Hunter

Chapter Thirty Three - Overpowered

Jasper and I turned around and were faced with nearly twenty automatons. My hands tingled gently with awareness as I saw the giant pieces of strong metal standing before me, all of them close to seven feet. They were all dark, polished, walking pieces of armor, ready to search and destroy. A single green light shone in a boomerang shape where their eyes would've been, illuminating the dark space before them. One of them stepped forward, the sound of metal on rock ringing throughout the cave. A scanner erected itself straight up from the top of its head. The light blue glow scanned the room and landed on Deirdre, scanning over her body. Aiden made a move to step forward.

"Aiden, don't you dare move from that position!" My voice was hushed, but I made sure that he was able to capture the intensity with which those words were said. He stopped in his tracks and watched as the boomerang light beeped orange before turning to green again. The scanner continued to search the room until it landed on Jasper. He remained still as the light flashed over his body. The eye-light beeped orange before reverting back to green. The scanner landed on me after roaming the room, and the same thing happened.

Aiden wasn't so lucky.

Once the scanner landed on him, it circled his body for a longer period of time, roaming over every single ligament of his body separately before their lights flashed green. The lights on all of the automatons blinked several times before turning to blue.

The automaton that stood in front of all of them raised its hand, and a simple gun unfolded itself from a pocket like a sheet of origami. Pieces opened and closed until a round barrel that looked like it could fire a lethal blow mechanized on top of its hand, aimed straight at Aiden. His hands were held up as if that would actually help him in this situation. The gun made a whizzing sound as the barrel rolled.

"Hayley," Aiden called out to me, his eyes wide with fear. The sound intensified along with the beating of my heart. Pulling my dagger out from my boot, I threw it at the automaton's arm. The force was enough to move the aim to a rock behind Aiden just as the gun fired. A huge blow exploded behind him, and the cave trembled as though it were hit by an earthquake. Rubble tumbled down from the ceiling and a dust settled on each and every one of us. The scanner of the head automaton flashed over me, causing his boomerang light to flash to red.

It stayed red.

Now I was weaponless, and I was considered a hostile target. My hands were tingling like crazy, and I tried to shake them out. I was on high alert, and my heart was beating rapid fire in my chest. The automaton aimed its gun at me once again, and before I could attack, Jasper threw a rock at the piece of metal, wiping it clean off. As the gun fell off its arm, he stepped forward and slashed with one of his daggers, cutting off the arm in one slice, parried over to right and sliced off the metallic head in two goes. The head rolled off behind the body, sparks flying everywhere. The lead automaton fell to its knees and then to the side. My heart was beating even faster, if possible, and adrenaline was coursing through my body.

At that point, the scanners on all the automatons flashed over Jasper, Aiden and me, causing the boomerang lights to beep and then remain red. I looked over to where Dee lay: the only sign of a disturbance was the slight coat of dust that now covered her body. Hopefully, she would remain neutral in this, and the automatons would not attack her. All at once, they stepped apart from each other, standing in two staggered lines. All of their arms raised and the guns appeared, already charged and ready to shoot. I grabbed Jasper and Aiden's arms and pulled them into the stream with me as the bullets left the barrel. Two grazed my left has I landed with a loud thud in the water. Opening my eyes, I could see flashes from all the shots, and I prayed that Dee was okay.

Putting what I had learned into practice, I created an air bubble around all three of our bodies, focusing on extracting the oxygen so we wouldn't suffocate. Jasper coughed violently with Aiden by his side.

"Here's what I've come up with; they're not going to attack Dee because she didn't attack them." That was it.

"I told you we should've saved that syrup," Jasper panted between breaths, coughing slightly to get the remaining water out of his system.

"Now is not the time," I forced out through gritted teeth

He stood up straight, wiping the water from his face. His grey eyes almost glowed with authority as he stood before the two of us. I could tell that he was still struggling with the urge not to punch Aiden in the face, but he managed to push through it. He told us the game plan, and we worked to set it into motion. We all took deep breaths and Aiden swam downstream while Jasper and I climbed out from behind a large boulder so that the automatons couldn't scan us. Jasper stayed while I proned my way, military style, towards the mountain of poppy seeds. Dee looked uncharacteristically peaceful around the destruction from the open fire. She was still and breathing steadily.

Peeking from behind the seeds, I saw that the robots were still scanning the cave. They had split up into smaller groups of about three automatons each. Jasper's prediction skills were pretty accurate, and I looked back at him to give him the signal. Peeking a little further out, I saw Aiden and nodded at him, hoping that he was ready for his time to shine. Jasper had his two daggers ready, once in each hand. Pulling a stream of water from the pool, I extended it out to where my dagger lay. I wrapped the water around the hilt of the blade and froze it, pulling it back in towards me. I melted the water and wrapped my hand around the cold blade.

Aiden and I made eye contact. I gave him the signal and he jumped forward and unleashed all hell from his hands. Flames spread out around the room, engulfing several robots at once. The metal dripped to the ground in pools of smelt. A handful of automatons streamed off in a liquid pool, giving us a slight advantage.

I changed my dagger into a sword and charged, slashing at the first robot I came across. The arm fell off and it turned, it's red light blinding me. An electric charge spurted out from its other arm. I shut my eyes, preparing for the pain. Instead of pain, I felt energized, and then it clicked: I remembered my electricity powers. I looked down at my hands, and they were tingling even more. Sticking out my arm I forced a lightning bolt out of my palm. The energy that was released was so powerful that it pushed me back into a sharp rock. My back was in agonizing pain, but I kept my hand held out, electricity still striking. Once I stopped, the robots were a little scratched. I looked at my hand, confused, but didn't ponder on it as I pushed myself off of the wall. I stepped out of the way of an electric shock and cut off another arm. My sword went straight through the chest of that automaton, and its red light faded.

Jasper jabbed into the back of one automaton. He sliced at the back of its neck, causing its lights to go out. Gassed, Aiden ran from four robots that were pursuing him. Five of them were on me and eight were on Jasper. I ran towards Aiden, ducking underneath a swipe towards my head. I sliced, cutting off one of the guns on a robot, and I ended up taking a swipe to my left arm. Blood dripped down my elbow as I changed my dagger into a sword and threw it at the head of the robot that was closest to Aiden. Its light faded as it fell. As I was running towards Aiden, Jasper jumped behind me, slicing up the automaton that almost impaled me. I kept running, pulling my dagger out of one's head and changing it back into a sword.

"Aiden, are you okay?" I asked, out of breath. He was backed into a corner, too busy to respond. My arm ached as I diced into one automaton that was aiming at me with its gun. I missed, and as it was about to shoot, I ducked behind a boulder. Dust flew everywhere for a moment, covering the entire room. It was quiet for a while, and I heard rumbling from above the cave again. As the dust faded, more automatons materialized at the entrance of the cave. My heart dropped as I saw the numbers at the opening, all of their lights glowing a vicious red. Aiden had managed to get away and was on my side of the boulder, hidden from all three automatons that were on us. Jasper was hiding behind the mountain of poppy seeds. I looked at him, despair evident in my eyes.

"This isn't going to work," I mouthed. Aiden and I moved around to boulder to stay out of the view of the automatons that surrounded us as Jasper made his way over to where we were, making sure not to be seen. His timing was impeccable as he moved, but he slipped up. He stepped out of his hiding place as one automaton turned, its gun aimed. I tried to scream for him to move, but my voice was caught in my throat. I was scared. Again, I was helpless.

But he didn't die.

I thought he would but Aiden saved him. He shot a fireball at the robot and its metal casing pour to the ground. Jasper was okay.

Aiden had saved Jasper.