Helpless [Book 2]

36 || Firestorm

➟ ly
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"This is going to be a fight." The second the words left Piers's mouth, it was as if a timer went off. I barely had time to heave a breath before a loud smash was heard behind me, complete with a distinct shattering sound. Glass breaking. An alarm system. Perfect.

Loud blaring noises began screaming through the speaker. UWF representatives continued filtering out of the plane, this time with more of a worried rush about them. I spotted one particular guy I remembered, one of the UWF chairmen from the meeting that seemed so long ago. With a grin, he sauntered up next to Piers, looking between the group of us. He cracked his knuckles. "Guess we get backup, they get backup. That's about as fair as it's gonna get," he said, adding a lazy shrug. He had a pair of aviator sunglasses on his forehead and a black jacket over a white button-up, complete with an Antarctican flag tie.

"Clayton. Nice to see you join the fray," Danielle said, sending a nod his way.

"What can I say. I'm drawn to trouble," he said with a chuckle. "Might as well make use of it."

"HEY!" A loud shout came from the hallway. I turned, looking just fast enough to notice a pair of doors to the right of the stage slam open. A man stood there, panting, hair plastered to his forehead with sweat. "Who-" he gasped a breath of air- "do you think you are?!"

It was Ashton.

And he had a gun.

Before he could finish his thought, he was pushed to the side, crowded out by the tens- no, hundreds of people that followed him next. They all had guns. People in Ineffects wear, shouting, screaming, faces set. They wanted us dead.

Well. Some things never change.

"Zane, get my six!" I called, stepping forward to face the incoming soldiers.

"What's your six?"

"My back, dumbass, just-" blue laser bullets started firing through the air, loud noises and pops crackling. Oh great. Sweet. They weren't regular guns. When were there ever just regular guns?

Zane wasn't listening. He was a good two feet to my right, still struggling to hold up Nnmandi. I understood, but at the same time... We fight together, Zane and I. That's what we do.

Or, I mean, that's what we did.

"He's busy, I've got you," I heard Jack shout, her voice somewhere behind me. "Fire and nature can work well together, right? I'm pretty sure I read that somewhere."

"Just focus," I muttered. I wasn't sure if it was more to Jack or to myself. I drew my eyes shut. With that, it began.

A man ran towards me, his face plastered with a scowl and a scream ripping through his throat. I pulled a thick, lengthy vine through the ground, gripping him tight around the neck and sending him sailing into the walls of the auditorium.

Lighting and fire and ice spouted throughout the group, elements of every sort collaborating, forgetting their differences. Lions and bobcats and eagles of Shifters sprouted through the haze, roars and calls rising in intensity. People were coming at us from all angles.

"Ly, get down!" I heard Jack call, and I ducked just in time, watching as a blue bullet passed over our heads, blasting into the wall behind us with a loud crash.

"Thanks," I breathed out, returning my glance to the fight at hand. I was glad I did, too, because as soon as I did, another Ineffect was barreling towards me, a determined look on her face and a glint in her eye. I pulled up a vine, blocking her from me temporarily. She pushed against my makeshift shield, teeth gritted in anger. I looked back to Jack nervously.

"What did we ever do to make these people hate us so much?" I said, barely focusing in on my own words as I forced the woman away. She was knocked backward, a good ten feet from me. I watched as another element dealt with her further.

"It's 'cause we're different, Ly," I heard her say, quietly, voice tremulous and under her breath. I had the weirdest sense of déjà vu.

No one could truly ever say they enjoyed fighting. But today, watching the clash of the Metals alongside the strength of the Agillies, the whirring objects of the Telks and the vines of other Naturians- all of us together, as one. We were different. In that moment, I was impressed with who we were.

These people wanted to take that away.

It wasn't ten more minutes of fighting before everything changed.

I was struggling against a man, who stood over a foot taller than me and had a blue gun wedged in his right hand when another loud noise shook the auditorium. The man paused, and I took the opportunity to fling him off me. I looked back up towards the source of the noise.

Before I knew it, green lasers were added to the blue.

"The jBots will not harm you."

White, rotund robots rolled into the cascades of the battle from some unseen ship, shooting everything they could lock in. I watched as elements and Ineffects both fell, lasers connecting anywhere they could. I spotted the man I'd just struggled against as he was shot, repeatedly, in the chest by one of the offenders, its green eyes cold.

"The jBots will not harm you."

With every phrase it was like they were mocking us. I caught eyes with an element across the battlefield, trying to beat the robot's head in with her own hands. She would be dead in under a minute.

"Ly," I heard Jack mutter.

"I know, I see them."

"No, that's not what I meant. I meant... Do you know what this means?"

"W-what? Huh?"

"This is Draos. He's coming."

Oh.

The Ineffects were still fighting against us, pushing and clawing and screaming. The jBots were added onto this, their nonchalant phrases echoing as they plowed through. People were dying. Elements were dying. All of us.

The Ineffects didn't seem to get the message right away that the jBots weren't there to help them. One woman, wearing a redder fashion of the same Ineffects uniform- a leader, probably- stood next to a jBot, pointing angrily at the huddle of elements to the right. She was out of my earshot, but I was able to see as the jBot turned to face her, firing once. A clean shot, right through her head.

Maybe that's when they realized these things were part of a bigger picture than they were.

People were screaming, surrounding us. Everyone was shouting, running, panicked. I'd never seen anything like this before. It was... It was straight carnage. "Jack, we can't hold them off," I said, desperate at this point. There was nothing we could do.

"Just hold on, Ly, it'll only be some time until-" she started, pausing. Another bullet whizzed by us, thundering into the side of an Ineffect to our left. "No. Okay. We need to get out of here."

"Zane!" I called behind me. "No. Danielle! We need to go! We need to retreat!" She looked up to see me, our eyes locking for just a second. I thought I saw her mouth something, as if she was whispering under her breath. She paused, then. She was resolute.

"Hey!" She shouted, through the shots and cries of battle. "Initiate UWF protocol 418B! Outta here!" A quiet pause came from the elements, for only a second. Then, it was if a rallying cry rippled through the crowd.

I didn't know what was going on, but whatever it was, it was gonna be big.