder. “Ignore whatever you feel in the water. This isn’t a time for distractions now.” He began sloshing through the murky green water, against the current and into the sewage lines of Comdot Estate, holding the flare in front of him to guide his way. Samson quickly followed him, but only after assuring that his laptop was secure and protected from the water.
The sewer under the Estate was basically medieval in comparison to others of Orly. It was simply stone all around with no paths on the sides of the water, with nitre on the walls and plant roots hanging from the ceiling. Occasionally, the soil and pebbles would fall lightly from the ceiling when a car or something heavy passed over the streets above. Luckily, since the Estate was a private area, not too much traffic was accustomed to using those streets, besides the fact that it was one o’clock in the morning at that time.
“I wish we had done this before we blew up the main entrance to this place,” said Samson in a regretful tone. “Maybe then we could’ve taken the cleaner route first.”
Sadar laughed. “You’re such a clean freak,” he said.
“And you’re so enthusiastic about this,” said Samson, panting. “Could you slow down a bit? We are going against the current, and in case you haven’t notice, I’m about ten feet behind you!”
“Sorry,” said Sadar, looking over his shoulder to see Samson struggling, actually about twenty feet behind. “You sure sounded closer.”
“Jeez,” said Samson, finally catching up. “You’re like fifty years old and I can’t keep up with you. Where do you get all this energy, a retirement fund?”
Chuckling, Sadar said, “I don’t know why all you guys assume I’m so old.”
“Now that I think about it, neither do I!” laughed Samson. Just then, he noticed that all the time they weren’t trekking upstream, Sadar wasn’t limping. In fact, he had the cane on his shoulder. “Hey, wait a minute. What happened to your leg?”
Sadar smiled. “I thought you were at least smarter than that,” he said. “I must be a good actor, then.”
“Actor? What do you mean?”
“You see, you let your eyes deceive you too easily,” Sadar said. “I’m not a day over thirty. I just dye my hair white and limp to fit the part. C’mon, you don’t think a priest could do the things I do, do you?”
“Well, considering you are a priest…” Samson was rather confused at the moment. “Why do you need to ‘fit the part’ to begin with?”
He hesitated for a second. “Hmm, I don’t think that this is the time for that,” said Sadar as he began walking again.
“Whoa, hold on,” said Samson. “Before I go doing reconnaissance missions with you, I need to know who the hell you are.”
“Alright, fine,” said Sadar, continuing upstream. “I’ll just leave you here, alone in the dark sewer without any light.” He chuckled.
Samson grunted. “God dammit,” he said as he began to walk, “but you’d best not be some creep. If you’re a rapist or some serial killer-”
Sadar began roaring with laughter. “Samson, I can assure you that neither of those are the scenario here.”
“Then what’s with you?”
He stopped. “If you must know…” Sadar said with some hesitation, “I’m a thief.”
“A thief? So you’re a criminal!” yelped Samson.
“Calm down!” yelled Sadar. “That was almost ten years ago. I was young and reckless then, but now, I’m a changed man.”
Samson just stared at him. “Is your name even the real one?”
Sadar sighed. “Whether you trust me or not, I know in my heart that I’ve atoned for my sins,” he said. “Now come on, I asked Hikki for you to help me with this because I trusted you. You’re the best man for this job.”
He extended his hand to shake Samson’s. Samson was a little reluctant to accept the offer at first, but after a moment, he smiled back at Sadar. “Let’s do this,” Samson said, shaking his partner’s hand.
Eager to reach their destination, Sadar and Samson’s slow pace against the stream had evolved into more of a sprint. Then, within minutes, they were there.
“Alright,” said Sadar, “that right there will lead to the archives.” He pointed with his flare to a hard metal door, labeled “ARCH.” “That’s where Hikki has ordered us to enter so we can take a look at some things pertaining to the Syndicate. We’re curious to know what Ozzal really knows about us, and those archives in there contain any information about everything that happened in Actonia in the past two-hundred years, even classified information.”
Samson nodded as he processed the objectives of their mission.
“Now, I know you haven’t had much time to prepare for this, but is there anything you can do to hack the Estate’s security system? I need you to deactivate the alarms and place their surveillance on a loop. That way, we don’t risk being detected by anything that isn’t human.”
“Hmm,” hummed Samson, “from these sewers, I’m not sure I can do anything with my computer. It might damage the laptop. However,” he said, fishing through his backpack, “I do have this handy little device I’ve designed.” He pulled a tiny little ball from his pack, smaller than a marble. “It’s a miniature EMP bomb which I’ve designed solely to temporarily disable electronics in an immediate area. It should work to open this door, which appears to be electronically operated,” he said, noticing the lack of a handle. “When this little bomb goes off, it’ll open this door for us, and it should go undetected by security because the bomb will also make this area invisible on the security grid.”
“I’m not sure I understand what you said,” joked Sadar, “but whatever you need to do, go ahead. Just let me in there first, just in case there are any guards we need to deal with.”
Samson placed the little ball at the bottom of the door. “As soon as the bomb goes off, we’ll have about a minute to get through that door and for me to hack the security system. Don’t worry, thirty seconds should even be enough.”
He pressed a button on a little remote in his hand, and the ball began to beep. There was a slight poof and then the door opened shortly after. There were no guards by that door, so within seconds, Samson found an outlet right inside the door and was able to disable the alarm system for the entire west wing of the Estate and place the security cameras in the archive and surrounding areas on a loop.
“Ready?” asked Sadar.
Samson nodded, packing up his laptop.
Slowly, Sadar opened the next door which was seconds away from the electronic door. This one was manually operated and had a handle. Beyond it was a labyrinth of corridors and endless underground hallways. They were all wet with puddles on the concrete floor and water dripping from the ceiling. They were small passages, too, not wider than eight feet across. There was barely any light, but the few lights that did flicker were somewhat enhanced by their reflections on the steel walls.
Shortly after passing the first door, they encountered a guard, who Sadar was quick to neutralize. And this was the routine for about the next ten minutes until they finally found the entrance to the archive.
“Here we are,” said Sadar, shoving the door open, then gently locking it once both of them were inside.
This room was massive, about one hundred feet across and appearing to be almost infinitesimal as it proceeded back. There were hundreds of rows of shelves, almost twenty feet high, and on all the shelves there were file cabinets. Each shelf was marked by a certain year, and all the file cabinets on each were labeled alphabetically. The first one, closest to the entrance was the shelf containing the most recent files.
In the opposite corner of the room on the same end as the entrance, there was an old computer and several other machines, like a recorder, a tape player and a copy machine.
“Well, let’s get started, shall we?” said Sadar. “You look for the folder containing any information on the Blacken Syndicate and Landon. Hikki’s only interested in the most recent stuff, so just look in this year. I’m going to look and see if I can find anything on Hikki and myself.”
It was relatively simple for Samson to gather his information, since both of the things he was looking for were categorized under “B.”
“Let’s see…” he said, running his fingers over the different topics, “there’s the ‘Blagoode Affair,’” (which was a scandal involving the former Orly police chief, Foley Blagoode) “’Blachensville Offensive,’” (which was just a simple uprising between the tavern owners and police force of Blachensville) “’Operation: Blacjack,” (which was an operation to regain the island of Blac, which Babblstan natives had seized) “I haven’t heard of half these things,” he said to himself.
Then, he noticed that the files in this particular cabinet were upset by something, as if they had been frantically thrown about. They also all appeared to be unleveled. Samson dug through them only to find one of the folders he was looking for – “Black Syndicate.”
“Gotcha,” he said, ripping it out of the cabinet.
It was a very fat file, containing lots of information. It was actually several folders held together by a number of rubber bands. There were a lot of cassette tapes in the folders and papers were practically shooting out of them. It probably weighed about ten pounds all together.
“Jeez, they’ve sure been busy documenting us,” said Samson to himself.
Then, he looked for the file on Landon (“Blaken, Landon”) which he found much easier than the other. This one wasn’t hidden so much, except that it did appear someone had tried to bend the label down.
He threw the folders on the computer table and immediately began searching through the folder about the Syndicate. He noticed one of the papers was marked “June 18,” last Monday. It was a report on the attack at Trunks’ pub.
“Hmm,” hummed Samson as he ran his finger across the paper. He was looking for any information about how the police discovered the pub was the hub of operations. “Here we go,” he said when he found the right information. “Wait, what the hell!”
Sadar had found the files he was looking for too and threw them on the table as right when Samson yelled. “What?”
“Here’s the report on the Trunks’ pub: ‘After the police force received an anonymous tip from inside the Syndicate that certain individuals were involved in the raid of Comdot Estate earlier this month, Lieutenant Charles Crème was placed undercover in Trunks’ Pub and Dance Dance Revolution Hut to analyze the behaviors of frequent visitors and report and suspicious activities.’ What the hell? Someone tipped them off!”
“What?” said Sadar. “A mole? Does it give a name?”
“No, the **bleep** is referred to as an ‘anonymous contributor.’ And it also says here that you, me, Kirara, Elizabeth and Hikki were specifically involved.” Samson growled. “And the officer’s name is blacked out in the report. So now we don’t know who the mole is or who was the one being informed. God dammit!”
Sadar frowned. “I was hoping this wouldn’t happen. But it did…” He sighed, and then quickly noticed a paper on the ground, which Samson had thrown there while ripping the rubber band off. “What’s this?” he said, picking it up. “It’s a report on Heero’s murder.”
“Huh?” said Samson. “Where’d you get that?”
“On the ground,” said Sadar. “You threw it there.” He hummed just like Samson did as he analyzed the paper. “Well, you’re not going to believe this, but someone narced on Heero and Riza, too.”
“WHAT?” yelled Samson. “Is it the same person?”
“I don’t know, it’s still listed as anonymous.”
“Let me see that,” said Samson as he angrily grabbed the paper from Sadar. “’After receiving an anonymous tip on the location of two fugitive figures in Orly, the “Deathkiss,” codenamed “Emiri,” was ordered to deal with the infamous criminal duo known simply as Heero and Riza, known for their assassination jobs in Babblstan. Unfortunately,’” added Samson, “Emiri disregarded any order to make the handling of the two clean.’”
Sadar was astounded by what he heard. “The government… ordered their murder?”
“It’s disgusting,” said Samson, folding up the two papers and placing them in a folder next to his laptop. “We need to find out who this mole is.” He looked over to the folder on Landon, but Sadar had already taken to it.
“Well, it appears Ozzal knows as much about him as we do. He’s A.W.O.L. right now. Apparently, Raef’s kidnapping was just bait for the Syndicate. They never had Landon to begin with – the news story was just to get us curious. They figured that if we tried to rescue Raef, we’d slip up and somehow reveal Landon’s location.”
Samson laughed. “When the truth is, we’re not even sure where Landon is right now.” Then, he got an idea. “If we want to leak this whole mess to the press and ruin Ozzal’s credibility, we’d might as well get something on Raef. I’ll go find his file.”
While Sadar read through his and Hikki’s file, Samson went off to look at the “C” section on the shelf. When he finally got there, he saw that the file cabinet was already opened, as if someone had recently visited it. “I wonder why you’re open,” he said to himself.
Inside, he easily found Raef’s file next to his mother’s. But one thing that discerned him was one file that wasn’t place in the cabinet properly. It was wrinkled and filled with a lot of papers, just like the Blacken Syndicate’s file.
“Operation: Comlaeha” read the folder’s label. “Comlaeha?” said Samson. “That’s the capital of Comedia. I’ve never heard of this operation.” Then, he noticed that on the front of the folder underneath the label, there was a suggestion: “See ‘Spartas Project.”
So, forgetting all about the file on Raef, Samson gathered these two new suspicious folders and immediately began dissecting them when he arrived back at the table.
“What are you doing?” asked Sadar. “What do those have to do with Raef?”
“Nothing,” Samson replied as he tore through the “Operation: Comlaeha” folder, looking for a summary of its contents. “But my gut tells me there’s something fishy about this.”
He was right.
When he finally found something reminiscent of a summary (which was hard, because the entire folder was shrouded by black censors), he noticed one word that was enough to raise an alarm. Assassination. It was basically the only word in there that wasn’t censored, probably because it was missed by some foul up.
“Assassination?” said Samson. “There hasn’t been an assassination in Comedia. Ever.”
Sadar put his one hand on his head and grabbed the other folder with his other. “Oh, hell. What have we gotten into?”
The second folder was more helpful, as it was not censored completely. In fact, it was a lot of newspaper clippings on past events – “Cobra kills teammates, threatens President.”
It was an article about a baseball player from the Comlaeha Cobras who killed all of his teammates in their locker room at the Actonia-Comedia championship game. His name was Jake Thompson.
Apparently, his teammates found out that he was plotting to kill the President of Comedia, who was going to throw the first pitch of the game. Jake was planning simply on running onto the field and pummeling the President with a bat, and from that point he didn’t care what happened.
He killed all of his team with his bat. It was a bloody, disgusting mess after he got done with them. After he killed his team, his chances of getting the President were destroyed. However, he oddly disappeared after the slaughter, evading all the authorities and security present at that game.
“That’s great,” said Samson. “Why the hell was Thompson involved in this? He was an icon to the youth of both Actonia and Comedia, and he never came off as violent to me.”
“I’m still perplexed by it as well,” said Sadar. “But I’m more perplexed why this is filed under this ‘Spartas Project.’”
“Hmm, the only thing I can find about the procedures of the actual project are that it was something involving steroid amplification,” said Samson. “Wait, that couldn’t be-”
“Look at this,” said Sadar, holding up a letter which he pulled from the folder. “It’s a letter, written by Jake.”
“What’s it say?” asked Samson.
“It says…” paused Sadar. “It says ‘please… don’t kill my family.’”
At that moment, there was a thundering crash outside the archives. It sounded like a door was blown off the hinges.
“DON’T MAKE ME LOOK FOR YOU!” bellowed an angry voice.
Samson fell to the ground, he was so frightened. “Holy-”
The door to the archive exploded off the hinges. It flew into the shelves so hard that instead of knocking them down, it just went clear through them, sending metal and shrapnel every where.
Sadar had drawn his sword by now and Samson had brandished a shotgun. All their attention was devoted to that entrance.
First, a sword appeared through the door. It was similar to Sadar’s, only it was a tad bit longer and larger, and if viewed up close, one would see the edges were much like a saw.
Then came the beholder of this sword. He slowly stepped through the entrance, glaring at Sadar and Samson. His angry green eyes had a glint that pierced the air so sharply that it seemed like his stare could stab you. His hair was a dirty blonde and he wore a backwards red baseball cap. His skin was tan but rugged. He wasn’t much taller than Sadar and Samson, but his physique was incredibly intimidating.
The outfit of this man was seemingly unorthodox. He simply wore a sleeveless red shirt, accompanied by an unbuttoned black vest. His arms and shoulders were pretty big when flexed, and the rest of his upper muscles were just as defined through his clothing. He wore no shoes and his legs, half the unorthodox part, were simply covered by a black robe, which glided across the floor with his every step. His right arm, and only his right arm, the other unorthodox quality to his garb, was covered by a red cape.
And in his other hand, he held nothing other than a bloodied metal baseball bat.
“Hikki would have a field day sexually harassing this guy-”
“I know who this is,” interrupted Sadar. “You’re… you’re Jake. Jake Thompson.”
He grunted back at them and gave them an evil smile. “Thanks for noticing.”
Sadar and Samson were speechless by the sight they were witnessing. This was the baseball player who last year murdered his whole team, and now he was in front of them, holding a bat and a sword, ready to kill them.
“You ain’t supposed to be in here,” he said. “Why did you make me come down here to kill you?”
They couldn’t talk. Their mouths were dry.
“The least you could’ve done was used the main entrance and saved me some time.” He placed the bat on his shoulder and then began analyzing his sword. “And you should have killed the guards if you were looking to not get caught. They do eventually wake up, and it is kinda their job to report intruders.”
Samson shot at Jake, and he merely swung his bat at the volley of bullets, deflecting them to the wall behind Samson.
“This bat is made of pure titanium, bud,” he said. “You’re not weird’ through it with that.”
Titanium. This guy, he was once just an ordinary baseball player. Actually, if put back into a uniform, he’d still look like a baseball player, just that he was built a little more than the traditional athlete. But even still, he didn’t look like he could hold a titanium bat, at least not as easily as he actually was. There had to be something in his muscles that made him different.
“So, I guess you don’t want my tips on this stuff, eh? Fine, I’ll just kill ya now.”
He quickly swung the bat at Sadar, who nimbly deflected it, only to have the sword swung right at his legs. Sadar jumped, avoiding the sword, but Jake hit him in the back with the bat, sending him into a shelf.
“Sadar!” yelled Samson.
But Jake continued to swing right at Samson. He wasn’t as quick at dodging these weapons as Sadar was, but he managed to avoid a few of the chops. Jake landed a swift cut right into Samson’s arm, but luckily it wasn’t serious.
“You’re not making this fun,” said Jake, as he swung the bat at Samson who was now holding his arm.
Samson fired a few shots at Jake’s face, but he deflected them with his sword. However, Jake was distracted by Samson, and Sadar had managed to stealthily take a nice cut at Jake’s legs.
“ARGH!” screamed Jake as he fell to the ground.
“Samson, now’s the time!” yelled Sadar, grabbing Samson by his good arm and pulling him out of the room.
As soon as they were outside, they found that the way to the sewers was destroyed by Jake.
“Where do we go?” said Samson frantically.
“Upstairs!” said Sadar, running for the steps. “Above us is an abandoned tower of the Estate. Their shouldn’t be too much security up there!”
“GET BACK HERE!” bellowed Jake, who was now up from the ground, which was apparent by the sound his bat made as it was dragged across the floor. Luckily, Jake’s athleticism was diminished by the wound he received from Sadar, and Samson and Sadar were quickly out of his reach.
The stairs seemed almost endless as they continually wound around and around. Eventually, they were out of the underground areas and reached the actual tower. Since Ozzal didn’t use this tower, there were cobwebs occasionally and there was barely any lighting. There were a few torches flickering against the stone walls, but that was the extent of any light. Beneath them, there was an old and tattered red velvet rug with a gold leaf effect which occasionally sparkled.
“These steps are endless,” panted Samson. “Where are we going!”
“We’re just trying to reach the top of the tower,” explained Sadar. “We need somewhere to hide out until we can… we can… we can…”
Sadar was distracted by something he just discovered on the walls. He wasn’t sure if it was what he thought it was, but it was red and sparkly. By this time, he had stopped, and Samson, had stopped to investigate with him.
“Is that from you?” he asked, pointing to Samson’s arm.
“Me? Hell, I’d be dead right now if I bled that much,” laughed Samson. “Besides, this looks dry to me.”
It was dry. The whole staircase from this point on was covered by dry blood.
“Dear God-”
“KIRA!” There was an angry feminine shout that echoed through the stairwell. “FOR THE LAST TIME, WHEN I TELL YOU TO LOOK LIKE EDMOND DANTES, YOU’D BEST DAMN WELL DO SO!”
There was a loud sigh. “Yes, Emiri.”
“WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME?”
Another sigh. “I’m sorry, Mercédès.”
“WHAT?”
Again. “I’m sorry, Mercédès, my beautiful Catalan queen.”
There was a room right at the top of the stairs, at the top of the tower. There was a faint and flickering light up there, probably from a candle. That’s where the voices were coming from.
The angry voice sounded familiar to Sadar. It couldn’t have been that woman, could it? “Dearest Lord-”
Samson dropped his shotgun and the metallic clang against stone echoed throughout the stairs.. His arm gave out from the cut Jake gave him.
“WHAT WAS THAT?” yelled the female voice.
Suddenly, there was a rustling in the room. It sounded like chains or something else metal. The door flew open as Emiri kicked it.
“Fe, fi, fo, fum! I smell the blood of a …” Emiri noticed who the intruder was, “… very sexy man.”
Sadar drew his sword and Samson grabbed the shotgun again.
“What brings you here, my little angel?” she said as she slowly walked down the steps.
She was wearing a long, silky red dress with a golden belt. She was wearing leather boots though, which echoed with every step she took. Her long and beautiful blonde flowing hair swayed back and forth. On her shoulder, she had a shiny silver chain, which rattled with every step too, and in her hand, there was a sword, a different one than what she mangled Heero with. It was a two headed sword with a blade on both ends of the hilt.
Every step she took was mesmerizing and seductive. She licked her lips as if preparing to feast, and had she not been preparing to kill Sadar and Samson, they might have fallen for her feminine beauty.
“I see you’re not in the most sensual mood right now,” she said, walking towards him. “But don’t worry, I can change that. When we’re done, I can make you my slave, and you will adore me. I will take care of you, and you’ll love it. Oh, yes, you’ll love it so much that you’ll scream with pleasure!”
“Shut up!” screamed Sadar. “What the hell is wrong with you! I have no time for your lustful banter. If you’re going to attack me, then do so now.”
She grunted. “Hmph. That’s no way to treat a beautiful woman! How dare you!”
Emiri violently cast the chain down the stairs at Sadar, who Samson had taken cover behind. She whipped the chain hard at Sadar’s head, but luckily, he deflected it with his sword. The chain wrapped around it and Sadar used all his strength to tug on the chain.
She fell down the steps and lost the chain, but quickly regained her stance, only to have Sadar throw his cane at her face, hitting her square in the mouth. Emiri screamed in frustration, but then emitted a pleasurable groan.
“Mmm, you made my mouth bleed,” she said. “It tastes so… wonderful.”
Then, the sound of a bat clanking against the stone resounded through the stairwell. Jake figured out they went up the tower and had caught up with them finally.
“Why’d you bring him along?” said Emiri angrily. “Now I don’t get to have all the fun to myself!”
“You little bastards!” screamed Jake. “I’m going to kill you!”
He swung the bat at the two, but they ducked. The bat hit the wall of the tower, putting a massive hole in the wall. Outside of it was a clear view of Orly, as well as a long fall to the ground.
Sadar fought off Jake, who found it difficult to fight with two weapons in the small space, while Samson tried to run up the steps and charge at Emiri with his gun. She was quick to defeat him though, deflecting all of his shots with her awesome sword.
She swung the blade at his shotgun, knocking it from his hands, and then quickly took a dagger concealed on her thigh and threw it with such a force at his wounded arm. It whistled through the air, pinning his arm to the wall.
“AHHHH!” screamed Samson in excruciating pain. Emiri intended to sever his arm completely, but he was lucky enough just to have it stuck to a wall with a dagger. When he tried to pull away, it didn’t help at all and only worsened the wound.
“Samson!” said Sadar, noticing his situation. He quickly deflected the bat and the sword and, with all of his energy, kicked Jake down the stairs. He then picked up the chain and cast it at Emiri, wrapping it around her neck. She began gasping for air as her neck began to bleed.
“How does it feel?” said Sadar. “I hope you like it … angel.”
He was about to give the chains a quick tug, severing her head, when Kira lunged from the room, knocking Sadar down and loosening the chain.
Sadar fell down the stairs with the chain and his sword. He almost fell out of the hole, but quickly grabbed a hold of the side.
“Samson, I’ll come back for you!” he yelled, dangling from the tower. “I promise!”
He let go, beginning his plunge from the tower.
“That bastard,” said Emiri as she felt her neck wound. “He’s not getting away that easily.”
She jumped out from the hole too, following him.
Sadar was lucky enough to grab a hold of a flag pole sticking out from the tower’s side with Emiri’s chain. He was about to let go when she fell on him, grabbing a hold of his legs and pulling him down to the streets outside the Estate about twenty feet below.
“You’re gonna pay for these wounds, boy,” she hissed with no hint of lust in her voice. But when she looked up from the ground, he wasn’t there. Instead, there was a little pool of blood where he landed and several bloody footprints beyond it. She, on the other hand, wasn’t even scratched.
A few seconds later, Jake had landed the ground and was standing beside Emiri. Apparently, he reached the top of tower only to discover that Sadar and Emiri were gone, so he followed them and jumped from the tower, grabbing the chain before he hit the ground.
“Let’s get him,” he said, dusting off his hands.
Sadar’s nose and arm were broken by the fall and he suffered a pretty terrible gash in his leg from Emiri’s angry fist. But he didn’t care about his injuries. He was just trying to get away from that insane woman.
He ran all the way across the town, to the opposite side of Orly. He knew that the only place he would be safe was with God – at St. Maria’s Cathedral.
“Leah!” he screamed, running into the church. He collapsed right into one of the pews, hitting his head. “Help me, Leah!”
There was a sound of a gently scurry in the rooms outside of the sanctuary. A door opened by the organ and in came a figure covered with a white evening veil holding a small candle. It was Sister Nafah.
“John, is that you?” she said in a worried tone.
He coughed blood onto the floor. “Help me, Leah.” He fell flat to the floor.
“Oh, John, what happened? Tell me, who did this to you?” She turned him over on his side so that he could talk, and so that he wouldn’t drown in his blood.
Weakly, he tried pointing to the door of the cathedral. “T-t-them…” He fell again.
“Who? John? John!” She was about to help him, when suddenly, the main doors exploded from the hinges, and in stepped Jake and Emiri. Leah stood up angrily. “Who are you?”
Emiri sneered. “I see, he doesn’t have anyone to help him anymore, so he turns to God. Pfft.”
Leah cast her finger at Emiri. “Who are you to come in here and mock the name of God!”
“Oh, I’m sorry, but I’m really not in the mood to hear you right now,” laughed Emiri. “We’re just going to kill him and be on our way.”
Leah stood in front of Sadar. “I will not let you harm this man.”
Emiri brandished her sword. “I don’t think you’re going to stop me.”
“Put that away!” Leah ordered.
“Gosh, you people are so annoying. Quit your babbling sister-”
“I will not tolerate your talk, sinner!” Leah said, angrily. “You will not tarnish a house of God with your violence and your unholy words!”
Jake sighed. “Just kill her, Emiri.”
Emiri was seething. “Alright, lady, you asked for it!”
She lunged at Leah, reading the double-headed sword. Emiri was seconds away from slaughtering Leah when-
“Espiritus sanctus!” yelled Leah. A ray of white light shot from her hands at Emiri, suspending her in mid-air. “Do not trifle with the forces of God.”
“What the hell is this?” said a confused Emiri.
Jake was about to jump at Leah when she threw Emiri back at him. It was an attack of unfathomable power as it sent Emiri flying into Jake’s stomach, launching them out of the cathedral and towards the Estate. “Go back to the hell from which you came!”
As soon as the attackers were gone, Leah began tending to Sadar. “We need to get you into a bed and nurse those injuries. Come on, John.” She put his arm on her shoulder and slowly carried him away into the convent, where hospitality awaited.
“Wait…” he mumbled, “I… promised….Samson…” Sadar fainted.
“So let me get this straight,” said Samson, gazing at the manhole before him. “This is the only way in? You mean there are absolutely no other possible ways?”
Sadar began lifting the cover to it. “Right,” he said, grunting while grabbing the cover up from the ground, sliding it to the side. “Well, there is another way,” he said with a chuckle, “but it’s right through the main gates to the Estate. I mean, you could go that way if you want to…”
Samson sighed and stepped up to the manhole. “Well, no point in bitching. This is what I get for accepting missions on the spot. I’ll go first,” he said as he dropped a flare down into the sewer. “But if my laptop gets destroyed by this filthy scum water, you’re paying for it,” he said as he took the first steps down the ladder.
“Alright, I promise,” said Sadar with a smile.
In a couple of seconds, Samson had already reached the bottom. “I immediately regret this decision,” he said as soon as he got a feel for the water against his legs. “I think that’s my dinner over there-”
“Come, Samson,” said Sadar, who had just reached the bottom of the ladder. “Ignore whatever you feel in the water. This isn’t a time for distractions now.” He began sloshing through the murky green water, against the current and into the sewage lines of Comdot Estate, holding the flare in front of him to guide his way. Samson quickly followed him, but only after assuring that his laptop was secure and protected from the water.
The sewer under the Estate was basically medieval in comparison to others of Orly. It was simply stone all around with no paths on the sides of the water, with nitre on the walls and plant roots hanging from the ceiling. Occasionally, the soil and pebbles would fall lightly from the ceiling when a car or something heavy passed over the streets above. Luckily, since the Estate was a private area, not too much traffic was accustomed to using those streets, besides the fact that it was one o’clock in the morning at that time.
“I wish we had done this before we blew up the main entrance to this place,” said Samson in a regretful tone. “Maybe then we could’ve taken the cleaner route first.”
Sadar laughed. “You’re such a clean freak,” he said.
“And you’re so enthusiastic about this,” said Samson, panting. “Could you slow down a bit? We are going against the current, and in case you haven’t notice, I’m about ten feet behind you!”
“Sorry,” said Sadar, looking over his shoulder to see Samson struggling, actually about twenty feet behind. “You sure sounded closer.”
“Jeez,” said Samson, finally catching up. “You’re like fifty years old and I can’t keep up with you. Where do you get all this energy, a retirement fund?”
Chuckling, Sadar said, “I don’t know why all you guys assume I’m so old.”
“Now that I think about it, neither do I!” laughed Samson. Just then, he noticed that all the time they weren’t trekking upstream, Sadar wasn’t limping. In fact, he had the cane on his shoulder. “Hey, wait a minute. What happened to your leg?”
Sadar smiled. “I thought you were at least smarter than that,” he said. “I must be a good actor, then.”
“Actor? What do you mean?”
“You see, you let your eyes deceive you too easily,” Sadar said. “I’m not a day over thirty. I just dye my hair white and limp to fit the part. C’mon, you don’t think a priest could do the things I do, do you?”
“Well, considering you are a priest…” Samson was rather confused at the moment. “Why do you need to ‘fit the part’ to begin with?”
He hesitated for a second. “Hmm, I don’t think that this is the time for that,” said Sadar as he began walking again.
“Whoa, hold on,” said Samson. “Before I go doing reconnaissance missions with you, I need to know who the hell you are.”
“Alright, fine,” said Sadar, continuing upstream. “I’ll just leave you here, alone in the dark sewer without any light.” He chuckled.
Samson grunted. “God dammit,” he said as he began to walk, “but you’d best not be some creep. If you’re a rapist or some serial killer-”
Sadar began roaring with laughter. “Samson, I can assure you that neither of those are the scenario here.”
“Then what’s with you?”
He stopped. “If you must know…” Sadar said with some hesitation, “I’m a thief.”
“A thief? So you’re a criminal!” yelped Samson.
“Calm down!” yelled Sadar. “That was almost ten years ago. I was young and reckless then, but now, I’m a changed man.”
Samson just stared at him. “Is your name even the real one?”
Sadar sighed. “Whether you trust me or not, I know in my heart that I’ve atoned for my sins,” he said. “Now come on, I asked Hikki for you to help me with this because I trusted you. You’re the best man for this job.”
He extended his hand to shake Samson’s. Samson was a little reluctant to accept the offer at first, but after a moment, he smiled back at Sadar. “Let’s do this,” Samson said, shaking his partner’s hand.
Eager to reach their destination, Sadar and Samson’s slow pace against the stream had evolved into more of a sprint. Then, within minutes, they were there.
“Alright,” said Sadar, “that right there will lead to the archives.” He pointed with his flare to a hard metal door, labeled “ARCH.” “That’s where Hikki has ordered us to enter so we can take a look at some things pertaining to the Syndicate. We’re curious to know what Ozzal really knows about us, and those archives in there contain any information about everything that happened in Actonia in the past two-hundred years, even classified information.”
Samson nodded as he processed the objectives of their mission.
“Now, I know you haven’t had much time to prepare for this, but is there anything you can do to hack the Estate’s security system? I need you to deactivate the alarms and place their surveillance on a loop. That way, we don’t risk being detected by anything that isn’t human.”
“Hmm,” hummed Samson, “from these sewers, I’m not sure I can do anything with my computer. It might damage the laptop. However,” he said, fishing through his backpack, “I do have this handy little device I’ve designed.” He pulled a tiny little ball from his pack, smaller than a marble. “It’s a miniature EMP bomb which I’ve designed solely to temporarily disable electronics in an immediate area. It should work to open this door, which appears to be electronically operated,” he said, noticing the lack of a handle. “When this little bomb goes off, it’ll open this door for us, and it should go undetected by security because the bomb will also make this area invisible on the security grid.”
“I’m not sure I understand what you said,” joked Sadar, “but whatever you need to do, go ahead. Just let me in there first, just in case there are any guards we need to deal with.”
Samson placed the little ball at the bottom of the door. “As soon as the bomb goes off, we’ll have about a minute to get through that door and for me to hack the security system. Don’t worry, thirty seconds should even be enough.”
He pressed a button on a little remote in his hand, and the ball began to beep. There was a slight poof and then the door opened shortly after. There were no guards by that door, so within seconds, Samson found an outlet right inside the door and was able to disable the alarm system for the entire west wing of the Estate and place the security cameras in the archive and surrounding areas on a loop.
“Ready?” asked Sadar.
Samson nodded, packing up his laptop.
Slowly, Sadar opened the next door which was seconds away from the electronic door. This one was manually operated and had a handle. Beyond it was a labyrinth of corridors and endless underground hallways. They were all wet with puddles on the concrete floor and water dripping from the ceiling. They were small passages, too, not wider than eight feet across. There was barely any light, but the few lights that did flicker were somewhat enhanced by their reflections on the steel walls.
Shortly after passing the first door, they encountered a guard, who Sadar was quick to neutralize. And this was the routine for about the next ten minutes until they finally found the entrance to the archive.
“Here we are,” said Sadar, shoving the door open, then gently locking it once both of them were inside.
This room was massive, about one hundred feet across and appearing to be almost infinitesimal as it proceeded back. There were hundreds of rows of shelves, almost twenty feet high, and on all the shelves there were file cabinets. Each shelf was marked by a certain year, and all the file cabinets on each were labeled alphabetically. The first one, closest to the entrance was the shelf containing the most recent files.
In the opposite corner of the room on the same end as the entrance, there was an old computer and several other machines, like a recorder, a tape player and a copy machine.
“Well, let’s get started, shall we?” said Sadar. “You look for the folder containing any information on the Blacken Syndicate and Landon. Hikki’s only interested in the most recent stuff, so just look in this year. I’m going to look and see if I can find anything on Hikki and myself.”
It was relatively simple for Samson to gather his information, since both of the things he was looking for were categorized under “B.”
“Let’s see…” he said, running his fingers over the different topics, “there’s the ‘Blagoode Affair,’” (which was a scandal involving the former Orly police chief, Foley Blagoode) “’Blachensville Offensive,’” (which was just a simple uprising between the tavern owners and police force of Blachensville) “’Operation: Blacjack,” (which was an operation to regain the island of Blac, which Babblstan natives had seized) “I haven’t heard of half these things,” he said to himself.
Then, he noticed that the files in this particular cabinet were upset by something, as if they had been frantically thrown about. They also all appeared to be unleveled. Samson dug through them only to find one of the folders he was looking for – “Black Syndicate.”
“Gotcha,” he said, ripping it out of the cabinet.
It was a very fat file, containing lots of information. It was actually several folders held together by a number of rubber bands. There were a lot of cassette tapes in the folders and papers were practically shooting out of them. It probably weighed about ten pounds all together.
“Jeez, they’ve sure been busy documenting us,” said Samson to himself.
Then, he looked for the file on Landon (“Blaken, Landon”) which he found much easier than the other. This one wasn’t hidden so much, except that it did appear someone had tried to bend the label down.
He threw the folders on the computer table and immediately began searching through the folder about the Syndicate. He noticed one of the papers was marked “June 18,” last Monday. It was a report on the attack at Trunks’ pub.
“Hmm,” hummed Samson as he ran his finger across the paper. He was looking for any information about how the police discovered the pub was the hub of operations. “Here we go,” he said when he found the right information. “Wait, what the hell!”
Sadar had found the files he was looking for too and threw them on the table as right when Samson yelled. “What?”
“Here’s the report on the Trunks’ pub: ‘After the police force received an anonymous tip from inside the Syndicate that certain individuals were involved in the raid of Comdot Estate earlier this month, Lieutenant Charles Crème was placed undercover in Trunks’ Pub and Dance Dance Revolution Hut to analyze the behaviors of frequent visitors and report and suspicious activities.’ What the hell? Someone tipped them off!”
“What?” said Sadar. “A mole? Does it give a name?”
“No, the **bleep** is referred to as an ‘anonymous contributor.’ And it also says here that you, me, Kirara, Elizabeth and Hikki were specifically involved.” Samson growled. “And the officer’s name is blacked out in the report. So now we don’t know who the mole is or who was the one being informed. God dammit!”
Sadar frowned. “I was hoping this wouldn’t happen. But it did…” He sighed, and then quickly noticed a paper on the ground, which Samson had thrown there while ripping the rubber band off. “What’s this?” he said, picking it up. “It’s a report on Heero’s murder.”
“Huh?” said Samson. “Where’d you get that?”
“On the ground,” said Sadar. “You threw it there.” He hummed just like Samson did as he analyzed the paper. “Well, you’re not going to believe this, but someone narced on Heero and Riza, too.”
“WHAT?” yelled Samson. “Is it the same person?”
“I don’t know, it’s still listed as anonymous.”
“Let me see that,” said Samson as he angrily grabbed the paper from Sadar. “’After receiving an anonymous tip on the location of two fugitive figures in Orly, the “Deathkiss,” codenamed “Emiri,” was ordered to deal with the infamous criminal duo known simply as Heero and Riza, known for their assassination jobs in Babblstan. Unfortunately,’” added Samson, “Emiri disregarded any order to make the handling of the two clean.’”
Sadar was astounded by what he heard. “The government… ordered their murder?”
“It’s disgusting,” said Samson, folding up the two papers and placing them in a folder next to his laptop. “We need to find out who this mole is.” He looked over to the folder on Landon, but Sadar had already taken to it.
“Well, it appears Ozzal knows as much about him as we do. He’s A.W.O.L. right now. Apparently, Raef’s kidnapping was just bait for the Syndicate. They never had Landon to begin with – the news story was just to get us curious. They figured that if we tried to rescue Raef, we’d slip up and somehow reveal Landon’s location.”
Samson laughed. “When the truth is, we’re not even sure where Landon is right now.” Then, he got an idea. “If we want to leak this whole mess to the press and ruin Ozzal’s credibility, we’d might as well get something on Raef. I’ll go find his file.”
While Sadar read through his and Hikki’s file, Samson went off to look at the “C” section on the shelf. When he finally got there, he saw that the file cabinet was already opened, as if someone had recently visited it. “I wonder why you’re open,” he said to himself.
Inside, he easily found Raef’s file next to his mother’s. But one thing that discerned him was one file that wasn’t place in the cabinet properly. It was wrinkled and filled with a lot of papers, just like the Blacken Syndicate’s file.
“Operation: Comlaeha” read the folder’s label. “Comlaeha?” said Samson. “That’s the capital of Comedia. I’ve never heard of this operation.” Then, he noticed that on the front of the folder underneath the label, there was a suggestion: “See ‘Spartas Project.”
So, forgetting all about the file on Raef, Samson gathered these two new suspicious folders and immediately began dissecting them when he arrived back at the table.
“What are you doing?” asked Sadar. “What do those have to do with Raef?”
“Nothing,” Samson replied as he tore through the “Operation: Comlaeha” folder, looking for a summary of its contents. “But my gut tells me there’s something fishy about this.”
He was right.
When he finally found something reminiscent of a summary (which was hard, because the entire folder was shrouded by black censors), he noticed one word that was enough to raise an alarm. Assassination. It was basically the only word in there that wasn’t censored, probably because it was missed by some foul up.
“Assassination?” said Samson. “There hasn’t been an assassination in Comedia. Ever.”
Sadar put his one hand on his head and grabbed the other folder with his other. “Oh, hell. What have we gotten into?”
The second folder was more helpful, as it was not censored completely. In fact, it was a lot of newspaper clippings on past events – “Cobra kills teammates, threatens President.”
It was an article about a baseball player from the Comlaeha Cobras who killed all of his teammates in their locker room at the Actonia-Comedia championship game. His name was Jake Thompson.
Apparently, his teammates found out that he was plotting to kill the President of Comedia, who was going to throw the first pitch of the game. Jake was planning simply on running onto the field and pummeling the President with a bat, and from that point he didn’t care what happened.
He killed all of his team with his bat. It was a bloody, disgusting mess after he got done with them. After he killed his team, his chances of getting the President were destroyed. However, he oddly disappeared after the slaughter, evading all the authorities and security present at that game.
“That’s great,” said Samson. “Why the hell was Thompson involved in this? He was an icon to the youth of both Actonia and Comedia, and he never came off as violent to me.”
“I’m still perplexed by it as well,” said Sadar. “But I’m more perplexed why this is filed under this ‘Spartas Project.’”
“Hmm, the only thing I can find about the procedures of the actual project are that it was something involving steroid amplification,” said Samson. “Wait, that couldn’t be-”
“Look at this,” said Sadar, holding up a letter which he pulled from the folder. “It’s a letter, written by Jake.”
“What’s it say?” asked Samson.
“It says…” paused Sadar. “It says ‘please… don’t kill my family.’”
At that moment, there was a thundering crash outside the archives. It sounded like a door was blown off the hinges.
“DON’T MAKE ME LOOK FOR YOU!” bellowed an angry voice.
Samson fell to the ground, he was so frightened. “Holy-”
The door to the archive exploded off the hinges. It flew into the shelves so hard that instead of knocking them down, it just went clear through them, sending metal and shrapnel every where.
Sadar had drawn his sword by now and Samson had brandished a shotgun. All their attention was devoted to that entrance.
First, a sword appeared through the door. It was similar to Sadar’s, only it was a tad bit longer and larger, and if viewed up close, one would see the edges were much like a saw.
Then came the beholder of this sword. He slowly stepped through the entrance, glaring at Sadar and Samson. His angry green eyes had a glint that pierced the air so sharply that it seemed like his stare could stab you. His hair was a dirty blonde and he wore a backwards red baseball cap. His skin was tan but rugged. He wasn’t much taller than Sadar and Samson, but his physique was incredibly intimidating.
The outfit of this man was seemingly unorthodox. He simply wore a sleeveless red shirt, accompanied by an unbuttoned black vest. His arms and shoulders were pretty big when flexed, and the rest of his upper muscles were just as defined through his clothing. He wore no shoes and his legs, half the unorthodox part, were simply covered by a black robe, which glided across the floor with his every step. His right arm, and only his right arm, the other unorthodox quality to his garb, was covered by a red cape.
And in his other hand, he held nothing other than a bloodied metal baseball bat.
“Hikki would have a field day sexually harassing this guy-”
“I know who this is,” interrupted Sadar. “You’re… you’re Jake. Jake Thompson.”
He grunted back at them and gave them an evil smile. “Thanks for noticing.”
Sadar and Samson were speechless by the sight they were witnessing. This was the baseball player who last year murdered his whole team, and now he was in front of them, holding a bat and a sword, ready to kill them.
“You ain’t supposed to be in here,” he said. “Why did you make me come down here to kill you?”
They couldn’t talk. Their mouths were dry.
“The least you could’ve done was used the main entrance and saved me some time.” He placed the bat on his shoulder and then began analyzing his sword. “And you should have killed the guards if you were looking to not get caught. They do eventually wake up, and it is kinda their job to report intruders.”
Samson shot at Jake, and he merely swung his bat at the volley of bullets, deflecting them to the wall behind Samson.
“This bat is made of pure titanium, bud,” he said. “You’re not weird’ through it with that.”
Titanium. This guy, he was once just an ordinary baseball player. Actually, if put back into a uniform, he’d still look like a baseball player, just that he was built a little more than the traditional athlete. But even still, he didn’t look like he could hold a titanium bat, at least not as easily as he actually was. There had to be something in his muscles that made him different.
“So, I guess you don’t want my tips on this stuff, eh? Fine, I’ll just kill ya now.”
He quickly swung the bat at Sadar, who nimbly deflected it, only to have the sword swung right at his legs. Sadar jumped, avoiding the sword, but Jake hit him in the back with the bat, sending him into a shelf.
“Sadar!” yelled Samson.
But Jake continued to swing right at Samson. He wasn’t as quick at dodging these weapons as Sadar was, but he managed to avoid a few of the chops. Jake landed a swift cut right into Samson’s arm, but luckily it wasn’t serious.
“You’re not making this fun,” said Jake, as he swung the bat at Samson who was now holding his arm.
Samson fired a few shots at Jake’s face, but he deflected them with his sword. However, Jake was distracted by Samson, and Sadar had managed to stealthily take a nice cut at Jake’s legs.
“ARGH!” screamed Jake as he fell to the ground.
“Samson, now’s the time!” yelled Sadar, grabbing Samson by his good arm and pulling him out of the room.
As soon as they were outside, they found that the way to the sewers was destroyed by Jake.
“Where do we go?” said Samson frantically.
“Upstairs!” said Sadar, running for the steps. “Above us is an abandoned tower of the Estate. Their shouldn’t be too much security up there!”
“GET BACK HERE!” bellowed Jake, who was now up from the ground, which was apparent by the sound his bat made as it was dragged across the floor. Luckily, Jake’s athleticism was diminished by the wound he received from Sadar, and Samson and Sadar were quickly out of his reach.
The stairs seemed almost endless as they continually wound around and around. Eventually, they were out of the underground areas and reached the actual tower. Since Ozzal didn’t use this tower, there were cobwebs occasionally and there was barely any lighting. There were a few torches flickering against the stone walls, but that was the extent of any light. Beneath them, there was an old and tattered red velvet rug with a gold leaf effect which occasionally sparkled.
“These steps are endless,” panted Samson. “Where are we going!”
“We’re just trying to reach the top of the tower,” explained Sadar. “We need somewhere to hide out until we can… we can… we can…”
Sadar was distracted by something he just discovered on the walls. He wasn’t sure if it was what he thought it was, but it was red and sparkly. By this time, he had stopped, and Samson, had stopped to investigate with him.
“Is that from you?” he asked, pointing to Samson’s arm.
“Me? Hell, I’d be dead right now if I bled that much,” laughed Samson. “Besides, this looks dry to me.”
It was dry. The whole staircase from this point on was covered by dry blood.
“Dear God-”
“KIRA!” There was an angry feminine shout that echoed through the stairwell. “FOR THE LAST TIME, WHEN I TELL YOU TO LOOK LIKE EDMOND DANTES, YOU’D BEST DAMN WELL DO SO!”
There was a loud sigh. “Yes, Emiri.”
“WHAT DID YOU JUST CALL ME?”
Another sigh. “I’m sorry, Mercédès.”
“WHAT?”
Again. “I’m sorry, Mercédès, my beautiful Catalan queen.”
There was a room right at the top of the stairs, at the top of the tower. There was a faint and flickering light up there, probably from a candle. That’s where the voices were coming from.
The angry voice sounded familiar to Sadar. It couldn’t have been that woman, could it? “Dearest Lord-”
Samson dropped his shotgun and the metallic clang against stone echoed throughout the stairs.. His arm gave out from the cut Jake gave him.
“WHAT WAS THAT?” yelled the female voice.
Suddenly, there was a rustling in the room. It sounded like chains or something else metal. The door flew open as Emiri kicked it.
“Fe, fi, fo, fum! I smell the blood of a …” Emiri noticed who the intruder was, “… very sexy man.”
Sadar drew his sword and Samson grabbed the shotgun again.
“What brings you here, my little angel?” she said as she slowly walked down the steps.
She was wearing a long, silky red dress with a golden belt. She was wearing leather boots though, which echoed with every step she took. Her long and beautiful blonde flowing hair swayed back and forth. On her shoulder, she had a shiny silver chain, which rattled with every step too, and in her hand, there was a sword, a different one than what she mangled Heero with. It was a two headed sword with a blade on both ends of the hilt.
Every step she took was mesmerizing and seductive. She licked her lips as if preparing to feast, and had she not been preparing to kill Sadar and Samson, they might have fallen for her feminine beauty.
“I see you’re not in the most sensual mood right now,” she said, walking towards him. “But don’t worry, I can change that. When we’re done, I can make you my slave, and you will adore me. I will take care of you, and you’ll love it. Oh, yes, you’ll love it so much that you’ll scream with pleasure!”
“Shut up!” screamed Sadar. “What the hell is wrong with you! I have no time for your lustful banter. If you’re going to attack me, then do so now.”
She grunted. “Hmph. That’s no way to treat a beautiful woman! How dare you!”
Emiri violently cast the chain down the stairs at Sadar, who Samson had taken cover behind. She whipped the chain hard at Sadar’s head, but luckily, he deflected it with his sword. The chain wrapped around it and Sadar used all his strength to tug on the chain.
She fell down the steps and lost the chain, but quickly regained her stance, only to have Sadar throw his cane at her face, hitting her square in the mouth. Emiri screamed in frustration, but then emitted a pleasurable groan.
“Mmm, you made my mouth bleed,” she said. “It tastes so… wonderful.”
Then, the sound of a bat clanking against the stone resounded through the stairwell. Jake figured out they went up the tower and had caught up with them finally.
“Why’d you bring him along?” said Emiri angrily. “Now I don’t get to have all the fun to myself!”
“You little bastards!” screamed Jake. “I’m going to kill you!”
He swung the bat at the two, but they ducked. The bat hit the wall of the tower, putting a massive hole in the wall. Outside of it was a clear view of Orly, as well as a long fall to the ground.
Sadar fought off Jake, who found it difficult to fight with two weapons in the small space, while Samson tried to run up the steps and charge at Emiri with his gun. She was quick to defeat him though, deflecting all of his shots with her awesome sword.
She swung the blade at his shotgun, knocking it from his hands, and then quickly took a dagger concealed on her thigh and threw it with such a force at his wounded arm. It whistled through the air, pinning his arm to the wall.
“AHHHH!” screamed Samson in excruciating pain. Emiri intended to sever his arm completely, but he was lucky enough just to have it stuck to a wall with a dagger. When he tried to pull away, it didn’t help at all and only worsened the wound.
“Samson!” said Sadar, noticing his situation. He quickly deflected the bat and the sword and, with all of his energy, kicked Jake down the stairs. He then picked up the chain and cast it at Emiri, wrapping it around her neck. She began gasping for air as her neck began to bleed.
“How does it feel?” said Sadar. “I hope you like it … angel.”
He was about to give the chains a quick tug, severing her head, when Kira lunged from the room, knocking Sadar down and loosening the chain.
Sadar fell down the stairs with the chain and his sword. He almost fell out of the hole, but quickly grabbed a hold of the side.
“Samson, I’ll come back for you!” he yelled, dangling from the tower. “I promise!”
He let go, beginning his plunge from the tower.
“That bastard,” said Emiri as she felt her neck wound. “He’s not getting away that easily.”
She jumped out from the hole too, following him.
Sadar was lucky enough to grab a hold of a flag pole sticking out from the tower’s side with Emiri’s chain. He was about to let go when she fell on him, grabbing a hold of his legs and pulling him down to the streets outside the Estate about twenty feet below.
“You’re gonna pay for these wounds, boy,” she hissed with no hint of lust in her voice. But when she looked up from the ground, he wasn’t there. Instead, there was a little pool of blood where he landed and several bloody footprints beyond it. She, on the other hand, wasn’t even scratched.
A few seconds later, Jake had landed the ground and was standing beside Emiri. Apparently, he reached the top of tower only to discover that Sadar and Emiri were gone, so he followed them and jumped from the tower, grabbing the chain before he hit the ground.
“Let’s get him,” he said, dusting off his hands.
Sadar’s nose and arm were broken by the fall and he suffered a pretty terrible gash in his leg from Emiri’s angry fist. But he didn’t care about his injuries. He was just trying to get away from that insane woman.
He ran all the way across the town, to the opposite side of Orly. He knew that the only place he would be safe was with God – at St. Maria’s Cathedral.
“Leah!” he screamed, running into the church. He collapsed right into one of the pews, hitting his head. “Help me, Leah!”
There was a sound of a gently scurry in the rooms outside of the sanctuary. A door opened by the organ and in came a figure covered with a white evening veil holding a small candle. It was Sister Nafah.
“John, is that you?” she said in a worried tone.
He coughed blood onto the floor. “Help me, Leah.” He fell flat to the floor.
“Oh, John, what happened? Tell me, who did this to you?” She turned him over on his side so that he could talk, and so that he wouldn’t drown in his blood.
Weakly, he tried pointing to the door of the cathedral. “T-t-them…” He fell again.
“Who? John? John!” She was about to help him, when suddenly, the main doors exploded from the hinges, and in stepped Jake and Emiri. Leah stood up angrily. “Who are you?”
Emiri sneered. “I see, he doesn’t have anyone to help him anymore, so he turns to God. Pfft.”
Leah cast her finger at Emiri. “Who are you to come in here and mock the name of God!”
“Oh, I’m sorry, but I’m really not in the mood to hear you right now,” laughed Emiri. “We’re just going to kill him and be on our way.”
Leah stood in front of Sadar. “I will not let you harm this man.”
Emiri brandished her sword. “I don’t think you’re going to stop me.”
“Put that away!” Leah ordered.
“Gosh, you people are so annoying. Quit your babbling sister-”
“I will not tolerate your talk, sinner!” Leah said, angrily. “You will not tarnish a house of God with your violence and your unholy words!”
Jake sighed. “Just kill her, Emiri.”
Emiri was seething. “Alright, lady, you asked for it!”
She lunged at Leah, reading the double-headed sword. Emiri was seconds away from slaughtering Leah when-
“Espiritus sanctus!” yelled Leah. A ray of white light shot from her hands at Emiri, suspending her in mid-air. “Do not trifle with the forces of God.”
“What the hell is this?” said a confused Emiri.
Jake was about to jump at Leah when she threw Emiri back at him. It was an attack of unfathomable power as it sent Emiri flying into Jake’s stomach, launching them out of the cathedral and towards the Estate. “Go back to the hell from which you came!”
As soon as the attackers were gone, Leah began tending to Sadar. “We need to get you into a bed and nurse those injuries. Come on, John.” She put his arm on her shoulder and slowly carried him away into the convent, where hospitality awaited.
“Wait…” he mumbled, “I… promised….Samson…” Sadar fainted.