Foxhunt (COMPLETE)

[Vigilante]

Ginny narrowed her eyes, staring at the remote in the man's hand. "I prefer not to 'port to places I've never seen." There, she'd said it. Openly admitted with her own lips that she could teleport. "Suffice to say I don't exactly trust a man who sends someone to attack me at my own home, and hurts one of my friends in the process."

[General Gideon Vasher]

"Fair enough," the man replied. He tapped the control, and the lights on the collar stopped blinking.

"But whether you trust me or not, there is one simple truth you cannot change. If you do not teleport in the next five seconds, Miss Hayes, I will put a bullet through your thigh."

He drew an army pistol and leveled it at the thickest part of Ginny's leg.

"Four..."

[Vigilante]

Ginny took a deep breath, still fully restrained and strapped to the evil dentist's chair, and let it out slowly as the man counted down.

"Three..."

She didn't trust him. Didn't want to teleport on command. Didn't want to do a great many things.

"Two..."

She didn't paticularly want to be shot in the thigh either, and he'd probably shatter her thighbone in the process. As the bastard started to mouth the word 'one' and his finger tightened on the trigger, Ginny 'ported.

Her body disappeared into a cloud of purplish smoke, and there was a distinctive sound, bamf. Ginny bamf-ed back into sight, falling slightly from the far left corner of the room to land on unsteady feet. She clutched at the hospital gown and kept her back to the wall.

[General Gideon Vasher]

"Very good," the man said, holding his gun back in a relaxed grip - but the barrel was still locked toward Ginny's leg with a precision that said he didn't need to square up for his aim to be true.

Her captor stepped forward and picked up one of the diodes that had fallen limply to the chair when she'd vanished. The vinyl cushion still glistened with her sweat.

"Very impressive. Even more useful than sticking to walls."

He still held the control device in his left hand.

"Dr. Zajeda, you can come in now. Miss Hayes, we still have some tests to run, tests that require you to be in a lucid state. I hope I can count on your full cooperation."

The door swung open, and in came a pair of uniformed guards armed with nightsticks followed by a female doctor and an orderly wheeling a cart full of medical instruments. But behind them, Ginny could see a vacant room and a corridor bending off out of sight.

[Vigilante]

The door opened, she glimpsed open space and a long hallway twisting away, and Ginny took full advantage. With a bamf and a cloud of quickly disapating smoke she found herself suspended in the air in a half crouch at the furthest point she had been able to see from the cell. Behind her, the collar that had been snug around her neck fell to the ground in the cell with a metallic clatter. Before she could fall to the ground she 'ported again, further down the hallway. And then she 'ported once more, up to a doorway.

Dropping lightly to the ground, she found it locked, but there was an unbreakable window set into the security door. Shouts were starting up behind her, and Ginny risked a look behind her before 'porting to the other side and down the next hallway. There had to be a way out of this maze.

[General Gideon Vasher]

The two guards spun around to give pursuit, only to find themselves hampered by the medical cart - one of them swore.

"Wait," the old man said. "She's not going far."

He crossed the room and bent down to pick up the collar, which had just wobbled to a stop on the concrete floor. He smiled grimly.

"Captain Roche, signal your men to give the prisoner a wide berth. She'll be back in here in due time."

The man pressed another button on his control device.

[Zero]

In a darkened cell similar to the one Ginny had occupied, a coffin-sized capsule surrounded by medical equipment slid open, and a single red spot glowed in the shadows.

Freeing himself from his cybernetic umbillicals, Zero climbed out of his regeneration pod, seized his sword, and sprinted out into the corridor.

[Vigilante]

Three 'ports and another locked door later Ginny stopped and looked around. All the hallways seemed the same, and the doors that led off of them were windowless, and seemed to need keycards in order to open them.

Surprisingly she hadn't run into a single soul yet, but she was sure that would change. Ginny padded down the hallway, the tile cold on her bare feet, and brushed against a door that gave way as she touched it. She pushed inside, and left it open a bit behind her, turning around to see if she could find anything a little more suitable to wear.

It was a lab of some kind, and there were white lab coats hung up by the door. Ginny grabbed one and put it on, concealing the embarrassing gap in the back of the hospital gown she'd woken up in. ...Even more useful than sticking to walls. The man's words were echoing around in her head.

They must have taken Jamie as well, the poor girl was probably out of her mind with fear and God knows what torture they were putting her through. Ginny rummaged around in some drawers, looking for something sharp and finding a scapel.

Makeshift weapon in hand, she ducked back into the hallway, and ran down it looking for "You are Here" signs. Anything! 'Porting, Ginny could cover thirty yards in a single attempt, but there wasn't that much room here.

[Zero]

Doors and fluorescent lights flashed by as Zero sped through the corridors, comparing the facility map in his head to the computer's estimates of Ginny's trail. There were few places she could go on this level that weren't already locked down.

The cybernetic warrior skidded around a corner and caught himself on the far wall. There were footsteps coming his direction. He leapt straight up and braced braced himself spread-eagled against the walls and ceiling and camouflaged himself.

As Ginny rushed down the corridor, she saw a momentary shimmer right in front of her as an invisible boot swung toward her at face level.

[Vigilante]

There wasn't enough time to react, and Ginny was smacked in the face with something unyielding even as she tried to skid to a stop. As her body started to tumble backwards, it disappeared, only to reappear twenty feet down the hall in the direction she'd been running.

Slamming into the ground, nose bleeding and probably broken, Ginny didn't cry out. She scrambled to her feet, looking for anything in the apparently empty hallway. A shimmer at the corner she'd been rounding almost looking like the outline of a body, and she felt sure that her attacker was the same as the one who'd found her at home.

The walls and floor seemed to blur as the shimmer passed over them, and Ginny cast about for anything she could use as a weapon. All she had was the scapel, and she palmed it now, edge sticking from the bottom of her fist and pointing forward.

[Zero]

As Zero ran after the fugitive mutant, he shut down his active camouflage to conserve power. The ghostly shimmer became a metal and kevlar monster with one burning, red eye.

His objective was to disable her, not destroy her. As he approached, he leapt to the side and kicked off the wall, intending to strike her from an unexpected angle.

[Vigilante]

The metallic monster jumped up and then off the wall almost faster than Ginny could react, but when he chopped down at her the mutant was no longer there. He, well she assumed it was a he, began to land heavily due to the lack of expected resistance, and she materialized slightly above him.

It took a moment to orient herself, even though his trajectory had taken him to where she'd expected. As her body fell downwards, Ginny slammed down with her fist at the thing's great red eye. With the force of her body behind it, the scapel smashed into it, found resistance and stopped.

Ginny fell to the ground, her arm jarred all the way to her shoulder, the little blade still in her fist. She had just enough time to see that there was red blood on the end of it before she teleported away again, putting more room between her and the strange attacker.

[Zero]

Zero's ocular implant filled with static as damage reports flooded across his cybernetic brain. Ocular lens compromised. Servos six through nine destroyed. Primary ocular circuit damaged. Restoring partial functionality.

Half of the static resolved itself, but the image was poor - he could only see infra-red shadows, blobs of heat and cool. She now had the advantage of sight.

So Zero scanned his mental map of the compound, found a nearby fuse box, and tore out the fuse that powered the lights on this level. The corridors were plunged into darkness, which was quickly replaced by the lurid red glow of emergency lights.

[Vigilante]

The lights in the hall dimmed, flickered, and went out. A few seconds later the red emergency lighting came on, giving Ginny's surroundings the feeling that she were deep underground.

Maybe she was. Jamie. She had to find Jaime, and get the hell out of there. She flipped the scapel in her hand, and could still see the 'man' up the passage from her. He turned towards her, and she gathered herself to 'port.

Appearing behind him, she stabbed between his shoulder and his neck, hoping to hit a seam in his body armor.

[Zero]

The blade slipped along the smooth contour of his shoulder armor until it hit the softer fibrous mesh that protected his deltoids and bit into the synthetic material. But Zero felt no pain. His central processor instantly provided him with a detailed readout of the damage and a performance impact assessment.

He could have rolled with the blow and minimized the wound. But the flesh she'd attacked was thick with muscle, and the scalpel's small blade could not penetrate far enough to seriously compromise his motor responses. So Zero reached back and gripped her wrist harshly enough to cause pain, not quite harshly enough to break it.

He wrenched her hand away from the scalpel handle and twisted around to grapple with her. He wondered: if he held on to her tightly, could she still teleport away?

He would find out.

[Vigilante]

Pain shot up her arm from his hold on her wrist, and while he maintained it she was forced to let go of the scapel. Ginny's feet dropped to the floor as the man turned around to face her, attempting to put her in some sort of hold.

He was strong - very strong - and she gritted her teeth as he used his superior weight and reach against her. Wrist bent back to near breaking point, she fought against the pain for the concentration needed to teleport away...without bringing him along with her. If something was touching her, she could theoretically 'port with it, but...

With a scream of frustration, Ginny managed to focus, and the armored man's arms suddenly enclosed nothing. She collapsed to the ground several yards away, just in front of a door. A closed and locked door with no window.

[Zero]

Zero stumbled slightly as the weight in his arms disappeared, but he heard his target rematerialize and crumple to the floor only a stonesthrow away. He turned his damaged ocular toward her. It appeared she had exhausted herself once again.

"That's enough," said a voice in his ear. "End it. And bring her back in."

Zero swiftly crossed toward her and drew a single long needle. She saw him approach and, in desperation, aimed a kick at his kneecap, but he blocked it with the side of his shin.

Then he planted one knee in the small of her back to immoblize her and, with clinical precision, sank the needlepoint into the back of her neck. She writhed briefly and then fell silent.

With no reflection or ceremony, the cybernetic warrior scooped up Ginny's limp form and carried it back to her cell.

[General Gideon Vasher]

"Dr. Zajeda?"

The doctor jotted a few notes on her clipboard and consulted the instruments. "The isotope we injected her with performed brilliantly, Colonel," she said smugly. "Allowed us to track her and monitor her vitals through every jump."

"And do you have enough to find out what makes it all work? Some sort of adapted organ? Something biochemical? Something about her nervous system?"

"Couldn't say until I've had time to analyze the data," Zajeda replied. "I will keep you apprised, as always."

The door of the cell swung open to admit Zero carrying an unconscious Ginny Hayes. Colonel Vasher smiled with grim satisfaction.

"Well done. Lay her in her chair and return to your chamber. We'll be around to repair the damage shortly."

Zero deposited his burden and disappeared again; the lab techs wasted no time in securing Ginny's restraints and fastening the collar around her neck. But there was nothing to fear - she slept as peacefully as if she were an infant in her mother's arms.

As the techs wired her up to the monitors once more, Colonel Vasher stood over her and gently, almost tenderly, brushed a wisp of fiery red hair from her eyes. "Sleep well, Miss Hayes. You've earned it. For now."

The colonel, the doctor, and the lab techs filed out of the cell, leaving it dark and silent.