Game Over

Chapter 9

The siblings went to Serenity's house and told her the situation, and her only question was why does Ashley look so different. They explained that they had no explanation for that and she went with them. They waited for Cyber Dog to beam them up to the Physical World. When they were done explaining, they all went to the ashes of Serenity's Village. It had been completely put out and now they could see the full extent of the damage. The wooden houses were completely destroyed and the stone ones had been blown up since they wouldn't burn. When they walked further in, something crunched beneath Serenity's feet.
"Huh?" She looked down and saw something reflective.
She bent down and scooped up dirt, but then she realized it wasn't dirt anymore. The fire had been so intense that it managed to turn some of the ground to glass. It was amazing and scary how intense Endrian fire was. They were there for about an hour and a half before a white light began to envelope the three.
"Welp, it's time," Kira told them "I'll see you up there, you two." They nodded and they disappeared.
They reappeared seconds later a few feet off the ground, which was no problem for any of them. Serenity landed on her feet, bending her knees to absorb the fall. Ashley landed on her feet and left fist, her spear still in her hand. Kira rolled as he landed, then jumped back up to his feet in one smooth movement.
"Good to see you, guys," A female voice greeted them.
Ashley turned around and flipped her weapon into her underhand. When she turned around, she pointed the tip at the speaker's neck! She took a breath when she realized is was Avery and brought her weapon down. She put the pointed staff on her back and looked at Avery.
"Woah! Little on edge, are we?" Avery asked, then she realized that Ashley had changed "Uh... wha... why... how... ya know what? Doesn't matter. I'll ask you about it when we're safe, come look." They left the basement and looked outside the windows, making sure not to be seen.
"Military's been out in full force lately," Tommy explained "You can't go three feet without someone asking you about... well you guys. Everyone else is already at the hotel, now we just need to get there."
"Why didn't you guys take the machine there and then bring us out?"
"Listen, we're on a time crunch here, and lugging that thing around with us would be very suspicious and take too long. We can't drive a car because there's check points at every light, so we just walk and run everywhere we go."
"So... this is basically a police state at this point," Ashley groaned "Wonderful."
"Yeah, so we're gonna need to get this thing to the hotel, so Kira can teleport it, but we need you to know where it is first."
"True, from here, I can't tell what anything is," Kira agreed "Should we maybe put something on to conceal ourselves, though? We're pretty easy to spot."
"True, we've robbed a few stores, mostly clothes, so we have a lot of outfits to keep ourselves disguised," Tommy informed them.
"Come on, we gotta head out before they come search for us again here. They know where we are, so we've had to stay on the down low." They followed the two up to Tommy's room and showed them what they had.
Serenity chose a pair of maroon sweatpants and a black t shirt with a white hoodie with golden stripes around the torso. She pulled the hood over her head and put her hair in the hoodie. Ashley chose black jeans with a dark green sleeveless t shirt, then she braided her hair into a bun. She grabbed a black beanie and put it over her head, concealing a large amount of her hair. Kira grabbed a pair of loose black sweatpants, a blood red long sleeved shirt, a purple hoodie, and a black glove for his robotic hand. He put the hood over his head and looked at everyone else, who nodded to him.
"Alright, guys... let's do this," Ashley told them, to which they all let out a quick yell.
They ran down the stairs and Tommy grabbed a grenade they had stolen. He opened the back door and threw it at another house, drawing a group of soldiers attention. He nodded to his friends, then they all ran out the front door. More soldiers ran toward the house, so the group all got behind separate cars. They watched as the military passed them, then they began running again. When they got to the street, they began to walk as to not attract attention to themselves. Kira walked with his head down, but kept an eye on everyone who passed. They had to leave the spear at the house... because there was no way to hide it. Any time they came across a soldier, Kira could visibly tense. They all knew that they could beat any soldier in a fight, but that would most likely cause more trouble than it would be worth. Ashley had a bit of an advantage with her transformation, but she still had some very defining features, mainly being her hair.
As the group kept walking, a soldier stepped in front of them, and asked "Identification please."
Ashley stepped in front of the group and replied "Come on... sir." She cursed herself for speaking like that to someone who wanted to kill her and her family "My kids and I are trying to get home and our car broke down."
"I'm sorry to hear that, ma'am, but I really need to see your I.D., order from the president."
"Ugh... fine. Kai, show him our I.D.s please?" He nodded and walked forward.
He grabbed the guard by the neck with his robotic arm and slammed his head against a wall. He made sure not to kill him, but did give him brain damage. He grabbed the body cam on the soldier's chest and crushed it in his grip.
"That was... scarily smooth," TOmmy told him.
"Listen, I've been knocking people out for years, one guy won't hurt."
"I know, but damn, that was like nothing."
"Mainly cause it was."
"Okay, fair enough." Avery looked at Tommy and Serenity "We gotta keep going. Sooner or later, they'll find this guy, laying on the ground... or he'll wake up and call this in... if he remembers it."
"Very true, so we should get there... how much further should it be?" Tommy got out his phone and looked at Google Maps.
"It's about a half hour away, we still got some ground to cover... and we're about to go deeper into the city, we need to stay low." They nodded and walked further down the street.
"We should get to a subway station," Avery told them "There's usually not a lot of military down there and it's dark. We should be able to get into a train into the middle of the city that way."
"Yeah, I think that's a good idea," Ashley replied "If we do get stopped though, what do we do?"
Tommy sat down on a bench and replied "Well, we're all fighters, so we can probably beat them, but would we need to kill them or just knock them out?"
"I'm thinking knock 'em out," Kira replied "If we kill them, we'll start a war against the military, not just Vordus."
"They're already calling this a war, but it's really just the military being paranoid," Avery replied as they "Everyone blowing up the city? That's gonna bring people in, but now that the president's gotten in on this, I feel like shit's about to hit the fan... way more than currently."
The group got down the steps and heard soldiers walking around down there. As Avery had said, there weren't many, not more than five. They looked at one another, nodded, and walked further down the stairs. Kira took a knife out of his pocket and ran out, throwing it into one of the guard's shoulders! The others pointed their guns at him, but by the time they had registered that they were there, all five were on the train.
"Well, that was intense," Kira said with a grin "Good thing I always have a knife." They sat down with one another and finally relaxed.
Serenity sat next to Tommy and he wrapped an arm around her. She fell asleep and Ashley looked looked over at them while Avery sat with Kira. Ashley kept an eye on all of her younger family as they rode to the hotel, or as they would come to know it, their hideout. She smiled, listening to their conversations, enjoying how care free they seemed to be in this time.