Seth listened carefully as he received a transmission from Jason. David was holding his breath.
Seth frowned in concentration as he tried to make out the fuzzy voice on the other end. Finally, he flipped the switch on his belt and cut the transmission.
"Well…?" David asked as he let out his breath. Seth’s expression was not very encouraging.
Seth sighed deeply before looking up at the other boy. "They’ve got her!" He cried.
David breathed a sigh of relief. "Then let’s get out of here." He suggested.
"Yeah, Jason sent me a map with the route to the hanger marked on it. It shouldn’t be too hard to get there now."
"Thank God…" David groaned. He followed Seth as they started towards the hanger.
~~~
"OK, Saber, I think you have some explaining to do." Brittney growled as they caught up with the stoic teen. Saber hardly even glanced at her.
"Didn’t you hear me?" she demanded. "I want to know what’s going on! If you’re not with the Matatara, then who are you?"
Saber stopped and looked down at her, and Brittney shifted uncomfortably under his gaze.
"My name is Saber Trong, I am a representative of the guerrilla armed group known as Averis."
"So…you’re not with the Matatara?" Jason asked. He shook his head and started walking again.
The pair, however, were not about to leave him alone. "Aren’t armaments outside the Preventors illegal?"
"Of course," Saber answered. "That’s why you’ve never heard of us before."
Jason sighed and tried to keep up with Saber’s quick steps.
He looked at Helen, who seemed to be oblivious to everything that was happening around her. She was still clutching Saber’s shirt, shivering a bit. Blood was dripping from her jaw and her eye was swelling. Other than some obvious emotional trauma, she seemed to be fine.
He touched Saber’s shoulder and stopped him.
"Is she…I mean, will you let me take her?" He asked.
Saber studied Jason and considered this for a moment. "Very well," He said finally. He carefully passed Helen over to Jason.
"But you have to keep up." He warned.
Jason nodded. He took Helen and held her tight. It was the least he could do for her, after failing her the way he did. Helen seemed confused at first as Jason took her, but she soon realised who it was and grabbed hold of him. She flung her arms around his neck and buried her face in the crook of his neck. Her breath tickled his throat, but Jason ignored it.
"I’m sorry, Helen," He whispered as he took off after Saber.
Brittney watched the exchange curiously. Her eyes narrowed when Jason took Helen and she quickly latched onto him. Trying to be patient and understand things from Helen’s perspective, she stuffed her hands in her pockets and followed them.
~~~
"Get up you idiot!" Cassius hissed. She kicked Jeff in the ribs and glared down at him.
Jeff moaned and looked up at Cassius.
"Cassy? What the hell…?"
"Yeah, what the hell indeed! I can’t believe you let her get away!"
"I’m sorry Cassy, but we can still catch them." He pouted.
Cassius rubbed her temples as a headache threatened to make her bad day even worse. "This is all your fault! If you hadn’t insisted on being such a pervert…" She broke off with a growl of frustration. "Put some clothes on, you idiot! We are not going to let them get away!" She turned on her heel and stormed off, silver locks bouncing behind her.
~~~
"This is it," Saber said as he approached a large steel door. He pulled out an access card from his pocket and swiped it through the lock mechanism. The lock beeped and the door slid open.
"Come on," He led the way inside and scanned the room before moving towards a shuttle.
"Stop where you are!" A voice commanded. It echoed off the wall, making it impossible to tell where it was coming from.
The teens all stopped and looked around, trying to find the source of the voice.
Matatara soldiers swarmed in from all the entrances and emerged from behind mobile suits and shuttles.
Saber and Brittney raised their hands in the air, but Jason was unable to.
"You didn’t honestly think you could get away with kidnapping Miss Cassius’ prisoner, did you?" A cynical looking man stepped forward from the group.
"You didn’t think we’d just let you take one of our top pilots, did you?" Jason snapped back, mocking him.
The man’s smirk fell and was replaced with a deep frown. "You’d better watch your mouth you little brat." He hissed.
"Or what?" Jason retorted angrily.
"Jason…" Brittney warned. Jason hardly paid any attention to her.
The man sighed as he walked up to Jason and looked at Helen in his arms.
"I can see why Lt. Chinambu was so insistent on having her." The man remarked as he brushed back a loose strand of Helen’s hair. She shivered and pulled herself closer to Jason.
"What a lovely specimen,"
Jason pulled back, "Don’t touch her you creep."
The man glared and pulled back his fist, winding up to punch Jason.
"That’s quite enough!"
All faces turned towards the main entrance. Cassius herself stood in the doorway. Jeff was at her right side, fully clothed again, and behind them was a swarm of Matatara soldiers.
"Back off, Jacobs." She snapped. She walked up to Jason and Helen and studied them. "Well, this is interesting." She said thoughtfully.
Jason noticed that she was a lot shorter than he would have expected. Helen slowly opened her eyes and glared at Cassius. "Fucking bitch," she growled. "Where are…" She paused to catch her breath, "Where are the others?"
"Would you like to see them?" Cassius grinned, "Take them and put them in the holding cell with the others." She commanded. "But not this girl, leave her to me." She looked down at Helen and laughed.
"Wha…no!" Jason cried he tried to back away from the approaching soldiers, but there were far too many of them.
Jacobs managed to punch Jason and he dropped Helen on the ground. She pushed herself up on her hands, clutching the blanket around her. She glared murderously at her captors.
Jason, Saber, and Brittney were herded off down the hall, and Helen was left lying and the cold metal floor.
"What are you going to do to me…?" Helen gasped. Her ordeal had left her short of breath, and still weak from the drugs.
Jeff stepped up beside Cassius and grinned. "I always get what I want." He told her evenly.
Helen’s eyes widened, "No…!"
~~~
"Let us out! Open this door right now!" Jason screamed as he launched his body at the reinforced door to the small cell.
"Jason…I don’t think that’s going to work…" Seth said cautiously.
Jason turned on him, "So you’re just going to give up let that freak do whatever he wants to Helen?"
Seth shrank back.
"Really Jason, we should be thinking. There’s no use in throwing yourself against a wall." Brittney rolled her eyes.
Jason sighed and sank down the wall. He buried his face in his hands in despair.
"Stop whining," Saber snapped. He glared at the group and turned to what he was doing in the corner.
"What are you doing over there, Saber?" Indigo wondered. She leaned over on her hands and studied his work.
"I’m trying to get us out of here, but the rest of you are too busy whining." He snapped.
"How are you going to get us out?" Joel snapped. Indigo glared at him, but he didn’t care.
"Every fortress has its weakness, we just have to find it." Saber explained.
"Hn," Jason snorted. He sat against the cold stone wall and dropped his face into his hands.
Brittney rolled her eyes and dropped onto the bed next to her brother. She stared at the door for a long time, until it looked like it was moving. She was a little surprised and rubbed her eyes, thinking it was just a trick. But when she looked again, the door was definitely moving. It looked almost as if it were made of thousands of crawling bugs.
"Seth…? Do you…" She froze when the door began to break apart. From off the door came thousands of three-inch long cockroaches.
Brittney’s eyes widened and she jumped off the bed and screamed.
"What? What is it, Brit?" Jason asked as he looked up.
"The door!" She shrieked. The bugs began to crawl all over her; she could feel them on her skin.
"It’s a vision created by Cassius," Saber observed. "Brittney! You have to fight it!"
She shut her eyes tightly and fell to the ground. When she opened them again, the cockroaches were gone.
"Brit, are you OK?" Seth asked as he placed a comforting hand on her back. There were tears in her eyes, but she managed not to shed them. "Get me out of here," She said lowly, "Now."
~~~
"Well guys, it looks like we’re going to have to attempt a rescue mission." Duo sighed as he tapped his fingers on the desk.
"What do you mean, Duo?" Hilde wondered.
"The kids are in a bit of trouble, their transmissions have been cut."
Hilde cursed under her breath; "I’ll go and get Noin." She sighed.
~~~
"I’m not sure what I can tell you," The Doctor sighed, "There’s nothing I can try and match your DNA to."
"Yes there is!" The young girl insisted. "What about the hair from my mother?"
The doctor shook his head. "I’m not that kind of doctor. You’ll have to take it to a better lab. There’s a very good one in New York City. The only problem is…"
"Yes!"
"Well, it costs a lot of money, unless you’re working with the police."
"Well…how much, would you say?"
"A good couple hundred dollars, I’m afraid."
The girl sighed and her face dropped. How was she going to find a couple hundred dollars? "I’ll come up with something, thank you doctor."
"No problem," The doctor smiled as he watched her leave.
~~~
Jeff smirked to himself as he once again found himself straddling Helen.
"This time no one’s going to stop me." He told her harshly.
Cassius, who was standing behind him, smirked as well. "And you have me to thank, Jeff. Don’t forget."
"Yeah, yeah," Jeff waved at her to leave, "I can handle this by myself this time."
Helen, who was waking up from the drugs, glared at him. This time she would be able to defend herself. Her muscles felt awake once again.
"Well, if you’re so confident, I’ll leave you alone." She turned to leave when…
"Hold it!" Cassius froze on the spot and spun around to look down the hall. Her eyes widened,
"You! How did you get here?"
Helen heard the commotion, and Jeff looked up to see what was going on.
Helen took that time to shove him off of her and kick him in the head. He grunted and fell to the ground. Helen quickly grabbed his jacket and the blanket and then picked up Jeff’s pants from the ground.
Cassius looked slightly frightened and she glanced at Jeff before she backed off. Helen glanced up in time to see her father rush in.
"Helen!" He looked at her attire and paled. "Are you OK? What happened?" He grabbed her and hugged her tightly.
"I’m fine dad," Helen answered shakily, she returned his hug with force. Meanwhile, the other former pilots were backing Cassius up against a wall.
Heero raised a gun to her forehead.
"Hold on a minute, fools. You can’t kill me."
"And why not?" Heero snorted.
"This entire place is a labyrinth, you’ll never find anything without me." Cassius answered cockily.
"Fine then, take us to the others,"
"Or else what…?"
"Or else we’ll kill you."
"Hn, and then what will you do?"
"Hack into your computer databases." Heero replied with a shrug. "On second thought…" He raised the gun again.
"Fine! I’ll take you there." Cassius grumbled.
"Good," He poked at Cassius with the gun and she began to walk. But soon, however, Cassius’ bodyguards appeared and open fired on the group. Cassius took that time to punch Heero in the face. Heero stumbled backwards and Cassius ran off.
"Crap," Heero started after her, but Wufei stopped him. "This place is a maze, you’ll never catch her."
Heero seethed, but Wufei was right. "Quatre…"
"Already on it," Quatre answered. He pulled up maps and routes faster than Heero could tell him to hurry up.
"Got it, let’s go." He got up and led the way towards the holding cells.
~~~
They had been inside the cold cell for hours before they heard anything from outside. Brittney was still skittish about her vision, so she nearly jumped out of her skin when there was a pounding on the door.
All heads turned to the doorway, and they prepared themselves for the worst.
But they were very surprised when they saw none other than Helen silhouetted against the light of the hallway.
"Helen!" Jason gasped; he got up and ran for her. She was wearing a Matatara jacket and pants, and nothing else. Most of her hair was falling out of her braid. Her face was bruised, and she looked so tired, still, she managed to retain her strength.
"Are you ok? What happened?" Jason asked hurriedly as he threw his arms around her.
"Not now Jason," Helen hissed. "We need to get out of here."
"Right," He agreed. The kids all got up and followed her out.
"Hey dad, what are you guys doing here?" Indigo asked as she saw her father standing behind Helen, along with the other former Gundam pilots.
"It looked like you needed some help." Trowa replied.
Indigo grinned and accepted a weapon from him.
"I’m so glad we’re leaving."
"Hey, hold on," Duo interrupted, "What is he doing here?" He pointed accusingly at Saber.
"Relax dad," Helen sighed. "He’s OK."
Saber nodded and led the way to the hanger.
"We didn’t catch Cassius," Quatre sighed.
"We’ll get her next time,"
