Madness!

Lena Marr looked up from where she fell but only to see what appeared to be molten lava above her head. She felt the unbearable heat and smelled burning flesh, wondering what that was all about, when the room she was in was suddenly filling with green gas. As she fell to the ground, holding her breath for as long as she could but getting woozy as she was eventually succumbing to its effects, she saw with her peripheral vision Broderick Smythe enter the room from a secret door. Brody was still wearing the ridiculous medieval wizard outfit, complete with fake white beard, but what alarmed her was the Olmec control rod he carried in his skinny right white hand.

"I know you wanted to stick something in me Brody, but I didn't think it was that thing," Muttered Lena as her long lashed sky blue eyes began to flutter shut, adding, "I am so going to hurt you when I wake up if - "

Lena's threat remained unfinished as Brody inserted the rod into her neck, effectively making her his physical slave, then he blew a bubble from the bubble gum in his mouth, exclaiming with a lopsided grin, "I promised them Amazons' ire, but I bet they didn't know the noun was plural! Bwa HA ha!"

"Up to the elbow in blood?" Lu said between the bursts she delivered into the hallway. As Chase started to shoot his Thunder, he used the moment to reload her Havoc AR.

"Nice shooting Chase", she complimented, seeing his performance with his light machine gun. She was never good with light machine guns. She could handle heavy explosive-shooting weapons like detonators or rocket launchers, but she felt that having a weapon that is heavy and has a high recoil and high rate of fire was too much for her. When dealing with machine guns, she preferred them stationed on a turret.

"By the way, have you found your girlfriend among those Indogenes? I think I'm going to free them from those control rods anyway, before someone sent them another command. Keep us safe and clean the path to the exit for us if you can."

With that said, she let her Decoy run back to the group of Indogenes, and took the time to shoot another couple of bursts at Inquisitors. Then she planted an ammo spike for Chase and switched places with her Decoy which managed to reach the group by that time.



She didn't know how the enslaved Indogenes would react to her actions to free them, so she didn't say any warnings to them before she jumped to one of the Indogenes, covered her mouth and yanked the rod out of her neck.

"Okay miss, don't know your name, let's get acquainted later, now you help me free others so we do it as fast as possible before anyone's got the idea on what's going on", she whispered to her. Then she released her grip and jumped to another Indogene, hoping the now free one will do the same. She still had the flash grenade ready in case anyone of them had any objections on getting their freedom back.

Just as the team crossed to the far side of the lava pit, Sandy woke up as Volodja laid her down of the floor. She sat up and yawned, about to ask what she missed and then she remembered. Everything! All the things she said! All the things she did!

As Sandy stood up, someone handed her SMG to her and she clutched it like a small girl clutches her doll after her mother catches her with her hand in the cookie jar, stuttering an apology, "I - I - I am SO sorry about all that Commander Batman, Mister Lestrange - it was SO unprofessional of me - I don't know what came over me," She then turned to Volodja with wide blue eyes and a mortified look, exclaiming, "You must be SO embarrassed by my behavior - you being the perfect gentleman and me being anything but a lady back there, I am SO fuc - I mean I am SO sorry Volodja, can you ever forgive me?"

Before Volodja could answer, a hellbug Monarch came up over a ramp in the hallway in front of them, or at least it looked like a Monarch; for in fact it was hundreds of Olmec flying spheres in perfect formation to appear like a Monarch, until they disengaged to fire their laser beams at the team.

Iri noticed the Irathient coming at her, witnessing the other Indogenes being freed from their control rods. She had waited for this, though her body tried to deny herself of it.

“There’s no need for this,” the words escaped from her mouth, the control rod’s last ditch efforts to stave off any help. “Everything is f-“

It was at that moment that the woman grabbed her, spun her around and pulled her into a bear hug, tight enough to make it difficult for her to breathe. She felt her fingers wrapping around the control rod and pull, the pain surging through her neck until it came free of her. She inhaled sharply and dropped to her knees. Iri finally caught her breath, feeling as if it had been a century since she last had it.

“Hallelujah,” was the word that escaped her lips at that moment.

Eren’s hand found her shoulder, her helping Iri back up to her feet.

“I guess we won’t be spooning tonight after all,” Eren told her.

Iri escorted Eren and a couple of others out of the way so that they’d be clear of the battle, before moving up to Chase.

“Hello, my love,” she told him as she unzipped his weapon’s cache.

She dug around until she found her Wolfhound, and preceded to kneel around him and participate in the barrage of gun fire, hoping to keep the enemy at bay. It felt right to be next to Chase once more, but this time, she was actually doing better at holding the enemy off than she did after the Challenger crashed. Chase pushed her back as he leaned back to avoid weapon’s fire. He looked at her for a moment, Iri registering something in his eyes that she couldn’t place, something sad and creepy.

“Lu, hurry it up,” Chase told the Irathient. “We need to destroy that terraspire before it can become active.”

“Destroy it?” Lu seem surprised by Chase’s comment. “You didn’t say anything about destroy it! The people of Red Deer need it.”

“Well, how else are we going to stop Lady from using it, wishing upon a star?” Chase snapped back.

Lu finished removing the control rods, heading back to the other side of the door across the way from them.

“Without that terraspire, it could cause a collapse of Red Deer’s economy. The research team could use it to produce new upgrades, medical equipment and more. They NEED it functioning!”

It took Iri a moment to process the information being shared between the Arkhunters, her realizing what she had to do.

“I can disable it,” Iri voiced out her statement.

This caught Chase by surprised, him looking at her as he continued to hold her back from the line of fire.

“It’s really simple,” she continued. “Pull the Ark Matrix out, and the terraspire cannot do the damage that Lady intends to do with it. It may not permanently stop her, but it may stall her plan out long enough for Belle and the others to put a stop to her.”

“I’ll do it,” Chase told Lu. “You get her and the others out of here.”

“That won’t work, Chase. First of all, in order to make sure the terraspire isn’t damaged, you need diagnostic implants, which I happen to have. Another thing I have that you don’t are hands small enough to get into the housing and remove the part without having to rip the machine apart to get it. I HAVE to go. Besides, I know where the terraspire chamber is.”

She could see the look in Chase’s eyes, concern mixed worry. Iri recalled back to just a short while ago, when he had convinced her to go with him to Freedom. He was worried that something bad might happened to her. She placed her hand on his shoulder.

“We can do this,” she assured him. “You and I, together.”

Chase turned away to peek carefully around the door to see how much opposition was there. She knew he was concerned, but she knew she had to help in stopping it. The whole situation was partly her fault, and she knew she needed atone for her actions. Chase looked back over at Lu.

“You okay with this?” he asked.

The Irath nodded. He turned back to Iri.

“Stay behind me, no matter what,” Chase told her. “We’ll use the cloak to get past them and get to the chamber.”

Chase pulled off his shield, digging into his bag to retrieve several others. He handed them off to Eren.

“That should be enough, one for the each of you,” he said. “Better to have them and not need them than not have them and do.”

“You’re going through them without a shield?” Lu asked. “Must be rather difficult moving with a pair of stones that big.”

Chase shrugged and smirked, putting an arm around Iri’s waist and another under her legs, sweeping her off her feet. She had to put an arm around his shoulder to keep the weight distributed between his arms. Iri quickly checked the magazine in the Wolfhound, preceding to reload it before tucking it tightly between his chest and hers.

“There’s some chafing once in a while,” Chase replied back. “Here we go. McCoy, do it!”

Engaging Cloak now, McCoy responded.

Iri wrapped her arms around Chase’s neck tight as they slipped into temporary invisibility. Iri could hear Lu firing off rounds as a means of distracting the enemy. Chase hung along the wall, keeping as close to the shadows as he could so that the bending of light wouldn’t catch any of the opposition’s attention. Iri could see the mouth of the hallway they needed to head down.

“Take this right,” she whispered into his ear.

He followed her instruction, finally getting clear of the fight and a ways down before the cloak wore off. Chase sat Iri down on her feet. In her time of knowing him, she could only recall one other time he had carried her, and it was the day Chase’s father gave his life to save hers. She had twisted her ankle while running, and couldn’t walk on it, and Chase had been the one who carried her to his roller. Though this time was through necessity, she found it slightly romantic.

“Let’s go,” he mouthed quietly to her so that there wasn’t a chance of any noises from them to catch attention.

She grasped her Wolfhound, motioning to move forward with her as she took the lead.

Iri hung back and waited for Chase to give her the signal to move forward into the terraspire chamber after checking it. He motioned for her to following along, and she stuck close to him as they approached the terraspire. She picked up one of the tools from a nearby case, beginning to work on getting the housing open as Chase kept his guard up with the Thunder ready to strike.

“Once I get the housing open, it should be easy for me to get my hand into the terraspire to remove the Ark Matrix,” she explained to him. “We’ll put it in your weapon’s bag and take it with us to Red Deer. There’s a chance it might stop Lady’s plan, though temporarily.”

“Hopefully, it’ll be long enough for Belle and the others long enough to come to their senses and do what they should have.”

Iri switched the diagnostic mode on her eye implants, allowing her to get a view inside the terraspire’s inner workings through the shell. She finally got the panel off to allow for her to reach into the device. She felt around, her eyes trying to guide her hand to the Ark Matrix component. Iri couldn’t help but think about doctors helping a pregnant woman deliver a newborn at that moment, though she never really had to help Doctor Peters in such a procedure.

“You know what we should do after this whole situation’s resolved?” Iri told him. “We should go back to Freedom. I know you don’t remember the place, but I think it’d be good for us. Give you time to cool off, reconnect with your past. I can reintroduce you to your friends. Maybe we can stay at the Delilah’s Sisters’ hotel, eat every meal at Coopers, get a drink at the Watering Hole and catch a couple of movies at the library. Wouldn’t that be nice?”

Chase didn’t respond to her. Iri peered over her shoulder, Chase still keeping his focus on the door and the Thunder aimed ahead of him.

“Wouldn’t it?”

He turned his head to look at her a moment before turning back.

“Let’s get this done,” he told her.

She could sense the hesitation in him. Iri was worried that he was heading out too far to come back from whatever horror he was turning into. She didn’t want him to be a monster, as there were already its fair share in the world. The world needed kind people like Chase, like Lu, like Belle Starr, Taffer, Vo and all those who fought to do what was right and was the last light of hope in a world always one hour away on the verge of insanity. She couldn’t bare the thought of losing him to that madness, of him becoming too far gone to be salvaged.

The thought of Freedom was a promising vacation. Everything she suggested, she really wanted to do and to do with him. Get away from the Bay, get away from the insanity and try to bring Chase back to someplace where she knew that they’d be safe and things could be somewhat normal enough to help him from going down the dark path he was walking on. She had finally gotten her arm in and bent upward to be able to reach the Ark Matrix located underneath the Arkcore and its battery. With two of her fingers, she managed to turn the component a quarter of the way left before it came off and slid completely into her hand.

“I’ve got it!” she said, exhilarated by completing the task.

She carefully pulled her arm back out, keeping ahold of the Ark Matrix in her palm. She finally removed her hand from the housing, having a look at the piece, with what appeared to be a long rectangular neck, with small wings coming off the side and a middle section with a circular opening. Iri moved over to Chase, unzipping the weapon’s bag and placing it inside amongst the cache. Iri took a moment to close and secure the panel on the housing once more, so that no sign of tampering was noticeable. She had never felt so much accomplishment in throwing a wrench into the clockwork of Lady Christianna’s plan.

Castithans always underestimate Indogenes, Iri couldn’t resist herself from thinking with a small smirk forming.

“Mission accomplished,” she told him, catching his attention. “When they go to switch it on, it’ll attempt to boot up and then switch itself off, no matter how many times they try it.”

She came around in front of him. Iri felt so much relief at that moment, her throwing her arms around his neck and her face in his shoulder. Her human tensed up for a moment before finally relaxing. She could feel the cool metal of his mechanical hand on the back of her neck. It was only a few seconds, it feeling like minutes. A moment of peaceful bliss and hope.

The gunshot rung out, slicing through the silence. Iri felt the impact against the back of her head, the force rather strong. As she slipped into darkness, her brain attempted a thought before succumbing to it.

Chase, I lov...

At the Iron Demon Ranch, where her Ark Hunter's clan, Team Evolution, used to hang their collective hat, Lady Christianna used to watch the clan founder, Somedude, carefully make a house of cards as he drank. Inevitabley, he would drink too much, knock it over, and go into a drunken tirade about how unfair the game was. At the time, Lady was never sure if he was referring about the card game he was playing with gravity or the game of life, but today she was positive it was Life he was angry about.

Lady could feel her master plan folding like Somedude's house of cards. She could feel the cold hand of Fate at the nape of her chalk white neck, as card by card of her plan fell, and could almost hear Fate laughing at her. If Fate could talk, Lady was sure it would taunt, "You dare to think you are somebody? You are a nobody! You were born a nobody! You will die a nobody! And nothing you are or have done will be remembered even the day after you die!"

Lady bit her lower lip, her young face twisting in indecision as her wide pink eyes stared for the millionth time at the large red button fixed on the arm of her throne of skulls. She feared all had gone wrong in Edmonton, for Inquisitor Ganger had not reported that the spire was online yet, and he should have by now if he had been successful. Brody had just reported that the Monarch was down, which meant that only her Amazons were left between her and her probably vengeful former team mates. Lady had tried to make Erika, Iri and even Belle understand the great things she was trying to do here, yet they all refused to understand, either seeing her as either misguided, foolish of both, and all of them treated her as a child.

Lady's pink eyes narrowed and her thin lips turned to a pout, as she muttered, "I am NOT a child! I am seventeen years old and I am going to save the world whether anyone wants me to or not!" Then said into her hailer, "Brody, move the Amazons forward to engage and subdue the enemy."

Lady reached next to her throne, picking up her Crimefighter shotgun and putting it across her small lap as she blew a large bubble with the gum in her mouth, popping it loudly then saying  out loud to herself, "If they want me to be the villain of the piece, than I'll be the villain of the piece! So be it! Bwa HA ha!"