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"Alternative Directions: Options "Written By: Karina Disclaimer: I don't own Gundam Wing or the lovely
boys and their girls in the series. Wish I did. Please don't sue me.
I haven't even got a brass razoo to give you. Rating: Deffinately PG in Australia, at the moment,
but probably safer to say R for later chapters. Not sure about international
ratings Warnings: It will be 6x2, even though it does
not start out that way. After all, Zechs and Duo never met in Gundam
Wing and only spoke briefly over a com line in Endless Waltz. I've
tried to keep them in character as I saw them in the series. A bit
of language creeping in under stressful conditions. Pairings: eventual 6x2, past 2xH, 2+H,6x9, 1+R
Summary: Directions is set post Endless Waltz
and roughly 2 years have passed. Zechs and Noin are on Mars and Duo,
after spending some time with Hilde in a relationship leaves L2 to
join Preventers. Hilde was not happy about his decision. I guess enough
said. Here t'is, and I hope you like it. This is also AU for the standard
setting, as well as the series and Endless Waltz. Spoilers: Gundam Wing Series and Endless Waltz Many thanks to Dulin for volunteering to beta this. //... // thoughts
"Alternative Directions: Options"
Chapter 87 Mars Colony Base Dome Time: 21:20 [Approx 19:10 Sanc time] Noin //Why is it that when I could do with the convenience of instant transportation I have to run? At least I can run fast and I don't seem to get short of breath. That is a blessing if nothing else. Now that I am here, do I search the building for her or do I simply return to my body and wait for her to show up?// She paused before the door to the Shuttle Control Tower, glancing around and seeking any sign of anyone in the vicinity. No one was in sight, no one she could designate as friend or foe, not even Zechs and his companion. She only hoped that in her need to tell what she knew that she had not taken Zechs out of the picture. He had seemed unconscious when she had left, his face drained of all colour and his body shaking like a leaf in a strong wind. The strange blue-violet colour that seemed to surround him had been gone too, flickered out like flame before a strong wind. The man with him had looked terrified, obviously frightened by being alone in the dome with an unknown number of killers on the loose and his partner down, presumably out for the count. //What have I done? I should have left it alone. I think that I should have left Zechs to his own devices. Fine, so I let him know what was going on, but what good will it do? I do not know for certain that he understood me and he's unconscious. He certainly looked to be unconscious. Great plan, Lucrezia. I don't even know if he actually heard me and if he did what good will it do? If he is incapable of helping me in any way then I may just have given him over to the ESUN.// Blink. Again that momentary oddness surrounded her and she found herself in the maintenance room where her body lay, bathed in sweat. Before the change of location would just come on her, but the last few relocations had been noticeable, by a crawling in the vicinity of what she presumed was her gut, despite her current bodiless condition and by that oddness that she could not find the words to describe. The momentary disorientation passed, allowing her to take stock of her surroundings and particularly the body stretched out on the floor. Her body had not moved since she had left the room and she did not find that in the least reassuring, though she had no idea of the rules that applied to this situation. Was her body even capable of moving when this other part of her was not in residence? //Great. That makes it sound like I can just pop out for a vacation at will.// she frowned down at her form, considering the faint trembling in the limbs, remembering the agony when she had inhabited that shell of flesh. //Still, maybe I can. I know so little of this ability and if I can do this under stress, surely it would just be a matter of time and experience to learn how to do it at will? Well, I guess that I know what Zechs must feel like. Different from everyone else. I feel … very different. I have wronged that man. What am I going to say to him when we can talk about this? How do I apologize to him for thinking that he was … that he was going … I don't even want to admit it to myself. Maybe I am the insane one?// Noin sucked in what should have been a breath as the door behind her rang like a bell under a heavy blow and she sighed. On the floor her body did not react in the slightest to the noise that began to repeat in regular strikes. Again and again the door rang under the blows, the thick metal seemed to be capable of resisting each blow adequately, but she was not going to be able to take her safety on trust. At least now that she knew where Shanna was she was not going to have to search the building for her nemesis. //It is a solid door, you witch. A steel door, reinforced for safety. You will have to do a lot better than that if you want in.// Still, she could not squash the tickle of fear that churned her not so solid insides. Glaring at the door, not trusting it to hold, she looked then to her body. What was she to do? How was she to keep her physical form safe from harm? The thin golden cord that connected her to her material self was more easily visible in this absence of light. Glancing about her she realized that the room was actually dark, that no lights were on, yet she could see quite well. That was one thing she had not noticed before, she mused, the level of light had not bothered her in the least, no matter where her travels through the enviro dome and sub base had taken her she had had no difficulty with her vision. It would appear that in this incorporeal form that she could see equally as well here in the dark closet as she had under the blood red emergency lights of the dome. Even when she had thrust her head through the elevators and into the shaft beneath them there had been no difficulty with her vision. She had even been able to see through the thick smoke and count the bodies within the wrecked elevator. //Eerie. Well, at least I know that I will have no problem with fighting in the dark. Advantage me, disadvantage McIntyre. Oh, why don't you bash it a bit harder? I think that last one might actually have knocked a bit of dust off of a shelf!// She glared at the door which was being hit with increasing speed and force. //You are starting to get frustrated, aren't you? Starting to get impatient and careless. You will end up working yourself into a frenzy.// Whatever McIntyre was laying into the door with was totally ineffectual, probably incapable of doing more than scratching the blue paint work. Knowing the woman and the rage that she seemed capable of, she would probably end up kicking the door in her rage and would then begin complaining that her foot hurt. //Ooh, are we not being just a little sarcastic there, Lu? Well, why the hell not? What else do I have to do while I wait for that bitch to figure out how to get in here? Do I just sit in the corner and twiddle my thumbs? Damn boring that.// she shook her head, glaring at the door and finally crouched beside her body, taking the time to study herself with a critical eye. //All in all, Lucrezia, your figure isn't too bad considering you so recently gave birth to twins.// Noin shook her head sighed. //I always thought that I might blimp after giving birth. That is what my mother claimed, anyway. I remember her telling me how I would have to watch my weight if I wanted to keep a man and that when I caught one and had kids I was going to have to be even more careful about what I ate. I was not to get fat. It was an unpardonable sin.// A renewed round of pounding on the door drew her attention from her careful survey of her body and she stood, deciding that she had had enough of this. Moving to the wall just to the side of the door she huffed a little at the thought of pushing herself through solid objects and pushed her head through the wall, looking to the side at the door. Shanna McIntyre was busily engaged in pounding the door with a fire extinguisher and swearing up a storm. //Oh, please. You have definitely lost the plot. I think the extinguisher will give it up before the door will. Come on Shanna, you can do better than that, not that I am complaining, you understand. I don't mind if you stand there all day and pound away. It's a metal door, you great Git. The whole tower is made from reinforced steel to protect from meteor strikes. You have so lost your ability to reason. I … I almost feel sorry for her.// With a shake of her head Noin retreated back into the maintenance room, settling near her body, listening to the continuing barrage.There had obviously been a reason why Simpson had felt it safe to leave her in this tower unguarded. He appeared to trust the construction of the room enough to leave his ace unprotected by more than the door and the electronic lock. //Mph. The lock.// Noin's eyes widened and again she popped her head through the wall, leaning forward enough to spy the lock on the far side of Shanna and she had to laugh. //Oh, wonderful. Get a little frustrated, did we?// The electronic keypad of the lock was still smoking, its wires hanging like twisted coloured spaghetti down the wall, the panel and buttons lying shattered about the floor. With a disbelieving shake of her head Noin again retreated into the maintenance room, settling beside her body and staring at the wall, content for the moment to rest and fight off the odd queasiness that seemed to recur with growing frequency. //Well, Noin, this is fun, don't you think? Nothing to say? No, I guess not. You don't have much to say at all, do you? I don't dare leave this room while she is out there, just in case she actually manages to get through the door or finds another way in. Zechs, are you still out there? Are you awake? Sorry love. It's all too new to me and I made a mistake involving you in my trouble. If she gets to me I am dead, I think. I could always count the rivets in the walls. Damn. How boring can this get?// A flurry of pounding and shouting issued from the far side of the door and Noin winced. //Boring? Guess that it will not be so boring as I thought. At least I am getting a lesson is exceedingly colourful metaphors. What has that girl done in her life to explain where she learned such language? Sitting here listening to that garbage will get me nowhere and it will manage to accomplish precisely nothing. I need to take this time to try to figure out what I can and can not do with this … ability.// Science Fiction had never been her preferred option for reading material, not even in her child hood years, so she had no idea if this weird out of body experience had ever been covered in the realm of fiction. It was most likely to have been included in Science Fiction, she reflected, perhaps even in the odd scientific journal, just not in any reading matter she had viewed. One of her friends at Lake Victoria had been an avid SciFi reader and had told her in no uncertain terms that she was missing 'a bloody good read'. Everyone needed escapism at some stage and Noin had been too focused on real life to bother with escapism. Her young life had been dedicated to perfecting her physical and mental processes and in learning to become a mobile suit pilot. The closest she had come to science fiction was in her dream of going into space and enjoying the untamed beauty and the wildness that she saw in the stars of the night sky. She had even dreamed of becoming an explorer on a great ship, setting off into deep space and heading out beyond Jupiter. A great adventure, one that would leave all other adventures far behind her. Yes, she had longed to go out into space, but she had never read Science Fiction novels on such journeys. She had grounded herself in the practical realities involved in such an undertaking. She would perfect her body and her training as a mobile suit pilot and eventually she would enter the exploration forces and thrust herself out into the stars. She had always been a practical body, more concerned with the here and now than with wild flights of fantasy. That had been her dream, not a fantasy, but a reachable dream. // And then I met Zechs Marquise. // Noin shook her head slightly. //I took one look at that blonde hair and those large aviators glasses and there was just something about him. My wildest flight of fantasy became getting Zechs into my bed.// she smiled, looking down at her body stretched out beside her and resisted the urge to shiver with the strangeness of it all. //Now look at me. Ah, but I was right, you know. He has such passion locked away in him. I knew he had it in him. I knew. It was just a matter of reaching it. I let go the dream of becoming an explorer in favor of another. One that seemed more attainable. Maybe I need to reawaken my old desires and dreams? Maybe I need to start looking deeper into space again and seeing the potential there.// Not that she should be proud of how she had accomplished reaching the goal of getting the man into bed, she mused. They would have so much to talk about when this was all over and the world was set to rights. She would apologize to him. She owed him that apology and she would not stint on it. She had set a trap for him that night, a coldly planned deliberate trap and she had succeeded. //I was drunk. Not an excuse, I know, but it is the truth. I was half drunk before I met Mako that afternoon and we got to talking about personal relationships. I spilled my guts to Mako about my feelings for Zechs and he said I should go for it. He never knew what I intended, though. I was half stoned before I visited him and I was absolutely blotted after I sat drinking with Shanna for a couple of hours later that night. I have to admit all of it to myself before I can face Zechs with the truth and give him the apology that he deserves. I thought he was drunk, but I found the bottle of whisky I had left in his room where he could see it. Untouched. Unopened. I can be a such a sneaky conniving bitch when I am drunk. I left that bottle of whisky there, where he could not help but see it, hoping that he would be feeling depressed enough to drink it and to get drunk. What an idiot I was. It was such a stupid thing to do with him as depressed as he was. I wanted him to drink himself into enough of a stupor that he would not fight me when I went to him later.// Noin hung her head between her legs, her arms over her knees, hands buried in her hair, eyes downcast to the floor. The pounding on the door was a continuing counterpoint to the memory she had tried to deny for so long and the steady stream of explicit expletives seemed aimed personally at her. Fittingly, it seemed to her. She deserved every curse that was uttered. //Great. Just great. I can sit here and call myself a bitch for the next few hours, borrowing every curse she can come up with to add a little colour to the way I am feeling. What good would it do? Sorry, Zechs. I am sorry for trapping you within my fantasy and I hope that I will be given the opportunity to apologize to you in person. Face to face, as you deserve. I understand now what it was you were experiencing that night. I thought that you had drunk the whisky and that you were drunk. I have to face the memory of what really happened that night and I have to explain it to you when this is all over. I can do that. I will do that.// Silence beyond the door was as shocking as an explosion would have been. She frowned, lifting her head to glare at the door, waiting for the noise to resume. Expecting it to resume. She began to count, pacing the numbers, growing more uneasy with the continuing silence. Afraid to investigate for fear of what she might find. //Come on, where are you? Just having a little breather? Are we a bit tired after all the exercise?// A tug on her awareness. Not quite a pinch, not quite a pull, just something that disturbed her and alerted her that something was different. Uneasy she glanced at her body, only to find it lying as she had last seen it. Frowning now she looked around the room, noting each shelf with its neatly packed and orderly arranged spare components. Shelf after shelf of spare parts for the equipment in the control room were stacked in this room, awaiting the need for their use. There was certainly nothing in this room to explain what disturbed her. //Now what …? Something …// Tug.// What the hell is that?// Standing she hesitated, casting one last look about the room and still finding nothing suspicious she moved to the door, listening intently to the silence. Thrusting her head through the steel, she sought confirmation that McIntyre was resting there scheming about some means to get the door open. If she had had a need to breathe she would have sucked in a deep breath to mark her unease. The control room was empty. //Shit. Oh, shit. Not good. This is not good at all. Where is she and what is she up to?// Easing through the door she ignored the small tug that seemed to urged her back into the maintenance room, absently wondering what it could be to explain that odd sensation. That mystery would have to wait because Shanna was out here, somewhere, undoubtedly up to no good and she could not afford to allow that woman to get away from her. She could not bring herself to believe that the crazed agent would give up so easily when Shanna had been practically breathing fire in an effort to get to her. //Come on, where are you hiding? What are you doing? What are you planning?// Drifting from the control room she paused in the hall beyond, listening carefully until she could detect a soft clatter from further down the hall. Puzzled she followed the noise, coming to a small maintenance closet and peering in to see McIntyre browsing a shelf of tools, very carefully examining each tool and placing a selection of items to one side. //What the hell …?// Noin drifted a little closer to better view the woman's selections. //Screwdrivers? What does she want with so many screwdrivers?// An assortment of screwdrivers had been assembled by the agent, each one lined up neatly beside the next, each one sorted into Phillips head or flat, large, medium and small sizes. Some, Noin noted, were marked with the red alert tags that warned they were magnetically charged items and not to be used near certain sensitive computer equipment. A few of the smaller socket ended magnetically charged blanks for working with screws that had damaged heads were added to the pile by the softly humming agent. Noin glanced askance at the agent when she realized that the woman was humming the 'Teddy Bears Picnic'. //I don't understand.// Her selections made Shanna McIntyre slipped on a tool belt with pouches commonly used by the maintenance techs, setting her selection of screwdrivers into the appropriate pockets. “You won't beat me, you bastard. I'll show you just how devious you have to be to beat Shanna McIntyre. You just don't make the grade, Simpson.” //I do not like the sound of that. What are you up to?// McIntyre slipped from the small room and to Noin's growing consternation the woman almost skipped down the hallway, away from the control room and the door that would give her access to the room shielding her prey. Grinning McIntyre nodded and whispered congratulations to herself on her plan, how she would beat the bastard who thought the room was impregnable. “Of course you think that the room is impregnable. You are so sure that I can not get in there and I know that you have hidden her there, Simpson. It is the only place that you could have placed her. I have searched the rest of the tower and she is in that room. I know it. You would not have hidden her in there if you did not believe that the door and lock would hold against me, but you think like a man. Of course, being a man you have no choice, but you think women are fools, don't you? Well, we women know that it is the male of the species who are the fools. You can't help thinking on such a basic level, I suppose. Men just never evolve beyond Me hunt. Me kill. Me eat. Me get sex.” she laughed, a trill of genuine amusement. “You should try to evolve, Simpson and think like a woman. Men always have thought that brawn and not brain is the key to success in life.” Noin followed her down the hallway, staring in disbelief at her little dancing steps, her running monologue washing over the silent, unseen watcher. With a faint shake of her head Noin closed the distance a little between them, not that she thought it was likely she would lose the woman, but unwilling to allow her to get out of sight. She might miss a vital clue to what the agent was up to. She had learned that while McIntyre was undoubtedly mad, she was also clever and it was a dangerous combination. “Stupid men. Stupid, stupid men. Always the muscles have to feature in the solution. They never seem to use their brains to think things through properly. It won't be long, Ms Noin. Rest assured my dear, that we will have our little conversation without anyone to disturb us. There will be no distractions to take my attention away from you. We will have every opportunity to discuss our little differences of opinion over how to win a man and what to do with him when you get him.” //She's a nut case. Stark raving loony.// McIntyre paused, chuckling to herself and slipped into the larger maintenance room, after a moment emerging dragging a ladder and moving back down the hallway a few steps before setting it up near the door. Noin glanced around the hallway and then looked up and swore, backing up a step as the red heads plan materialized before her in chilling clarity. //Shit! Oh, God, I am in serious shit.// She could only stand there and stare as McIntyre climbed the steps and settled herself near the top of the ladder and began to try her selection of screw drivers in the screws of the ventilation screen that had formerly merged into almost invisibility with the middle of the hallways ceiling. Chuckling to herself over the success of her plan McIntyre cheerfully tossed the screwdrivers that would not fit the screws over her shoulder to clatter on the floor and set too unscrewing the screen with great good cheer. //No. No, don't let there be a ventilation access in the room. Please don't let there be a vent in the room.// She already knew it was a useless hope. Simpson had a use for her, intending to use her capture to bring Zechs tamely to him. He would not have locked her in a room for hours without first being assured that she had sufficient oxygen to survive until he was ready to make use of her. He needed her alive as leverage against Zechs and he would not have her suffocate, at least until he was done with her. Hurrying back into the room she stared up at the ceiling and the screen to one side of the room in mounting fear. // Oh God. I am in so much trouble. It will not take her long to get the cover off the vent and get in here. A few minutes is all that I have. What am I to do?// ------------------ Time: 21:15 [Approx 19:05 Sanc time] Giles //God, he's heavy. He is also right, about needing to walk. The more he moves the more quickly he seems to recover his facilities. I wish I was not alone here. Damn it. Chris, are you alive out there? God, man, I hope you are. I hope he's right about Barker realizing he can make a difference up here, Chris, for your sake as well as the others, but for my sake too. You have to be alive. Yeah. What am I worrying about? Of course you are. You would be, for a while at least if you are still in the suit. I wonder if Raydon has sent a reply yet? I wonder what he will do? Shit. That tower seems such a long bloody way away.// Zechs was noticeably taking more and more of his own weight the further they moved from the crates and he was becoming more stable on his feet. Giles took note of the rising colour in his partners face and decided that all in all he looked considerably improved. When Zechs had gone down amid the crates Giles had feared he might have been shot with a stun level of the shock guns, but he had found out quickly enough it was not so simple. //Does he always react like this when he has visions? If it was me … // he sighed, shaking his head, concentrating on placing one foot in front of the other. They were still a long way from shelter. //What he said suggests that he might have those … fits? … whenever he has a vision and that can't be good to deal with on his own. Still, I guess it would explain the rumors I heard that he had been having checks for some sort of seizures. It would probably look like a fit, maybe epilepsy, to someone who didn't know better.//He heard the pained sharp inhale of breath and tightened his hold on the man he supported. “Only a little further. We can take a couple of minutes to rest when we get to the transport trays.” “Noin …” “No.” he glared the blonde into submission. “Noin will have to look after herself for a minute or two, Zechs. You have to get there in one piece before you can be of help to her, not plaster yourself all over the concrete and don't you think for a second that I will leave you and go on ahead. No way. I am not about to tell Raydon that I left you in the middle of open ground undefended with a bunch of psycho killers running loose. You just concentrate on pulling yourself together and we will get there sooner rather than later.” There was a moment's silence and then a puffed breath. “Yes, Mum.” Giles snorted, relieved that the man could joke as it meant that he was making headway on his recovery. He needed Zechs to be independent of his help as quickly as possible. “You need a drink?” “Yes, but when we get to cover is soon enough. I might be able to keep it down by then.” “Does this happen a lot?” he dared a glance at his companion and then searched the area around them for company he really did not want to find. “The extreme reaction, I mean.” “For the major visions, yes. I get this sick every time. Some of them have been worse, not many of them have been less. I have had two visions already today, but this was different. Somehow. It was not a vision, I am sure of that and it was not as severe a reaction as I usually have.” “Jesus.” a whisper. “If that was mild I hate to think what a major one usually is.” “Not pleasant.” the return comment came out more as a grunt than anything as he stumbled and Giles kept him from falling flat on his face. He forced his legs to steady and hold his weight, only too aware of the openness of their position and that Noin was in that tower and he had to find her. “At least that painkiller you gave me is working.” “Yeah, well it is all that I dare give you, you understand? When it wears off you are going to hurt like hell.” //The stimulant should be working too, so you should come right fairly quickly for now on, I hope. When it wears off, though, you are going to drop like a stone.// “I already hurt like Hell, Giles. What comes after hell?” “I don't think I want to know.” “I never … I never had a vision of Noin … having Gifts.” he was panting, desperate for that drink, but he would not give in to either the need to stop and draw breath or the need to drink himself into a vomiting session. He knew the pitfalls of either action and he was not going to succumb. He had experienced these reactions enough to know what he needed and when to best recover his facilities. “Maybe you did, you just never realized what it was you were seeing. You said that you saw her die in your visions. Well, a body that separated from what they term the Astral Self could be mistaken for a corpse. From a distance and to the uninitiated it could be mistaken for death.” //And it can all too easily become death if they stay out too long. The body can only take so much stress after all and from what I know the body does get stressed in an astral situation. I remember that trainer having a go at that kid for unsupervised use of his talent. I don't think it would be a good idea to tell him that though, he's too close to panic as it is.// Zechs scowled, glancing at the man he leaned on, wondering. Was that what he had seen? Had he mistaken her death? “I hope you … are right.” //So do I because if I am wrong then I think that you are going to lose it. I just know I don't want to be around when that elastic band you are riding breaks.// ----------------- Noin //You just stay away from me, you cold blooded bitch. You just get stuck in that vent. Get your fat ass stuck and don't you dare make it through!// She stood directly beneath the vent, watching for the first turning of the screws. Waiting and watching for the suggestion of movement that meant her doom was fast approaching. Straining to hear the scraping and rustling that meant Shanna McIntrye was in the vent system and on her way. She had to be able to do something to delay if not stop the woman from getting in to the room, but just what it was she needed to do eluded her. Matters were not being helped by the fact that she was constantly distracted from the vent by the small tugs she felt while within the maintenance room. Little annoying niggles that drew her eyes unerringly to the body stretched out on the floor. It was almost as though there was something touching her lightly, first pulling gently and then nudging her toward that body. She ignored it, trying to stay focused on the ceiling, waiting, desperation growing. She was on her own. Through her own fault her back up was most likely unconscious on the concrete in a jumble of crates, knocked out by her heavy handed approach to contacting him. She had no experience with this non-corporal form and in her inexperience she had erred, fumbling the contact with Zechs so badly that she had knocked him out. Would he even remember their conversation when he woke up? She did not even know that, not that it had been much of a conversation, but she had felt that she had had to try. She had needed to try and surely he was not so bad as he had looked? So pale and lifeless on the concrete with that man frantically working on him, trying to get him to breathe. Had she killed her lover? //Stop it, you blithering idiot. Just stop it. This is neither the time nor the place for that. Concentrate. There must be something that you can do. You managed to get Zechs to hear you after all, I think, so why can't you do the same with McIntyre? Why not scare the willies out of the bitch and send her packing?// On this day of days she had already accomplished so much that she would not have conceived as being possible. She had left the sheathe of her body behind her and wandered around the complex with no one the wiser to her presence, until she had come across Zechs. She had somehow managed to instantly transport herself around the dome and even into the sub base, sight unseen. No one had been aware of her accept Zechs and in the end she had managed to contact him. All things that she would have said were impossible before a few hours ago. She had even managed to knock Zechs out in just seconds, so why could she not do the same to the one person she wanted so desperately to hurt? //The trouble is that I have no idea how I did that. He seemed aware of me and I just … well … I don't know what you would call it. I just … sort of … reached?// Nudge. // Shit, what is that? It's getting stronger, whatever it is. I don't have time just now to deal with it.// A flicker of movement between the fine squares of the grill and the softest noise warned her. McIntyre was in the air vent and directly above the vent outlet. Panic reared within her, and that faint pull faded from her perceptions as she gave all of her attention to the vent above. Yes, she was not mistaken. The lower left corner of the vent. The screw head was rotating. McIntyre had one of the magnetic screwdrivers used when the head of the screw was ruined and was steadily unscrewing the vent cover from inside the ventilation system. It was only a matter of minutes now before she would be in the room. //Get out. Get out you bitch. You are not wanted here.// Softest rasping of the turning screw, again and again. Around and around and around. Again and again turning and … small, delicate metallic clunk as the falling screw hit a shelf on the way down and then clattered to the floor. The screws were too heavy for the magnetic field to hold when they were free of the confining metal they joined together. One. //Get out!// She could almost imagine her body, both this airy non body and her physical body thrumming with the tension growing within her. She could feel herself straining with her wishing that the bitch would turn tail and run. She did not have any defences. She was wide open, defenceless and exposed. She so desperately wanted to hurt the woman who had thrown her failure in her face and shown her just how shallow her dreams had been. It was more though. It was so much more. The witch was a killer. A cold blooded killer. Clunk. Two. //Get out! Get out! I don't want you here.// She glared at the turning screw, willing it to stop turning and knowing she could not affect it. Turning, always turning and with each revolution it was bringing that hateful woman who had deceived her closer to finishing her. Clunk. Three. //Get out! Get away from here. You are not wanted here!// At the edge of her perception she could feel again that tug. Small and faint but growing more insistent, drawing her back toward her body and she understood. At this most important of all times, when she could least afford any distractions she understood what was happening to her. She cast a look in horror at the thinning golden cord that bound her to her flesh. The thread of her life was thinning. Her body was still breathing and if she wanted to live she was going to have to rejoin it. Clunk. Four. Noin spun, startled, in time to see the vent cover come crashing down from the force of the kick that blasted it out of its frame. Instinctively she leapt back out of the way, forgetting entirely that it would simply pass through her. Feet appeared in the hole, clad in work boots and standard issue trousers and she could hear that childish song being sung. “If you go down to the woods today …” Tug. //No! I … what am I to do? I … Zechs! I must defend myself!// Somewhere near her something fell, a metallic rattling on a shelf behind her. She did not notice, her gaze held, mesmerized by the feet casually swinging from that hole and then she was there, dropping to the floor, turning, a victorious grin on her face at seeing the body stretched out on the floor. “Got you, you bitch.” //GET OUT!!!// Something deep within clenched, a fist of rage birthed from pure fear and despair. She would not go down under this bitch. She would not be played with by this killer before the end came. She had a man to go to when this was all over and she had her babies to love with all the love she could raise in her heart, and that was a lot of love. She was tired of being used as a means to an end. Tired of being used and abused, even by herself. She had deceived herself, lied to herself and abandoned her precious dreams. She had used her desires and to her eternal shame she had played with people to satisfy her own needs and while death might be a fitting punishment for her crimes, she did not see that she had to die at the hands of this killer who had mercilessly butchered innocents. “Now, look at this. All stretched out and ready for me to play. Wonderful. Just look at you. The great Noin, laid low and helpless. I knew this moment would come. I just knew that I would get to play with you.” //GET OUT!!!// she could feel herself tighten, much as a hand was curled in on itself and tightened to form a fist, ready to strike out in anger. She would not go down to this maniac. It was not the end she had envisioned for herself. A knife appeared in the delicate hands that had such perfect nails, painted with a vivid red enamel and Noin growled. Miss Perfect Shanna McIntyre who could play with the male of the species to her hearts content and cast them aside at her whim. Miss Perfect who could play the part of the understanding friend to perfection and then so casually betray everything. Miss Perfect Killer who delighted in the slaughter of the unsuspecting people she had called friends just hours ago. “Look, Miss Noin, I have the perfect idea of what we can do to while away the time.” a low giggle, long red hair shaking from side to side as she pranced across the room, almost dancing with her delight, the torch strapped to her wrist bobbing in the air with each movement. “We are going to see just how long it takes to skin a person alive. Won't that be fun?” //GET …// Tug. An imperious pull on her consciousness, demanding her return. Something big somewhere behind her shifted, several 'somethings', from the clattering noises. McIntyre glanced around, waving her torch to allow her to find what ever it was that was moving in the room. //… OUT!!!// A massive burst of light surrounded Noin, drawing her with it toward her body and she screamed in defiance, lashing out with her mind and her useless arms, hands curved into claws with her rage, folding into fists. She would not go quietly into death! She wanted to pulverize the bitch and claw her eyes out! She would not be defeated by this woman. She would not die here and now!
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