“Who are you?” I asked as pushed my way to the front of the group.
The man in the suit stepped forward. He adjusted his tie, "Oh, how sorry I am that we have to meet this way, Grace” He looked at his hand as if thinking about an offer to shake, but changed his mind. "My name is James Scott. I am the CEO of the Aurora Corporation.”
“Good for you.” Ronnie yelled.
“Now, now there is no need to act that way, I come offering you open arms to come back, and we will forgive and forget this little indiscretion.” James took another step forward.
“Forget about it.” I yelled.
“We gave you so much.” James said as if we owed him.
“We are not going with you.” I looked to everyone for support.
They all nodded.
“Have it your way,” he turned to the man beside him, "Kill them, and recover the bodies, we don’t need any of them alive.”
“Sir.” the man nodded then turned the face of his watch like a dial. James vanished in blurry blue lines.
“So you’re going to kill us?” Rachel moved up to get a better view.
“You heard him, we don’t need you alive.” he held up his fist. All of the soldiers around us held up their rifles aiming at us.
He dropped his hand, pointing at us.
In unison, all of the men began firing their fully automatic rifles. The bullets flew in all directions but no one was hit. I turned around to see Rachel with her arms out beside her, palms out, her eyes rolled into the back of her head. The bullets were ricocheting off of some kind of force field.
All of the men began to reload at the same exact moment.
Ronnie pushed me back and put his hands together. Lightening started to arch between them forming a ball of energy. He threw the ball at one of the men surrounding us, but before it made contact, the leader of the group appeared in front of the energy ball in a blur. He absorbed the blast. He then increased the size of the energy ball and threw it back at Ronnie.
Ronnie tried to jump out of the way but he wasn’t fast enough. The ball of energy crashed into his side sending him skidding across the grass. Every muscle in his body was contracting at the same time.
“Hmm… I haven’t met another Electrokinetic with this much power since I killed the last one.” the man laughed, "but I have more.”
“What did you do to him?” I yelled as Ronnie groaned on the ground.
“Resume firing!” he ordered his troops.
The bullets began to rain again.
I turned to look at Rachel. She was trying not to drop to her knees and slowly her eyes were starting to bleed. The force field began to shrink quickly.
“I don’t know how long she can keep this up.” Kenny and Sandy were helping Rachel stay on her feet.
A flash of bright blue light blinded us from the sky. Four people appeared from nothing between us and the Aurora Soldiers.
“Vanish, get ready for the return trip. Hothead and Silence take out the Sabers.” One of the men ordered.
Silence moved in a blur cutting through the Sabers. Hothead had taken out two massive blades and began cutting down the Sabers in a blind furry. Quickly the enemy soldiers fell and before long only the leader stood chuckling.
“Sam it’s been too long.” the leader said.
“Richard, it seems that you have moved up in the ranks.” Sam, the man leading the newly arrived group yelled at the leader of the Aurora soldiers.
“Funny you should call me that. It’s not my name anymore. Call me Jolt.”
“Who the hell are you?” I yelled. I was completely lost in the situation with no idea of what to do.
“I’m a friend.” Sam said.
Jolt began to laugh as Silence and Hothead finished taking out the Sabers.
“What is so funny?” Silence yelled.
“These Sabers have had an upgrade. Something new the doctors have cooked up, over active production of a supercharged adrenaline. They won’t be stopped that easily.” Jolt held up the head of one of the downed Sabers. They all started to get up off the ground.
“That’s definitely something new.” Sam started to show a little nervousness.
I ran over to Rachel who let the force field fall. She was on her knees holding her head in her hands, "if you want to help, now would be a good time.”
Silence and Hothead were thrust right back into fighting off the wild Sabers. The Sabers moved faster and were predicting their movements.
Silence was grabbed around the neck and tossed like a rag doll. Hothead swept the legs out from under the Saber, his torso falling to the ground, but it didn’t stop. The torso pulled itself across the ground with its arms to attack Hothead’s legs. Two other Sabers jumped onto Hothead’s back and wrestled him to the ground.
“I think it’s time to go, Vanish.” Sam said.
“I’m not ready yet.” She rubbed her hands together.
“Well you need to get ready. Hothead, Silence, time to wrap things up.” Sam yelled to the two fighting the crowd of soldiers who kept standing back up after getting knocked down.
Hothead stood with all of the Sabers on his back. He got a hold of one of his blades and swung it blindly. He took out most of them that clung onto his back. Silence slipped out and reappeared behind Sam.
I stood there helplessly frozen with fear, unable to act. I tried to tap into the power that I had used to break us free, but I couldn’t find it. Not only that, I couldn’t find any power at all.
I was useless.
Hothead grabbed the leg of one of the soldiers and stepped on his head, then used him as a sort of bowling ball chucking the limp body to knock down the others around him. He stormed back where we all stood.
The same bright blue light filled the air and the ground left my feet. All I could see was blue, I could feel everyone around me, but I couldn’t see any of them. I couldn’t see anything.
The ground was soft and cold.
“Where are we?” I looked around in darkness.
“Alaska.” Sam’s voice came from my left, "Everyone ok? Silence, Hothead, Vanish?” He dug through his pockets.
“Hey guys, there’s something wrong with Vanish.” Silence stood beside where the girl laid on the ground, red snow surrounding her body.
“LIZ!” Hothead yelled running to her, knocking silence out of his path and skidding to a stop on his knees beside where she lay.
“Hothead remember your training.” Sam held a cell phone to his ear. He rushed to her side as well, but wasn’t quite as panicked as Hothead, "We’re back. Send a truck, and prep a med team.” He put the phone back into his pocket and knelt down beside the girl’s head. He looked at her face tilting her head side to side very gently.
“Sam?” Hothead growled at him.
“The blood is coming from her eyes and mouth. It has to be from overuse of her abilities. She should be alright Hothead.” Sam explained, "Are the rest of you alright?” He asked looking at me, then looking to the rest of the group.
I checked everyone and we were all alive, very shaken but fine all the same. Ronnie was up and moving around slowly. Rachel was wiping blood from her face with the sleeve of her shirt.
A large vehicle with tracks instead of wheels came barreling over a nearby hill of snow. We carefully lifted Vanish into the back of the truck and the rest of us piled in around her. We sat on cold metal seats that were around the edge of the inside of the back of the vehicle.
“So which one of you is the tier six?” Silence glanced around at us.
“What do you mean?” I was sitting directly across from him. I couldn’t read his expression because his face was covered. I was suddenly aware that it was freezing and the back of the truck was open.
“When you use your abilities you give off kinetic brain waves, they can be measured in levels based on how powerful the abilities are. We got a hit in Las Vegas that registered as a six, and that’s rare.” he was extremely excited.