CH3: The Battlefront

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She got to her room after a long walk and jumped onto her bed. She rested for a while and looked at the portrait of her mother and father hanging on the wall above her nightstand.

She looked out of her window at the city down below and noticed an enormous explosion where the northeast corner of the city wall was. It had started to crumble, and Ashelin felt the room shake as the large wall started to fall and hit the ground. She was in shock and horror when she saw this. Then a second explosion, a little further south than the first one, knocked down more of the wall and the ground shook again.

"Something has to be done abou-" But she was interrupted by a radio call from a KG who let her know what was going on immediately.

"All Guards and trainees report in full combat to the northeast corner! Metal Head attack! Bring as many cruisers as needed. Jinx, Second Chief-in-Arms, over and out!"

"Damn! Trainees too?!?" Ashelin complained. She slipped on some extra armor and left her room and headed to the Hellcat pad at the Fortress.

Ten minutes later, she got to the Hellcat pad and saw Jinx waiting for her next to his ship.

"Get in quick!" Jinx barked at her, and she responded. The Hellcat lifted off the ground quickly, and headed straight for the disaster site. When they got there, people were fleeing in every direction, while Metal Head grunts, wasps, and prowlers were chasing them, and continued to destroy the remains of that part of the city. Jinx flew over to the remains of someone's balcony and hovered low over it.
"Get out! You'll be a little safer from up here! If you need to get down, tell me, alrighty?" He yelled over the engine of the ship. Ashelin got out and yelled back,

"No problem! I've got my gun, I'll manage!" Ashelin watched Jinx pull his ship back up and take off to the west back to the Fortress, probably to shuttle more people. A metal head grunt started climbing up the wall under her, so Ashelin reached to her holster and held her hand up in the firing position to the metal head and moved her finger as if she were pressing the trigger… until she noticed that there was no gun in her hand.

"Where's my gun?!?" She yelled in panic. She looked at her hand and holster, and her pistol was in neither of the two. She grumbled and backed off of the edge of the wall, and stood firmly waiting for the grunt to get all the way up. Ashelin got more nervous as she heard the metal head climbed closer up to the top. Then, it popped up and pulled itself up onto the destroyed balcony. It had stopped dead in its tracks at the sight of her, though. Ashelin yelled and lunged at the grunt, with claws extended, before the grunt even saw what was coming. Her claws punctured the metal head right through the arm, causing it to scream in pain and thrash its other arm towards Ashelin's face. The arm missed her head by centimeters, only because she ducked quickly and yanked her claws out of the grunt's arm. She got up quickly and backed off a bit. The metal head got up, and started a limping run towards her. Ashelin tried jumping out of the way, but she was too slow, and the metal head grabbed her by her ankle and tripped her, causing her to slow down a bit. The metal head lunged at her once she was on the ground, and finally caught her by her face.

The metal head swiped at her face, and this time did not miss.

"AAAAAAAAAAAAGGGGGGHHHHHHHHHHHHH!!!" She yelled in pain and anger. She struck at the ugly metal head's face with her hand, and the skull gem popped out, killing it.

Ashelin got back up, panting, still with the horrible stinging sensation on her face where the metal head scratched her. She put her hand up to her face and felt it burn horribly so she yanked her hand away quickly. There was quite a bit of blood dripping down the cuts on her face. Then she looked at her blood-soaked gloves and finally noticed they were torn at the fingertips where her claws currently were.

She sighed and said, "Not again… I just bought these."

Ashelin removed her gloves carefully, trying not to rip them any more than they already were, and stuck them in her pocket.

"Those were the last pair in my size." She mumbled.

She looked up into the air, and noticed a really bright purple, streaming object in the shape of a missile that was leaving a trail of lightly colored smoke was launched into the air. Then it started coming down in Ashelin's direction at the base of the high-up balcony.

Ashelin looked in both directions quickly but there was nowhere to jump to. She picked a direction without thinking and ran to the right, when she noticed a piece of twisted rebar sticking out of the wall, hanging over the water. She increased her running speed to get to the edge of the side of the balcony rail faster. She jumped up on the rail, then made an amazing leap to the rebar pole and landed on the top of it with her hands and feet. Then the missile hit the bottom of the balcony and exploded.

Ashelin started to feel herself lose balance, just as she did this morning with the pipe in the Fortress, and she knew it was not because of the explosion. So she took advantage of it and jumped to another piece of rebar sticking out of the building, this time landing not so smoothly. Then the next bar, even less, decreasing for each bar she jumped on. Finally, she gave up and decided to climb down with the last of the power she had. She let go of the bar and grabbed the wall, and scurried downwards. Then, when she was a little more than halfway down, she slipped off the wall unintentionally. And landed with a thud on her back this time, instead of her face.

"IT'S THE DARK ECO FREAK!" Someone yelled.

Ashelin pretended not to see anything.

"We've been looking for you for about three weeks now!" Said another, more deeper voice.
"I can't believe I thought it was a joke!" The first voice said again.