Chapter Four, A :: Good Job Guys!

[ST]

OOC: Ani here. Okay. I'm going ahead, guys! >_< Feel free to post any plot twists you want. This ST will ride with you, whatever it is >D


Everyone

At the end of Blaze's sentence, a pound coming from the corner of the room resounded.

"Quiet in there!" Amidst the darkness, there was someone standing guard outside!

[Blaze Sanaku]

Blaze jolted upright, chains rattling. There's someone right outside??

"Forget the hairpin. You guys are useless, I'm taking things into my own hands" she hissed at her teammates. Raising her voice to angry banshee level, Blaze screamed "HEY YOU!!! OUTSIDE!! I JUST GOT MY PERIOD AND I'M BLEEDING EVERYWHERE AND I NEED TO PEE REALLY BADLY. I HAVE TO PISS!!! COME IN HER AND TAKE ME TO THE BATHROOM OR I'M GONNA PISS ALL OVER THE FLOOR!!!!!"

Ah, the old 'ask the guard to take me to the bathroom and then once he unchains me, kick him in the balls and escape.' plan. It never fails Blaze reminisced. It was known fact that any male freaked out at the mention of "periods." The guard would definitely come and unchain her.

[waterlily43]

If Rayden had been harbouring any ideas of dozing off (which of course he wasn't , he was just thinking of a way out of the predicament but nothing came), it was most definitely chased away by the screeching ruckus Blaze had just made.

Period? Rayden's stomach churned at the mention of the time of the month that turned normally placid girls into Screaming Medusas. He had no idea what it'd turn Blaze into.

"Eh GUARD You better do what she says! I don't want to be in the same room with her if she starts LEAKING!" Rayden edged towards the door and yelled as loud as his lungs could manage.

[Lex]

The door swung open with alarming speed, crashing back into the wall behind it.

The silhouette of the man standing at the threshold was a sight to behold. He was tall and broad-shouldered. He must have been wearing a tight-fitting shirt or shirt with no sleeves, because the outline of his bulging biceps was plain against the light behind him, and when he turned his body only just a few degrees the light spilled across him at an angle and revealed a perfectly chiseled washboard abdomen. His hair was dark, cut short and styled perfectly with a bit of a spike toward the front. Light filtered into the room around his head in an almost angelic way and illuminated a sexy shadow of stubble along his jaw. A rich and intoxicating musk wafted off of him into their tiny cell.

"I said quiet."

The voice was husky with a bit of a gravelly edge. Maybe he was a smoker? Or maybe he was just that fucking sexy.

---

XD *stifles giggles*

[waterlily43]

Aww too bad my girlie charries aren't in this thread LMAO XD
---

Rayden cocked an eyebrow at their guard. He expected some guy with stinky breath and a nondescript face but this wasn't it. If Rayden was any less confident he'd feel threatened by the mere amount of pheremones this guy was giving off in droves, but thank goodness he had his self-esteem in a perfectly well-portioned place.

He cleared his throat.

"Hey, I don't mean to disturb your peace or whatever you hope to achieve, but seriously, you don't expect all of us to dwell in a stinky room if someone starts oozing stuff, right? Right?" He arched his neck, looking up at the guard with a mix of wide-eyed innocence and hope.

----

ugh -_-

[Hadrian D'arcell]

Hadrian stiffened when the door rammed the wall two inches away from his spot. Light finally seeped into the room and he was able to see his other teammates who were as miserably bound as him. The shadow of a man loomed on the floor. Hadrian couldn't see the person, but he could sure smell him.

Hadrian pushed himself up in a standing position as Rayden tried to lure the man into stepping further in the room.

"You're lucky the honcho's taken fancy on you lot. Here's a little something for the wailing girl." The man with a nauseating odor threw a bed pan at the base of Gemma's feet. Enjoy." He then chortled and started closing the door once again. Hadrian wouldn't let this golden opportunity pass.

"HOLY MAMA! CHECK IT! IS THIS IS A DUST CHUTE? WE CAN FINALLY GET OUT OF HERE!"

"Hah?!" Surprised by Hadrian's sudden outburst, the man stepped further into the room to find him in the corner. "If you try anything funny I'll shoot---"

"Sucker!" Hadrian sprung at the man slamming him onto the opposite wall. With his ankles and hands both cuffed, knocking the guard unconscious using his head and shoulders was the master plan. A sickening crunch was heard as the guard hit his head on the wall and Hadrian landed on the floor.

Just now... Hadrian smirked. "Heard that crunch? He's out," he haughtily said. "Now's the chance.." He pushed himself up with his knees when a shooting pain enveloped his left shoulder.

"Hyne...damned....bastard..." the guard groaned groggily, running his hand on the back of his head. He was still conscious!

"Crap..." Hadrian swallowed, bearing the pain as he struggled to get up. Don't tell me that crunch was...from my... "He's conscious!"


------
LOL Now what do we do XD

[Gemma Ridean]

_{I have not posted in ages so apologizes all around--> this is going to be looooonng!}
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Stupid, stupid, stupid!

The little hairpin fiasco was difficult enough for Gemma to tolerate, excluding the oh-so charming side commentary from Crazy and the Moron. However, it was nothing short of pitiful, the way she handled herself in said situation. Perhaps it was the oppressive darkness they were in, but she was letting her emotions get the best of her.

"Quiet in there!"

Thank Hyne. Maybe if everyone suddenly realized how asinine their comments were, they would stop shouting them out loud.

"--I HAVE TO PISS!!! COME IN HER AND TAKE ME TO THE BATHROOM OR I'M GONNA PISS ALL OVER THE FLOOR!!!!!"

That was the breaking point.

Maybe everyone else abandoned hope for picking the lock. And for her own sake, perhaps it was better for her to do alone. Like Blaze said, she heard the hairpin drop to the floor. And her ...bosom..was certainly not made of concrete.

Of course, trying to find one hairpin in the dark was nearly impossible. She was sure the pin was their only way out. But its sentimental value compelled her to recover it. It was made entirely from molten silver from the Fire Cavern, encrusted with small crystals mined from Tears Point. She had four at the beginning of the mission. They were passed down from her grandmother. Now there was only one left, and she couldn't bear to let it go.

But even after acquiring her night-vision, it was simply too dark to see anything.

She sharply jerked her head upwards at the sound of a doorknob clicking. She jumped in her skin as a door violently swung upon and for a few precious second, light seeped through the room. While she should have been using this fleeting moment to find the pin, Gemma couldn't help but linger her gaze on the tall, brooding, masculine figure in the doorway. She caught the sharp waft of sweat, alcohol, and male testosterone and for half a second, her mind was reeling in a tizzy of girlish stupidity.

But then she remembered that she was Gemma Ridean and was suddenly overcome with the desire to slap herself.

Pasting her gaze to the floor, her eyes traveled across every crack and surface of the area surround her. Shifting her weight several times, and twisting her neck as far as she could with falling over, she finally spotted what she was looking for. It was lying a foot away from her right ankle. It had fallen straight down, she must have kicked it away with all of her fidgeting. No matter, she was about to reclaim her prize.

Leaning back onto her elbows, she slid her legs forwards until they were fully outstretched. She could touch the pin with her foot, but there was no way of dragging it closer to her body without bringing it directly underneath her.

The background yelling was reaching an all time high when suddenly, rather serendipitously, a bedpan clattered loudly to the ground. Right in front of her.

She stared at it and noticed the smooth lip on the front. It looked thin enough to scoop a small object off the floor. Rather like a dust pan...

This was going to be tricky. Her arms were pinned tightly, quite painfully, to her back. So with her legs, she slid the bedpan closer to the side of her body where her hand could wrap around the hollowed out edging of the bowl.

Dear Hyne I hope this isn't used...

Throughout this whole time, she never kept the hairpin out of her line of sight. Now, together, holding the bedpan with her fingers, she inched towards the hairpin until it was sitting right in front of the "scooping" lip. With all her weight on the left side of her body, she kicked the bedpan with her heels as her index finger pushed the hairpin forwards. One last push, and the pin fell neatly into the pan, just as the door slid shut.

A stint of scuffling and grunts in the opposite corner suddenly concluded with a loud crack. Gemma shuddered to think of what had just broken.

"Heard that crunch?" Hadrian sounded triumphant. "He's out. Now's our chance--" A second 'crack' rang out. Followed by the sound of raspy, heavy wheezing. Looks like the Moron hadn't quite finished the job.

"Crap. He's conscious" proclaimed an astonished Hadrian.

"Apparently." She responded dryly, although she was secretly amused by his genuine surprise. But at least now a potential threat had been dealt with...for the most part...Anyways, she had to let the others know what she had just accomplished.

She kicked the bedpan to the center of the room.

"Now then. I don't know about you guys but I want out of these cuffs."

[Zacke]

Zacke felt the need to duck his head down a little in a flinching motion when he heard Hadrian loudly slam the large man into one side of their small metal cell. He could just imagine someone falling into him and knocking a tooth out on his skull or something.

Hadrian said something triumphant, and for a split-second Zacke was impressed with what it sounded like he'd done. Unfortunately, whatever respect Hadrian had won was immediately thereafter lost when their adversary growled came to his feet.

"He's concious!" Hadrian exclaimed.

Shit. We're all cuffed. Zacke thought, his mind racing. He could beat the hell out of any one of us without a problem. He probably will...

Gemma kicked the bedpan to the center of the cell and said something about getting out of her cuffs. The small amount of light filtering into the room through the cracked doorway spilled into the room and faintly illuminated the shiny metal object. Zacke glanced over at it, thinking quickly, There isn't time!

Before the thought even finished in his mind their enemy was upon Hadrian. The man hammered his fist into Hadrian's stomach, the force of the blow bringing bile right up into his mouth. Zacke threw himself onto his back and kicked out at the man's ankles to stop him, but both his kicks missed. It's too dark in here!!

"Get the door open!" He shouted at no one in particular, hoping someone might be closer to the door and could kick or shoulder it open.

[Lex]

"That hurt, you piece of sh--" the dark-haired man was about to lay another fist into Hadrian's gut when the aircraft's loud intercom system gave off an alarm siren in the hallway.

Boots hammered down the hall, and only a moment later there were two more men at the door. "Get out of there Donovan! Come on!" One of the men shouted into the room from the doorway, his voice full of authority. His partner peered into the cell over his shoulder and made a face. "What the fuck are you doing in here? Were you actually bringing a bedpan for the deranged menstruating banshee?" He let out a laugh. "Don, you are just stupid as hell."

The man they called 'Donovan' let go of Hadrian, turning for the doorway. He grabbed the knob and swung it open violently so it slammed against the wall in just the way it had when he'd made his first appearance. He silently shouldered past the two men on his way out.

One of the men flipped on the light, momentarily blinding everyone in the room. Both men stood wearing dark black suits, each holding automatic guns in one hand.

"Alright kids," The one standing further back stepped forward, and his gravely and boyish voice was immediately recognizable to the team of SeeDs. This had to be the hacker Hadrian had gone up against down at DotNA Headquarters. He was relatively small-framed in person, sporting neatly combed albeit longish blond hair and a clean-shaven young face.

He smirked. "The plane is going to land in just a few minutes, and when that happens I will have my colleagues escort you all outside. An exchange is going to take place and you are all going to cooperate, got it?" He shifted his weight, motioning with his gun as he spoke. "I'm a fair man. As long as no harm comes to me and mine, no harm will come to yours. Cooperate and you will all be safely returned to your Master."

He said the last word with obvious contempt, and then stepped away from the threshold and shut the door, leaving them with the light on and the bedpan in the center of the room.

[Blaze Sanaku]

"HOLY MAMA! CHECK IT! IS THIS IS A DUST CHUTE? WE CAN FINALLY GET OUT OF HERE!" ROTFLMAO Hadrian is mAH BOY *huggles* XDDDDD

---

The bright light blinded Blaze and made her head ring uncomfortably. She was unbelievably pissed (no pun intended), her peeing plan didn't work!

Well, at least Hadrian got punched in the stomach.

"An exchange?" Blaze voiced out loud. "For what? Who would want us?"

---

Sorry about the short post, I'm just heading out the door >_<!

[Zacke]

"Well, at least Hadrian got punched in the stomach." ahahaha XD

---

Zacke blinked slowly, trying to get his eyes to adjust to the harsh light with the least amount of pain possible.

"Who knows," he muttered. His gaze shifted to Hadrian, who sat slumped against the wall. He was still conscious and didn't seem to be in critical condition, but his face was pretty pale. He sure looked like he'd taken one to the gut. "You alright?" He asked. Much as the hacker guy irritated him, he felt obligated as a teammate to be at least a little concerned.

[Lex]

I'm taking a few liberties with the story here I guess, just for the sake of moving us along. I hope nobody minds? >_< I just want to get us out of this boring airship already. -_-

---

The door opened again before anyone else had much of a chance to speak. A few men came into the room; large men in big dark combat boots, black cargo pants and black long-sleeved shirts. They all wore black ski masks as well. It was an informal and rather cheesy getup, but it seemed to be their uniform -- whoever these men were. They hoisted the members of the SeeD team up from their positions on the ground and held them steady by their arms as they half-walked and half-carried them out of the cell and into the hall. There were more of the dark-dressed men waiting in the hall, and by the time the team had been transported from their cell they each had a man gripping each of their arms and practically carrying them down the hall.

With all of them cuffed, they didn't have much of a choice but to cooperate as they were lead down the corridor and into the cabin of the aircraft. It was a relatively small model, and obviously not of SeeD make. Anyone very familiar with aircrafts might recognize it as a Second Sorceress War-era Dolletian make.

They were lead down a short flight of stairs and out onto a wide expanse of grassy fields and farmland. The silhouette of a lush forest traced the far-off horizon against the orange glow of the setting sun. They had landed somewhere close to Winhill, perhaps? Albeit the town itself was not in sight.

Resting upon the grassland not fifty feet from where they grouped together was the sleek and shining form of an Estharian military airship. It crouched low and long like a massive silver grasshopper. In front of the airship a handful of armed Estharian soldiers stood with rigid bodies and guns poised. In the middle of their numbers there was one unit slowly moving forward, towing with them a stumbling female hostage with her head bent low and long dark hair that spilled over her shoulders and shielded her face.

Once they'd approached within twenty feet the Estharian soldiers released her. She fell to her knees immediately, her ankles and wrists cuffed in the same manner as the SeeD team.

The men in masks that held the SeeDs almost instantly released their captives and closed in on the dark haired woman. An instant before she was surrounded, she lifted her face and her hair fell away, and some of the SeeD team members may have gotten a look at who saw was.

Waverly Jong.

The Estharian soldiers rushed forward and came to the sides of the SeeD, ushering them away from the masked men and back toward their own airship. The trade had been quick and clean; no one on either side had even uttered a single word. Waverly was taken aboard the old Dolletian ship and the SeeDs were lead aboard the Estharian model.

Once they had been helped into the cabin, a few of the soldiers removed their helmets and began silently working with lockpicks at removing the SeeDs' handcuffs.

"Quite a web you'd gotten yourselves tangled in."

The voice of a man carried out across rows of seats from the far end of the cabin. The voice belonged to a man some of the SeeDs might recognize as the soft-spoken, aloof and fabulously wealthy son of the well-known Estharian Coroniere family -- Altair.

[Gemma Ridean]

"Thank you." Gemma murmured to the now unmasked Estharian soldier who was unpicking the cuffs from her wrists and ankles. She stared at the young soldier's face as he went about his work. She had long become accustomed to the alien metal suits...it was strange to see a human face underneath all of the armor. Finally able to move her limbs freely, she took a moment to survey the scabs forming over the nasty scrapes on her knees and elbows. Call it a final gift from her captor. From the airship to the field where the exchange took place, the dumb oaf tripped four, five times on an untied shoelace, pulling her down with him in the process.

The exchange....5 SeeDs for one person? It wasn't exactly flattering. And this person... She had hardly witnessed any part of the negotiation before the trade off--her eyes being covered for most of the time. It wasn't until she was pushed into the arms of the Estharian military that she could look and see who it was that was worth all of their lives. It was a woman, that was as much as she knew. A woman with flowing, long raven hair that covered her face as she fled past them. She remembered someone else who had that kind of hair...

"Waverly---" She began to whisper.

"Quite a web you'd gotten yourselves tangled in."

Gemma whipped her head around. Standing at the end of the corridor was a man elegantly dressed in a dark blue suit. A smooth-shaven face, gray eyes, and pale blonde hair...there was a familiar softness surrounding his features.

And on the right lapel of his jacket...

The Coroniere crest

Abruptly, she stood up.

"A-Altair? What are you doing here?"

[Lex]

A small, self-satisfied kind of smile tugged at the corner of his lips when Gemma stood and said his name in recognition.

"Well, I'm galloping in on my white horse, Ms. Ridean," He responded, gesturing with one hand around at the interior of the airship. "Wouldn't it seem?" The smile grew a little as he moved down the aisle between rows of seats, his saunter carrying a graceful kind of confidence.

He slowed as he approached the group of them. His eyes lingered on Gemma a moment before scanning the faces of the rest of them. The smile faded, his demeanor becoming more business-like.

"I'll try to explain my intervention here as quickly as possible. There is talk of a new Sorceress all over live news. Apparently she is in Timber. The city is in chaos." He shrugged. "With Adel dead, I suppose one should expect such rumors to surface. But anyone who is well-informed knows this woman must be a fake, because Rinoa Leonhart absorbed Adel's powers. So it would seem the uproar is being caused by a bunch of gullible idiot citizens. No big deal, right?

"Well, consider this; apparently Leonhart's got an undercover SeeD informant in Timber telling him that while this so-called Sorceress preaches to her choir of village morons, the Defenders are fleeing their Headquarters like bees out of a disturbed hive." He nodded his head toward the door. "I'm sure some of you recognized Queen Bee out there -- she was actually the first one to ditch the nest, honorable creature that she is." He spoke the word with sarcastic disdain.

"She attempted access to Esthar -- to hide out, I assume -- but I guess she didn't cover her tracks well enough. I have informants of my own, and she was quickly apprehended at the city gates, along with her entourage." He smirked.

"I was in the process of turning her over to SeeD custody -- Hyne knows I don't want to deal with the hassle of her -- when Leonhart suggested himself that she be used for bribe material in getting you all back safely. I'm not sure how he knew you had been captured, I suppose you might ask him that yourselves. Anyway, wise man, not a bad deal if you ask me... He knew those men would accept the offer, her pack of fools would follow her to the ends of the Earth if only to jump off of it themselves."

He sighed, signifying the near end of his explanation. "As you probably expect, this flight stops next in Balamb. I'll return you to the Nobleman, and from there you can meet with your Headmaster or do as you like."

[Zacke]

Who was she? The dark-haired woman... He wondered, glancing over his shoulder absently at the Estharian soldier behind him working on his cuffs. She must be affiliated with DotNA... Zacke had never come into contact with Waverly Jong.

He felt a small wash of relief as the cuffs broke away from his wrists and he could move his arms freely and comfortably to the front of his torso. He mumbled a thank-you to the soldier before the soldier moved away.

"A-Altair?"

The tone of Gemma's voice caught his attention, and he lifted his head and turned it to see who she was speaking to. Zacke's eyes lingered on the man named 'Altair' as he approached them. Umm, who are you? He wanted to say, but realized very soon after the thought that he had been in the presence of this man before. Altair... Coroniere? Brooke's brother?

Altair's eyes lingered on Gemma in an odd way that made Zacke wonder if anyone had noticed but him. He resisted the urge to turn to Blaze and arch an eyebrow, and instead willed himself to stop paying attention to trivial things like lingering looks and pay more attention to what was actually being said here.

Another Sorceress?

Wouldn't that be nice. But this Altair guy was right; the idea that another Sorceress could now be running amok was too improbable to seriously consider. Rinoa had absorbed Adel's power as a Sorceress and used it to heal Reese. Right? Something like that.

So DotNA is abandoning home base... Despite the improbability that this so-called Sorceress in Timber was real, he couldn't help but think that the two scenarios might be connected somehow. Why would DotNA suddenly pack up and leave in such a rush? Maybe the team that went into the DotNA lab knows more...

Zacke struggled to follow as Altair prattled on in his slightly smug way. He seemed to be pretty proud of capturing that dark-haired woman and the way he referred to her implied that she was some type of leader. A leadership figure in DotNA? Five lives for just one... She must be pretty damn special to those people.

"So Leonhart basically gave up this high-profile hostage in order to free us?" Zacke spoke out when Altair finished. "Heh," He glanced at the rest of his team. "You know he's not going to be in a great mood when we get back."