Chapter 80: Pranu

Well, that was unexpected. I thought he was just hiding some ridiculous power from us, not something that could destroy that much.

"Hey, do you think we could have this power?" Bhavana asked thoughtfully.

"Possibly... I kinda hope not. It sounds dangerous." I replied, disturbing thoughts popped into my head.

"Come on! It's pretty cool though. And we can use it to defeat the evil... not even gonna say the name..." Bhavana had some good but crazy ideas.

"I guess so... but still, it's not worth risking it," I tried my best to defend my side of the opinion.

Bhavana sighed and turned away.

Alcyone was nearby, she had climbed down and was leaning against the tree with her feet crossed and eyes closed, deeply in thought. Alex was unseen, she probably followed Shirley to a tree. They were mostly separated, and distracted. This was not good, not good at all, they could be easily attacked... That's exactly what happened. Heartlesses AND Scissors popped out of nowhere. It looked like they were working together.

I hate it when I'm right. I thought.

Chapter 81: Alex

I was having a great day, eating juicy red apples with Shirley, until from somewhere to my right, Pranu screamed, "Everybody! Group up! We're being surrounded!"

Shirley and I flew as quickly as I could to the forest clearing where we had shared our abilities. Everyone was already there and had formed a circle, and masses of Scissors, along with metallic Heartlesses, were advancing slowly toward them. Wait a second. Slowly? From what I knew, these guys never did anything slowly.

I looked toward Alcyone. She didn't look like she was messing with the time. And when I tried to travel in a different direction from the group, a Scissor or Heartless popped up and forced me back. Why? Why would they be doing this? Unless... my eyes widened at the possibility. I looked toward the rest of the group for confirmation.

"Yes." Pranu nodded grimly. "They're herding us."

This must mean they desperately want us somewhere, alive. They could easily snatch us up or kill us, but no. That's not what they are doing. Since I was more of a thinker, my mind produced vivid images and clever thoughts of what we could do. Shirley was beside me thinking too. She looked at me and confirmed my thought. There was no possible escape route, unless... someone causes a distraction. With a distraction, we will be able to fly and escape. Numbers and calculations popped around in my head. I felt like a computer. Shirley whispered in my ear. My eyes widened, she was right, they were forcing us near the edge of a cliff. That meant they either wanted us to fly or fall to our deaths. We were falling right into their plan. . Not good.

Chapter 82: Caiyi

Well, that was unexpected. Totally off guard. I'm not much of a thinker, but everyone could tell they were gathering us. Since fighting our way out is pretty much impossible, it's up to Alex and Shirley to save us. I could tell they were thinking of plans, but so did the Scissors and Heartlesses. They were sensing that their plan might be defeated. Evil thoughts spread through them. Suddenly they charged. I wondered why.

"STAND YOUR GROUND! DO NOT TAKE OFF OR FLY!" Alex screamed.

Everyone was confused, but they trusted her.

I was curious, I looked over the edge of the cliff, beneath me was... green lava.

Chapter 83: Tim

I was surprised at the color of the lava, and the fact that we shouldn't fly. Maybe flying was a trap, it was possibly the reason why the Scissors and Heartlesses were gathering us. Maybe the green lava was some kind of glue. I saw Alcyone looking up at the sky. "What are you looking at?" I asked her.

"Don't you see?" she asked. "There's a field..." and pointed up.

I didn't see anything. "What do you mean?"

"Flying will be of no use!" Alcyone shouted. "Don't you see? The barrier? The blue dome?"

I shook my head. I still didn't see anything. Sighing, Alcyone stretched her arm- and my eyes widened as her arm disappeared- but thankfully it reappeared again, clutching a small stone. She hurled it upwards into the sky, and less than six feet or so above us, the stone suddenly stopped, wobbled a bit, then exploded to bits. When the stone had exploded, I had seen, for a single instant, a blue weblike dome over our heads. It almost looked like we were underwater.

I looked towards the others. They had seen it too. There was no easy way out for us now. We were, essentially, trapped.

Chapter 84: Caiyi*

I overheard Tim and Alcyone's conversation. Blue dome? What the heck is that supposed to mean? I didn't see any blue dome. Then Alcyone's arm disappeared and she pulled out a rock, which she threw into the sky. That was when I saw it. Shimmering blue like it existed somewhere other, it spread wide over the entire canyon. The only hole in it was blocked by zillions of metallic mutations.

I was surprised when the one who came up with the plan first was Alcyone. I didn't think she would know very much, being a new member.

"We have two options. The barrier looks man made, possibly some upgraded form of electrically charged plasma, and is probably contained by a fine mesh of superconducting wire stretching over the canyon. That means that there are at least four generators somewhere, holding the mesh into place. If we destroy that and cut a hole in the wires-"

"Then we're free." Alex nodded. She saw what Alcyone was getting at, being a daughter of Hephaestus. "But the Scissors aren't letting us go anywhere. Second option?"

"Option two, I could transport us off this cliff, but my transporting power is being... blocked somehow." she said, brow furrowed. "I'm trying to break that barrier now-"

"With what, your mind?" Ruidi cut in.

"Exactly." Alcyone nodded. Ruidi was surprised that he actually got it right. "It may take me five minutes, give or take."

"Give or take what?" Ruidi said, still rather hostile."We could just ask Bhavana."

Bhavana tried. I could tell she couldn't do it because she slumped down on the rocks. Shirley, optimistic as ever, said, "Well, we hold them off for five minutes until Alcyone breaks the barrier!"

"Wait." I said. "Our chances of survival are much higher if we split up into two groups, each group trying a different plan."

"Agreed." Pranu said, then split the groups. Alcyone was with Bhavana and Alex, they were to break the invisible mind barrier, while Pranu was with everyone else- me, Tim, Ruidi, Shirley, Eshana... did I forget anyone? to find and disable the generators.

"I'll slow the time so that you guys can slip past the Scissors." Alcyone told Pranu.

Suddenly the Scissors stopped their advance, and, looking at Alcyone's wristwatch, a single second seemed to take an eternity. We readied ourselves and ran in different directions, to find the generators and break the barrier.

Chapter 85: Pranu

I had a feeling the generator was disguised. Not only that, it was also in a dangerous spot. Years of fighting these guys gives you experience, that is exactly what we needed most now. I thought the generator could be as a rock on the side of the cliff, and that would be possible since the force field- it was, basically, a force field, right? Alcyone's technical explanations are way too confusing- only stretched over our heads.

I ran around for a long time, but with the Time Freeze in effect, was probably only one millisecond. That's when I saw it, and that's when I knew there was no escape this time.

Chapter 86: Ruidi

When Pranu came running back with that look on her face, I knew something was wrong.

"They're guarded, and they're inside!" Pranu gasped for air.

We all followed her, and I took in a deep breath when I saw the generator. It was basically just a long tube.

Surrounding it were a lot of high-tech gadgets. There were cameras, and lots of shotguns, all connected to some sort of device. I found out what that device was when I tripped over a rock. At that sudden movement, all the guns turned toward me and fired. Thankfully, fast as the bullets were, the time-stop slowed them. Not enough for a normal person to dodge, but slow enough for someone with enhanced reaction times like me. If the time-stop hadn't been there, I'd be a red smear right about now.

"Motion-sensing," I said rather shakily. "Light based, by the looks of it."

We found out that wasn't the only surprise when a lammergeier flying past dropped a large bone on a rock. A moment later, the ground pulsed and something shot (slightly slowed) out of the ground. It exploded, sending shrapnel flying everywhere. We all ducked, though we all knew that we couldn't escape the shrapnel. Suddenly, Shirley stepped in front of us, shielding us from the shrapnel and a purple-blue force field enveloped us. The shrapnel shattered harmlessly against it.

Shirley grimanced.

"What's wrong?" I asked.

"Now I only have three left," She sighed.

"Three what? And whoa, where'd you get that thing?" Pranu asked, noticing for the first time the silver bracelet with blue beads that seemed to be emitting some kind of purple mist.

"I found it. Lying in the snow." Shirley answered matter-of-factly.

"It's like a force field." I said in, awestruck. "And what did you mean by three left?"

"There's three uses left." Shirley answered.

"How did you know?" Tim asked, curious, but she refused to say any more so the group turned their attention back to the task at hand.

After that, a large compound rose out of the ground and enveloped the generator. Then, it seemed to shift until it was a quarter mile away. This caused more mines to explode. Luckily, we weren't in their blast radius.

"Bounding mine," I mumbled, "Most likely an M16 mine, developed from the German S-mine, or the Bouncing Betty. It slaughtered many people in World War II."

Everyone stared at me.

"Gee, that SURE helps!" Bhavana said sarcastically.

"Well, at least you know some facts now!" I yelled back.

She glared at me. I shrunk back, but then I realized why I was scared of her. Maybe it was how she could kill me, or was it her scariness? Either way, I was not going to stand up to this anymore.

Suddenly, a voice sounded from the back of my neck. "Hmm..." I jumped, like, 5 feet into the air, literally. "Who said that?" I asked everyone, trying to keep my voice steady.

Everyone looked at me quizzically, partly confused and partly afraid. "We didn't say anything." Pranu said

"It's me, Alcyone." the voice said, amused. "I asked Alex to construct a... bug, shall we call it, to my specifications and implant it upon your collar. For us to ... communicate? In cases of danger."

"Did you hear when your voice got all squeaky?" Alex laughed. "'Who said that?'" she imitated, with a voice like a mouse.

I didn't say anything. I just sulked. Pranu, ever the leader, immediately asked, "Did you break the barrier?"

Alex got serious now. "Not yet. We're combining our strength but the harder we try the more the barrier refuses to budge. I think we might have to come over and help with the generators."

"Bhavana?" Tim said to the back of Ruidi's neck. "Are you alright?"

"Fine, fine, now just shut up okay?" Bhavana's tinny voice replied, though I could tell that she was pleased about someone noticing that she hadn't spoken yet.

"Alcyone, and exactly why are you planting bugs on me without my permission?" I yelled into the mic, clawing at the back of my collar and trying to claw off whatever was implanted there.

"No use." Alex said smugly. "It's spray-on radioactive tracker. Lasts for five years."

"Radioactive?" I screeched. "You're killing me!"

"Quite harmless." Alcyone assured me. "I researched it myself."

Yeah, right. Like that would comfort me much. "Where are you right now?" I asked.

"We are approaching the building." Alcyone replied. Then, to someone behind her, she said, "Approach with caution. There are some light-based long range shooters there that I can't slow much. Light just travels too fast..." and then her voice faded into indistinction.

"Well." I said, facing the group. "Should we advance? Or wait for them? They seem only a few paces from where we are."

We unanimously decided to advance.