Kiss Gun Secret Agent AU/Escape from Antilla

"Damn it!"

Percy yawned and stretched out, curling his tail back over his thigh. "Give it a rest, Romeo."

Perhaps unnecessarily vindictively, his roommate kicked the bedpost once more. "You're not the one who's been imprisoned with a traitor."

"Your actual destiny is to stab people in the back," Percy snorted back, dragging his claws against the bedpost opposite where his hands had been chained. "How am I the traitor?"

"Let's see... the entire syndicate got caught because of a mistake you made, you brought your girlfriend directly to our headquarters," Romeo spat. "And then you let her escape."

"I didn't let her escape," Percy rolled his eyes, trying to focus on the design he'd slowly been carving into the wood. "I told you, I couldn't catch her. She got away."

"No," Romeo whipped around on his heel. His own chains snapped against the sharp movement, all four limbs and both wings bound to the wall. His whole body jerked. "Damn it... you're Percy Boots, the new Puss in Boots! Catching rabbits is in your blood. You let her get away, and you let her spill everything she knew to the Fairytale Bureau of Investigation! We're in here-- you, me, and Ryusei-- because of her testimony."

"Don't you dare blame Celes for this," Percy scowled. "Don't you dare blame her for being a normal civilian."

"She didn't have to be," Romeo gave a vindictive yank on his chain, trying yet again to unhinge it from the concrete wall. "You should've let me shoot her... you should've let me break your heart."

"I wasn't gonna let you shoot her just so you could get your sick kicks," Percy dug his nails viciously into his scratching post.

"I'm not finished," Romeo bit. "You should've let me break your heart. You should've let me save your life."

Percy sneered, "I've got nine lives, Romeo."

"And now you're in jail for all nine of 'em. Face it, Percy, you're miserable in this shithole," Romeo tried to cross his arms, but his wrists strained against the length of his chain. He scowled and begrudgingly took a step to the side to complete his position. "You'd rather be dead than trapped."

"So would you," Percy snorted. "And I'm not the one who's made so many escape attempts that I had to get all six of my limbs chained down."

"Fish gotta swim, Cupids gotta fly," Romeo twitched his wings in their bonds, trying to shake them loose. "And it drives me fuckin' crazy to not do it. Ryusei! You're hearin' me, right?"

Ryusei turned his head to the side, faintly amused by all the drama. He glanced down at his own cuffs... unchained, but bearing half a dozen magic-sealing runes on either side of his wrist. "... I missed my anniversary with Panna. They don't allow visitors here."

"Yeah," Romeo seemed to deflate for a moment. "It's not just us you fucked over, Boots. I tried, you know, to do something legitimate for reputation’s sake, but now my family’s gonna be ashamed of me for the rest of my life. Chariclo got assigned half a year for aiding and abetting. Half a goddamn year... you know what happens to girls like her when they go to prison?"

"Chariclo went to prison?" Percy's ears raised as if uncertain he'd heard that right. "You mean your sappy-sweet, goody-two-shoes, true-love-is-life sister went to prison?"

"They chopped another half year off for cooperating with authorities," Romeo frowned. "But she still has to serve time, just 'cause she didn't report what I was really doing. I'm used to it, but Chariclo... twenty-six weeks in a cage, no flying. It'll kill her. Shit. I've gotta get out of here. I've gotta get Chariclo outta there..."

Ryusei cleared his throat, "The last time you created a disturbance, the head of guard informed us all that your dick would be the next thing they would chain. While I do not believe they will make good on this threat due to prisoner treatment regulations, they would logically attempt to chain down more of your limbs. Perhaps they will attach further shackles to your knees, to match the ones on your ankles?"

"GODS DAMMIT!" Romeo roared at last, lashing out abruptly and smashing his fist against the wall, drawing blood on his knuckles. He panted for a second, glaring down at the redness painting his hand. "Maybe both of you don't care if you stay here, but I'm going to go berserk."

"Just like rooming with you back in boarding school," Percy shook his head, digging his claws ever-deeper, sharpening them tensely against the bedpost. "Except it's prison... second-highest security, besides Mirror Prison."

Romeo narrowed his eyes, "You guys have barely even tried to escape. What, you gonna chicken out just cause we got shipped out to Antilla Isle?"

"Cowardice? No, though I can see why an uninformed observer might believe so," Ryusei's eyes traced their way to Percy's claws. "Cowardice isn't the right word for it. Perhaps... 'patience' is more suitable."

"I don't give a damn what you call it!" Romeo shouted, flushed with rage. "I don't have an entire lifetime to waste here! I. AM. GETTING. OUT!"

And with a last, decisive jerk, Romeo slammed his wrist out against the bedframe, yanking the bolt of that chain from the wall. As he quickly morphed his wings back into tattoos with a flash of blinding light, he leveraged his weight against the bolt holding down his other arm.

Percy's ears perked upwards. "You hear that, Ryusei?"

"Hallway resonance, estimated mass: roughly 400 pounds. Steel-armored boots," Ryusei reported. His eyes flicked in Percy's direction. "The guards are coming."

Percy dug his claws into the wood again. "Now?"

Ryusei nodded. "Now."

And with a quick snap! the bedframe which had held Percy in place broke off, jagged where its iron core had broken off from the whole. Like a well-oiled machine, Percy tossed the wooden club, pointed at one end, in Romeo's direction. From there, it was almost too simple for Romeo to rip his other arm free from the wall as Percy quickly got to work on picking the locks at Romeo's ankles with new-sharpened claws.

"Now this is more like it!" Romeo grinned wildly, wielding his makeshift weapon as if it were Excalibur itself.

"Yeah, okay, just break these," Percy held the chain of his handcuffs taut and braced himself as Romeo's frankly terrifying bloodthirst gave him the strength to snap the metal in-between his fingers as easily as a pencil. He quickly got to work picking open the locks on Ryusei's magic-prohibiting handcuffs, hissing as his claw sparked and clashed against the magic.

Romeo was in the middle of throwing the first blow when Ryusei's hands were at last completely freed, and with a quietly hissed spell, shards of icicles flew forth from his fingertips.

"The nearest exit is two floors down and almost unguarded. However, it is an emergency staircase with only one possible exit," he reported, calmly as ever. "It is a poor choice... we would be surrounded almost immediately."

Percy ducked under a guard's swinging arm and brought his fist down over their head, stunning them. "Nearest window?"

"Two floors up," Ryusei replied smoothly, ducking and rolling as taser lines came flying in his direction. He shot a piece of ice in an attempt to disarm the guard, "It is in the guards' breakroom. We can expect to encounter several armed knights scattered throughout."

"Armed knights, huh?" Romeo smiled viciously, bringing down his club on the last of them. He dropped the hunk of wood and drew the emergency guns off all three unconscious bodies. "I could use some extra arms."

Percy quickly pilfered one of the guards' IDs, the cash out of their wallets, and a pair of concealed daggers. "I'll take it. We don't stand a chance surrounded."

Their feet thudded up the stairs in the next second, practically running into the guards with blades and daggers blazing, Romeo discarding his empty-chambered pistols for the ones borne by the now-dead guards.

"Second door on the right," Ryusei announced, chancing a quick glance backwards. "It may be worth noting that they are closing in on us."

Percy ducked as a bullet came flying at him, carefully weaving past the onslaught of tranquilizer-darts and steel. Suddenly, as if sensing their distress, an explosion tore through the lower levels of the stairs, blasting back the guards and giving their quarry just enough time to shut the door, bulletproof, behind them.

"Shit," Romeo cursed. "What the hell just did that?"

"Not a what," Ryusei corrected. "A who. My agent on the outside."

"I swear to Grimm, Ryusei," Percy jiggled his claw in the door's lock until it closed. "Only you can get us an outside agent when we're on Antilla Isle."

"You deserve a fuckin' raise," Romeo lifted his gun and shot down yet another approaching guard.

"Yes, well, perhaps after we escape from here," Ryusei pulled the stolen ID from Percy's pocket, swiping in the entry to the break room.

Percy ducked in first, Romeo firing quickly at any remaining guards. When they at last shut the door of the break room, sirens were going off on every floor level.

Ryusei shoved open the window, glancing down. It was a hundred-foot drop over cliffs and laser-lights and barbed wire into the tumultuous sea. He could see the subtle lighting of their escape-submarine, piloted by his outside agent, just off the shore.

The three of them exchanged a brief look.

Romeo demorphed his wings from their tattoo form, the chains and bolts still hanging uselessly off of them. "Get these damn things off of me."

Percy, for once, obeyed.

--x-x-x-x-x--

"I would like a status report," Ryusei began, sliding into that very craft of his own design. "Agent West?"

"Yes, well," the professor began, lowering his hat as he began to steer away from the isle. "After successfully playing my cooperation off as having been forced due to the nature of my kidnapping, I returned to the University and requested to take my sabbatical. I then proceeded to follow the directions you left me. Nothing more. Due to the excellent firewalls left in place on the building's systems, no other locations save the headquarters were compromised. We are on-course for the nearest of the Golden Gun Syndicate's branch locations."

Ryusei hesitated for a moment. Then, somewhat more softly, "And?"

West looked at him with something akin to regret, and sighed, "As one of the leading technicians in firewall security, Panna Twardowska was at one point brought in to decrypt your code. Officially, she failed to do so. Unofficially... she has been banished to the moon until it can be confirmed whether or not she was lying to cover up for you due to your well-documented relationship."

Ryusei was expressionless for a moment. When he spoke next, he spoke quietly: "Damn it."

"Change course for the mainland's prison," Romeo scowled, digging through the last of his salvaged guns in search of one which contained even a single bullet more. "I'm not letting my little sister serve the rest of her prison sentence... she doesn't deserve to suffer for me."

"No," replied West shortly. "That would be stupid."

"Are you hearing me? My sister is in jail because she covered for me," Romeo at last gave up and threatened him with an empty gun. "We're rescuing her, whether any of you guys like it or not!"

"No," West began, "We cannot rescue her because--"

"I swear to the entire fuckin' pantheon, I'll find a way to shoot you if you don't change course!"

"I said," West clarified. "We can't rescue her because she's not in jail."

Romeo deflated. "Oh."

"She had her sentence demoted to community service," West reported, passing over a dossier on the matter. "Apparently, Queen Darling Charming is an old friend of hers. Very sympathetic to those who merely wish to help their siblings, as well."

Percy gave pause, then. He opened his lips, as if about to ask a question, but recalled ears, long and rabbit-soft, silken against his fingertips. Legs that curved in a beauteous tango, the sweetness of rose-tea still on her lips. How his heart beat traitorously, and more traitorously still did his mind recall.

The sway of her hair as she walked away, dancing across her shoulders like moonbeams. The soft, soft sadness in her eyes when she had left, knowing that his world could never be hers and her world would never, ever be his again.

For perhaps the first time ever, the cat held his tongue.

The professor seemed to take pity on him, then. "Celestial Catering closed down. The proprietor moved back to the moon."

"Did it?" Percy replied, affecting carelessness. "Damn, then. I guess I'll just have to find... somewhere else... to buy my mochi."

Romeo muffled a derisive snort. Ryusei did not exactly possess quite the same tact.

"As newly-escaped convicts, I expect we will need to spend quite some time in a remote location," he spoke aloud. "It would appear that, presently, the best option would be the moon... or else Agent Percy Boots will be too busy pining to be of any use."

"Translation," Romeo announced, leaning his chin into his hand. "You're totally whipped, Boots."

"I'm whipped?" Percy looked offended by the very notion. "I'm not whipped. Bachelors can't be whipped."

"I believe that such statement requires counter-example," Ryusei stated. "As Agent West is presently single, it would fall to him to provide it."

The professor pretended not to hear that comment.

"Hmm, yeah, it makes a guy wonder," Romeo smirked altogether too-smugly. He carefully peeled off the shredded and bloodied remains of his prisoners' shirt. "Hey, professor, what exactly brings you to Antilla Isle this time of night? You can't exactly be eager to rescue the guy who stabbed you."

"Twice," West corrected grimly, lowering his hat. "You stabbed me twice when we met."

"Did you enjoy it?" Romeo's tongue flicked out and licked a bit of blood from his lip.

"I was unable to tell that I was bleeding until my knife-wounds were being cleaned. Someone else would have likely found it painful," he did not care to elaborate further. "I am here because I enjoy the syndicate's connections to potion supply chains. Nothing else."

Percy crossed his arms and raised both eyebrows, looking altogether too smug. "Counter-example, my ass."

"... I did, however, arrange a shuttle to the moon," West mentioned. "Departing in two days. Mirriah submitted the request. She says that 'River Loxias' of the Fairytale Bureau of Investigations is very, very close to 'proving that she exists.' It could be dangerous to remain so close to the heart of Ever After."

"Whatever," Percy affected his nonchalance with expertise, even stretching out before the solitary plexiglass window.

He tried not to think about the way she would have danced to the ocean's sway. He tried not to think about her feet landing, light, upon the moon. Tried not to dream what it might feel like to dance up there, with her, floating.

His efforts did not succeed.