Young Heroes

Action Plan

*Ashlyns POV*

  Plotting your escape on an empty stomach was no picnic, let me tell you. It felt like my brain was out of ideas, and full of them at the same time. I just couldn't get my ideas into focus. Like trying to pull a vampire into the sunlight.
  I assumed I would soon become delusional. I had already lost track of how long I'd been MIA. I remember I stopped taking the pills four days ago.
"Why can't I think of anything...there has to be a way..." I mumbled to myself, looking around the room. "Think outside the box...try a different angle."
I sighed and hung my head, closing my eyes. I had a happy and stubborn personality with a heavy soul. Times like these were when things got weird and conflicting.
I opened my eyes and stared down at my feet. My black shoes were worn from the previous days in Russia and the barn. That seemed like forever ago.
I used my other foot to slip off my shoe and looked at my foot and toes. I'd never noticed before, but my feet actually really hurt. They were almost completely purple-ish black with bruising, and suffered many cuts, but nothing that would kill me. I shrugged and was about to slip my shoe back on when a faint whisper of an idea rang in my head. My eyes widened and my lips parted. I got it.
"A different angle..."
  "Try a different angle...."
I looked around excitedly one more time and played out every step, one by one in my head. This could work. It would hurt like hell with the broken rib, but I'd live.
I braced my feet, shoulder width apart, and wrapped as much of the chain around my hands as possible, gripping them tightly. I bounced on my toes before springing up and using my core strength to pull myself upside down, my feet directed to the ceiling. I groaned in pain and sighed once I got to a point where I could leave some weight on my feet, which were clinging to the wall behind me, holding me upside down.
Once I was upside down, several things fell out of my vest and then the one thing I wanted fell out. My pick. I always carried a pick just in case of...well this pretty much. I smiled in relief that I still had it, and was about to flip right side up, when something else fell out of my vest. My photograph.
I stared at it with longing. The eight of us, arm in arm, smiling and laughing. I remembered that moment vividly and fondly, everyday, as if it were yesterday.
  I gazed at it until I realized I was on the clock, and my rib wasn't gonna be getting any less broken. This could wait.
I flipped right side up and landed back on my feet. I groaned as my rib felt like it was shattered into a million pieces, but I pulled it together and took off both of my shoes. I used my toes to retrieve the pick and then I tossed it up and to catch it with my teeth. I missed the first three times, and sighed in relief when I got it the fourth. I brought my head as close as I could to the locks, which was just barely perfect, switched to my x-Ray eyes so I could see the mechanism, and began to unlock it with the pick in my teeth.
After a long struggle, I finally got it open and grinned gleefully. I took the pick in my free hand and got to work on my other cuff. I got it free faster this time, and rubbed my sore wrists. They were bleeding, bruised, and bright red from all of my straining. That didn't matter right now, so I gathered up all of my things that fell out of my vest, folded my photograph carefully, and stored it in my breast pocket.
I then needed to find a way to get out the door. I looked at the wall with my X-ray vision, when someone suddenly came right through it. I looked up and jumped back, face to face with Buffy.

*Nathans POV*

After another agonizing two days, we'd finally devised a plan that would rescue our friend. We were leaving today, and while it's all I've been waiting for, I was super nervous for something bad to happen.
As I walked through the halls of the quarters, the sound of my footsteps ringing of the walls, I glanced into every room I passed. I passed Ash's room and froze when I saw Sophia lying in her bed.
I looked up and down the hall, and proceeded into Ashlyn's room.
"Sophia?" I called to her. She glanced up at me and mumbled a, 'hey'. "How come you're in here?"
She drew in a long breath through her nose. "I don't know. Her rooms actually really calming. I think it got cleaner somehow even with her gone." She joked, looking around.
I chuckled and ran a hand through my hair. "Yeah that always seems to be it with her huh?"
She nodded and closed her eyes. "I want this to work. I need my pain in the ass princess back. She's one of the quietest of us, but yet it's somehow quieter when she's not here."
"Yeah." I said, pulling out the chair to her desk and sitting with my chest to it's back. I took the softball off her desk, tossing and catching it. I looked around her quarters. Ashlyn has severe OCD, and she was germaphobic, so it was pristinely clean. All the walls were a clean white, except for one accent wall, which was an extremely light, pastel blue. Her desk was black and neatly organized with hardly anything on it, her laptop centered in the middle of it. She loves photography, so there was a line of pictures in the center of the wall over her bed, and a white board next to her desk with random writing on it. There were a few canvas signs on the walls that pulled together the aesthetic of her room. Even her bed was bright white and perfectly made.
"We should do something together when she gets back. All of us." Sophia said, sitting up and smiling.
In all honesty, I hadn't even thought about what we'd do AFTER she got back, because I had been so focused on just getting her back.
"Yeah we should. Maybe we'll take her to the emergency room as a family." I said sarcastically.
Sophia laughed lightly, shaking her head. She drew in another breath and jumped up off the bed. "Let's go get em." She said.