Chapter 69

On the top floor of the underwater facility, the office workers were busy with their duties, weaving in and around the cubicles, blissfully unaware of the massacre that was going on downstairs. Evidently, they weren’t told about it in order to avoid panic, and since the fugitive was locked downstairs with no useable access card, it was impossible for her to make her way upstairs so there was no need to alarm anyone up here.

Down the hall from the office space, a few workers were waiting by the elevator doors.

Another employee from the office came trotting down the hall, passing by his waiting co-workers as he went to the vending machine to get a snack. “Holy shit, Roberts,” he exclaimed as he counted out some change in his hand. “You still waiting for that damn elevator?”

The overweight, bearded man holding a briefcase turned to reply. “Yeah,” he replied, checking his watch. “It’s been stuck on level twelve for a few minutes now. I don’t know what the hell’s going on with it.”

The guy at the vending machine shook his head. “I wonder if maybe they’re just doing some maint-“

BLAM!!!

The elevator doors suddenly burst open and were sent flying across the lobby, crushing the overweight man against the wall as the dirty, yellow winged girl soared out of the doors like a jet, her long stream of pink hair trailing behind in her wake.

The small lobby caught Fluttershy off-guard when she crashed through the doors. There was the sharp turn into the hall on the left, but it was quite close and she was travelling much too fast to make the turn in time. She reacted quickly and folded her wings in close to her shoulders, leaning to her right into a barrel roll to try to sharpen the turn, but even with the fancy manoeuvre, she knew that she was quickly running out of space.

Just before she spiralled into the far side of the hallway, she put her feet out and slammed them into the wall to stop herself from hitting with her body. She quickly ran a few steps along the wall, leaving deep footprints in the wood paneling before flapping her wings again to soar down the hall towards the office area.

She quickly emerged from the hallway into the large office, catching everyone in the room off guard as she soared above their heads like a missile before suddenly dive-bombing into the sea of cubicles, plowing up a wave of smashed dividing walls, desks, computers, papers and people as she tore through the room like a runaway locomotive.

Security arrived in short order, having been alerted by the sudden eruption of screams and smashing furniture. Two of them entered from the hall on the right with automatic weapons in hand just as the winged girl touched down in the walkway that cut through the center of the room. Debris continued to fly past her after being stirred up in her wake, and she spun around to face them, causing her stringy pink hair to fan out widely around her as she locked eyes with her new opponents.

“Everyone get down!” the guards shouted, raising their guns without hesitation to fire at Fluttershy.

As they pelted her with hot lead, she put her hand up in front of her face, squinting her eyes and turning away, irritated by the bullets that were bouncing off her face and tearing holes in her shirt. Frustrated by the onslaught, the shy girl brought her wings forward and folded them in front of her face to shield herself, then charged at full speed towards the guards.

She was upon them quickly, with bullets continuously ricocheting off her wings as she swung her open hand down, slapping the gun out of the first guard’s hands. He looked down at his weapon as it hit the floor, then back at her just in time to see her hand wing up, connecting a hard backhand to his cheek. He was sent flipping though the air, spinning sideways as he bounced off the wood-finished wall, leaving behind a deep crack from the impact of his body colliding with the panelling.

The second guard had stepped a few feet into the office past Fluttershy and was busy reloading his gun when she turned her attention to him. He snapped the magazine in place, cocked the weapon and brought it up to fire at her.

She lunged forward suddenly, swinging a powerful right hook at his face, to which the guard reacted quickly; ducking under her attack and then standing up again to fire his weapon, only to be clotheslined off his feet by her wing.

He landed on his shoulders on the floor in front of her, grimacing in pain as he tried to get some air back into his lungs.

Fluttershy stepped forward and drove her foot into his midsection, sending him hurtling upward through the air and eventually crashing into the drop ceiling at the far end of the room, causing shower of debris and sparks to fall down into the cubicles below.

The office workers cowered behind their desks, staring breathlessly at the filthy girl as she tucked her wings up neatly on her back. Her long hair flowed behind her as she walked gracefully amongst the partially destroyed cubicles, surveying the damage she had already caused during the search for her primary target.

Fluttershy stopped in the center of the room, holding her fists at her sides as she scanned the sea of wide eyes and shocked faces scattered around the astonishingly silent office. Nervousness crept over her, her cheeks reddening at the thought of being the center of attention like this, but she knew she needed to gather her bravery in order to complete her objective.

“Come on, Fluttershy! All of these people saw you naked, singing all by yourself on that awful stage…what do you have to be scared of? YOU’RE in control!”

The shy girl finally drew in a breath to speak. “Um, excuse me everyone,” she asked softly. “I’m looking for someone. Could you help me find him?”

*****

Agent Cody was sitting behind the desk in his office, sweating bullets, having already heard everything that was happening over the communication feed up to that point. It started with guards disappearing in the lower levels, followed by Agent Stubz, whose access card started popping up all over the place before it was last seen activating the elevator to the main control room. It was locked out in short order afterwards, however there had been a massive commotion in the control room, from which there were countless distress calls all at once, followed by silence not long after.

It had to be the girl. Cody knew it in his gut.

What would happen if he had to face her again? He could barely handle her the last time they fought, on the side of the road in the middle of the woods; in fact, she would have surely killed him if he hadn’t gotten those hand cuffs on her when he did.

But now, she’d been through some very rigorous hand-to-hand combat and weapons training, as well as the torture of the conditioning process, and if she was now roaming the halls full of piss and vinegar, it could spell disaster for everyone in the facility.

She would surely be looking for him, and if she found him, he knew he wouldn’t stand a chance of surviving if he had to go toe-to-toe with her again.

Cody took a deep breath and leaned back in his chair, rubbing his palms against his forehead, trying to ease the tension in his mind that had been brought on by the situation. He let his head fall back to stare at the ceiling as he thought about the conundrum to himself.

“If they locked Stubz’ card down, or possibly ALL of the cards, then she’ll be stuck in the control room, which is good. Unless she kills everyone in there…” He stared at the ceiling for another moment before shrugging. “Oh well, better them than me.”

His chair creaked when he was suddenly startled upright, feeling a deep rumble that shook the floor from nearby.

“What the fuck was that?”

He had his hands on the desk in front of him, his pulse pounding harder with every second that passed as he listened intently for more noise.

It wasn’t long before the dreadful silence was shattered once more, with the source even closer this time.

There was a loud crash just down the hall from the office area, followed by automatic gunfire, then another crash, and finally…silence.

The hair on Cody’s neck quickly stood on end. His skin tingled as the goosebumps popped up on his arms and neck when he realised how close the danger was.

“She’s on this floor…” he thought in a panic, glancing over to the bank of windows on the right side of his office. The blinds were shut as usual, which was how he always liked them, but at that moment, they made it impossible to see what might have been going on in the hallway.

A cold, deadly silence hung in the air.

Cody’s breaths got heavier with each inhale, his heart pounding like a pile-driver, his ears alert to any sound that he might hear next.

He nearly jumped out of his shoes when his intercom suddenly buzzed, seemingly much louder than normal with his attention so sharp, focusing on the perfectly still quietness in the building…

Or more accurately, the calm before the storm.

He stared at the intercom speaker on his desk. “She can’t get in here unless I let her in…if that’s even her,” he reassured himself. “She’s far too weak to break in, and those windows are bullet proof. She can't get in…unless she has some explosives or something on her.”

“Shit,” he whispered nervously, knowing he was going to have to answer the call sooner or later. He slowly reached out to push the button on his intercom, praying that it was just one of his co-workers coming to let him know that the situation had been resolved and everyone was safe.

He pressed the button with a trembling finger. “Who is it?” he asked in an unsteady voice.

“Oh, um…hi Mr. Cody. It’s Fluttershy.”

He instantly felt the cold spread throughout his chest when his heart froze in place. He remained silent, sitting motionless in his chair, holding his finger on the button.

How could such a soft, innocent voice be so utterly frightening?

“Um, do you have a minute?” she continued. “I’m here to kill you, i-if that’s alright.”

Cody gulped; feeling a sensation similar to a knife being rammed through his stomach when a surge of fear hit him, and he took his finger away from the button to avoid hearing anymore of that nightmare-ish voice.

He shook his head and quickly snapped out of his terror-induced trance, letting his training quickly take over, which would allow him to think clearly and assess the situation. “I’m not sunk yet,” he thought with resolve, reaching down under his desk to pick something up. “She’s not coming in here if I don’t let her in, but I’ll be ready…just in case she has some kind of trick up her sleeve.”

What happened next seemed to happen in slow motion right in front of the agent's eyes.

With a deafening crash that made Cody nearly jump out of his skin, the door to his office was knocked off of the frame and sent flying across the room, where it slammed against the opposite wall.

He covered his face to protect himself from the flying glass and then looked up again to see the girl stumble into the room shoulder-first. His eyes widened when he saw her, noticing she had at some point undergone some strange physical changes. Her hair was much longer now, and she appeared to have a pair of pointed ears perched on the top of her head, making it look like she was turning into an animal of some sort.

Her hair trailed in a graceful arc behind her, obscuring the bundle of feathers nestled up tightly on her back, preventing Cody from noticing them as she stopped on the far side of the office and began to search for him.

Fluttershy found him in seconds, seated in his desk chair, his eyes wide with terror. She lowered her brow, pointing her finger at him with an intense scowl on her face.

“YOU!” she bellowed, before she began to move towards him.

Agent Cody, sly as a fox to the bitter end, put his hand up. “Ah-ah! Wait a minute, Miss Fluttershy,” he warned.

Fluttershy stopped in her tracks when she saw what he was holding in his other hand.

It was one of the small kittens.

“Put him down, you coward,” she ordered with gritted teeth, unwilling to witness the loss of another innocent animal's life. “Oh dear,” she thought. “I didn’t hear that little guy in here with all the commotion I was making out there, and now I've walked right into a trap…”

“I don’t think so,” Cody replied. “He’s gonna stay right here with me until you’re back in your cell.”

The shy girl shook her head slowly, clenching her jaw in frustration.

She watched as Cody reached into his desk and produced a pair of handcuffs. He held them up and jiggled them to deliberately tease her, reminding her of her capture on the side of the road in the woods near her home.

“You’re gonna put these on, am I right?” he said smugly. “Or the little guy gets it.”

She balled her fists up at her sides, cocking her head to the side as she glared at the Agent with fire in her eyes.

“You’d better listen to me,” Cody threatened. “You remember what happened last time?”

Fluttershy let her eyes shift from the shiny cuffs over to the kitten squirming in the agent’s tight grip.

“Here,” he said, tossing the handcuffs across the room to her.

She reached out to catch the shackles, scowling at the sight of them. These were the same objects that doomed her to this dark prison in the first place, and she suddenly realised at that moment that she had no idea how long she’d been imprisoned there.

She was bound and determined to complete her escape; to see the light of day once again, but ultimately, she couldn’t allow another innocent creature’s life come to an end, so she complied with Cody’s orders.

She slapped the cuffs onto one wrist, then the other, knowing full well that she could easily break out of them at anytime. This gesture was simply to allow Cody to have a false sense of security while she followed through with her improvised plan.

The cuffs reminded her of her failure on the side of the road, how she fought bravely, but one-dimensionally, ignoring the fact that she had magic at her disposal; magic that she could have used to defeat Cody, preventing her from being locked up in this cold, steel hell-hole, being tortured by these sick people.

Never again would she forget who she was, and what she was truly capable of.

The agent grinned smugly as she shackled herself, letting out an arrogant chuckle as he held the kitten up. “You’re tough, little lady. I’ll give you that. But at the end of the day, your weaknesses are too predictable and obvious, and your naïveté makes you easy to control.”

Fluttershy sighed, letting her bound hands hang down in front of her. “What weaknesses?” she asked, intentionally baiting her narcissistic foe.

Cody snorted. “Uh, that would be your fondness for these furry little fuckers,” he replied in a condescending tone. He chuckled again and held the kitten up to his face to snuggle it against his nose, mocking the shy girl’s affection for the animal. He had his hand wrapped around the animal’s torso, letting its rear legs hang down with its belly facing him. “And she falls for it every time, doesn’t she? Doesn’t she?” he schmoozed the kitten, imitating Fluttershy's friendly, playful voice.

A small grin crept across the shy girl’s face. “My love for animals isn’t all you need to know about me,” she said.

As she spoke, a yellow stream of urine emitted from the kitten’s abdomen in an arc, dribbling down Cody’s puckered lips and chin.

“Oh god! PPPFFFTT!” he cried, turning his head away to spit out the foul smelling substance while dropping the kitten on the desk. “Ugh it’s in my mouth!” he gagged, wiping his face with the sleeve of his suit before turning back to see where the animal was.

“I can control them too,” he heard the shy girl say from the other end of the room.

Cody froze when he looked at his desktop and realised the kitten was gone. It had hopped off and hid somewhere in the office, leaving him without his last line of defence, and without any leverage over his foe. That kitten was the ace up his sleeve, and now it was gone.

“What did she just say?” he thought as he slowly brought his eyes up to look at Fluttershy.

Agent Cody watched in horror as the shy girl snarled, raised her hands and pulled her arms apart, snapping the handcuffs effortlessly, sending little bits of metal chain flying around the room. She then locked her dark gaze on him as she spread her massive wings, spanning the width of the office with them, proudly presenting herself to Cody as the deliverer of his imminent doom.

“Holy shit,” he muttered, staring at the creature before him.

The tension in the room was palpable. The two foes stood at the opposite walls, their eyes locked intently on one another, each one waiting for the other to make their move.

After a short standoff, Cody lunged down suddenly to reach under his desk to retrieve the pistol that he always kept handy, just for a case like this where he might unexpectedly need to defend himself. In the back of his mind, however, he knew this was a futile gesture, but he was short on options at that point and he knew that his escape from this situation was unlikely.

Fluttershy charged with limitless aggression, her toes tearing strips out of the carpet as she leapt over the glass coffee table, using her wings to boost her speed, depriving him of the time to try any more of his cowardly tricks. She landed on the agent’s desk, her bare feet thumping down on the wooden surface right in front of him.

Cody’s fingertips were just inches away from the weapon when she bent down and latched her powerful grip onto his throat, then violently yanked him off the floor. She stood upright on his desk, holding him in the air with one arm, choking off his air supply as his feet dangled above the chair.

She glared into his eyes, enjoying the feel of his pitifully weak hands clawing at her wrist, trying to free himself from her grip with a level of futility that thrilled her to the core; a thrill that was amplified even more by his seemingly weightless body dangling from her powerful arm.

Fluttershy decided that she would finally reveal the truth to the agent; to hand over the information he’d asked for the very first time he appeared at her doorstep. “To answer your question, Mr. Cody, yes. I do know Golden Arrow. He fucked my brains out and gave me this power, which I'm going to put to good use right now. After all the trouble you’ve caused, I’m going to do both him and me a favour by getting rid of you for good,” she said with a scowl on her face, which was quickly replaced by a cute smirk. “It’s what a good, um...girlfriend would do.”

And with that, she spun around on the desk and choke-slammed the agent down onto the glass coffee table. His back pounded against the thick glass table top, knocking the wind out of him as the impact shattered it to pieces.

Cody fell through the metal table frame and collided with the floor. His arms and legs were pointed into the air, the table frame holding him in place like a bundle of sticks, his lungs struggling to refill with air as warm blood slowly soaked into his suit, gushing from the countless cuts created by the shattered glass.

He shook his head in an attempt to shed the bits of glass from his face so he could open his eyes, but before he had a chance to do so, she gripped his ankle tightly and yanked him out of the table frame. He was tossed like a rag doll over his desk again, where he slammed into the wall and slid down to the floor. The force of the impact cracked the drywall and left a crimson streak all the way to the floor where he slid down.

Now behind his desk again, crumpled up on the floor against the wall, Cody opened his eyes to peer under the desk at his pistol, hanging there in its holster, tantalisingly urging him to reach for it. He grunted through his pain and lunged forward to reach for the gun.

Fluttershy leapt back on top of the desk just as he pulled out the irrelevant weapon and aimed. She quickly reached down and grabbed his forearm just as a single round fired from the barrel, which passed by her head and continued onward to find its home in a ceiling tile.

The shy girl hoisted him into the air, suspending him by his arm with the gun pointed helplessly at the ceiling. With her other hand, she gripped the front of his suit jacket and pulled him over the desk, letting his feet come to rest on the wooden surface so they were standing face to face.

Without hesitation, Fluttershy yanked his shoulder from the socket, drawing a grunt from Cody's mouth while she proceeded to squeeze his forearm with immense force, bending it until both bones snapped and tore through the skin, poking out through the sleeve of his suit jacket.

The agent cried out in pain, helpless to fight against her strength as she treated him like a puppet, bringing his broken arm around to press the barrel of the gun against his cheek. She pulled the trigger without a second thought, firing a single round that tore through his mouth, bursting out of his other cheek with a spray of blood and teeth trailing behind it.

She released her grip on his arm, letting it flop down to his side; the gun slipped from his fingers and landed on the desk with a heavy clunk. They stood for a moment facing each other, Fluttershy with a dark, yet satisfied scowl on her face…and Cody, who was barely conscious, unable to stand on his own, having to be held up by the lapel of his suit jacket.

She slowly leaned in close to his glassy eyes. “Do you remember what you did to that poor little kitty right in front of me?” she whispered, waiting a few seconds until his eyes opened wide; signalling to her that he knew what was coming.

She clamped onto the sides of his head with both hands and violently twisted it around with a sickening pop, leaving the agent to face directly behind himself, unable to breathe with this throat twisted shut.

Without hesitation, Fluttershy gritted her teeth as she grabbed the lapels of his jacket and launched Cody across the room. He flipped upside down as he rocketed through the air, slamming into the opposite wall with his back, collapsing the drywall inward, wedging his body in place, upside down and dead as a door nail.

This wasn’t enough for Fluttershy.

She let out a shrill cry of rage and leapt off the desk to charge across the office towards the corpse, colliding with it shoulder-first and smashing through the wall into the adjacent office. The next room was quickly filled with concrete dust, obscuring her vision as she looked around the room to survey the carnage. Debris covered the floor; chunks of cement, pieces of rebar, drywall…and blood.

There was not much left of the agent after being driven through the wall. Fluttershy scanned the rubble, finding only fragments of bone, scraps of black suit and blood soaked into some of the cement pieces that had been distributed around the room.

Looking back at the hole she’d created in the wall, Fluttershy was shocked to realise that it was over a foot thick, with two layers of rebar strewn through the middle, protruding in twisted barbs from the concrete around the perimeter of the hole. The offices were clearly designed to be heavily protected from one another in the event of an explosion or fire, but unfortunately for the inhabitants of this place, nothing and no one was safe from Fluttershy.

She stood in the center of it all, finally satisfied that she’d utterly destroyed her tormentor.

Agent Cody was no more.

Fluttershy straightened herself up as she stretched her wings out, shaking them rapidly to shed the dust and bits of concrete from her feathers, after which she calmly folded them up behind her back. She took a deep breath for a moment, reflecting on what had transpired that day, but it wasn’t over yet. There were still a couple of things left for her to do.

After taking a moment to bend down and pick up a small object from the rubble on the floor, she leapt forward without warning, crashing head-first through the bulletproof windows into the hallway, then took off running back towards the office area.

*****

“OB1, OB1, this is supply run number three-four-seven on approach. Request permission to land?”

A soft female voice returned an answer over the radio. “Sure. I mean, permission granted.”

The pilot was too preoccupied to notice the unfamiliar voice. There was a large storm moving in quickly from the north, which was already causing high wind speeds and blowing rain around the oil rig base.

“Roger that,” the pilot replied over the radio. “This storm’s gonna be on us soon so we need to be quick about it.”

“Oh OK, well, you’re free to make your, um…approach.”

*****

Fluttershy hid behind a junction box as she watched the chopper come in for its landing.

While it was good to breathe fresh outside air again, she was mildly disappointed after being met with dark clouds and strong, misty winds rather than warm, sunny skies and a gentle breeze.

The ocean surrounding the rig was heaving up and down as if it was alive, breathing heavily like a giant creature that encompassed the entire surface of the planet. The wind rattled the large tower on the platform, causing heavy metallic rattles and clanks to echo between the structures that dotted the rig’s upper levels.

There was no sign of Ingram anywhere. This worried the shy girl, who had kept an eye open for him since she’d completed everything she needed to do inside. There hadn’t been any mention of a specific place to meet, but none was really needed since the platform outside was not very expansive.

Fluttershy’s pony-up had subsided by then, and her wet hair whipped behind her along with her clothes, which flapped wildly against her slender frame in the harsh wind. Her gray shirt was tattered, torn, pummeled with bullet holes and stained with blood. On the back of the shirt were two large holes where the wings had torn through, which were now empty again, exposing only the dirty yellow skin of her back. Her ears were back in their normal position on the side of her head, and her messy hair was back to its usual length.

Fluttershy already missed the feeling of power she possessed during the enhanced state. Those massive wings had given her amazing mobility, and having the physical strength of her boyfriend was nothing short of amazing. She felt light as a feather, and was given the ability to move about freely without the need for using doors or worrying about anyone overpowering and capturing her, or chaining her up again.

It was exhilarating.

She had gained a new respect for her ancient lover after the whole experience. How it was possible for him to exercise such restraint with that much power on tap was something she could not fathom; let alone how he ever led anything even close to a normal life while trying to hide such abilities from the people who were interested in them.

Fluttershy craved more of it. Returning to her normal state had left her feeling heavy as she stood outside in the wind, trying to keep her balance against the powerful gusts of wind, holding tightly to the large cardboard box that she was holding under one arm.

The chopper had touched down by then, which was her cue to take on the last obstacle before earning her freedom for good.

The worker in the back of the chopper opened the side door, allowing the aircraft to be quickly filled with wind and salty mist.

He scanned the platform for a moment, then turned back to the pilot as he slid a clipboard from one of the slots on the wall. “Where the hell is everybody?”

The pilot shook his head. “Probably inside because of the weather.”

“This is bullshit!” the delivery worker cursed. “We’ve got a fuckin job to do!”

“Just get it done so we can get out of here before that storm is on top of us. Did you log the touchdown time?” the pilot asked.

“Yeah, 9:45 am.”

“OK then. Get to it,” the pilot ordered.

“Fine.” The delivery man jumped out of the side door to the deck, holding his head down against his shoulder in a vain attempt to stop water droplets from blowing against his face. He held his hand over the paper on the clipboard so it wouldn’t flip over in the wind while he read the list, then spoke to the pilot once more. “OK, I’m gonna head to the door to see anyone one’s in there to give us a hand.”

He turned to walk across the platform, but was stopped in his tracks by a dirty yellow-skinned girl wearing tattered clothes, standing in his path. With a scowl on her face, she quickly raised a pistol and fired, relieving him of the responsibility of completing his delivery duties.

The pilot heard the bang and turned to look behind him to see what was happening when the girl suddenly appeared beside him, holding the gun to the side of his helmet.

“What the fuck?” he shouted in surprise.

She said something in reply, but he couldn’t hear her voice over the noise of the chopper.

Fluttershy sighed, realising this and turned to the empty seat beside the pilot. She spotted a headset hanging on the armrest, so she quickly grabbed it and put it on.

“You’re gonna take me out of here,” she instructed in a soft, yet firm voice.

“But-”

“But first, we have to wait for someone,” she continued.

“Who?”

“A friend. He should be along soon.”

“How soon?” the pilot asked. “We’ve got a bad storm bearing down on us fast, and we have to be outta here before it hits us.”

“He shouldn’t be long,” she replied with an irritated scowl. “He’s probably on his way up the elev-“

Fluttershy stopped suddenly when she realised her mistake. “Oh no!” she gasped. “I destroyed the elevator! How is he going to get up here??”

“I have to go find him,” she informed the pilot. “Wait for me here.”

The pilot shook his head. “Seriously? You know I’m just going to take off as soon as you get out of this chopper, right?”

Fluttershy gritted her teeth in frustration of the situation. Of course he was going to leave after she pulled a gun on him. She looked at the pilot again. “OK, you’re coming with me then.”

“Listen,” the pilot insisted, “you don’t understand. If that storm hits, we’re not going anywhere.”

She shoved the barrel harder against the side of his helmet. “You’re gonna do what I say!”

“If we do what you say, then none of us are getting out of here. I can promise you that,” he replied, putting his hands up. “We have to go. There’s no time to go looking for your friend.”

The shy girl bit her lip, considering her options. She had to get home. There was no way she was going to spend another second here. But how could she leave the person who granted her the freedom to escape behind to die?

Deep down however, she knew the pilot was right. It had to be now or never.

Ingram may already be dead. She might go in there to look for him, and it could be a total waste of time. Was it really worth sacrificing her chance to go home?

It didn’t feel good, regardless of the facts. He set her free, how could she repay him like this?

She closed her eyes for a moment and tapped the barrel of the pistol to her forehead in frustration. Finally, she forced herself to swallow the lump that was growing in her throat and reached out to slide the side door shut.

“Fine. Go.”

They slowly lifted off of the platform, the chopper’s trajectory slightly askew as the horrendous wind relentlessly tried to hammer them out of the air. Fluttershy watched the oil rig get smaller and smaller as they began to put distance between it and them, remembering that she had one more objective to complete.

She pulled the black cylinder out of her pocket and held it in her hand, sighing as she thought about Mr. Ingram, who was still trapped inside the lower depths of the facility. She was horrified at the thought of pushing that button and putting an end to such a good man’s life, but on the same token, she’d been ordered by Ingram himself to push that button if he didn’t make it.

And he didn’t make it.

With sorrow in her heart, she hung her head and let out a long sigh. She knew she had to do it. The facility could not be allowed to survive. Fluttershy could not let anyone else suffer the way she did, and the power to stop it was sitting in the palm of her hand right at that very moment.

She flipped the clear cap open, feeling the lump forming in her throat again as she let her thumb hover just above the button, hesitating for a moment while she thought of her new friend; who she was about to doom to death…if he wasn’t dead already.

Fluttershy took in a deep breath, then closed her eyes. “Thank you Mr. Ingram. And…I’m sorry,” she whispered.

She brought her thumb down and pressed the button.

Nothing happened.

She opened her eyes to look out the window at the rig, which appeared to be unchanged. Furrowing her brows, she pushed the button again.

Still nothing.

“Hmm,” she thought. “Well, it was pretty deep under the water. Maybe the fire won’t be visible from up-“

Her thoughts stopped when she saw the water around the rig swell up with a huge white pocket of air from within, bursting into the sky with a massive spray of seawater mixed with white steam and black smoke that billowed out from the churning depths, obscuring the rusty, red oil rig in the distance.

Fluttershy dropped the detonator and covered her mouth in shock of what she'd just done, falling onto her rear-end on the floor next to the cardboard box she’d brought with her. Tears streamed down her face as the guilt overcame her, twisting her chest into a tight knot as she thought of her liberator and the gift he had given her; freeing her from that terrible place, which had now become his tomb.

She became angry at herself for not thinking clearly in the heat of the moment. She never should have destroyed that elevator. It might have been her fault that he didn’t make it.

The aircraft bucked suddenly in the turbulence, bringing her attention back to the pilot. “Where is he going?” she wondered as she pulled the card from her pocket. There wasn’t much left of it, but luckily, as per Ingram’s instructions, she had memorised the numbers and knew them off by heart.

Fluttershy, angered by the loss of her friend, stood quickly and stepped up beside the pilot to jam the pistol firmly against the side of his helmet.

“Take me to 32.92 North by 106.16 West or I’ll blow your fuckin head off!”