I do not own Lorien Legacies or any of the characters.
Bad Welcome
I sit at the back of the plane, beside Hawkeye, Rookie sitting across the aisle from me. I'm staring down at my back pack. It's filled with a completely assembled and loaded FN5.7 hand gun and the pieces of my disassembled Tavor. Both made it through security because the FN5.7 is made out of a type of plastic rather than metal, and Six had levitated the pack over security very carefully so that no one noticed and it was never scanned. I still grin at the thought.
"Hey, she's lookin'," Hawkeye grins.
I look up, seeing Marina glancing back at me between the seats. She turns back around and the tiniest hint of a smile tugs at the corners of my lips. No one but Hawkeye notices.
"Oh, Bro," Hawkeye laughs. "You're in so deep."
I glance at him, eyes narrowed, then look back at my bag. Oh how I desperately want to not be on the plane. I've never been to India, but I really don't feel like hiking through the Himalayas. Even if it is for another Loric.
"Relax would ya?" Hawkeye grinned. "The plane's not gonna crash. Six's saved tons of 'em before."
"And I take it you think the fact that she's had to save planes from crashing repeatedly makes me feel better?" I grumble.
"You'll be fine," Hawkeye laughs. "Maybe we'll get lucky and a Mog will show up."
"If a Mogadorian shows up, Six or Marina will kill it with their telekinesis," I point out. "It also means, we've made a mistake. That would be bad."
Hawkeye shrugs and I groan, leaning my head against the chair in front of me.
"I'm going to sleep," I finally grumble. "Wake me up when we land."
I lean back, and despite my nerves, I'm out like a light in minutes.
I lean against the wall, watching Crayton try to flag us a cab. For a few minutes it's no use, until one cab cuts more than a little dangerously across several lanes of traffic and pulls to a stop, a nervous young guy sitting behind the wheel.
"Wow...uh...there's a few of you," he says as we all walk over.
"We'll make it fit," Hawkeye says. "We'll just have to get lap dances."
I slap the back of his head and he chuckles.
"I'm joking," Hawkeye grins. "Mostly."
Crayton takes the passenger seat and the rest of us pile into the back, me on the far right, Rookie in the middle, and Hawkeye on the left. Six sits in Rookie's lap, and Marina sits in mine, blushing slightly and trying not to be too heavy, though she's really not at all. Which leaves Ella to sit in Hawkeye's lap as a seven year old.
"So not cool," Hawkeye grumbles as Six grins, wrapping her arms around Rookie, who stares at me wide-eyed like a deer in the headlights.
I grin, knowing Six is just messing with Hawkeye but Rookie is clearly panicked. I'll have to remember to make fun of him later. We all manage to buckle up, somehow, and the cab speeds off, swerving violently through traffic, even jumping the sidewalk at one point. Six cheers, Ella clings to Hawkeye, and Marina clings to me, Hawkeye flashing me a knowing grin until I tap Rookie in the side of the foot with mine. A moment later, Rookie's other foot slams down on Hawkeye's and he yelps in pain. Then, Hawkeye passes it back and the Broken Foot war begins. Before anyone can really do much damage, we swerve into a side street, heading for several armored transports before skidding to a stop. The driver dives out and rolls away and I sigh unbuckling and opening the door, climbing out with my reassembled Tavor, aiming at the troops standing in the street, guns leveled at us. Hawkeye and Rookie join me, and Six a moment later. But Crayton stands with his hands up in my line of fire making me lower my rifle.
"Look at the doors," Crayton says.
I look. Big red spray painted "8"s.
"You think that's what it means?" I ask.
"We can at least see what they want," Crayton says.
"What do you want?" Hawkeye demands.
"We are here on order of Lord Vishnu, to deliver a message and take you to him," one of the soldiers say, all of them lowering their guns.
"What's the message?" Marina asks.
"His message is, 'I am Number Eight. Welcome to India. Please come and see me as soon as you can.' My name is Commander Grahish Sharma. I am the leader of our rebel group, the Vishnu Nationalist Eight. We come in peace. The guns are for...others. And persuasion, for what little good it would do."
"Odd group," I mumble. "Well, what do we do?"
"Let's go with them for now," Crayton says. "If all else fails, we can always leave later."
I sigh but nod and grab my backpack, throwing it on as we all head into the transport Sharma enters. Then, we rumble down the street.
A little while later, we're riding in silence toward the Himalayas. I'm sitting across from Marina, who's seated beside Six. Marina's chest is at her feet and Ella and Crayton are on opposite sides a little closer to the front. Hawkeye and Rookie are both sitting by the rear door and silent. I'm actually surprised Hawkeye's behaving himself with two attractive females in the vehicle, but he's silent as the grave.
"So, we ever going to take inventory of that Chest?" I finally ask, tired of the silence.
After a moment, Marina nods and reaches down, pulling it open and staring at the items inside, completely at a loss. After a moment, she pulls out what look like sunglasses. She looks up at Crayton but he shakes his head.
"Maybe they give you X-ray vision, or you can see heat," he suggests. "Only one way to tell."
She nods and puts them on, looking around.
"Anything?" Six asks.
"I don't know," Marina says. "Maybe they're just sunglasses."
"I doubt it," Crayton says.
"Kinda hard to believe you'd get ordinary sunglasses in a chest meant to help you fight Mogadorians," I agree.
"Can I see?" Marina asks.
Ella nods and hands them over and Ella puts them on, looking out the back.
"Hang on, everything looks a little different somehow," Ella says. "Like it's a little delayed...or maybe sped up."
She stares out the back window for a moment before her eyes widen.
"Rocket! Rocket!"
She scrambles for the door as Hawkeye sits up, raising his sniper's scope in the direction she pointed.
"She's right," Hawkeye growls. "Everybody out!"
We throw open the door and leap out. Most of us land okay but I have to good luck to have one leg catch on a dead shrub, breaking when I land and driving a large rock under my kneecap. I shout in pain, rolling along the ground and down the hill before finally stopping just as a missile hits behind the truck we jumped out of, exploding and flipping it forward. The next truck hits the crater and stops before two more missiles hit. Helicopters arrive, but my pain is blocking most of my vision with spots of white and red and there's dust in the air. I can hear gunfire start and somewhere Ella screams.
"Shit," I growl, trying to move myself. "Not good."
I make it to the road at the edge of the dust cloud and watch the chaos unfold.
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