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This is not how today was supposed to go.
Cid promised them it was just a routine op, a simple in and out extraction of some crates she’ll sell on the black market and they’ll get a share of the credits. Most certainly, it was not supposed to end with her brothers scattered around the compound they’ve infiltrated, Omega trapped underneath a fallen flood light on the landing pad and Hunter bellowing her name across the platform.
He’s currently wrapped up in three guards, trying desperately to bat them off while his eyes dart back and forth between Omega and the fourth guard advancing on her.
If Omega weren’t so focused on trying to shift the metal off of her leg, she might have told him to focus on her own battle, yet she is too focused on her own predicament to pay too much attention to him.
The man advances on her and Omega tries not to let the panic get to her with every step he takes, but her hands are shaking and she wishes desperately that Wrecker were nearby to pull this damned thing off of her, but he’s somewhere on one of the lower floors and can offer no help to her. Omega is on her own as the man reaches her, leering over her and even though she can’t see through his helmet, she’s sure that his expression would terrify her.
‘Well, well, well, what have we here?’ he sneers, crouching down as Omega continues struggling desperately. Her fingers are bleeding as she scrabbles against the blunt metal of the post. It’s no use, it simply won’t budge.
‘You won’t get away with this! My brothers will be here any second now,’ Omega seethes, trying to kick her legs under the post, but it still won’t budge.
The guard laughs. ‘Which brothers? I think they’re far too preoccupied with my men to come and rescue you. Besides, you’re far too valuable for me to simply allow to escape, aren’t you? Miss Omega,’
Omega’s eyes widen. This man shouldn’t know her name. They’re always so careful not to use any of their names while in situations like these since Pantora. Hunter won’t risk it. So how does he know who she is?
‘Oh, yes, I know all about you, little clone. You’ll fetch a pretty price for me, won’t you?’
By now, several other men have rushed over, and in the corner of her eye Omega can see Hunter still fighting off the same guards. They seem to be putting up quite the fight. Now, with five or more men around her, Omega is left with no choice but to watch as they crouch down and heave the post up just enough that one can slide Omega out and she’s thrown over his shoulder unceremoniously.
Her heart in her mouth, Omega cranes her neck painfully to look up at Hunter, fists pummelling at the guard’s back, but it’s no use. Against her better judgement, Omega feels her lips open as a desperate cry rips through her chest.
‘Hunter!’ she screams across the platform, loud enough that it echoes off the concrete buildings around them.
Hunter twists at her scream, looking her dead in the eye, and she sees the moment he falters, the moment she steals his concentration and she regrets ever making a sound. It happens too fast for Omega to look away. There’s the sound of a blaster bolt, black smoke billows from Hunter’s shoulder as his whole body jolts. One of the guards lands a harsh blow to his head and Hunter falls to his knees. The last thing Omega sees before she’s carried inside the building is Hunter’s helmet cracking against the platform, and then he’s down for the count, and Omega fears she may never see her brother again.
There’s no point in fighting now, as the elevator doors close around her. Tech taught her that there is a time to fight and a time to think. There is no benefit to fighting right now, she’ll only tire herself out. She has to wait until there are fewer guards, until she has the right opening. And then she can make her move. Until then, she’ll have to wait. But with every second that passes by, the need to know Hunter’s fate grows stronger in her gut.
Did they kill him? Have they taken him hostage soon? Surely he’s dead. They wouldn’t let him live, it seems that the only reason she has been spared is because of the money on her head. But there’s no money on Hunter’s head if he’s still alive. They want him, and her other brothers, dead.
Distantly, Omega can hear the sounds of a fight, the telltale blaster bolts and thuds of a scuffle are muffled by the thick walls of the Compound. Omega hangs limply from the shoulder of this unknown guard, watching who she assumes to be the head of this operation trailing behind. As soon as they reach the lower levels, he removes his helmet, clearly satisfied that they won’t be meeting any resistance down here. The idea only serves to tighten the ball of nerves growing in Omega’s stomach.
‘You won’t get away with this!’ she cries, more for her own benefit than as any warning to them. Surely her brothers will find her. Surely she they’ll come for her, just like they always do. Omega has every faith that this will be no different.
But she watched Hunter fall, watched those guards beat him into the ground and she's not so sure. As she's hauled further and further into the underbelly of this complex, Omega wonders what they've done with Hunter and, moreover, where the rest of her team is.
***
It was stupid. Hunter knew it was stupid as soon as he did it, but he couldn't help it. When he heard Omega cry out for him, it was like a magnet activated within him and he'd turned his back on his own fight in favour of looking for her. He had been trying to get to her, but the guards attacking him were clearly well trained, not your usual private security amateurs. He hadn't been able to get to her in time.
And so, he found himself watching her as she was carried away, only to feel the telltale jolt and burn of a blaster bolt taken straight to his right shoulder. The sudden pain and impact sent Hunter to his knees, open to a blow to the next blow straight to his head.
By the time he's coming around again, he quickly deduces that it can't have been long. For one, he's still lying on the same duracrete platform, and for another, they're still arguing over where or not they should kill him.
‘--Yeah, but does the boss actually want him dead?’ one of the guards is arguing, his voice is deep and muffled by the heavy helmets they've all been wearing.
‘When has he not wanted someone dead?’ another argues. This one a female and, judging by how clearly Hunter can hear her, she's removed her helmet.
‘He took the little girl, maybe he wants her old man as well,’ the third points out.
For how thoroughly they've been trained in combat, they're disproportionately stupid. Hunter groans and opens his eyes, finding himself face to face with a pair of blue shiny boots.
‘If you're going to kill me, I'd do it quickly,’ he suggests. As Hunter had expected, none of them seem to have considered the possibility that he might wake, and their shock gives him enough time to wrap two hands around the nearest guard's calf and give it a good yank, pulling him to the ground next to him.
However, it's not until Hunter has moved that he registers the agonising pain in his shoulder. He yelps at the tender tug of broken skin, but before it can overwhelm him, he twists the pain and uses it to focus his mind. As he lunges forwards to plunge his elbow into this guard's face, he finds himself lucky enough to have pulled down the female guard. Without her helmet on to protect her, Hunter's elbow cracks her cheekbone. Blood spurts from the wound, a shard of bone juts upwards and the woman's eyeball is squished grotesquely upwards under her brow.
Hunter has no time to dwell on the sight, nor the pain now radiating up his elbow, and instead rolls over just in time to thrust his foot up into the stomach of the guard about to reach out and grab him. The man goes flying backwards and Hunter jumps to his feet. The movement sends another jolt of pain through his body, but again, he pushes the sensation to the side in favour of aiming a punch at the third guard while the other regains his balance.
In seconds, the two are tangled up, an arm around Hunter's neck pulling him into a headlock as he jams his fist into his assailant's ribs over and over, then aims lower and knocks his knuckle over the inside of his unarmoured thigh. The leg collapses, nerve successfully numbed and Hunter manages to untangle himself as the guard tumbles to the ground. He aims two last kicks, one at his stomach, breaking the ribs, and one at his head, knocking him out, if not worse.
When he turns to finish off the last attacker, he finds himself relieved to find Wrecker already there, lifting the man over his head like a ragdoll, and tossing him onto the ground. Hunter hears the familiar sound of cracking bone. The guard doesn't get back up.
Echo has arrived as well, he makes his way over to Hunter as Wrecker catches his breath. After years of fighting side by side with his brothers, he should be used to being injured in front of them, and yet the urge to square his shoulders and insist that he is fine is strong.
Unfortunately for Hunter, Echo has never been a fool.
He doesn't say a word, he merely grabs Hunter by the arm, stopping him from swaying. Hunter decides to focus instead on Wrecker, who has lifted his helmet to reveal his usual post-battle grin.
‘Where's Omega?’ Echo asks immediately. The grin falls from Wrecker's face.
Hunter's gut twists with guilt. ‘They took her,’
Nobody says anything, but Hunter is sure that there are many things they would like to say. He's sure that none of his brothers would have let Omega be taken, they never would have screwed up as badly as he has. He should have stopped them.
‘Where's Tech?’ Hunter says eventually, when nobody else seems to be able to come up with a response to his failure.
‘Gone back for the ship. Figured we'd need a quick extraction,’ Echo explains and Hunter nods, already formulating a plan. He can fix this. He has to fix this.
‘Alright, Wrecker, you follow Tech, make sure he gets back to the ship and then you'll be there to lay down some cover fire for us to get out here. Echo and I will have Omega by the time you're back.’ Hunter issues his orders firmly, leaving no room for question or argument.
Wrecker flips his helmet down and makes for the exit, lifting his wrist and activating his comm to explain the plan to Tech. Echo, still supporting Hunter with his scomp hand, pulls a blaster out of his holster with his other hand.
‘Do you know where they went?’ he asks.
‘Through that door,’ Hunter explains, pointing to the elevator doors on the far side of the landing pad, but he's hardly lifted his arm half way when the wound on his back pulls and he hisses in pain, quickly dropping his arm back to his side.
Echo eyes him warily. ‘You sure you're up for this?’
‘I'm fine,’ Hunter insists sharply, untangling himself from Echo's support and marching towards the doors he watched Omega disappear through, screaming for his help. He squares his shoulders up tall, ignores how the melted edge of his plastoid armour plating digs against the wound. Echo has no choice but to keep up.
Finding Omega proves tricky. They could have taken her anywhere in this Compound, or even smuggled her out of it to be taken off-planet. Really, she could be anywhere. Hunter tries not to let this fact get to him as he stares at the numbered buttons in the elevator.
The brig is on level four, interrogation chambers are labelled under level five, but he can't hear anything going on above them. The landing pad is on the ground floor, but there are two floors below this.
‘They'll have taken her to the brig, we need to go up,’ Echo says, reaching for the buttons when Hunter seems to hesitate for too long. He grabs his brother's arm before he can push any button.
‘She's below us,’ Hunter tells him. ‘I can hear it,’
He doesn't give Echo any time to argue, letting go of his arm to instead jam his thumb against the button for the lowest floor. It doesn't say what is in the basement levels and the mystery only serves to set Hunter further on edge. The likelihood of them being empty is slim, it's far more likely that the unnamed floors hold something far more sinister.
When the doors open and let them out into a dimly lit hallway, Hunter takes a deep breath. He can smell Omega, can tell that she's been taken through this way, muffled shouting and crying comes from somewhere near them, but the metal walls of the hallway throw off Hunter's senses. But, if he looks closely at the floor, he can see fresh footprints, one of which is trailing blood through the hall, and he decides to follow that.
‘C'mon, we have to be quick,’ Hunter tells Echo, pulling out his blaster in his dominant hand, and following the trail.
The hallways are like a maze, and if it weren't for Hunter's enhanced senses leading the way, he's sure they never would be able to locate their missing sister. He tries very hard not to let the cries and scuffling he can hear growing closer and closer get to him. Still, his imagination runs wild in the back of his mind, conjuring up increasingly alarming images of what they might be doing to her.
Echo is quiet behind him, following obediently and checking over his shoulder every little while. He lets Hunter lead the way, weaving this way and that through the interlocking corridors. What the purpose of this floor is Hunter cannot figure out, There aren't any doors leading out of the halls, nor any signage indicating any point of interest.
The use of this floor means little to Hunter at the moment, however, and he'd much rather simply find Omega and get out of here without having to learn anything else about this awful place. Cid was very very wrong. This compound is not abandoned, nor has it been easy to break in or out of, and he's certainly going to be giving her a piece of his mind when they're safely back on Ord Mantell.
Hunter knows they're coming close when they come across a guard lying on the floor, chest rising and falling slowly, but very clearly down for the count. No doubt Omega made an attempt to escape her captors around here, but clearly has yet to be successful. Her scent is stronger here, she was here less than a minute ago, Hunter's sure of it.
Armed with renewed determination, Hunter presses on. He turns two more corners and finds himself skidding to a halt, lifting his blaster despite the pain in his shoulder. His head spins, and he has to bend his elbow to ease the tug at his sore back, but he ignores all of this in favour of firing off two shots at the guards currently holding Omega by her arms, dragging her along the floor.
Echo must have guessed which guards Hunter was going to go for, aiming instead for the ones standing in front, walking backwards with blasters pointed at the girl. All four fall to the floor as Omega yelps in the surprise, falling to her knees without the guards hauling her along. With only three other guards left now, Omega is quick to recover herself and throws her body weight at the one positioning to her right, shoving him into the wall and then stamping on his foot.
Forcing himself to look away from Omega and leave her to deal with her chosen victim, Hunter lunges forward to grab another who is trying to pull Omega off of his friend, and Echo tackles the third.
Between the three of them, they make quick work of the three remaining guards, until they are all lying on the floor, some still breathing, others… not so much.
Before the guard Omega has taken down has even slumped fully to the floor, she's spinning around and throwing herself at Hunter. He grunts, biting back the pain as he reaches down to awkwardly pat her on the head. He still hasn't quite figured out what it is that she's expecting from him when she does this. The first time she did it, Hunter had thought it to be an attempted tackle, but now he's not so sure.
‘I thought they killed you!’ Omega exclaims, her voice muffled against Hunter's hip and shaking with emotion. ‘They shot you! I watched them!’
Hunter, channeling as much of Cut's energy as he can, pulls Omega's arms from around his waist and crouches down in front of her. It hurts more than he'll ever admit, but for the little girl crouching down in front of him, he'll bear it.
For a moment, he can only stare at the girl. In the heat of the fight, he hadn't noticed the bruises blooming on her face, or the blood trickling from her lip down her chin. Her tunic is ripped at the shoulder and her eyes shine with tears.
‘I know, I'm sorry… but I'm okay, see? I'm right here. Not dead,’ he tells her. She shouldn't have seen that, and Hunter hates that she's had to watch him be taken down like that twice in such a short frame of time. Not only for her sanity, but for his ego as well. ‘It'll take a lot more than that to stop me from coming to find you,’
He's not quite sure what he's supposed to say next. Omega is still crying and Hunter hates it when she cries, she sounds so young and so helpless and Hunter never knows what he's meant to do about it. He should have brought Wrecker with him, he's much better at this.
Luckily, Echo saves him from having to figure out the next part.
‘Come on, we need to get out of here,’ he says and Hunter agrees whole-heartedly. The last thing they need is to be caught by anyone remaining in this forsaken place. He's had quite enough of surprise attacks for today.
Hunter rises to his feet, clearing his throat and then, without really thinking about it, he reaches down and picks Omega up under her arms, swinging her up to his good side and holding her there with one arm. Echo's looking at him, and he doesn't need to see his brother's face to understand the look he's being given. If it weren't for Omega, and the burning agony in his shoulder, he'd reach over and punch Echo in the arm to save his reputation, but that doesn't seem to be an option now.
‘Ready to bust this joint, Omega?’ Hunter asks instead, turning to the girl who has settled her head with alarming ease on his shoulder. She nods with a small smile on her battered face and Hunter once again leads them on, following their footsteps back the way they came.