[Rose's POV]
The sunlight fell on my face bringing me back from the dreamland. I think it's about noon, but the grey sky makes it difficult to be sure.
Someone noticed that I woke up and offered me a bowl.
"Want some food?"
I accepted the bowl and thanked the guy.
For a cold day like this, chicken soup was the best… I wonder if Blackie's subjects will get offended if they notice… the bowl warmed my hands, and I enjoyed the smell for a while until I heard a discussion behind me.
"I know this is your first time in the battlefield, and I wish I could let you can do this at your own pace, but we will need your power eventually, and even if it doesn't look like it, this battle wasn't as bad as you think."
It was Blake's voice, and I didn't need to open my eyes to know who he was talking to. The image of the middle-aged woman that didn't manage to fire her gun even once came to my mind.
The images of last night battle filled my mind with worries.
The last battle showed us how scary the hive is. If those were just regular F-rank soldiers, it was likely that there were a lot of strong bees and farm beast in her group.
About our group, I had a good grasp of the strength of most of our people and Blake's group. They seem good, but I couldn't see all their abilities in action. As I said they lack mid and long-range abilities, for example, Frederick has better hearing and is faster than everyone here, but during the battle, he had to use an Assault rifle.
Ines situation was similar, with her optical camouflage she could change position and use a rifle to shoot some bees down, but it was clear that this was not her main fighting style either.
The two goons had noisy machine guns that were designed to attract the bee's attention, it worked very well, and that was how one of them got injured.
The last member was a mid-age woman that looked worried, and out of place, she only had a handgun with her that wasn't shot in the entire battle.
Fortunately, Blake thought of this before coming, and everyone came with weapons for this situation but still the fact that this was the group that came with him meant that there were no other people available.
About the two that got hurt during the fight, the goon that got injured during the battle was up in no time thanks to his enhanced regeneration. Javier (Healer guy) didn't even need to do anything on him.
Milo was with his usual serious face the whole time that Javier worked on him. His ability wasn't as good as Spencer's or Dana's, but according to Javier, Milo was going to be ready to fight soon.
The Woman's response brought me back from my analysis of last night battle.
"You keep saying that, but you know that I can't control it, what if I hurt someone again? I told you time and time again that I didn't want to be a part of this!!! And by the way, everyone keeps saying how amazing you and that ice girl are, but the rumors are completely baseless… I don't know how we are still alive."
"None of us were going all out."
"Then do it!! Go all out then!! That way, it doesn't matter if I can help or not!"
"It's not that easy Kamila… We have reasons for doing it that way."
"Explain it to me because from the way I see it Milo and Sylas wouldn't have been hurt."
"The same can be said about you."
"Don't put this on me… you forced me to come here. I don't want to fight, I don't know how and I will hurt more than what I will help… look for someone else to do this."
Without expecting for an answer, the woman left the barn leaving Blake with a worried look.
"Are you ok?"
I took a spoon full of soup while asking Blake about it… he turned his head and finally notice me.
"Yeah, she will come to her senses sooner or later."
"Why not just let her go? She doesn't want to be here. She will most likely get hurt if she keeps it that way."
"I know but…"
He seemed to doubt if he should continue talking or not…
"You can tell me Blake, we are on the same side."
He sighed and took some air before explaining.
"Hayley, Spencer, Hope, you… in terms of raw battle power together with me, we are most likely the best in the city. And you are all leaving… I have been working to find ways to make up for the losses and ways to keep our survival chances after you are gone."
I understood right away.
"And her power might be one of the answers."
"There are two people that might be strong enough to help at the level I'm talking about… one of the goons is pretty good, but without a working brain, I can't count on him that much. Kamila is the only one that might be in the level."
"What's the problem with her? if she has such a strong power, why she doesn't want to use it?"
"The explosion a month ago you remember it?"
It all made sense now.
Her fear to hurt people would make sense if she was the one that provoked that.
"I see… three people died on that accident…"
"That's why I wish I had more time, the next chance I might be on my own, and at that time, I will not be able to help her."
Blake looked at me… as if waiting for me to tell that we are not leaving.
"I will try to talk to her."
"Thank you."
That was all I can do… when someone tries to force you into something more reluctance will come, but if I talk to her I might be able to find a way to convince her or at least try…
I ate the remaining of my soup in one go and went out to look for the woman.
She was scared, so after leaving the barn, she didn't dare to venture too far. I found her sitting on the grass on the side of the barn covered by shadows.
I walked to her and sat at her side.
She was surprised and confused about seeing me there
"Who are you? Did Blake sent you."
I thought about it, and it was me who decided to talk to her.
"My name is Rose, I heard your discussion before."
She tried to remember looking at me for a few seconds
"The one that stopped one of the invasions? That Rose?"
It was weird being recognized because of it… I thought that anyone that heard my name would at most say something like "oh, so you are spencer's girl" or something like that.
"I did that with Spence… and he did the difficult part."
"so young…"
I heard her whisper. I decided to interrupt her train of thoughts.
"Is this your first time on the battlefield?"
"Yes…"
"I remember the first time I was in a battle… my group used to live in the suburbs, and the number of beasts started to increase. We had to leave that place… Spencer fought with beasts and a group of people that wanted to stop us from leaving."
It felt like it all happened years ago…
"I was terrified but also worried about my friends and family… I felt useless and wanted to help him and my brother. At the time Hayley couldn't control her power and couldn't fight either we were all a lot weaker than what we are now."
Kamila was focused on the story.
"Since that day we all started to prepare, we learned to fight or find ways to be useful, Hayley managed to control her power, G and spencer trained together every day and those weeks were filled with fights for survival, be it humans or beasts… we all have been fighting since day one."
I paused for a second.
"Powers have different effects of people, some get tired mentally or physically when you fight all the time you have to learn how to dose it… so you have enough strength for the next fight… using a large amount of power may have taken all those bees, but who will fight the ones after that? People like Blake or Hayley have to control their output, so if stronger enemies appear, they are ready to act."
I wanted her to understand that everyone is scared at some point, and also it was important that she knows that the lack of "firepower" from Blake and Hayley has important reasons behind.
To support this point, I told her the story of what happened at the Aurora Clinic and how each attack was stronger than the previous one…
That took a while for me to explain, but she seemed to be more scared than before…
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(A/N) (sorry for writhing here but i exceded the characters in the author's thought area)
Hi everyone I just noticed that a couple of weeks ago was this novel's first birthday.
During this year I released more than 400k words(Harry Potter 7 has a little less than 200k) and gathered more than 2m views.
Despite the horrible release rate since I resumed my studies, most of the people kept the book in their libraries which came as a great shock since I thought that most people would just drop it.
I just wanted to thank everyone for the support during this year and assure you that even with a low release I don't plan on going into hiatus or dropping this until it's finished.