Shipped.

The word echoes in Damien's mind like a death sentence. He feels dread dropping in the pit of his stomach then. His hands itch to grab Aira and high-tail out of there.

Getting shipped can mean nothing good. Getting shipped means they're products.

'And being products means we're about to be trafficked!'

.

Panic overrides him - terror screaming that he's been right all along. He won't be seeing his beloved family again. Their chances of escape have now gone down to zero.

'Uncle Adrian, you're too late,' Damien thought begrudgingly, paling in fear and perturbation.

Overhead, the ceiling lights flicker.

Evelyn mutters something beneath her breath and moves them along, leading them through a series of halls. Damien clenches his fists. Behind him, he hears Aira hissing angrily - probably cursing their saviors' apparent tardiness.

He frowns. They really have no means of escape now.

The lights keep blinking, and the handlers push them through the hall. Damien then bumps into someone in front of him when everyone else seems to stop.

"Damien! Aira!"

Damien shot his head up sharply, recognizing that voice. At the exact same moment he notices Edward, the device that Aira is carrying begins to beep loudly from within her pocket. Surprised, he shares a brief glance with her.

Then, Aira turns around, and with a rapid, furious motion, she kicks Evelyn in the face.

"You goddamn brat!"

Chaos ensues.

The assault incites action from the other handlers. Most of them tried to a grab hold of the captives and retreat. From the side across the hallway, Bryan makes himself known, charging against Evelyn with a fierce battle cry.

"Just where the hell did you bastards come from?!"

---

Soon after entering, Edward finds himself surrounded by children.

He cuts off the path for the majority of the guards, stepping into the hall before they can run off to the trucks. As he counts about nine, he sees many sets of eyes staring up at him - eyes that're brimming with terror and befuddlement.

These children are victims of human trafficking. These children have been held captive like his son.

The whole sight causes rage to simmer in his blood, his muscles pulling taut with unspent energy.

Edward rushes forward, quickly disarming the nearest handlers and rendering them unconscious. Charles follows from behind him and pulls the released captive to safety - towards a spot he'd earlier deemed safest from any crossfire. Some of the other guards immediately spring into action, pulling batons out and letting the captives go in favor of charging against them.

Edwars glances at Charles meaningfully.

"Take care of these children, Charles."

"Roger that, Sir Edward."

From that point on, a full-blown fight terrorizes the halls.

Edward notices several handlers making a run for it and dragging some of the captives in their clutches. Taking action, he fends off his current assailants and knocks them off balance before rushing over to help the children. historical

"Duck!" Edward commanded, his arm sweeping over one of them to punch a guard in the face.

The children, frightened, stay stiff. He bows low to retrieve a gun off the floor before kicking a handler who's trying to get too close. Some of them are recovering from his blows, he notes briefly in his turn, and with a practiced motion, he switches the baton with the pistol he just picked up.

Edward then parries a blow to the face with the barrel then shoots - one handler permanently down. Behind him, Evelyn has slammed Bryan to a wall.

"You mad bitch!"

"Serves you right, asshole."

Edward grits his teeth.

He dodged a sudden barrage of gunfire - only then did he realize that more guards had joined the fray. Unlike the handlers, they don't attack with batons. They're going straight for the kill.

"For heaven's sake, I just want to go and get my son already," Edward hissed.

He rolls aside, pulling a couple of children along with him and shoving them into Charles' arms. Keeping low, he shoots with precision and tries to take out as many as he can while simultaneously protecting the captives. Most of their opponents have gone down by that point - with only a sparse number of guards left.

Edward feels his strength starting to wane, but he continues to push himself, twisting to avoid flying bullets and aiming discarded batons at the remaining guards like spears.

"You bastard!"

Two guards manage to breach Edward's defense and wrench the gun from his hands. Cursing out loud, he struggles to free himself from their grasp. That's until he suddenly feels the weights on his side fall limp.

He turns and finds Aira.

She just hit Edward's assailants right on their heads.

"How's it going, Uncle...?" she chirped and grinned up at him, a baton in hand.

"So, I just learned that this thing kind of acts like a bat. It's thinner, but-"

"Aira!"

Edward pulls her aside before a bullet can penetrate her straight in the head. He then forcefully takes the baton from the her hands to whip a guard's face with it.

"Watch out. You could've badly hurt yourself," he warned before handing the baton back to her.

"Right. I'm sorry," she apologized, frowning.

"It's all good. You did a great work getting in, by the way."

He pats her head while he commends her, taking her aback for a bit. For some reason, she feels warm all over. It's probably the first and last reassurance she needed to believe that she was able to help somehow.

"Thank you, Uncle Edward. I'll be more careful this time."

Upon retrieving her weapon, she rejoins the fray - never one to back down without a good fight. He decides to aid her, somewhat remembering a certain feisty sister-in-law from her.

With quick, accurate gunshots from Edward and hasty, vexed blows from Aira, they're able to take down quite a number.

"You're surprisingly good at fighting for your age," he praised her, finding her resemblance with Cassidy uncanny.

"Uncle's much better," she commented, beaming at yet another compliment.

"Thanks. Will you look at the time for me, Aira?"

As Edward asked that, he shot the last guard in their way. Aira did as he told and checked her device, blanching a little at the number that came to view.

"We have about eleven minutes left."