(Baird's POV)
Our two pods were sucked up into a strange drainage chamber in the underbelly of the massive triangular submarine. I covered my face in fear as I realized just how helpless we were, how much of an underdog position we'd been thrusted into.
After all the water had drained away, a door opened on one end of the chamber. Several soldiers marched out, an extraction force. Some of the men held bazookas, evidently to be used for much more forceful extraction, if necessary.
At the front of the line marched a black-cloaked man, prim and proper in his mannerisms, and with a face as stony as an Odegoan canyon wall. He eyed us with pure hatred as he peered into the cracked looking glass near the front of our pods.
"Thou hast increased thy misery all the more, through thine impetuous actions!" the man screamed indignantly. "Disembark from thy vehicles immediately, offer no resistance, and raise thy hands above thy heads! Do it!"
I shuddered in fear at the man's voice, despite the fact that it was somewhat muffled by both distance and the pod's insulation. I led the way out of my pod, clambering out through the hatch up top. I immediately threw my hands behind my head and knelt down on my knees at the soldiers' feet.
Aaron, Hannah, and even Sila did the same outside their pod, submitting themselves to whatever the black-cloaked man had intended for us. I gasped, however, as Jedrek wasn't required to humble himself in the slightest, but instead emerged from the pod and shook the man's hand professionally. Suddenly, his whole motive from the very beginning made perfect sense.
"You...you...traitor!" I shouted at Jedrek, incredibly tempted to break out of line to punch him. "How dare you?"
Jedrek met my gaze without hesitation. "Survival of the fittest, like I told you."
"I should've known you were trouble from the moment I saw you." Khemera growled.
"I did indeed find you quite gullible." Jedrek said, "You made my job all too easy."
Aaron appeared more infuriated than any of us. He succumbed to temptation and leapt to his feet in a rage. He swung a mighty punch at Jedrek, who managed to duck, unholster a revolver, and shoot him in the shoulder.
Aaron hollered and hissed as the bullet tore into his flesh, blood splattering on Sila behind him. He collapsed to Jedrek's feet in pain, struggling to find strength to attempt a second attack. A nearby soldier tossed Jedrek a strange, glowing rod, which he immediately touched to the fresh wound. Sparks flew. Aaron howled in agony. I covered my eyes and ears, for this was too much for me to handle.
"Witness this and despise rebellion!" the black-cloaked man shouted, "For this is the bitter end all insurgents shall taste in due time!" He then turned to his men. "Take them to a holding cell. And instruct thou the Iron Hallway to prepare for six more inmates."
With that, we were dragged away through a door and down several corridors before being roughly tossed into a dark holding cell. We all sat in a fearful silence, Sila and Keira trying to offer Aaron what little comfort they could. Hannah and Khemera both bowed their heads and closed their eyes in prayer, and I soon followed suit.
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(Abigail's POV)
Wendy and I finally emerged from the armory, fully equipped and ready to break out for real this time. She kicked an inquisitive guard in the knee as she stepped through the doorway, before snapping his neck to silence his cries. I looked away, because as necessary as the violence was, I still didn't like seeing it so close.
"C'mon," Wendy said, "I got a longer grappling hook this time, and a better plan, too."
I nodded. "I'm listening."
"We'll have to fight our way there, but up in Pietrovo's quarters, there's a window that looks out over his royal grove. If we break through the window and swing down into those trees, they'll give us cover from any fire, as well as allow us a way to swing from tree to tree and get over the gates and safety checkpoints."
"That sounds...risky." I said skeptically.
"This whole thing's bloody risky!" Wendy shouted, "This is the best chance we have!"
"Well, if you say so, I don't think I have a real choice in the matter anyway."
"You're quite right about that, Miss Wilde, now follow me." She tossed me a dagger before taking a step forward. "And don't be afraid to stab."
I really hoped I didn't have to do that. Movie violence and real-life violence were completely different things.
The blonde warrior led the way down a maze of doors, hallways, and stairways. Occasionally, we passed a guard who was too oblivious or busy to oppose us, but those who did get in our way regretted it. With her fists, feet, and rapier, Wendy quickly took out any resistance and silenced them. Her hand-to-hand was so efficient, she'd seen no need to even unclip her bow this time.
"Watch out, now." She warned me as we ascended the last flight of a long staircase. "The emperor's quarters are down this corridor, so security's gonna be pretty bloody tight."
I nodded and allowed her to step ahead of me.
Wendy peeked around the corner for a second. She squinted in thought. Then she handed me a small gas mask, also putting one on herself. She also slipped some odd goggles over her eyes. Finally, she pulled the pin out of a smoke grenade and rolled it around the corner.
The blonde fighter unclipped her bow and fitted an arrow to the string. Then, cued by a swishing sound around the corner, she stepped into the hallway and fired her first arrow. I couldn't help myself but peek around to see what was happening.
Well, I couldn't see anything.
A huge cloud of smoke filled the hallway, yet Wendy fired arrow after arrow, and the agonized screams I heard, seemed to indicate they were hitting live targets. I was really perplexed, but had no time to think, because it was only a moment until she motioned for me to follow her into the fumes.
We stepped out of the smoke cloud and I gasped. Dozens of bleeding, incapacitated guards lay in piles, with arrow shafts sticking out of their flesh. It must've been those goggles.
After we'd taken several steps, the hallway started to become familiar to me. But the familiarity suddenly became obnoxious when we approached the emperor's door and came face to face with Dirk Josante exiting the room.
What was he doing here?
"May I help you?" the black-caped person asked suspiciously.
"Yeah, get out of our bloody way." Wendy demanded.
"I think not. You seem intent on intruding on the Emperor himself, in his own quarters."
Wendy snorted. "Son, he's intruded on me in my quarters in far worse conditions. So you might wanna move along and have a nice day."
Dirk's visor turned red. "I was about to say the exact same thing to you, traitor."
With that, he snatched Wendy up by the throat and pinned her to the wall. He raised his other hand for a punch. But just in time, I lunged forward with my dagger and plunged the blade into his thigh.
Dirk grunted and lowered to his knees from the agony. He yanked the dagger out of the wound, but Wendy saw to it that his injury wouldn't end there. She growled and kicked him right in that spot. He howled and doubled over on the floor.
"C'mon!" Wendy shouted at me as she kicked the door open.
I followed her into the room, darting my eyes around the familiar surroundings as I did so. Emperor Pietrovo appeared nowhere in sight. But I had no time to dwell on that confusing fact before Wendy tore the window curtains, smashed the glass with her foot, and opened the grappling hook.
She hurled the hook out the window and watched as the claws grabbed around a sturdy tree branch. As before, she removed the slack in the rope and leaned back on it. She nodded, satisfied with its strength.
Wendy hopped onto the window sill and motioned for me to do the same. She put a hand on my shoulder once I'd done so.
"Now, you're gonna have to hold on bloody tight." she instructed with a stern gaze. "We don't want you busting that pretty head of yours."
I leapt onto her back, holding on with arms and legs as tightly as I could. "I'm trying, anyways." I grunted.
Wendy nodded and steeled herself. She took a deep breath and jumped, her blonde hair fluttering into my face as our forward momentum sent a steady gust of wind into us. I gasped as she lost grip slightly and dropped an inch down the rope, but she regained it and raised her feet up to catch us on a lower branch.
The shockwave hit me as our swing abruptly ended. With a jerk of her back, Wendy indicated for me to move to another branch. I clambered around her to the side of the tree trunk pointed away from the palace walls.
Wendy moved to remove the hook from the branch it'd been fastened to. She strained and struggled, but it just wouldn't budge.
Then I saw something truly dangerous.
"Wendy, duck!" I shouted.
She glanced back at me in confusion, but obeyed. The bullet flew right over her head and instead dismantled a bird's nest in another branch. I could only hope it was an empty one. Wendy growled up at the snipers and unclipped her bow. With a graceful leap, she placed herself on a higher limb and in greater cover of leaves. She closed one eye and released her arrow. Wendy and I both frowned in confusion as another bullet dismantled the arrow.
Woah, these guys really were sharpshooters.
Wendy recovered from her initial confusion and fired another arrow, this time achieving a grunt from one of the snipers. It hadn't been a lethal shot, since it only grazed his shoulder, but it reassured me, at least, that we weren't too far away for her archery to be effective on another shot.
Three misses later, though, Wendy was getting frustrated.
With a huff, Wendy retreated to the branch next to mine, under the cover of the tree trunk. She snatched an arrow from her quiver and began examining it.
"Do we have to take those guys out?" I asked.
"Of course we do!" Wendy shouted, her still eyes fixed on the shaft, "Otherwise, they'll blast one of us in the head while we're on our next swing!"
"Oh! That would make sense."
"Sure it does." she replied as she grabbed a handful of black powder from a pouch and crammed it into the end of the shaft she'd somehow popped open.
Wendy returned to her firing spot with a spinning jump and fired the arrow. She then clicked the red button on her bow, and the projectile accelerated, with a loud popping sound. Smoke poured from the back end as it sped into its target, right between a sniper's eyes. Gunpowder?
Wendy swung back around to prepare another arrow. She gasped as another bullet hit the limb she'd just been standing on. I saw her hands shaking as she grabbed another pinch of the black powder and dropped it into the shaft. She rose again with a grunt and took up another shooting position. To our relief, her second gunpowder-assisted shot was as successful as the first. Finally, she tugged her grappling hook back, fastened it to a limb on the next tree, and swung us over.
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A/N: Well, how about that? Should we be concerned about Baird and co's capture, or excited that Wendy and Abigail finally made their escape?
Well, in the words of a great man (AKA Tony Stark), Is it too much to ask for both?
*Dies*
Anyway, if you enjoyed, please consider making a small donation of one vote, or even a few comments, to our poor, sorry cause. 😂
But now, I've gotta ask: What're we thinking about Jedrek at this point?
And finally, a random question: What fictional team would you most like to work with? (And it can be literally any kind of team, fighting, detective, music band, you name it.)
(I'll probably look back at this and face-palm later for overlooking something obvious, but I might say the Avengers. I may not be of much use to them, but those guys and gals would be amazing to talk to.)
And with that, I shall leave you until tomorrow morning, where I can't wait to unveil the next chapter. It's...let me shut up so you can see it yourself, lol. Have a great day, and I'll see you then! Bye! 👋🏻