Unexpected {Ejen Ali Fanfic}

The Chosen Ones

A/N: Gonna be addressing IRIS 2.0 as IRIS and the humanoid IRIS as Iris here, so no confusion. And also Iris will be called a 'he' from now on. 

***

The lights inside the broken facility were, they found out as they were pelting through hallways, most unstable. One moment the lights went off, and they were running in utter darkness, and next the lights came on, and suddenly one by one of their members were disappearing that only General Astor, Moon, Ali and Iman were left in the end. All except Ali seemed to have noticed this unusual thing, because he was one of the slowest at running, and was therefore able to see everything happening in front of him.

"Guys! Wait up!" Ali panted, trying to catch up with them. 

They had ran for what felt like half a kilometre through a labyrinth, through cris-crossing hallways, along a the circular gap around the building, above many steps of stairs. It was when they were sprinting through hallways of meeting rooms that bursting out of a room came Viktor, his sunglasses perched lopsided on his nose.

"Viktor!" Ali exclaimed, stopping in his tracks, momentarily caught off surprise. 

"There you guys are! Been looking every- eh, where are the others? Why is there only the four of you?" he asked, confused. Then, looking over their shoulders, as though to expecting more of them appearing any moment now.

"I think they ran off track when the lights were flickering previously," General Astor said, but quite nervously, for the first time they could see.

"Anyways, we'll find them later. Wanna join us?" Ali offered Viktor, who grinned, and followed them suit. 

They had followed Moon a few more floors up when they arrived inside a great, dark blue training arena. But the funny thing is this place bore no marks of being harmed at all. The walls were still gleaming under the lights from the towering ceiling, and it had the air of a fresh room.

"Uh, Moon, are you sure this is the place-?" Iman had asked uneasily, before the four of them were all shoved unceremoniously into the arena. 

When Ali had looked up, it was to find that Moon wasn't in the training arena herself, but had sealed the door leading into it and was waving enthusiastically at them, and he knew only too late this was yet another trap.

"Have fun!" Moon said cheerily, before she herself dissipated into nothingness. 

"It was a hologram all along!" General Astor exclaimed, as realisation dawned on his face, which was white as paper now. 

"Mmm...right you are, MATA agents," said a voice Ali only knew too well.

Behind them, stood the most powerful duo they could ever had imagined. 

The black-suited Uno, who was wearing a grin with the sickest pleasure on his scarred face and was holding out a blue Azurium sword at his side. And beside him, tall and emotionless, was Iris. He was holding a thin glowing blue sniper over his shoulder, something neither of the MATA agents has seen before. But for Ali, IRIS identified this weapon as an Azurium-powered sniper, and is to be avoided at all costs. 

"If you're thinking of wanting IRIS 2.0, Uno," General Astor said coldly, as he pointed an arrow right at Uno's heart. "I'm afraid you won't be getting it. Even your son here agrees."

Uno seemed to have choked on something, but then he laughed. His unnerving laughter echoed all around the walls, so that it was magnified twice its volume and pressed themselves against their eardrums, whether they wanted to hear it or not.

"Me? Want IRIS 2.0?" Uno chuckled, waving his free hand dismissively. General Astor tightened his grip on his bow. "What for? My only goal is to destroy the Chief Pillars..."

"Then where are they?" General Astor asked loudly over his unlowered weapon.

"You really are funny, Astor..." Uno chortled. "You really do have potential...I still remember the day when you first step foot into Headquarters...but unfortunately...

Quarto, see it to them."

"Wait what-" Ali said abruptly. 

Before he could even take in what Uno has said, there was a grunt of pain, the floor had came in contact with his throbbing head, which followed by a gasp of shock.

Clutching his pounding head in his hand, Ali nevertheless quickly scrambled onto his feet to see Viktor cornering Iman. General Astor appeared to have fallen too, and Uno was bearing down at him with his sword-

"General Astor!" Ali exclaimed, going to rush to his aid. But he had barely taken a few steps when something crashed into him, making him fall again. Luckily this time, he had managed to balance himself again by using his aeroboots to assist in a back flip. When he looked up again, it was to see that Iris had his sniper pointed at him, and Ali found himself internally panicking. 

When several blasts of Azurium came at him, Ali simply dodged them while being careless, always on the edge of tripping over his feet as he stumbled a step left, right, right and left. To his most utter surprise, he had dodged every single shot from Iris. 

"Haha, you missed!" Ali mocked playfully, sticking his tongue out. Iris didn't look angry, but on the contrary, prepared his sniper again, as Ali readied his yoyo. 

Several shots of blue energy was set loose and were coming straight at Ali, though now he was prepared. He spun his yoyo in a wide circle in front of him; wide enough to be able to defend himself from the blasts. But what puzzled Ali the most was that IRIS disagreed with the idea of doing so, and was commanding him to dodge it instead. 

What with only a second before the blasts reached him, he only managed a hasty command for his aeroboots to jump, therefore resulting him in being smashed painfully into the wall. Light popped in front of his eyes.

Groaning, what with pain blinding him, he only managed to open his eyes a millimetre. Blurred shapes were moving in and out, though he couldn't really tell who or what they were; they were moving in and out of focus. 

A pair of brown shoes stepped especially close to him, but the person did not hurt him or whatsoever. Whoever that person was, though, did not give Ali the sense of reassurance. His head was reaching its limit point and he couldn't get up at all, let alone fight. But the person in front of him did not help nor attack him. 

He wanted to go home...why did he get himself involved in this mission in the first place? Other agents would do better than him in this part, yet he was only one of the few that did not went missing...and...

His friends needed help.

Gathering up all his strength that he could in this haze of pain, he struggled as mighty as he dare onto his feet, his head pounding heavily in protest at the same time. Turns out the person who had been standing in front of him was Iris. What was he standing there all along he did not know, but Ali nevertheless bravely spun his trusty yoyo at his side. 

"All ready now?" Iris asked lazily, raising an eyebrow. "Good."