Chapter Nine

The Scarlet Corridor

By now there wasn't much of that could possibly be done, and there was nothing Xaden would have done to stop those mediators from ganging down on Teji. It grew painful just to watch them as they slammed their feet into his stomach, gut, jaw, yanking his hair up to force him back onto his feet. By now blood had been flowing from either side of his lip along with bruises on his cheek, eye, and various other concealed wounds from beneath his clothes. Unlike Teji, Xaden knew why they were beating on him rather than himself, obvious to their knowledge that seeing a friend would indeed dent Xaden's will much worse should it had been him that they were striking down upon.

They had been relocated to a new quarter, he wasn't so sure where it had been situated, exactly, what with his unconsciousness taking him over so that he wouldn't know where they had been heading the entire time. All he recollected was that they had been standing along the periphery of Neo Angeles, the night was obscure with a moonless sky, hence concealing their view from a passerby.

It was just four others, two were at it with Teji (one was holding him still while the other palpitated him.), and two were holding Xaden around his arms, making sure he didn't try anything to contest against their pitiless assault. They hadn't even said anything, they just pulled them out as soon as Xaden regained some of his perception, and although through the blurred world he saw the vague impression of Teji and those who restrained him as well. They barely told him much of why they were doing this, only commence to knock Teji senseless to the ground, to the point where he had gone to weak to stand up.

Each blow Teji had taken, face, ribs, anything that they could injure easily. Xaden flinched, gritting his teeth and with every urge to pull his eyes away, he could not bring himself to avert. He was caught, imprisoned in watching the one man who had brought his life and trust at Xaden's feet, and he'd been unintentionally deceived.

Teji's sunglasses had tumble loosely from his face and shattered onto the concrete, the broken lenses scratched among the rocks. He stared towards the earth upon his hands and knees, blinking while trying to regain his sense of sight and recuperation from seeing the world in darker colors now. He felt a tug pull back on his muddled off that made up his ponytail, creating a mass of pain to shoot up from the man's grasp to Teji's scalp, causing him to yelp in sudden, agonizing surprise.

"Now," the man whispered in Teji's ear, a bruise formed around his cheek, the side of his face had been distorted from the beating into a black and blue shade, and his lower lip bled down to his chin. "Since playtime is over, let's start over again. Have you seen the girl that we described to you?" Teji didn't answer, and when he didn't, the man jerked on his hair, his arms shook, barely able to hold his body any longer. "Is that right? You can hear and understand me, right?"

"Stop it!" Xaden sharply demanded, trying to rush over to Teji, but the hands held onto his arms securely to cut the circulation from his limbs. He didn't feel very comfortable doing much of anything at the time being like kick them while he had a gun pointed at his spine. He stopped instantly, his amethyst eyes widened with shock. Xaden realized this well that he wouldn't be any good for helping Teji to get through this if he were dead.

Luckily the other two women hadn't been there. Bekah would have gotten herself beaten with her defiant remarks and stubborn disposition, one in which had always gotten her into some sort of dilemma. On the other hand, Uri would have been in much pain seeing these kind of cruelty come across her friends, the only thing that would get her struck down would be her surge of concern that would constantly cause her to run over to whoever's injured due to her generic nature.

Slowly, Teji nodded. It was a pathetic nod, although it had been understandable considering the continuing fits of abuse he'd endured through whenever Xaden had failed to respond to a question the way the men had wanted him to. The only thing keeping Teji from collapsing to the ground was a hand grasping upon a large handful of hair, Xaden was sure that if he could nod in a normal manner he probably would have found even himself taken aback.

"Good dog," the man said, smiling with a satisfied expression, his thick lips curled into a vindictive smile. "Now get in the car, and we'll head to the quarters so that you can be with you're friends;" he said penetratingly, releasing Teji's hair and had his fall down on his stomach. The next thing he knew, Teji had been lifted off the ground and thrown into a seat, he didn't know, his eyes were puffy and he could just scarcely lift his lids.

Xaden was hurled beside him; his body plunged into a drop like he were a rag doll, now sitting in the back passenger's seat beside Teji. The doors on each side of the car opened, so two mediators could enter from Xaden's side, one who seemed more of a threat to make an act of some sort than the other, while the other agent was on Teji's side of the vehicle. Teji, who was seemingly a lesser threat.

The windows were dark shaded, making it look like it was some sort of limousine, since it was a long, white car, completed with a sun roof on the top. Xaden looked up at the light shimmering through the windows of the glass roof. He knew of these structures of men, he knew what they worked for and what kind of dealings they'd done throughout the entire nuclear war. They tried to make it look like they weren't government associated, though they liked to make it look that way anyway. At least he thought that these were those people, for some reason something here didn't seem right.

It was much like a mafia, only less sophisticated and none of them were Italian, German, or French, at least that Xaden thought of. The car smelled like spilt coffee, main the scent coming from the leather seats, making them even less comfortable because they felt so cold. The only thing that kept Xaden from fighting back was the mere fact that he still had a gun now pointed to his head, as well as Teji. He didn't dare try and move, and did his best not to even flinch.

"Teji," Xaden whispered to him, "you all right?"

Teji stood up, rubbing his lower lip and stared at the blood smeared onto his hand. "No, I just got the shit knocked into me, I'm bleeding, what makes you think I'm not okay, Xaden? Nope, I am having a grand occasion! You should try it also sometime!" His eyebrows raised, Teji responded so in a mocking manner that made Xaden grimace.

Of course he wasn't proud of himself that he hadn't done anything, as a matter in fact he wish there was a way. He wanted to take back everything that had happened to him right then, like whatever it was that Rei had done to him. But Uri was right, keeping his brother's death a secret from him wasn't really something that should be kept from him. Before all of this had happened, Uri had called Teji's mother and told her everything that had happened, and that Teji was currently in a momentary shock to go anywhere and be mentally safe. She didn't tell Xaden how his mother reacted, though. All she did was a brief look of penitence, and walked away.

By now he wished that he hadn't lied. Then maybe Teji would have left and he wouldn't have been dragged into this. On the other hand, Xaden wasn't even fully sure whether if Teji really would have left, anyway. How could he have been so sure of it in which case?

Now all he hoped for was Uri and Bekah's safety.

***

"They can't be far off to the east," Reuel directed, his eyes transfixed upon the transmitter displayed upon the dash board, watching the red mark move towards the itinerary as he had ordered Ragnar to head the Humvee to. Fia was located in the backseat, preparing some of the ammunition for when they were to reach their destination.

Taking a moment to recheck that they were stalked up on enough ammo, Fia glanced from the corner of her eye towards the others. It had been obvious how jumpy the girl was lately, constantly asking the same questions like; "Are we there, yet?"

"I'll tell you when we get there."

Fia slumped in the seat, loading guns on straps at her heels, even with some bayonets safely secure with them and stuffed some of the heavy firearms in the heavy iron suit case she had in the backseat. If they were lucky the scanners wouldn't pick up what they have in their box and they could gain the element of surprise. Fia slapped it softly, looking ahead. "Now?" Persistently she asked again.

"Say that one more time and I am turning this hummer right around, missy," Ragnar said teasingly.

"Can you two shut up?"

"Well sorry, I didn't know it took so much effort to watch a stupid screen."

"Why not? You always say something akin to the same thing when your watching television," Fia said knowingly with a smirk. "Like that is any different, only it's actually less important."

Ragnar turned around, his face peering over his seat. "That's a different kind of comeback," he droned, raising an eyebrow and shook his head as though in some sort of trance. It had been a look he'd obtained quite recently, something that didn't seem quite natural for him. Perhaps it might have been because nobody was used to seeing Ragnar with such a pensive look before. On him it almost seemed somewhat unnatural. "Are you almost finished preparing?"

Throwing in the last clip, Fia looked up and smiled. "Yup."

"Great."

"Armadillo."

"What?"

Reuel repeated in a blank tone, "I said 'armadillo.'"

"Uh, why?"

"Because, there is a huge-ass one over there on the side of the road," Reuel said, driving passed it, the three watched it, keeping their eyes on the animal as they passed by slower and slower, as there was, indeed, a fairly massive sized creature was curled up on the passing lane. It might have just been Ragnar, but he could have sworn that he saw it's eye glistening, though it might have been just a trick from the headlights. In any case, this was the notion he'd much rather assume his comforts to.

It's an animal thing, Reuel had convinced himself. Cats do it; all animals do, too. There isn't much to worry about, so if we just pass them, then maybe it won't see us. No, it already saw us. Perhaps it won't care thought? Why would it care? Why should it?

"What was it that those things are called again?" Fia wondered. "Henkeis?"

"Yeah. I wonder where that came from;" Ragnar chortled, and for some reason shuttered. He wrapped his arms over his shoulders upon the sudden cold draft that he'd seemingly received after such a comment, looking suddenly uneasy. He joked and smirked to try and make himself feel better, but it had been without prevailing.

"Rei must know something that we don't," Reuel said furtively. "Something she is hiding...."

When Ragnar turned to Reuel to ask him what he meant by that, he noticed that he was turning the car over on the side of the road. Ragnar grabbed Reuel by his sleeve. "Hey, man, what the hell do you think you're doing?!"

"Seeing if Rei's theory is right," he said vacantly. "Fia, give me a gun."

"Which one?"

"Any one!" Reuel snapped, clenching his teeth while giving her an irritable glare.

Fia cringed, seeing as she wasn't much of one to get yelled at much, and she didn't like it. Especially seeing that it had been coming from Reuel. Ragnar gawped at him, perplexed. There was something with Reuel that didn't seem right, something that seemed different, which might have been the anger. Then again, he had remembered that the night Taj died, that he seemed to have been more withdrawn, more so than he already was, at least. Ragnar didn't see why, he never really did care for Taj, though he didn't really figure out the reason.

Though there was no time for hesitation, for any one of them. Before somebody could even have so much as a chance to stop him, Reuel exited from the Humvee, opening the back door and pulled out the nearest shotgun. It was clear on her face that Fia was wavering whether to stop him or not, but the look on Reuel's disconcerting face had made her think otherwise, Fia leaned back to exchange looks with Ragnar.

"I really hope Rei is having better luck with that other guy," Ragnar hoped.

***

The waking world was dreaded. Horrid. Ugly. Something that was worth the averted eyes to. That world was filled with reddened skies and an air too thick to breathe, polluted and hideous. He thought he might be dead, he wished he was dead. That way, Orion could escape the nightmare of reality and just live about in complete darkness. But here he lay in the darkness behind his eyelids, conscious, although unwilling.

Gradually, Westwood's eyes began to forcefully open, awakening to a burst of pain shooting through his skull. He clutched his head, quickly standing up from the surface that felt much like a couch, maybe. He groaned in agony, the world around his seemed bright. Much too bright from seeing the obscure world that he was so glad to have met. And by now he'd returned to the lifestyle in which he hated. But when he looked around, there was a different smell. No, he wasn't in the medical aid center. But if he wasn't there, then where was he?

"You're awake," said a soft, congenial voice. Westwood looked up, seeing a dark blur sitting next to him, when the blur focused together to form into a girl with black hair, somewhat barely with visible silver streaks from the roots to the ends of the hair strands. She looked down on him with green eyes, looking like jewels through the blur in which he saw the world. She watched him intently as though she had been waiting for him to wake up. Then again, telling by his current situation and what had happened, he most likely wasn't really back at the FORCE station like what he had feared. Westwood rubbed his hand over his eyes, trying to make it so that the light didn't burn as much.

"Someone's brilliant," he retorted the woman in a deep, sardonic intonation, opening one hazel eye to see that the woman didn't really seem fazed towards his bitter comment. Actually, Westwood was quite grateful for that, he never did like being known as the bitter tyrant, unlike Gears.

There was something strange about that woman, the way she stared at him, the way he felt like she was reading him. He blinked and shook his head, trying to get the thoughts out of his head. He felt bandages pressed against his skin, both of his legs and one around his arm to back.

"You were pretty bad when I found you," the woman explained in a voice that made Orion believe that she was thinking that it was nothing. She averted her sight of him and started clearing something from the coffee table that was displayed to the side. Orion was about to move to see what it was, but at the slightest twitch his whole body would jolt with pain, causing him to slam himself back down onto the couch, holding in the urge to cough all the while. "Another tenant and me took care of the bullet wounds. Got the ammunition out while you were unconscious, and bandaged up your lesions."

He stiffly turned his head away from her, seeing on the other side of the couch was a damp nose sticking in front of his face. At first he believed his mind must have been playing with him, feeling the nose and the warm panting animalistic breath, only to find that it just took him a moment to realize that the nose belonged to a beautiful ashen Siberian Husky. He blinked again for a moment, until the dog barked, startling Westwood, which caused him to fall off the couch, and onto the ground. It was then that he realized that his shirt was missing, replacing his sleeve with a bandage rolled across his chest, revealing his paled flesh that had lacked its color due to his deficiency of sunlight contact. Maybe he was just dreaming it or something, but he could have sworn that he felt himself flush.

"Nook!" the woman said to the dog. "Get down!"

The dog stared at her for a while, his blue eyes beamed at her with his tongue hanging out, and then complied with the woman's diminutive command, making his way over to her. The only thing that made Orion speculate, was that she flinched when the dog came as commanded, and then stroked imperceptibly between its ears. He didn't know why he found that strange, it was maybe just himself.

Rei took him by the arm, "Here, let me help you get back on the couch," she said, helping him to pull himself get back onto the cushion, his head resting of a soft pillow. For being a captive, she sure did seem to treat him well. He smiled and relaxed, not minding this treatment whatsoever, especially since it had been by such a beautiful woman. Although there were features about her that made Orion waver on whether if she would have been "his type" or not, for there was always more to a woman than her face.

Westwood eyed the dog before said without thinking, "Where am I?"

"The Shelter, I think that's what it's called," she said timidly, still avoiding his gaze, like she was a little girl afraid of facing an elder because of higher authorities. "I wouldn't know very much, I have only been here for a day."

"Wait a minuet...a day...so you've first came here yesterday?" Orion said warily, though what he was thinking might've been possible as well. It would have fit in with many other lose holes that hadn't seemed to have been right at first, but now things started to gradually piece together like a puzzle.

"That's generally what I meant when I said 'a day,'" she told him composedly.

When he was still at FORCE, he had been told before they sent him and Gears out that they were to search for a woman who escaped the hospital. Westwood wasn't told much of it, but since Gears had been working there for a long enough time, he could only guess that he was the only one out of the two of them who had a clue. There had also been other thing as well, though. When Westwood asked them what the woman have to do with anything related to the subject that they were working on originally, Phin just said that, "She has something do with our Carner, he said he wants her back." After been given a description as to how she looked like.

Orion squinted, looking at the woman, who was petting the dog which seemed more like she was trying to ease her own self. The way she moved her hands, her fidgety movements, made things clear to Orion that she wasn't used to being around stranger. Black hair. Green eyes. Soft, quiet demeanor (and fairly attractive, as a generic male perspective would observe.). It was possible that thing might as well be her, the girl that Carner had been looking for. The only thing that was different from the profile was the fact that she had silver streaks in her hair, running across her the strands of hair that fell over her eyes in such a graceful manner. "Excuse me," he said politely and yet somewhat suspiciously, "could you tell me what you're name is?"

Giving him a side-glance, the woman said, "My name is Rei." Her voice was so soft and quiet. Orion had no problem at all with listening to her intonations. As a matter in fact, it was quite soothing for him. For so long he'd listened to nothing else other than the raging sound of his coworkers and his chief, hearing a woman's tender voice brought his soul at ease after so many years of exploitations.

"What? No surname?"

"That is irrelevant," she said, her voice growing stronger as she turned to him.

It was too much of a coincidence. Emiko. That's what her name was. Her last name. Rei Emiko. Of all shit-ons, why did everything seem so complicated all of a sudden?

"Well? Who are you?"

"Me? I'm...Westwood."

"Funny name."

"Orion Westwood...?"

"Even funnier."

Orion slumped in his prone position, feeling affronted by her meek mockery for some reason. He shouldn't even really care. For the most part, Orion should be more thinking upon the many ways on how he could get out of here, but just by flexing his muscles made him jerk in pain, needless to say how much pain would be induced should he try so much as to rise. He kept his teeth clenched, hoping that if he stood up it'd be easier to talk to her, though instead the immeasurable pain that grasped threw him back around his wounds. He groaned and fell backwards, only seeing the face of the woman, looking down on Westwood with concern.

"You really shouldn't even try to get up," she said quietly. "You need rest."

"I can't just stay here, I have to go back and-"

"Where?"

"What?"

"Where do you have to go back to?"

Westwood could have kicked himself if he was standing. Instead he smacked his hand over his face, covering one, soft brown eye, and looking at her with his other. May the devil damn him, he couldn't ever opened his large mouth and say things without thinking about them first! He'd have to teach himself that someday and actually bare it in mind instead of being so inattentive.

This girl...Rei, he was sure that this had to be Rei Emiko, the one that they had been searching for. In which case he should keep an eye on her. No matter what, he couldn't allow the people of FORCE to get their hands on her. Chances are they'd most likely dispose of her just like what they do with all other targets that are seemingly a threat to them, and there was nothing more that Orion hated than spilt blood worth over nothing.

"If you don't tell me, keep in mind that I help take care of your injuries. And in any case, I know four places that I could hit and cause you more pain than you are feeling right now," she said, holding her fist out, and opened it, baring a silver bullet in the palm of her hand. Orion stared at it for a while, wondering what she meant by four; He had three gunshot wounds.

Instead of pressing on, Orion gave her a timid stare, his eyes slightly wide with shock. Rei nodded.

"Yeah, figured it out?"

"Could you rephrase the question?"

Rei smacked her forehead, shaking her head in skepticism, heaving a sigh. "I don't believe you!"

"How could you to begin with? We just...sort of...met;" Westwood said with a grin, making Rei look up and stare at him in bewilderment. Obviously, this woman didn't know a joke or a flirt when she heard one, because he saw in her eyes that she didn't understand what he had just said. He had never really acted this way towards a woman in such a long time, since all of them that he had ever known were at once place, and all of them that were there were co-workers.

Giving him a raised eyebrow, Rei looked up at him and gazed with her usual, expressionless manifestation, like she had lacked that of any human emotion within it that could possibly be revealed behind such a beautiful face. "You are a very strange man, you know that?"

Orion grinned. "Born and bred from the best, mind you."

"Geez...I'm starting to like you better when you were asleep."

"Everyone always seems to think that...."

There was a moment of silence, until Nook's panting broke the stillness and barked. Rei turned to him slowly, as if she was afraid of him, but in another way she wasn't. She flinched in reaction towards the harsh, abrupt sound, but then the reaction subsided itself. There was something about her that Westwood just couldn't really say, only that she just acted kind of quaint.

"Nook?"

Nook smiled at Rei, and then barked again, his paws pressed against the top of the couch, the dog looked down on him and bared his teeth, growling. Orion cringed, hiding under the blankets in hopes that Nook wouldn't be able to get him there, or in any case, he'd be able to have some sort of comfort before he was torn to shreds.

He heard Rei chuckle, although due to her monotonic vocal expressions, her small laugh sounded just as queer as she had. He couldn't quite explained even to himself what he was feeling about the whole situation, the uneasiness he felt when he was around this girl, but it was a mixture of different types of feelings . "Don't worry, Westwood," she told him, "I am sure Nook won't bite. Hard, at least."

Orion peeked over the top of the blankets, eyeing the dog, and smiled back at him, reaching over to scratch the canine behind the ear. The animal made a small sound and rubbed his jovial face against Orion's palm. "That's okay, I wasn't worrying much, anyway."

"Worrying...." Rei stopped, her eyes softened as she looked down, deep in thought. Westwood pulled the blankets down to his waist, watching Rei with concern. He wasn't much for being this kind to people he just met, but for some reason Rei just had this kind of aura that gave him the feeling that he could trust her. Not to mention she had this sense of awareness that drew him to feeling like she didn't care how he acted.

He frowned. "Is there something wrong?"

She shook her head and sighed. "No. Everything is fine." She then turned to him and blinked. "But what about you, are you alright?" Her eyes shifted down to his hand. Orion would have backed away should there had been any space, but the woman had already seized him by the wrist, starting to check out his condition before she became easily distracted by a silvery gleam upon his right ring finger. "What's this?"

Yelping as though in pain, Orion jumped back, instantly allowing Rei to leap backwards and stare at him, bewildered at his sudden outburst. "Don't look at that," he said, bringing his hand into the palm of his other and rubbing the silver ring on his finger gingerly, as though he held some value to it.

Rei tilted her head, much like what one does when they're bemused. "What is it?"

"What did it look like?" He muttered. "A ring."

"For what?"

"Why must you ask these questions?"

"Because I was told to."

He turned and stared at her, blinking. She blinked back. For a moment, nothing was said. Just silence, until Orion had been the first, thankfully, to have spoken. The girl was barely even around, and already she was taking orders like a good little dog. Figures, but he didn't like her vacant stare. "Do you honestly believe that you must oblige to every act just because someone told you to do it?"

Rei shrugged, looking away as though desiring to avoid the question. This was a big rebuff, something that Orion distasted and despised. First of all, she was interrogating him, and yet had no idea what she was doing in the first place. Just for she was young, a novice, she shouldn't have been allowed to stay here to hold up the fort in the first place. Orion shook his head, rubbing his forehead to get the irritation of his thoughts out of his mind. "Look.... Where are the others? Someone else I can talk to?"

The woman turned and stared at him, as though not understanding his question. "They aren't here."

"What do you mean?" Orion said, almost in a demanding voice.

"There was an attack," she told him nonchalantly. "There were guns, and shadowed foes. You cannot see the shadows because they are here, watching us right now. They are also in the wires, planning. They cannot see them because they hear with deafened ears. You cannot hear what is in the wires because you are just like them."

Slowly he turned back to her, his eyes slightly widened. "What are you talking about?"

"They're whispers are faint, but although they can't make out the words, I can hear them in the tongues of their own," Rei explained. "They are planned with their league. A war. An end. That is what they said they are planning." And with that, she stood up, looking down on him with a lethargic gaze. "You may leave when you feel better, by the way."

Although staring might have been one of the things that most mortals were told not to do, Orion couldn't have helped it. There was something strange about this woman. The way she spoke was distant, not at all there like what one would have first perceived it to have been. He couldn't quite make her out to be all one person, but Orion was determined to figure it out. With the thought and determination swarming through his contemplations, he shook his head, and declined.

Things were going to get interesting now that he found the woman that he was supposed to be looking for, mow he held the silent weapon within his grasp, Orion wanted to use this time to bend it towards his very whim.

***

The rush of adrenaline was pulsing through his veins. The feeling of the cold air rushing passed him as he dodged the assaults swiftly. The eyes were blind, they could not observe Reuel all that well through the darkness. The armadillo looked up at him with blinking scarlet eyes, although there was nothing it could do to half its assailants.

The armadillo rolled itself up and started darting towards him after Fia shrieked a brief, imperceptible warning. Ragnar made a swift dodge, and the creature made a pass. It wasn't so much of the surprise that an armadillo was attacking him, but just for the fact that it was twice his own size might have been something that made him think twice. This was one of the many things that made Ragnar demand how often Reuel had gotten them into things that they shouldn't have been in in the first place.

The Henkei swiftly turned around and made another dart towards Ragnar, Fia was aiming her pistol at it, but the thought of hitting Ragnar in the process had caused her to hesitate before doing so. She shifted her aim, though the movements beyond the scope were too sharp.

"Talamadge, move out of the way!" Fia implored.

The armadillo was just inches away from taking off his head, just because he ducked. He failed his own gun in the air. "I'm trying!" He exclaimed, making another duck as the creature darted towards his skull again. "Shit! Why do they have to make these goddamned things so goddamned fast?!" Ragnar demanded, although he knew well that his demand would not be dignified with any sort of answer.

Finally he had the perfect aim at the creature, when Ragnar suddenly lost his balance, and the armadillo was just a few feet away from hitting him when it flung itself over Ragnar's body, halfway across did it suddenly explode into a million orange pieces, bits of the monster was scattered all over...including on Ragnar. He looked up and saw Reuel holding one of Fia's laser pistols, with a smudged look on his face, pulling down the gun.

There was a crack as the bullet blazed from the barrel to the shell of the Henkei, ripping through to tear through its organs, causing its cells and body to instantly shrivel and cease as the bullets led spread throughout its stream. All the while, seeing that Ragnar had been closest to it, had been caught within the midst of its blasting entrails.

"You couldn't have shot any sooner, asshole?" Ragnar muttered in an irked tone, his eyebrow twitching while he flung off a morsel of the goop which seemed to have stuck itself to his hands, then wiping some off his claret hair.

Reuel shrugged composedly, the conceited grin not yet leaving his face. "I would have, but I would have blown you into a billion bits as well. Although I have to admit you do make a damned good decoy for this kind of thing." He crossed his arms in amusement of Ragnar's twitching brow upon the very comment. He sighed and turned towards them once more. "Keep in mind, children, that we have to go and get Xaden and the others. If it hasn't occurred to the two of you that they could be dead at any minute right now, or something really bad might be happening to them, while we're standing her hanging out with those...things, alright? We cannot be wasting our time while there is another that is in need, haven't you ever heard of that?"

"Yeah, from you," Ragnar started to snort, and then Fia gave him one of her scornful sneers, halting the process of his insulting laughter and coughed, doing so in his own way of holding it back. "Shutting up," he cleared his throat and got a stern look on his face, turning away from her and towards the road ahead. "So, uh.... Hey, Reuel? How far?"

There was a moment of silence, and all that was heard was the metallic beeping coming from Reuel jean pocket. Over the beeping he could hear Fia panting in sheer anger, the way her eyes flared made Ragnar anxious, for not even Fia ever got that look on her face. He had always seen Xaden get that look whenever he had been picked on by Nickoli, but it had been something that he could never imagine to have been on someone like Fia.

"To say the least, it should take us approximately twenty minutes to catch up to the main vehicle," Reuel said, breaking the stillness.

Fia turned around, and then stared ahead down the evening road. The sky was clouded, thus making things harder to see while night was approaching soon, seeming like they were running around, blind. A scenario Ragnar always detested so much to find himself in. "Tell me where to go," Fia said.

"Supposedly...wait...." Reuel halted his thoughts when he heard a strange, rapid sound, then stared down at the transmitter harder with a narrowed gaze, as though it were some sort of puzzle for him. He quirked a brow as the edge of his lip twitched, though whether or not if he had been grinning or not was another enigma that Ragnar couldn't figure out. "How the hell...?"

"What is it?"

"This can't be right...." He shook his head and stared down at the transmitter, perplexed. "They have to be moving at least about a hundred miles per hour in order to move that fast!"

"What?"

Ragnar turned around to see a confused Reuel shaking his head in incomprehension. "I don't understand why anyone would be moving that fast unless if they were...running...from...some...thing...." his eyes became dazed, as he stared off into space like he were seeing something, though it was obvious that whatever he had been seeing had been coming from within his head, judging by his demeanor.

Waving his hand in Reuel's face, Ragnar whistled, clicking his tongue a little all the while. "Hellooo. Hey, if you know something, you don't think you'd mind sharing, eh?" No answer. Ragnar slumped and then he went at it again, probably thinking of more ways to try and get Reuel out of whatever sort of reverie he was in. "Hey! If you know something then say it, alright? Don't just leave us in the dark!"

"Fi, I think we better get back in the car and speed up on the next road," Reuel said at last.

The woman raised an eyebrow, she didn't do anything, just drove on like she normally was. If it hadn't been so late, then things might have been less easy for them to get through the highway.

"Fia," Reuel snapped. "They're being chased!"

Fia raised an eyebrow before she quickly retreated from their default positions, followed by Reuel and finally Ragnar. The moment she jumped into the vehicle she instantly stepped her foot down hard onto the gas pedal, showing reaction as she sped down the road, entering within restricted lines of the city.

***

The sound of gunfire and the stench of powder were all about them. Uri had never seen Bekah cringing so much with each shot that was made, she twitched. Bekah had always been the one who was always inside the action, but with those agents, they were sticking their upper bodies outside the windows, shooting towards their attackers beyond their sight, causing quite a disturbance.

Now that was what Uri didn't understand. What was so threatening about a stampede of oversized harts heading right at them at an enormous speed rate? More than likely, that hadn't been her main problem. What she hated more was to see that their lives had rested in these suit's hands. They didn't last long, either. In due time, the two that had been firing were winded by the motion of the motor vehicle, slipping back inside and passed out over the ground. It had been then when Uri noticed a crack on either one of their foreheads, a hole deep enough for her to stick her fingers in easily to pull out bloodied tissue. Their skulls had been cracked open to reveal a tiny cavity within their injured temples.

"Did they honestly even know the difference between a trigger from a barrel?" Bekah hissed under her breath, looking down on them with disgust. She then reached over to take hold of the closest departed agent-now laying on the floor so that a pool of blood could be spread from where he laid-towards her, seizing his revolver out of the leather holster strapped to his side. While she did so, Uri turned to the opened moon roof, whereas Bekah crouched her way back and stuck her torso outside, the gun tightly in her hand. The one agent who had been driving glanced at her from his mirror, then quickly looked ahead to keep track of where they were going, swiftly navigating them through the highway.

I don't think this would be happening by natural causes. Deer mostly freeze when they see a light in front of them. Oh well, time to show these proletarians how a shot is actually worth.

More gunfire. Shooting from one side, back seat on left and right periphery, and Bekah from the moon roof. Uri watched from the backseat window, not giving the driver any credit for swerving just so that they would only miss their pursuit.

That was when Uri realized that they weren't deer, but the thing was, was that she couldn't figure out exactly what they were. Indeed, she'd observed that they ran on four thin legs, which gave Uri the first impression that that's what made them deer, but it was then that she had seen the ears more circular, and they had wavy, long tails. They eyes glowed from the darkness with a bright, ruby hue, an eerie stare that seemed like a nocturnal of red fireflies chasing them. She had never seen anything like it; A herd of beasts, ones that she had never seen before, in such a large group.

Just then, a force hit Uri in the ribs, forcing out a sudden yelp of surprise. "What?"

"I don't think just shooting them will hold them off," she said, poking her head in from the roof. Uri had just then noticed that, with every shot she had taken, a hart would stumble and merely fall, and after being consumed in the heard another would simply take its place like it was nothing to them. Of course, they were comrades, they were a mindless, artificial legion.

Uri nodded, then peered over the front seat to the industrious driver, frantically trying to avoid from falling off road into the gloom of the hills below them, passing along an elevated prominence artery. "Hey, you do know what to do, right?" she asked, with a grin for some means, as though she had been enjoying such adrenaline rush. Just then, Bekah ducked. "What happened?" Uri called.

"Someone is shooting at us," Bekah retorted.

"Who?"

No reply. Bekah held her hand down and flexed her fingers in an implementing way. For a moment Uri stared at her, confused, and then gasped. They had been out of ammunition now, but somewhere in this car there had to have been some sort of backup somewhere.

Stillness. The trampling outside had become moderated, the gun firing had ceased. Uri heard a gale blow passed the side of the car, red sparks flickering up into the air. The driver seemed to have turned into a rag doll while he began to lose control of the wheel. Uri eyed him, just before she heard tapping on the glasses. She turned, and screamed.

A bat, or at least that's what it looked like, was staring at her, it's teeth bared. It had to have been at least half her size, too small for her own mass. Bekah turned and saw it also, her eyes gone wide. Uri had forgotten that Bekah had a phobia of bats, or any sort of night creature.

Making her way to the other side of the seat, Bekah crawled over to the driver, leaning over him, and shuttered. Uri didn't want to see it, because just by looking on the horror on Bekah's face made her shutter, Bekah normally was never afraid.

Uri needed another reminder to note herself with. How did all this happen? This little predicament had started when the senseless driver accidentally driven over a slumbering hart who had been slightly off road. It had been after that when an entire swarm had evolved after their discovery of their deceased comrade. The next thing Uri could recollect, were the blows of gunshots were fired out the windows, as the driver did his best to evade the falling trees on the side of the road (Their downfall had been seemingly inflicted by the continuous brushing and masses of the various harts, apt enough to bowl most in their path over.). Though it might have just been her, but Uri could have sworn that she saw some of those gloomed beasts gnawing on the trunks, as though planning it all along.

The driver had lost control of the steering wheel. The result of the driver's carelessness had caused the car tumbled over to one side, still driving, and keeping half if itself from falling into the ditch and the other half hung in midair. When Bekah turned, she noticed that the agent that was on her side was gone, nothing left but ripped pieces of cloth from when the bats had appeared, presumably.

For some reason, everything had gone hazy. One heartbeat the car was torn into two pieces. The next Uri found herself being thrown into the air. Next she felt herself being dragged upon the ground, dirt and dust flying everywhere in her wake. Lastly she was lying on her side, coughing and gagging.

Everything had gone by so fast, Uri didn't have much of any time to react to all stages. Smoke covered her lungs, causing her to go into fits of hacking. Covering her mouth from inhalation, Uri crouched upward, squinting through the smoke, and seeing a fire up ahead. The car had tipped and exploded. All because of bats? No, they weren't bats. They couldn't be just like those other beasts that were stampeding their way.

"Bekah...." Uri whispered. "Bekah!"

Abruptly, from the smoke, little black specks dashed towards Uri. The first hit came to her on the side of her face, causing her to jolt backwards, and that was when the "bats" started swarming around her, hitting her back, biting her shoulder and neck and arms, any skin that they could find, ripping holes in her clothes and slamming their puny little bodies into her. Uri fell to the ground. There was just too many to hold off....

Recoiling defensively, trying to ward off the beasts from at least attacking her face, which was already scratched up and bleeding as it was. Not to mention defiled from being dragged on the ground by the impact of the blast.

There was another explosion. Only this time it had come from above her, bits and portions of the bats had fallen onto Uri, slamming into her ribs, her jumped every time she had been hit. She didn't persevere once again until they had stopped striking down onto her.

"You shouldn't be so loud, Uri," said a voice. "That's what attracted them."

Uri sighed. "Yeah, I know."

She sat herself up, trying not to look down at the corpses and staring up at Bekah, she had looked just the same as Uri had, while she held a briefcase in her hand, one that Uri had remembered she had pulled the guns out of, and so had those agents. Her hands were scathed, and there were boiling blisters forming on her arm, turning into a mucky yellowish puss.

However, Uri's concern hadn't been for herself, but at the sight of Bekah's condition from the aftermath of her own struggle. "Oh god, Bekah...." Uri forced herself upright to get a better look. "You.... You need to do something about that!"

"It's okay, it's only a second-degree burn," she said nonchalantly, not showing any sign of pain.

"Second degree? It looks more like a third, Bekah! It might get infected, I think it already has been!" Uri exclaimed, grabbing Bekah's arm and trying to look it over. The smell of it was unbearable. Luckily it had only been Bekah's arm that had been scorched, otherwise she'd most likely not be living and breathing as she had been now. Third degree burns were a pain in the neck and hard to deal with, not to mention that could be taken quite literary, if you were the victim to have been burned.

Bekah clenched her teeth together the more Uri tried to look over the wound. "Ow! Uri, keep that up you're going to cause more pain to it just by looking at it then it was in the fire," she yelled in a muffled tone, pulling her arm away from Uri and looked to sneer at her. "You can worry about it later, okay?"

There was the sound of an incessant horn ringing through the air, causing them both to turn to get a better look at what the origin of the sound had been coming from. A car pulled up on the side of the road. As a matter in fact, it was the Humvee! Uri had never been so happy before in her life, it parked on the side of the dirt road, and Fia poked her head out of the window. "Beck! Uri! You guys all right?"

"More or less," Bekah replied with a bitter smirk, trying to hide her trembling arm behind her back, but then Uri grabbed her by the wrist and held it out where Fia could see it. Bekah rolled her eyes, peeved.

"I think it needs some medical attention."

Fia's eyes shifted from the arm back to the fire burning in the background, her expression completely emotionless for the time being as she shifted her gaze between them and their fiery milieu. "We all must be a very destructive group, has anybody ever noticed that?"

Bekah grinned. "Fun. That's what explosives are for. Especially if they are packed with Grenade crystals," she held the case close to her like it was her most favorite possession, and in which by now, it probably was. "So, where are we going?"

"To get Xaden and Teji," Ragnar said, poking his head outside the window on Fia's side, he had been sitting down next to her.

"What about Taz...?" Bekah wondered.

"Nick? I don't know. Wasn't he with you guys?"

"No, we thought he was with you?"

"Did something happen to him...?"

"No shit," Reuel finally said, sardonically. He was looking down on something while he sat quietly in the back seat, Uri couldn't see it though through the car window, although she had a pretty good idea as to what it might have been, seeing as how they seemingly found them without much difficulty.

Nobody had even thought of Nickoli, poignant enough to say. Most likely the way it went, was Uri had thought that Nick had been with Fia, and the others thought that he had been taken. Which was quite ironic, really. What with his persistence and ongoing childish antics, it had been suspected that Nickoli would most likely die young due to some stupid act he would make in his later years. The last thing anybody had suspected would his absence to seemingly be the cause of him slipping off of the face of the earth. Such a pathetic existence.

***

There were some things that people didn't understand, most likely never would. Simple assumptions of the mind that brought itself to greater supposition, false accusations that were forced onto another without given a hearing ear. One may remain ignorant while caught onto a boorish notion that the words stringing from their mouth plunges them deeper into the depths of fools. But no matter how much to kick the dog down, it will not roll over and die upon your whim.

Why? Because it isn't allowed to yet. Because its tyrant still wishes to desecrate the pride of the beast before it is allowed to throw its life before your feet, to fight back. So you drag it out into the back room, throw him into the darkness where those cannot see the abuse, and so it begins. Starting with Nickoli.

All that he had recalled was his arrival at the FORCE situate. Nickoli didn't remember much, just right after he had been tranquilized by one of the members of this organization. He remembered the man that had taken him in. Phin. Carner's right hand man, the officer that was consistently sighted somewhere around Carner, if not near his oval office. And just by being given just a little of that tranquilizer had caused Nickoli to feel immense pain growing all throughout his skull. Plus the beatings he had received from Phin didn't really help that.

"So, you decided to work for one of those targeted companies you left then, huh?" demanded Phin, whose eyes were glaring with odium towards Nickoli. He then gathered the rage to swerve his foot upright like lightening, impacting the base of Nickoli's nose which instantly caused him to collapse backwards on effect. Phin glared down at him, his nostrils flaring furiously. "You fucking sellout of a bastard!"

"They don't know anything!" Nickoli said in defense. "They didn't even know I worked here...."

"Doesn't matter, as long as you had quit FORCE and joined that other suit, that's still turn coating us anyway. Or that's how it is on Carner's terminology, anyway," Phin's glare had gone more livid, eyes widened with the type of anger that Nickoli had remembered how much he'd feared this man since the last time he'd ever worked as an under officer. The eyes that made him flinch whenever they fell upon him the way they had and made him want to cower in a corner and rot "We should have you shot for that."

There was something rolling about upon his tongue, and when Nickoli spat it out, blood spurted across the floor, and with it went one of his molars. He cringed in pain, finding that his left eye had been twitching as well. Slowly, he rose up to his knee, shaking his head after running his hand through his hair, gradually turning his gaze up to Phin. "...you already did."

Phin's nose wrinkled in disgust, looking at Nickoli like he was a mere rodent. "Now you've caused more work for us, you know, we're tired of cleaning up after you, Olsen."

"Tell someone who cares," he slurred, gingerly holding onto his right cheek, which throbbed in vast amounts of pain. "Things were getting out of hand, you think I'd just stay and watch these maniacs kill more people? I just happened to have run into Xaden while I was looking for a job-"

A sudden, unexpected sensation of pain.

It had been within the next thought process that he had realized that Phin had given Nickoli another swift punt in the jaw, Nickoli heard it pop out of place just before he landed onto the tiled ground. The smack down on his back made him feel winded, coughing while Phin approached Nick, standing over him, looking more distinguished than he was ever before.

"And did you even tell them? Did you tell them who you worked for when you joined their little crusade to make this fucked up world a better place?" Phin said coldly, his ice blue eyes expressing what little emotion he had left, exactly what Nickoli had grown to fear. "Did it ever occur to you that one of my men were killed in a crossfire because of your faction?"

"Then maybe you should have stayed out of it instead of getting yourselves caught in that goddamned so-called crossfire," Nickoli muttered, sitting his torso up, the back of his hand wiping the blood off of his lower lip, his own green eyes meeting the icy cold gaze of Phin. Sooner or later he was expecting another beating after he was done with that he was about to say. "If there was a way to get out of something without people getting killed, then things would be much better. Keep in mind that I left because I saw one of your men kill an innocent girl. What had she done as opposed to the man who died?"

"She was insignificant," Phin retorted ignorantly, shaking his head. "One day she'd grow up and she'd become just another one of them. That was what this movement was made for. Most likely she would become just another feebleminded human mortal, whining about the small things and being such the ingrate as she will be when she doesn't get what she wants. She would have been selfish, self conceited, and to become just like people like you. But things will change."

Nickoli frowned, not liking the tone Phin took at all. "Change to kill people?!"

A smirk formed wider on Phin's face less then his own liking, a sparkle in his glance that made him seem like a devilish serpent. "Exactly. Now you're getting it," he kneeled down, his elbow on his one knee, and tilted his head to the side. "Now, I have a question about someone I think you have no idea how dangerous they really are."

"What? You have a ethical side?"

"Such pert one, you are," Phin said lightheartedly, taking out his hand and tapped Nickoli's left cheek, almost playfully, and if anything, it had been that which made it merely one of the many things about Phin that Nickoli had reviled the most. He glared at him in disgust. "You know of a girl with the name of Emiko? Or perhaps Shirawatari? I do believe that she had been seen with E.R.O.S. most recently."

"Given name?"

"Does it matter?"

"I don't know, does it?" Nickoli countered insolently. "What do you want with her?"

Phin stood up, towering above Nickoli like he was a teacher just about to give some malign student the discipline he deserved, only Nick felt that whatever it was that Phin was planning to do with Rei was not going to be necessary. He knew what FORCE did, and he knew that whatever it took, they would give it all they got in order to get Emiko at all costs. However, even if it costs him his life, he won't let that happen again.

"We can't allow you to leave again, you know that? Keep in mind that if you don't tell us, then we always have two others we can rely on. A couple more are on their way."

"I never told anyone anything, okay?!" Nickoli almost screamed, trying to stand up but instantly slipped back down onto his knees again, gasping for air, and between gasps he managed to just barely continue. "I just wanted you and the FORCE to leave me alone! And don't you even think twice about laying your hands on the others, either. Even Rei."

"So, so now you do know her," Phin said with a cheeky smirk, running his fingers through Nickoli's hair in a near evocative manner that made Nickoli shift uneasily, trying to move away from Phin. His eyes shifted as Phin leaned in close to Nickoli with a narrowed gaze, smiling. "Do you think you can honestly hide people as easily as it is for us to kill them?"

Grinning, Nickoli turned his face upwards, getting a good look at Phin before he began to get up on his knee, just enough to sustain himself when he looked up into the visage of just one of many men from this group that he loathed. "Yeah, I know her, alright. And you want to know what else I know?" Nickoli said inaudibly, then brought his voice down into a hushed whisper, leaning close enough to Phin that that were nose-to-nose. "You're breath smells like dog shit." Leaping upwards with that being said, Nickoli swiftly moved before the man could think, swinging his fist to convene with Phin's chin, whose head had instantly flown upwards on the sudden, excruciating blow. The only sound that he had heard was the melodious resonance of Phin's cracking jaw, leaving Nickoli with the satisfaction that he'd caused the man enough pain to have allowed him to scream only to have heard another crack of his broken orifice.

Phin fell down to the rear landing on his back, his eyes wide from shock with his jaw loosely hung down to his neck. No, he wasn't dead, he was just in shock. Maybe he had hit him too hard? Either way, the sight of seeing him in submission was enough to make Nickoli grin with gratification of his work.

Nickoli took his fist into his palm to crunch his knuckles, kneeling down beside Phin instantly afterwards to tapped his rigid face, smiling. "Well, pal, looks like you forgot to handcuff me," he raised his eyebrows, and searching his coat pockets for they keys to get out, and found a ring hanging loosely around Phin's belt buckle.

Swinging them on his index finger, Nickoli gave the unresponsive man a wave, unlocking the door to directly walk out, quickly heading down the hallways casually after he closed the door and placed the keys inside his pockets. He passed a few of the other FORCE workers, but none of them stopped to get a good look at him. Most of them he didn't even recall ever worked here before, so he was in luck.

He made sure he looked through the windows of each doors, like what Phin had said, was that there were two others that were here. Either he take a look of believe that he was bluffing, though he wished never to take such a risk. In any case they might as well be dead, seeing that anyone around here who wasn't a worker would be either beaten through questioning or secured in the seclusion chambers for any sort of reason. The seclusion chambers were one of the many places in the shelter that Nickoli had thankfully never visited, seeing that it was the quarters which most men would be confined in and never wanting to return afterwards, depending on however long they were kept in there, the worse the conditions.

There wasn't much known about why he came to work here, whether alone how. All Nickoli had known was that he had been working at FORCE for a long time, and ever since then, he had known no link to his family. Everything was so hazy for him when it came to what events become of in the past tense.

Red lights above him flashed, and he felt a slam go right into him, pinning him sideways against the wall, his shoulder blade throbbing in pain while Nickoli felt a hand grab his wrist. Ever since the flashing and the buzzing started, Nickoli felt this jerk in his head, and an annoying screech clanging constantly into his brain. The pain was so unbearable that water poured out of his eyes, and there was nothing he could do about it.

He then heard a voice through the buzzing which gradually shifted into a form of words in which he found easier to understand. "Taz? What're you doing here?"

That was when he screamed and the world had gone silent. Covering his ears and squirming about on the ground in agony as the ring caused more pain through his head, pressure was applied onto his side, something was laying down on top of his rib cage, pinning him to the ground. He felt something go through his ear, slipping its way through his canal, and grasp onto the source of the buzzing.

"Calm down, Taz." The distant voice formed into Bekah's. His eyes opened, blinking rapidly before his vision had returned. When he looked up, there was Bekah sitting down on his ribs, in her hand she was holding a metallic metal piece which looked much like a tiny magnet. So tiny it could fit through his ear canal. "There!"

"Bekah...."

"A civilized 'thank you' would be nice, by the way," Bekah said sweetly as she swung her leg over him, standing up as Nickoli sat vertical to rest his back against the wall. The ear plant may have been taken out, but the result of it made his eyes burn and his head throb whenever the lights flickered, making it harder for him to see his surroundings. Before he could say another word, he felt Bekah pull onto his sleeve, lifting him off the ground. Another hand grasped onto his upper arm, aiding Bekah down the hall.

"Get Taz to the car," came Reuel's voice. "We'll find Xaden and Teji."

His thoughts processed leisurely, but the wheels still managed to turn. Nickoli looked up slowly and blinked, feeling as though the pulsing lights were jamming pain into his head until gradually the thought came to him; Teji and Xaden were here as well, so that means that they were somewhere around here. Hopefully for their sakes they were in any of the seclusions.

"Wait a minute," Nickoli said, his eyes remained tightly shut to keep the burning lights from contacting his eyes, although the headache remained. He pulled his hand into his pocket and withdrew the keys, handing it over. "Here, the master key should be they're somewhere. Phin always had certain connections to get into every room in this whole damn place."

"Whose Phin?"

"My pet goldfish." Nickoli muttered sarcastically.

Bekah sighed and rolled her eyes, turning to Uri who was standing next to her. All of them seemed to have just set his ignorance aside and just ignored Nickoli's snide remark, which might have been for the best to say the least. "You take him. I'll go with Reuel and Ragnar."

Bekah let go of his arm so that Uri had taken his hand and replaced her. Both Uri and Fia were small, but that never meant that they couldn't carry anything twice their own weight, seeing that strength and feminine should not be put together in a stereotypical way. Everything just pained him so inadequately, even the dimness of the light which pressed against his sockets.

"Beck! You're arm!" Fia called. Nickoli looked up, quirking a brow and wondered mentally what she meant by that. He wouldn't be surprised, though, should Bekah had managed to do yet another stupid thing and got herself injured. It was a thing that used to bother Uri and still troubled the rest of the group from time to time, making some of them believe that when Bekah would vanish all by herself that the chances were slim of her returning.

"It'll heal," Bekah retorted. "Don't worry, Fi, those bandages will do fine."

Three sets of footsteps had faded from where they were currently standing, leaving Fia and Uri at either side of him, although he could feel Uri hesitate with every step she made as though she were hesitating over something. He wouldn't doubt it if she was concerned over Xaden, though, seeing as to how close those two had been since they were kids.

And then it was Fia's turn to feel concern for him, as he quickly felt pressure being applied to his face, a surface that felt very much like the fingertips of a tender human hand. For some reason he had almost forgotten what gentle felt like, but there would always be the pain that would distract him from what he would always have known as congenial. "Oh my god, Taz, are you okay?"

Feeling a sharp pain go through his head once again, Fia lightly touched where Phin had knocked his jaw out of place, sending an excruciating sensation throughout his skull. "Ow! Not like I was before! Get your hand off my face!"

He turned as he heard Uri chuckling to his near left, and should he had had the ability to have his eyes opened as of the moment he would have glared. "Fia, not right now, we'll look him over once we get into the Humvee, I am sure we can get you some attention there. And then we can ask some questions."

No more questioning. Not for another decade or something, please....

Uri tossed Nickoli's arm tighter over her shoulder, carrying him into a direction where he could no see nor recognize, until he felt his feet hit solid ground. Everything seemed to have been hazy, because one minute he was standing, and then the next he was sitting down on a cushion, realizing that he had to have been within the interior of the Humvee. His hair waved in his face file over his soft brown eyes slowly opening to see the depths of the dusk sky overhead. "Fia, Uri...?" he called to them quietly, scanner for his sight of them.

"Yeah, we're here. Don't talk now, we're going to have to take care of that jaw, it's completely popped out of place," he heard Uri speak. He saw the figure of a blonde woman leaning over him, and the redhead right next to her. The blonde turned to her and came the next suggestion which Nickoli hadn't liked any more favorably. "Hey, Fi, could you hold him down?"

"Hold me down? Wha-"

A hand slammed down over his mouth, as another pare grabbed him by his arms. At first he was relaxed, though his muscles were slightly tense. Fingers tapped over his mouth and then a jerk, the jaw cracked loudly as he felt massive pain surge throughout his entire skull, making the ringing all the while more unbearable. His body struggled and writhed against it, but the hands held him down. His mouth opened to scream out, and at least Uri let him do that.

"I am really sorry, Taz, but it was completely out of place...."

"I don't care if you're sorry," he growled at her, finding her to have a lot of gall to have spoken of such things the way she had. He took out his free hand and rubbed his chin, distorting his face to reveal the pain and agony that he had just felt. "Goddammit...that hurt like a bitch!"

Uri looked down at him as she gave Nickoli a toothy grin, the kind that wasn't quite comforting when she was just told that she was meant to take care of someone that she had just managed to hurt immensely at the same time. Some doctor. "Yeah, well, at least that's one other person we just took care of. Bekah and that other guy."

"What other guy?"

"Um, I am guessing one of the guys who worked here, didn't catch his name. Rei is taking care of him."

Nickoli stood up while he was still rubbing his jaw with both hands, each time he did so, the pain would cause him to involuntarily wince, blinking whenever. "Okay, so you said that Rei isn't here? So she's at the Shelter, right?"

Fia nodded. "Yeah, why?"

"The FORCE. They're looking for her. I'm not sure why, but they're going after her for some reason."

"FORCE? Nick, is there something you need to tell-"

"Yes, there is a lot of things I need to tell you. I would have told you all this much easiler, before I joined E.R.O.S., but back then I didn't have much of a choice. They were still keeping track of me after I left and met Uri," he covered his still burning eyes with his hand before releasing them to turn away from the two who were watching him curiously. Uri stood off the seat he sat down on so that she was now standing at the edge of the car while Fia situated herself in the driver's seat.

Uri just stared at him in trepidation. "Is something wrong?"

Now that was what really got to him. This was the reason why he quit, and these people were the reason why he joined. People like Uri and Fia always made him feel better. It made him feel so belonging to this group, he covered his face with both his hands to cry and shield his face, because he found himself just on the brink of crying. "Uri...so many things are wrong, and that's probably why I was the first one taken here out of everyone," he said quietly. "I knew this place because I worked here.

Uri blinked. "What do you mean?"

"A long time ago, before you asked me if I could join E.R.O.S...." he sighed and hesitated before resuming, going through the circumstances of what the outcome might turn to should Nickoli manage to say the wrong thing to them, they just might end up discarding him just as he had been back then. "I went to a place like this. Or...as a matter in fact I worked here."

He could just imagine the shocked expressions upon Uri and Fia's faces, exchanging each other's looks. The type of reactions that he wanted to avoid, the main reason why he hadn't bothered to tell them such things about himself for so long.

"What is this place?"

Nickoli sighed, his hands still over his face. "I'm not exactly sure, I was in it for the money, and they paid pretty well. They're into a whole bunch of methodical theories and crap like that. I remember the last time I was here, which was before I left after the incident involving some freak accident I had been responsible for, they had been talking about bringing someone in. A girl. Some Chinese man or something with an accent offered to participate, and even give them some information on his own prodigy."

"Are they government based?" Fia wondered.

"I don't know. They seemed to act as their own party, although they do seem to carry about their own government-like factions," Nickoli nonchalantly explained. "But things ran differently than a general regime. They were into more occult matters."

"What is this place called?"

He started to shutter when she had said that. "They called this place FORCE," Nickoli said. "It was meant to stand for something similar to 'higher intelligence.' Other than that and some other details everything else I know has to be out of date, they tend to change things a lot. Basically they were into some stuff like telepathy, some kids who had those and they trained them to-"

Uri sighed, her face gone bitter. "Nickoli, that's enough," she snapped, almost in an irritated tone that made Nickoli quickly close his mouth. He quickly looked away, not daring to see the irked look on the visage that made him think that she was going to strike down on him, the kind that he had learned to cower under since he did work for FORCE. "That's more information then what we wanted to know."

"But there's is still-"

"That is all we need to know right now, Taz."

"Oh, by the way," Nickoli said quietly, looking Uri over with suspicion, "how did you know where this place was located?"

"Well, that is a short story," Uri said, grinning.

***

If anything, it hadn't been all that difficult to keep Orion down in one place. As a matter of fact, all what the woman had to do was come up with a few coercions that had caused him to remain frozen stiff in his seat, seeing that he'd been too paralyzed by the enigma of what this woman was possibly capable of to have done anything to defy her intimidations.

"Keep in mind," Rei said almost in jest with a tiny grin crossing her face, hence that was enough to give Orion the impression that there wasn't much to take her words into considerate seriousness, she was going to start smiling, although she was pretty good at keeping her face straight, "that not only did I help save your life, you are injured, lying down, with a dog at the end of the couch between you're legs."

Again, Orion turned to the dog, Nook, as Rei had called him, baring his teeth.

"So I see," he said casually, raising his eyebrows. Just to his luck, The phone rang.

Both him and Rei turned and stared at the ringing phone on the coffee table, blinking. She didn't pick it up, though, she took a few steps back, and her eyes filled with apprehension, shivering as though a bomb had just gone off. Orion watched her in bewilderment. What could be less intimdating than a ringing phone? There was just things next to a few about this woman that he didn't understand.

"Uh, I believe that when the phone rings like that, that's a general sign to answer it," Westwood said, pointing his index finger towards the coffee table, the phone on it's fifth ring. He didn't know how long it would go ringing like that, and the recurring echo had begun to incense him.

"Oh, yeah...." Rei said, her voice shaky.

You'd think she's never been to earth before. Westwood raised his eyebrow as Rei walked over to the phone, glancing over her shoulder at him as though expecting some sort of word for him, then saw that he wasn't going to say anything, then turned to picked it up.

"Uh...ye-yeah?" Pause. Rei turned around, holding the phone out to him. "It's...for you."

"Me...?"

"Yeah. It's Uri."

"I am guessing that someone you know?" Westwood assumed, seeing that the woman most likely couldn't have known very many people after observing her withdrawn disposition. Not many people would be accustomed to making friends if they were to vacillate over picking up a ringing telephone. There were quite a few things about her that were peculiar in carious context.

Rei walked over to him and handed him a cordless receiver.

"Yeah?"

***

"Sooo...." Nickoli's eyes shifted, "you talked to someone who worked at FORCE?"

Uri smiled, her eyes gazing up at the dark sky. "Yeah, he seemed like a nice man."

That was a surprise. Nickoli had been habituated to knowing his coworkers to have been less than pleasant people. Perhaps there was a couple of acceptations that he had never really met before? "What did you say his name was, again?"

"I think Rei said his name was Orion Westwood."

Orion Westwood? That was a name he had never heard of before. There was no doubt that he was a newly transferred worker, and judging by the fact that he had been left behind without retrieval, that meant that he had been one of the discards. It doesn't always happen when someone has been spared, and gets away with it free for the rest of their life, no matter the cause.

After discussing it for what seemed like quite an elongated while, they had decided that they were going to stay out here with Nickoli and wait for the others to make their way back out. Nickoli had even tried asking Uri what that metallic transplant was that was in his ear. That was when Fia smiled and put it next to Nickoli's ear. His head felt like his was about to explode again, and instantly he twitched, rubbing the side of his head while glaring at Fia.

"Goddamned it! What the hell was that for?"

"Well," she said sweetly, pulling the ear plant, "you wanted to know what it was."

"I wanted to know what it was, not relive it!"

"In that case, we don't know yet, we'll have to have Teji look it over once they get back."

Nickoli sighed. Telling by the amount of time that Ragnar, Reuel, and Bekah had been inside of their, things couldn't have been going very well. Not clean, anyway.

***

Gunfire echoed through the room, ringing in Bekah's ears like bells. Of course, she wasn't one for minding it, but every time she got a glimpse over at Ragnar, he kept fidgeting. Despite his size and ability to brawl exceedingly, Ragnar was more experienced in the range of computers and firearm inspection (seeing that he was partnered with Fia most of the time when they did these hunts.) than actually using the guns.

"Hey, Ragnar, I don't suppose you have anymore clips?" Bekah asked. Ragnar had been firing at the "locals" from the other side of the hallway, using the corner as a shield, which, needless to say, wasn't that much of a bad cover, seeing that the corridors were made of solid concrete.

Reuel had taken off looking for the right way the instant some of these guys started materializing from the corners with firearms and had begun shooting at them. It was to their luck that Fia had them well prepared enough that they could hold them up well enough for Reuel to break for it, leaving the hostility for now to Ragnar and Bekah. Without saying a word, Ragnar reached into his belt pocket, and drew out another set of pistol ammunition, tossing the empty clip across the hallway swiftly enough to evade the incoming gunfire just so that Bekah could ineptly catch it with one hand, quickly loading it back into her gun.

All the while, Reuel could hear the gunfire not so far off down the hallways. The sound of it made him shutter. The thought of two sets of gunfire coming from either ways set itself another meaning that either one of them could be getting killed, and even though he knew that the chances of people getting themselves out of these sort of situations wasn't going to happen all the time, it was an isolation of wishful thinking. It wasn't always going to happen.

Naturally, it seemed that every door he passed wasn't the one he had been looking for. He had been told that they were taken into the White Room (which, to Reuel, didn't sound good at all.), when he asked who said this, Uri didn't seem to reply. He supposed that he would just have to have to take her word for granted. The hallways were unoccupied, making it easy to pass the many rooms, all of them had numbers on them.

That was when he saw a tail around the corner ahead.

Reuel froze, watching as the tail gesticulate up and down. Did it again, then subsequently darted away, concealing itself from behind the corner of the room. Lifting up his gun, the endpoint sticking up at the ceiling so that he was prepared for whatever it was that was seemingly waiting for him. Reuel walked ahead slowly, with every step he made a quiet landing upon the tiled floor.

A deep gorged growl.

He stopped, shifting the gun downwards, pointing it at the centerpiece of the wall, prepared for any kind of assault from any side. As a matter in fact, he was kind of hoping he'd run himself into a fight anyway, seeing that his mere ambling around didn't really seem to suit him pleasingly.

But nevertheless, it was the only thing for him to do. He couldn't really run anywhere, and he had left the fighting and dithering for Ragnar and Bekah. Whom Bekah he didn't worry about, she had been using firearms all her life, but all Ragnar had was the knowledge of them, since he had been raised by a gunsmith, that's probably all he'll ever have unless if he somehow learns to physically train more than he has been.

Everything was stilled. The only thing that Reuel heard through it all was the tapping and the faint popping of gunfire in the distance. He walked ahead, to the corner where he saw the tail once more. Without even saying a word, Reuel held his PhoenixFire out, a large weapon, especially the bullets, his hand grasped tightly around the trigger, ready for anything that jumps out and attacks him. And what that, he was ready enough to walk stealthfully forward.

A metallic clink.

Reuel spun around. What had been that sound?

Repeating its stride.

This time he jogged over to the edge of the wall, looking over it, and gagged when he did.

An Henkei. A freaking monster was there, chewing off a pile of unsullied bloodied meat. He didn't even know what it had mutated from, but he saw that the ears were pointed, poking straight up high in the air, the hind legs bent backwards in a twisted manner, where the front were straight, grasping onto the flesh and gnawing it greedily. The skin it retained was a mucky scarlet hue, making it look like a sleek and fast runner. The mere sight of the creature made Reuel want to vomit, but he grasped his hand over his mouth from doing so.

From the distance Reuel's eyes followed upwards just in time to see a red light blaring from the overhead lights, shifting from its white coloration to flashing scarlet. He blinked, then realizing that this had to have been some sort of alarm. Swiftly, he pulled open a closet that was displayed beside a fire extinguisher and an axe, gazing outside from within a series of slits cut through the door as he waited from within the darkness before he reemerged from the cabinet. However, moments passed and there was no sign of life in sight down the hallway. From the moment Reuel had entered his alcove, the Henkei had promptly snarled at the lights and retreated.

Noticing some guards passing by with running with heavy artillery in their arms, Reuel was relieved to see that it hadn't been coming from the direction that Bekah and Ragnar were in, but they were designated towards the location of the vehement Henkei, exchanging orders so quickly that he couldn't quite catch their commands right, whether alone get the chance to see their appearances thoroughly.

With a sigh, Reuel had reopened the door, sliding his gun back into the holster hung across his belt while glancing about his surroundings much more meticulously, making sure he hadn't left any details out from his mental annotations. He had seen nothing but white walls reflecting scarlet off of the beaming red lights. He flinched for a moment, feeling the flashing luminosities becoming nauseating towards his sensitive sight, almost too much for him to bear.

From across the wall where Reuel had pressed his back against, was a passage shadowed by the lack of lighting. He squinted just enough to see through the frequency of the beams a set of railings displayed from the ceiling to the ground, resembling that of prison bars. Scanning the areas Reuel's sight had fallen upon the silhouetted image of two visages staring at him from behind the darkness, although it had been hard for him to see what the faces made up as, whether they be dead or alive. He took a couple steps closer.

Then suddenly he heard a voice from the closest face, the one whom had his hands wrapped around the bars and when he got closer he had noticed it had been the face that was looking at him with an almost hopeful stare. "Reuel?"

He felt like his heart was about to give out, as he promptly readjusted his eyes to see that the two faces from behind a set of bars had been, indeed, Teji, who had been closest to Reuel, and Xaden, whom had been leaning against the wall in the back, his long coat more battered and torn then would ever might've suited him. It had been Xaden's cold gaze staring downward and vacuous reaction that had caused Reuel to fret some for his well-being.

"How are the two of you?" Reuel said quietly, just in case if they were overheard. All the while he knew that it would have been stupid of him to ask them whether or not if they were alright; chances are they weren't anyway.

"A little bloodied and beaten but we've prevailed," Teji grinned as he looked up at Reuel, who frowned when he noticed a tiny stream of crimson trickle down the edge of his lip, and the left eye swelling with black and blue, yellow swelling around the emerged epidermis which had proven itself more then less comforting then Reuel's predilection to have stared at it for much longer.

Reuel then nodded. "All right then. Know of a way I can get you out?"

Nodding, Teji turned to the axe and the fire extinguisher. "The bars are too thick though. So I was thinking that if you use the extinguisher to frost over the bars, perhaps you can shatter them with the axe, you get what I'm saying?"

"I think your idea is a load of horse shit," Reuel retorted, looking over to see a lock that would need a handprint security scan in order for it to unlock.

After pondering, Reuel pulled out his gun from the holster once more and without warning fired it several times at the lock. Teji yelped and Xaden hadn't seemed whatsoever fazed about the entire sort, just watching Reuel from the corner of his gaze as he attempted to fire until the lock had given out. Instantaneously there was a discharging sound coming from the door opening the locks and sliding it sideways, almost pulling Teji's hands along with them should he had not reacted soon enough by thrusting himself backwards with another shout.

"Jesus fucking Christ, man!" Teji bellowed, outraged. "You could've shot me! Hello! I was right there!"

"I can see you. I have eyes. Now, would you two be so kindly as to step out before something weird happens again, or would you be safe enough as you recluse yourselves in your solitary living quarters together?" Reuel said with a smirk, taking a mocking bow as he allowed Xaden to make his way out shortly after Teji.

Xaden had been smirking as well. If Reuel hadn't known him well enough, he would have expected the man to give him a pat over the shoulder. "Was wondering when you would be coming sometime soon," he said quietly, detached as always. Other then his seemingly lack of being at all affixed with the rest of what had been going on, Reuel must have suspected that whatever had happened, Teji must have been the one to receive the beating while Xaden was forced to watch; he had been the only one out of the two that was remotely in superior condition. Xaden didn't seem whosoever happy about that.

Swiftly within a single warning, Reuel's face had changed, shapeshifting from his grin to a grimace that alarmed the two of them, and before anyone could react, Xaden had already been the first to move, grabbing Teji's shoulder and forcing him down to the ground while Reuel pushed the only one standing now into the wall as he replaced Xaden's position, having a single figure rush passed behind him and tumble onto the ground passed Teji like a rag doll.

Wide-eyed, Teji glanced up at the two of them and was shocked to see the meaty Henkei wavering its thoughts as to when it should attack them from the side, snapping its jaws while staring at Xaden hungrily. Reuel quickly had begun to reload his revolver as he shoved Xaden behind him. "You two get to the exit. Bekah and Ragnar are down the hallway backing me up, they'll give you a heads up as to what is going on-for the most part anyway."

"Reuel, we aren't-"

"And what are you going to fight with? Your teeth?" Reuel said with a smudged grin as he peered at them both from the corner of his eyes. "Don't worry about me, I've handled worse. Now you two get going. If two people can handle an army of Homo Sapiens, then there's still hope for me against one creature."

Hesitating, Reuel gave them a nod to boast their contemplations into a retreat, Xaden picking Teji up by the arm while aiding him down the hallway, glancing at Reuel before stepping over the mauled body of what had once been one of the agents that Reuel had seen rush by while he'd been in the closet. Clearly if the man had even had the chance to survive the attack he would have been paralyzed anyway; the beast had cut all the way through his abdomen and into his spinal cord.

Without another word, Reuel had been left standing before a Synthetic Henkei with narrowed eyes, all the while he allowed Teji and Xaden retreat down the untenanted scarlet corridor.