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Ringing in his ears, his vision obscured, his breath caught in his throat, blood dripping from his lips from where he bit them. He lay on his back, trying and failing to stand up. Something heavy leaned across his legs, a pain of something his mind can't process starting to form. And right above him was a face that made him forget all about it.
Lupine.
She was yelling at him. What about? No clue. But she looked beautiful doing it. Her mane of locks tied up to give him a full view of her sculpted face, her defined chin, her full lips, her dark, alluring eyes...
Some part of him finally realised that he was staring at his best friend longer than he ever had in the long years that he knew her and...he wasn't sure that was legal. Sound came back to him in bursts and he was pulled to his feet.
"Get up, you half-witted bastard!"
Hm, how attractive.
Evan grinned, "Hello you too." Lou didn't look at him, "Quiet! It can still be hunting us," her face was set, her expression grim. And on his right was Cinder, his arm slinged over his shoulder, looking as raggedy as he did though seemingly unscathed.
Evan could already feel what his mind refused to acknowledge. His left leg, it was SCREAMING. Evan didn't dare look, instead he glanced around. They were heading deeper into caves, the last lightstick now in Lou's hand. Their pace was hurried, frantic and it was hard to ignore his leg with how they were jolting him. He asked the obvious questions first.
"What happened?"
"Earthquake. Cracked floor. Fell about eight feet deeper," Cinder said.
He nodded, "Where did you come from?" he asked Lou
"Chased by Metrobots. Fell underground. Blasted the opening to cave us in. One Metrobot fell in though and hunted me through the caves"
He nodded again, "Where are we doing?"
"My camp."
"Her camp." they said at the same time.
"Uh-huh. Last question. What the HELL is that?!" He pointed to the ceiling where a white metal disk was wedged into the cracks. Problem: it was glowing red.
"BOMB!"
And just as she said it, the world went sideways again. Honestly it was getting pretty annoying. Seriously, was it so hard to ask for a little bit of respite? Nope. This is the Trails.
Luckily for them, they had a kinetarch on their side. Cinder threw out his hands in front of them and every rock and speck of dust froze in the air. He swept his hands away from them, every rock obeying his commands but it was hardly over yet...for out of the settling dust was not one, not two, or three or four or...Well, it was quite a lot more Metrobots, basically.
"I thought you said one Metrobot was following one," Cinder grumbled as the battalion of Metrobots formed a wall of steel so vast that what little light their lightstick produced couldn't reveal them all of them.
"Clearly he had his mates on speed dial," Evan mumbled. What were they going to do? Fight them? Nah. Run like the fools they were. A hundred percent YES. And they did. They turned and ran and the darkness lit up like fireworks.
BANG. BANG. BANG.BANG.
It was almost comical how each of them, especially one-legged Evan, were one shot away from being blown into smithereens. In the darkness. Like shoddy roaches. Not a very interesting way to go.
But here's the thing: they weren't because, after a panic-stricken minute of thinking, he realised something. The Metrobots were misfiring. They couldn't see them in the dark...
"Everyone! Scatter!" he yelled and the others obeyed without question. Evan hobbled his way to the nearest crevasses and slithered through just as the spot he occupied seconds ago became a smoking crater. The pain in his leg was almost nonexistent as his body went into adrenaline high. He dropped to the floor, ignoring how his heart tightened at how tight the space was, and pulled his airtight bag from off his back and hurriedly pulled out Cinder's polarizer. Thank Suzzane, I asked Cinder to lend me his. If he hadn't, he'd quite literally be cooked. After all, there was only so much an empath could do.
He got into position, his muscle memory activating from the years of drilled combat in firearms, and aimed not for the bots but for the ceilings and pulled the trigger.
His aim was true and the bulky pieces of rocks fell on the Metrobots. One, he was glad to see, was instantly crushed near him, its many circuits falling about like splutters of blood and without missing a beat, he crawled to wreckage while more shots blazed above him.
His eyes locked with what he desperately hoped to find. An intact polarizer bazooka. "YES!"
He reached out and his fingers gripped on its handle and just as he moved to get back to his hiding spot, three beautiful, terrifying, confusing things happened:
A stray blast came hurdling at him at speeds he knew he should never have perceived.
His best friend was suddenly in front of him, her arms outstretched as if to stop it.
The blast obeyed her command.
Now, let's be clear about one thing: Evan knew he was crazy. If hearing voices in his head and occasionally maniacal laughter were road signs, you'd be stupid to be lost. But he also knew he wasn't blatantly ignorant. He prided himself in being very observant; it is one of the traits of any empath.
How come he never noticed that Lou was a KINETARCH?! Seriously, it seemed like only yesterday we established that she was a telepath, full stop. Clearly not.
Well, enough of that. Weren't you trying not to die, Evan?
Right, right. Where was I? Ah, yes...
"WHAT THE HELL?!"
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