Now with the portals closed around me there was no light inside and I couldn’t hear sound either. Other than my second perception, I was blind now, and I needed to finish them before I ran out of breath. As I tried walking around the corner of the pillar, I struggled to bend the portals with my legs, for they were like heavy clothing. But as soon as I got the hang of it, my pace quickened with each step.
I was too late. Noor was already raising his arms and aiming them at the Mech. The beam sliced through the centre of the machine, and its fuel tank exploded. I kept trudging towards them.
Tetsu pointed in my direction. What? The invisibility hadn’t worked? How could they see me? Noor raised his arms at me again and fired.
I winced at the impending danger, but felt nothing. The laser had gone right through my stomach and out the other side, leaving me unscathed. I glanced back at the walls behind me and saw them melting. Noor stopped firing, as if stunned.
Tetsu must have said something to him, because Noor quickly continued firing, this time higher. It was useless, they couldn’t harm me. But I was running out of breath, I needed to wrap this up. I kept walking towards them, then jogging, and then running. I eyed the small gap between the shield and the laser and focused inside their shield.
I stopped at the edge of the white shield and created another portal in front of me to accept the laser. Now only a few paces away from them, I used my other hand, opened the exit and pointed it at the gap. The laser backfired through the small space, towards the ground and their feet. As the laser melted through both of their ankles, the shield dissipated and they fell to the ground shrieking.
I closed all of the portals around me and gasped for air. All of the remaining female soldiers were making their way through the wreckage. They stopped just short of us with their weapons raised.
“Don’t kill them!” I said as the two men continued to squeal. I wasn’t going to be responsible for more deaths. “Take them prisoner!”
“They just killed all of my friends,” one of the women said in response.
I glanced at the streaks of all the soldiers. “Maya is out of action. I’m now the highest rank. I order you to capture them.”
Tetsu gripped at where his feet once were. “Why … did you … shoot … my feet off?” he yelled at Noor, gasping between his words.
“I didn’t,” Noor yelled back in agony. “It was her!”
“She … doesn’t … shoot … lasers!”
Noor was clutching his ankles with one hand and raising the other towards me, perhaps trying to attack again. A shower of shock darts covered both of their bodies, rendering them unconscious.
The woman who protested lowered her weapon and scoffed. “Taking orders from an initiate, how depressing.”
“Hey!” one my squad mates shouted. She approached the other woman. “That initiate just saved your life. Show some respect!” She turned to me and nodded. “Go ahead, ma’am.”
I nodded back appreciatively, just as two soldiers appeared from behind a pillar. They dragged Maya on a piece of sheet metal. I ran over and knelt beside her.
“Maya! Wake up!”
“It’s no use,” said one of the soldiers dragging her, “she’s gone into shock.”
Maya groaned. She was alive, but barely conscious. Not only was her hand and wrist missing, but there were severe burn marks all along her arm up to her shoulder. The armour had shattered and peeled back reveal grisly tears in her muscles. I reached out and held her free hand for a moment. Like the boys, the wounds were cauterised, so the bleeding had stopped.
I stood and inspected the nine remaining soldiers. Was I really going to do this, take command? I had to get out of here alive, not die a hero.
“AS03, do you read?” a voice resounded from one of the soldiers’ helmets.
The girl raised a hand to her ear. “We read you, command. New status: Noor and Tetsu have been knocked out. Maya is in a critical condition. What are our orders?”
“Status confirmed, AS03. Evacuate the wounded and prisoners. The rest of your squad, check the south offices for survivors.”
“Understood,” the girl replied, and she looked at me expectantly.
The first woman shrugged. “Well?”
I turned back to my new subordinates and pointed. “You two, grab Maya. You four, grab the men!” I watched as they complied with my orders.
I thought back to where we had first landed, just before the gardens, and spun my fingers. As the six women dragged Maya, Noor, and Tetsu closer, a portal opened. “Go, get out of here!”
They took the unconscious bodies through the portal and I closed it, leaving three soldiers left.
The girl who had defended me earlier pointed at a nearby, massive doorway on the side of the chamber. “The south offices are that way.”
The three of them checked their weapons and surrounded me.
“Okay, we’re ready, ma’am. Shall we search for survivors?”
I sensed a dark passageway through the door. “Must we?”
She raised an eyebrow at me. “I’m afraid so. Those are our orders.”
I faced the massive doorway and took a deep breath. “Alright, follow me.” I trudged forward with the girls in tow.
21. Unbreakable
Shortly after
The lighting had been cut, but I sensed more dead bodies in the darkness. We ran around a corner and jumped over a small gap where the floor had caved in. At the end of the corridor there were small shafts of light peeking through the concrete cracks. I put my hands out on the blockade and tried pushing against it but it would not budge.
“Dead end,” one of the girls noted. “Is there another way around?”
“No,” I replied. “Wait.”
I closed my eyes and searched past the fallen debris to see a rubble-filled area. The roof had collapsed, allowing the midday sun to shine in from above. Numerous floors of the facility were exposed, as if something enormous had obliterated the building from the sky. I was shocked at what I saw; there must have been over a hundred bodies lying on the ground, many of them in pieces or buried under concrete.
In the centre of the devastation there was a gargantuan man sheathed in armour. He was at least double the size of any regular person, a colossal, muscular man. He didn’t have a mask like the others.
He was holding up a female soldier a fraction of his size in one of his gigantic hands. She was trying to break free from his monstrous grip. I gasped when I saw her face. It was Tau.
I pulled out my blade, opened a portal to the next area and ran through with the others. As we arrived on the other side, I created another portal, stuck my sword into it and threw the exit towards the man. He hadn’t noticed the flying sword coming straight for his face.
As it hit his cheek, the blade bent and was deflected. I pulled the warped sword from the portal and threw it to the ground. He had spotted us.
“About time, I was starting to get tired of playing with this one,” he bellowed.
“Sacet! It’s … ahhh!” Tau screamed.
The man tightened his grip around her waist. “That’s enough out of you.”
The other girls raised their rifles towards him.
“Wait!” I commanded, giving them pause. “You might hit her.” I looked back at the man. “Let her go, monster!”
An amused look came over his face as if he was delighted to hear the words. “Oh! Oh, but of course.” His smile changed to a look of bloodlust.
He squeezed her further and Tau screamed again. There was a sickening snap, Tau stopped screaming and instead lay limp in his hand. The man tossed her broken body towards us.
Tau sailed through the air and came to a stop on the rubble. A trail of blood followed in her wake. Her torso was covered in blood and there was what looked like a rib protruding from her chest. My eyes welled with tears.
“Whoops. Guess I need to be more careful,” the man said while examining his giant fist. “What do you think?” He lowered his eyebrows an
d showed a malicious grin. “Want to help me try again?”
“Ma’am, focus!” one of the soldiers said, noticing my grief. “We’re still in danger.”
I wiped away the tears with my hand, my feeling of sorrow turning to wrath. “What do I think? You killed her! So I’m going to kill you!” I screamed back.
“You’re certainly welcome to come try,” he said, his voice rasping as he raised his massive fists in front of him.
I made a portal under his feet and levitated him into the air with one strong swing of my arm upwards. He whooshed towards the open sky and came hurtling back down. He smashed into the ground, causing a large dust cloud. Rubble flew in all directions. He rose to his feet again and waved his arms to disperse the haze of dust away from his eyes.
“That was your only free shot,” he said with confidence as he walked out of the crater, unharmed.
“Ma’am?”
“Fire!”
The soldiers unleashed a barrage of laser-fire, but each projectile deflected off his seemingly invincible skin.
“Kill him!” I screeched.
He started to sprint at us and the ground rumbled with each step. Despite his gigantic size, he was frighteningly fast and I didn’t have enough time to react.
I dove to the side, and his fist rocketed into the nearest soldier with a terrible thwack. Her body careened into the air and collided into a wall. The other two continued firing to no avail, he simply laughed.
I backed away while trying to think of a way to kill him. He hammered his boulder-like fist down onto another soldier, flattening her and breaking her spine immediately.
My fingers twirled, making a portal out of desperation. I placed one on the ground and flung the other towards him. He leaped into the air to avoid it, then landed next to the final soldier.
“No, get away!” she shouted, but he quickly snatched her and squeezed. Another snap, she groaned then let out a final whimper.
The man dropped the body, glanced over at me, and grinned. I was no match for him, I had to escape. But before I knew it he had already stormed over, reached out, and grabbed me.
He lifted me up, like he did to Tau, and frowned. “Come now, over so soon? I haven’t had my fun.”
He pulled his arm back and threw me towards the side of the clearing. I flew up into one of the exposed floors above, then hit the floor and tumbled.
I staggered to my feet and clutched my ribs. He had winded me, I could barely breathe. The man jumped from the rubble and landed on the ledge in front of me.
He drew his arm back, ready to strike. I opened a portal in front and another along the wall to his side. As his fist came crashing through, it burst out of the wall next to him and struck his own cheek. He staggered backwards and brought his hand out of the portal.
He laughed. “Clever! You made me punch myself?”
He raised his fists above his head and then slammed them onto the floor, causing a cave in. Both of us fell into a dark room along with the collapsing rubble. I landed on the ground and pushed myself up. I spun around in place, searching for him. Except for the light pouring in from the hole above, the room was dark.
Then, from behind, I felt his hands clench around my waist and lift me into the air again. I tried turning around to see his face but was stopped short when he squeezed. I shrieked as he constricted further. He laughed at my cries.
“Once I have someone in my grasp, they don’t leave it alive.”
I made another levitation portal to our side and forced it to fly into both of us. The portal smacked into us and threw us both into the opposite wall. I pressed the portal up against us and also squeezed; we were both stuck between the wall and the portal now.
He laughed again. “Call me crazy but I’m sure I’m going to crush you before you can crush me.”
And he was right. My efforts had no effect on him. I used my second perception and looked up into the empty sky. I changed the destination of the portal that was crushing us so that it instead led straight up. I then pulled the portal closer so that it forced us through into the sky on the other side.
We were now directly over the caved-in offices, high above the city. The wind picked up as we started to fall back towards the surface.
“You’re going to do the work for me are you?” he yelled, barely audible over the sound of the whipping wind.
I ground was fast approaching. I opened up one portal on the ground and another over my head. I tried pulling myself through it, and like an article of clothing, I squeezed my chest, then my hips, then my legs through it and out of the man’s loosened grasp, then clambered my way out of the portal and onto the ground.
I quickly closed the portals so he couldn’t follow me through. I was back on the surface again, surrounded by rubble and corpses. The man was still plummeting.
I couldn’t kill him, but maybe I could trap him? I opened a portal as wide as I could below where I expected he would land. The second portal was placed above the first but face down, and I waited for his body to pass it before I opened them. He fell through the first portal, but instead of hitting the ground, he continued to fall through the second portal, over and over again in perpetual free-fall. So long as I kept these portals open, he wasn’t going anywhere.
“Damn you! Let me out of this!” he thundered.
I paid him no attention, instead running over to Tau. Her body was covered in blood, which had also pooled underneath, spreading amongst the rubble. The dirt and debris had absorbed much of it, darkening the grey dust.
Why had they done this? She wasn’t like the others, she was a kind person. My fists shook and my face trembled. These men would pay for what they had done here.
I knelt beside her and placed my hand around the back of her neck to support her. There was a slight tingling sensation on the end of my fingertips, then throughout my whole hand. I gently let go of her neck and brought my hand up, and the tingling had stopped. I placed my hand onto hers and felt the strange sensation again.
Her skin was beginning to glow. Her hand turned a resplendent white. Visible silvery waves of air started to emanate from her body like flames. I closed my eyes as the sensation overpowered me.
22. Recall
Ten cycles ago
Tau was still sleeping in her bed and if she didn’t get up soon she’d be probably be punished.
“Tau! Tau!” I yelled.
It was no use, she couldn’t hear me. I looked around the room at the other bunk beds. The other children were already up and getting changed into their uniforms.
“Let me,” said Vanu as she approached and punched Tau in her side. “Get up!”
“Urgh … oww! Why did you hit me?” Tau moaned as she pulled off the sheets.
“Hurry up and get dressed,” I said.
“Okay, okay. Relax, Cara,” she replied as she put her arms through her under-suit sleeves.s
The door at the end of the room opened and Corporal Tallu walked in, towering over us.
“Attention!” she yelled, her voice carrying down to the end of the line of bunks, and the chattering of the children silenced.
There was a loud pattering as all the kids ran to the front of their bunks, including me. Tau still wasn’t dressed. She kicked her feet through her leggings and hopped over to her bunk.
The corporal strode between the beds and stopped in front of her. “You know what? I don’t even mind that you’re not ready today.” Her frown turned to a smile. “I have some good news for all of you. You have all graduated and you’ve been requested at the Atrasian province.”
The whole room cheered in excitement.
“Get all of your things together, quickly! We need to make our way over to the hangar for your deployment, right now. They’re waiting for us.”
Our things? We didn’t have things. Did she mean the small trunk of clothes we were given? I watched as the others bent over, pulled on their trunks’ handles and followed the corporal out of the door and into the hallway. I leant over
and picked mine up, too, as Tau continued to put on her uniform.
“You go, I’ll catch up,” she said. I made my way out of the room and caught up with the rest of my squad in the corridor.
“You’ll like it in Aero,” the corporal yelled back at us over the sound of our rolling trunk wheels. “Don’t feel bad that you’re leaving the capital city; Aero is almost as big and has everything you could need.”
To be honest, I welcomed the change of pace. I was sick of being cooped up in this place shooting targets and running drills. It would be nice to finally see the world outside of this city.
It wasn’t long before we entered through the doors into the hangar. Waiting for us at this end of the runway was a lone transport, its turbines idling over in preparation for take-off.
In a loud, excited frenzy, we all pushed and shoved our way up the ramp and locked our trunks to the floor using the mechanisms at our feet.
“Cara, where’s Tau?” the corporal inquired. Tau came running through the entrance to the hangar with her trunk in tow. “Ah … never mind.”
We took our seats and helped one another strap in, tightening the fastenings as we went because they were too big for us. Tau rushed up the ramp and locked her trunk into place with the others. She took a seat in my row and smiled at everyone.
The corporal was standing at the top of the ramp. “I’m very proud of all of you,” she began, silencing the cabin. “I promise I’ll visit once you’ve settled in. Watch each other’s backs. And never forget: you are sisters, a bond stronger than anything in this world.” She gave one last smile, turned, and walked back down the ramp.
The ramp ascended, leaving us in the dim, red compartment. I could hear the turbines beginning to whirr louder. The craft swayed as it accelerated, before launching straight up. The other children cheered and laughed as we all felt an unfamiliar lurch in the pit of our stomachs.
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