Triple Point

Chapter 34: Rude Awakening

06 JUN 33AE, 0006

Barracks, Los Angeles

For the past few weeks, Camilla was finally able to remember what it was like to have a good night's sleep. It had been years since she was last able to wake up well-rested, and waking up from a self-induced coma after the Games definitely didn't count.

She wasn't entirely sure what brought about this change—maybe it was because guarding Elsie Bates lately was nowhere near as stressful as it had been earlier, or maybe because Camilla actually enjoyed spending time with the actress without having to put up a front. Whatever the reason, Camilla should have expected that such a luxury wouldn't last. Good things rarely did.

The last thing she remembered was falling asleep peacefully in her bed. After what seemed like a second later, she was jolted awake by the sensation of an immense source of energy speeding closer and closer. Camilla had no idea what it was or where it came from, but it didn't matter. She rolled out of bed and planted her hands firmly on the ground, bracing the building structure for imminent impact.

But keeping a forty-story apartment building intact after being struck by essentially a giant bullet was easier said than done, and the force of the impact countered Camilla's and threw her into the air. A sharp pain spiked from her hands and up her arms, but she couldn't waste time assessing her injuries. There was another mass of energy inbound with four seconds until impact, giving her barely enough time to set up a better defense.

Again, Camilla planted her hands on the ground, but this time she didn't bother wasting energy to reinforce the building's structural integrity. It took her one second to send her energy to the wall at her two o'clock and down eight floors. It took another second to transfer her energy into the air outside the building, then another to start compressing the air to reach a pressure that could withstand the attack. By the fourth second, she had formed a wall of highly pressurized air set to intercept whatever was incoming.

Still, when Camilla felt the attack hit, the impact sent shockwaves throughout the building and up her arms. She stubbornly gritted her teeth and forced a wave of energy throughout the building's structure, canceling out the reverberations just enough to give a semblance of stability. Afterwards, Camilla pushed another wave of energy through her hands, this time directed at her wall of air and the massive force it was still holding back. Then, she honed her focus on figuring out what she was dealing with.

Based on recent events, and the sensation that the attack was only getting stronger, Camilla made an educated guess that the attack was a massive fireball, probably being controlled by at least three metas. In retrospect, it probably wasn't the best idea to use a wall of air against a mass of fire, since it was probably making the fire stronger, but Camilla figured she could still make it work in her favor.

Whoever was controlling the attack gave no indication they were going to let up until they hit their target, but Camilla had no intention of letting them pass her. So after patiently building up pressure in her wall of air, and allowing the fire to also grow little by little, Camilla released all the energy she had been storing at once, directed entirely at pushing against the fire.

The force must have been enough to throw her opponents off-balance because Camilla was immediately able to take over the molecules in the fire with ease. With a breath of relief, she channeled the energy from the fire to what remained of her wall of air, then through the building structure and back to her hands.

Even though Camilla's energy capacity was greater than most metas, the rate that the energy flowed into her was still immense, and she felt herself almost pass out with the sudden rush. Thankfully, she managed to throttle her intake just in time, and a few seconds later the fire had completely dissipated. Not only that, but even though Camilla's arms felt slightly singed, she now had more than enough energy for proper defensive measures.

With the next attack at least thirty seconds out, Camilla jumped to her feet and hurried to the bathroom. In the span of five seconds, she had the tub and sink spewing water at full blast, and it took another five seconds for her to get the kitchen faucet to do the same. As the water continued to run, Camilla rushed outside to her small balcony and leapt over the railing and into the cool night air.

The attack had been on the opposite side of the Barracks, so Camilla moved the air around her to carry her to the top of the building and set herself down gently on the rooftop. As soon as she landed, she began pulling the water up from her apartment, forming it into a wall between the building and a large ball of flames that was flying towards it.

Now that she saw it with her own eyes, instead of just sensing the energy with her abilities, it was a lot more intimidating, especially since its diameter was almost as long as a semi-truck. But she shoved her fears from her mind as she braced herself for the incoming attack.

As soon as the flames hit her wall of water, a loud sizzle hissed through the air, and a cloud of steam billowed upwards from the collision. Immediately, Camilla engulfed the fire with the water, extinguishing the heat and creating even more steam.

Once all of the fire was thoroughly put out, Camilla spread the steam out into a blanket of fog, stretching past the width and height of the Barracks. It probably wouldn't throw the enemy's aim off by much, since their target was stationary, but it hopefully would make them pause for a bit so the guardians at the Barracks could regroup.

Camilla began to pull up more water from her apartment, and was surprised to sense that several other units had fully opened their taps as well. While she expected such a move from more experienced guardians, most of the guardians that lived in the Barracks were still trainees and had yet to make enough money to live elsewhere. Whoever told the other residents to open up their water lines was either an experienced veteran or an intelligent rookie.

As if right on cue, several young guardians landed on the roof, most of them a bit dazed, and two more tumbled out of the stairwell, breathless. From the first group, the only one that seemed to have their act together rushed up to Camilla, taking care to avoid Camilla's waterways that were crisscrossed throughout the air, directing water from the apartment units to the rooftop.

"We're here to help," they said, their nervous determination only partially masking their fear.

As much as Camilla could probably use the help, if they were even a year out of the Academy they probably wouldn't last a single wave of attacks. Camilla didn't want that on her conscience.

"Abilities?" she asked anyway, her voice instinctively switching to a leadership tone.

"We're MG3's," the rookie said, gesturing to themselves and one of the girls that had flown up with them. "Those two are MG2's." Then, pointing at the two from the stairwell, "The one on the left is an ML2, the other is an MS1."

Two gases-liquids, two gases-only, one liquids-solids, one solids-only. It was a decent set of abilities given the situation, and at least there weren't any cell control guardians that were naive enough to think they could help up there. But if the lead rookie knew all of that, they were likely all from the same Academy class. And Camilla was not in any position to lead a training session just then.

While there were several experienced guardians that lived in the Barracks, they probably went off in search of the attackers once Camilla made it obvious that she was the one on defense. If that was the case, all Camilla needed to do was hold out for five more minutes. She just hoped that these rookies were all competent enough to keep up.

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