The Time

Chapter sixteen

I woke up.
I wasn't expecting to, but it happened. I think that was the weirdest thing.
I was also still in the room, strapped down, staring at the ceiling. Except now there was a gash of a blood splatter across it.
Turning my head to where my friends were sat when I'd died,  I saw that the only remnants of them was some of the ropes that had bound them. So where were they?
Short answer; the other side of me. Fighting for their lives and mine. I couldn't help though, unable to move. Unless...
Looking down at myself to see a bloody mess, I noticed my sleeve had fallen down. One of the sleeves a knife was concealed in.
Wriggling desperately, I worked my wrist until the knife slid down my arms and out of its pouch. There, I continued to wriggle until it landed in my palm where I could use it.
It took a lot of time and awkward maneuvering but I managed to cut through and free my left arm. From there, I undid the rest of the straps and slid off the table. I was struck by suddenly pain in my chest though and stumbled to the floor.
Lifting my top a little way, I saw I had a long gash going down the length of my stomach. Sighing and grimacing, I then held my organs in with one hand and the knife in the other, using the table to pull myself up. Once I was back on my feet, I shuffled ungraceful to the surgeon's table of instruments and wrapped myself in every bandage I could find. I didn't need to make the bandaging last long, just long enough for me to kill the people attacking my friends.

A man fell from the fight and I was finally noticed, ignored until now due to the fact everyone thought I was dead. He came at me, trying to knock me off my feet, but instead, pushed me back into a wall. The sudden attack didn't halt my determination but instead fuelled it and the man found a knife in his neck for his troubles. He gurgled to his death.
Next, I found a woman beating the crap out of Brenda so literally stabbed her in the back. She fell to her knees with a inhuman cry and I slit her throat before she could finish it.
I was losing a lot of blood now and running on adrenaline alone. I wouldn't make it much longer. And someone noticed that.
It was a woman with a no. 1 hair cut. She had big brown eyes of the same colour and they shone with a fresh flame. It was obvious she wanted to kill me and by the way she looked, it was clear she could.

Walking over to me, she pulled two swords from her back and just as I thought she was going to fight me with nothing for protection but a knife, she threw me a sword. I had little to no grace or style when wielding it but it was a lot better than a tiny blade.
I didn't have time to ask who she was or why she helped me though, as my friends were starting to fall and weaken with their defenses. So then it became an extreme frenzy of slashes and swipes, parrying and blocking.
Until I felt myself slipping away, but not before I was run through with a sword looking not much like mine.
The last thing I saw was Wayne Milton go down with me and the first thing I saw when I respawned was her torturing the woman who had saved me.

Pulling myself up, I lifted my top to see the bandage still there but the cut not. It wasn't a surprise to me though. The only reason I'd woken up last time still injured was because the guy had continued to slice and dice even after my body had started to try and heal.
"What's going on?" I asked with a slur, as Wayne threw another punch into the lady's face. "Hey, stop! Stop! WAYNE!"
"Why?" She turned on me.
"Because she saved my life." I stated simply.
"She's still one of them." Wayne growled, talking about the people working under the Donald Trump looking guy from the jacuzzi.
"Yes, but that does not make me evil. Did you not notice the minute you people were in serious danger, I came to your rescue. You should be thanking me." The woman suddenly spoke up.
"Ah, now you'll speak." Wayne sighed with an eye roll.
"I was waiting for her." The woman nodded to me.
"What's your name?" I asked before my friend could say anything else.
"Tyler." She informed me. "And if you untie me, I'll be on my way. You can even keep the swords."
She was extremely posh with a level of patronizing detest behind her words. I knew it wasn't aimed at me though by the blood swelling down her face.
"Tyler..." I nodded. "I'm Ace."
I then walked over and untied her hands.
"Wait, what are you doing?" Milton demanded.
"Letting her go. I believe her!"
"Fine." Wayne breathed, letting it go. "I'm going to find the others. I think they're in the outside pool."
And then she was gone.
"Thank you." Tyler said, standing up and shaking my hand. "I meant it by the way; you really can keep the swords."
"It's fine-" I began, not sure I could accept them.
"No. They're yours." She told me bluntly. "It guess this is it then- But I have something important to tell you first. You can win against Velvet."
I frowned. "How did you-"
"I know Destiny. Have for a long time. Knew him back when he wasn't 'Destiny'. And I know he was captured by Exodus Thorn and if anything happens to that little shit, he or Velvet won't even make it long enough for you to get to him. The swords are made from enough God Killers bullets to take down the entire cast of Downton Abbey. And they work. So all that's left to say is... Good luck." She then stalked off, leaving me with a simple statement of "You can keep the jacket too."
The jacket? The jacket.
She'd left it draped over the chair she'd been tied to, wearing it over her burgundy dress while fighting. It was black and leather with silver spikes on the shoulders. Slipping into it, I decided I looked really fucking badass in it. But I didn't have time to check myself out right this minute so headed out to where my friends were. It wasn't the outside pool though.
One of the water slides had a waiting area which was, when it had contained water, a floating pool. Everyone was in here munching down on vending machine food.
"I swear to God, if you guys don't stop chomping..." I let the threat hang.
'Chomping' you ask? Simply answer; mouth noises. I can't stand them and my friends do them a lot whether on purpose or solely to annoy me.
They stopped.
"So what's going on? Where's Jabba the Slut?" I queried sliding down next to Tom and grabbing a bag of mini cheddar saved for me. I fucking love mini cheddars.
"The hairy Jacuzzi dude with the bloobs?" Chuck asked. "He's in the trunk of the car."
"We're going to drop him somewhere unpleasant." Tom added.
"And what are we going to do with the workers?"
"They're tied up in the outside pool. We're going to leave them there. The surgeon is dead though." Ken informed me.
"Well that's something I can get behind." I smiled. "After we've finished lunch, let's move on. We've got a date with Destiny."
"Please stop with the action hero puns." Wayne begged with a grin.
"Some days..." I put on my best David Attenborough voice. "I just can't stop..."

The man in the back of the trunk would not shut up when we started off again. He was banging and shouting and I had half a mind to stop the car, get out and shoot him. That would leave a mess though which I would be too lazy to clean up.
After a while, even the calmest among us were losing their chill and we strung up Tronald Dump in a particularly skanky public toilet - after using it ourselves of course.
And then it was a race to the finish, pulling up at the end of the few buildings still standing in London. Beyond them, the rubble of the rest of the city ready to provide us with an extreme rock wall to combat.
"I want lunch. Like subway." Jeremy put in dreamily.
"You ask for a sandwich... I made you a sub." Brenda grinned, giving us a saucy wink.
"I'll make you both into a sandwich in a minute." I breathed to myself.
Ken heard and chuckled in the way only a dad could.
It was the only joke I could make right now. I was so filled with nervous energy that I couldn't really say anything. But I had to...
"Right!" I turned suddenly, stopping everyone at the edge of the city. "Round the next bend, we are at risk of being seen by Velvet. Now, he doesn't know we're coming and we have that in our favour but walking straight in to surprise him didn't work last time and I'm betting it won't work again. So instead, we have to find Destiny and get out without Velvet noticing. Killing Velvet is a bonus but not a necessity. Exodus Thorn's death is also not high priority but once Velvet realises we're gone, the bounty hunter will be on our tail so if you get a chance; take your shot."
"So how do you propose we get in without being seen?" Chuck asked, using his most flowery language.
"With great difficulty." I shrugged, copying what Destiny had said many a time in accordance to some of the stupid little things he'd done on our walk.
Fuck, I missed that kid.
"We wait until it's dark and get over to the building. It won't be easy; the terrain is rough. But we can do this lads." I smiled.
"You should have been blasting some inspirational classic rock then." Wayne grinned back.
So then we found a building to rest in until it got dark and at that moment, everything was at peace. But it never lasts...

The building was large with huge crème glass windows, frilly net curtains hanging on darkening golden bars. Sandy coloured stones made up the walls and a slate roof the colour of a soft grey-blue sky. A varnished peeling door stood at the Base, huge, milky brown and locked. Until it crashed open at a particularly badass shoulder barge from me.

Inside, the dust scuttled away from the draft created as the door fell and a chandelier dangled from the ceiling above a flight of stairs before us. It twinkled in the darkness created by the lack of windows on the first floor.

Surrounding us were midnight blue walls and running a hand across them, I told everyone plainly "Now we sleep."

Curling up at the bottom of the stairs, I sat on watch, waiting for it to get dark. I figured I would let the team rest in preparation of what was to come. I couldn't sleep though. Not with my friend still out there. I'd tried to push back all thoughts of what could be happening to him from my mind before I went mad with guilt and worry. It was in times of silence and solitude like this that I couldn't escape from them though. But after a couple of hours when the sunset was spreading across the sky in tendrils of pastel orange (the colour of hate as Destiny would say), the quiet was broken by a group of Scavengers discovering us in their home. And they were not happy...