Shifters ch 8: FreeDaemon

Chapter 8: Free Daemon!

'Bond talk'

After one strenuous week of training for Zak and Tara....

Zak and Tara crouched outside the door to where Daemon was supposed to be held. Tapping a few commands into the door controls, Tara opens the door to Cellblock B.

Getting to this point had been relatively easy for the three intruders. All Mary, Zak, and Tara had to do was cut a maintenance access tunnel’s hatch off and slip inside. Once inside, Bovin sliced past a few firewalls protecting Van Rook’s computer system and found where the cell blocks are on the blueprints and uploaded it to Zak's datapal. Without looking at or talking to Zak, Tara confirms that the door was unlocked through their bond.

The bond was a new part to the already confusing conundrum that is their shifting powers. Zak's succeeded attempt to pull Tara back from the brink had been a catalyst that activated a connection that bonded Zak and Tara together. Through that bond they could at times feel the others emotions and it gave them an uncanny ability to be able to know the location of the other as well. It was a weak feeling, but it was there.

They both found it a little creepy at first but quickly adapted and learned to use it to their advantage.

Zak gives her an acknowledgement and as one they spun through the doors.

Flash back........

"Whoa whoa whoa, so what you're telling us is that we have a bond?" Zak asked. Tara looked just as alarmed as Zak felt.

Their new trainer, Mary Bovin, nodded, "Well as you've described, these moments of insight with each other can't be described as anything else. Although," Bovin looks at Zak, "your mother would probably know more about this sort of thing than I do. Regardless, your training must continue, but now I'll add working with the bond into the routine."

After Bovin leaves for a minute, Tara looks at Zak and says excitedly, "Do you realize what we could do with this thing?"

He smirked, 'Well of course, I could hear you screaming it in your head.'

'Ugh... Until we get this thing under control, it's going to be a pain in the-'

"Zak! Tara! Catch!"

The two jumped as two sparing poles came flying their way. Using their enhanced reflexes, Zak and Tara snatched the poles from the air just as they started to hit the floor. Flashing Tara a predatory grin, Zak lunges forward.

End flashback....

Bound to a wall by energy cuffs, Daemon raises his head from its resting place on his chest to see who had entered. His glare lands on Zak first, and he begins to assess him as an enemy. Then his glare sides to Tara.

Daemon smirks as Tara began to cut through the shackles that held him to the wall, "Well you took your time."

She gives him a cocky look, "I can still leave you chained up you know."

"Shutting up now." No sound except for the sound of the laser cutter viberates the air of the room for a few moments.

"And who may I ask, are you?" Daemon questions warily after Tara pulls him to his feet.

Zak thrusts his hand toward Daemon to shake, "Name's Zak Saturday."

Daemon accepts his hand, "Daemon Cypher," he looks at Zak closely, "Yeah you're definitely their kid."

Zak tweeks his head to the side in confusion, "What the heck are you talking about?"

Daemon looks at them both with equal confusion and then he is struck with realization, "Oh, you didn't know... When I heard your name I thought you had come here for them."

Fear was clutching his gut as Zak took in what Daemon said, "My parents are HERE?" Daemon nods, "Orange and black jumpsuits? Probably spiting mad about me running away?"

"First one yes. Second one, not so much. All I gathered was that they were really worried about you... they also said something about a Fisk... Speaking of which there is a big hairy cryptid in the cell next to mine..."

The words hadn't even escaped Daemon lips by the time Zak was looking into the nieghboring cell. The large, furry creature wearily raises its head from its resting place on its chest, and seeing Zak, it garbles excitedly. Zak opens the door and rushes over to the gorilla-cat.

"Fisk! What are you doing here?" Zak asks his gorilla-cat brother as he cut the bonds that chained him to the wall with a laser cutter.

Fisk just garbles, "Ew erew gnikool rof ouy dna ew erew depmuj...."

As soon as Fisk is free of his bindings, he scoops Zak up into an enormous hug until Zak wheezes, "Fisk... you're... crushing... me...."

He puts him down and motioning with his hands, Fisk does an imitation of a wolf and looks at Zak questioningly.

Zak says, "Oh yeah... that, well I can change back and forth on my own now. I'll show you later. Where are Zon and Komodo?"

"Ir t'nod kniht yeht erew derutpac. Ir kniht yeht era kcab ta eht pihsria."

Suddenly the alarms start blaring and the blast doors seal shut. Bovin's voice crackles over Tara's radio, "Tara, Zak, Rook knows we're here. Get Daemon and the other prisoners free before he takes them to a different location."

Tara replies into the radio, "Acknowledged, we have Daemon now and were working o the others. Met you at the rendevue point."

Zak turns back to Daemon and Tara and gestures to Daemon, "If you've seen my parents then you should know were they are."

Daemon nods and points up, "Yeah they're in the cell block above us. The floor isn't too thick where I came down. Give me a few moments and I'll have us up on their floor in no time."

-------------------------------------------

With Doc and Drew...

It had been thirty seconds since the alarms started going off when Van Rook came storming into Doc and Drew's cell block with his apprentice and three security drones following close behind. He was in his full combat gear, jet pack and wrist blaster in all. The two Saturdays share a look as Rook turns the containment field off and they fall to the floor heavily. His apprentice descends upon them snaps their heavier shackles off and puts on lighter electronic handcuffs and ties a gag on their mouthes.

Neither Drew nor Doc made an attempt to break free. They became painfully aware of their limb's disorientation from a week floating in a containment field, and the drones had their blaster trained in on them.

A groaning sound echoes through the room, and the spot on the floor through which Daemon disappeared through a week before begins to sag and distort. Van Rook curses vehemently and orders the drones and his apprentice to get the two on their feet and into his airship. Just as they begin to stagger out of the room, the distorting floor panels were torn away and a echoing roar that they recognize as Daemon's along with the sound of tearing metal sounds off. The blast door slams close, and Doc and Drew are lead through various hallways and finally onto a platform where Van Rook's airship was docked.

As Van Rook's apprentice starts to push the pair aboard, a middle-aged woman dressed in a SS Spec-Ops suit and holding a baster rifle drops from the airship and lands before him and his captives. The security drones begin firing at her, and seeing that she had no cover on the ramp, Bovin dove off of the ramp and behind a metal storage box.

The apprentice smashes a fist into the back of Doc and Drew's legs causing them to drop to their knees. Reassured that his captives weren't going anywhere, the apprentice began firing back at Bovin. He looks around briefly, wondering where Van Rook was. He spots him facing the door from which they had come not a minute before. That door suddenly blew open and out of it came Tara, Daemon, Fisk, and Zak . All of them were ripping mad.

Some of the drones broke off their attack on Mary and with Rook, started firing on the four that had just arrived. The blasts rocketed toward them, and Daemon, who was the one at the front of the initial strike, threw out his hands and a red force field sprang forth. Daemon's eyes and hands glow as the field that he created absorbs and dispurses the energy.

Doc and Drew stayed kneeled where they fell in shock. Not only had Daemon escaped, but Zak was alive along with the griffin girl Tara, and their old martial arts trainer Mary Bovin was there as well. What really surprised them though was how fiercely Zak was attacking Van Rook.

He had a look of rage in his eyes, and not only that, his irises glimmered with the color of gold when they are usually dark. Zak dips around one of Rook's attacks and responds with a quick flurry of blows from the Claw. Tara jumps into the fray between Zak and Rook, and she supplies a hearty dose of kicking work and blaster fire onto Rook. While those two fought with Rook, Daemon and Fisk helped Mary mop up what was left of the drones, and they began to push the apprentice back.

Van Rook soon became enraged with Tara and Zak's nimbleness. He threw two concussion grenades and for each shifter they recieved one each. These knocked Zak and Tara away from Rook long enough so he could fly back over to where Doc and Dew were kneeling. He cocks his wrist blaster and holds it to Drew's head. The apprentice, having fallen back to Doc and Drew's position , follows Van Rook's example with Doc.

Rook's Russian voice rang out into the silence that fell upon the rescue squad when they saw the peredicament that Zak's parents were in, "If any of you make one move to stop us from leaving," He nudges Drew's head with his knukles, and he directs the last part of the comment towards Zak, "I'll kill your precious parents."

Zak growls angrily, "You have no idea what you are getting yourself into Rookie..."

"Oh really? All I have to worry about is a gorilla-cat, two little shape-shifters," Tara, Fisk, and Daemon growl, "an old woman," Bovin 'harumphs', "and a small piece of insignificant trash like you.... So no, I'm not worried."

Zak's expression turns dark as the apprentice starts to drag Doc and Drew onto the airship, "Oh but you should be."

But Van Rook didn't hear the threat for he was busy retracting the ramp and taking off. Doc and Drew look back at Zak and see him mouth to them, "I'm sorry... I'm soo sorry."

The airship takes off and leaves the rag-tag group on the roof.

'What do we do now?' Tara asks Zak through their bond warily.

'I.. I don't know.' But then an idea strikes him. Zak pulls out his datapal and opens the GPS screen.

"What are you doing now?" Daemon asks. Tara smiles as she catches on to what Zak was doing.

"There," Zak says pointing to a spot on the screen triumphantly, "I have the loction of my family's airship. We can go there to regroup."