This wasn’t part of the Plan. It never really was.

Thomas was never meant to be involved with this after everything that happened between them.

And yet there he was lying on the ground covered in bullet holes from the Security Team of Desmond’s family.

“No…” Lissa said as soon as the realization had settled as she immediately ran towards him, ignoring both Desmond and the Minister, who had fired the first shot with his handgun, behind them and ran towards him before anyone can fully react. She knelt beside Thomas’ remains, there were various bullet holes across his body namely one by the center of his forehead, his right eye, his neck, his left lung, at the liver, at the Kidney.

It was without a doubt that he would not survive this many gunshot wounds.

Lissa felt her heart break almost immediately realizing that he was dead. She ran a shaky hand to close his eyes as tears began to fill her own eyes, remembering the last time the two of them interacted was on less civil terms, with his last thoughts of him trying to mend everything between them.

“I’m sorry…” Lissa said as she began to cradle his corpse.

The first one to realize what was happening was her father, Richard. Stood up and looked at Desmond with disbelief.

“Ahrys explain yourself!?” Richard asked as he and her brother, Rickon, raised their handguns at Desmond, and in turn, the security raised their guns at him.

“I apologize sir, this was not meant to happen I can assure you,” Desmond said ushering his security to stand down but neither side refused to lower their guns.

“Ain’t that the truth,” Rickon commented in mild annoyance. “You just decided to kill what I can assume was a friend of my Sister!”

“Please sir, I have to assure you that all this would be properly explained.” Desmond nodded to a pair of Security Guards nearby. “Please escort them out and take them in the Reception Area.”

“No! I don’t want to leave him…” Lissa said almost weakly as she still clutched the body of Thomas closer, this prompted Liza and Elizabeth to walk towards her almost worriedly at her.

“Please Lissa, we need to go.” Elizabeth gently told her, as Lissa slowly and gently let go of Thomas’ body as she shot a reluctant look to the pair of Security Guards that gave her a somewhat sympathetic look.

“I don’t think so.” Richard refused as he and Rickon still aimed their Guns at Desmond. “I expect a proper explanation immediately.”

“He’s an Axis Liberation Coalition Member,” Lissa said this caused all eyes to look at her. “He wanted to use our family influence to help the Finances of the Coalition. And if this hadn’t happened he would have most likely tried to talk us into supporting the ALC as well.”

“Lissa, you knew about this?” Rickon spoke in disbelief shooting a glance at her. “Why didn’t you told me! I’m a Military Police Officer for crying out loud!”

“Is this true?” Richard asked Desmond with a horrified look. Desmond for the most part kept a calm look on his face, as two of his Security flanked him on the sides both of their guns aiming at Lissa’s Father and Brother.

“Yes.” Desmond nodded. “Though I had not expected Lissa to figure it out that quickly.”

“And you.” Richard looked at Lissa in mild anger. “Why didn’t you tell me this? Why didn’t you reported him or tipped off the Military Police? You know full well what his people can do.”

“That’s because We wanted to bring him in ourselves!” Lissa answered, her heartbroken state was immediately replaced with anger as she quickly reached for the Pistol holstered on the hip of one of the Guards that tried to escort them and immediately aimed it towards Desmond in anger.

“We?” both Richard and Desmond asked in confusion as eight other security members that were present raised their guns at Desmond causing the other Security Guards to aim their guns at the rogue guards.

“The original plan was to tip off the Military Police and have him be arrested,” Lissa said trying to regain her composure while wiping the tears off her face. “But after learning that the bulk of the Military Police was suddenly preoccupied, we had no other choice but to instead arrest you and your group.”

“At least hear me out Lissa,” Desmond spoke walking in the middle of the room. “The plan is that I’d use your family’s clout within Axian Politics to convince them to slowly slip away from the influence of both Exavirian and Jorousian politics. Because no matter what they say, we are still under their rule."

"But does that justify the fact that you all had to resort to acts of terrorism them?" Rickon asked being a member of the Military Police present during the Jorousian Embassy incident, Rickon had developed a dislike towards the Coalition. "If all you wanted was to have Axis free from their influence then why did you and your people resort to the deaths of many innocents then?"

"Because they believe that it's the only choice left!" Desmond retorted in frustration. "I'm not like my extremist subordinates who would willingly gun down Civilians writing their deaths off as a necessary evil, I still believe that we can find non-violent ways. This is why I came up with this plan! To show them that we can achieve our goal through diplomacy and violence."

"It's tragic isn't it?" The Minister finally spoke in a low voice. "Noble Intentions that have been warped through Cruel Actions. While many like you still believe that to be possible, I don't think there's enough that can see that possibility."

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With a split second, the Minister raised a gun at Desmond with a hard glare.

"But even so, you must be punished for being involved with those who brought death to people who aren't even involved in the first place therefore you must surrender." The Minister said, his voice suddenly changing to that of Thomas as a thick mist was released from the cuffs of his clothes and immediately disappeared revealing Thomas while the body that Lissa was cradling earlier disappeared into a thick black smoke earning her a somewhat amazed and hopeful look at the other Thomas.

"Using Illusion magic to disguise yourself as the Minister," Desmond commented with an impressed look on his face. "Impressive."

"I'll admit, Desmond Ahrys. If you weren't part of the ALC we could have been friends." Thomas said with his usual cocky smile, something that Lissa had missed seeing the past few days. “That and our taste in women are too similar and–”

Thomas tensed up as he quickly leaped back as a second Desmond materialized in front of him armed with a pair of Bladed Tonfas while the Guards that weren’t aligned with Lissa began to open fire causing Petra to step out from her disguise and cast a Barrier protecting Thomas from the bullets.

“I’m afraid I can’t do that Thomas,” Desmond said as the bladed tonfas began to fold into a pair of short swords that glowed faintly as if his Ki had reinforced it.

[Axis:Legacy]

The first thing that Lissa did was grab Thomas’ Sword-Mace and threw it at him, Thomas in turn effortlessly caught it and reinforced it with his own Mana and quickly lunged at Desmond using both swords to block the blow causing sparks to fly from Thomas’ Mana Reinforced Sword-Mace clashing with Desmond’s Ki Reinforced Twin Swords.

“Smokes out!” Oscar shouted as he pulled out a Smoke grenade blanketing the hall with a thick white smoke temporarily blinding both sides.

Lissa tried to make a run with her family as both the guards that were supposed to escort her family fell with a thud, both of which were knocked out from a blunt blow in the head caused by Ester’s Combat Staff and Ren’s Hammer.

“Imperative Suggestion! LeBlanc and I will take cover while you and your family will be escorted out!” Lissa heard Nina’s voice from the smoke followed by the sound of her Ki Shield being deployed followed by Oscar’s Submachine Gun being fired.

“We’ll cover you go!” Jun rolled beside her as her twin hatchets quickly unfolded into her usual handguns and began to exchange fire with another Security Guard, Lissa nodded as she ran towards her family grabbing Liza with one hand as they make their way out of the Hall.

“Your boyfriend’s pretty cool,” Liza said with an amazed look as she watched Thomas fought off Desmond. With the former using Magic to boost his movement to keep up against Desmond’s own Ki boosted speed causing sparks to fly from their weapons

“Not now Liza,” Her mother pointed out as the two of them were accompanied by Louis who slammed the stock of his rifle at another guard as both her father and her brother shot two more guards dead as they made their way to the Parking Lot.

“You got your keys Mr. Ikross?” Louis asked as he covered their back as Jun ran out of the smoke still firing into the smoke.

“I got it!” Rickon said as he pulled out the keys and got into the Car as Lissa hurried to the trunk and grabbed her Twin Rapiers.

“You’re not coming?!” Her father asked her in disbelief as he and Rickon fired at the Guards from the outside as Liza and Elizabeth crouched low as they entered the Car.

“I planned this operation–”

“–Not really–” Jun interjected in a low voice as the smoke began to clear revealing Ren and Ester fighting off four more guards while Nina provided most of the cover while Oscar provided cover for them.

“–I have to see this through,” Lissa said confidently as she ignited both of her Rapiers.

“In that case,” Rickon nodded to their father and handed them his Military Police Badge. “I’m sticking around Father, head for the nearest Military Police Station, and get some help.”

Their father nodded as they hurriedly drove away as Lissa ran towards both Thomas and Desmond.

“So that’s what her boyfriend looks like huh?” Rickon said as he grabbed a Sub Machine Gun and began to assist Louis in the gunfight. Due to being one of Lissa’s oldest friends, he and Louis had become close friends as well, not to mention Louis has been providing him info on what she’s been doing that she doesn’t tell directly to their family.

Among them was the existence of Thomas.

“Yeah though she’s a bit dense towards him though,” Louis said with a scoff.

“Oh yeah, she is.” Rickon chuckled.

Meanwhile, inside the Hall, Desmond managed to put a good fight between both Lissa high-speed attacks with her Rapiers and Thomas heavy attacks from his heavy Sword-Mace. Due to being outnumbered Desmond relied on constant dodging from both of them.

Thomas swung his sword in a wide and heavy horizontal arc smashing a wall, this immediately caused Desmond to switched to the Tonfas once more and slammed the blunt part at Lissa’s abdomen as he got far enough from the two of them and linked both of the Sword-Tonfas into a bladed longbow and fired a barrage of arrows from both of them only for Thomas to let go on his Sword-Mace and used a Barrier Spell to block the attack.

“Once the barrier breaks take him down!” Thomas told Lissa who simply nodded as she lunged at Desmond the moment it did break apart she leaped from behind as fast as she could readying both of her rapiers in a high arc and cleaved downwards with a force strong enough that it snapped the bow in half and then proceeded to roundhouse kick slamming him on the wall, allowing Thomas to drop his Sword-Mace and run at him as he and Lissa pin him on the ground.

Simultaneously the firefight had finally ended with most of the Security simply incapacitated from minor gunshot wounds courtesy of Rickon, Louis, Jun, and Oscar, or simply knocked out by Ester, Ren, Kyle, Petra, and Nina while on their side only Jun and Oscar who gained non-fatal wounds after getting shot.

“Dammit, I’m trying to save lives!” Desmond said as he struggled under Thomas and Lissa’s pin on the ground. “If this plan didn’t succeed then the alternative is much worse.”

“What do you ‘alternative’?” Thomas asked tightening his grip around him, at that moment Military Police Arrived accompanied by one of Rickon’s men with a grim look on his face.

“Arrest them...” The Military Police Officer present took all of them away with a disgusted look. “Maybe you all know something about what happened to Thermus.”

“Oh God, what have they done!?” Desmond paled, this instead infuriated Thomas as he immediately grabbed him by the collar and threw him to the wall with enough force that it caused the wall to briefly crack.

“You bastard! What happened in Thermus!?” Thomas said angrily to the shock of everyone present causing Desmond to hang him to hang his head low in despair and shame.

“The Alternative was to change from targeting Key Military Functions to all Major Cities…” Desmond said in horror. “As many that believe that by going to these Cities, they have accepted that foreign mentality that both Jorouse and Exavis had given to them and believe that they must be purged through the use of Chemical Gas Attacks.”

The others remained silent as silent while all Thomas can do was tighten his grip around his collar even more.