Unknown Past, Unknown Future
Chapter 2
An Accident
Last Time: "Help is on the way, Thomas," Miss Fiona said from over the radio.
Thomas looked from Lia to Wind Speaker. "I'll be dead by the time help gets here."
Colonel Schubaltz and Colonel Herman arrived with a small group, which included Van, Fiona, and Zeek. The first thing they saw was a brown hair woman outside the DiBison, leaning against the hot metal. As Herman, the older Schubaltz brother, Van, and Fiona got closer, they realized she was a sleep.
"That must be Lia," Fiona said as she walked over and gently shook the woman awake.
Lia began to rub her eyes, mumbling words of nonsense. Pulling the chopsticks out of her hair and letting it fall loosely down her back. Continuing to mutter about something, Lia led the group to the other side where Wind Speaker was tormenting poor Thomas.
"What in the name of the God's of Zi is that?" Schubaltz asked.
Lia continued to rub sleep out of her eyes. "That's Wind Speaker. Leave the poor guy alone, Windy." When the winged wolf did not obey, Lia held her hand up and a blue lightning came out of her hand, blasting away the fingers of her black glove. The blue lightning hit Windy on the nose; it did no more than shocked him. "Behave!"
Everyone was in complete shock, but Herman managed to speak. "Who, no what, are you?"
At that moment Moonbay and Irvine joined the group. "Lia!" Moonbay squealed. Lia hugged both Moonbay and Irvine fondly. Wind Speaker stood up so his hind legs so that his front paws rested on Moonbay's shoulders. "Good to see you too, Windy," Moonbay said as she stroke the wolf's black fur.
Thomas was not thrilled to see Lia and Wind Speaker be treated like a friend. "I can't believe two members of the Guardian Force trust a person who was going to attack me."
"She wasn't going to attack you and I'm not a member of the Guardian Force," Irvine yelled back. No one had noticed that Wind Speaker had gotten back down on all four paws and was now sitting by Lia.
"So who is this Lia girl," Herman asked. "And where did she acquire powers like that blue light she shot out?"
"I'm more curious about that wolf, Wind Speaker," Schubaltz said. Lia was slowly backing away from the group. She didn't notice that Thomas was keeping a careful eye on her and Windy.
"Lia's a drifter. She doesn't just go up and tell you how she got her gifts or where she found Windy," Moonbay informed the group.
Lia shot off running, thinking everyone too preoccupied. Her blue shawl waved like a flag as Lia ran. Wind Speaker did not bother running; he took to the sky. Thomas ran after the woman. He stumbled and somehow grabbed her legs. Lia fell face first into the sand. When she looked up she saw Wind Speaker hovering in the air, trying to find away to help his friend, but reluctant to harm Thomas. "GO!" Lia yelled, and the black wolf followed the instructions.
The two Schubaltz brothers dragged Lia to her feet as she stared after her teammate. She didn't flinch when Karl forced her arms behind her back, didn't notice the cold steel around her hands when Herman handcuffed her, didn't realize that they wanted her to move and instead felt to her knees when Thomas gently pushed her to go forward.
Thomas hauled her back to feet and accidentally brushed one of her bare fingers. Quickly pulling his hand back with a yelp, Thomas looked at his burned hand. The material of his own glove had burned away. His hand had a minor burn, but it would still leave a scar. That pulled Lia out of her trance and moved away from the Lieutenant. She wrapped her bare fingers around the cuff that held that hand; as soon as the metal melted away from that hand, she repeated the processes to the other hand.
"I'm so sorry," Lia said. Like Wind Speaker, she did not want to hurt any one. "I should have replaced my glove, or at least warned you…"
Lia stepped closer to examine Thomas's injury. The clicking of soldiers turning off the safeties of their guns kept Lia in her place. Slowly she raised her hands in surrender. "Find away to keep hers hands covered and get her in the Whale King to be transported to Red River Base," Herman snapped. "Then we'll make sure we have some people's loyalties to us and not to some mercenary." The Republican colonel turned to the mercenary and the transporter who had done and said nothing to help with the capture of the strange woman named Lia.
Moonbay and Irvine were not surprised by any of Lia's actions of trying to get away from the group. She would show up somewhere and disappear as soon as she came. The reasons were countless why she left: sometimes it was because of Wind Speaker, other times because someone had tried to dig too deeply into Lia's past, most of the time it was because whatever she ran from was close behind. The burn from contact with Lia's bare hand did not surprise them either, Lia had many strange powers, but she was always careful to keep everything under control so no one would get hurt.
Soldiers kept on their guard as Lia replaced her ruined glove with a fresh one. They then led Lia to the Whale King that they had arrived in. When she was put in the secured room with soldiers standing guard at the door, Lia didn't know whether to cry because she captured or to laugh with joy because she knew she was safe, a feeling that was not listed among the feelings that Lia felt daily. She ended up doing both.