Chapter Thirteen: Thrown Down
Tia's POV
After dinner, a Vinny, Sweet, and I slipped down the corridor to talk.
"How much did he tell you?" Sweet asked.
"Enough to know Rourke is just here for a treasure hunt and wants me to lead him to another one." I responded.
"Okay, we have to meet Rourke to confront Milo, do your best to hide for as long as you can." Sweet told me, "Cause Squad B is coming back with an artillery. It's just for show, no one is supposed to get hurt."
"I'll do what I can." I promised before running off.
Before I could even find a good place to hide, however, I was grabbed by a member of Squad B and dragged outside to where the rest of the troops were stationed. Almost everyone had a gun in hand. Mole and Audrey were trying to secure a giant metal unit into a truck
"What do you with her, Commander?" The solider in front of me asked.
"Take her necklace and throw her in the truck." Rourke responded from inside of his truck.
As instructed the man in front of me reach for the locket I was no longer wearing, grazing my chest. Since I was restrained by the man behind me, I couldn't hit him. So I did next best thing, I kicked him.
"If you had decided to clean your mask every once in a while you would have seen that I'm not wearing a necklace." I told him as he doubled over in pain, "And even if I were, it doesn't go down that far."
"If she doesn't have the necklace, let her go. We have no use for her." Rourke told the soldier restraining me, "She can die with Thatch." The soldier then proceeded to throw me on to the ground. As I landed on pavement, I heard something crack. Hoping it was nothing too serious, slowly, I stood with the Atlanteans and watched the scene before me unfold.
Audrey and Mole hoisted the metal unit into the truck while the soldiers of Squad B kept everyone back.
"So, I guess this is how it ends, huh?" Milo chastised them, "Fine, you win. You're wiping out an entire civilization, but hey, you'll be rich." He then pointed out Audrey and Vinny as examples on what they could do with the money.
"Get off your soap box, Thatch." Rourke got out of the truck, "You've read Darwin, it's called natural selection. We're just helping it along."
"Commander, we're ready." Helga called out to him.
"Give me a minute." He responded, "I know I'm forgetting something. I've got the cargo, the crystal, the crew…" He listed off, "Oh yeah..." He then proceed to deck Milo, hurling backwards on to the pavement.
"Milo!" I rushed over to him.
Before I could grab the item that slipped out of his satchel, Rourke stepped on his framed picture and caught his glasses midair, cleaning them, "Look at it this way son, you're the man who discovered Atlantis and know you're part of the exhibit." He then tossed his glasses to him. Milo removed the shards of glass to get the picture of him and his grandfather out of the frame.
When I tried to help him back up, I bolt of pain shot through my arm. It was then I had noticed the blood. Not wanting to leave him there, I held out other hand, but this time I had help. Audrey was there right beside, supporting Milo. Vinny was next to follow. Then Cookie, and Mole, and Packard.
"Oh, you can't be serious?" Rourke asked them.
"This is wrong and you know it!" Audrey exclaimed.
"We're this close to our biggest payday ever and you pick now of all times to grow a conscious?"
"We've done a lot of things we're not proud of." Vinny told him, "Robbing graves, plundering tombs, double parking, but nobody got hurt." He then backtracked and corrected himself, "Well, maybe somebody got hurt, but nobody we knew."
"If that's the way you want it, fine, more for me." Rourke waved off their arguments and headed into his truck. He then drove away.
As he left, the waterfall began to dissipate and the Atlantean crystals light faded.
"We can't let him do this!" Milo exclaimed, starting to run after him, but Vinny pulled him back.
"Wait a second." He warned. The bridge exploded, Vinny and Milo barely escaping the remnants of the blast. "Okay, now you can go."
Before Milo could reply, he was called up to the king's chambers by Sweet. He quickly stood and ran to see what was going on.
"What happened to you?" Audrey asked, looking down at my wounded arm.
"I injured it when I fell." I responded nonchalantly.
"When you were thrown." Audrey corrected.
"I'll talk to Sweet about it when all of this is over." I told her, "If he's going to take a look at one injury, he might as well take a look at multiple and save some time. It doesn't hurt unless I move it and right now we have more important things to deal with. Is it really that noticeable?"
"It looks like you banged it up pretty bad."
I pulled down my sleeve a little more to cover the wound, "Then we call it a scrape and move on until it makes sense to get medical attention."
"Fine." She agreed, "But if you collapse, I'm getting you to Sweet."
"I should hope so." I replied as the others joined us. Milo and Sweet came out shortly afterward.
"Where are you going?" Audrey asked Milo as he walked past us.
"I'm going after Rourke." Milo retorted, briefly looking over his shoulder.
"Milo, that's crazy!" Audrey called after him.
He held up his hands, "I didn't say it was the smart thing, but it is the right thing."
"He has a point." I agreed.
Audrey sighed, "C'mon, we better make sure he doesn't hurt himself."
We followed him down to a machine that looked like a fish used for transportation. After having us pair off and showing each of us how to launch our flying fish, we sped off after Rourke.
"Okay, here's the plan." Milo called back to us, "We're gonna come in low and fast, take them by surprise."
"I've got news for you, Milo," Audrey responded, "Rourke is never surprised and he's got a lot of guns."
"Great!" Milo exclaimed, "Well, do you have any suggestions?"
"Yeah, don't get shot!" Vinny advised.
"Speaking of shooting, do these things have defensive mechanisms on them, Milo?" I asked him, "Or are we more like sitting ducks?"
"We'll have to find that out as we go." He answered.
"That's not helpful." I mumbled as we headed into the war zone.
"There they are!" Milo shouted to us.
"We've got company!" Rourke shouted to his men.
And so the battle began. Arrows against bullets. Planes and air balloons against Atlantean technology. It was chaos. The fish did have some type of electrical blast it could fire, which helped.
"Vinny, Tia!" Milo called over to us, "We can't let her reach the top of that shaft!"
We both nodded and followed after him. When that plan failed, Milo gave us and Audrey and Sweet different orders. Milo's fish and ours were going to be decoys, while Sweet and Audrey were going to cut the storage unit the princess was in from the hot air balloon. As this plan was starting to go south, Milo took matters into his own hands by destroying one of the side balloons himself and bringing a fight directly to Rourke.
As we were trying to distract some of the planes from Squad B, something caught my eye. One of the machine guns was pointed at Mole's fish.
"Vinny," I said getting his attention, "Mole."
He looked over at Mole, who was plummeting to the ground.
"I'll get over to him," Vinny told me, "I'm going to need you to catch him."
I gulped, "Okay."
We were able to reach him in time for me to catch him before he reached the ground. As I pulled him up, he remarked, "Du sang…" I looked back at him as he adjusted behind me, he looked at me sadly, "Vous saignez."
All I could do in that moment was nod as we landed our machine next to the metal containment unit.
As the volcano was erupting, we quickly attached the unit to whatever fishes we had left and tried to fly away with the container. However, in our haste, it was attached improperly for the wait and it broke off. Milo climbed down, reattached it, and we flew off with him handing on to the unit. When we reached the city, the unit was set down gently and Milo let the princess out. With the princess and the crystal returned, the city came to life, protecting its inhabitants from the disaster that was about to incur. After the city was safe and restored, the princess floated back down and into Milo's arms.
As I looked at the city, my vision started to blur and everything faded slowly faded to black.
Sweet's POV
A gasp erupted the crowd as we stared at the city. It would have made sense if it hadn't been out of horror.
"Doc, I think you might be needed over here." I heard Packard say in her typical disgruntled tone, "Seems like this one's lost quite a bit of blood."
Confused, the others and I looked back at her to find her kneeling on the ground, next to Tia, her hand on her pulse.
"She passed out." Packard told us.
Audrey shook her head and told me, "I told her she should have had you check it out."
"What happened?"
"It must have happened when she was thrown." Milo replied, "It was a pretty hard fall." He then turned to Kida, "Is there anywhere we can take her to have Sweet look at her?"
"Why not use the crystal to heal her?" Kida asked.
"I want to make sure I know what injuries are sustained and that they are cleaned before I agree to anything."
Tia's POV
"Ring around the rosie… pocket full of posies… ashes… ashes… we all fall down…" I heard the neighborhood children sing.
"Chrissy!" My brother called, "Come and play!"
"Not now." I told him from the other side of the door, continuing to read.
"Why not?" He whined, "You promised!"
"I'll play with you tomorrow, Michael!" I told him.
"But you promised!" He cried.
"Tomorrow!" I shouted back.
The promise was empty though, for Michael would not see tomorrow.
Awaking, I slowly sat up, wiping a tear from my eye. I should have been better to him while I still had him. He deserved so much better. It wouldn't have hurt to go play with him.
"Good to see you up." Sweet commented as he walked into the room.
"Where am I?" I asked him, taking in my surroundings.
"In Kida's quarters." Sweet replied, "She wanted you to be comfortable while you healed. You cut open a vein when you injured your arm. You had a laceration from your wrist to your elbow and a broken arm. After I was able to clean you up, Kida took the crystal to your arm and it healed it right up."
"How long have I been out?" I asked.
"A few hours." Sweet answered, "You should get some rest though to make sure you're okay for the journey back."
"I don't think that's going to happen."
He sighed, "Then try not to hurt yourself before we leave tomorrow."
"I won't." I responded before getting out of the bed and heading out the door.
Sweet's POV
I shook my head as I headed out of the room, walking right into Vinny and Mole, who had been with her for the entire time she had been passed out. I had briefly sent the two out to get something to eat shortly before Tia had awakened.
"You just missed her." I told them, "Don't ask where she went, she didn't say."