While Dexter and Lucky tried to take care of the panicked passengers - and stay calm themselves - , the others were stopped halfway by Zetticci's workers. Teddy jumped onto a stair railing and kicked over a bookshelf to knock his opponents out. That the ship was tilting more and more, helped him with gravity. On the other hand, Shark only had to punch his enemy once into the stomach to steal his gun and shoot him. Ilus and Zigz both grabbed a cable from the bar and used it together to strangle someone else.
Kiki was raised into the air and thrown onto the bar. Glasses shattered underneath her, she rolled down and seized two heads to slam them into the shards. Volatile she gave off a comment: "In my bar at home work looks a little different". Quite harder than her landing, Koi was hurled into the shelf behind her, resulting in all the alcohol crashing down on him. Zigz called out: "Koi, your laptop!". "Fuck you!", he hissed while not being able to decide which cut wound he was supposed to hold. Muttering he stemmed himself up: "I've got much bigger problems than a highly secured laptop...! Why else do I have this case...?!". Kiki dragged him up on his arm: "Quit whining, alcohol cleanses wounds! Legs up!". She literally meant legs up when she spun him around as a mace. Out of reflex he kicked his opponents away.
Since the fight occured in the dining room, Shark found a large pot of sauce and emptied it on the ground for his enemies - running directly at him - to slip and fall. With some it ended in rib fractures when he ran over them. Though he was busy enough with them, Teddy required his help by sliding over: "Shark!". He reacted fast with: "Duck!", and where Teddy continued sliding on his knees, Shark picked a table up and slammed it into the faces of Teddy's chasers.
Ilus shot two more times, but his confident fighter-personality cracked when there was another loud creak and the floors tilted up way higher. Whether teammate or enemy, all rolled down into the corner of wall to floor. It turned into a challenge to even stay on their feet - not to mention to fight. And to add to all that, their main target came into point of view.
Lucky and Dexter had just as a hard time, barely managing the mass of people with the language barrier. Especially with way less lifeboats on ship than people gathering in front of them. Lucky shook his head: "Forget it, we have to actually send everybody up to the starboard-side and evacuate them onto the ship's outer walls! We're already tilted too much to let more lifeboats down!". At least not all personell was part of the drug deal or killed. They understood both English and Italian, so from there on more could be helped.
Ruthlessly Ilus jumped at Zetticci's neck and tried to make it quick. But the CEO pushed him off and grabbed Ilus by the throat. Where he jolted around in his hand, Zetticci took a closer look at him and growled while realising: "Iceman...!". Ilus managed to punch his face so hard he let him down. Gasping for air he crawled around on the floor. Teddy witnessed his situation and commanded: "Koi! Take Ilus to Lucky and stay there! I don't think this ship is going to last much longer! We'll follow right away!".
He accepted his order and dragged Ilus away. Now Zetticci tried to take everything down together with him. Koi, out of habit, wanted to pull out his sniper, but groaned when he held the full-automatic. Closely he dodged Zetticci's attack and slapped him with the end of the gun. Ilus coughed: "Shoot him...!". "I ain't shooting with this!", he remained stubborn. "The ship's already sinking...! You can't destroy much more...!", he tried rebuking him.
Most people had arrived at starboard and climbed onto the outer walls. By now, Roseanne woke up again and helped, though tumbling and shivering. Koi put Ilus down with the others: "You're not going to run back down. Teddy said we'll stay here". "But somebody has to make sure that the other boys and Kiki make it up", he huffed out of breath. Lucky overheard them: "I can do that. Just keep everything under control up here!". He already went ahead, Roseanne followed him disoriented. Lucky didn't notice.
When he daringly jumped onto a rounding of a balcony, Roseanne jumped after him, but slipped with her high heels. Startled he tried to grab her hand, but she fell down into pure darkness. For a moment, Lucky kneeled there with his hand reaching out, until he whispered: "...Shit". Soon he pulled himself together and continued the plan. He forced himself not to think about it.
In the hallway to the dining room, Kiki and Teddy already crossed his path as all lights went off - The ship now officially had lost all power. Underneath them their steps were accompanied by splashing sounds. Lucky sent them up and went further down to support Shark and Zigz, though Zigz just spread his last hit and made a run for it when a strained creaking sound echoed: "Shark, come on, we have to leave!". Lucky agreed and activated his flashlight: "In seconds, this entire thing will be drowned underwater!".
But Shark was stubborn and still tried to kill Zetticci off. Lucky couldn't just keep running and leave him behind, so fought by his side. At once, the entire line of windows shattered and massive amounts of water flooded inside. They could feel the air being sucked out, so all of them held their breath. The pressure of the water pressed them up against a wall which now was the ceiling. Finally Shark let go and they just tried to swim to an open door that would've brought them upwards. But there was only more air spiraling down in a vortex, keeping them from making it out.
Up on the dry outer-walls, lots of disquiet ruled over the people - Scared families, confused single-travelers, but mostly Ilus who was missing a few of his men. When Teddy and Kiki arrived, just half of his worries went to rest: "Where are the others? Shark, Zigz, Lucky?". Now also alarmed Kiki looked around: "Jeremy was right behind us". In the distance a helicopter flew towards the wreck. From the design itself it was clear, that this one didn't belong to the coastguard. Dexter tried to recognize something: "Who is that?".
Back down Zigz had returned and barely saw Lucky's flashlight through the rising water. To the fast he crafted an anchor out of rope and a barrel, which he dropped down to them. The negative pressure made it arrive quickly. Whether it was help or not, Lucky and Shark both grabbed it and cut the barrel off - The longing to breathe weighing down on their lungs. With all of his strength Zigz fought against the forces, pulling on the rope and racing with time.
In the hustle and bustle of the refugees, a bright light shone down on the ship and a familiar voice sounded through the helicopter's speakers: "Hello, Ilus~". "Arrow?!", more than perplexed he squinted upwards. -"Express-Pickup! Don't let any strays on the ladder!". Ilus turned to Teddy: "We can't leave without the others". Without a word he gazed down into the pitch-black void and doubtingly raised an eyebrow: "Ilus, I think we have to go...". "Don't-! Don't say things like that...", his breath grew weary.
Koi crashed on his knees and looked down, clawing into the frame of the balcony door. Calming Dexter tried to pull him away: "Koi-". "Joel!", he yelled down, hoping for a response from his best friend. Kiki, too, refused to leave: "Jeremy promised me to return from any mission unscathed!". "Well Spencer was one of my best friends, but we can't do anything here anymore! That is out of our hands, we can only leave and hope for the best!", Dexter raised his voice.
Once more Koi screamed: "Joel!". As Henry told him: "Quit it, Koi! Let's move!", he grabbed a hand from the darkness and pulled his best friend up. Shark and Zigz followed right up - All sopping wet and exhausted. Arrow let the ladder down and Kiki, Dexter, Shark and Zigz went first. The moment of relief ended when Ilus climbed on after his boyfriend: "Koi, you wanna do a sleep-over here?! What are you waiting for?!". "I am not setting foot in a helicopter!", he stomped, "Not again!". Loosing his last nerve he imitated him in a mocking tone: "I won't shoot with full-automatic, I won't sleep in my room, I won't go into the helicopter - Stop being such a drama queen! This about your fucking life!". "No!", he remained where he stood. At last, Lucky knocked him out and dragged him along: "You always need three extra invitations...!".
Arrow retracted the ladder while Lucky and Koi were still on it. With that, they left thousands of confused vacationers behind, but the ship wouldn't sink deeper than it currently was. Professional emergency services came to help anyway.
Muddled through and through Ilus gaped at Arrow: "I mean, I am more than happy to see you - But what in the world are you doing here?!". "Your boys put their savings together and invested in travelling to Italy ourselves, so we could destroy all warehouses of this Zetti- Ze- Zebra dude. Right now they're clearing out the last two storage halls. So you can return home soon", he explained proudly, while another member steered the helicopter. Before Chef asked further questions, he added: "We got the emergency call to the coastguard over your work-phone. Conveniently there was a helicopter, so we jumped up right away". "You're fucking bonkers...", he breathed tired.
~About a week later~
Teddy scrolled through his tablet: "We really were all across Europe's news". "A huge-ass luxury liner sank and a scandalous drug offense got eradicated. Of course that makes it's rounds", Ilus shrugged. "No, look", he showed him an example-article, "There was lots of talk about the solidarity and selflesness of some individuals, who helped civilists by saving them onto the starboard outer-walls and calling emergency services. As far as investigations went, no dead bodies besides the plotted murders were found - and Zetticci disappeared mysteriously. His body hasn't been found yet".
Thoughtfully he closed his eyes: "Hm... And even if he did survive miraculously, then he better not dare continuing his black market trades". In the following, he turned towards his men: "Lucky, you hear that? Your quick acting made you a European superstar". "Under unknown name and face", he mumbled, got up and left the main hall. Koi looked after him sighing: "He's still mad at himself because he thinks he made a negligent mistake and therefore his date died. Constantly he says I could have done better. Perfectionist plonker".
On the fire escapes, Lucky kicked a few pebble stones through the railing, his clenched fists inside of his pockets. Unexpectedly he recieved a call from an unknown number. Skeptically he picked it up: "Hello?". "I can hardly ask if I'm talking to the right guy, since you never told me your name", her familiar voice sounded. He startled: "Roseanne? You're alive?". -"The rescue workers arrived so early that I could be saved. I was lucky to land in the water and not on some rocks. I'm sorry I didn't call you earlier. My phone had to be restored with all of my contacts".
Smiling he nodded: "Finally I can sleep at night now". "Just too bad our night was blown. I was surprised to see such a romantic in you. And impressed when you acted so coordinated. How much I'd like to compliment you in person", she held a playful tone. -"Huh, I understand. Sadly, I already returned to America". "Oh really?", she sounded disappointed.
It was silent for a moment, until he grinned: "You remember how I said that I am rich? A plane ticket from Italy to the USA is totally managable, actually, if I think about it...". -"Is that so? Did you know that I was called in sick from work for a while because of the incident?". -"Interesting...". -"We can text some more about it later, but I have to get a few things done right now. I'll be happy to hear from you". -"Same". They hung up and immediately Lucky was attacked by Koi with a high-five: "Yeah man! That's the way!". Though he jumped first, he laughed and accepted the high-five.
[End of the cruise-short]