Back.
He was pushing him back with his strength.
That he had parried the blow was one thing. He could chalk it up to luck or the strength of the armor. However, this...
This was a different story.
It was impossible. Even with one arm down, even in such a pitiful state, he should be the person with the greatest physical strength in the world. However, what was happening in front of his eyes was undeniable.
He was losing this strength contest.
The armor, now that he saw it up close, was full of grooves. Now these grooves were illuminated by a red energy that flowed like magma along the traced paths. From the heart... or to the heart, he couldn't tell.
That energy must be what was giving the Empire's soldier enough strength to not only resist, but to beat him.
What was this?
What had they discovered now? How else had they perverted nature?
He didn't know.
He didn't need to know. All he needed to know was that it was dangerous.
Finally, Desmond lost.
He was pushed backwards, lost his balance and fell.
Desmond raised his head, staring dumbfounded at the soldier.
The soldier raised the shotgun, gripping it with both hands. That red energy not only gave him strength. It had also illuminated the fog, leaving him exposed in the line of fire of the nine soldiers.
Desmond barely managed to react in time to avoid being shot.
Rolling on the ground, on the stump, which sent a jolt of pain throughout his body. Desmond gritted his teeth hard and endured it.
As he finished rolling, he rose fluidly to his feet.
As fluidly as was possible in his condition, at any rate.
Shit.
Shit.
This was going from bad to worse, and it had already started off looking very, very bad. Those armors...
His first instinct, as was proper for any animal when faced with the unknown, was to back away.
It was to examine the new and dangerous thing from a safe distance before acting.
But he couldn't back away.
He wasn't in good condition, of course. None of those on his side were, except Abigail of course.
Precisely why he couldn't retreat.
With the fog getting in their way, even if it was less so thanks to the illumination of the suits of armor, this was his best chance to finish them off. It was worth the risk.
He wouldn't let them fight against his people.
He wouldn't let them live long enough to see the fog dissipate.
He was sprayed with bursts of bullets.
Desmond was in no condition to dodge bullets. But he could try to react before they fired, predicting.
And get some help.
Desmond grabbed the soldier closest to him, that is, the guy with the shotgun and flipped him over. Using him as a human shield. They were demons, so they didn't hesitate to shoot if need be, but at least it would buy some time. And there would be someone less to crush.
That silent confrontation didn't last long.
It was interrupted by an explosion.
Desmond took advantage of the opportunity, the confusion. He picked up the soldier and threw him towards his comrades, then ran.
Chased by bullets, blind in the fog.
Backwards.
To where, he hoped, the rest of his team would be.
That explosion...
Amara...
Amara, who had touched the cockpit glass and done her thing. Of course.
He should have expected that explosion.
He pulled one of the office desks to the ground and took cover behind it, still inside the cloud. Desmond wanted to know where the others were, but he didn't dare raise his voice.
But he didn't need to.
We're behind you and to the right, in another room, Abigail's voice came to him.
The second set of heartbeats in his chest seemed to grow louder at that.
Desmond nodded reflexively, not realizing that she wouldn't necessarily be seeing him.
He took a deep breath.
Okay, what was the situation?
He glanced over the table.
The cloud was dissipating. Not as fast as it had expanded, there was still some of it left, but enough.
More than enough to see that it hadn't worked.
The cockpit glass was cracked and sunk inward. That was it.
The machine was still damaged but operational.
There was still a great danger.
And Amara, where the hell was she?
No. That, at least, Desmond didn't have to worry about. Abigail would have mentioned it to him if Amara wasn't with them.
Speaking of which...
Abigail had told him that someday he could learn to talk to her without words. Mind to mind.
He wished he'd done it already.
Then, he would have told her to send Amara here, to apply her affinity on the table he was hiding behind now, so he could pick it up and throw it at the immobile war machine and be done with it before it recovered.
Assuming it could recover. The spider had such a system, so he was taking it for granted, but it might not, of course.
It could be.
But he wasn't going to act counting on it.
Besides, he would have told Abigail to keep Amy and Christina as far away from the battlefield as possible. Locked in that room they had gotten themselves into.
They could still help, Christina especially, but....
The risk wasn't worth it.
At least not in his eyes.
But Desmond couldn't tell her any of those things. Not without revealing his position. Even if he whispered, he would reveal it.
With every second he wasted, the fog was disappearing.
Desmond stood up and broke into a run. Sword in hand, of course.
The hail of bullets followed him. The eight soldiers who had arrived soon lost sight of him, but the cannons of the war machine were firing bullets at such speed that they tore through everything as if it were made of paper.
Punching holes in the walls.
The soldiers would soon have a good line of fire again. Of course.
Desmond dropped to the ground, all the rest of the way. He ended up in front of the door that lay at the end of the hallway.
He pushed it open, almost ripping it off its hinges.
Slipping into what must have been a meeting room.
Desmond moved as far away from the door as he could, putting his back against the wall at the other end of the room.
He took a deep breath, again. Gathering his strength.
"Come and get me, you sons of bitches!" Desmond shouted as loud as his lungs would let him, burning like the rest of him.
Yes.
No one but him had to risk it, here and now.
He would take care of everything with his own hands.
Desmond hoped he could take on the soldiers here without the bullets fired by the war machine being able to reach.
He had put as much distance between himself and the machine as was physically possible without going down to the previous floor, something he wasn't willing to risk.
Not for his life, but for the lives of others.
But here... here he should be able to make it.
They may not come after him, but look for his companions, and force him out. That's what he would do, being in the place of his enemies, certainly.
And, on top of that, it's not as if they needed to get close to hurt or kill him.
The empire's soldiers went with firearms and those took precedence even if those armors gave them superhuman strength that could even compete with his own.
If they did that... then Desmond would get out, he would have no choice.
If they stayed near the door, firing, then... then he supposed he could drop the sword and draw the pistol, ready in its holster, and fully employ every bullet he had left.
This didn't look good, no.
But it was the best move he could make in this situation.
Or at least as far as he could see.
You have to focus. So much depends on you...
The war machine had stopped firing. But the air wasn't as silent as death. The cannonballs were still coming, impacting against the facade of the building.
Those explosions reminded him of the situation he was in.
And that it wasn't the only time limit. He was being crushed in every direction by time limits.
Waiting, for whatever reason, therefore seemed to him to be a fatal mistake.
But that was what he did.
The soldiers stayed away, they had already seen him, but they weren't approaching, they weren't even shooting at him.
No, instead, just as he had feared, they were looking for the others.
Abigail and the others.
A strategy to force him out. They had made the wiser, smarter choice. Some would say that should have been expected....
But Desmond had hoped that they would choose to go after the biggest threat first.
Or that they were attacking for Abigail and, by extension, for him. So they would hasten to accomplish one of their priorities. That is, to capture him.
But he had been flat-out wrong. Of course.
He took a deep breath.
Well, fuck it.
Desmond broke into a run, coming out of his hiding place, exposing himself to the war machine.
It was still on the ground. For how long?
He decided to get as close as he could to the soldiers and stay there, risking everything. Counting on the fact that the war machine would not dare to fire, taking his comrades with him in the process. Not out of compassion. Those monsters had nothing like it, not a shred of humanity.
Because pumping him full of bullets, even at the cost of the lives of the soldiers who had come to help him, would only succeed in killing him temporarily.
And then, having been left alone, the pilot and his machine would be torn apart with ease.
No, he wouldn't risk that.
Probably.
Before Desmond pounced on the soldier closest to him, he was shot three times. Two in the chest, the last one in the leg.
Said soldier tried to pump him full of lead.
From so close, he would have killed him, surely.
He would have.
For at the last moment, with the sword, Desmond thrust his rifle upward. Bullets flew everywhere, made holes in the walls and ceiling.
The soldier stopped pulling the trigger.
His companions put distance and stood still as if waiting to see what would happen, since they were too close.
Desmond brandished his sword, shouting his rage.
Not at the soldier.
Instead, what he did was split the rifle in two.
Yes.
The situation might seem hopeless, it might seem like he was almost out of options.... But he had just realized that their weapons were just as strong as ever.
If he managed to disarm them all, if he at least managed to do that before falling
(if I fall, only if I fall)
then...
Then all the better for everyone.
That was all he had to worry about.
The soldier, having lost his weapon, tried to move away from him.
Desmond chased after him and swung his sword at his chest, putting all his strength, all the weight of his body, behind the blow.
Earlier, his sword had cut through everything as if the body of his enemies were made of skin. As if there wasn't even a piece of flesh to stop or at least slow down their attacks.
Now, covered by that armor, his sword simply bounced off without doing anything.
Desmond gritted his teeth.
Better to focus, for the moment, on weapons.
Desmond jumped up.
Leaning with both feet on the chest of the unarmed soldier, he used it to launch himself at the next on his list.
With the added benefit of his springboard losing its balance.
None of them had expected that.
Desmond could do this.
Its goal was to try to escape from him. Desmond rolled on the ground, getting up and snapped his target's weapon in half.
He could do this.
One hit, one weapon. It wasn't that big of a deal.
He only had to take care of seven others... no, six, six with what he'd just smashed.
If he did it... He'd do it!
Shit. But Desmond had long since reached his limit. Now Desmond had to draw strength from where there was none, every second.
At least the plan to stay close to the soldiers so the war machine wouldn't open fire was working.
It compensated for the damage he was taking.
Being so close to being burned to a crisp.
That was something.
He was able to take the third weapon, but on the way to his next target, Desmond fell to his knees.
He couldn't bear the weight of his own sword, suddenly, let alone the weight of his own body. Feeling the taste of blood in his mouth, he looked at the hungry wolves around him, all enveloped in red energy like spawn fresh from the deepest of hells. Like what they were.
The armor glowed with such intensity that it clouded the view almost like the smoke they had released before making their appearance.
Or perhaps that was more his own doing. Of his weakness.
The firing squad didn't have time to execute him.
The shadows in the room moved.
They grabbed the soldier in the center, pulling him up. The other soldiers concentrated their efforts on shooting at the shadows in hopes of getting it to let him go.
Christina's magic didn't work like that, however.
Desmond wasn't even sure there was anything that could stop the shadows controlled by the girl.
Except, of course, killing the user.
The soldier was slammed into the ceiling with great force. Metallic sounds were heard. Cracking sounds. And also the crunching of his bones.
The shadows slammed him to the ground. The force of the impact was such that he had no doubt that the person inside the armor had been reduced to red mush, although from the outside nothing was visible.
Of course, Desmond took the opportunity to flee.
Tail between his legs, retracing his steps, back to that meeting room. He would gladly give his life if it would make a difference.
But he wasn't willing to throw it away for nothing.
It had already become clear to him to finish what he had started.
They wouldn't give him the time he needed to rest, to think. But at least a little bit. Then he would return to the battle. He had no intention of backing down because he had brushed with death.
Desmond fell to the ground. Lying down, he crawled like a worm, putting his back against the wall. His legs trembled. They wouldn't stop. They were shaking so badly he didn't dare put his weight on them again.
Gods, this was too much.
His whole body was wrecked. And the blood...
He had lost too much blood.
Everyone had a limit. That didn't make it good to give up and leave everything in the hands of others, but everyone had a limit. It's true, I honestly can't do it anymore, I'm sorry, Abigail, I'm sorry.
How quickly he had changed his attitude.
Seconds ago, literally seconds ago, he had said he would soon return to battle.
Now he was already making excuses for me to give up.
Desmond bit his hand, stifling a scream, but for no real reason. It wasn't like they didn't know where he was.
I have to kill them, don't I? Without leaving a single one in this world.
I'll kill them, I'll kill them, I'll kill them, I'll kill them, I'll kill them.
It was always the same, damn it!
No matter how strong he became, he was never strong enough when it counted.
He always had to end up crushed. Disappointed with himself. Always the same thing, over and over, over and over, he couldn't take it, he'd had enough of this!
That's why he couldn't help but scream. That's why, out of sheer rage, he was biting his hand.
Not to stifle the scream, but as if to punish himself.
■
Christina had caught one and, judging by the sound, had to have killed him.
She needed to see what she controlled, so, although it was risky and didn't allow her to see too well anyway, she was watching what was going on outside under the door.
A small crack. Enough.
She thought that, despite his condition, Desmond could have taken care of the eight soldiers with ease.
But she had gone to look anyway, just in case. And her caution had been rewarded. For she was wrong. Desmond lacked the strength to split them along with their armor, he had settled for disarming them... and in the end he had fallen, and had been about to be executed.
So she intervened.
The soldier's feelings before she had smashed him to the ground to kill him had stabbed into her like a dagger.
His fear, knowing that death was so close.
But most of all his hatred.
Most of all the power of his hatred, that was what had turned the soldier's emotions into a dagger.
In his last moments, the soldier had thought of himself and his hatred.
He didn't remember any loved ones.
It seemed that hatred was the "gasoline" that kept him going. Nothing else.
She couldn't imagine living like that. With just that.
Nor did she want to.
Desmond had seized the opportunity to sneak away and....
Christina felt a shiver.
Screaming. Desmond was screaming. She knew he could come back to life, she'd seen it several times already. Too many times.
However, that didn't lessen her fear at all.
Abigail put a hand on her shoulder.
She flinched.
"You don't have to worry," she told Christina. "There's no pain in that scream. I only hear anger."
Come to think of it...
Desmond sounded like a wild, rabid animal. And he was hurt, but he didn't sound hurt, he didn't sound like he was on his last legs at all.
He sounded like he could do anything.
Too bad the power contained in his voice wasn't a reflection of reality.
But the boy had done enough. Now, it was their turn.
■
Was it rage, alone?
Amy wasn't entirely sure, frankly. But it was a better alternative to believe in. And, judging by Christina's reaction, dropping her shoulders, relaxed, Abigail's words had convinced her.
If she couldn't trust Abigail, she could trust her partner, who had been by her side through so much.
As if she had read her thoughts, Abigail turned her head to look at her.
"What's wrong?"
The woman approached her without a word. Not until she stopped in front of her. She was her ally, here and before...without her, she would still be a bird without wings, trapped in a golden cage.
Still, something about her, now...it made her tense for some reason.
Not that she believed she had actually heard her thoughts. It was something else.
Abigail spoke, but not with her mouth.
They were connected in the same way she was with Desmond.
The powers I bestow become stronger in my presence in various ways. Your time to act has come.
Power.
Amy had the power to bend the will of the people around her. To force her to do what she wanted. Power that she had used to put an end to her father, socially speaking.
To gain her freedom.
A power she almost wanted to forget she had.
But it would be foolish to let go of her greatest asset because of that shallow fear.
I know what you're thinking. That Amara is here. But Desmond is not well, we need all the help we can get. You have no right to think only of yourself in a situation like this.
Abigail was a shrewd person. It was inevitable, she supposed, after having lived for so long. But in this case she was flatly wrong. She wasn't thinking about Amara.
In fact, she had forgotten she was there until she had been reminded of it.
Amy, in fact, was thinking about Christina and Desmond.
The shallow feeling of fear of what they'd do if they knew what she could do. How they would think of her.
But, in turn, Abigail was right.
She didn't have the right to think of herself in a situation like this. Regardless of the possible consequences, she had to do everything in her power.
And that power... mind control, was her greatest weapon.
Amy took a deep breath.
Amy approached the door, placing himself next to Christina. She looked at her silently.
"Stand away from the door," Amy asked her. "And cover your ears. Amara, you too."
"Why?
"Listen to me."
Christina had already done so, no questions asked.
Amara did it too, in the end.
Good.
Amy couldn't be sure that they were really in danger, but it wasn't worth the risk that they would hear the order and it would have an effect on them.
Abigail, even though she knew what she was going to say, had not covered her ears.
After all, it had to be true that the powers she gave couldn't affect her. Well... even if it wasn't, she'd be back on her feet in no time, as if nothing had happened, so it was all the same to her.
Amy put a hand on Christina's shoulder. She gently pushed her back a little, and she turned away from the door, getting the message.
Amy opened the door.
She felt as if she were standing before a firing squad.
But what she found on the other side of the door were demons.
Real demons.
Shrouded in a blood-red mist, they looked as if they had crawled out of hell.
And she hesitated. For a moment.
Which, fortunately, wasn't too long.
"Take off your helmets and shoot yourselves in the head."
Instantly, all the soldiers froze, caught in her sway. Only then did she think of Desmond. That is, what might happen to Desmond.
Nothing. Nothing.
Abigail must have warned him by now, surely.
Be that as it may, she couldn't stop now. She couldn't anymore.
They froze, but did nothing for long enough to wonder if it hadn't worked after all.
Then one of the soldiers took off his helmet, put the rifle in his mouth and pulled the trigger.
Blowing his brains out.
Flying blood, flying chunks of skull, gray matter and other fluids, the whole shebang.
The rest of the soldiers were still frozen.
But it would work, wouldn't it? Like it had done with this one...
"Get out of the way!"
Abigail pulled her back.
Too little, too late, though.
Amy ended up on the ground. Only a few long seconds later the pain awoke, spreading throughout her body.
Only later did she realize that a good chunk of her right shoulder was gone.
In its place, only a red mess remained.
My shoulder, my shoulder, my shoulder.
She had to calm down. She knew it was no big deal, that, even with a wound like that, she could get out of it. And that it wasn't even the worst injury she'd ever suffered in her life.
Amy had been closer to death plenty of other times recently.
Yet, for some reason, she couldn't reassure herself. She brought her other hand to her shattered shoulder, squeezed.
She could at least stop the bleeding with magic.
She just had to focus.
Her hand was wrapped in a blue glow. Little by little, step by step. It wasn't that hard. As long as she kept calm, it would work out.
She just had to believe in that.
Christina raised a barrier of shadows, covering the door. She hadn't closed it before, but it didn't matter, the wood wouldn't have held much anyway.
The shadows did. They weren't penetrated once.
Still, Amy had to move.
It was only a matter of time before it would happen, and once it did, she would be in the middle of the line of fire. She had to...
Amy had to...
Someone helped her, grabbing her by the armpits, pulling her back and to the side.
That person's hair fell around her, wrapping around her like red curtains. Amy looked up, her head spinning.
Amara. It had been Amara who had helped her.
It wasn't the time to think that, but she was soft and warm and.... very beautiful.
The kind of woman she'd like to be, with natural beauty.
But... Well, not that it mattered.
Probably neither of them were going to make it out of tonight alive.
"Thank you," Amy said with too much effort, as if she had something stuck in her throat.
Amara nodded her head. Her expression was full of tension.
■
"Lower the barrier for a moment," Abigail said. Before the girl asked for an explanation, she gave it: "I'm going to get Desmond."
"Okay." The girl tensed her arms, her fists already clenched tightly. Preparing herself. "As soon as... you know."
Yes.
The sound of gunfire ceased.
As the soldiers reloaded their weapons (or possibly, stood back to see if the war machine had better luck), Christina opened a hole just wide enough for her to squeeze through sideways, but not a millimeter wider, just enough.
Abigail ran as best she could to where she knew Desmond was. She could feel him.
However, she didn't make it.
■
He saw Abigail running toward him.
He saw her collapse with a gaping hole in her chest, as if her heart had exploded.
Her ribs sticking out like the petals of a flower.
A very, very red flower.
Desmond knew he was in no danger of losing her, of course.
He didn't care.
How was he going to be able to keep his composure after seeing something like that?
The pilot of the machine. That's who had shot her, that's why her chest was like... exploded. Too much force.
Desmond screamed from the back of his throat and, thinking of nothing else, lunged toward the machine.
He missed his target.
In fact, he didn't even make it halfway.
He was filled with lead and fell to the ground, drowning in his own blood. No, not alone. His right arm ended up shattered by the volley of bullets as well.
And the sword fell from his hand, rolled on the ground.
Damn, he thought vacantly. As if it had nothing to do with him.
He used the last scraps of his consciousness to get on top of Abigail, covering her with his body.
The gunfire continued.
■
Charlotte's mouth was very dry.
She licked her lips, swallowing saliva with effort.
"They're down," she said. "They're both down."
She hadn't been able to see it, of course, with the darkness in the way, a barrier that had closed again as soon as Abigail came out.
But she didn't need to see to know what had happened.
By the noises... By Desmond's scream...
And that nothing could be heard anymore, especially because of that.
Christina swallowed again. She couldn't get rid of the lump in her throat.
Desmond and Abigail were down.
Amy had been shot and was in no position to support her, although she would be forced to do so as soon as things went even more awry....
And, if that wasn't enough, the cannon fire just kept coming.
Shaking the building.
Making everything shake.
At any moment the roof was going to come down on them.
She was scared.
She was scared.
Fuck, yeah, of course she was scared.
"Christina, right?"
She gasped. She looked back. The girl with the explosions. To the right, away from the door, was Amy.
She'd taken care of that.
Good.
Christina felt bad that she hadn't thought of that sooner, that she hadn't done it herself, but good. One less thing to worry about.
"Christina?"
Christina nodded, finally.
"Yes. What's wrong?"
"Can you... Can you wrap me in your shadows like armor?"
Christina frowned.
She understood where she was going, but....
"Yeah, sure. The problem is, I can't wrap you all the way. I have to leave a place for you to breathe. They're shadows, but at the same time something solid, when I manipulate them, so if I don't you'll drown."
It wasn't a bad idea to get close enough to blow up the soldiers with the protection of her shadows. But it was very risky, all things considered.
If she were in Amara's position, she wouldn't try it.
However, that girl nodded her head.
"Okay."
"Are you sure?"
"Somebody... has to do something. You... do what you can to back me up... and fingers crossed."
Christina nodded her head.
She was right.
It was just a matter of the barrier falling and the soldiers forcing their way in, killing them all.
They had to do something and that was as good an idea as any.
Christina did as she had asked.
■
The shadows in the room moved and surrounded her, covering everything except a hole at her mouth.
It burned. She was burning inside that darkness and it was hard to breathe.
Besides, as tough as those shadows were, it would not be difficult, whether by luck or skill, to shoot her through that hole, killing her as easily as if she had no such protection.
Yet her words were still as true as when she had spoken them.
She still believed in them.
Someone had to do something.
And for too long tonight, she had been shivering in a corner, as if oblivious to everything. Scared like a little girl.
But she was a soldier and had to act like one.
Now it was her turn to step forward.
Christina didn't lower the barrier of shadows that covered the door.
She removed it from there, but throwing it forward like a wave that swept over the remaining soldiers, knocking most of them to the ground. Buying some time.
Amara approached one and put her hand on one's chest. Fifteen seconds.
Fifteen seconds, and his armor would explode, inevitably killing him. That person... that is, the demon was still breathing. But she had killed him.
She had killed for the first time in her life tonight.
As they rose, she touched the helmet of another.
The sweeping attack sent by Christina had only bought her a few seconds. It hadn't given her time for more, unfortunately.
Not without being shot at.
One finished getting up, took aim and pulled the trigger.
Amara gritted her teeth, bracing herself, half-convinced she would die then.
When the bullets hit her, she stopped for half a second, convinced that she was right, that she had been mortally wounded.
Amara kept moving.
It wasn't like that. It was just that Amara had felt the impact of the bullets even through the shadows.
Feeling that pain, she had believed she had been hit.
But no.
The third, though he didn't know why she was doing this, turned away from her quickly.
She gripped his gun with all her strength. All her courage.
Then she touched him on one arm.
That was enough.
She had to keep moving. She had no time to lose. One second. One second could decide the difference between her life and her death.
I want to live. I want to live.
Before Amara knew it, she was crying as that thought replayed over and over inside her head.
Christina's job wasn't just to create the armor and move it with her.
She also had to reapply her magic as she took damage, so that hopefully Amara would be able to finish the job.
She didn't trust herself too much.
But that girl was strong, right? That girl could do it, couldn't she?
One of the soldiers ignored her and went running into the room.
A block of ice tried to push him back. The soldier, however, didn't slow down one bit. He kept running, crashed into the ice block, shattering it into a thousand pieces.
Still, he must have suffered at least a little damage, since after that action he stumbled forward once, before regaining his balance.
A sign of damage, however small. But he went in.
Amara didn't have time to stop and look. If she did, she would die.
She went for the fifth...
The fifth, even though the fourth was still on the loose, was still a threat.
Amara stumbled too, falling forward, and that's how she got her hands on the fifth.
No, she hadn't tripped.
The pain was as if a red-hot iron was being pressed against an open wound in her stomach.
Amara supposed it wasn't too far from the truth.
She had been shot.
She turned away from the soldier.
Almost at that precise instant, the first of the soldiers Amara had touched exploded.
Their armor, torn to pieces, and their entrails were scattered in all directions.
It hurt. It hurt too much, even to breathe.
One of the soldiers took off his helmet and, in front of her own eyes, killed himself.
What?
Out of fear, so he wouldn't be taken alive? No, this was like what Amy had made happen before. Her affinity, in addition to ice control, though there was no apparent connection.
But what, had it kicked in now, so late?
Amara heard something like an explosion, and thought the second one had already detonated.
It hadn't.
Behind her.
The soldier who had tried to do the smart thing, go after Christina, had been slammed into the ground enough times to crush him. That was the sound she had mistaken for the sound of an explosion.
The sound of the soldier's body exploding into a million pieces inside the container that was his armor.
Amara was distracted, so the remaining soldier took their chance, firing. Another bullet penetrated her stomach.
Her legs weakened, he fell to his knees.
I was so close, she thought in a distant way, as if she wasn't the one who had just been shot.
As if it had happened to someone else.
Amara lifted her head, her gaze sinking into the infinite darkness of the barrel of the gun pointed at her.
I don't want to die.
Not like this, not here.
The soldier opened fire. She lunged for him.
She was hit several times, but all over her body, not in the weak spot in the shadow armor that Christina hadn't yet closed. The force of her whole body managed to knock the soldier off balance.
It didn't knock him to the ground, not that, but it didn't matter.
She had touched him, it was done.
She could barely stand.
The second exploded, and the third a few seconds later.
The fifth suffered the same fate, of course.
And the last soldier she' d touched was no longer paying attention to her. He didn't seem to be aware of the situation.
He just watched in horror as his comrades burst like balloons that had been over-inflated.
Blood and guts washed over everything.
The remaining soldier, in his last seconds of life, removed his helmet.
And with all-too-human eyes he pleaded.
"Take this off. Please."
But Amara couldn't do it.
Amara couldn't do it even if he wanted to, even if it was a smart decision. Once she uses her affinity on something... or someone, there was no turning back.
Amara, shaking from head to toe, turned away from the soldier, raising her arms to protect her head.
She couldn't shield herself from seeing the soldier's expression as he realized his fate was sealed.
Like the others, he exploded.
Amara looked down at the scorched corpse, pierced by the broken shards of armor. What she could see of his face through the smokescreen had a look that... simply put, that....
She put a hand to her mouth.
She had killed them all...
Almost all of them, with her own hands.
The lights were gone.
The armors were in pieces, turned off.
What illuminated the room now was the blood of the soldiers, splattered everywhere.
Even she was bathed in their blood. She could feel it... all over her body....
She... She had...
Amara doubled over and vomited.
■
Desmond woke up in Abigail's arms.
Just like that day ten years ago.... He grimaced.
It brought ideas to his head that he couldn't contemplate.
He looked at his savior's face, her angelic smile, like the one she had given him that day. Feeling happy and secure. Feeling selfishly like he was on top of the world.
But, at the same time, fear gripped his heart.
"How long has it been?" Desmond asked in a weak voice.
He ached all over, but not as much as before, far from it.
Something did hurt more than before. His left arm was gone, crushed by the debris.
Feeling sick to his stomach, he looked around and saw an arm he knew was his lying on the ground, full of bullet holes, torn to shreds.
Although his right arm was intact and he could move it to his satisfaction.
He almost threw up for real. But, fortunately, he managed to swallow it.
"Not much. The powers I bestow become stronger in my presence."
"I see," he said slowly.
That was why his right eye had recovered so quickly, for example.
He would like to be in Abigail's arms forever.
But it was still night and the battle was still being fought. He had to move.
Desmond got to his feet, though not without Abigail's help.
He was alive, he was recovering, but not at one hundred percent. Not yet.
After that, he walked alone, that he did.
The war machine...
It was still there, as was the pilot. But someone, probably Christina, had already ripped out the cannons.
He hugged Christina tightly and she hugged him back.
"Desmond..." The way her voice sounded made his heart ache.
He didn't have to ask why.
He saw it over the girl's shoulder.
He broke the hug brusquely, despite himself, and walked over to Amy who lay on the ground. Her shoulder was smashed.
On top of all this.
She was bleeding too much. At this rate, she could lose her arm... and the shock could kill her, and for her there were no second chances.
"We have to get out of here," Christina said. Her voice was shaking. "As soon as possible."
Yes. Desmond nodded.
"Whatever it takes."
"What do we do?" Amara asked. The girl was covered in blood from head to toe, and she looked like a different person. Even her hair looked like a different color. Red, anyway, but dirtier. More...
Duller, like her. You could see it in her eyes.
Desmond opened his mouth to respond. He couldn't.
They were surrounded on all sides.
If they got out, they would most likely end up torn to shreds. And the chances (for everyone, not just Amy) if they stayed weren't very good either.
It was as if they were slowly, slowly being crushed by the four walls of a room.
Stuck in a death trap.
I...
"Watch out!" Christina shouted, suddenly.
Desmond didn't know what she meant.
Not until he saw red.
One of the soldiers, who should be dead, had stood behind her like a wraith. His armor was in pieces, but not enough that it had completely stopped working. One of his arms was enveloped by that red energy.
Amara didn't pull away.
Amara turned around.
The soldier's hand ran cleanly across her chest, all the way to her heart.
The blood fell like a waterfall.
In front of everyone's eyes, the soldier ripped out Amara's heart.