The Barden Guardians

(14) Inside

"How's the pain in your thigh treating you?" Emily asked Markus.

"I'll live, how are you....how are you feeling today?"

"My headache stopped so I think I'm okay. Thanks for asking." Emily smiled.

"I should be thanking you not the other way around. You saved me and carried me to safety, I owe you my life."

"You owe her nothing. It's her job to protect us and that's what she did. She didn't even do a good job at it since you got shot." Carlos said pointing at Markus' wound

"That's my cue to leave.  Emily sighed before walking over to Lilly.

"What was that Conrad? You can't get all buddy buddy with those........things." Carlos said making Markus frown.

"She risked her life to save my own without hesitation. She saved everyone here without hesitation and you expect me not to thank her?"

"The mayor brought them here so they could protect us. That's all those things are good for." Carlos argued.

"Anyone who can risk their life for me and these men is not a thing but a HERO. Now get out of my way Beale." Markus glared before limping towards Emily.

"If we don't talk some sense into him he'll have to suffer the same fate as those monsters." Matthew said from behind Carlos.

"He has a wife and daughter, we can't do that to him." Carlos said.

"We follow orders as given. If he wants to deviate from the plan then he has to suffer the consequences." Matthew said before walking away from Carlos who just looked at Markus who was laughing with Emily or as he knows her, Volt.

"Markus seems to be warming up to Emily. I swear that girl can make friends with anyone." Beca chuckled as she listened to Jesse talk about Emily.

"She's a magician I tell ya." Jesse continued.

"Okay everyone ten minutes and we start moving again!" Beca yelled so all the soldiers could hear her.

"You really think you're something special don't you Phoenix? You are and will forever be nothing of real value to anyone." Carlos whispered in Beca's ear.

"You'd be surprised as to who values me." Beca smirked.

"What's that even supposed to mean?" Carlos asked and Beca just shrugged with a smile and a wink.

"What did she mean by that?" Matthew asked from behind Carlos.

"You have got to stop doing that, it's creepy man." Carlos shook his head and the two walked to their car.

"This nightmare is almost over and we can go back to our families. We just have to go up there, stop the robots and do what the mayor asked us to do." Matthew smirked as he started the car.

They drove up the mountain without any problems this time. The plan was for the Guardians to go into the facility and use the computer in the lab to switch off the robots.

"Guardians come with me, you three stay here with the others." Beca said to Matthew, Markus and Carlos.

The Guardians walked into the building and hid behind crates after seeing that the place was swarming with robots.

"We'll have to find a way to sneak past them s-" Beca got interrupted by the sound of gunshots.

She looked up to see, you guessed it, Matthew, Markus and Carlos shooting at the robots.

"How are they this stupid yet in the army?" Flo asked as they ran towards the three soldiers.

"Are you insane or something?!" Cynthia asked.

"What are you talking about? We came here to give you backup." Carlos raised an eyebrow.

"You've seriously lost your minds haven't you?" Beca asked.

"Hide behind the crates. The smartest thing to do right now is to turn off the production line. That's at least gonna stop the number of robots from growing." Emily said.

"Aquarius and Tempest you guys stay here with these three while we turn off the assembly line." Beca ordered.

"There is no way I'm babysitting these three, you do it." Flo protested.

"I'll stay with them. It's better that way since I'm still a little sore from yesterday." Emily offered and they all nodded.

Ten minutes of Matthew nagging Emily later the Guardians had finally switched of the production line.

"Let's go but we have to be careful. There's still like 5 thousand robots moving around here." Jesse said as they all walked in the direction of the lab.

Getting there was not easy at all. Emily had to take about ten bullets for Markus since he was slower than the rest. Luckily her suit was bulletproof but they still stung like a bitch.

"We're finally here." Flo let out a sigh of relief.

"Now what?" Carlos asked.

"Now Volt and Tempest will hack into the robots' system and shut them down." Beca said as Lilly and Emily got to work.

After thirty minutes of nonstop typing Matthew began getting impatient. "What's taking so long?"

"It's like the robots are refusing to let us shut them off. It's like they have minds of their own as cliché as it sounds." Emily said with a worried look.

"Then what the hell were you doing the whole time?!  Carlos yelled.

"I'm trying my best okay." Emily said.

"Well your best isn't good enough. Try harder would you?" Matthew said.

"I am but it's harder than I thought. What I've found out though is that those robots are powered by the same minerals that could kill us."

"How is that even possible?  Jesse asked.

"It says here, those rocks were mined under the park which would explain the tremors."

"Why would they mine the rocks at the same time though?" Baca asked.

"The drill they're using could cause a disaster. They wanted to dig when the park was closed to prevent injuring anyone." Emily explained.

"That's fun and all but how is it gonna help us stop the robots?!" Carlos yelled.

"It's not helping at all." Matthew said.

"I can't turn them off! The thing is rejecting my commands." Emily said with an exhausted sigh.

"Why don't you just use your powers like you did yesterday?" Markus asked the young brunette.

"I used my powers on 15 robots and I passed out for five hours. How do you expect me to turn off over 5 thousand of them?!"

"You can actually. There's a room there that connects to the power tower of the town. If you go to the levers in the middle of the room, turn on the power, then charge them with electricity, you can turn them all off at once." Benji said through the communicator.

"Is that even safe?" Cynthia asked.

"No, not really. If she does it there's a 90% chance she won't make it out alive and a 10% chance of her making it out but dying after two weeks or so."

"So either way I'll end up dead?" Emily asked.

"Yeah, pretty much so I suggest you don't do that at all. Just keep trying to hack the system." Benji answered.

Emily and Lilly tried every code they could think of but nothing worked. The robots started breaking into the lab and they couldn't fight them all off so they had to run. They went to the main power room and locked themselves inside. After looking around they realized that was the room Benji was talking about.