[ THIRD PERSON POV ]

When Risk's shield fell, everyone flew into action.

Gunner was still in his glimmering steel form, and thus fearless when it came to facing the rain of bullets. Snag could move faster than the bullets themselves, and was full to brimming with a similar sense of fearlessness. She was darting about immediately before Rage, preventing him from getting shot, while Rebel barked off orders.

"Rage and Gunner! You take the left side," Rebel commanded, his larger body shielding Risk as she racked one, then another, of her guns behind his back. "Snag, you've got the right— We all know where Risk and I are going."

Risk removed one of his guns and cocked it before placing it in his open hand. "Whoever finishes first gets to find Imitate and Desmond," she added loudly.

The smoke from the gunfire was beginning to fill the room, clogging everyone's noses. Snag may have been the sole exception to this, given she moved so quickly that anything catching up with her would've been miraculous. She tore through the first three Kinetic on the right side of the room like the Tasmanian Devil, leaving them unconscious on the floor in her wake. Had anyone actually been capable of seeing her clearly, they may have found a certain sense of beauty in the way she flitted through the bullets. It was nearly like a dance to her — a dance turned deadly when she got close enough to any opposition. She roundhouse kicked the next man in the face, snatching his gun from him as he went down, a toothy grin on her face all the while.

She paused just long enough to unleash her own rain of bullets. Just below the sound of gunfire, if one listened very carefully, they could hear her laughter.

On the other side of the room, Gunner and Rage worked together with surprising efficiency, given neither of them worked with a partner during their time in LASAR. As they hit the first wave of the Kinetic agents, Gunner remained directly in front of Rage. Once the agents were disarmed, if Gunner hadn't knocked them upside the head in the process, Rage was left to deal with them. It was actually terrifying, how efficient Rage was. In one hand he held a pistol — in the other, a hunting knife.

Rage was not the type to toy with his food. Not like Risk and Rebel.

But then, the efficiency with which he moved was a little bit ... messier than theirs, too. The hand which wielded the knife was quickly spattered with blood, as well was most of the front of him. Gunner only chanced one look back at his impromptu partner before he fell into step beside him.

The faces of the Kinetic agents whom were left on either side of the room had turned ashen.

--

[ OTHER THIRD PERSON POV ]

When all of the UN leaders had run for cover, their assistants had been quick to follow. Imitate had latched onto Desmond's hand during that moment, determined she wasn't going to lose him now.

"We're not taking cover?" Desmond asked, his voice cracking. Though it was phrased as a question, he already knew the answer.

Imitate still gave it to him, anyway. "No." She used her free hand to retrieve her own gun, the safety already off, a bullet already in the chamber. Her silver eyes tracked each of the former LASAR agents once the telekinetic wall had dropped. She couldn't quite make out what Rebel had barked over the sounds of the gunfire, but she figured it out soon enough when Gunner and Rage took one side of the room, while the blur that was Snag zipped off into the other.

Her attention was about to return to Risk and Rebel, when she spotted one of the Kinetic agents who had been disguised as a security guard moving directly toward she and Desmond. She leveled her gaze with his own, just to realize it wasn't her he was looking at.

The man was on the shorter side in comparison to the other Kinetic agents, and his long blond hair was pulled back at the nape of his neck. His eyes blazed with a certain sense of wrath, and for all the focus he had on Desmond ... he didn't seem to notice Imitate's presence beside him.

Desmond spotted the man as he grew closer, and Imitate didn't miss the way he turned even paler, his mouth falling open.

"You really thought you could get out of this unscathed?" Elliot demanded as he closed in on Desmond. Though Elliot was supposed to be a mercenary, was supposed to be better at tracking danger, he seemed to have developed tunnel vision when it came to Desmond. He drew his handgun as he closed in, pointing it directly at Desmond's head, a dark and deadly smile on his face.

But no sooner did his arm straighten than had Imitate lashed out, sending his gun flying before she slipped easily into the space between he and Desmond.

Elliot was visibly stunned, the hand Imitate had harmed recoiling as one of his feet carried him a half-step backwards.

"I'm sorry, who are you supposed to be?" Imitate asked him coldly.

It was the first time Desmond had heard such a sharp, icy voice come from her. She had always been warm and smooth, persuasive and amiable.

Elliot's shoulders rolled back, the anger reigniting in his eyes, this time focused on Imitate. "Why don't you tell your girlfriend who I am, Desmond?"

"Because I didn't ask him," Imitate returned with a bite to her words. Her silver eyes were sharp as the edge of a knife, and though her posture may have seemed lax, she was prepared to lash out and remove the very breath from his lungs. "I asked you. Now, would you like to indulge me, or would you rather I just put you in your place?"

Elliot scoffed, his chest puffed up with a sense of pride that caused hatred to burn within Imitate. His anger caused a bitter smile to cut across his lips, condescension oozing from him. "Oh, you're going to put me in my place? Where would that be?"

He'd hardly finished his second sentence before Imitate struck. With all the grace and venom of a cobra, she jabbed the flat edge of one hand into his throat, shocking his system and knocking the breath from him simultaneously. Then one of her small, graceful hands retrieved his larger one, twisted it up between his shoulder blades, and pulled until she felt the familiar pop of the shoulder dislocating.

Elliot wasn't even capable of screaming because of her first strike.

As she released him, he collapsed on the floor in pain, and Imitate flashed him a catty smile. "Beneath me," she said.

Desmond watched all of this with eyes blown wide, his entire body feeling as though it had been frozen. At first that had been from the fear of seeing Elliot alive — then it had been in total shock at watching Imitate in action. He still looked stupefied when she turned back to him, and her priorly catty smile turned fond.

"Poor boy," Imitate chuckled, reaching for his hand once more. "You know, you've got more enemies than I expected, given how innocent you are."

Desmond's hand gripped hers a little tighter than it had before, and he somehow managed to put himself in motion again. "I, uh ... inherited some from my dad, I think."

Imitate couldn't help her laugh.

--

[ REBEL'S POV ]

As Snag, Gunner, and Rage cut into the Kinetic agents, Risk made a path for she and I that led straight toward Aim and Gambler.

No sooner did the former Team Charlie spot us than did Gambler actually go up in flames. It was a sight that I was at this point in my life apathetic to, in spite of the time that she had singed off my eyebrows. That had been years ago. I had new tricks up my sleeve.

Unfortunately, so did she.

I briefly noted Risk taking Aim head-on, taking a shot at his head —s which he managed to dodge — before she swung at his face with her free hand.

That was all I had time to notice before Gambler was upon me. Her hair was up in flames, and her hands were threatening to follow a similar path as she grasped at two new knives. "This time you'll be losing more than your eyebrows," she snarled, light eyes glowing because of her fire.

"Your fantasy world never fails to amuse me," I retorted. I gave her no time to make the first move, though that was how it had always been back in LASAR.

She was a cheat — a snake. She never fought fair, even when we were supposed to be on the same side. This time, I had no restrictions, no Boss who would reprimand me in the aftermath. So I lunged, latching onto her shoulder and yanking her toward me, my other hand thrusting her own knife into her abdomen.

She shrieked, her eyes widening. That lasted for only a few seconds before she found it in herself to fight back, and when she swung one of her knives at me, I removed the knife from her and stepped back, just out of range of her arm.

She was taller than most of the other female agents at LASAR; certainly taller than Risk. Thus her arms were longer, her reach was further, and when that still didn't help her, she dropped one of the knives and used her hand to clutch at where I had stabbed.

At first we just stood like that for a moment, both of us waiting to see what the other would do next.

Unfortunately, this time she acted first. And she didn't do anything I could have anticipated. Rather than ignite her fists and come at with renewed fury, she turned toward where Risk and Aim were fighting, and made to plunge her knife into Risk's back.

--

[ THIRD PERSON POV ]

Gunner, Rage, and Snag effectively mopped the floor with the Kinetic agents. No sooner had Rage felled the last of them than did Imitate drag Desmond over to the trio, a proud grin plastered on her face. "I'm glad you figured that bit out on your own," she remarked, nodding at the felled agents, "because if you hadn't, that would've been unfavorable. And, I think, messier."

Desmond stared at the fallen agents with wide eyes. "Messier than that?"

"Yup," Rage answered, wiping his knife off on his pants before sliding it into the sheath at his back.

Desmond did his best to swallow the bile that rose in his throat as he realized just how much blood Rage was covered in. He looked elsewhere, hoping to distract himself from the sudden urge to vomit, and found himself watching Risk and Rebel fight Aim and Gambler on the stage.

He was just in time to see Risk break out from Aim's hold, giving him a bloody nose in the process ... right as Gambler lunged at her back with a knife—

"All right, we need to move to the next phase of the plan," Gunner said, paying Team Alpha no mind. His skin had shifted back from its steel form, and he now looked between his companions with warm brown eyes, giving each of them a once over. "Rage, why don't you head into the room that we discussed earlier," he said, nodding toward the connected viewing room, visible because of the large glass window.

Rage's answer was a shrug of his massive shoulders before he strode off toward the room.

Meanwhile Rebel had grabbed Gambler just short of her burying her knife into Risk's spine. He hefted her up over his head and threw her down onto the ground, causing another yelp of pain to escape her lips.

Risk didn't even seem to notice what had just happened behind her. She snatched up one of the knives Gambler had dropped, and slashed across Aim's arm when he swung at her.

Aim didn't make a sound, instead forcing himself into closer quarters with Risk, wrestling the knife from her grasp, right as she shoved him off of her.

"The rest of us will escort all the world leaders and their assistants into the room," Gunner continued. He glanced at the giant clock above the door, "Cat and Low should be here any minute now. We don't want to keep them waiting."

All of a sudden, Gambler lashed out at Rebel's face with a fiery fist. He pulled back just in time not to have his entire face burnt, though a rash of red still came up across part of his jaw. Gambler didn't even bother trying to hit him again — instead she turned, and this time she grabbed Risk, pinning her arms to her sides as Aim lunged at her, knife in his hand.

The back of Risk's head connected with Gambler's nose with enough force to knock the taller girl off of her, freeing her from restraint, but in the same instance, Aim was upon her.

At the same time, a gun went off.

And then there was blood-curdling scream.

Everyone turned toward where the four had been fighting just in time to see Risk collapse with Aim on top of her, dark red blood already beginning to pool beneath the two of them.