Story Content: Zako PoV content in a slice of life style with occasional Ryona/defeats here and there before a full PoV switch to the ‘real protagonists’ and our band of Zako’s are put to death. Until that point, Ryona isn’t my focus in this story, and I get rather wordy. I’m attempting to achieve a ‘behind the scenes’ vibe, zeroing in on our should-be nameless Zako’s while the actual movie happens away from them until the end where they both converge. I also favor martial arts Ryona. I may be considering a partial happy ending, but if I did, it would be for only one or two Zako's max.
The Ryona finale has not been written yet as of posting this introduction.
___
Recently, after reading aesopn’s thread ‘AI generated zako’, I created some Zako of my own using Stable Diffusion. Though, instead of posting them as profiles there, I was inspired both by the images I made and aesopn’s personality filled posts to attempt a character driven Zako story of my own (this one’s written by me, not AI).
So with the images I made and a minor worldbuilding tidbit I may have borrowed without permission as a shoutout to my source of inspiration, here’s my second attempt at a story for this forum (and one much less ambitious so I actually finish it!). I hope you all enjoy!
It was the same path the man had taken every weekday for the last few months going home from work, until he needed to return to college. He was a thin, but well built young man with messy white hair and muted golden eyes. His attire was smart and casual, but nothing special as he strolled through the night air, whistling to himself.
"Me? I'm just a guy. I work. I study. I have friends. My parents died when I was a kid, but that isn't the most joyous fun fact out there."
The night air was, as always, pleasant during these warm summer months, and he certainly enjoyed the repetition. As his shoes clicked against the pavement below him, he started to fall into his own thoughts…
“Sorry! Um…ex-excuse me…!”
His rhythm was broken by the soft tone aimed in his direction, yet its gentle sound caused his head to snap up in its direction.
He stopped right in his tracks as he stared at the beauty looking back at him with a warm, calming smile. Her golden eyes shone bright like the streetlights behind her, and her long, soft pink hair swayed in the breeze. The young woman wore a flowing black dress, and seemed prepared for a night on the town.
“Oh! I am sorry, did I startle you?” The woman spoke again, a fist pressed against her chest. Her accent felt European. Russian, even?
But he shook his head quickly to pull his mind away from her sheer beauty so as not to further creep out the poor woman.
“No, no I’m…fine. Sorry, can I help you?” He quickly recovered, gesturing back towards her.
“Yes I…” her voice trailed off, seemingly embarrassed by her next words as she moved a hand to rub against her head, “...dropped my phone in a rather dark spot. I was hoping you had a flashlight to assist me in retrieving it?”
"I can be so, so clumsy. It relieves me to know that there are such nice people in this world. Maybe too nice."
“I have one!” He responded, almost too quickly, whipping a phone out of his pocket. In the sight of it, the woman tapped her hands together excitedly.
“Oh, wonderful, wonderful! Come, it was just around the corner.”
The pink-haired woman skipped off down the sidewalk, causing our protagonist to stumble after her. A difficult task, keeping his legs moving one in front of the other, as he had to smell the gentle scent of the woman’s perfume this way.
After remembering how to walk properly, our protagonist would look up and catch the woman’s twinkling golden eyes as she glanced back at him. He gave her a quick smile and a thumbs up, before she continued to turn the corner into a street he was unfamiliar with. His stupor was blinded briefly by the growing smell of garbage laid along the street, along with the sudden lack of streetlights.
Did his city always have streets this dark?
Skipping up and around the trash, our protagonist flicked on the flashlight he was needed for to navigate the street before him, when the woman stopped beside a pitch black opening. A narrow alleyway between two brick built buildings that seemed far past their expiration date.
“It is just a little in there,” the woman commented, looking sheepish again, “...you can probably see why I struggled so much alone.”
“Yeah its…pretty dark in there,” he responded, peering down the pitch black alley, “...why were you in a spot like this?”
“A...” the woman made an awkward noise and coughed into her fist, “…TikTok challenge…”
Well that makes sense, he thought to himself, before pointing the flashlight down the alley. The musty puddles of origins unknown illuminated in the light, but no phone was to be seen at the entrance of the path.
Hoping that it wasn’t much further down, our protagonist stepped forward into the alley.
“Commendable, Theo. You’ve made both our lives so much easier.”
The soft, naive voice that drew him here had been replaced by a deeper tone of cold professionalism. And, before the sound of his own name coming from a complete stranger registered in his mind, a click came from behind him.
“Well,” the woman continued, “you know the drill.”
The…drill? Theo froze in place, unmoving as he felt the cold tip of a gun pressed briefly against the back of his neck just to let him know it was there. At least, it felt like a gun. The closest he had ever been to seeing a situation like this was in the movie theaters.
“What…drill?” He nervously asked, earning a frustrated sigh from behind him.
“...Hands up. Don’t try anything funny. You stupid or what?”
Theo felt a wave of anger wash over him, hearing the woman holding him hostage sound as if it was a burden to her. The feeling was, however, only minor compared to the fear that gripped every muscle within him, and Theo raised his hands slowly. As he did, he felt his phone being plucked from his fingers.
“My wallet is…in my right pocket…” Theo murmured.
“Oh…well, why would I want that? I’m here for you,” the woman spoke. Her breath caressing the back of Theo’s neck like the tips of several icicles, “now, walk forward.”
He followed her instructions, stepping down the alleyway lit only by the light of his flashlight now in the woman's possession. At times, he thought about turning around and kicking the gun out of the woman’s hands like he would see in said movies, but…
He glanced behind him, finally catching a sight of the woman holding him at gunpoint. As the pair locked their golden eyes with each other again, those pretty eyes and attractive features of hers would curl into a smug, self satisfied little smile. The twinkle in her eye now bringing animosity to his heart.
It was that moment when Theo felt a strong grip against his arms as they were forcefully pulled behind his back and binded by what felt like rope. And, once a blindfold was tightly wrapped around his eyes, Theo left himself at the mercy of those around him.
As the van began moving, the pink-haired woman shoved the prop gun into her handbag. And, as the van pulled out of the alleyway and onto the street, she finally released a long and satisfying sigh of relief. She piped up at the sounds of police sirens coming for them, but they only passed by and headed for a strange sound she heard in the distance earlier.
At the lowest tier of the operation, their task was simple compared to the teams above them, and yet the success still brought her a sense of satisfaction. Each success would always bring her closer to those superior teams, after all.
For a mission like this, she could not afford any mistakes.
“Sounds like you are relieved everything went so smoothly. Well done, Mariyk-...I mean, uh, Mar.”
The gentle voice came from the driver of the van. A younger seeming woman with long white hair and a soft, calming mien. Her clothes and demeanor seemed almost royal in nature, and it was noted that her attire seemed quite a bit more expensive than expected.
"Just between you and me, I can drive much, much faster than this. I think Mar would kill me if we got caught because of a speed trap, though."
To the pink-haired Mar, this individual was also the only person on this mission from the same company as her.
Mercenaries like Mar often belong to one of many various less scrupulous companies who hire out their forces or go on missions themselves. Within her own organization, a group specialized in female mercenaries called the Black Warriors, Mar was decidedly average. Capable enough to hold her own, but less flashy and less experienced than many others.
For all glamorous, front facing tasks, the group had a famous streamer named Eva for such a thing. And, for more dangerous internal missions, the group had…well, Eva again.
Mar always thought she was just as attractive and capable as any other in the Black Warriors. So, when this huge mission promising fame came in while every big gun in the company was busy, Mar didn’t hesitate for a second to scoop it up before the command came in to wait for someone ‘better’ than her.
She’ll show them.
“Did you have any doubts?” Mar responded, brushing a lock of hair behind her ear as she glanced back at her ally with a cool expression.
“Heh, perish the thought. I was just glad to see you feeling relieved.”
Another common custom for massive outsourced operations was to hire a second mercenary from the same company as the group’s commander. That second mercenary was the young woman beside her, Tetra. A relative newbie to the Black Warriors. Mar wasn’t overly familiar with her, as she herself had come from an entirely different branch in a different country, but her first impression was that Tetra seemed ill prepared for something as important as this.
Well that, and the fact that Mar couldn’t shake the feeling that Tetra came from money. A naive rich girl, maybe? Mar tried to stifle her antagonizing thoughts towards that background, but it rubbed her the wrong way if true.
“...How long did you say you’ve been in the Black Warriors again, Tetra?” Mar broke the silence suddenly with the question.
Mar even broke a common code by giving her real name, Mariyka, too, as newbies often needed a greater sense of familiarity especially on large missions like this. Tetra wanted to mention her real name as well, but Mar preferred if Tetra got used to people only knowing her nickname. It was always safer that way.
“I believe it has been a few months now. Why?” Tetra responded, keeping her eyes on the moontouched road before her.
“...Just curious.”
Mar shook her head, letting her self biases stop there before she let Tetra accidentally leak personal information while their hostage was within earshot.
The van hummed through the night in relative silence for a stretch longer, before the third mercenary on the van reached forward and placed a hand on Theo’s leg.
“Hey. You alright? You seem scared,” she spoke, giving a concerned look into Theo’s blindfold.
The third mercenary was a young, Asian woman named Xinyi, though Mar didn’t know enough to guess whether that too was a professional nickname or her actual name. She was, apparently, someone their client hired to be the ‘muscle’ for their group.
"Is it customary to blindfold hostages like this in your country? It seems odd to me. They'd usually be unconscious if I took them."
“S-Scared? Of course I’m scared,” Theo shot back, his voice prepared to raise before he seemed to bite his own tongue out of fear.
Xinyi had a concerned expression on her face, before getting up from her seat to sit next to Theo. Though, as she did, Mar instantly seized up.
“Hey, hey, what are you doing?!” Mar seethed from her seat at the front, staring daggers into Xinyi.
The Asian woman gave a quick glance back over to Mar, still keeping her attention on their hostage as she responded.
“Something wrong? Theo was scared, so I just wanted to…”
“Scared? What if its a ploy? His hands are behind his back, what if he slipped his ropes off in secret? One mistake is all it takes for you to be on the ground with a broken neck.”
Xinyi seemed almost surprised by the response, giving a sheepish look back to the blindfolded Theo before quietly moving back to her seat.
“Thanks for the vote of confidence in thinking that I could do such a thing,” Theo said.
“Don’t flatter yourself,” Mar scoffed back immediately.
But while Xinyi returned to her seat guarding Theo opposite of him, she was still not satisfied with that response. And, after a moment, Xinyi reached forward and removed Theo’s blindfold.
“Hey-!” Mar raised her voice, dumbfounded as she watched Theo’s blue eyes slowly blink open.
“What is it now?” Xinyi looked over to Mar, “are you concerned that he will snap my neck with his sight?”
Theo cracked a smile at the silly thought, and as a snicker escaped Xinyi’s lips, so too did one come from Theo in turn. Even Tetra, silent until this point, held a hand up to cover her mouth.
“No you idiots, we have nothing to gain from our hostage receiving information on his surroundings!” Mar spat out, pissed at her allies' lackadaisical attitudes.
The tone in the van immediately shifted back down, and only Theo still seemed to have a satisfied look on his face as both Tetra and Xinyi seemed embarrassed by their own reactions. Sensing the tension she had suddenly created, Mar held herself back and sighed.
“...But its too late now, so…fine, do as you will,” Mar conceded.
“No, I apologize. I should not be acting so presumptuously,” Xinyi conceded as well, again giving a sheepish look at Theo. Only now, he could actually see it.
After her little self satisfactory villainous reveal on Theo earlier, Mar suddenly felt her own embarrassment at the way they conducted themselves in front of him now.
“I appreciate the thought anyway,” Theo spoke, looking towards Xinyi, who returned a bright expression.
Mar pondered for a moment, feeling that Xinyi was biting her tongue for further conversation.
If that was how her ally felt, maybe there was merit…
“We’ll just be holding you for a while, and then release you later,” Mar stated, guessing what Xinyi wanted to explain, “so relax. We’re not here to hurt anyone.”
“With that introduction? Could’ve fooled me,” Theo shrugged, though he did seem much more calm now.
With that interaction past them, the van moved forward into the night.
When the van finally came to a stop, Xinyi stood from her seat, and began bringing Theo from the van as they stepped out into the dark. The long driveway they came in from was illuminated, and Theo would step out into what seemed like a massive estate ground, populated by a massive, fenced-off field and what was possibly the largest mansion he had ever set eyes on in his life.
Though he seemed calmer, Theo still kept his senses wary for a chance to escape and constantly checked his surroundings. It wasn’t like he didn’t fully trust the girl's assurances, but he preferred to keep his fate in his own hands.
Mar, Tetra, Xinyi. Mar definitely seemed like the most frightening of the three and, given that she seemed to be in charge, made sense. Though, after he was already tricked by Mar once, he wasn’t ready to write off Tetra and Xinyi as just pretty faces. Xinyi especially, as her grip on him definitely suggested a level of very unassuming strength.
Tetra…
As he pondered the third of his captors, the white haired woman slipped the van keys into her pocket before she walked backwards over to him, in a seemingly unsure state, as Mar continued to walk ahead towards the mansion.
“I, umm,” she suddenly started, looking up at him with her wide red eyes, “you can call me Tetra, by the way.”
“I, uhh, I picked up as much, Tetra,” Theo responded in a confused tone. He looked sideways to Xinyi, who turned to him with a slight smile on her face.
“Ah, right, yes, of course. I apologize, I just wanted to…introduce myself formally too…”
Tetra’s face went as red as her eyes, as the young woman bowed her head quickly before turning to catch up to Mar, who was waiting for the three of them at the mansion's massive front double doors.
Theo had no idea how to process that interaction. Did it have anything to do with Tetra occasionally taking side glances into the rear view mirror at him during their drive? He, again, looked to Xinyi for some kind of hint.
“Ah, so that’s how it is going to be,” Xinyi mumbled to herself, giving her sideways glance to Theo once again before the pair made it up to the mansion doors.
The doors would open up into a breathtaking foyer, adorned with the most majestic of furnishings including an ornate glass chandelier hanging from the ceiling. The space stretched out to the back and down hallways to the sides, as the whole space was flanked by a set of stairs leading up to a second floor hallway.
Theo would set his eyes on two attractive women, standing by to greet the group as they entered. The first to speak was a beautiful, elegant woman with long, blonde hair and bold attire, placing a hand on her chest as she spoke.
"A lovely, expensive mansion in the countryside. Picturesque, is it not? Job or not, I have quite enjoyed my time here so far."
“I’m glad to see you all-” Her elegant sounding voice began, before she was immediately interrupted by a more striking, assertive female voice coming from the second floor.
“About time they showed up. Who is in charge, here?”
The voice came from a toned woman with striking, short red hair and white athletic attire, who made her presence known immediately as she strode down the stairs with aggressive confidence.
"Do not speak to me unless I acknowledged you first. When you are as popular as I am, you get used to filtering out the drivel."
“That would be me,” Mar countered, stepping forward as the red headed woman scoffed.
“You?” She responded, disgusted, “you barely look older than the rest of us. Am I expected to believe that you are the one meant to keep us safe?”
Theo held the confusion in his mind from his face. Keep them safe? He had the impression that…
“...You should be keeping yourself safe,” Mar filled out Theo’s own thoughts, biting back the venom in her tone with great effort.
“Well, of course I am capable of keeping myself safe. I had just hoped that I would be given capable team members of preventing me from needing to do so,” the red-head turned her nose up to Mar, pushing a hand against her hip, “as you can obviously see, I am made of very valuable assets, and I cannot allow my personal brand to be affected because you are incapable of doing your jobs. Am I clear?”
Mar was at a complete loss of words at this woman's audacity, and Tetra and Xinyi looked equally as shocked. Theo glanced at the pair of women who greeted them earlier, who both had expressions of embarrassment or varying levels of finished.
“Then if I am no longer needed here, I will be retiring as you have made me stay up far too late waiting for your arrival. I take my beauty sleep very seriously. My name is Sara, by the way, but I assume you already knew that. I am quite famous after all.”
With those words, the red-headed woman turned around with a flourish, striding back up the stairs before disappearing down the second floor hallway. As she turned around, Tetra snuck over and began whispering.
“...Do you two know her? Because I am drawing a blank here…”
Theo and Xinyi could only shrug and shake their heads.
Before Sara was fully out of earshot, the second of their greeters gave a long sigh, crossing her arms across her white t-shirt. Like the others gathered here, this woman was young and attractive, with deeply tanned skin and dark purple hair tied up in a tall ponytail. Her outfit, compared to her compatriots in the mansion, was much more practical and covered.
"Infamy this, mansion that. If I'm on an Instagram post while we are actively committing a CRIME, I'm smashing her phone then her face."
“I hope that your drive was more pleasant than being here listening to Sara be utterly insufferable,” she muttered, clearly sounding like she was already at the end of her rope, before turning her attention to Theo, “...anyways, I assume he’s the target?”
Theo wasn’t the biggest fan of her wording.
Mar nodded, “correct, and taken without incident. I believe we have not been followed.”
“Excellent,” the woman grinned, giving Theo a look again before turning back to Mar, “we’ve repurposed one of the bedrooms upstairs to serve as a cell. Its the only one with bars instead of a door. You’ll find it.”
Mar smiled and nodded, as the tanned woman flashed a key in her hands. She threw it lightly, and Mar caught the key easily.
“I’m Nadia, by the way,” Nadia introduced herself, grinning, “hope we’ll all get along just fine. After getting that as my company, we can only go up from here, I hope.”
“And I’m Clementine,” the soft spoken blonde followed suit, “it is good to make your acquaintances.”
Once his captors finished introducing themselves to each other, they would begin to leave their separate ways. Theo was led up the stairs in the direction of where his apparent cell was, with Xinyi gripping his arm tightly and Mar following close behind. Though the Asian henchgirl’s whole attitude seemed like she was taking Theo’s security much less seriously than the constantly cautious Mar, her unshaking iron grip on his arm throughout the whole ordeal was anything but.
Before long, the trio found themselves standing outside the only room down the hallway with a door made of iron bars over the ornate wood the rest of the rooms had. Once Theo was firmly placed within the modified bedroom, Xinyi finally released the grip on his arm, and the door was shut tight.
Besides the iron bar door modification, and a similar one against a window, the bedroom was rather comfortable. It was what Theo pictured a master bedroom in a mansion of this size to look like, decorated with a plush double bed, desk, and sofa all of a highly royal seeming quality.
One end of the room was even lined with a closet and entryway leading into a bathroom.
“You gonna be alright in there?”
Theo turned to see Xinyi still standing outside his barred door, with Mar standing cross armed beside her.
“Well,” Theo clapped his hands together lightly as he took a step closer to her, “as alright as an, uh, abducted person could be.”
“I suppose so. …Sorry, I often feel guilty whenever innocent people are involved,” Xinyi admitted, turning her head away slightly, “it is my least favourite part of this lifestyle.”
“You could just let me go,” Theo replied back, causing Xinyi to return an embarrassed expression.
“Not quite so guilty. I still have a duty to perform.”
“Yeah, figures.”
Theo crossed his arms, leaning on a wall next to the iron barred door as Xinyi leaned on the bars from the other side. Towards this person, his feelings felt complex. The lengthy drive had given Theo enough time to process his current situation and get over his own fears, yet what should he do now? How should he feel towards these henchwomen guarding him for some apparent reason? Theo was constantly looking for any potential way to escape this predicament so his fate was in his own hands, and yet Xinyi’s constant empathy towards him forced him to see her as another human.
Of course, Mar’s deception earlier stopped him from fully being taken by the next pretty girl that spoke to him too.
“Well I guess you’ll both be paid decently for this, or something,” was Theo’s attempt at conversation slash sifting for information.
“The experience is more important to me,” Xinyi replied.
“Experience?” Theo looked over, interested in her response. Mar, who was standing quietly, also seemed to have the same reaction.
“Perhaps? I am not sure of the others, but I come from a prominent triad overseas,” Xinyi explained, as if it was the most normal job in the world.
“Triad?” Theo sounded calm in his response, but his mind was already set ablaze. Xinyi just seemed like some normal college student who took a wrong turn in life, not some professional deadly foreign Chinese triad arm. Already, in his mind, Theo became panicked as to who would go through such lengths to hire someone like her to kidnap a person like him.
“Is that the wrong word?” Xinyi asked, cocking her head to the side, “it is like…a gang?”
“No, no, I know what a triad is. Just…was surprised at hearing it, was all.”
“Is it? Apologies, I was born into it, so such things are common to me. That is why I wanted the experience more, you see. Life in such a place…you get into wars with your peers and the authorities often, so for my own survival, any experience in combat is worth more than money.”
“And you believe to be finding that experience…here?” Theo replied with the most obvious question.
“That was what I was told. If anyone tries to get you back, they will surely be formidable opponents,” Xinyi seemed almost excited at the prospect, and her brown eyes shone even in the darkness of the hallway she stood in, “...or nothing will happen and we will just let you go later. The man who contacted my father just seemed to want his plan to go smoothly so…here I am!”
“I, ah, see.”
“Oh, apologies, I am sure you are already overwhelmed by everything today,” Xinyi suddenly apologized, taking a step back and bowing her head quickly.
Theo countered quickly, standing back up as he shook his hand and head.
“No, no, don’t worry, I’m the one that asked,” he apologized in return. Why, he did not know, but speaking politely to Xinyi just felt like the right thing to do.
“Sorry. You just…well, you just seem rather different from the people I see get kidnapped with such a high investment into your detail. It is as if you have no idea why you are here, or you have no experience with it.”
“Because I don’t, and I don’t,” Theo shot back, “I would like to know myself, if you know the answer.”
Xinyi shook her head.
“Sorry, Theo. I’m just a grunt here,” Xinyi bowed her head again, sounding sheepish at her lack of information. Her gaze, and Theo’s too, gravitated over to Mar.
“...What?” Mar sounded almost peeved she hadn’t been included in the discussion until now, “commander of the…tch, ‘grunts’ is still a grunt, you know.”
“Then, sorry Theo. I hope you have a good rest anyways.”
Xinyi bowed her head deeply, acknowledging Mar’s presence one more time before walking down the hallway. Once the Asian henchgirl left, Mar and Theo turned to each other. Their expressions much less enthused at each other's attention.
“You got something to say?” Theo threw out, as Mar side-eyed him.
“You’re not gonna ask me anything about where I’m from?” Her pitch turned higher and her tone gentle, just like the voice she had used when they first met.
“Why should I care,” Theo growled, dragging his tone low. The reaction elicited a snicker from Mar as she stuck her tongue at him.
“Sure, sure, villainize just me. Feels like I’m the only one here that can accept that,” Mar’s voice returned to normal as she rolled her eyes, “I’m here to do my job, just like everyone else here.”
“Whatever you say, Mar.”
“Pfft. Don’t let the nightmares bite you, lover boy.”
With a flourish of her hand, Mar turned and left, leaving Theo alone once again for the first time tonight. He wandered over to his luxurious bed and collapsed into it.
Before these women had their way with him, he would escape this mansion. One way or another.
On a calm spring evening three years ago, Mar stood on a metal walkway adjusting her black latex catsuit passively as she occasionally flicked her sight left and right every so often. She unholstered her pistol one more time, checked its mag one more time, and holstered it again.
The routine would repeat every ten minutes or so. And, when the monotony got too much, Mar would even spice things up by taking a lap around the walkway for a bit just to loosen herself up and keep her muscles warm. Guard duty was always like this, though the constant and perpetual feeling of tension kept her from feeling too bored.
Still better money than fight rings, anyway.
"I look pretty good in the standard attire, no? I can fight pretty well in it too, but...really. Who would want to fight someone as beautiful as I am?"
“Quiet again today huh, Kat?” Mar commented to her similarly clad supervisor, giving her tired form a stretch.
“You sound like you’re getting bored of mercenary work,” Kat responded with a snicker, “what, more standing around than you pictured?”
“Don’t give me that,” Mar fired back with a grin, before lowering her arms back to her hips, “anyway, just here for my break. Who’s replacing my post today?”
“Max, I think. Should be here already,” Kat tapped her earpiece with one finger, letting the device light up before she continued to speak, “hey, Max, guard rotation. Where are you?”
Mar looked off into the distance as she waited for Kat’s response. On top of being relatively boring, the foundry her company was hired to guard was also not terribly interesting to look at, and the weather in Russia was always colder than most other locations throughout the year.
She once heard of female mercenary companies getting jobs in tropical climates, wearing cute clothes, flirting with locals…
Nothing against her own home country, of course, but maybe she’d get such positions too in the future-
“Leah, no response from Max. Everything good on the East side?”
Mar’s daydreams were cut short as Kat continued to tap her earpiece with an increasingly dire expression on her face. One, two, three people she tried speaking to, and by the fourth, the silence between the pair was deafening.
Kat readied her own gun.
“I think we should go check on the prize,” she said. Mar barely finished her nod before the two were already on the move, jogging lightly along the outdoor metal walkway towards the center of the foundry.
Yes, it was a quiet night, but as they jogged past several areas that should have been stationed, the silence and emptiness began to grow more and more ominous.
It wasn’t until the pair turned one of the last corners to the locked room containing the prize that Mar stopped in her tracks and gasped. One of her fellow mercenaries, laying on the cold metal floor, limbs outstretched.
Mar stepped towards her and knelt down, touching the young woman's cold skin with two fingers, even as she looked into her empty eyes staring up into nothing.
“Dead…” Mar’s voice wavered, raising her gun again as she quickly scanned her surroundings. Kat, already knowing the result of Mar’s autopsy, wasted no time in checking blind corners near them with her gun drawn.
Mar stood from her vantage point, and began to step back to where Kat had walked towards…
CLANG!
“Kat!” Mar called out, rushing forward after hearing metal against metal. Mar turned two corners before coming face-to-face with Kat locked in a brawl with another person; her pistol seen on the floor.
"I'm not in the business of killing a pretty woman, but if they keep having no regard for their own lives, well. What can an agent do?"
Mar leveled her gun, trying to take aim at the smartly dressed suited man practically dancing around Kat’s attacks. Though, Kat’s back was to Mar, and the shot would be tough with her in between her assaulter.
The whole sequence felt like a lifetime, but only lasted five seconds before a wide erratic step from the man gave her the opening.
“Whoops!”
She could swear the man looked straight at her with a glint in his eye before Mar realized that he also had a grip on Kat’s arm as he stepped into that brief moment of a clear shot. A moment that was impossible to hit, as the man already dragged Kat’s body into the path in the same motion.
And as the bullet struck Kat’s back and pierced through her latex catsuit into her chest, the man shot from a pistol he had himself, striking the gun in Mar’s hand with clean, perfect precision.
Both Mar’s gun and Kat’s body dropped to the floor at the same time.
“Kat!” Mar cried out, her face frozen in shock and terror as she looked up from Kat’s bloodying body up to the gun that was now aimed square between her eyes.
“Ooh, baby!” The suited man laughed, giving a sideways grin as his sharp eyes gleaned behind his teal hair. He spun the gun once in his hand for good measure, “hey, don’t give me that look. You killed her, not me.”
“You...” Mar seethed through gritted teeth.
“Whoa now, is that how you should be talking to me,” the man mocked with his casual tone, letting the gun hang off of his index finger as he shrugged, “last time I checked, I’m the one with the gun here. Shouldn’t you be…I dunno, begging or something?”
“You can see begging when our commander brings you to her knees.”
“Oh, that blonde lady up top? Nah. Even cried too!” The man laughed as he ran his spare hand through his hair, “anyways, think I already killed all…ten? Twenty of your friends by now? Sorry, lost count. Point being, I think you’re the last one, pinky. Neat, right?”
His words made her blood run cold. The last? There was no way. Her all-female company had five members alone, and the others were trained professionals. Even if Mar was the least experienced in her own group, there was no way one man took them all down.
“But I see you don’t really believe me,” the man said, looking almost disappointed as he spun his gun into its holster on his hip, “you don’t need to, I know I’m safe. So why don’t we make things interesting? I’ll give you the chance to fight for your life.”
Now Mar was the one that couldn’t resist cracking a grin.
“You cocky fuck. You have noooo idea who you’re challenging to a fight,” Mar laughed back. A confident grin of her own on her face now, completely erasing her look of terror as she stretched her arms upwards.
“Pinky! I just killed every single one of your comrades and you’ve already gone straight to mocking me?” The man sounded almost incredulous as he slowly walked towards Mar, “but for a henchgirl, I admire your attitude. Now, try your best.”
He hadn’t even finished his speech before Mar took a strong step at the man and drove three powerful punches in quick succession at his chest. Though, the man dodged each by casually stepping backwards with his hands in his pockets.
“Whoa pinky, I ain’t done speakin’ yet!” The man laughed.
“Stop calling me that!” Mar growled, throwing a mid ranged roundhouse kick that the man dodged again by bending backwards. She threw another kick immediately as her first leg landed back on the floor, but this kick was sidestepped with similar ease.
She suddenly felt the wind leaving her body, as her stomach was struck by a strong punch, breaking through her defenses. Mar reeled backwards, trying to recover from the blow, but the man wouldn’t let that happen and sent a knee at her chin. Mar stumbled to the side to dodge the attack, but a kick sent immediately after left Mar no room to dodge, and struck her square in her chest.
Mar screamed as the pain reverberated through her chest, causing her to flop backwards onto the metal railing lining the walkway. She didn’t even have time to find her breath before an impact against her cheek caused Mar to crash onto the metal floor below her hard.
Her vision blurred, and her breath became ragged. The pain she felt across her whole body was paralyzing, and the cold metal she rested on was numbing. She suddenly felt a hand against her throat, and Mar could barely process what that was before she felt her body lifted forcefully up and shoved against a metal wall.
“Kgh…ngh…” She struggled, opening her eyes to see the man grinning opposite her as he held her pinned against the wall by her neck.
“Well! Now that I got a good look at you, you don’t look half bad!” The man exclaimed, “isn’t something more glamorous better for girls like you than dying in a ditch like this? Such a waste! Ah well, you chose the life, not me.”
Mar wanted to make another snappy comment at him, but her voice felt weak, and her body still seized from the pain shooting through her muscles. But, before that…
His hand tightened, and suddenly, Mar could no longer breathe.
“Aah!” She screamed again before her voice went out, a tone far girlier and high pitched than she thought herself capable of. She wrapped her hands feebly around the man's powerful grasp in a pathetic attempt to free herself, but the effort was entirely futile.
Mar felt the full extent of her life being sucked from her body, and in that final moment of desperate futility, did her spirit finally break.
She wasn’t ready.
“Stop. Please.”
The words wouldn’t come out of her mouth, but her mouth formed them. Her face teared, and her expression pleaded. In that darkest moment before seeing the light, Mar faced death for the first time, and its grasp scared her like nothing else.
“Oh now you want to beg? A little late for that, isn’t it?” The man responded, still in his joking tone, “why don’t you just see how easy it is to snap your little neck…”
“No, no, no!” Mar’s eyes went wide, her desperation reached its peak, and as she felt the man’s hand begin to turn her neck…
The pressure suddenly dissipated, and Mar collapsed to the ground slumped against the wall. Her breaths were wild, strongly gulping in as much air as she possibly could. When Mar could finally breathe again, her watery eyes looked up at her opponent.
“Congrats pinky, for I’m feeling generous today. Let this be a life lesson for ya, hey?”
With those words, the man put his hands back into his pockets and wandered off, leaving Mar beaten, tired, and seated next to the body of her own supervisor. Her battered body, now out of energy, began to slowly slip from its conscious state…
…
Mar shot up from her bed breathing heavily, feeling her cheek for a wound or sore that wasn’t there. The latex gripped tightly onto her body gone and replaced with the silk pajamas she had gone to sleep with. Her soft, pink hair fell in front of her eyes as Mar slowly steadied her breathing.
Three years since the last time she had gone on a real mission, and still the memory clung to the back of her mind like a relentless specter.
She shook her head as Mar opened the curtains, letting sunlight stream into the mansion bedroom. One of these days, maybe she would see that man again. On that day, she would show him how strong she had become.
"Police are reporting an explosion downtown last evening at the intersection of 3rd Ave and 7th Street. Though there are no reported casualties, nor was the affected building used for any purposes, police are still warning the general public to stay clear of the area until answers are found."
Mar left the radio playing on her bathroom sink counter as she dried her hair, preparing herself for the day as she looked at her own reflection in the mirror. Today, she sported a more revealing tank top, leather pants, and detached sleeves as her outfit. A combo she was much more comfortable wearing than the dress last night.
"...I had anticipated more men on the team when I first packed this outfit."
After finishing, she immediately went to the monitors set up in the corner of her bedroom controlling the surveillance systems and motion sensors throughout the house, double checking for any change. Since she took her shower, movement was detected around the garden at the back of the mansion.
Mar made haste for the back doors immediately, taking only a quick detour to check on Theo, whom she saw still asleep within his own bedroom.
The mansion exuded a peaceful aura, with the early morning sunrise leaking through the halls with its rays of sunshine. Within this illumination, Mar strode swiftly through the kitchen downstairs and reached the glass doors leading to the garden.
Her fears were quickly alleviated when she saw Xinyi seated along a stone siding, preoccupied with tying her hair up with a red ribbon.
“Morning, chief,” Xinyi gave a big wave as she hopped from her stone perch. Today, Xinyi seemed to be taking advantage of the warm weather too, sporting a tight black tank top and tight jeans. Now that her physique was more on display, it was a bit more obvious how muscular Xinyi really was…
"Wearing this around should be fine since its just us here. ...Why yes, I workout. How can I win fights without doing so?"
“Chief?” Xinyi repeated again, causing Mar to blink her eyes back up.
“Oh, yeah, morning,” Mar shook her head, trying to play cool around the fact that she-
“That was an intense stare. I had not realized bodily inspections were a thing in your culture,” was the innocent reply, as Xinyi placed the tip of her finger against her mouth, “do I look acceptable?”
God, her abs are so much more defined than mine. Should I start hitting the gym more often?
“Yes, yes,” Mar nodded quickly, “you’re up early.”
“I wanted to see this garden in the sunrise after noticing the location last night,” Xinyi turned her head over to the garden beside the pair, decorated vibrantly like a paradise of color and flowers, “did you have the same idea?”
“Me? Oh, no, I was just checking on movement I detected in the area.”
“Mmm…” Xinyi pursed her lips, seemingly disappointed by the response, “...well, now that you are here, would you be interested in joining me for my morning stretches?”
“I…think I would rather go on patrol,” Mar responded, holding her palm up.
“And you believe that this is absolutely necessary after the…zero people on patrol for the last eight hours?”
Mar’s voice caught in her throat as Xinyi leaned forward. Her inquisitive brown eyes getting closer and closer to Mar’s.
“Come now, chief, a little time in an environment like this lovely garden will do wonders for your stress.”
Mar smiled slightly, giving a sigh as she looked back to the stretch of greenery behind Xinyi.
“From experience, I’m guessing?” Mar asked, causing Xinyi to nod in return.
“You’re right! I actually have a little garden of my own in my family's estate,” Xinyi wistfully turned around and practically floated through the fauna around her, “it is much less impressive than this one, but it provides me calm during my own stressful hours.”
Mar couldn’t help but follow behind Xinyi as she skipped along in her dreamlike state. Before long, she had found herself standing square in the middle of the nature surrounding her.
The only thing she could do now was relent.
“Fine, fine, you win. But only for a little while,” Mar raised her index finger, as Xinyi already began to stretch her arms high above her head.
The pair remained alone in the garden for some time, doing various stretches and exercises. Xinyi worked up a decent sweat, while Mar refused to do so on account of the fact that she had already showered this morning.
After some time, Mar and Xinyi started to wind down when the pair heard various noises in the direction of the room next to the garden door.
“Hear that? Sounds like activity in the kitchen,” Xinyi commented idly, causing Mar to turn around, “does that mean the others are awake now?”
“Maybe. I’ll head in to check it out?” Mar asked, as Xinyi wiped herself off with a small towel she had brought.
“Sure! I need to go take a shower of my own, anyway,” Xinyi flipped the towel over her shoulder and pumped a fist in front of her chest, “thanks for your company, chief! But we should really do that spar sometime.”
Mar and Xinyi split off, and Mar headed straight for the kitchen upon reentering the mansion. The sounds she heard from the kitchen, however, would be obvious as the immediate smell of bacon filled her nose as she stepped forward.
“Ooh, is breakfast provided for us? Nice!” Xinyi cheered walking in behind Mar, before she made her way off down the hallway.
Mar continued towards the kitchen, and ran into Clementine working away at a large array of electric stoves while Nadia was at work polishing a vase in the attached dining room.
“Hey! Morning, Mar!” Nadia called out, waving widely as her shouts caused Clementine to turn her own focus as well.
“Ah, Mar! Good morning,” Clementine greeted in turn, as she looked back down to the food cooking on the stove, “would you like breakfast, or did you prefer to prepare your own? Apologies for not asking your preference last night before turning in.”
“Oh don’t worry, you look used to this already,” Mar remarked, taking a seat in one of the tall chairs attached to the island counter in the kitchen, leaning forward on her elbow as she watched Clementine.
As a response to that comment, Clementine did a little flip on the pancake she was currently handling, smiling at her own showing off.
“Sara insisted that someone cooked for the three of us, and I volunteered so Nadia wouldn’t start a fight again, so…”
“Hey!” Nadia piped up, walking over with the feather duster in her hands, “can you blame me? That stuck-up bitch deserves it!”
“I wasn’t trying to suggest anythi-” Clementine was cut off as Nadia stepped forward and rubbed the feather duster into Clementine’s neck, causing the blonde to laugh as she held her spare hand up, “hey, hey! Don’t get dust in the food!”
“Ah, look at how soft you are. Bet you could use a little dust in your diet,” Nadia laughed, setting the feather duster down on a counter before turning around and leaning on it. “Anyways, yeah, welcome to the team Mar. That’s our dynamic,” Nadia spoke, turning her attention to Mar who was busy smiling at the pair.
It was hard to admit that she was thinking that, again, the two seemed too casual for a job like this. Sara, as well, was much too stuck up as well, and her first impression left even less to Mar’s mind.
“Is everyone awake too?” Mar asked.
“Nearly. Sara was up before us, but she takes for-ev-er to get ready!” Nadia rolled her eyes in an exasperated tone, “we saw Theo using the washroom when we passed by and Tetra’s room was still dark.”
“Oh, speaking of Theo, do you think its better if we opened the door briefly and pushed a plate of food in, or maybe I just used a vertical container, like a glass?” Clementine wondered out loud as she continued to cook, “whoever made that door didn’t really seem to consider that.”
“I don’t think our employer really figured that we’d make the target such a nice breakfast,” Mar responded, causing Nadia to laugh.
“As our employer turns one of the master bedrooms into the cell? I think a lot of criminals would kill for a cell like that!”
Mar laughed in turn, smiling to herself as the conversation continued to flow.
It was nice, she had thought to herself, to forget the stress of being on a mission for these brief moments.
“Ugh. I cannot be-lieve that guy!”
Their tranquility was cut, and not by an attack. Sara stormed into the kitchen and planted herself at the dining room table in a huff.
“Yo princess, aren’t you supposed to be watc-” Nadia’s point was cut off immediately, as Sara promptly resumed her rant.
“I was telling Theo about how popular I am on Instagram and, get this, he doesn’t even use it! Can you believe this? I have over five hundred thousand followers and he doesn’t even know who I am! Honestly, how can you possibly expect me to spend even a second with a droll deadbeat like that? UGH.”
“You’re…supposed to watch him. That was your job,” Nadia raised again, gesturing with her hand as Sara flicked her head up to the notion.
“He can watch himself for all I care! God. Clem, is breakfast ready?”
As her sentence finished, a plate of food was promptly slid in front of Sara, causing an initially surprised then pleased smile expression to rotate on the young woman's face.
“Lovely!” Sara chirped, preparing to dig into her meal, “you’ve gotten better at this.”
Clementine took the compliment with a spring in her step, moving back to the kitchen stove. But as Mar watched her fellows interact in front of her, a question suddenly dawned in her mind.
Usually, it was a common courtesy that mercenaries on a job were not to speak of each other's private or personal details. But, with how much info seems to have been shared so far, even with their target…
“Say, pardon my curiosity,” Mar started, speaking up from her seat, “but…how, exactly, did you all end up on this job?”
“That’s simple. I hashtagged henchwomen on my Twitter one day ‘cause, y’know, being one is super trendy right now and a great way to make any profile that much hotter and I got a DM one day with details for this job thing,” Sara replied immediately, waving her hand as she spoke sounding immensely proud of her own story.
To Mar, the look of dread was incredibly apparent on her face as Nadia picked up on it immediately.
“You look like you assumed otherwise of us, Mar,” Nadia pushed the point, looking over to Mar, “I’m the same, by the way. Not as shallow, but…I was working at a convenience store when a customer hinted at a job offer one day. I couldn’t resist the money he promised and, well, here I am.”
“Its not that I…no, well, I did assume otherwise, but…” Mar brushed a lock of hair over her ear passively as she thought to herself.
What was her employer thinking, hiring almost solely non-professionals on a job potentially this dangerous with that degree of wage? Was their group just eye candy? Did he believe their position wasn’t difficult?
Their group was meant to meet up with the A-Team for the hostage exchange, which surely was a difficult task.
“Hey, relax,” Nadia’s words snapped Mar out of her thoughts, as she looked up to see the other woman’s sharp green eyes still staring right at her, “we might not be as trained as you are, but we knew what we were getting into. Don’t feel like you need to protect us or something like that.”
“Pardon?” Sara spoke up from the table, “she should be protecting us. She is the professional here. If my looks were to sustain some form of damage from this stupid little task, my brand will be irreplaceably damaged.”
“Riiiight, that’s what’s important here,” Nadia rolled her eyes at the statement.
Mar turned her attention over to Clementine, who was plating the remaining breakfast dishes and had yet to say anything in their current conversation.
“And you, Clementine?” Mar asked, seemingly slightly startling the blonde as she didn’t expect her name to come up.
“O-Oh, me?” She stuttered, before catching herself and clearing her throat to regain the refined air she previously had, “well I just…you sounded disappointed in the others responses, so I did not want to offer mine.”
“Ah, just tell her, Clem. She can’t be more disappointed than Insta girl over there,” was the shot Nadia took, gesturing to a Sara who was mid eyeroll.
“I was taking a tour of the University I was thinking of attending when a man approached me in the same way Nadia was,” Clementine began, putting a plate of food in front of Mar, “I…well, I thought the pay was good, so I agreed.”
This thing is barely an adult! Mar thought in her head, but feigned a comforting smile in response. It was hard to say anything further than that without seeming completely fake as she started to eat her breakfast.
…
It was around when the sky had faded from its bright blue hues to a darkened black when Mar was approached by Tetra as she stood around the second floors landing, near the main foyer. After spending the day here, Mar had concluded that this seemed like the most central and open position to patrol in the house.
“Evening Mar,” Tetra began with her usual tone, finding a spot against the wall to lean against as she looked at Mar.
"My clothes? Oh, its just something comfortable. Did I need anything else while we were here?"
“Need me for something?” Mar asked immediately, only for Tetra to merely shake her head.
“Just a touch of conversation, if you were willing.”
Mar eyed Tetra curiously, crossing her arms as she turned her attention to the white haired mercenary. Though, as she caught Tetra’s gaze, the other girl would just giggle into her fingertips.
“There is no need to be so guarded. I figured since you were going to sleep soon, you might be willing to share a moment,” Tetra giggled, holding her arm out, “pardon my curiosity, of course.”
“Well, it depends on what you wanted to talk about,” Mar responded right back. She wasn’t quite sure what Tetra could be looking for, but given that they were both from the same company, she figured that she should, at least, give her the time of day.
“You, I suppose.”
Mar raised an eyebrow, lowering her hands down to her hips as she gave Tetra a curious look.
“I don’t swing that way, if that’s what you’re asking.”
“Ahah, is that how I come across?” Tetra laughed again, tilting her head slightly at Mar as she rested her chin on her fist, “but, no, I merely wanted to ask if you were alright.”
“What brought this on?”
“Observation? I understand being focused when we are up to something illegal like this, but your demeanor takes it a step forward. It is as if you have a chip on your shoulder coming here.”
Mar frowned slightly, now paying full attention to Tetra.
“I’m sorry, I don’t believe I needed a therapist,” she dryly replied, as Tetra raised her hands slightly in response.
“I did not mean to insult or attack you. I just wanted to say... If you needed someone to talk to while we were here, perhaps someone from your same company, such as I, may be up to that task.”
There was a brief moment of silence, as Mar studied Tetra’s expression for a second before staring out the window beside them. Though, before she could finish thinking, Tetra stood up from the wall and began to speak again.
“Sorry, I probably should not push boundaries to someone I just met,” she said, before beginning to leave.
Mar reached her hand out and caught Tetra’s arm.
“What…motivated you to become a mercenary too?” Mar asked, as Tetra’s eyes went wide in surprise, as if not anticipating the conversation to go back to her.
“Me?” Tetra asked, causing Mar to nod back.
Tetra looked away for a second, falling back to the spot she leaned against earlier before responding.
“Call me naive, but when I love to read a good story. And yet, when I feel fanciful fantasies about the characters, it is not for the protagonists, or the heroes, but the villainesses. The henchwomen. I imagined myself standing in glamorous red dresses, looking disgustedly down at those that oppose me. That intoxicating feeling of power and beauty…hey, are you laughing?”
“Pfft, no,” Mar blatantly lied, her hand against her mouth.
At that reaction, Tetra felt her face grow hotter and redder, and her rhetoric-filled tongue betrayed her voice, releasing only a garbled sound before she composed herself again.
“That is…is not everything! I am a silver spoon child and my parents are rather protective of me. Held their money over my head and barred me from joining, and all that. I…well, I wanted my own independence, so the payout from this job is highly important to me too!”
“Ah,” Mar mouthed, smiling now back at Tetra, causing the other girl to immediately be frazzled again.
“W-What is that reaction. What did I say this time?!”
“Oh, nothing. Just self satisfied that my guesses were correct,” Mar gave a smug grin, reaching over to pat Tetra on the head, “...don’t worry. You were so earnest about it that I don’t hate you for it.”
“Mmmrgh…” Tetra growled softly, as Mar pulled her hand back before the beast she was creating bit back.
“You wanted to know why I had a chip on my shoulder, yeah?”
“I-...” Tetra once again became tongue tied, as if suddenly realizing this was the whole reason she initiated the conversation. After failing to say something substantial again, Tetra merely nodded.
“...I was utterly humiliated once, and ever since then, I never thought I could cut it in this life. Like I was always destined to be one of the useless ones.”
Mar trailed off. Her already quiet tone fell to just a whisper.
“Mar…”
“I’m better than that. I know I am. And, with every mission like this, I think…maybe one day. One day, I’ll see him again. And, when that happens, I will be the one to make him kneel.”
Over the last two days, Theo observed the behavior and attitudes of his six female captors, as well as his surroundings.
From his time in the van, Theo surmised that the mansion was likely somewhere remote, and that to escape, he would need to obtain the keys to a vehicle on the compound. Considering the van was the only one he saw on the way in, he’d likely need the keys to those.
There was, of course, the possibility that he should just allow the women to do what they need with him and trust that he would be freed at the end, but a part of him just couldn’t let that happen. Combined with the fact that it seemed like whatever they were involved with went further than just them, Theo trusted himself over all.
It still hurt him a little to think of hurting some people who have been nothing but kind to him since they met, but Theo tried his best to shake that thought from his head. These women were criminals and they deserved everything that would come to them.
Was his best attempt at justification, anyway.
But first, he had to escape from this cell bedroom, and to do that, he needed to take down whoever was guarding him at that moment and obtain the key that would be on them.
As much as he hated her, Mar would definitely not fall for an attempt like that, and Xinyi seemed far too strong to handle even if she did. Nadia, too, kept him at arms length and seemed strong in her own right and he never saw Sara again after he told her he didn’t even have Instagram installed on his phone.
That just left Tetra and Clementine, who were both, like Xinyi, three of the nicest people to him during his stay. Clementine was the one who cooked all his meals, made the effort to transport them into his cell, and seemed overall genuine and earnest while Tetra spoke frequently with him every time during her regular night shifts.
His mind flashed back to the night he was first brought here, and the memory of seeing Tetra drop the keys in her pocket before she ran over to him.
That was it. Tetra had the keys he needed to escape. That, combined with the fact that she always watched him at night solidified it. He didn’t know how much more time he had to escape, and so on the evening shift Tetra would have tonight, he would take her down from behind the cell bars and begin his attempt at freedom.
…
“...Was dinner satisfactory?”
Except by the time his used cups were taken away, Tetra hadn’t taken a shift yet, and instead…
“Do you cook often, Clementine?” Theo threw the small talk out as he leaned on a wall of his bedroom. His mind on his escape plan.
“Quite frequently,” the blonde henchwoman responded as she sat idly in the chair outside Theo’s cell bars, looking up from her phone at the question, “I had to teach myself to cook since I usually came home to an empty house, so…may as well enjoy my own cooking, right?”
“Well I guess it makes sense you mercenary types live alone with what traveling you must do.”
“Oh! Oh, no, I live with my parents,” Clementine immediately corrected, shaking her head, “its just that they’re usually at work when I came home from high school.”
“I’m sorry, did you say high school?” Theo suddenly blurted out, as if stumbling over the revelation.
Clementine only blinked in curious surprise towards Theo’s reaction.
“...Yes? I did just graduate though.”
“Sorry. Just surprised me, that's all.”
The gears in his mind spun into overtime. Clementine had just graduated high school, which meant she had to be at least around 18 years old. There was no way she would have much experience with this kind of work.
Theo leaned his head to the side to look at Clementine, who had gone back to idly looking at her phone.
She was the easiest target.
“Hey, Clementine. Real quick, does that spot over there look weird?”
His mouth and body moved before his mind could feel guilty for the action he was about to attempt, as Theo leaned against his cell bars pointing at some arbitrary spot.
“Pardon? Weird as in how?” Clementine looked over curiously to where Theo was pointing, but strained to see anything relevant.
“I think you have to look at it from this angle.”
Even more innocent and gullible than Theo ever expected, Clementine did exactly as he asked, standing and walking right up next to the cell bars and turning her back on him.
Theo struck without hesitation. His right arm wrapped around her throat at the same time his left hand pushed against her mouth and trapped her head against the cell bars.
“MMMPGH-!” Clementine’s muffled cries sounded, as the blonde moved instinctively to pry Theo’s arm from her throat.
Her legs began to kick and her body tried to push away from him, but Theo held his grip tightly. He could feel her shaking and could sense her fear, but his own fear was greater.
“Clementine, stop,” Theo hissed into her ear, “I’m not going to kill you. Stop struggling before I’m forced to.”
“Mmmgh. Mmmmmff,” she tried to say, but her voice was leaving her and Clementine responded by stopping her struggling.
Once she did, Theo removed the hand covering her mouth and moved it down to her tight leather shorts, trying to find the pocket she put the key in. Luckily, Clementine didn’t scream once Theo removed his hand, but she still coughed in distress from the arm still tightly wound against her throat.
Theo moved his hand down, feeling around the smooth skin of her hip down to the curves making up her tight ass. His hand lingered there for a second…
Now is NOT the time for that!
He pushed his hand into her shorts pocket and snatched the key from it, releasing his grip on Clementine altogether as he immediately moved to unlock his cell door.
The woman slumped down onto the floor, gasping as Theo unlocked his door. Before she could crawl away, Theo snatched her by the back of her sports bra and dragged Clementine into the bedroom.
Too weak to fight his strength, Clementine let herself be thrown onto the room's bed as Theo leapt on top of her body. He figured that this would stop there from being too much sound against the floor when he…
…Slammed his fist down into her face. Clementine hadn’t squealed at all, but he didn’t know how long that would last. He had to leave her unconscious before he continued on, but…
“Haaaah…”
He looked at Clementine’s distressed and pained expression below him and the regret he had suppressed until now all began to flood in at once.
“I don’t want to die…please…there is so much I wanted to do…” Clementine begged, her eyes starting to well up through the pain she was clearly experiencing.
“Stop, stop, I’m not trying to kill you,” Theo hissed in the most reassuring voice he could manage, “I just need you to go unconscious. Please.”
He punched her in the face again, and Clementine made a soft whine from the hit.
“Haaaah…I-I’m trying…I-I’m trying…please…please. It hurts…”
The blonde had shut down completely, and dissolved into a mess of begging and pleading up to Theo, who was trying not to kill her.
Considering the situation he was in, he really expected her to put up more of a fight than this. Now he really felt bad about the whole thing, and that this was probably a moment for Clementine to realize that she had taken one bad turn in her life.
He climbed off her body, as she still stayed laying there paralyzed with fear. Trusting, and hoping, that his empathy wouldn’t get him caught, Theo instead grabbed the bedsheets Clementine was laying on top of and wrapped them around her body tightly. Making a pseudo rope with the sheets, he pinned her arms to her sides before tying the woman tightly into a neat bundle of bedsheets.
And, as a final precaution, Theo picked the blubbering Clementine up and threw her whole body into the closet.
That was one down.
Theo quickly shook the image of Clementine’s scared face from his mind, repeating again that she was a criminal who deserved it before leaving his room and traveling down the hallway to the right.
His next step was to find Tetra and take the keys to the van from her, and Theo knew that Tetra always left somewhere to the right when she was headed back to her room. From conversations he picked up on, Tetra spent most of her time on the second floor, so she had to be somewhere…
He halted, as when he was about to pass by the upper foyer, Theo nearly ran right into Sara standing fixated on something outside of his view.
The hallway stretched right into the foyer, and there was no getting around her. Theo knew that he had to take Sara out as well, though he hoped that there was nobody nearby that he couldn’t see.
He snuck up even closer, getting to nearly the woman’s side before he noticed she was busy checking out her own figure in a small mirror she had propped up on a side table.
"All this standing around can't be good for me. At least the money will pay for a fantastic trip to the spa."
Conceited as always.
Her attention was so fixated on herself that she had scarcely noticed Theo approach from her side until he was within arms reach.
And, honestly, he himself had not expected to get that close either without a reaction. He had prepared to charge and tackle her to the floor when she noticed him, and yet…from this position?
Theo thought to himself. He had no idea if this would work, but he saw it enough in various action movies, so maybe…
He slowly stood up. His hand held firmly flat. He creeped up right around Sara, and before she could see him in her mirror…
Chop!
His hand made a hard chopping motion as hard as he could manage against her neck, and the red headed henchwoman collapsed instantly. Falling right into Theo’s arms as her legs gave way. He nearly fell over, not expecting that attempt to actually succeed so easily as Sara’s body softly fell into his own. His arms holding hers as her head lolled against his arm.
Theo had to admit, without her non-stop sharp tongue and relentless attitude, Sara was actually as pretty as she carried herself to be. Her skin was almost unbelievably soft pressed against his own, and her hair was actually completely natural as its gentle strands glistened in the hallway lights…
Again, he shook his head. This was REALLY not the time for this.
He began to drag Sara along the carpet towards the first door he could find, before revealing what seemed to be a simple storage room inside.
Perfectly ideal.
He dropped Sara’s limp body down onto the floor, letting her attractive features kiss the floor. Though, he had let her head down first, and in the position he left her in, Theo couldn’t help but notice that Sara’s ass was also lifted into the air.
And what a nice body it was. Theo let himself look for a second longer before he closed the door on Sara’s unconscious body and pressed forward.
Down this side of the house, the hallway wasn’t as brightly lit and most of the lights were turned off. Presumably as there was nothing to actually look after on this side of the house.
Because of that, it didn’t take long for Theo to spot what he was looking for. Beneath one of the closed doors was a faint light peeking out.
He prayed silently to himself, hoping that only Tetra was inside that room, and to psyche himself up. There was likely no way he would be tackling what would happen next silently, so after what he did to Clementine, there was no feeling guilty here. He had to take Tetra down, and he could not hesitate for even a second.
Theo took a deep breath, placed his hand against the door handle, and pushed down.
He found himself stepping into what seemed like a moderately sized library, with walls lined with ornate shelf after ornate shelf of books. Seated facing the door in the center of the room was a plush sofa, and a silver haired woman seated on top with a book between her fingertips.
As Theo closed the door behind him, Tetra looked up from her book and gave him a small smile.
“Why, Theo. I was not expecting your presence tonight,” she spoke in her calm, eloquent prose, brushing a lock of hair from her cheek.
"Hmm hmm, a situation I had not anticipated tonight. How exciting. I wonder if he will think I am cute if I brush my hair like this..."
“That…is your reaction?” Theo released the breath he didn’t realize he had built up as he walked towards her, “you understand the position you are in, right?”
“Only a fool would not, and do I look like one?” Tetra giggled slightly, her attitude unfazed as she closed the book in her hands, “either way, if you came all the way out here after escaping, you must be seeking me specifically. May I ask what for?”
“The keys to the van. I know you had them,” Theo glared down at her, trying to seem as menacing as possible.
But his statement seemed to have the opposite reaction, as Tetra began to laugh, covering her mouth with her fingertips. The reaction threw Theo even further off his own psyche, and Tetra’s relaxed confidence was both intimidating in its own right and enraging at how lightly she took him.
“What’s so funny?” Theo spat.
“Oh. Nothing. Just, was that your plan?” Tetra gave a smirk, standing from her seat as she moved slowly around the table caressed by her fingertips. As she moved, Theo instinctively did too, so that he still faced her directly.
“Tell me where the keys are, and I won’t kill you,” Theo growled, causing Tetra’s eyes to go wide.
“My, all the way to kill? Heavens, Theo, I thought we had started to find some form of connection with each other,” Tetra placed a hand upon her chest, “but I suppose its unavoidable if you see me that way. You may have to forgive me, Theo, for I cannot give you the information you seek.”
“So that’s how you want to do it, then.”
Theo changed his stance into one preparing for a fight. He wasn’t actually sure how to fight someone one-on-one, especially somebody that could be a trained professional, but…he wasn’t about to let his escape stop here. Tetra had not bothered to call reinforcements, dash for the door, or call for help. He had to take advantage of that overconfidence.
And, luckily, he felt no guilt at all towards the thought of driving his fist through the smugly pleasant expression Tetra had on her face.
“By ‘do it’, I assume you mean beating the information out of me, because I was going to suggest a light chat instead,” Tetra giggled again, before composing herself, “my sincerest apologies, Theo, your expressions are just too cute to stop teasing.”
“Ngh…”
Tetra gave him another sweet smile, before Theo felt her demeanor shift as well. Her legs moved to a different stance, and her expression grew sterner.
“But I am taking you quite seriously, and I will see that you regret trifling with me!”
Before Theo made a move, Tetra grabbed something previously covered by her sweater on her hip and flicked it with her hand. The small device crackling to life with a thin line of electricity sparked along the top.
She had a taser!
Theo reacted by taking a step back, but Tetra already lunged forward with a wicked grin on her face, stabbing the taser forwards as she did. Theo dodged to the side on Tetra’s first lunge, dodging the hit as he stepped backwards to avoid the incoming swipe that followed.
His back crashed against a bookshelf lining the wall, and he barely rolled to the side as Tetra, again, pushed the taser into the bookshelf he had just previously crashed into.
As she made a move to turn her hand back towards him, Theo finally made his move, reaching forward to grab Tetra’s hand before she could turn the taser on him again.
“H-Hey!” Tetra exclaimed, surprised, as she instinctively tried to pull her hand away from Theo.
But he refused to let loose his grip, and yanked against Tetra’s wrist with all his might in an attempt to maybe break it or force her to drop the taser. Dragged forward by his superior strength, Tetra grimaced as the force was applied onto her wrist.
Her foot kicked out, striking Theo’s knee and making him cough and stumble to the side. But, at the same time, the pain against her own wrist was finally too much to sustain, and the taser dropped from Tetra’s grasp. Relishing briefly in the small victory as he regained his balance, Tetra transitioned her attack immediately, and swung her open fist at Theo, catching him right on the cheek.
His world spun for a moment, as the force knocked him to the side and back towards the center of the room. As he stumbled around from the hit, he would feel a hard force slam into his hip, then another against his stomach before he could even process the last hit.
Theo’s attempts at regaining his balance was in vain, and he crashed into the floor. Pushing past the pain he started to feel in his body, Theo rolled up just in time to catch a foot incoming for his prone body.
Before he could do anything with it, Tetra propelled all the weight in her body upwards, kicking Theo’s chin hard with her free leg as the woman completed a full backwards flip. Theo’s body fell back onto the ground and his vision blurred for that brief moment too much to even see Tetra’s proud smile at herself for even completing that move.
Maybe he was severely wrong in thinking that Tetra would be an easy opponent.
He wasn’t even close to recovering before he felt a foot pressed into his stomach. Theo opened his eyes to see Tetra standing smugly over him, her foot on top of his body, as she slowly lowered herself down towards him. The pressure exerted against him took all his strength not to cry out against.
“Do you regret your actions yet, my dear Theo?”
Tetra was now kneeling on top of his body, pinning him to the floor as she looked down with her menacing red eyes and a smug, self satisfied grin on her face. He started to panic, trying to think of a way out of this defeat. To continue his attempt to escape. But he was pinned, helpless on the floor, and Tetra was prepared to deal the final blow.
“What a delightful little expression you have. So much fear, for how much confidence you just had,” Tetra's grin grew wider, as she raised up a closed fist, “...too bad, but our dance was rather entertaining. Adieu, Theo.”
He had one last gamble. A hunch he had. He didn’t care much about acting on it before, but right now…it was his only shot.
“You’re…beautiful.”
Tetra’s fist faltered.
“What did you say?” She sputtered out, the words taking her completely off-guard.
“I was just saying, you look beautiful,” Theo repeated again, as if it was the most obvious thing in the world.
“Nn…C-Cut it out! Don’t play this game now!”
Theo was almost surprised how easy it was to completely throw the cool and confident Tetra entirely off her game.
“I mean it. Do you put men into this position often?”
Her focus was utterly shot, and Tetra’s eyes flickered down to remind herself what position she had put herself in. It was suddenly apparent to her that she had seated herself right on top of Theo’s crotch.
“No, I-I…did not…mean it like, hah…shut it! Shut up, I know what you are trying to-”
“You seemed quite fond when you mentioned our connection,” Theo cut her off, “and now, seeing you like this, I’m suddenly considering what it would be like to take that connection further.”
“You…are…are you serious?”
Tetra’s voice flickered between the cross of her brain and heart, grasping onto that one little thread that told her that it could be possible while trying to grab at the logical bone in her body screaming at the obvious attempt to beat her through her own heart.
While Tetra fought the turmoil Theo had created within her, he raised a hand slowly up and traced the outline of her breast upwards along her sweater until he stopped at her braided lock of hair. Her lips were practically quivering, and she shivered as his hand drew further and further upwards. When she didn’t pull away from the touch, he moved further, and lightly touched her cheek.
He wasn’t entirely lying, of course. Tetra was rather attractive in her own right, right down to her modest, pompous attitude. It felt nice, for a moment, to stroke her delicate cheek nonchalantly with his thumb.
Tetra seemed to melt to his touch, moving a hand to press against his as her eyes closed, taking in the warm touch against her face.
Theo’s free hand grabbed a heavy book and smashed it against her face, causing Tetra to cry out in pain as she collapsed off his body and flopped onto the ground beside him. Theo pounced immediately, turning over to smash his fist against her unguarded stomach.
“Augh!” Tetra moaned in pain, her hands moving down to guard or hold the spot Theo had punched to feebly guard against the attack on her body. But as Tetra writhed on the floor, contending with all the agony felt up her whole being, Theo moved over and looked down onto her.
“Heh. Delightful. Did you really think I'd find a bitch like you beautiful?”
Tetra looked up, opening her eyes just enough for Theo to see the pain behind it, both physical and mental. He was lying through his teeth, but her villainous act earlier pissed Theo off enough for the words to just roll right off his tongue.
Without any more hesitation, Theo brought his own fist down onto Tetra’s face. Her constitution weaker than Clementines, the blow was enough to make Tetra’s eyes flicker shut as a soft moan escaped her lips.
Hopefully he didn’t break anything other than her heart.
Breathing heavily from the adrenaline, Theo remained in that position as his heart rate came down. Finally, he fell backwards into a seated position on the hardwood floor, basking in his victory over the henchwoman as she laid unconscious beside him. The slow rise and fall of her chest as the only sign that he had merely knocked Tetra out, instead of killing her.
He snapped out of his stupor. The keys. He needed the keys.
He looked back over at Tetra, but she was definitely not going to be giving that information over in her current state and he definitely did not have the time to wait for her to wake up either. He cursed at himself for feeling the moment too much and forgetting his objective and stood up from the floor.
Would he be lucky enough? Was the key stored somewhere in this library? Theo moved immediately to check any random drawer on any shelf, desk, or cabinet in the tiny library, but there weren’t many places to check and he was running out of time.
He started to panic. Where else could he search? Her bedroom? The downstairs foyer? Was there even a garage somewhere on this compound?
He looked back over to Tetra’s unconscious body and knelt beside it in a hurry, having completely forgotten to check it.
His hand ran first into her side pockets, then down her pants legs, but he could only produce a phone that was locked anyway. Remembering the taser Tetra pulled earlier, he then pulled her sweater up slightly to check her belt, but that too lacked anything else.
Her sweater was incredibly soft, though.
Frustrated, and out of options, Theo stood up from the floor.
Only to see the door to the library push open.
Mar.
“You…”
"He has more guts than I expected. Only goes to show how detrimental everyone's naivety was."
Mar growled, stomping her way into the room. Every trace of her cocky, seductive attitude she used on him before was entirely absent, and her glare itself could kill.
“Did you kill her?” Mar stated.
Theo reeled back from the question, “no! No, of course not, she’s still alive and breathing.”
“Well. Suppose their kindness was not completely unfounded,” Mar remarked, though her entire body was still poised and ready to strike at any minute, “but they’re still stupid to take you so lightly.”
Theo stood his ground, but he knew Mar wasn’t an easy opponent. Was he able to just defeat her head on? Mar had left the door open, so perhaps he could make a dash for it at his first chance too? The situation was dire, and he hadn’t even seen Xinyi or Nadia yet, but after defeating Tetra, Theo knew he couldn’t just give up now. No matter how bad it looked.
“Raugh!”
Mar made her move, opening with a strong roundhouse kick aimed right at Theo’s head. The attack was obvious, but there was so much power behind her leg that the attack still made Theo stumble even as he blocked it. His hand moved down to catch another kick that was thrown towards his own stomach, but blocking that caused a brief surge of pain to shoot through his hand.
As he stood back up, two punches were thrown at lightning speed, and both impacted his chest, sending Theo backwards. He slammed into a bookshelf, but still aware enough not to step on Tetra’s unconscious body, and dove to the side to avoid another attack, but Mar left no opening for him to try to dash past her. Her movements were powerful, accurate, and thrown with deadly precision.
This was no amateur he was facing, but a trained professional.
As he stood again, Theo stood no chance in blocking the flurry of punches that came at him, each one knocking him around slightly more than the last, before he felt his arm grabbed and yanked behind his back in a tight lock that he couldn’t fight out of.
He violently thrashed with all the strength he could possibly muster, spinning around the room as Mar held against him as if trying to wrangle a bull. But the pressure was suddenly lifted before Theo could stop himself from thrashing, and instead Mar used his momentum to throw him up and across the room.
Theo slammed into the ground, rolling a few times before coming to a stop at yet another bookshelf. The impact causing a book or two to be knocked loose from the bookshelf and strike his body on the floor.
The pain was becoming unbearable, and Theo struggled to even pull himself up by his arms as Mar stepped forward and kicked his prone body hard.
Theo screamed out in pain as his body flipped onto his back. He looked up to Mar’s stone cold expression and realized there was no outwitting out of this situation this time. He was simply outmatched by the henchwoman.
“You won’t ever try shit like this again!” Mar scowled down at him, before kicking him hard in the stomach one more time.
Now it was Theo’s turn to squeeze his eyes shut and pray that the pain would end.
There was no getting out of this. It was over.
At least, that was what he figured Mar was thinking. As she knelt down to pick his body up, Theo swiped against the floor and pushed something up in one desperate, quick motion.
The taser.
Mar reacted immediately, but it wasn’t a knife or blunt instrument that Theo had swiped from the floor. The arm Mar moved in to block the attack was useless, as her body surged from the voltage within the taser.
"Where did he get that?!"
“Aaaah!” Mar screamed out, her body convulsing as Theo hastily found the strength to rise again.
Before Mar could recover, Theo pushed the taser against her chest this time, shocking the woman one more time before Theo released the taser to the side and threw the hardest punch he could muster against Mar’s undefended face.
The blow snapped her head backwards, and Theo immediately lunged with both hands forward, grabbing Mar’s shoulders and pushing her backwards with the last bit of strength he could find.
The pair fell to the ground together, with Mar’s back slamming against the wooden floor hard. Theo’s hands moved immediately to her throat and his grip clamped down.
Mar’s breath seized up. Her eyes turned desperate. But, compared to Tetra earlier, there was still a fire behind it.
And Theo felt Mar’s powerful legs wrap around his body, locking him down as her own hands shot upwards and snatched his own throat.
He felt his own breath begin to whittle away. Wasn’t her mission to do some kind of hostage exchange with him? Theo thought he was too important to kill, but maybe in this moment, Mar didn’t care about that. He looked down again, at her fiery, rage filled eyes. Even as life was being choked from her own body, Mar didn’t relent.
Maybe this was her way of revenge. To tell Theo that, even though he wrapped his hands around her throat first, she wouldn’t lose. She would kill him first, or drag him down with her.
He drove his thumbs deeper and deeper into her throat. With every bit of his fading consciousness, he would not release either. He had tried to knock unconscious the other girls earlier, but a part of him resented Mar. For bringing him here. For being the leader in this mission. For everything about the last two days.
His mind whittled away, and all he could see now was blood. He wanted her dead.
Both their grips began to lose their strength. Both their hands held on as long as they possibly could.
In that moment, her mission no longer mattered.
In that moment, his escape no longer mattered.
“Theo! Mar! Stop!”
As his consciousness began to fade, those words from Xinyi were the last things he heard, as his body and Mar’s were forcibly separated.
Did she die? Did he win?
He had no idea, as once the two were split away from each other, Theo felt himself fall forward.
He was unconscious before his body even hit the floor.
“I thought you were the professional, and you nearly lost?”
“I could have died! Do you understand how that feels?”
“Just hope that Xinyi can handle…any real intruder…”
Theo awoke to varied squabbling as his eyes blinked open and struggled to adjust. His head still felt as if it were filled with lead, and his body ached fiercely. When he could feel his senses again, Theo realized the soft surface beneath him was the bed he spent the last few days sleeping in, and the room was the prison he had been locked inside.
Right back to where he started.
He sat up slowly in his bed, as six heads turned towards his stirring with varied looks on their faces. Theo had hoped he wouldn’t ever see these women again after what he just did to some of them, but all six of them stood inside his room.
And, unfortunately, Tetra’s eyes were the first that caught his own. Ignited immediately by a fury beneath the surface, Tetra promptly stomped right up in front of Theo and raised an open palm high into the air.
Smack!
Theo recoiled as Tetra laid an open palmed smack against his cheek, causing the other five women to look over in their direction.
“You are a…j-jerk!” Tetra spat out, stuttering as if her brain tried to search for a worse insult to use.
He was still barely awake when the slap first connected, but the force seemingly jolted the fog from his brain. As he blinked and looked up at Tetra and the five women behind him, something about their attitudes just rubbed Theo the wrong way.
No, he realized that the very action Tetra was taking on him right now absolutely pissed him right off. As her hand swung across for another slap, Theo’s own shot out and snatched her wrist from the air in a claw-like grip.
Tetra’s fury hesitated, as her shocked expression was lost for words. As Theo held his grip tightly on her wrist, she stepped back as Theo stood up from the bed.
The consequences of his action be damned.
“I'm the jerk?” Theo started in a low growl of hatred, “me, who got kidnapped and held here against my will? Treated like I am the one that’s done something wrong while trying to escape?”
Her face almost turned to a scared look, but Tetra refocused her gaze and mustered what attitude she had left.
“Do not act like a saint when you spoke to me like that. You did not have to twist the dagger like you did.”
Theo practically laughed right into her face.
“And what right do you think you have? The very audacity of suggesting that what I said to you was somehow inappropriate after you LARPed a budget mafia enforcer is downright hysterical,” Theo’s wide smile bordered on exasperation as he leaned closer to Tetra, “who do you think you are?”
“I…I…l-let me go!” Her voice wavered, and the argument she had in her head couldn’t make it out her throat, as Tetra started to tug her arm away.
But Theo wasn’t close to being done.
“I’ll tell you what you are, you silver spoon brat. You may think you’re entitled to something, but you’re nothing more than a common thug-”
“Enough!”
Mar’s sharp command cut Theo off, and finally gave relief to Tetra’s expression as Theo released his grip on her wrist. As Tetra’s nearly teared eyes gave way to a slow taunting grin in anticipation of Mar tearing Theo a new one, the pink haired henchwoman looked over to the pair as she leaned against a wall.
“He’s right, you know.”
Mar’s next words wiped Tetra’s smile immediately.
“Excuse me?” Tetra’s voice squeaked out, turning her head over as the second betrayal of the last 24 hours struck her.
“What?” Mar spoke, monotone yet firm, “what did you think we were? Did you think we were something better than what Theo called you?”
“He spoke down on me and you are taking his side, Mar?!” Tetra shot back, but Mar only cracked a smile.
“I am, because you have an odd grandiose ideal that we’re anything better than that. We’re disposable people paid to do someone's dirty work, and we aren’t even the group trusted to do anything but the most baseline of tasks. Do I need to remind you that the result of losing a fight against someone that opposes you is supposed to be death?”
Mar was right, and the arrogance Theo wanted to push back on in Tetra’s attitude was clear when her surprised and frightened reaction suggested that death was not even within her mind.
Tetra only shrunk lower and lower, and she looked like she was about to cry again. Even though he had pointed every bit of fury he had against her, Theo still could not help but feel a little bit bad for Tetra.
Mar seemed like she wanted to say more, but the point was reached and the damage was done. Before Theo could see any more of her vulnerability, Tetra turned her face down and pushed her way out of the room.
Once Tetra had ran out the room, Theo looked up surprised at Mar.
“I didn’t do that for your sake,” Mar said flatly, “many girls join this profession with…varied incorrect assumptions about it. I don’t care about your opinion of me, Theo, but I understand enough that we stand on opposing sides here. Unlike the others here, all I care about is ensuring that my mission is completed.”
“Makes sense.”
The two shared a look and, though it was odd since Mar was the only one he actually tried to kill, he started to feel mutual respect for her. She was the veteran: cold, professional, and clearly enjoyed what she did, but once Theo finally looked past her for merely being the driving force behind him being here…
“...But does it have to be that way?”
It was Xinyi’s voice, and Theo suddenly remembered that there were four other women in the room who had barely reacted at all when Theo and Tetra were fighting.
He looked to Xinyi, who had a concerned look on her face, but he did notice that Sara was surprisingly quiet compared to how she usually was. Clementine, too, was seated on the floor near the door, and her eyes flickered away from Theo’s when he glanced past her. It seemed like the blonde was struggling with her fear as well.
Mar looked over to Xinyi, giving her a look that said ‘please elaborate’.
“Do we have to remain antagonistic here?” Xinyi asked, glancing at Theo, “I know you are still scared, but…must we stand on opposing sides until the mission ends?”
“You’re in a triad, aren’t you?” Nadia spoke up, crossing her arms with an eyebrow raised, “I dunno, doesn’t seem like a group of people who’d choose the diplomatic route.”
“Well, I am not in the business of lying to others, if that is what you mean,” Xinyi countered, holding a fist against her chest, “we already know that, after our mission, Theo will be freed, so why should I not try to ask for cooperation instead of antagonizing him further?”
With those words, Xinyi turned back to Theo.
“Theo,” Xinyi started, “I know that…you probably see me as nothing more than a thug. But, so long as I am here, I will guarantee your safety if you would allow me to.”
“Xinyi…” Theo trailed off, processing what Xinyi was trying to propose to him. She wasn’t one of the people he got to fight, but he was still surprised that she tried to show him such kindness. He wanted to wonder if she had any ulterior motives, but the look she gave him was so stalwart and headstrong that Theo doubted whether she did.
“Hmph. The idea sounds fine to me.”
Everyone seemed simultaneously shocked that the first backing of Xinyi’s idea came from Sara, who was silent to this point. Her words even carried the same matter-of-fact attitude Sara always held as she spoke.
“You agree with that?” Nadia spoke first, incredulous.
“Of course. He may be utterly uncultured, but I noticed that, compared to the other girls, you did not lay a hand on my face when dealing with me,” Sara pointed out, raising her hand as she spoke.
“Well…” Theo recalled that he did, indeed, take Sara down with the least effort compared to everyone else, but that was only because she was also the only one that failed to notice him.
“I was quite glad to realize that you recognize true beauty that you did not want to harm my face. For that, I will forgive you touching my body without permission.”
“Oh…my God,” Nadia rolled her eyes, but Sara ignored the reaction entirely. Instead, Nadia turned to Theo, “look, you should probably know that the van ain’t even outside anymore.”
“It isn’t?” Theo asked, wary, yet he had no real reason to distrust something so easily verifyable.
“You were listening, yeah? We’re just the B-Team. Stuff like trapping us here until the A-Team is ready to pick us up is all plans we’re just following,” Nadia explained, “not saying your idea of escape was dumb or anything, but if you’re stuck here like the rest of us, why not make our lives easier and be friendly about it?”
Theo hesitated, giving the voices he listened to actual thought. If escaping was going to be that difficult, then Nadia’s logic was sound. The baseline thought of helping this group of women who willingly signed up to be criminals didn’t feel right, and yet…he felt like he wanted to see them as humans, over enemies.
Or, at least, he wanted to try.
“If the idea is still unsettling to you,” Xinyi began to suggest, “I wanted to show you a place while you mull it over. …If you’d like.”
- - - - -
Theo found himself pulled outside into a luscious flower garden. Though there was a half-hearted protest to allow him outside like this, everyone seemed unanimous in trusting the thought if Xinyi was the one together with him.
He laid down with his back against the brick path, warmed by the midday sun high in the sky as he closed his eyes and allowed the flowers' sweet smell and soft breeze roll past his body.
“Its a lovely place, yeah?”
Theo opened his eyes and rolled his head over to look at Xinyi, who was seated on the path beside him. The sun’s rays behind her illuminating her muscular features.
"To enjoy such pleasures at a time like this...this mission has really spoiled me."
“Its…nice.”
“I’m glad you think so. I’ve spent most of my time here and it helps me focus.”
Xinyi lowered herself to the floor, lying down on her side and using her arms as a pillow. Her face was only two feet away from Theo’s own, as her soft brown eyes stared back at Theo’s with wide-eyed curiosity.
“Do you feel stressed?” Xinyi asked, her voice quiet as the breeze, “to be laying here so close to a common thug like myself?”
Theo chuckled slightly, “heh, its fine. I’m alright with you, Xinyi.”
“You are? I’m glad, but…” Xinyi started, a soft smile on her face, “...what makes me different? Is it just because we did not fight? Everyone fears my skill, and I’m one of the few here who truly lives this lifestyle. I’m laying here…guarding you too.”
Theo let his head roll back up to look up at the sky, breathing in slowly as he closed his eyes.
“I…don’t know. Maybe its because you were kind to me first?”
“I’m glad my efforts were not in vain, then,” Xinyi giggled to herself, “...some say you must lose your heart to handle a job like this. To make it easier when you need to indiscriminately kill what opposes your task.”
Theo turned his head back to Xinyi as she spoke, and noticed her stare had become distant and looked through him, as if she was recalling another sight in her mind.
“Kind to my friends, terrifying to my enemies, that’s the kind of person I wanted to be,” she reaffirmed, focusing back on Theo, “and I hope we can be friends, Theo.”
“You don’t think we are enemies?”
“Well, you can see me as an enemy, if you’d like. But…we were only instructed to hold you until your release. So…I do not see why I, too, would need to be enemies with you.”
Theo swallowed as Xinyi reached a tentative hand out, as if afraid that Theo would recoil at her touch. But, in response, Theo moved his own hand, and met hers. Her skin was soft, and her hand small. Nothing at all of what Theo thought the hand of a henchwoman would be like before now.
The thought of growing close to an enemy like her suddenly wasn’t such a foreign concept.
“Do you plan to apologize?” Xinyi suddenly asked, as the pair still held each other's hands, “to Tetra, I mean…”
“I-...” Theo trailed off, unsure how to answer the question.
Before his thoughts could form, Xinyi continued, “she’s a nice girl too. A little quiet, but more feminine than I. I think that…it would make her quite happy if you both forgave each other.”
“Heh…was that your plan all along?”
Xinyi only winked and stuck her tongue out slightly, “maybe.”
Theo smiled at her response, turning his head back up to the sky, “...I’ll think about it.”
Suddenly, he felt a closer presence on his arm, and found that Xinyi had snuggled up closer to his arm and nuzzled her face closer into his shoulder.
“It is up to you,” she whispered, “...because I do not mind if I have you to myself.”
“...What?”
But Xinyi didn’t answer, instead choosing to remain there lying by his side. And, in the silence, Theo felt himself being taken by the quiet peace surrounding him.
A lone figure stalks the exterior of the property, unbeknownst to the group within. She’s a sleek, toned figure dressed head-to-toe in a black cloth catsuit with a mask covering her mouth. Her long, purple hair flows behind her and drapes along the muted red cape tied to her shoulders.
"Whatever the cost, we cannot let The Herald win."
“We’ll stop his plan before it can even begin,” she had said before setting off on her own plan. The idea may be dangerous to do alone, but she was left with no other choice.
She spent the day inspecting The Herald’s mansion up and down with her binoculars, taking note of all the guards within. After some time, the ninja noticed the man she was meant to save being led out of the mansion by an Asian woman and into the garden in the backyard. Her worries began to amplify when she watched the two fall asleep together.
Who was the woman? Another guard? Had their target sided with them? The ninja wasn’t sure, and continued to observe the white haired man. Perhaps he was just not aware of what was at stake, or perhaps he was being held with preferential treatment, or even forced to do such things.
Those were questions only he could answer, and the ninja would ask the man herself when she freed him.
After a while, the ninja watched the pair wake up from their nap, and observed the target return to the mansion by himself. The Asian woman, however, seemed to stay out in the garden alone.
And, after her close inspections over the last hour, none of the other guards seemed to be outside. The moment was ideal to take the Asian guard down.
The ninja put her binoculars away, and flipped up and over the wall surrounding the property, making sure to spare herself from getting injured on the sharp spikes atop the wall, as well as the few cameras surrounding the area. These were dangerous people she was dealing with, and the ninja was careful to dodge the motion sensors she spent the last day studying too.
Once she landed on the grass, the ninja dashed up to the mansion as fast as she could before anyone could spot her out in the open. Once she reached a supporting pillar, the ninja caught her breath, listening in the wind for any activity that suggested someone had spotted her approach.
But after a few minutes, she heard nothing. And so, it was time to strike.
The ninja dashed up to the flower garden, using the tall foliage as cover as she made her way to its center where she had last spotted the Asian guard. Stalking through the flowers, the ninja found her way to where she had last seen the other woman…
…And nothing.
A rustle, and the ninja quickly ducked beneath the arm that reached out from behind her. Stumbling on the edge of the planter she was standing in, the ninja rolled out onto the brick path and flipped forward with her hands to regain her balance.
She spun around to immediately block a powerful kick aimed at her chest, and twisted her body to avoid two quick punches immediately after. The ninja spun back her fist to counter in exchange, catching her Asian assailant in the chin and causing her to stumble back.
The Asian guard grinned, rubbing her chin before assuming a fighting stance with one sharp motion. The ninja could now see the guard’s muscular form, as well as her bold outfit showing much of it off. Her eye practically glinted, and the ninja was almost intimidated by the women's seemingly sheer excitement to duel her.
"She's definitely going to be a tough opponent."
The ninja wasted no time drawing a kunai from her belt and tossing it at the guard’s neck. Her opponent dodged the throw with ease and closed the gap before the ninja could throw another, elbowing her open chest.
The ninja staggered back, wincing as she clutched the spot, but the Asian guard didn’t relent and her next kick was barely deflected and threw the ninja off balance.
Excited to end their conflict swiftly, the guard pressed her advantage, opening her defenses enough for the ninja to snatch another kunai from her fake pained staggering and lunged with it. The guard noticed the feint too slowly, and the kunai drew blood, slightly cutting the guard's bare skin along the side of her hip.
“Agh-!” The guard winced in a breath, the attack stopping her momentum as her hand fell down to her hip to feel the small amount of blood tainting her skin. Though her expression showed pain, her focus didn’t shake, and her gaze remained laser focused on the kunai wielding ninja.
The blade reached out first, but the guard was quick on her reaction, and when the kunai swiped horizontally at the guard's breast, the other woman dodged the attack by stepping backwards. One well-timed kick in return struck the ninja’s hand with clean precision, and knocked the blade free from her grasp.
The two exchanged even blows with each other, with the ninja's agile moves contrasting with the guards strength and precision. Though the two seemed evenly matched for some time, the ninja had been the one to draw blood first, and that wound was her only upper hand and the guard's athletic outfit would be her downfall.
A strike against the ninja's cheek sent her staggering backwards, but the guard's offensive push finally gave the ninja the opening she wanted all along, and her foot swung around and struck the guard directly on the wound on her hip.
The guard was instantly paralyzed by the kick, releasing another pained whine as the ninja struck an open palmed strike against the wound.
Her opponent finally could not stand the pain, and her hand moved to cover the wound in desperation. A small opening that the ninja took by launching a kick as hard as she could muster right against the woman’s chest.
The Asian guard was sent flying backwards at the kick against her sports bra, and she slammed into the brick path hard on her back. The woman tried to scramble back to her feet, but coughed and dropped back down to her knees, still clutching her wound.
“Hah…” She breathed, sweat dripping down her forehead as she wearily looked up at the ninja. Again, did the guard try to stand, but the several blows she had taken left her obviously winded, and the guard fell back down to her knees.
The ninja approached cautiously, preparing the kunai she would use to end this guard’s life. Though she was excited earlier to battle, panic still started to creep onto the guard’s face, even though she tried to remain stoic. The ninja knew this guard would not die quietly, and steeled herself…
“Xinyi? Are you okay out there!”
A female voice called out from the direction of the mansion, and the guard’s eyes lost focus for a split second. The ninja took advantage of that lapse immediately, and kicked up hard with her leg.
The blow struck below the guard’s chin, and with one last feeble little cry, the guard’s head snapped backwards and her body spun backwards and collapsed onto a patch of grass in a heap.
The ninja didn’t have time to check if the guard still lived and instead opted to detect the source of the shout immediately. She still held the advantage of stealth, and preventing the other guards from being alerted was more pivotal than finishing off her already wounded opponent.
She turned around, approaching the mansion while, once again, using the flower beds as cover. Once she reached the end of the garden, the ninja would notice a sparsely dressed blonde haired woman holding the door to the mansion open, looking out with a scared expression on her face.
"Nothing but the flowers...and the silence. I...I-I'm scared."
“Xinyi? Xinyi!” She kept calling out, to no response. The blonde quivered slightly, holding both hands against her chest as she started taking careful steps backwards.
The ninja could not allow her to notify anyone.
She sprinted forward, making slight skidding noises against the wooden patio lining the outside of the mansion before sprinting up to the open door from the side.
The blonde guard could barely get the words ‘who’s there’ out of her lips before the ninja burst through the door frame and reached up for the woman’s face.
“Ah!” Her high pitched voice exclaimed, and the ninja just barely missed her reach for the woman’s head as the blonde stumbled backwards. The guard threw a wild punch at the ninja, then a kick that was much stronger than it seemed.
The attack caught the ninja off guard, and slammed into her side, causing the ninja to stumble sideways. Though the blonde’s confidence was on the complete opposite of the Asian guard the ninja had just defeated, the successful attack seemed to give her a brief wind, and the blonde tried to push her advantage.
But her second kick was all too obvious, and even though the ninja had lost her balance, she still managed to catch the blonde’s foot.
In one swift movement, the ninja pushed the blonde’s extended leg to the side, causing the guard to exclaim as she spun around completely off her balance. With her back exposed, the ninja lunged forward, and gripped her arms against the woman’s head and neck.
“Ah…ah! No! Hel-”
The blonde’s frightened screams were silenced as the ninja jerked her arms without further hesitation, twisting and cracking the blonde guard’s neck. Her tall, toned body instantly went limp without another sound, and all that remained in the ninja’s arms was a corpse.
The ninja immediately tried to look for a spot to hide the body in her hands, but another woman rounded the corner in front of her, likely in response to the blonde guard’s screams. She was a dark skinned beauty, more practically and modestly dressed than the previous two guards, and seemed to be just as young as them.
Once she saw the limp figure in the ninja’s arms, the new woman snapped into a feral rage.
“...You…You bitch! How dare you!” The tanned guard screamed, and the ninja only had time to throw the blonde guard’s limp body to the side before defending herself from the guard’s ferocious charge forward.
The tanned guard opened with a flying knee to the ninja’s midsection, sending the ninja backwards from the sheer power even though she blocked the blow successfully. A hard punch was thrown straight for the ninja’s head, and though she blocked that too, her own hands knocked against her face, and the ninja felt herself stumbling further and further backwards.
The guard’s assault was relentless, and before long, her wild and reckless advances pushed the ninja backwards until she felt her back hit a wall behind her. Realizing the futile nature of blocking, the ninja quickly dove to the side to dodge a powered punch, causing the woman to launch the blow into the wall instead of her face.
But the broken wall did little to deter the guard, and though the guard’s fist showed signs of bleeding, her spirit was not even close to being broken.
“She was just a scared girl, and you fucking killed her!” The guard screamed out, her voice cracking with pain.
The ninja wiped the mask over her mouth, and leapt backwards to dodge an aggressive stomp forward. She was put perpetually on defense, and she was already weakened from the two fights she had just won, but the ninja realized that the guard’s pure unbridled rage was an easy weakness to exploit.
And the guard barely noticed the ninja reaching for the kunai’s in her belt. As another punch was swung at her, the ninja reached her arm up at the same time, and successfully sliced her assailant's arm as the punch connected against her chest.
The guard screamed out in severe pain, clutching her bloodied arm as the ninja reeled from the punch. Her foot pressed into the ground to stop her backwards momentum, and propelled forward with what strength she had left, lunging for the guard with kunai in hand.
Put on the defense for the first time, the guard looked up in shock before raising her arms to stop the lunge. The hasty defense did nothing to stop the ninja from stabbing the kunai straight into the tanned guard’s hand.
Again, were her pained screams loud and violent, but the ninja wasn’t done. Her leg swung forward, connecting right below the tanned guard’s breasts, and when the guard stumbled backwards, bleeding arms flailing helplessly to her sides, the ninja leapt forward and plunged the kunai straight into the guard’s chest.
“Haugh-!” The guard choked with the sound of blood filling her throat. Her eyes caught the ninja’s gaze, and for the first time, the ninja could see the rage within the guard flicker like the life within her.
Was she scared, like the blonde earlier? She didn’t have the time to realize if she was, for she was already dying. And one final stab into the side of the guard’s neck extinguished that flame forever.
The ninja breathed heavily as she watched the tanned guard collapse backwards onto the warm wooden floor below. Her flailing arms fell helplessly to the side and remained there on the floor, motionless.
She wanted to kneel down to her opponents, and perhaps find some form of identification to her fallen opponents, but the rush of footsteps from a nearby hallway suggested that this battle was not going to be over soon.
Her stealth was gone, and the ninja found herself in a desperate position.
Theo didn’t know how long he lost himself to the serenity of the garden around him, but when he finally awoke, the sun had already started to approach the horizon beneath it. The tall, midday warmth gave way to a peaceful afternoon.
His breath was nearly taken away when he became aware of Xinyi’s serene, soft features as he opened his eyes to her sleeping beside him.
“...You can return to the mansion alone, if you’d like. As long as you promise not to run off again,” Xinyi had said with a wink when she woke up, “I’m quite content out here. Perhaps I’ll do more training.”
With that, Theo found himself reentering the mansion that held him captive willingly and alone. He took a few steps in before running straight into Clementine, who seemed to be cleaning up from lunch.
“A-Ah! W-W-” She instinctively began to back up from the sink and away from Theo, before the man waved his hands quickly.
“Wait, wait! I’m not fighting, I just came back in myself!” Theo quickly reassured the panicking Clementine, “don’t be scared!”
“A-Ah…ah…oh…” Her adrenaline slowly dropped, and Clementine assumed a more neutral stance once again, twiddling her hands together in front of her stomach awkwardly as if she could not figure out what else to do with them.
"Right. Friendly. I can be...friendly. ...Oh, this feels so awkward..."
Theo really could not help but feel like she had chosen the wrong line of work for a summer job.
“She’s been like that since earlier,” another voice stated, which Theo quickly recognized to be Nadia. The tanned henchwoman leaned on one of the kitchen counters, watching Theo with mild amusement in her eyes, “what’d you do to her?”
"What a weird time this has been. Not that I'm complaining. For now."
“Me? Nothing!” Theo defended from the accusation.
“Really?” Nadia raised an eyebrow, “y’know, many a guy probably can’t keep their hands to themselves if a woman dressed like Clem is with them.”
“W-Would they?” Clementine recoiled in surprise, her hands falling down to cover her exposed body, as if suddenly embarrassed by the skimpiness of her outfit.
“No! I wouldn’t do that!” Theo countered, looking at Clementine’s eyes to look for reassurance.
It did take every bit of his power not to aim his eyes lower than that.
“Makes sense,” Nadia relented with a shrug, “Xinyi’s got her claws in you, after all.”
“W-What?” Theo stumbled his reply, causing Nadia to snicker.
“What’d you mean ‘what’? Seriously, never seen a guy flip from trying to kill his guards to sleeping next to one of them then willingly reentering the place holding him alone,” Nadia’s words danced out in a joking tone, as she held a hand over her mouth to hide her laughter, “really, that Xinyi’s got game. I gotta take note of her powers.”
Theo pouted, crossing his arms. As much as he wanted to refute her teasing, he couldn’t think of anything that didn’t make him sound worse.
Though, when she pointed it out that way, Nadia did have a point. Just a day ago, Theo could only think of his own escape, yet now he stood joking with two of his captors. It was true that there was no vehicle outside to assist his escape, but…was that all?
He had only started trying to see his enemies as fellow humans, after all. Though, their attractiveness probably was a factor in it all. Perhaps that was why villains tended to hire attractive henchpeople.
“So? Whatcha gonna do now?” Nadia asked, “check the mansion out? This place is pretty massive.”
“Does this place belong to one of you?” Theo asked, glancing down a nearby hallway, as if the sheer depth of the mansion wasn’t clear to him until that moment.
“Pfft,” Nadia snickered, “we’d probably be the people hired to guard a place like this. Nah, I heard it belonged to our boss, or something like that.”
Theo reeled back slightly, considering what Nadia had said. Mar had mentioned that he would be traded for some kind of ransom in a few days time, but what ransom would be given for someone as boring as him to a guy that owned a mansion like this?
“Something I say?” Nadia tilted her head slightly, observing Theo’s concerned expression.
“Yeah, just…” He hesitated for a second, before scratching the back of his head, “unsure what someone with this kind of money wants with me.”
“I…had guessed you were someone influential…” Clementine suddenly piped up from the side.
“It’d be news to me if I was.”
Clementine made an ‘oh’ motion with her lips silently, and her gaze peeled back from the conversation, falling to the floor.
“Well, whatever it is, just play nice until we can all walk away from this thing,” Nadia continued, “seriously, it feels peaceful, but there’s an unsettling feeling about what we’re doing, y’know? …Suppose its moot telling you when you’re the victim here.”
“Heh, I’ll live.”
As their conversation started to wind down, Theo put in serious thought as to what he would do now. Would he find something that could give him a clue as to what the ‘hostage exchange’ would entail somewhere in the mansion? He had nothing better to do, but he also didn’t want to push the generosity of his captors.
Besides, they probably didn’t want him wandering the place alone. Theo was about to pitch the idea of walking around with somebody when a voice sounded from behind.
“Finally, there you are. Theo!”
The whole room looked up as Sara strode into the room, filling the room instantly with her aura and changing the tone entirely. Theo could practically feel the energy drain completely out of Nadia.
“Well! I heard there was an absolutely delightful table to go clean. Somewhere far away from here,” Nadia gave a dismissive wave and left the kitchen.
But Sara, barely even acknowledging Nadia’s snide exit, kept her eyes trained on Theo.
“Uh, yeah?” Theo responded after Nadia left.
“I require your assistance. You’re capable at photography, correct?” Sara asserted, looking down at Theo.
“I-I don’t remember ever saying that!” Theo exclaimed, looking to Clementine for reassurance, who, in turn, seemed as pressured as he was.
“Doesn’t matter, you’re a guy. You’ll pick it up,” Sara concluded, turning around without another word. She had already begun to stride out of the kitchen before she glanced back at Theo and motioned for him to follow her, seemingly annoyed that he wasn’t already.
Theo stumbled forward, giving an awkward ‘see you later’ wave at Clementine before the pair made off down one of the mansion's lengthy hallways.
“You might be entirely uncultured, but you did treat me quite well even if I was an obstacle to you,” Sara began to explain as the pair walked, “so I thought that this might be a good reward for you.”
“What’s the reward?” Theo asked.
Sara stopped her stride and turned to Theo, giving her hair a flick.
“Time spent with me, of course,” Sara responded.
Theo cracked a smile, thinking Sara was joking, but a quick and awkward silence caused Theo to realize she was absolutely serious.
Conceited as always!
“What,” Sara shot back flatly, narrowing her eyes, “is there something amusing about that, Theo?”
Whoops, guess he spent too long replying.
“Not at all!” Theo responded, but Sara didn’t seem pleased by the response.
“Do you, perhaps, mean to imply that some of the other women here are worth your time more than I?”
“Well we haven’t spoken one on one before, so I am not sure. It sounds like a nice idea to spend some time with you, Sara,” was Theo’s attempt at digging himself out of this strange situation.
Sara, in response, leaned closer to Theo. Her eyes met his, and her expression softened.
"Look into my eyes, and try telling me I am not the most beautiful one here."
“That was not what I was asking, Theo. Are the other women more attractive than me?” Her voice dropped into a smooth crawl. The vocal form of sirens along the water.
“I…” He tried to continue his smooth attempts out of the situation, but Theo felt himself being taken hold. Her personality left something to be desired, but up close, Sara could easily back up all the boasting she did about her attractiveness. He felt himself being taken in by her intoxicating grip…
Slap!
“Pervert,” Sara scowled after slapping Theo, standing back up with an unamused look, “you were thinking of going further, weren’t you?”
“You leaned in first!” Theo shouted back, incredulously raising his arms.
“Just to prove a point,” Sara smirked back, and that was all Theo had to see to know that he had lost this battle, “treat me to a nice dinner first, and maybe I’ll consider it.”
Theo groaned as Sara gave him another smug look, before continuing down the hallway. He briefly considered the ramifications of just turning the other way before begrudgingly following after her.
It didn’t take much longer before the hallway opened up into another small sitting room, adorned with the usual fauna and other various types of expensive decor. The center was lined with several, luxurious looking leather sofas, and Sara stepped over and leaned along the head of one. Her body illuminated by the warm afternoon sun beaming through several floor-to-ceiling windows lining the walls.
“This is one location I scouted that I thought would make excellent photos, but only taking selfies makes a poor profile,” Sara explained as she handed Theo her phone from her pocket, “none of the others would really entertain me, so I decided to try you. I figured a guy would not mind the work if he got to stare at a body like mine.”
Theo frowned in response, looking at the phone in his hands already set to the camera app.
“But, uhh, you seemed…less than pleased when I first told you I didn’t have an Instagram account. I don’t know the first thing about taking pictures,” Theo argued.
“Then try your best.”
Theo sighed at Sara’s sheer obstinance, before preparing to take his first photo. His subject had already begun to lie down on the sofa and assumed a pose on it.
In an attempt to give his best shot at this task that he felt locked into, Theo moved around the room, trying to catch angles that showed the natural light within the room the best in contrast to the furniture around Sara. As he did, he took several photos at each position.
After all, just like his only fight training was watching action movies, Theo pretended he was some kind of paparazzi, taking several images as he moved and stretched to different angles.
Once he thought he had taken a few, Theo walked over and handed the phone back. Sara snatched it from his hands and immediately scanned it. Theo stepped back, feeling like he had just submitted a resume for a job before Sara looked up slowly and smiled.
“Well, not bad, not bad at all,” she congratulated with a tinge of seeming relief in her voice, “you have a good eye for this.”
“I-I do?” Theo certainly wasn’t expecting that reaction from the stuck-up Sara.
“Quite! So I trust you to do much more. Come, what do you think of an angle where I leaned on these drapes here?”
…
“You fucking killed her!”
Theo and Sara were in a quiet moment, taking photos when the shout broke both of them out of their concentration.
“You heard that, right?” Sara looked to Theo for confirmation, who slowly nodded in response. Sara bit her lower lip, as the pair peered down the hallway they had come down from earlier.
The shout was faint, but Theo definitely heard it too.
“Let’s put this session on hold and check that out,” Sara held out her hand to take her phone back, before the pair turned down the hallway and ran towards the shout.
The sight was almost nauseating.
When Theo and Sara reached the foyer beside the backyard door, Theo looked in shock into the room before him. Nadia laid on the floor in a pool of her own blood, eyes closed and perfectly still.
Beside her was Clementine’s still body, laid flat on her back in an almost peaceful, sleep-like state. But, even from where they stood, Theo could tell she wasn’t breathing either.
“D-Deserved for such a rude bitch,” Sara mumbled, obviously shaken by the sight despite her words.
Suddenly, Theo sensed movement.
“Sara watch out!”
A figure ambushed her immediately from the side, tackling Sara against her shoulder and sending the red-head to the floor.
Theo froze in place as the masked assailant lunged for the shocked Sara, snatching the henchwoman’s throat with her hand and lifting her entire body upwards. As Sara struggled and squirmed in her assailant's grip, they then shoved Sara’s body against the wall hard.
“Aaah-!” Sara squealed, her face contorting in pain as she flailed helplessly shoved up against the wall.
Before her flailing limbs could connect a lucky shot, the ninja jammed a fist firmly into Sara’s exposed belly, eliciting a cry as a reaction. The ninja continued to push her opponent, delivering yet another blow into her stomach’s soft flesh before dropping her grip on Sara’s throat and sending a punch in the same move to Sara’s cheek, sending the henchwoman spinning to the side and slamming into yet another wall. And before Sara could even dream of recovering, the ninja kicked straight up and forward with an extended leg, slamming Sara’s forehead and sending her whole head backwards.
Before Sara continued to get utterly demolished by her sudden opponent, Theo reached out.
“Hey, stop!” Theo hurried forward, confronting the ninja as Sara swayed on her feet. It was a miracle she wasn’t on the floor already, but the woman was practically unconscious on her feet.
The ninja lowered her leg slowly from her kick, and turned to Theo.
“...Theo Evered, right? You’re the one that’s been kidnapped, right?” The ninja asked, her gaze swapping to Theo briefly before focusing back on Sara.
“Yes…and yes. Who are you?”
The ninja’s hand went over to her shoulder and seemingly pulled out a thin wallet from air, before flashing the badge inside.
“Chloe Legrand, FBI, special division,” Chloe declared, flipping the badge back up into the wallet, “here to rescue you, Theo. Though, I believe it should just be The Herald’s mercenaries here besides you, right?”
She was clearly regarding Sara, and Theo took a quick glance at Sara’s swaying body before answering.
“Yeah, I believe so…” He said.
“Then there shouldn’t be a problem, right?”
Without waiting, Chloe spun and delivered her hardest kick yet into Sara’s defenseless chest. With little more than a quiet moan, Sara’s whole body was sent up and away, out the open backyard door and onto the patio deck. The beauty slammed into the wood and bounced further forward, tumbling down the steps onto the dirt below, where she finally came to a stop on the dirt below. Her lips were slightly parted and her eyes were closed, as her unconscious body sunbathed in the warm outdoor air.
There shouldn’t be a problem, but Theo still couldn’t help but feel bad for her. His moment to escape was finally here, and yet…he had just started entertaining the idea of helping these girls to the end.
The dead bodies of Nadia and Clementine behind him, Theo suddenly became worried of what happened to Xinyi.
“...Well, just for your sake, I’ll spare her life,” Chloe motioned to the unconscious Sara, before holding her hand out to Theo, “but you seem pretty shaken up. Ready to get out of here?”
Chloe was right. Theo was being ridiculous. Siding with these henchwomen? Theo tried to shake the thought from his mind, and prepared to escape when he decided to ask…
“...Wait, how many…mercenaries have you fought so far?”
“Four. Why?”
Oh no.
“We need to go. Now. There’s two-”
Theo’s warning was immediately cut off.
“Well, well, well. Leaving us so soon, Theee-o?”
Tetra’s voice dropped with utter disdain and venom as Theo and Chloe turned to see her and Mar approach from within the mansion. Mar was entirely tense, her eyes darting every which way as she walked up with cautious steps.
But Tetra shared none of that instinct. Her red eyes were only trained on Theo and frosted over entirely.
Once Theo left with Xinyi, the remaining mercenaries dispersed, and Mar returned alone to her room. Her excuse was that she asked to watch surveillance for the afternoon, but the truth is that she just needed to be alone for the moment.
She collapsed into her chair, mindlessly watching the essentially static surveillance cameras, letting the time whittle away.
Handling a group of newbie mercenaries was more tiring than she had expected, or perhaps leading was a role she could not fulfill properly. They were barely henchwomen and more like henchgirls, still keeping their morals, naivety, and sheer blindness to the lifespan of an average henchwoman. Even the only one to join from her own company, Tetra, was probably the worst of them all.
Mar wanted to let it go. She’d been in this business long enough to be used to the deaths of her co-workers. Time and time again she told herself not to get attached to those assigned with her. And yet, why did this mission feel so different?
Perhaps it was because it was the first where she had to spend so much time with a victim instead of killing them outright.
A small buzz from her phone snapped Mar from her thoughts, and the pink haired mercenary flicked the device open to read the notification.
Hey mansion squad! Heads up, your position may be a little compromised. Sorry! We still need another day or two to get everything ready so…yeah! Don’t die, mmkay?
Mar stared at the message from her contact in the A-Team with dread in the pit of her stomach. But, even then, should she put her foot down and force Theo back into security, when everyone else seemed against it? Would that put them in a good mindset for if they had to inevitably defend the mansion? Such an act was a no-brainer normally, but after watching Tetra’s childish tantrum…
Tetra. I hope she’s doing alright.
Mar hopped up from her seat and left her room, taking a glance out a window along the second floor foyer with vision into the garden.
Are they…laying with each other…?
Mar stood at the window, fascinated by the sight she was witnessing. Even more so, after she watched Theo stand up with Xinyi, he bid her farewell and began walking back to the mansion alone.
The same guy who nearly killed her yesterday trying to escape was willingly walking back into the mansion alone.
Mar stood at the window in shock for a few more moments before continuing down to the end of the second floor. Though the afternoon sun made it difficult to see if this room still had an occupant, Mar figured it was a safe bet. She was always here.
She turned the knob to the library and pushed the door open slowly, the door creaking as it revealed the ornate bookshelves beyond. Mar stuck her head into the room and immediately spotted Tetra in the center of the room, seated at a desk wearing over-ear headphones. Noticing Mar’s presence, Tetra’s eyes looked up at the door.
“Mar?” She called out.
“Hey,” Mar replied back, closing the door behind her as she approached the desk. As Tetra began to lower her headphones down to her neck, Mar’s hand reached slowly to Tetra’s phone, “...so what are you listening t-”
Tetra snapped the phone away from Mar. When the latter gave a shocked look in response, Tetra shrunk in her chair.
“...S-Sorry.”
“No I…just thought that was a safe opener,” Mar laughed awkwardly, looking away, “I can come back if you w-”
“No wait!” Tetra reached out and grabbed Mar’s sleeve, “I mean…I…I wanted to talk with you anyway.”
Mar turned back, seeing Tetra's panicked expression.
“...Ah. Well I just wanted to see if you were alright.”
“...I am still a little mortified that you had to see that shameful display earlier.”
“As long as you understand that it was for your own good.”
On Tetra’s gesture, Mar sat down on a wooden chair opposite the desk, gripping her hands together on her lap as she sat.
“Trying to,” Tetra admitted with a sigh, brushing a string of hair behind her ear, “you must be beside yourself dealing with a brat like me.”
“I’ve seen worse,” Mar smiled, trying to defuse Tetra’s saddened mood slightly, “but its only because I’m worried about your safety.”
“I suppose being beaten by an amateur like that would make you doubt my abilities…” Tetra started, but Mar was quick to cut off that line of thought.
“Not at all. Its your attitude that’s more lethal.”
“My…attitude? What about it do you deem dangerous?”
“Getting emotional never works out for people in our profession,” Mar began to explain, “it blinds you to danger. It makes you lose sight of what's important. We’re mercenaries, remember? We ain’t fighting for some stupid ideal, keep your mind on the mission.”
On that point, Tetra relented immediately, giving a sheepish smile.
“You bested me there. I suppose…the feeling of losing control. Of having my dignity stripped from me. I suppose it was quite pretentious of me to not expect such a thing in return when I said before that mocking my opponents in a degrading way sounded fun earlier, but…experiencing it was an entirely different feeling.”
“Yeah, usually if you’re on the morally incorrect side, your opponent usually doesn't care who you are,” Mar admitted, crossing her arms, “they have the moral high ground and the law on their side. Doesn’t matter where you came from, your life is usually forfeit when you lose. Ever wonder why your stock mercenaries always seem attractive in the stories you read?”
“I just assumed this profession just attracted attractive people.”
Mar only scoffed at the answer, shaking her head.
“They’re the only ones that get spared.”
“O-Oh.”
“Let me just say, you might not think so, but Theo was already quite a gentleman when he defeated you. Take my word for it, I’ve seen worse,” Mar’s gaze flickered slightly, “...and felt worse.”
Tetra swallowed, seemingly unsure of how to continue the conversation for a moment.
“Was it the one who humiliated you? The reason why you continue to be a mercenary?” Tetra asked quietly, seemingly afraid of the reaction.
But Mar only smiled in response.
“You really were listening, I’m glad!” She beamed, “but yeah, if you think so highly of your dignity, this may not be the career for you, Tetra.”
“I can just not lose then, right? Then I will be fine,” Tetra spoke with confidence, causing Mar to laugh slightly.
“Heh, well you have the attitude for it, I suppose.”
“...How is Theo, by the way…”
There was the line of conversation Mar was waiting for.
“Saw him sleeping with Xinyi in the garden,” Mar responded with a bemused expression on her face, leaning a fist into her chin. She knew she had come here with the intention to make sure Tetra was okay, but…
“S-Sleeping?!” Tetra practically shouted, before catching herself and composing herself with a few short breaths.
“Yeah, then he, get this, walked back to the mansion himself! Can you believe Xinyi’s idea actually worked? Same guy that tried to kill me yesterday.”
“He…” Tetra trailed off, again forcing herself to compose before continuing, “well, that is good for him!”
It was a funny reaction, but Mar figured she should probably assist a little with this one too.
“You know, usually I see fellow mercs, like, seduce targets for fun. Get them off before killing them or something like a weird sick fantasy. When you first told me about your little villainous dreams, I assumed you were like that,” Mar started, but before Tetra could squirm, she quickly forced her point to continue, “...but you really do like him, don’t you?”
“I just…” Tetra couldn’t help but blush, jamming her hands into the seat between her legs, “...I thought he was cute. I thought…maybe I had a chance.”
“On a missio-”
“Shut up, shut up, I know, I know…ugh, I was being such a child…” Tetra flopped down onto the desk in front of her, “...it is fine, he thinks I am ugly anyway. He can run off with Xinyi for all I care.”
“Have you had a conversation that wasn’t a shouting match since he called you that?” Mar asked, as Tetra popped her head up immediately, “...hey, just saying. Guys will say anything after beating someone that was being an…uh, absolute bitch.”
“You really think so?”
“Can’t hurt, can it?” Mar smiled, as Tetra’s spirits began to slowly rise again.
She knew that was at the center of Tetra’s moodiness. Some of the most immature behavior she had seen in a mercenary, but perhaps that added to her charm.
“I guess I could!” Tetra shot up completely, brimming with energy suddenly. Mar could only laugh at the sudden shift in attitude.
“So can I finally ask what you were listening to?” Mar posed the question again with a raised eyebrow. And though that line took Tetra back down to Earth slightly, Mar could see that she was definitely considering answering this time.
“You know if its some Asian pop or geeky shit, I won’t judg-” Mar continued, but Tetra’s moment of thought ended.
“No no! Its…its just one of my favourite pop artists.”
As if trying to prove it wasn’t something weird, Tetra immediately turned her phone on and rotated it over, showing Mar the song she had paused on. Mar looked over, seeing the paused music video in the background showing an illustrious woman singing on a vibrant stage. She had bright orange hair fluttering back along with the lacey cloth of her costume.
“Oh, that’s Melanie Ryland, right?” Mar remarked before pushing the phone back to Tetra with her finger.
Tetra nodded excitedly, “I absolutely adore her! Her music always calms me down whenever I am feeling stressed. Though she is still rising right now, do you listen to pop often?”
“Eh, I’m not big on music. Just that Melanie is local and I worked with someone that spoke to me about it before.”
Mar still wasn’t quite sure why Tetra had such a strong reaction to her earlier when she seemed largely okay afterwards. It wasn’t really a big deal, but…
“Wasn’t she a part of a girl group in her youth before breaking out?” Mar idly commented, causing Tetra’s face to become suddenly fear struck.
“Yeah!” Tetra slammed her hands down onto the desk and stood up, “a-ny-ways, wanna go patrol or something?!”
“Wh-, I mean, sure, but…”
…What was the name of that girl group again? There were three of them in that. It was something like…like…T…Tetra…
Oh. Right. Tetragonal.
A sneaking smile creeped on Mar’s face, much to Tetra’s chagrin.
“I was always curious why your nickname seemed so much dorkier than everyone-”
“Ah shut uuuuup-!” Tetra’s face had gone completely red and her lips curled into a scowl. Mar could only giggle, as she leaned over and ruffled Tetra’s soft, braided silver hair.
…Bang!
Mar’s demeanor shifted immediately as her ear trained to the noise. It was distant, and somewhere on the first floor, but it sounded like something hitting a wall in the mansion. Hard.
“Tetra did you hear that,” Mar concernedly spoke in a hushed voice.
“Oh, sure, change the subject now,” Tetra mumbled, still looking away.
But Mar’s senses were heightened, and she had flipped the switch back into serious mode.
“I’m serious. Come, we need to go,” she urged, shaking Tetra with her tone alone enough for the embarrassed woman to realize that Mar had gone entirely tense.
“O-oh, right. I am with you.”
Mar moved for the door, cautiously scanning the empty hallway outside before stepping out and moving silently yet swiftly down the narrow way with Tetra beside her. When the pair reached the main stairwell heading downwards, Mar signaled for Tetra to stop and be silent.
From their position, the sounds of a fight were distinct, until it ceased. Then voices, one male and one female, could be heard.
“Is that Theo?” Tetra whispered to Mar, “I…can not recognize the other…”
Mar recalled the message she received, and suddenly regretted not warning everyone else earlier. She wasn’t planning to be with Tetra for that long, but those valuable minutes were still minutes too long.
Still, there was likely some kind of force here to free Theo, and there was no telling how many there could be.
“Stay close, follow my instruction,” Mar urged Tetra in a whisper before moving down the staircase.
The sight at the bottom of the stairs was something Mar was all too familiar with, but still sent a chill through her spine. Nadia, drenched in a pool of her own blood, laid out on the floor alongside Clementine. The two could only watch as a delirious Sara was kicked out the backyard door with incredible force.
“Nadia…Clementine…Sara…”
Tetra’s voice wavered, and Mar could feel that it was Tetra’s first time witnessing the deaths of her fellows. Mar wanted to hold her hand and tell her these things were common in the mercenary world, but she had to focus on the ninja-like woman speaking to Theo. There wasn’t any time to coddle Tetra if she were to focus on surviving herself.
“You were right. I…really was being stupid.”
Tetra’s voice shook as she spoke, and her tone gradually began leaving its whispering volume.
“Tetra not now,” Mar seethed, trying to hold her down. They had stealth. They could have the advantage.
But Tetra wasn’t interested in that at all.
“Well, well, well. Leaving us so soon, Theee-o?”
Tetra’s voice dropped with utter disdain and venom as she walked forward, as if possessed. Now trailing her, Mar could only reluctantly follow behind, scanning all around the area as fast as possible for any other hostile figures. On initial glance, it didn’t seem that there was anyone else but Theo and the ninja woman, but Mar was forced to only pray that this was true.
Tetra would make her own mistakes if she refused to keep her own emotions in check. Mar wanted to keep protecting her, but he tried to bury the voices of her heart.
The two groups faced off against each other, here in the open center foyer of the mansion where some had just sat, spoke, and laughed with each other. Some, surrounded by the dead and unconscious bodies of their friends.
Theo tried to still the sympathetic part of his heart that he had gained in the last few hours, trying now to see these women as his enemies again. And yet, he struggled to deny that the henchwomen had their own dreams, personalities, and behaviors. Though it was at his own expense, they just wanted to see this through to the end, just like him.
He’d humanized them in his mind, and his empathy stopped him from losing that again.
“How did it feel, Theo? Did you enjoy stabbing them through the heart after they tried to be friendly to you?” Tetra called out as she continued to slowly approach. Her voice was cold, but pained, and Theo could tell that no one else here suffered from as much emotional turmoil as Tetra was at this moment.
“I didn’t do it!” Theo argued back, but Tetra only scoffed at his pitiful attempt to talk her down. He glanced over to Chloe, hoping that she might back him up, but he spotted her hand, low and near her hip, prepared to grab one of the three kunai still on her belt.
But of course, Chloe had no reason to care about some mercenary like he did. She was only prepared to end Tetra’s life the second she stepped within range.
And it’d be an easy kill when Tetra wasn’t paying attention to her at all.
Mar noticed that too, as her eye trained on the ninja from her end. From where she was, she wouldn’t be able to shove Tetra aside in time to protect her from a thrown kunai. She would have to hope that Tetra was just aware that her own life was about to end, but with the way she carried on, Mar knew she had no idea.
Was it her fault? Tetra’s innocence led her to believe that she could crush on someone they were holding against his will, and Mar entertained the thought. She even encouraged it five minutes ago.
She really wasn’t meant to lead.
But while brooding on the thought, her eyes caught Theo’s gaze, and the two knew that they were both thinking of the same thing.
The prisoner, who had no reason to see the henchwomen as anything past disposable.
And the mercenary, who had no reason to care for the lives of any but her own.
“No matter. You will not win this time, Theo. I will not allow it!” Tetra declared.
Before Chloe made her move, Theo dashed forward suddenly, making sure that he was between Chloe and Tetra.
But taking it as an initiation to a fight, Tetra responded in turn, and stepped forward to jam her knee into Theo’s stomach when he got close enough.
Theo actually moved to protect her! Mar thought to herself, before regaining her focus. It was her turn to follow up with Theo, and aggressively dashed forward herself.
The ninja, Chloe, seeing the incoming threat turned to throw the kunai at Mar instead, who dodged by twisting her body around the flying dagger. Chloe threw a second in quick succession, which Mar just barely sidestepped too.
Before the third kunai could be released, Mar reached her target, and slammed straight into Chloe, sending both of them tumbling out and into the backyard. Despite initiating the tackle, Chloe used Mar’s forward momentum to push up against her as the pair tumbled to the floor, causing Mar to fly off her body and roll way past where Chloe landed. The mercenary taking the harder fall in the end.
Meanwhile, Theo was left paralyzed from Tetra’s blow, doubling over as Tetra tried to reach over to try and put him into a headlock. But, as his body dropped lower, he noticed Tetra left her lower half open, and drove an uppercut punch clean into her stomach in return.
“Agh! You dare?!” She roared, slamming her fist straight down into Theo’s exposed back.
He stumbled forward right into Tetra’s body, and tried his best to shrug off her pounding against his back by lunging forward and grabbing her whole body by the hip. He tried to lift her up, but Tetra thrashed violently, and caused Theo to collapse downwards instead from her weight.
Before his own head was crushed by her falling body, Theo pushed forward, making Tetra fall down onto her rear against the wooden floor instead. She looked up, still with her murderous eyes, as the pair recovered back to a neutral fighting stance.
“Aah!”
At the same time, Mar’s chest was dealt a hard blow as Chloe flung a kick before Mar could find her footing. She slammed again into the dirt below her, scraping the exposed skin of her right shoulder as she desperately tried to recover.
Chloe wasted no time in covering what little ground between them, kicking down at the ground in rapid steps as the relentless pressure made it as difficult as possible for Mar to stand back up. As Mar tried to stop the assault by snatching one of Chloe’s feet, the agent’s balance didn’t falter as her open leg leapt up to kick at Mar’s open head.
Despite the fact that Mar held one of her feet, the kick connected with enough force to knock Mar to the side again, releasing her grip as she rolled along the floor. She started to taste blood between her teeth and the pain started becoming hard to ignore.
Chloe didn’t throw the strongest strikes, but her speed and swift steps were overwhelming to Mar. It was as if the other woman glided with every step she took, and every blow came two more at seemingly the same time.
Mar bit down on her lip, trying not to panic, but the fight was dire for her. And, after seeing what happened to Nadia and Clementine, the odds that her life would be spared on a loss was…small.
Theo, on the other side, quickly found himself outmatched by his emotionally enraged opponent, suffering from blow after blow despite his best attempts to weather the attacks.
Last time, he had only defeated Tetra because he tricked her, but even then he had thought their fight beforehand was closer than this. Tetra didn’t flaunt her body at all compared to everyone else here, but she was a lot stronger than she seemed despite her small stature.
“Raaaaagh!”
And it didn’t help that she was fucking pissed this time.
Desperate to find another success in their fight, Theo tried a counter punch at an opportunity that seemed open, but as Tetra winced from the blow just below her shoulder, her arms shot out with frightening speed and caught Theo’s own before he could pull back.
Her feet edged back, and her body twisted, moving to the side while dragging Theo’s arm along with her intricate dance until he felt it pinned against his back. The pain in his bicep was immediate, and what energy Theo had left was spent trying to stop himself from just tumbling forward.
But Tetra wasn’t going to relent there. She forced his arm up where it refused to budge, then again when it wouldn’t. Every push by her sheer strength caused Theo to cry out in the agony paralyzing his whole body.
The back of his knee then took a blow from Tetra’s foot, and Theo finally felt himself tumbling forward. His arm was released, and Theo barely used his previously free arm in time to catch his fall. Gravel digging into his hand as he slammed down.
He tried to turn and flip around, but the second he did, Theo felt the hardest smash against his body, as an impact against his face sent him flying backwards. His nose cracking as the blood already began to drip before he even hit the floor.
His vision began to feel blurred, and his head couldn’t think or look straight. The clouds above swam in a hazy light, as Theo tried to adjust to the nausea he felt. But, before long, the clouds were replaced with the sight of a woman, and two hands pinned his already helpless arms to the ground.
“Heh…hehehah,” Tetra giggled almost psychotically as she pinned Theo’s battered body to the ground. Her eyes, staring down into his own, were now less murderous and more euphoric, as the expression on her face looked as if Tetra had discovered an unknown fetish. Her tongue licked the drool that started to fall from the sides of her smirking lips.
It was somehow more terrifying than her murderous expression.
“Aha, Theee-o…how much you must regret making a mockery of us…” She whispered, drawing out each word as she slammed another fist down into his face.
“I…never…” The words fell from his mouth almost automatically, but they were silenced by another fist into his face. His head jolted to the side as he still struggled to focus.
Now that he felt what it was like to be this helpless, it almost scared him to think of what the other women felt when they were defeated.
It was horrifying.
“Liar! I hope you regret every action you took today when I drag your barely breathing body to the exchange…”
Mar slammed into one of the stone pillars hard, still unable to turn around her own fight. As her own vision too started to blur, she felt a fist drive itself straight into the soft flesh of her exposed stomach.
She screamed as the surface of her belly began to red, still less wounded than the scratches of her bare shoulders decorated by pebbles and blood, or the blood dripping slowly from her mouth and nose.
Chloe slammed one more foot into Mar’s chin, knocking her whole head up as she slid pitifully down the pillar, and landed in a slumped mess at its base. She could barely keep her eyes on the final kunai that Chloe started to reach towards when…
They both heard the screaming. The unhinged taunting. It was like Mar and Chloe both suddenly became aware of the torture Theo was being put through.
Chloe took one look at Mar before turning towards the other fight, kunai fully gripped in her hand. Mar struggled onto her hands, barely pulling herself to her feet. By the time she managed this colossal feat, Chloe was already halfway to Theo and Tetra.
She wanted to scream, but her voice sounded at nothing but barely above a whisper from all the blood. She tried to stagger forward, but her legs wouldn’t carry her that fast.
Tetra’s back was completely to Chloe, and her senses were completely gone.
Mar’s eyes met Theo’s distressed own, and they both knew that this time, they would finally watch her death unfold before them both.
Chloe gripped the kunai tightly in her hand, and swung the weapon down with all her might down into Tetra’s exposed back, right where her heart was.
The dagger impacted cleanly, piercing flesh and drawing blood.
But both the flesh and blood weren't Tetra’s.
He didn’t know where the last shred of strength came from. He didn’t know why he still wanted to save the henchwoman acting completely psychotically on his body. It was like the instinct came automatically to him, but if he did it once, his head hurt too much to think about why he shouldn’t do it twice.
And so his arm forced itself from the ground, overpowering Tetra’s grip suddenly, and grabbing a fistfull of her sweater. Before Tetra could even be shocked at the sudden strength coming from her barely conscious opponent, Theo yanked Tetra’s whole body to the side with all his might.
And where her back once was half a second ago, was Theo’s arm.
Theo screamed louder than he ever had, out and up into the air. Then, silence across the battlefield.
“W-What…” Chloe staggered backwards, horrified at what she’d done and confused why Theo would save her life again.
And, to the crazed woman now in his arms, her ecstasy slowly faded, as Theo’s action dawned on her brain. The high finally came down, and her thoughts returned.
“W…Why…why…” Tetra stuttered in shock.
As the only two cohesive women stared at the dagger, Mar made her move. Having found her own burst of strength, Mar lifted a large rock from the floor and swung it at the opponent that had just successfully bested her just moments ago.
Chloe only lost her concentration for that single moment, but that was all it took for her battle to be over. Her face turned too late, and the rock struck Chloe against the side of her head.
With little more than a whimper, Chloe’s body ragdolled, and collapsed to the ground in a heap. She was already unconscious before her face even felt the touch of grass against it.
The battle was over, and Mar, too, collapsed to her knees after the final blow was dealt. She didn’t have the energy to even check if Chloe was alive or dead.
Again, did her wary eyes meet Theo’s own, as the latter started to process just what he had done.
Not only did he save the life of a henchwoman imprisoning him, but it led to the door slamming shut on his nearly guaranteed escape.
His escape was traded for Tetra.
“Why would you save me? Why?!” Tetra was almost in tears as she caught Theo’s now slumping body.
His strength was now gone too, and he almost didn’t even have the strength to feel the pain of the kunai stabbed into his arm.
“...I owed you an apology,” Theo muttered, giving a small smile up to Tetra, “...we are…even now.”
“An...apology? Oh...oh, God, what have I done.”
Her heaves could barely stop the tears from filling up her eyes, but a finger tapped on Tetra’s shoulder. When she turned around…
SLAP!
Mar’s open palm struck Tetra cleanly against her cheek.
“You learned…nothing,” Mar growled through the blood in her mouth, “do not fucking do that again.”
“I-I…” Tetra turned back to Theo, holding up his barely conscious body, “ah, t-this d-dagger! H-Hold on, I know first aid! Just…just stay…stay there!”
Tetra leapt up to her feet and dashed back to the mansion, letting the battles last two barely conscious participants sit together in silence.
“You’re crazy…you know that, right Theo?” Mar said first, coughing blood as she finished.
“Yeah. Guess so.”
The two looked at each other and finally flashed their first smiles.
I'm really enjoying the story so far and the efforts you have taken to characterize the different characters. I do hope that you keep some of the characters around such as mar and Sara. I don't really enjoy the darker stories that just kill everyone and it's just a bloodbath. I'm also a bit concerned that chloe is to OP as she has already killed 2-3 characters already. I'm hoping the Asian lady isn't dead, I really liked her. Great work so far.
I'm really enjoying the story so far and the efforts you have taken to characterize the different characters. I do hope that you keep some of the characters around such as mar and Sara. I don't really enjoy the darker stories that just kill everyone and it's just a bloodbath. I'm also a bit concerned that chloe is to OP as she has already killed 2-3 characters already. I'm hoping the Asian lady isn't dead, I really liked her. Great work so far.
This site uses cookies to help personalise content, tailor your experience and to keep you logged in if you register.
By continuing to use this site, you are consenting to our use of cookies.
