Silas' heart fluttered when he saw her leave the ground. It took half a second for him to realize that her trajectory was not his position – but by that time she'd already made her catch.
Her hind claws landed firmly into the branches of the elderly and hardy tree that held Evelynn, Axel, Julia, and Jasper, right next to the one Silas was on. Silas felt the ground shake with the impact of Redd landing on the branches. Her weight rippled through the sturdy trunk of the tree and drove into the ground below.
Jasper, dragging Axel fiercely by the arm, jumped out of the way in time. Julia readied her defensive shield, but unlike the bristleback's telegraphed laser beam, Redd's movement was so sudden Julia had barely any time to react. The defensive shield shattered like thin ice before it was even fully formed, and Redd was already on top of Evelynn, who tried to shriek but got a mouth full of fur.
Redd's claws dug into Evelynn's young and unscarred flesh, the first time she'd been hurt in battle. Blood trickled from the puncture as Evelynn felt the claws slide inside her muscles, rending the tissues. She'd never experienced this kind of pain before, never had she felt so helpless. Usually it should be her doing the hunting.
Rekka couldn't stand the sight of an injured Evelynn. She let all hell break loose, unleashing her strongest fire blast off the bat. Her laser soared through the air from the tree next to Redd, and with perfect precision it slammed into her werewolf head and engulfed it entirely in flames. The bright light illuminated the clearing, blinding Yona and her sensitive eyes.
Jayken covered his eyes with his hat and readied his crossbow. Fine. So he couldn't see. What did that matter? His shot was still true. He knew where Rekka was; he could smell her human stench. He drew a long, piercing arrow from his quiver – this time it'd been tipped with ketamine that would tranquilize her. He'd come prepared. He was kind of proud of thinking of that himself.
Redd screamed a half human, half wolf shriek as her fur melted and her flesh began to sizzle. She jumped down from the tree, landing clumsily on the ground below, legs splayed. Her body collapsed in on itself and she lay in a heap, groaning.
Rekka's ultra-hot beam streaked through the treetops and disappeared into the greenery. Controlling her flames to perfection, nothing but Redd's head had been harmed. She readied several fireballs with her hands, aiming at Redd's mangled body, when a sudden prick in her side startled her out of her concentration. The balls of flame she'd been nursing suddenly vanished as Rekka's eyes rolled back into her head.
Rekka's body turned limp as the force of the long arrow slicing into her skin tipped her intoxicated body over the edge of the narrow branch. She fell like a corpse down into the flora below as Yona rushed to catch her in her arms.
Jayken was already preparing his next arrow as the light from Rekka's fire blast disappeared. He aimed steadily and quickly at Jasper and Axel, who were vulnerable out in the open. Jasper, thinking quickly, made to hide behind the tree's trunk but couldn't find a foothold in time as the arrow pierced his right arm.
He rapidly used his purifying magic to rid the toxin from his body but the drug was too pervasive. His consciousness was already slipping fast and he couldn't focus enough to use it to its full extent. He dropped like a log and Yona caught both him and Axel as they fell in her iron grip.
Macy panicked. She didn't want to fight, preferring to stand on the sidelines and support with nonlethal electrical shocks. Now that she was put on the spot, she had no idea what to do. She froze in place, still hidden by the shade of the tree, but that didn't matter to Jayken, who sniped her easily.
Saya leapt nimbly through the trees, leaping in a panic onto a terreant, who sensed her magic presence and began to shake. She lost her footing as Jayken caught her in the arm. She slipped, her fingernails scraping again the bark of the tree.
Silas and Julia were the last ones standing – in a shocking turn of events, all their planning had been for naught. Why hadn't they just kept running? Why had they been stupid enough to even consider taking down the specifically trained team sent out to capture them?
It was all Rekka's fault. She was the one who had the idea… and everybody else had been convinced by her.
Silas knew logically it hadn't been entirely her who was to blame… but the dreadful feeling in the pit of his stomach told him otherwise.
Julia knew she was going to be taken out, but she tried her hardest. She scrambled, her fingernails raking and clawing at the branches of the trees as she crawled towards the mangled Evelynn, who was bleeding profusely from her arm.
Silas took one look at what Redd had done to her and looked away, feeling the bile that he'd swallowed come up again. He couldn't stand the sight of blood, and he'd already seen two dead bodies. There was no way he'd be able to forget the sight. Even half a second had been enough to burn it into his mind permanently.
Julia wrapped her arms around Evelynn's body protectively as she hung limp on the tree branch. She took the arrow from Jayken like a warrior as it buried itself deep inside her shoulder. Her eyes rolled back in her head as her grip on the branch loosened.
The tall girl's giant frame was more than enough to cover Evelynn's small and slender body as she fell backwards onto the grass, back first. Yona caught both of them but even she struggled to hold their combined weights. Nevertheless, she softened the impact enough that Evelynn felt nothing.
Then, it was Silas' turn. Silas knew there was nothing he could do. He didn't have the strength within him to even lift up a boulder to block it. There were about five operators who looked completely dead, another six bleeding heavily. One had broken herself out of her earthly prison but was too weak to do much. Yona, and Jayken were the only two in good fighting condition.
But even in a two-to-one situation, Silas knew he had no chance. So he raised his hands and gave up. After all, giving up wasn't always bad. He knew he shouldn't be ashamed of himself. If he tried to fight now he'd only hurt himself more. Now was the time to surrender.
He hated himself for doing it. Nobody was here to judge him, but even then he felt guilty and ashamed. He had no idea why. It was the logical thing to do. There was nothing wrong with it. But then why did he feel so terrible?
He saw Jayken raise his bow. His vision blurred, the outline of the voxen bounty hunter becoming blurred and distorted. He felt the background whirl into a maelstrom of abstract colors. He lost his grip on the tree as his raised hands dropped to his sides and the wind shrieked in his ears. He felt a dull ache in his stomach as the arrow pierced his skin. He could feel something inside of his abdomen, but only hazily. He closed his eyes as the world was whisked away before his very eyes.