All Justice, No Mercy

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

Getting out of the hijacked car, Madeleine glanced across at Ailith in her unfamiliar form.
Here we go…

12 hours earlier
“Got it.”
Madeleine looked up from Jane Austen’s Persuasion , to see Ailith standing in front of her with a few leaves of paper in her hand.
“Got what?” she asked, closing the well-worn book.
Ailith wordlessly handed her the paper.
Madeleine took it, frowning, before scanning through it, and glancing up.
“You didn’t.”
On the first sheet of paper, behind a picture of a stunning brunette, was the following:
Name: Orla Leila Ryder
Group: Spies
Powers: shapeshifting, earth, total control and manipulation of the mind…
…. N.B. After leaving the school, Ryder joined the army of Marius Hoodham…
The plan had been to go through the teachers to ask them about a pupil with the power of mind manipulation. Madeleine’s search had come up with nil results, asking the two professors who taught mind control subjects, but neither had met a pupil with that particularly ability. She’d been told that there used to be another professor, who had left a few years before.
She’d then gone to Professor Raven, who had said no, before frowning at her and asking why the hell she was asking all these questions.
So Ailith was going to ask Professor Simpson – and it seemed that she’d struck gold.
“Ryder…” she said aloud. “You don’t think she could be related to Levi, do you?”
Probably not; the chances of Levi having a sister in Marius’s army wasn’t likely, what with Levi’s fierce family pride and avocation of Major’s policies.
“Well, whatever…” She turned the page and scanned through it, before looking up at Ailith again. “I guess this means it’s time to go behind enemy lines, then?”

Presently…

The door of the black Ford closed with an ominous noise as Madeleine pushed it shut.
Stupid tinpot...
She winced, wondering if it would make the journey back. There had been some scary noises coming from the cars engine as the new brown-haired, hazel eyed Ailith had pushed it steadily along the roads.
She was a surprisingly good driver, actually. Madeleine had been surprised. She’d never driven before, but she was pretty certain that it’d be a good bit harder than driving a motorbike. She'd no idea where Ailith had learned to drive at that age... but it was probably best not to ask.
Their plan was pretty simple, really. Madeleine had shapeshifted both their appearances, making Ailith a five ft five brunette with hazel eyes, and herself a honey blonde with grey eyes (she'd been curious...). Then, they’d hijacked a car – predictably picking the one with the crappy engine that sounded rather raspy – and driven to a car park hidden from view of, but only about 100 yards from, the barriers surrounding the enemy camps.
They’d wait at the entrance until a pair of patrol personnel left the camp, before Ailith knocked them out with some of the special, slightly odd-coloured serum that she had procured from the Academics in a couple of syringes Madeleine had begged from Olivia (all four groups were involved in some way now, so no one could complain, should this mission not remain secret). They were then going to hide their stunned bodies in the car, Ailith creating handcuffs for them, and Madeleine would transform both of them into the patrollers – then shoot herself in the leg.
Painful, but she needed an injury to get back in the building. Faking one wouldn’t work, so she had to resort to this. Ailith was going to take the bullet out quickly though, and as soon as they were inside, Madeleine could heal it up.
Once they got to Orla, Ailith would use some of the serum on her, and Madeleine would shapeshift her into something small, such as a mouse – it would be difficult, but she was pretty certain she could do it – and bringing her out that way.
Simple enough.
Well…
And now, they were lying in wait for their personnel pair to get off their shift.
To pull this off, Madeleine would need to transform herself and Ailith into men. She’d only done this to herself once before, for a dare, and had sworn that she’d never do it again. It was… rather uncomfortable, to put it that way.
She’d also have to alter their larynxes to be similar to the men’s, to be able to pull off their voices. And hope that it wouldn’t go wrong.
During the drive down, Madeleine hadn’t needed to focus much, so, naturally, her mind wandered to the only thing that she could think of these days. Remembering things before they went wrong because of this… Orla Ryder. And of course, running over the last conversation they’d had, in the corridors. And while she was thinking about it while staring out of the window at the countryside that swept past, she’d realised that there was an eerie sense of déjà vu about it.
It was just too similar to that day in battle training, back in October.
Bu now that they were on this mission, she couldn’t think about him now. She was too focused on this.
And there they were, their ‘victims’. Two irritatingly tall, muscular, armed patrolmen, chatting amiably as they left the camp.
Madeleine nodded at Ailith.
Her eyes started to defocus a little as she watched Ailith move away, and she tried not to blink in case she lost sight of her.
Good luck…

[Ailith Rayner]

Ailith relaxed completely. Not only to ensure that her semi-invisibility stayed up but she was actually fairly confident the plan would work. As far as capture plans go, this one was pretty basic, but it's not like they had weeks, days even, to prepare it. 12 hours. That was it. It wasn't foolproof, but then neither Madeleine nor Ailith were fools.
She walked quickly towards the two guards so that she'd be right behind them as the rounded the corner. They didn't look the part, one dressed in dirty jeans and a T-shirt, the other slightly shorter one was in tracksuit bottoms and a fleece. Having said that, when you add in the rifle under an arm, a hand-gun attached to a belt which also sported a long, heavy looking scabbard which swung gently from each man’s waist, the pervious statement could be over-looked.

Ailith caught up faster than she’d anticipated due to her longer legs, (which she could most certainly get used to but probably shouldn’t) so she walked silently behind them and caught up on their conversation.
“…exist. I mean, come on, are you trying to tell me that just because there’s a dark spot in the universe that this whole theory of black holes must be right?” The shorter man was asking the taller.
“Alright it is a theory, but doesn’t that explain why there are dark spots in space. There are billions upon billions upon billions of stars out there Al, and on average there’s a star for every centimetre we see…”
Trackkies interrupted Jeans suddenly, “Oh is there?! Where’d you pick that up from Danny?”
“OK I made that up. But these darks spaces, there not just a gap between stars, they’re huge and they are much, much darker that the other spaces between…”
Ailith tuned out, and took out the syringes; she was perpetually bored by space. Let’s face it, she was never going to go there, it was rarely a problem in her life so she felt she should leave it be. The two men and Ailith rounded the corner. Now Al and Danny, I wish you good luck but not for the next few hours… Ailith skulked closer up behind the men, got a clear view of their neck and …
“…with AAH!” Al fell backwards eyes rolling.
“W-OW!” Danny spun to face his attacker but fell flat on his face from dizziness.
The two men went down without making enough noise to alert the guards in front or behind. Ailith was impressed. The Academics must have got excited with the old flunitrazepam. Ailith grabbed the heavier Danny by the belt and the under-side of his T-shirt balancing out the weight. Madeleine appeared beside her and wordlessly took up Al in he same manner. Ailith judged the men were about twice as heavy as she and Madeleine were but, as both girls had been taught how to lift bodies properly, it took them only a minute to heave them back to the car.

Ailith and Madeleine opened the back-seat passengers’ door and hauled their hostages in. They sat them upright in the seat and took the headrests from the seat behind them. Ailith softened the metal prongs of them so that it tore off easily and used it to make thick, tight shackles around the men’s wrists. She then welded those to the metal sockets behind their heads.
Finally Ailith spoke, “So. Which one is yours?”

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

Madeleine wrinkled her nose. “I think I’ll just stick with the one I dragged over.”
Well, he wasn’t exactly the greatest specimen of the male species – and she wasn’t looking forward to turning into a man in any case.
It was a weird feeling. She’d done it once before… and really, really regretted it. Seriously. Not a nice feeling.
She frowned at Ailith’s guy, before glancing at her. “Alright, I’ll do you first.”
Her eyes honed in on the man, taking in each detail of him – the dark brown hairs of his crew cut, the shadow of his shady stubble, each centimetre of his height…
Then, she focused on Ailith, shrinking her newly dark hair, making her shoot up in height and grow pronounced muscles, producing stubble on her chin, transforming her clothes into a uniform…
And voila, there was a scarily tall man in patrol gear standing in front of her.
Madeleine made a face. “Yet another person I’m smaller than. Great.”
Transforming herself into the slightly shaggy-haired dirty blonde man was a lot easier. Shapeshifing herself was always easier than shapeshifting other people – to her, transforming into certain things had become second nature to her.
Like cats…
Okay, focus.
Seconds later, Madeleine had become this man, and she looked at Ailith, laughing.
“You know, it’s probably best we don’t tell Jude about this.”
Her voice was deep, rough… eugh. And the feeling of being a guy… no, she really, really didn’t like it.
If Jude ever did find out about this, Madeleine knew that he’d never let it go, either.
“The beard suits you,” she smirked at Ailith.

[Ailith Rayner]

Ailith nearly shivered as her hair made the unnatural growth backwards and she had to make a wider stance as her new height threw her off-balance. Madeleine was kind she made all the ... private changes quick and left blank where ... anyway. All things considored, it was probably the nastiest experience Ailith had ever had. She was slightly dizzy, she was uncomfortable, sexless and her face was itchy. Ailith raised a mammoth-sized hand to her (his? Oh who cares this is horrible!) face and as her fingers touched it the bristles made her jarr. WHY DON'T MEN SHAVE?! It's just dirty! Ailith didn't even watch as Madeleine made her own change.
Madeleine laughed, deeply, "You know, it’s probably best we don’t tell Jude about this."
Ailith looked at her/him and squinted heavily. "The beard suits you."
"If you-" Ailith coughed vigourously, "If y-" and again, "If you ever mention this to Jude I'll tell him you enjoy your manhood, and where the hell are my vocal chords!" Her voice was husky and very deep, like a man that shouted a lot. Eeeeeeeew I'm a big hairy man groooooooss...!

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

Madeleine coughed a deep beast of a cough before she answered Ailith.
"Deal. And they'll come back when I shapeshift you back into yourself, don't worry. Just don't concentrate on it... you'll feel better that way."
She moved, and winced as she nearly fell over from her new height. "Okay, balance not so good..."
Eck. This was definitely the last time she was doing this. Why couldn't they have hijacked women?
Okay, let's not use vehicle vocab when it came to talking about people. Probably not a good idea.
Checking the the men were still out, Madeleine's hand slipped into her guy's pocket and pulled out his ID, before taking out his shotgun.
I really don't want to do this...
She laid it aside, before taking up her own. After all, she didn't know what had been on this guy's fingers when he was inserting the bullets...
She looked up at Ailith, already apprehensive as to what she was about to do. "Ready?"

[Ailith Rayner]

"Wait shouldn't we go back to the perimeter before..." Ailith grabbed the barrel of the gun and twisted it to the side,"So we look as if we've never left."
"Okay."
Two men watched the patrol before their stride around the corner and emerged cautiously from the trees before running full pelt to the wall. The shorter man pulled out his gun and took a few deep breaths while the taller knelt down beside him.
Ailith hissed, "Ready on three. One, two," A final wince, "Three!"
Bang!

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

The bullet shot straight out of the gun, hitting and breaking through skin, flesh and bone instantaneously.
"Jesus-!"
A deep, scary beast of a roar of pain came from Madeleine's throat, a totally alien sound. And through this new pain, Madeleine was sent flashbacks of the last time she'd been shot, different flashes running through her head at the speed of light - a black birdlike figure - roots - a woman with brown eyes - a pistol - the crack of the bullet as it left the barrel -
Oh, God, this was painful... at least last time, she'd been knocked out so she couldn't feel the pain and blood loss.
Biting down on her lip, Madeleine glanced at Aillith.

[Ailith Rayner]

As soon as Madeleine had blasphemed and started screaming, Ailith melted the bullet and drew it out. She stood up and slung Madeleine's big hairy man-arm around her own big hairy man-shoulders and supported Madeleine and tugged her along. A few seconds later the rest of the patrol were running around the corners.
"It's OK lads!" Danny called to them, "Did it himself. And I really think you guys should-"
"AAAAAAAAAAARGH!" Screamed Alan.
"-get back to duty, 'cause if someone uses this disraction we've all had it. I'll send another pair out behind us."
They scrammed back to their patrols and Al and Danny made their slow progress to the entrance.
Ailith whispered to Madeleine, "You could propably heal yourself now. They most likey won't look but if they do scream like feck."
They finally hobbled through the gates. Alright luck, don't fail me now...

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

As soon as Ailith spoke, Madeleine dropped to the ground, placing her fingertips on the bleeding hole in her leg, wincing at first at the further pain, before sighing at the blissful golden relief passed through the wound.
“Jesus god,” she murmured, before glancing up at Ailith. “Excuse my language, but that’s the second time I’ve been shot in the leg. It’s not the most pleasant sensation in the world.”

[Ailith Rayner]

Ailith glanced around her, they made it through security with a wave of the I.D. and a bloody hell from a 'friend' and they were standing behind a small brick building while Madeleine fixed herself.
"...It’s not the most pleasant sensation in the world.” Madeleine murmered.
"Believe me if you had said otherwise I would have thought you an idot. And swearing is fine by m-" Ailith stopped and sniffed. She whispered, "I smell something sweet. Do you?"

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

Madeleine frowned, sniffing the air. "No, can...?"
She stopped, catching a scent of something sickly sweet. Madeleine hated people who used far too much of a strong smelling shampoo, so much of it that it constantly invaded other people's nostril spaces with a strong stench of something like vanilla, or cherry...
Or Calpol.
And immediately, something clicked in Madeleine's head, fuelling up a deep rage inside her.
"It's her," she whispered, just low enough for Ailith to hear.
The sweet, overwhelming scent was filling up her nostrils - and suddenly, she wasn't at all surprised that this had been Lee's first flashback.

[Ailith Rayner]

Ailith reached up her back and extracted some metal from her now too small back-plate. She formed a blade around her knuckles and bent her knees slightly ready to bolt in any direction, but keeping everything subtle in case Madeleine had it wrong. Which she doubted. Both Ailith and Madeleine were silent and so as the footsteps sounded from around the corner both were tensed and ready to fight.
Ailith shifted a little closer to the corner and backed to the wall. The footsteps were light suggesting female and brisk suggesting haste. And they were getting closer. Ever closer.

Ailith concentrated on being relaxed and glaring at the corner. Closer. She’ll be here … now. The footsteps … began to fade? But the pace hasn’t changed… Ailith frowned and leaned out ever so slightly to see that a tall woman with medium-length dark hair had turned the corner of the path around this building and was walking to the one opposite. Ailith leaned back and made a small pointing gesture towards the figure. She looked at Madeleine who made a clenched-jaw nod, a confirmation that this was who they were hunting. Ailith looked again, the woman was walking past the building and into the shadows. She motioned to Madeleine to come with her and pointed to the ground as she moved forward slowly to indicate that she should stay close. Ailith stepped silently out into the open and leant casually against the wall. She took a long, thorough look across the yard and scanned the windows and doors until she was certain there was no one watching them. That’s the first step to being trapped, inattention to detail and impatience. Ailith walked with the speed of a jog, a half-run had she been in her own legs and Madeleine followed suite. They entered into the shadows just as a door to their diagonal left was closing.

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

The door closed, and Madeleine studied it before leaning back against the wall with a heavy, man’s sigh, feeling sickened.
She hadn’t been able to study the woman’s face for very long, but of the glimpse she had gained, she had found herself completely taken aback by how beautiful this woman was. What it was that made her so beautiful, Madeleine couldn’t tell in this light, but it was there; and the photograph that she had seen didn’t prepare her for that. Suddenly, she felt sick to the stomach that this woman, this Orla Ryder, had been inside Lee’s head, manipulating him to do their dirty work for them; presumably using her looks to their best advantage to try to influence him further.
And not only was she stunning, but Madeleine, as she had done when she looked at the picture, was unsettled at how familiar Orla looked. She didn’t know where from, but there was something… something recognisable about her stance and the way she walked; dignified, movements sleek, graceful, yet purposeful.
“It’s definitely her,” she said quietly, answering Ailith’s unspoken question.
Even from just that photograph, Madeleine knew immediately that this was the woman they were hunting. And the heavy scent of strawberry that still lingered in her nostrils just made her instincts that this was the right person much stronger.

Orla Ryder was respected. Intelligent, fierce, and most of all, cunning, Orla was possibly the most respected person in this whole d**n set up, bar Hoodham himself. Orla was used to people deferring to her, to people listening to her, following her orders, and treating her as what she often was, a superior to them.
Which was why, right now, she was so angry.
She closed the door to her office behind her, letting it slam a little in her silent frenzy of irritation at both herself, and Hoodham. Once again, he’d called her to his office. Once again, he’d demanded to know ”exactly what the hell went wrong” with the Norris operation. Demanded to know why neither Major, nor Norris, were dead.
“For God’s sake, Ryder!” he’d yelled, slamming down his heavy hands onto the mahogany table. “There was a reason we trusted you with this – how the hell did you screw this up?!”
And for the first time in her life, Orla was powerless. She didn’t have the answers – she had the what had happeneds, but she didn’t have the reasons for it – and she couldn’t use charm to work her way out of this. She believed – no, she knew – that it was circumstance, not her, at fault here, but for some reason she couldn’t explain that. Seated there, in front of Hoodham’s mahogany desk, she had never felt so much like a child. A naughty, disobedient, and worst of all, shamed child.
“Well? Don’t you have an answer?”
Orla always had the answers.
He’d been easy to break. God, he’d been so easy to break. She had expected a far greater resistance in Lee Norris’s mind; that, seeing as he was who he was, he would have a much greater loyalty to Major. But all it had taken was a few nightmares, a few points, and a little bit of charm – and that was it.
Almost too good to be true.
And they were so close. They were… so close. He’d had the gun aimed at Major, and then…
Orla didn’t know what happened there. She’d had to retreat from his mind, quickly, but she didn’t know… she didn’t know how she had made that ‘mistake’.
“Did you really think that my brother would sacrifice one of his own precious students? Well?”
Your brother allows those very same precious students to fight for his name,Orla thought darkly as she went to her desk quickly, tucking her silky dark waves behind her ears as she unlocked the desk drawer that held all those notes in it; all those secrets.
And not even just those secrets. As Orla’s long ivory fingers leafed deftly through the perfectly neat, perfectly white case notes, a small black velvet box hidden at the very back of the drawer came into view, something that she seemed not to notice, but a finger on her left hand trembled.
She quickly came to the desired pages, and pulled them out of the sheaf.
“It was your chance to redeem yourself after the whole Deltine mess, and you screwed it up again. I ask you, Ryder, what’s happened to you?
Honestly – Orla didn’t know. She’d screwed up, yes. However, though it had been her head on the block for that first mess, it had been proven that the failure of it had nothing to do with her.
But cleaning this mess was bound to be more difficult.

Madeleine and Ailith were still waiting, when the door that Orla Ryder had entered opened again, sending out a flood of perfectly white light, before the door closed, and she walked around the opposite corner and disappeared into the black night, carrying a bundle of papers.
Madeleine glanced at Ailith, worrying her lip (poor Al was going to have some serious chapping when all this was over). “Should we go in? There could be something useful in there, and judging from those pages, she’s not going to back for a while.”
Ailith nodded (not that Madeleine wouldn’t have gone anyway, but her agreement made it so much easier), and the two “guards” marched to the door, completely unseen. The lack of people worried Madeleine slightly. Was there something going on, something that called everyone away from these areas?
The door was locked, but that didn’t matter. One of the more useful aspects of psychokenesis was the ability to move the mechanisms inside the lock of a door without a key.
From inside, it became obvious that this was a house. This was the hall, painted a tasteful shade of cream, with a light coloured wooden floor. On the wooden stand, a bowl of deep red roses sat; a pair of black heels left beside it.
Red.
Madeleine shivered as she glanced about the room, looking for where to go first. Luckily for them, a door to the right of the hall was lying ajar, and once they were in the large, airy room, they realised that they had struck gold.
An office.
Well, office-cum-sitting room. And from what Madeleine now knew of Orla, this room was unmistakably her. On the leather couch near the window, scarlet throw pillows were lying artistically; red roses were in a vase on the oak coffee table; applewood logs that would never be burned in the fire. At the other end of the room, an oak desk sat, a bowl of strawberries placed beside the thin computer screen.
Ailith went to the desk, and Madeleine followed, quelling the sense of nausea that was now returning to her at the scent of the juicy red fruit. Well, maybe it wasn’t just the fruit. Knowing that she was going to be in the near proximity to, and was now in the living space of the woman that was so twisted and evil that she was able to screw up someone’s mind like-
Hold on.
Madeleine picked up the silver photo frame, her stomach dropping as she studied the picture inside of it. There was Orla, looking slightly younger (though still spectacularly beautiful) than she had done outside, her deep brown eyes (well, there was another clue that fit in perfectly) laughing at the camera, and an attractive, brown-haired, hazel eyed teenage boy ruffling her hair.
A familiar, brown-haired, hazel eyed teenage boy.
Levi.
So her first instincts had been right. This was Levi Ryder’s sister. How the hell that one worked, Madeleine wasn’t sure. He’d never mentioned… or maybe that was why. Levi’s fierce avocation of Major Hoodham’s policies and work, his pride in the whole thing… well, maybe that pride couldn’t stand admitting the fact that his sister had joined the enemy.
That was a betrayal Levi might not be able to get over.
And Madeleine felt a sudden rush of pity for Levi. Okay, yes, he was a bit of a prick, but…
He looked about thirteen here, and Orla about seventeen… holy crap, that meant that Orla was only about twenty now! How did someone rise that quickly through the ranks?
Orla must really be… something special.
“Ailith, look at this,” Madeleine said, holding the picture out to her.

[Ailith Rayner]

Ailith flung open a drawer silently and fired up the computer at the same time. While the computer wirred and hummed Ailith began to systematically rummage through the drawers of the desk starting from the top down. She didn't expect to find anything recent, as that would be with Orla in the pile of papers she took with her but there could be things such as who she worked with, who they got information from etc. Nothing, nothing, nothing, Ailith thought as she riffled through a thin file labelled 'Orchid Hill Academy: Blues 2004'.
"Ailith, look at this," Madeleine said softely.
Ailith shut the file, slotted it back into the drawer and looked at the picture Madeleine was holding. Ailith froze slightly, then a tight grin creeped onto her face.
"Mmm hmm." She studied the face of they boy next to a young Orla and Ailith felt no shock to see him. She looked up at Madeleine as she bent over the desk to manipulate the mouse with her ridiclulously large hands, "So what do you want to do? Do you want to go back and interrogate him and come back for her later? Or do you want to press on with this first and get him when we get back?" Her head flicked back to the screen where it asked for a password and she sighed typing in 'Levi'. "It's your mission boss-man."

[Madeleine Baudelaire&Russ Ford]

Madeleine shook her head, setting the photo frame back on the desk carefully. "I'll wait when we get back. He might not have anything to do with it. I mean... I know he's a prick, but I'm not sure he'd do something like that."
Ha, that was hopelessly optimistic.
"How likely it is that he's been infiltrating?"
Still, she doubted Levi would have had a hand in this. Maybe all his pride in the cause had been a front, but Levi infiltrating just didn't fit. Didn't fit at all.
Madeleine lifted the crystal paperweight that lay on a small pile of papers, but as she expected, these were just random letters, containing nothing that could be useful to them.
"And... please don't call me 'boss-man' again," she added, with a laugh - but was taken aback by the unfamilar bass sound that came from her. "I know I may look and sound like a man, but being referred to as a man feels a bit weird."
A bit?
As she knelt down and silently leafed through some other useless papers, the computer beeped, and Madeleine looked up at Ailith. "Did it work?"