Chapter Sixty-Seven: Rei and Rin

*A Half Hour before the Assault Begins*

Ren and the infiltration team made it down to the next level; however, they all had to stop yet again. There was an office on the right side of a corridor, and in it was a man who was not human. He had dark blue skin and yellow eyes with no hair on the top of his head; he was seemingly tall and very muscular.

There was also another man in his office. The man looked kind of like Tsukiko, except his features were seemingly dog-like, like dog tails and ears.

"Boss, Tsukiko still hasn't arrived yet. What do we do about the daughters?" The dog-featured man asked.

"I don't know; she's your Queen. Tell me, Taichi, what do you think we should do?" the blue man asked aggressively.

"Uhm...I..." Taichi panicked. His fingers were constantly fidgeting.

Seeing this angered the blue man "Look, Taichi, you hired me and my boys to kidnap your queen's daughters. You told me you wanted power. You told me you were going to share the wealth with us. So tell me, Taichi...what's your plan?"

Taichi was silent; he couldn't think of a word to say.

"Pathetic." the blue man said before walking away from his desk and up to Taichi. "Tell me, what is it that you wanted? Riches? Women? Power? Maybe even Tsukiko or her daughters themselves? Hell, maybe all of the above. But let's be honest here, Taichi, you're nothing more than a rodent too scared to do any of the real work."

Taichi didn't refute any of the words the blue man said.

"So here's what's going to happen; this is now my total operation; you are cut out of the deal. I will wait one more half cycle for this queen of yours to show; afterwards, I'll bargain her daughters with her, and hell, for an extra price, I'll sell you out too. If she doesn't show, then simply put, you and her daughters get floated out into space. Not before I let my boys have some fun, though; I gotta keep the morale up after all. Do you understand me?" The man said with a cocky smile on his face.

"That...wasn't the deal..." Taichi said still shaking.

"Didn't I just tell you? I cut you out of the deal. You are a loose end anyway." the blue man said.

"Zaiga...please don't." Taichi said, begging the blue man to keep the deal going.

"Look, Taichi, I kept you around because you were useful to me. You'd help me strike against the empire, but it seems like this will become a fruitless endeavor if we stay on this path. So we're cutting you loose. We'll play it off that instead of being rebels, we're just your every-day pirates bargaining for some girls lives. That way, we live to fight another day, and we get rid of you. Win-win for us, right?"

Ren and the others heard the man still begging and figured while the man in blue was distracted, they could get by and find the next flight of stairs to go down to the prison level.

They could overhear Zaiga, who was getting more and more angry by Taichi's begging, start to beat him down, allowing Ren and the others to sneak by successfully.

"So that was the boss..." Ren thought to himself. "There's no way we could take him in hand-to-hand combat, meaning we absolutely can't get into direct confrontation."

Ren and the others continued down the corridor and found the next flight of stairs, allowing them to go down to the prison level.

Afterwards, they simply followed the schematics and found the cells that hold prisoners; three of them were currently locked, but each door still had a small window gap, allowing them to peek through.

Serenity checked the first one, and she noticed a four-legged green monster snarling while eating something identifiable. It had multiple rows of teeth, almost like a shark, but its body was built almost like a lions.

"Definitely not this one." Serenity said.

The next door, Eleonora checked.

Inside were four purple impish creatures who were just jumping around their cell. They each had two eyes located on long antennae on the top of their heads.

"Nope, this one either." Eleonora said.

"So that means...it's that one." Laelli said before checking it.

Inside, she saw two girls, one with red hair and another with blue hair, chained to the wall; they didn't seem like they were harmed at all. In fact, she could swear they were talking to each other.

"Guys! There's here!" Laelli said alerting the team.

"Okay...but how do we open the cells?" Serenity asked.

"I got this." Laelli said before cracking her fingers.

She grabbed the handle of the door and pulled as hard as she could, grunting in the process before ripping the door completely off of its hinges.

"See, I got it!" Laelli said.

However, it wasn't long before the alarms started to go off.

Ren, in a panic, yelled at Eleonora "Here, turn the signal on."

Eleonora twisted the signal stick, sending the message that they had gotten to the princesses.

Ren then made an order to Laelli "Laelli, now open the door that has that green monster thing that Serenity saw; we can use that as a distraction; afterwards, rip off the chains of the girls."

Laelli, who realized just how badly she messed up, didn't hesitate to follow Ren's orders. Ren then ran to the two girls, who had been just watching this chaos from the side.

"Who are you?" Rin asked?

Ren sighed "Long story short, my name is Ren, and we're here to rescue you."

Rin was surprised to hear that "Well, hurry up!" she yelled in excitement.

"We're working on it." Ren replied.

"Did mom send you?" Rei asked Ren.

"Yeah, she asked us to save you two as a favor." Ren replied.

"See Rin, I told you Mom would save us." Rei said excitingly.

"I knew she would; I had faith the entire time." Rin replied.

Laelli then came in and said, "The random monster is free and now causing chaos; I think it's already killed a few of them."

Ren nodded "Good, now free the girls. Eleonora, did the ship send their message?"

"Both lights are green; operation is now in full swing." Eleonora replied.

"What operation?" Rin asked after being unchained.

"We're getting you two out, but for right now, we wait..." Serenity replied.

"Why are we waiting? Can't we just go?" Rei asked.

"No, we are waiting for our people to send us an evac shuttle; once that gets here, then we will make a run for the access hatch." Ren replied.

"But what about the guards?" Rin asked.

"We have a distraction planned." Serenity said.

*During the Assault Launch*

Every knight on the ship launched for the assault.

Lucilia led the charge, targeting the cannons along the ship, slowly but surely taking out the chance the group would've had at being killed exiting the ship. Then the shuttle launched, with Tyler, Aleyda, and Ceti escorting it to the ship.

"Keep targeting the main ship; keep them distracted." Lucilia said on the comms.

*Back on the rebel ship.*

"Hearing the panic of both an untamable beast rampaging around on the ship and the current assault, Ren and the others continued to make their way through the bloodbath on the ship that the beast left behind, including seeing the two guards they knocked out earlier, now ripped to shreds and defenseless.

They made their way to the floor with the access hatch pretty easily due to most of the people on the ship being distracted. Ren was thankful there was no sight of the boss, Zaiga. He knew if he spotted them, things could go bad very quickly.

Ren and the others turned the corridor before being spotted by someone they definitely didn't want to see. Not Zaiga, but Taichi, who was now sporting a black eye.

"Y-You... What the hell are you doing here? HELP INTRUDERS, THEY HAVE THE PRISONERS HELP!" Zaiga yelled out.

"SHUT UP!" Ren said before punching Taichi in his only good eye.

"We need to hurry." Eleonora said.

Each of them kept on running down the corridor, but Taichi's yelling didn't go unheard; soon guards came on top of them and kept chasing them. Ren was last in the group, trying to cover their backends, but as they ran, he got slammed into a wall.

Ren looked up and saw the other man they didn't want to see—Zaiga.

"Hmm...your not volarian...who are you?" Zaiga asked Ren, who was still getting up.

"REN!" Eleonora yelled out.

"JUST RUN!" Ren yelled out.

Eleonora swallowed what she wanted to say and did her job: get the daughters back to the ship.

"OH NO, YOU DON'T." Zaiga yelled out at Eleonora and the others.

Ren, in a desperate attempt to stop Zaiga, grabbed onto his legs, slowing him down.

"Little pest." Zaiga said before punching Ren right in the face, causing blood to go down his face, but Ren determined to stop him and didn't give up.

"Persistent, aren't you?" Zaiga said.

Ren then used some of his remaining energy and punched Zaiga in the face, but to little effect, causing Ren to stammer backwards.

"Oh...this'll be fun..." Zaiga said before punching Ren in the stomach.

Ren dropped to his knees, blood coming out of his mouth. Then Zaiga stomped his boot right into Ren's back, causing him to yell out in pain. Zaiga then grabbed Ren and threw him at the wall nearby.

Ren, who was motionless, saw his vision blur as he felt like he was losing consciousness.

"You lasted longer than I thought...your people's bodies are fragile...well if yours is anything to go by." Zaiga said, taunting Ren.

Zaiga then kneeled down next to Ren and lifted his head. "Your friends will make good toys."

Zaiga then punched Ren again, knocking him out.

*Eleonora POV*

Eleonora ran with the group to the access hatch; luckily, the shuttle was there with Silili inside, waiting for them.

"Where's Ren?" Silili asked, not seeing him among the group.

Eleonora turned her head in the direction that Ren was out "If I'm not back in two minutes, just leave!"

Eleonora then turned around and ran back down the corridor.

Silili yelled out "Wait Eleonora!"

Eleonora didn't listen to any of her words. Her focus was on Ren. She didn't know why she was so determined to save him, but it was the only thing going through her mind.

"Save Ren, save Ren, save Ren."

She had one objective that she held to her heart: to save Ren.

Eleonora turned a corner and saw Zaiga punch Ren one last time, knocking him out.

"REN!" She yelled out, getting the attention of Zaiga.

"Oh...seems one of them came back...let me guess your girlfriend? Well, boy, I'll take good care of her; don't worry." Zaiga said, directing his attention to Eleonora.

Eleonora attacked Zaiga's legs, trying to take him down, but none of her attacks worked.

"That tickles..." Zaiga said before wrapping his hand around Eleonora's throat.

"You're a fighter...I like that." Zaiga said with a smile. "We'll have some fun later on."

Eleonora couldn't breathe; her consciousness was fading. "I'm sorry, Ren...I failed." That was all she could think about.

However, she noticed something in the background of her eyes.

Ren got up, barely conscious, and he charged at Zaiga and knocked his hand loose from Eleonora's neck. Ren then grabbed onto Eleonora's hand and ran as fast as he could with her, both of them weakened.

"Oh, how I love the chase..." Zaiga said before chasing after the two.

The two ran as fast as they could and turned the corner to the hallway with the access hatch, but Zaiga was right behind them. The two saw the evac ship waving them home, but they weren't fast enough. Zaiga caught up to the two and knocked them down.

Silili, seeing this, made a rash decision. She grabbed the shock rifle in the evac ship, hopped off of it, and kept shooting Zaiga with it.

It hurt him but didn't reach the desired effect.

"You know...I'm getting sick of this." Zaiga said.

In one last burst of energy, Ren charged behind Zaiga while grabbing a pole he found on the ground and swung it like a golf club right between Zaiga's legs.

"OOOOH!" Zaiga yelled with his eyes popping out.

Zaiga dropped to his knees as Ren and Eleonora grabbed onto Silili and ran to the evac ship. escaping from the hands of Zaiga.

"Oh..." Zaiga said before standing up with a sadistic smile. "There's no getting away from me."

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