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Chapter 104

In a few milliseconds I see all I need to, or want to.
The large Royal aircraft is planted smack in the middle of the street. It's humming quietly with electro energy, blue light shining softly from the crevices between the metal plates.
There's an entire host of black-armored soldiers huddled in a circle around something I can't quite make out. Like before, my dark imagination immediately jumps to crazy assumptions, none of them worse than the reality.
There's the sickening sound of flesh smacking flesh. A grunt, a thud, the clank of metal plates on asphalt.
I shove my fist into my mouth and bite down hard until I taste blood to stop me from screaming. A soldier stepped aside, and I can see quite clearly the vicious struggle going on in the street.
The Servants of the Order chuckle cruelly and guffaw while a large man in very thick shiny black armor lands blow after blow with metal fist on Coal, who's backed up against a dilapidated brick wall, hunched over and doing all he can, unarmed, to protect his face. He already has a heck of a shiner, and his ribs seem to be broken.
The worst part? I'm totally useless, just another spectator. I can do nothing without basically committing suicide, and I'm no good to Coal dead. I'm too frozen in rage and sickness to run back to the Old City base, and by the time I would get there he would be dead or gone, or maybe both.
Coal suddenly ducks the fist and whirls behind the man, his foot ramming the man between the plates on the back of his knee, my favorite pressure point. The Servant clanks to the ground. 'At's my boy!
Coal, panting and wheezing, clutching his already injured chest, backs away, and I almost lose my breath again when another Purity darts forward with a taser.
I gasp through my fingers, and step forward involuntarily as his body convulses rapidly in a nauseating way. My foot lands on a white old rib bone from the time before time, and it cracks under my weight.
I hold my breath while the sound reverberates way to loudly for comfort, up the sidewalk and off the sides of the falling buildings. The taser is jerked away, and Coal spins with his last once of consciousness, brilliant blue eyes finding mine for a fraction of a second, already closing. His lips form one word.
"GO!"
And he crumples to the ground, black hair flopping over his face, unconscious, or dead.