Chapter 72: Pranu
I felt really, really guilty, even though it wasn't my fault. It would've happened no matter what I did. Still, every time I closed my eyes I could see, in clear detail, their desperate faces and Shirley, who was normally so cheerful, screaming the chilling words, "DON'T WORRY ABOUT US! JUST GO! SAVE YOURSELVES!"
They were my friends. How could I have let them down? Allowed them to be captured? Then, the confused jumble of thoughts in my head turned bitter. It was all of my fault. I didn't teach Alcyone how to lift off from the ground. And I didn't stay back to help her.
Bhavana said from under me. "It's OK, Pranu. If you went to help her you would've been captured too. We'll get them back." Bhavana was under me because we were climbing up a 3-mile long air vent that had rungs nailed to it (according to Alcyone).
"Ok, guys," Ruidi was saying to Caiyi and Tim below us, "So I have a plan. We run into there, wreck the whole place with our DragonLightningPhoenixBall. Then, we run inside and grab the rest of the flock. Finally we lug them up the ladder rungs or Alcyone could teleport us."
"Um helloooo." Bhavana said, overhearing their plan. "we have a teleporter right here!"
"Oh sorry Bhavana we kind of forgot about you." Ruidi said rather sheepishly.
In reply, Bhavana huffed loudly and rolled her eyes. So elegant. "Forgot about me, eh?" she muttered to herself. "Well, I'll show you!"
Bhavana closed her eyes and concentrated. "Take us to the surface." she told herself.
In the blink of an eye, we were there."you go, girl!" I told her. She nodded tiredly.
"This is the most I've ever tried to teleport." she said wearily. "I'm all tired out. I don't know how Alcyone did it. Halfway across the world and three miles down." Upon finishing these words, she collapsed onto the ground, and would've hit her head on a rock had Tim not have caught her.
"Will she be okay?" Tim asked worriedly.
"Ah, she'll be fine." Caiyi replied, with a dismissive wave of his hand. "A bit of rest is all that she needs."
"Now that we're outside," Ruidi said, ignoring the furious look on Tim's face, "Let's brainstorm!"
"Well," I began, "We could go back in there with some reinforcements and sneak back into the trap room and rescue them."
"Not a bad idea," Ruidi said, "but there's a few things that we'd need to know. Like, which room did they move Shirley, Alex, and whatshername-"
"Alcyone" I corrected.
"Alcyone to? It's probably a different room than the air vent room." Ruidi continued.
"But wait," Caiyi said slowly, "What if they didn't move them? What if they just dragged them away and then returned them to the same room?"
"No way," Tim said, finally participating. "That would be too easy."
"And yet... there is a sort of quality to it, one that perfectly embodies the scientist's cruel personalities..." Ruidi trailed off, then grinned. "I got that from a book. Except I replaced a few words. But you have to agree, right?"
"I guess so..." Suddenly, what Ruidi was trying to communicate hit me full-force in the face. "Yes. Yes! YES!" I jumped up suddenly."That would be exactly like them. To watch and snicker as we stomp around their rooms, never thinking to examine the one that we had previously been in."
"So you mean..." A flash of hope crossed Bhavana's face.
"Yup." Ruidi nodded. "They're there."
Chapter 72: Alcyone
After hours of continuous, tiresome work, I could rotate my arm fully. Though my large motor skills had returned, it seemed as though my small motor skills were still suppressed by the plasma gel. When I tried to lift myself out of the tank, I failed. But my stubbornness would not allow me to stop. I will get out of this. I will, eventually.
The scientists had checked up on me no less than 5 times... in how many days? I had lost track of the time. How funny. A descendant of Time not knowing the time.
Finally I regained enough small motor skills to grasp a medium-sized thickish object. I chose to grasp the tops of the tank walls. Grunting with effort, I slowly, slowly hauled myself up. The world was a bit fuzzy around the edges; that would clear up soon. I looked down. There were a bunch of things hooked up to me. I carefully removed them, as damage would have been done to my inner system if I pulled too hard. I will have to find the others soon. But first, rest. I need the recharge. But... Alcyone looked back at the tube, then smiled, as a plan began to form in her weary but clear head.
She turned time back five minutes, and saw herself struggling to get out of the tube. Alcyone pulled out the green wire connecting to her past self's head, which was sapping away energy. Slowly, the Alcyone of the past climbed out and smiled devilishly to herself, as if devising a particularly complex plan.
"Stop." Alcyone put a hand on the other Alcyone's shoulder. She looked up, startled, then her smile grew wider as she realized who the other girl was.
"It succeeded then." the past Alcyone said, delighted.
"A paradox. Technically I shouldn't have existed since I stopped you, but Time is slow to notice. It should erase me in about one or two days." Alcyone replied. "Go. Escape into the Void. Regain your energy and return to the flock. I'll stay here." and she began to hook up the various brightly colored wires to her arms.
Chapter 73: Ruidi
Something was wrong. It was too easy. The motion-sensing turrets were off, and the snipers that usually patrolled the perimeter weren't there. Even the land-mines weren't activated. No one else seemed to share my suspicion, though. They blamed it all on luck. But I knew it wasn't luck.
We were walking straight into a trap. I had to devise a plan, and fast...
Chapter 74: Tim
We were extremely lucky. The scientists had probably gotten cocky and then turned off all the security measures. Ruidi was overly cautious, as usual. No wonder he was such a light sleeper. Anyway, at one time, he even hid behind a tree and basically made a fool of himself by zooming around and basically attacking anything that moved, like the shadows.
"Calm down," I told him, and he did for five minutes, but then he started running around again. After much searching and grumbling, we found ourselves standing in front of the room labeled
Operating Theater 2- AVIAN HUMAN_hummingbird_Nicholas
This was it.
"Guys, if I'm right this should be it," I said. As we slowly twisted the door open, we saw the forms of three people in the darkness. Two were in cages and one was in a sort of tube.
"Is that... plasma gel?" Ruidi asked, squinting at the orange-y liquid in the tube.
"Nooo, Ruidi, its kool-aid," Bhavana said sarcastically," No duh its plasma gel, or do you want to do a taste test?"
Ruidi looked hurt," You're mean."
"I've been known to be like that," Bhavana said, smirking.
"Oh, yeah?"
"Yeah!"
"Uh, guys?" I tried interrupting, but they just ignored me and kept on arguing. That's when Pranu marched up and banged Ruidi's head with her trident.
"Ow! I think my skull broke!" he said.
"Guess what, Ruidi?" Pranu said,"Girls are always right, so shove off!"
And with that, Pranu and Bhavana high-fived and simultaneously stuck their tongues out at Ruidi, and then yelled, "Girl power!"
I consoled Ruidi by saying, "Don't worry, that's how girls are. I can't believe that I fell in love with THAT one," I said pointing to Bhavana.
"Whatever, major loser," Bhavana said rolling her beautiful golden eyes, but she looked a little hurt.
"She's pretty, but she's a creep. Her powers are creepy," I thought.
"Okay, then, let's get back to what we came here to do," Ruidi said, trying to regain some of his lost dignity.
We walked toward the cages, and Ruidi kept acting all paranoid, convinced that it was all a trap and we were all going to die any second now.
"Okay," Ruidi said, "these will work." And after saying that, he pulled out two paperclips and bent them so they were wires. He stuck them in the lock of the first cage and poked it around until there was a click and the cage opened. That's when the world turned upside down...
Chapter 75: Bhavana
"What the heck?" I cried, "What's going on?" Lights were flashing and a siren blared its woeful song.
"It appears it was a trap," Ruidi said.
As soon as he said those words, the walls seemed to...just...fall down and reveal the outer electrical wall that was pulsing and crackling. Then, out of the air vent we had escaped from fell some metallic tubes that emitted a kind of purplish gas.
"Don't breathe the stuff in!" I screamed, but it was too late. The world spun and then I was on the ground, my vision darkening and the only sound was the eerie laugh of a scientist on the loudspeaker. And then the world went completely black.
When I woke up, I was in a completely different room. I looked around my cage and tried to stand up, but my legs were numb and ignored my orders. I saw the others in cages similar to mine, scattered across the room. They were all asleep except for me.
Ruidi and Pranu were in a plasma gel tube. It looked like none of the scientists were willing to take chances.
"Ah, sweetie, it's so nice to have you back," said a male voice over the loudspeaker. His voice was oily, sending shivers up my spine, and as I whipped my head around toward the observation windows and saw who was talking, I decided that his hair was greasier than his voice.
A lot greasier.
"We will extract all of your raw, earth-shattering power! The numbers are exactly right!" he continued, "And with it, we will build Lord Nikita a cannon that will allow him to rule the world! And we will accompany him on that quest, where we shall be the higher class of the new social hierarchy that shall be born." And after saying that, he let out a maniacal laugh that made me both mad and afraid. But maybe 20% more afraid than mad.
I gathered up my ounce of courage and bared my teeth at him "Don't you dare hurt a single one of my friends or mark my words-you will pay," I hissed, putting as much venom into my words as I could.
He laughed again, a cold, heartless sound. "It's so cute how you think you can harm us. Quite amusing, actually. Now then, begin the extraction!"
"I think we will extract the strong ones first and then we will extract what little power you might have, my dear," The oily man continued.
"If you hurt any of us, they will find you. All of the other ones back at camp will find you. And kill you. And make you pay," I said, weakly, in the back of my head knowing that nothing could stop him now, and we would all be doomed.
"Oh so there's more? Wonderful. Thanks for the information, honey," he said, walking away from the observation windows.
I gritted my teeth at the information leak. Could I get any more stupider?
'Dang it!,' I thought, ''What should I do?!'
Then, one of the tubes started glowing. It was the tube containing Alcyone. I tried to teleport, but I still couldn't move. I could only watch helplessly as the extraction process aroused Alcyone from her sleep. I could see her form struggling to fight the tubes. I was hoping, praying that she was strong enough to possibly stop the devices but gradually her struggling became less frequent until her body went limp. I was terrified. Was she dead?
Then, a grayish cloud rose out of her body and was sucked through a tube on the side of the tube carrying Alcyone's unconscious form.. Then, Tim's cage glowed and he started struggling against. He actually struggled for about 20 minutes until something miraculous happened. He broke out of the cage, breathless. I almost screamed with joy. He fought it!
"Get us out!" I shrieked.
He ran towards me first and I yelled at him to stop because Ruidi was next.
"NOOO!" I screamed at him but Ruidi's extraction process had already begun. His power was strong enough that the tube almost broke, but it wasn't strong enough because of the plasma gel.
I could only watch as his blackish cloud was carried up the tube to a large tank. Then, alarms started blaring. I snapped my head back just in time to see the Ruidi in the tube dissipated into flames. It was a clone! Then, the tank exploded and the clouds returned to their rightful owners.
"NOOO!" the oily man screamed, "THIS CAN'T BE HAPPENING!"
That's exactly when Ruidi's second surprise kicked in. The little fireball that had been left in the tube when the clone disappeared started glowing, and then it exploded, releasing a blackish vapor that seemed to restore all my power. It was vaporized poison!
As everyone felt the effect of the poison, they all broke out of their cages and-even though they were all rather unsteady-faced off against the scientists that had surrounded the cages with their guns.
"Guys!" Pranu yelled, "Combination Attack 16! Bhavana, you speed up the ball!"
"Got it," I yelled. Pranu quickly created a huge water ball, Tim electrified it, and as soon as Caiyi made it invisible, I quickly sped it around the perimeter of this...room, I guess, and it sent scientists flying before they even had a chance to cock their guns. The scientist were all on the ground, obviously stunned.
"Let's get outta here!," I heard someone yell but I couldn't tell who.
We flew up to the air vent and Caiyi grabbed Alcyone, and helped her lift off. As we flew into the air vent, we could hear the angry cursing of scientists behind us.
"Oh god no now I have to teleport us back up," I groaned.
"Sorry," they all mumbled in unison.
"Take us to the surface," I said, everyone holding hands in an awkward oval-shaped circle because of the limited space.
As soon as we reached the surface, my knees felt wobbly and I dropped like a rock. And this time no one caught me.
