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

-Albuquerque, New Mexico-

-two weeks later-

"Usa are you ready with those Detonators?" Ices asked as she peered around the corner into the hallway.

Usagi muttered under her breath due to wires hanging from her mouth as she plugged other ones into the devices in front of her. She closed the cap on the explosives and stuck them to the file room door and then scooted down a couple doors to the room where a lone man sat sleeping at his computer. She hesitated for only a second before sticking the second mini bomb to the door jam. She never would have seen herself doing this before, she was a normal collage student that enjoyed extreme sports, this was a new kind of extreme that she had not prepared herself for. A drastic kind of human evil – well to put it bluntly, drastic things call for drastic measures. That was how she ended up in the present situation of creating bombs and wiring them to doors.

It all started when two weeks before this she had found the body of a dead girl on the side of the road near her new home in Arizona. Since then, with the help of Cel and Ices they had tracked the culprits to this New Mexico office building. Usagi had made a pact with her two new friends that the murderers of child, a company called G-tech, would not go unpunished for their crimes. Most of the police had been paid off, so she knew that they would do nothing. However, even if they wouldn’t ... then she would. She had eagerly stayed up days trying to find out who killed the child.

When she finally had, then she had moved onto the plan without any hesitation – learning the layout of the building and planning a punishment that fit the crime. So she learned how to make bombs and absorbed the information as fast as she could, for the longer they left the crime undone, the more it ate at it. Which was why, in such a short time she was about to do what most would consider the unthinkable.

That was what caused her to hesitate. She only had a moment to regret and think about how she had ended up here. How she had met Ices on a plane going from Tokyo to Arizona and befriended Cel; more importantly how now she was planting bombs inside an office building preparing to kill people. Could she really go through with this? The guilt only remained a minute though. She squashed it down and narrowed her eyes. She would do it. She owed it to the little dead girl. Images of the child flashed through her mind. It was almost enough on its own, but she also recalled the stories that Cel had told about her childhood. That was all it took to make it a done deal. Anyone who could do that to anyone else deserved to be punished, and who better than a girl bent on justice to do it? She finished her task, and then scurried back down the hall and gave a silent nod to Ices.

The red haired woman gave her a thumb up and hit a button on her head set. "Cel we're ready on this end. The golden eagle has laid her eggs," Ices said, trying to break the tension in her usual fashion.

-In another part of the building-

Cel wiped the sweat from her forehead as she typed rapidly on the keyboard in front of her. She could hear the cries of the children locked in their rooms from down the hall. When Ices' voice came across the intercom and interrupted her, she cursed – she needed more time.

"Give me five minutes, Ices. The locks won’t open," she replied.

"Cel, use your super butt and pull the doors off! We don't have five minutes," Ices said seriously.

Cel growled under her breath and pushed the rolling chair away from the computer. She moved quickly down the hall and grabbed onto the first door and pulled. The electronic lock snapped easily. Sometimes the pain she lived through was worth it. It paid to be one of the only successful super soldier test subjects. That was all the more incentive to hurry and finish her task though; she knew that G-tech would pay a lot of money to have her back.

She moved to the other six doors and pulled them open. She leaned against the wall panting softly as she watched the kids stare at her for a moment in shock. “Get going,” she yelled half heartedly. The children didn’t need to be told twice – they turned and ran toward the exits. When the last one ran out the door and she had caught her breath she dropped the backpack from her shoulders. She unzipped it, reached inside, and pulled out more of the bombs that Usagi had been planting. Quickly she moved to her part of the task and began to stick them to the cell doors and machines in the lab.

It only took her the better part of a minute and then she was done. She scanned the room one last time, making sure that she missed nothing. When she was satisfied she radioed Ices.

"All set down here, the kids are out I'm on my way." She then turned and moved toward the stairs. However, before she could leave the upper floor via the stairs, she noticed a faint sobbing sound. She paused and frowned, but only for a second before following it to the source.

When she opened the door from which the whimpering was coming, she almost passed out in shock. Cel had seen a lot of bad shit in her, but this caused her to stare in horror. A small pink haired child was wired into a machine with a bed attached to it and with multiple needles going into her arms from which sprung plastic tubing that was feeding the little girl drugs. Cel didn’t even consider leaving the child behind. She moved toward her and looked at the hundreds of wires and needles coming from the child and slowly began to pull them from the girls flesh.

- Else where -

Usagi and Ices moved like silent shadows down the corridor and into the night air. Usagi grinned slightly at Ices. "Do you want the honors Ices?" She asked holding on the remote.

"Oh no, not this time; you set the bombs - you set them off," Ices said as her green eyes sparkled slightly with mischief.

Usagi bowed slightly and then hit the button on the remote. Inside explosions could be heard going off, and outside, the walls of the building began to crumble and the glass windows exploded outwards. Both women watched the door in anticipation for Cel’s exit.

- Back in the Building -

Cel heard the bombs start to go off and grabbed handfuls of the wires, pulling them from the girl. After what seemed like eternity, but in reality was only a few seconds, the girl was free and Cel began racing at an outrageous speed to escape the bombs that were going off on all of the floors in the building.

While shielding the child from the falling rubble, Cel looked down at the little girl. She didn’t see her however, not really. What Cel saw was another girl with her features and coloring. But it wasn't her; Cel hadn't had to suffer through that particular torture. But witness it, oh yes. As she ran she couldn't help but remember back years ago when she had been only sixteen....

- Flash -

Cel watched as they strapped the young girl to the table, she struggled against the bonds that held her.

"No please, leave Lila alone. She's not part of this!" a child version of Cel cried. Tears formed in her eyes as she watched wires and IV's inserted into her younger sister’s flesh.

The girl on the table began screaming in one continuous piteous yell. Cel watched as her younger sister screamed and screamed till the sound was nothing but a hoarse whisper, but Cel could still hear it in her mind. She knew that her sister had gained strange abilities because of the drugs the doctors gave them, but she never expected it to come to this. Cel continued to fight at the bonds that held her to the wall across the room, but it did no good. They had been designed to hold people like her – people who had super human strength and intelligence, as a result of G-techs experiments.

A man with silver hair wearing a lab coat knelt next to Cel, touching her cheek gently with rough callused hands. He had a gentle face, but Cel knew that his beautiful blue eyes - eyes the color of a huskies were emotionless as he ran his hands over her face.

"Of course she does, Cel. All of the children in this building are involved in this; including your kid sister. The two of you are the only two in this branch to show signs of change so we must examine you both to see how much growth you have made," the man said with a soft rumbling growl in his voice.

Cel jerked her face away from the man’s hands and glared at him. Oh how she hated G-tech. However, more then anything, she hated the man standing in front of her. He looked down on her with a smirk playing over his handsome mouth and not emotions showing through his eyes. Cel could only look on in anticipation and horror as she watched her kid sister be tortured slowly to death. The man with the white hair stayed the whole time and it was his visage that was for ever etched into her memory…

-End flash-

Cel shook her head. Memories were the past and that was where they belonged. She could not have stopped what happened to her sister anymore than she could change the past anymore or stop the car accident that killer her parents and left her and her sister orphaned. She glanced at the girl once more, and motivation caused her to move forward faster then she thought possible as bombs continued to go off around them. The roar of falling plaster and drywall canceled out all other sound as she saw the exit in sight. As she tried to close the last few yards between her and freedom, the ceiling above her began to collapse. It only took her a second to realize that she wouldn’t make it out if she continued running, so she dove toward the exit. As she flew through the air, she prayed she would get out in time. She continued to feel the world collapsing around her as a nail or some other sharp object cut into her flesh. All she could do was hope. Usagi turned and saw Cel diving through the door with a bundle in her arms. It occurred to her in that instant that Cel might not make it since the building was coming down around Cel even as she flew through the air. In that instant time stopped and all she could do was wait for that split second of eternity to end …