The Arena - The Moon Trilogy - Book #2

Chapter seven:

"What are you talking about?" Alex asked, a worried look on his face.

"August, I was just talking to him." Clarity grabbed a nearby couch for support as she got to her feet. She winced. She must have hit her head when she fell from the couch. She could feel a headache starting to form at the base of her skull.

"But August isn't here," Clara said, taking a small step closer. There was a gentle concern in her voice, and Clarity was sure that she thought she'd gone crazy.

"No. Not like that." Clarity said, shaking her head. "Like... telepathically."

Everyone looked skeptical. "Are you sure?" Rachel asked.

"Yes. I'm positive." Clarity was a little hurt that none of them believed her.

"What did he say?" Alex questioned.

"He said that we shouldn't stay in one place for very long. He said that someone was looking for us, that they would be able to find us here." She felt fear rise up in her throat as she delivered the ominous message.

The others shared glances. "Did he say anything else?" Rachel asked.

"I think he was trying to, but something was stopping him." she shook her head again. "He was acting like there was someone trying to find him. He said that he couldn't talk where he was."

"We should at least wait to figure this out until Sam gets back. He usually knows what to do." Clara said.

"You're right. We should wait. And we certainly can't leave without telling him." Alex said, walking over to a couch and sitting down. Clara sat down as well.

Through everything, Johnny hadn't even stirred. She could just make out his red hair sticking over the rim on the sleeping bag.

"Should we wake Johnny up?" she asked as she made her way to an armchair.

"No. He usually sleeps for a while after a long flight." Rachel said with a wave of her hand. Clarity shrugged and sat down.

There was a loud bang from somewhere outside. Alex leaped to his feet in alarm.

Clarity rose out of instinct. "What was that?" she asked.

"I don't know," Alex replied as he ran to the door. There was another loud crash. Clarity dashed after Alex.

As soon as she stepped through the door, something hard hit her in the side of the head. Her vision was momentarily filled with white fuzz as she crashed to the floor. When she recovered, she jumped to her feet as quickly as the pounding in her head allowed her.

In front of her, there was someone dressed in a full metal suit. It reminded Clarity of something that would be found in a comic book. She raised her fists, knowing full-well that her bare hands would stand no chance against the metal man. She backed up a step.

She could just make out the fact that, around the corner of the house, Sam and Alex had been easily taken down. But she couldn't worry about them at the moment, she had too much of a problem with Mr. ironman.

The metal man made a move as if to attack. Clarity threw herself to the side just as he charged. When he realized that he had missed. He spun around. The metal was clearly heavy, and it impeded his movement, but he was still surprisingly maneuverable.

Suddenly, another metal man materialized next to the other. This one's suit appeared to be more advanced, with more joint-movement available. The metal also appeared lighter. He also seemed to have some sort of teleporter.

Alex ran up from behind her and immediately attacked the more advanced metal man. Alex was able to recover from the blows quickly, so he kept at it. The metal man was throwing punch after punch, but Alex showed no signs of slowing his assault. He would flinch or duck or even reel backward, but then he would be back at it. The red gashes from the sharp metal fists closed up just as quickly as they appeared.

Just as Clarity was going to fight the other metal man, four more metal-clad men appeared behind the first. How are they doing that? As far as she remembered, they'd pretty much disabled the only working teleporters that this type of people would ever have access to.

She heard a gasp of fright from the doorway. However, she didn't have time to look. All five of the metal men that were not fighting Alex charged towards her.

She jumped out of the way and was on her feet just in time to see Rachel viciously attacking the five of them. A few of her punches left deep dents in the metal armor. However, she was forced to spread her strength thin. Half of what she was doing was dodging so that she wasn't taken out of the fight.

Clarity jumped into the fray, trying to distract the metal men so that Rachel could use more effective punches. Out of the corner of her eye, she saw the glint of more metal. The distraction caused her to lose her concentration. She felt a heavy, metal fist connect with her skull.

She fell to the grass-covered ground, stunned. She watched, dumbfounded, as Clara tried to run away. Rachel was quickly getting overwhelmed. Two of the metal men grabbed Clara by the arms. One of them knocked her out with a blow to the back of her neck.

Her vision went dark before the light broke through again, and she focused on the fight.

Alex and Rachel were putting up a struggle. Clarity sluggishly tried to count the metal men. She gave up counting at fifteen. They couldn't hope to beat that many.

Dull, metal clangs mixed with the sound of metal-on-flesh filled the air. Sounds blurred together in a cacophony of deafening noise. Things started blurring together so that she could hardly tell what was what.

Johnny appeared in the doorway. It took him a second to register what was happening. All Clarity saw was a black blur of motion as he jumped into the brawl.

The rest of the fight was lost as Clarity finally collapsed in an unconscious heap.