Bionica: The War

The Solution

Athalia didn't know where she was. She had just started to come out of unconsciousness, and she didn't have the strength to open her eyes yet. She could hear things, though. Some of the conversation was alarming.

"You think she's a spy?" asked a female voice.

"Tronyx doesn't hire humans to do his dirty work," said another voice, this one male.

"There's too much possibility for error," said another geeky-sounding boy. Athalia heard the clink of plastic on plastic as he pushed something up on his face with the end of a pen. Glasses.

"Yeah," said the girl, "but think about it. If he wants us gone, he's going to try something we don't expect. Sending a human in is just the sort of thing he might need to bring us down."

Cloth rustled and leather rubbed against leather. Athalia guessed someone who was wearing a leather jacket had folded their arms. "You think we should search for bugs?" asked the bigger man.

"You do it," said the other guy, "I don't like touching people."

"All right," said the big one. "Torchwick, would you do the honors?"

Athalia felt hands on her body, looking in her pockets, and she opened her eyes. In the back of the room stood a super buff guy, maybe about twenty, with dark brown hair that was greased back with something. Standing by him was a boy who looked around sixteen, with dark red, curly hair and a generous spray of freckles. He wore large glasses and held a tablet in his hand. And the girl who was searching her, whose name must've been Torchwick, had straight blond hair pulled into a ponytail. She was so focused on doing her job that she didn't notice Athalia was awake. When her blue eyes met Athalia's brown ones, she jumped back and held a gun to her prisoner's head.

"What are you doing?!" Athalia asked in outrage. "Let me go!"

Torchwick kept her stance. "Not until you tell us who you're working for!"

"Whoa, there," said the muscular one, pushing Torchwick's gun down. "Easy, tiger." He looked at Athalia. "What my colleague means is that finding someone crossing the river so late at night was a little suspicious. We'd like to know more about you."

Athalia looked around at the strange figures. She couldn't tell them anything about her actual self until she knew who they were. "First, why don't you tell me who you are?"

The buff guy chuckled. "Where are my manners? This is Torchwick." The blond girl nodded. "That over there is Skillet-"

"It's 'cause he's an egghead," Torchwick interrupted.

"I resent that!" countered Skillet.

"And I'm Razor. Now, can you give us something to call you?"

Athalia almost gave them her actual name, but the words died in her mouth as she realized that that was a stupid idea. She looked around the room for inspiration. Her gaze landed through a warped, yellowed window as she noticed that the moon was almost overlapping the sun.

"Eclipse," she said. "Call me Eclipse."

Razor nodded. "Eclipse. I like it. Now then, Eclipse, would you mind telling us why you're here?"

"How do I know I can trust you?"

Razor looked at Torchwick. "Any bugs?" She shook her head.

"And there's no trace of any type of transmission," said Skillet.

"All right, then." Razor knelt by Athalia's ear. "We're part of a secret organization plotting to overthrow the president. We just want to know if you're trying to mess that up for us."

Athalia's interest was piqued. "You want to overthrow Tronyx?"

"Well, yeah, that's the idea," said Razor. "Why? Are you in?"

"Oh, yeah."

Torchwick smiled. "Welcome to the rebellion, kid."

Skillet looked at her. "So, you seem pretty smart. Maybe you could help us with our next little statement."

Athalia looked back. "What are you doing?"

Razor smiled mischievously. "We're storming a lab."