Chapter Three

Ariella had to think fast. She had to get the cannon back to Base but she knew that if the outside world learned of their society, it could meant the end of humanity.

There was a screech in the distance and she saw Kia and Azar making their way to her.

Azar landed and was scurrying around franticly wanting to save Ambrose.

"I know azar," Ariella says, petting his snout to calm him down. "We're going to get him back."

After thinking it over for ten minutes she called into base, "We have successfully retrieved the cannon,"

"Very good," said a voice from base, "Now you and agent Telamon must bring it back as soon as you can."

"That's just it," Ariella says, "Telamon has been captured."

There was a moments pause, "You must bring the weapon back here. We will send a group to retrieve Telamon."

"That is going to take too long," She says, starting to get frustrated, "He needs to be rescued now."

"Agent Scarlet," the voice says, "Calm down. Going in emotional like this will get you both killed."

Ariella takes a deep breath through her nose and exhales through her mouth. "I'm going to leave the weapon cloaked at my current location for the next team to rectrieve. I'm going to head back and save Telamon."

"You can't go in there by yourself."

"Yes, sir. I can"

"You're being irrational. Think this.."

She ended the communication and changed her clothes for stealth. Her clutch trasformed into a utility belt and she wore a black, long sleeve shirt and black jeans. Her shoes had noise cancelling features so she could creep back into the mansion. She also wore a black full face mask to complete the outfit.

She takes the cannon and places it beneath a natural arch and turns on the cloaking device to make it blend into the enviornment. Kia and Azar transform into beetles and land on her.

Bringing the hover bike back out, she elevates into the air and heads back to the manor. It was still dark enough that she could sneak back in but she only had a few hours left before sunrise so she had to hurry.

Once the mansion was in view again, Ariella puts on her glasses again and activates the night vision feature and zooms in. There were guards on the balconys and at every entrance now. She looked for another form of entry and spotted a window in what seemed to be an attic.

She flies over the guards without a sound and hovers by the attic window. She looks through the window and sees that the coast is clear. She carefully disables the alarm and opens the window to climb through. She presses a button on her watch and a holographic layout of the mansion appears and a blinking spot showing where Ambrose was. He seemed to be in the basement. She'd have to carfully make her way down the stairs without, obviously, getting caught.

She makes her way to the door and activate another feature of her glasses. She was able to see the other side of the door. She didn't see any guards. She opens the door quietly and makes her way down the hall to some stairs. She's half way down the stairs when she heard some voices coming toward her.

"So I was talking to that girl from the bar, right? And I was giving her my best moves and I totally took her home her." one of the guards says. Ariella could tell just from his speach that he wasn't very bright.

"Dude," another guard speaks up, "I was right there and none of that happened. You got so sloshed that you were flirting with your reflection behind the bar."

"Then who did I find in my bed naked the next morning?"

"Hell if I know. I left with my own hookup."

Ariella took out a small dagger from her belt and preps herself for a possible fight when, "What do you two think you're doing?"

A third voice came up behind the other two guards. "Sir, we were just doing a patrol."

"You were told to search the grounds not the attic." He says, his voice filled with aggravation, "Now go do your job."

"Yes, Sir!" the two guards say in unison before walking away.

The sound of footsteps faded as the two guards walk away. The third man stayed behind. He turned to look in the direction of Ariella. She steadied her heartbeat as he slowly turned to walk away as well. But she heard him drop something on the ground.

Once the coast was clear again, Ariella makes her way over to what he had dropped and discovered that he must have been the informent the Counsel had inside the manor. The thing he dropped was a coded message she was ment to deliver to Base. She carfully places the message into a secret pocket of her utility belt. She didn't have time to try to decode the message at this moment.

She continues to make her way down the next halway and she takes another look at the layout and marks the path she would need to take. As she made her way further down the building, she was running into more guards. She takes her dagger and plunges it into the closest man. He groaned in pain and drew the attention of the others in the hallway.

Blood spurted out of the wound when the blade was pulled back out of the first guard. Ariella dodges a jagged knife and pulls out her lipstick that transformed into a katana. She sliced off one man's hand and slashed another. Azar and Kia kept shifting into different animals and protecting her back from other attacks. From the guards perspective, it looked like an ever changing mirage that was taking them down one by one.

A guard further away pulled out a gun and started to fire at Ariella. She swings her sword and slices through the bullets, deflecting them to pierce the other guards around her. She slowly makes her way closer to the gun, deflecting more bullets, where she sliced it and pierced the man clear through the chest.

A few of the guards that were left, escaped to get more back up and Ariella follows close behind and throws her dagger at one. The dagger buries itself in the leg of one of the men who cries out in pain and falls to the floor. She does a somersault spin, grabing the blade from the man's thigh, and keeps running.

Another man turns around to face her and pulls out a knife. Ariella blocks the man with her dagger and grabs his arm and throws him behind her. She keeps running as she follows the last man infront of her and around the corner.

She comes to a halt when she's face to face with atleast thirty more guards and Nell Carter. Her breath catches in her throat when she sees Ambrose strapped to a chair in the middle of them. He looked like he was beaten by all of the men in the room.

Ambrose could feel the presence of his companion and struggles to look up. Azar scuttles around on Ariella's shoulder at the sight of his companion.

"Easy, Azar," she says quietly.

"It seems your partner is even more cappable then you are," Nell says, looking back at Ambrose. "She managed to make it through all of those guards single handedly and here you are, captured too easily."

Ambrose scowls at Nell and speaks with a raspy voice. "She didn't need backup like someone else in this room."

Nell rolls his eyes, then snaps his finger. One of the guards closest to him punched Ambrose, causing more blood to trickle from his busted lip and broken nose. Ariella clenches her jaw, gripping harder on the dagger and grits her teeth. A silent growl escaping her lips.

"Now, let's get back to the matter at hand, shall we?" He says, turning back to the masked intruder, "If you would give back the weapon you took from me, that would be wonderful."

"I don't have it," Ariella says, "And you won't be able to find it."

"Intriguing," Nell says, "Your voice sounds like the young woman I was conversing with earlier in the evening." He begins to walk toward her. "Those eyes are the same, as well. Even if their filled with anger."

Ariella spins the blade around in her hand and points it at his neck, stopping him from getting closer, "I suggest you stay back," the guards take a step forward but stop when Nell holds up his hand. "I'd hate for such a brilliant mind to be wasted tonight."

Nell gives a dashing smirk, "Quite." He takes a step back and she lowers her blade. "Now tell me, what agency do you work for?"

She doesn't say a word. "Have it your way," he snaps his fingers again and a guard brings a blade up to Ambrose's neck, ready to cut into a main artery.

Ariella throws the dagger at the man, piercing his shoulder. He howls in pain and drops the blade that was pressed against Ambrose's neck. Blood trickles from a small cut.

"Step away from the boy," she says sternly.

"Who are you calling a boy?" Ambrose croaks out.

"Shut up," She snaps in Cowasian.

"Just hurry up and get us out of here." He snaps back.

"Enough!" Nell shouts. "You will tell me where you left the cannon and you both can go free."

"We can't do that." Ariella says in Enlgish, "that weapon could quite literally destroy the world."

Nell scrunches up his face in an ugly scowl, "Who cares if the world got hurt? The world never cared what happened to me, why should I care about it?!"

Ariella thought back to the brief conversation they had earlier at the party. The man she had met seemed a little disturbed but this man before her was completely unhinged. She had to get him to settle down before everything goes to shit.