WARRIORS HIGH
ISLAND OF THE LOST
CHAPTER SEVENTEEN
A GIRL WORTH FIGHTING FOR
As the sun set on the island, two motorcycles screamed down the interstate leading out of the city at full speed, heading towards Riven.
"FOXLEAP!" roared Poppyfrost into the comms while trying to keep the vehicle stable at 110 miles per hour, "GIVE ME A RUNDOWN!"
"I did a search of all the cams you got," said Foxleap, who had hacked into the Court's security software, "I see eight bogeys, three sweeping in the market, one on the roof outside the warehouse and four in the warehouse. They got hostages, too. This was definitely a planned attack."
"HOW MANY?" shouted Ivypool, who was driving the second motorcycle at the same speed.
"Yeesh," hissed Foxleap in worry, "They got one of the corners filled. We're talking...almost a hundred."
Poppyfrost clamped down harder on the throttle in fury. "ANYTHING ON FANG? BRIGHTHEART?"
"No," said Foxleap after a moment, "They're gone. Off the grid. No bodies from what I've seen, though."
"They're not dead," she said decisively, "Probably regrouping somewhere."
"How are we going to deal with the hostages?" said Jayfeather, who was sitting behind Poppyfrost while Lionblaze was behind Ivypool.
"Foxleap!" said Lionblaze, "Did they say anything about what they want?"
"No," said Foxleap, "Cams picked up nothing. My guess is that this is a provocation of some sort."
"Is there any way to figure out if this is a trap?" pressed Jayfeather.
"CAN YOU TWO SHUT THE FUCK UP AND LET ME DRIVE?!" snapped Poppyfrost, shutting everyone on the comm line quiet immediately. The brothers shared a worried look. They had seen Poppyfrost mad since the timeskip but they had never seen her this pissed off.
Though she had every right to. Her people were in danger.
The ride was completed in silence. The two exited into Riven, hid the motorcycles in a secluded place and moved out, following Poppyfrost's instructions to the warehouse district where the hostages were being held.
"So what's the plan?" whispered Ivypool, loading her pistol.
"They know we're coming, so there's no point in being secret about it," muttered Jayfeather, putting his ponytail up, "But we can't just charge in right away and get shot at before we can secure the hostages."
"So we need a diversion," said Lionblaze, now emanating a light shade of orange, "How do we do that?"
Poppyfrost stared at the brute intently.
"You're bulletproof, right?"
Lionblaze either smiled, grimaced or both. "That answers that question."
So as Jayfeather, Ivypool and Poppyfrost got to their position, Lionblaze stood at the front door, waiting for the cue. He hated being used as a human shield, but there were countless hostages being held, some of them possibly being children.
Orange rays were seeping off of his skin like steam from a pot of boiling water.
"Alright," said Ivypool over comms after a minute of radio silence, "We're in position."
Lionblaze nodded.
"Let's kick some ass."
It took one punch for the once secure metal door to fly off the hinges and slide twenty feet across the ground. Lionblaze stormed in, expecting gunfire.
Nothing.
Shadows painted the floors and walls amid the rising sun. It was only when he heard the quiet cries and whimpers from the hostages that he began to slowly approach the group huddled in the corner.
Lionblaze was on edge, keeping an eye out for someone sneaking up on him until the group came into view.
"Lion, what the hell is going on?" hissed Jayfeather into the comms.
"I got the hostages," he said, looking at the cluster of about ninety people in the corner. They were curled into balls, shaking and absolutely petrified. But no bogeys were in sight.
But after a moment of observation, he noticed something strange.
"They're...dripping wet," he muttered.
"Wet?" said Poppyfrost, confused, "Why would they go through the sewers? The side entrance was blocked off."
Idly aware of a strange smell flowing through his nose, Lionblaze cautiously reached forward and held out his hand to one of the hostages, who looked at him with fearful eyes.
"It's okay," he said gently, "I'm here to help."
"A TA TA TA TA TA TA!" said a female voice from a balcony above, making Lionblaze jump back and flare up in orange light, "I'm sorry, but I can't allow you to do that."
The sun's final rays cast on a woman in black holding a grenade over the crowd, who was now muttering and whimpering.
"What the hell do you want?" snarled the brute, hands balled into fists.
"I want you," said the woman, "To stop trying to scare the children with your light tricks and get on your knees, or else you're gonna need to replace some fire alarms in the near future."
Subsequently, Lionblaze felt two gun barrels prod opposite sides of his head. He was not scared that he would get killed in the slightest, but when he connected the dots, he complied and got on his knees, putting his hands up.
The hostages weren't drenched in water.
They were drenched in gasoline.
"Now," said the woman on the balcony, "before we send you to hell first-class, we're gonna need that comm of yours."
One of the gunmen reached into his right ear and ripped out the tiny device, making him flinch, and threw it on the ground, smushing it under his boot.
As the woman radioed in to her superior, Lionblaze glanced out into the crowd of hostages. They looked to be independent shopkeepers and workers, but some men were holding their fearful wives and children and he saw one or two pregnant women among the group.
His blood was boiling now.
"Yes, Crow," said the woman, hanging up before looking down at him.
"It's a shame," she taunted, "I know that feeling of being just a smidge too late. Sucks, doesn't it?"
She nodded, and the gunmen fired five shots each, causing the brute to fall face-first into the concrete and the crowd to scream in terror.
"There are others," she said to the gunmen, "Find them and don't hold back."
One of them nodded and rushed out the main entrance, but another was unfortunate enough to notice that there was no blood. He leaned over and brushed away the hair where the bullets landed to see that there was no wound where the bullets should have pierced.
Immediately, Lionblaze's hand grabbed his throat and he struggled pathetically as the breath and life was squeezed out of him and the brute got to his feet, the sensation of a headshot feeling nothing more than walking into a sturdy door.
"What?!" snapped the woman.
"You want to send me to hell?" he snarled, "Well, you're coming with me."
The brute squeezed harder and harder until he crushed the gunman's neck and throat with one hand. A brutal sign of his otherworldly strength.
But unfortunately, he forgot about the grenade until he heard the latch removed and the explosive tossed from the balcony.
"NO!"
He took off, planning to catch the explosive and take the blow until a bright blue aura engulfed the bomb, stopping it in mid-air.
BOOM!
The sound of the explosion rang through the chamber, but the grenade remained contained in it's mysterious barrier, the outsides of the grenade being incinerated into shrapnel and the fire and brightness of the explosion being condensed to the point where it looked like a neutron star.
Lionblaze looked to his left and saw Jayfeather, who had rushed in from the side window, holding out his glowing hands and straining to contain the explosion.
By now, the woman thought now was a good time to get the fuck out, but as she ran down the balcony Jayfeather was quicker, flinging the contained grenade explosion in her path and releasing the barrier. The explosion flung the woman off the balcony and down three stories to the concrete floor. The brothers could hear her spine shatter as clear as day.
In a white blue, Ivypool rushed in, tending to the hostages quickly as Poppyfrost, as pissed off as ever, stormed and stood over the handicapped soldier.
"They're…"she gurgled, wincing in pain, "They're...here-"
Poppyfrost drew her sword and decapitated her in one swipe before she could finish her sentence.
Lionblaze tended to his brother, who was bent over and panting. "You good?"
"That was the most badass thing I've ever done," he wheezed, wiping sweat off of his brow, "but I'm never doing that again."
"Fair enough," he smirked as Poppyfrost joined them, eyes now slits.
"No injuries," said Ivypool after a couple minutes of healing the injured, "but they're drenched in gasoline. They're still a danger as long as ARS knows their location."
"Foxleap," barked Poppyfrost into her comm, "Anything on Fang and Brightheart?"
"I…" said Foxleap amid static, "I think...have…"
Suddenly, the transmission cut out, and the fake silky voice Foxleap had programmed into the comms said that they had been disconnected from the Foxcave.
"Shit," muttered Ivypool, fiddling with the contraption on the bridge of her ear.
"Sorry to cut your coverage so abruptly…"
The group whirled around to see a man with handsome black hair and a scarred face, holding a jammer high in the air.
He clipped the box onto his belt and pulled out a pistol and throwing knife.
"...but this show isn't suitable for the general public."
There was only one time before today where Jack Graves had ever run this fast.
His very first assignment in the CIA was an emergency deployment to JFK. A bomb had been detected in one of the concourses and the terrorists had planted the detonator in the back pocket of a five-year-old boy. The bomb squad had said that they needed the detonator to remain in range and untampered, so the moment he had gotten to the airport, he had to sprint past guards, customers and staff as fast as he possibly could to stop the family from leaving the airport or the boy noticing the new toy in his khaki pocket.
It was the fastest he had ever run in his life, and he just barely managed to stop them from getting out the door. Despite how close he cut it, he had helped save thousands of lives that day.
But as he and Icecloud sprinted down the Riven sidewalks to Fang's location, he feared that he would lose so much more if he failed this mission.
"How…" panted Icecloud, rapidly losing stamina, "How close are we?"
"We're close," he said, glancing down the hallway.
"I gotta say…" she rasped, "This...is not the reunion I wanted to have when...you came back from America…"
"I don't know…" he said, smirking in spite of his predicament, "There was one specific homecoming in high school which I didn't particularly enjoy."
"Hm…" smirked Icecloud back, "You have some explaining to do...when we get out of this mess…"
Jack returned her glance.
And in a stupid rookie move, his awareness wavered as he grabbed Icecloud's hand.
That prevented him from seeing the arm of an ARS soldier camping the corner of one of the alleyways to reach out his arm and horsecollar him to the concrete. He lost his breath the moment he hit the ground and his head bounced off the hard surface.
The soldier, draped in all black, planted a foot on Jack's chest and whipped out double pistols, aiming one at Jack's face and the other at Icecloud.
"Don't you fucking move," he snarled.
Icecloud was about to react, but after a glance from Jack telling her to remain still, she slowly put her hands up, her body shaking.
"Crow," said the soldier, "I got her."
"Good," said the man at the other end, "Is Graves with her?"
"Yes."
"Kill him."
"Yes, sir."
BANG!
The soldier fell to the ground, a bullet from Icecloud's Magnum .357 lodged in the back of his skull.
"Where the hell did you learn that?" said Jack, groaning and working himself to a sitting position.
"To be honest, I have no idea," she said, helping her boyfriend up, "You hurt?"
"I'll live."
"You better. Now let's get moving."
Jack was about ready to take off again until Icecloud looked at the side of his head.
"What?"
"GET DOWN!" she said, taking him down and covering him.
Moments later, a sniper shot blasted through the area, but hit the window a good three stories above them.
This was followed shortly by the body of an ARS soldier falling down from the roof of the fifteen-story building across the street from them, holding a shattered AK-47.
"WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU DOING OUTSIDE?!" called the voice of a certain brute.
Fang was rushing down the fire escape of the abandoned apartment building, armed with brass fisticuffs and a furious war face.
"Is ARS nearby? What happened to Warehouse 29?"
"Hostage situation," he growled, "I was going to help out there."
Icecloud seemed to be deep in thought about something.
"You're bleeding," observed Fang.
"I noticed," snipped Jack.
"You don't think that you'll be walking straight for five minutes after that kind of hit, do you?"
"I don't have a choice."
"Christ," he said, rubbing his eyes, "Are all Americans as egotistically stupid as you?"
"Hey!" he snapped, "I am a CIA agent. I'm one of their top agents, actually! I was meant for something like this."
"Meant for what? Tripping and falling on the sidewalk?"
"They can't kill me…"
"What?!" said Jack and Fang, looking up from their bickering.
Icecloud looked up at them, resolve in her eyes. "They can't kill me because they're trying to kidnap me again. Whatever they need me for is important enough to me to stay under their control and alive…"
"Yeah?" said Jack.
"Kid," snapped Fang, "I know exactly what you're thinking. It's too dangerous."
Icecloud looked up at the brute. "It's all we've got, isn't it?"
She turned to Jack. "Can you forgive me for what I'm about to do?"
"Icecloud," he said, his eyes wide with uncertainty, "I have no idea what you're about to do, but please don't do it."
"So you can. Great," she said before leaning in and kissing him. She held him there for a few moments before grabbing one of the pistols from the soldier she killed and running back, "Let's go!"
"You ever regret falling for her?" said Fang as the two brought up the slack behind her.
"Nah," he said, "She's a little wild sometimes, but I couldn't possibly love anyone else more."
But the second Crow blinked, Ivypool was right behind him, knife to his throat.
"You screwed up coming here," she snarled, "Get on your fucking knees before I slit your throat."
Crow hesitated a moment before setting the jammer in his hand fall to the ground and going down to his knees.
"Now," she growled, "I'll ask you once. Why did you come here?"
"Is this your first time holding someone hostage?"
"What?"
"Well, your hand is shaking."
Ivypool hesitated, which was more than enough time for Crow to grab her offending wrist and, quick as lightning, duck out of the way and stab her in the shoulder. She cried out in pain as Crow knocked her to the ground and put a bullet in her foot, landing a kick to the head to knock her out.
He whipped around to see the queen charging him, but when he pointed his gun at an oil tank near the gas-drenched hostages, she stopped in her tracks, holding the tip of her sword out until it was inches away from his throat.
"You wanna risk it?" he said with a smirk, "I've got a pretty fast hand."
Poppyfrost stared him down, fire in her eyes, before releasing her threatening stance.
"They're faster, though."
Crow only realized what this meant when he failed to move his arm, the hand wielding his gun stationary in blue light. Lionblaze charged and sent a flying kick into his gut, knocking all of the air out of him and sending him sprawling and sliding about thirty feet away.
"I got this," said Lionblaze, "Get the hostages out of here." Jayfeather nodded and ran to the pile of civilians, working his powers to dry them of the gas and getting them out of the warehouse.
The brute charged again, but before he could land a decisive haymaker, Crow got his breath back and rolled away, on his feet and ready to fight again.
But every time Lionblaze swung from then on, Crow dodged and didn't bother to try hitting back. He ducked out of punches, sild out of kicks and kept his distance. Lionblaze was getting more and more frustrated by the second.
"CARE TO HELP ME OUT?" he snapped at Poppyfrost, whose attention was on Jayfeather getting the hostages out. The moment the last hostage was out of the warehouse, she snapped to attention, grip on her rapier tightening, and charged, slashing the assassin's arm and making him stumble.
Lionblaze headbutted him to the ground, causing blood to fly from his shattered nose and his head bounced off the ground.
Poppyfrost pressed the blade of her sword against his throat. "Who are you?" he growled.
Crow was hyperventilating. This was obviously not what was supposed to happen.
"I've come to save a life," he snarled eventually, "And I don't intend for anyone to be in my way."
"Well, that's just too bad, isn't it?" she chastised, raising her sword to deliver the killing blow.
"Don't mess with my people."
BANG!
Out of nowhere, a shotgun shell blasted right through Poppyfrost's arm, making her scream and fall to the ground, her sword clattering against the concrete next to her.
Behind Crow, the soldier Lionblaze let go lowered his shotgun.
Lionblaze burst into a vibrant orange flame, not far off from Goku, and charged, letting out a terrifying battle cry as the soldier desperately reloaded to try and defend himself.
But in an instant, that roar changed into a cry of pain as he stumbled to a halt, grimacing and crouching.
Crow was behind him, blood covering the lower half of his face and throwing knives at the ready. The moment the brute tried to get up, two more knives pierced his back and with a wail, the brute fell to his knees, his back drenched in blood and his muscles contracting in pain.
"So you do bleed…" taunted Crow, who grabbed the rapier off of the ground near him, smeared the blood pouring from his nose and stood over Lionblaze, ready to strike.
"Like I said," he growled, aiming for the neck, "No one stands in my way."
"I do."
Suddenly, a girl's hand grabbed the blade of the sword and wrenched it out of Crow's grip, sending it several feet away. Crow whipped around in rage to see a completely unexpected sight.
It was Icecloud.
Holding a Magnum .357 against her own head.
"Go ahead," she smirked, "I dare you."
"SHIT!" said Foxleap as the power went out, "JAY! GET THE BACKUP GENERATOR!"
"ON IT!" he said, disappearing into the back room with a phone flashlight.
Foxleap pounded the table in blind frustration. Something had gone wrong with the comms. He had tried everything he could to reestablish a connection with the team, but nothing was working. ARS must have had a jammer on hand. That was the only way the interference could be explained.
He had been monitoring the cameras for the ten minutes since communication went down. Jayfeather had taken care of the hostages, but Crow, the leader of the operation, had knocked down Ivypool faster than anybody could have expected. It had definitely gotten him on edge, so he hoped that everything was okay over there.
Oh, who was he kidding? They were the Three. They had awesome powers, a badass queen by their side and the best technology that anyone could possibly have.
A loud whirr emitted from the back room as Jaywhisker got the backup generator up and running. The Foxcave flickered back to life, the computer screens rebooting as the cameras popped back up onto the monitors.
Foxleap zoomed in on the main warehouse camera.
He froze.
Oh God.
Ivypool was still knocked out, bleeding out from the bullet wound in her foot.
Poppyfrost was hanging on to consciousness as best she could, blood streaming from a massive gash in her arm.
Lionblaze was on his knees, writhing and groaning as four long throwing knives impaled his back, exploiting his single weakness.
And standing in front of Crow, her own gun pointed at her head…
...was Icecloud.
Foxleap's breathing escalated. This was impossible.
"JAY!" he shouted, "WHERE'S ICECLOUD?!"
"Right here."
Foxleap froze, ice in his veins as he felt the barrel of a gun against the back of his head.
"Took you long enough to figure it out," snarled Fir, undoing the safety and cocking the pistol.
Very slowly, Foxleap raised his hands in surrender.
This was not going according to plan.
Yes. I'm an unreliable writing buddy. I know. You don't have to tell me.
I apologize for the delay. Some personal issues came up that I couldn't avoid, so if this chapter, especially the back half, feels forced, I apologize.
But Jay holds the reins once again. I trust he'll do wonders with it like last time.
I can't wait for it.
Best,
~Res