"Get… the hell… back here!" I could hear faintly from Andrew. What the hell just happened? I could hear a ringing sound in my head as I was wincing my eyes… I was thrown around twice, maybe thrice today, that's miserable.
I forced my eyes open and saw the ship above us leaving, "Can we chase after it?-" I got a glimpse of everyone. We were all knocked away or on the ground.
"How the hell did we manage to lose to a whole singular guy?" Zack said with his mask unclipped and wiping blood off a sleeve he rolled up.
"That was Sa-Sa, the right hand man of the commander of their attack," Xeno explained, "he's gotten tougher. I've fought him twice before and this third encounter was beyond pitiful on my end." he remarked.
"Well… at least the battle's over now," Adam tried his best to console us.
"Yes, but we ended it on a defeat." Andrew spoiled his consolation while whirling his mask in the air using the strap, "Sure we may've all survived, but we lost the big prize: information from a captain!"
"I agree," Zack extended out his hand like he would to fist bump Zack.
Andrew just raised an eyebrow in confusion.
"This is the part where you're supposed to fist bump me when we agree," Zack explained, "C'mon Sam and I do it all the time."
"... I'm not like your friend." Andrew used his right hand to push away his arm, "I need to get going and start taking down the metal walls for the MRF to tally the damages." and he leaped through the hole Arzo made in the earth wall earlier.
From the distance we could hear the start of metal screeching, "how the hell is he taking it down? Is it just fading into the air?" I asked.
Will peered around the wall and said, "he's cutting it into parts… that's it."
"What do we do now?" Adam asked us.
Most of us shrugged not knowing, but Xeno declared to us, "Inspect your bodies. Take a deep breath and learn where your injuries are, all of you are tired right now and lack enough magic power to heal quickly."
I dropped to the ground lying back side down and unclipped my mask, "am I bleeding here?" as I pointed to the top left of my forehead.
"You're not actively oozing blood," Sage assured, "but there is definitely red there. Do I have anything on my face?" she said, unclipping her mask.
"No, you're fine for the head." I told her after inspecting her face.
"What's wrong with my hands!?" Adam cried out. He took off the gloves that reached to his elbow on his arm and both of his arms were shaking furiously.
"You were struck by lightning," Sam stated, "I'd be surprised if you didn't end up like this."
"Ah… I see," he tried to understand, "I thought this would be easier." he groaned.
"What? Fighting god damn aliens protecting our country, maybe the world? You thought that would be easy? What the fuck is wrong with you?" I sat up and told him.
He tried to reason, "Well I mean… y'see…" and then went silent.
I looked over to the others and I heard Will say, "My arm feels funny."
"Which one?" Sage asked.
"The left arm," he pointed at his shoulder.
I looked up at Xeno and he was just sitting atop some rock debris. His spear was still pointing up to the sky as he held it close to his body. His helmet and pieces of his armor like his shoulder pads and shin guards were neatly placed at the foot of all the debris, "That was a bit too much for me now… heuuhhh," even he sighed.
I really fucking hate this. Each and every one of us had some kind of injury on us that realistically wouldn't leave quickly because we're all tired! I hate it so much… to both see everyone in pain and also knowing it's our fault because we signed up for this.
I fell back and lay on the ground facing up once again, "I'm too tired to even check for the rest of my injuries…"
I'm both scared and tired to check my injuries. On one hand I feel like I want to lay in bed for the rest of my life… on the other hand I'm terrified to know where I'm hurt.
I yawned very loudly. I tuned out what the group was saying and I could hear the traffic sounds of New York. Only a few blocks away from our battlefield, life was still going on. We're only a couple hundred feet to business and lives of all kinds. Family restaurants, Bodegas, cafe's, business firms, banks, all kinds of shops and of course the loud traffic from the car horns honking and cars speeding… Everyone else's life still goes on when we're fighting.
I could hear ambulance sirens ringing throughout the city and they were slowly getting louder and louder. I sat back up and asked, "are the ambulances here?"
"They're down the street. The debris and potholes made during the fight are making it hard to get to us." Sam laughed weakly, you're not really thinking this is funny…
From the masks came a pretty faint sound. I picked mine up and held my mask to my right ear, "hello?"
"Yes, hello. I am here." came from my mask.
"Guys!" I called out, "Quinn's speaking! Grab your masks and listen in, I don't want to repeat it!"
Everyone else grabbed their masks and did the same as me: holding it to their ear.
We got a lot of hi's, hello's, what's up from our group before Quinn started saying, "good work y'all. I'm glad that all of you are alive. The ambulances are down the street from you, all you need to do is to walk down and they'll tend to any medical conditions you may have."
"We failed." Andrew stated. He's seriously hung up on this huh?
"Yeah! They broke my fuckin' hammer!" Cyrus yelled into his mic ringing out from our masks.
"What?" Quinn asked.
Andrew explained the situation to him. About how close we were to capturing Arzo and about Sa-Sa coming down from the skies and kicking our asses.
"I… see," Quinn didn't know what to think initially, "just go to the ambulances for now," he took a deep breath, "we can discuss this in more detail at the debrief."
"Are you good Quinn?" I asked him, "You sound really tired."
He groaned, "I'm… fine. I'm in an SUV speeding up the highway to New York from DC. The aliens really came at a shit time." and he signed off.
I forgot he wasn't in the city this whole time…
"Right, he was in DC," Will realized, "he wasn't able to direct us much."
"He didn't direct us for shit man," Sage said while wiping away blood dripping down her arm, a couple of us stared at her when she said, "What? You're acting like this is news to you. At the last fight he only told us where the enemy was and nothing more."
"You're… not wrong actually?" Sam agreed.
Will just nodded along too.
"C'mon, let's go to the ambulances guys." Adam waved his hand for us to follow him.
"Go on ahead," I shooed him away, "Make sure to clip your mask so any camera dudes won't find out who you are." I gave him a tip.
"Yeah… thanks," Adam then clipped his mask back.
"My legs feel weak," I sighed.
"Y'think your legs are weak? I've had to run a lot," Sam declared… I guess he's trying to console me, "I've run up roofs, leaped off fire escapes, sprinted through volleys of blasts."
"Yeah yeah whatever," I brushed off, "Just help me up," I extended my right arm.
He sighed, "Alright," and he grabbed onto my forearm and pulled me up. I started to clip my mask on again, "About what you said a couple days ago-"
"It was one day Sam," I remarked. I hope that's what you're talking about.
"Eh? Alright I guess," he wasn't facing me. He was looking at Xeno instead, "Yeah about that, are you going to quit after today… to focus on your personal projects or whatever?"
"... I don't know Sam," I didn't have an answer for him because I didn't have an answer for myself first! "Can we talk about this later?"
"Sure," Sam agreed. He walked past me and started heading towards the ambulances.
Sage had started to go too and I caught up with her, "hey," I greeted her.
She waved slightly, "hey~" she called to me. The both of us started to walk together to the ambulances. When we passed the rock wall we could see the bright blue and red sirens on top of each ambulance and in between them were police cars and barricades that the cops had placed there probably to make sure nobody came at us…
"How… how uh… how do I put this?" I was going to ask her something like 'how was your second battle?' but that would be weird and almost come off like I'm a pro at this when I'm like very much not-
"You don't need to say anything," Sage assured me, "I was fine. I wish I was able to land more shots on Arzo to weaken him more… and I know now that I need more practice shooting arrows under stress."
"What're you talking about?" I was confused, "Your shooting was good though!"
"Was it?" She wasn't sure, "I was confident that it was sloppy and I would have shot more accurately."
"Well I thought it was fine," this time I assured her.
"Fine isn't good enough." Damn! Sage is almost never that serious during training! "I need more power in everything I'm doing, our job is the first in human history… well Earth human history anyway. I want to do the best I can!" she said with almost a gleam of light in her eyes.
"Yeah… I get that," I do not but I don't wanna make it awkward.
"Then you should start practicing with me more! I was thinking of staying later than usual and practicing even more and more!" she said like an excited puppy.
"I already stay late anyway, Sam makes me," I whispered to her so he wouldn't hear.
"Great! Now I can make you stay late instead of Sam! He needs more work with his swordsmanship anyway."
I was surprised, "Damn! You didn't have to do him like that-"
"Am I wrong though," not really, "He didn't use his sword much except in the earlier stages of the battle, he was primarily using big spells or shootin' fire." she shrugged.
"You're not… wrong at all," I realized. Why does he make us do so much weapon's practice then if he literally doesn't use it.
"Exactly! I am at least using my bow often!" she remarked.
"Do you have any other forms of using light for combat?" I asked her.
"... No," she pointed the tips of her index fingers together like a pick-me girl.
"Hmm that might be why you use your bow," I joked to keep my sanity. We had reached the front of the ambulances by now, "I'll go get myself checked and we'll see each other again at the labs right?"
"Sure!" She slapped my back and left to check with the paramedics.
"Umm excuse me?" I turned around to see a paramedic in front of me. He was much taller than me, "can we check your injuries… ma'am?" Does the skirt not help you tell?
"Yeah, ma'am," I waved it off.
"Ma'am okay! Sorry this is my first time doing something as serious as this. Follow me to a vacant ambulance." he waved his left hand.
"Alright," I decided to joke, "Third time for me," as I grinned.
He didn't see the grin, nor my face, I don't even know if he heard it really cause he said, "huh? What'd you say?"
"Oh… I said 'third time for me' cause this is… my third time… forget it, explaining a joke no longer makes it funny," I shrugged.
"Well whatever," he opened the doors to the ambulance. I sat down on the stretcher I had started to get used to in the back of the ambulance.
"Just sit still while my coworker and I check for any injuries," the paramedic stated as a second one walked in, "would you want to remove your mask?"
"No, I'm fine, I don't have any injuries there." I started to tighten my mask, I don't want these guys knowing who I am.
"Alright," the second paramedic accepted as he put a stethoscope to my heart, "heartbeats normal," he called out and the first guy noted down.
I just waited around for them to finish and if there was any blood they'd ask me to roll up my suit to show where it is, I reluctantly did but they bandaged me up quickly.
"Nothing serious, bruises on your back and a couple scratches slash cuts on the leg," the first paramedic told me, "you should be good to go and with your superhuman healing you should be fine in like a day or two."
"Wait, how do you know about supernatural healing!?" What the fuck!!?
"Did you not notice the special crest on the side of every ambulance?"
"WHAT!?" I burst through the back doors and ran around to check the side. There was a crest or logo I faintly remember seeing before: A blue circle with an eagle riding a comet. The crest is bordered by a black band with golden words at the top printed "U.S Department of" and then at the bottom with the same gold print "Extra terrestrial Research and Combat."
"I never knew of this," I pointed at the crest.
"Yeah we all have the same boss man, Quinn." The guy put a thumb's up.
"Even the cops?"
"Okay maybe not all of us. We know a little bit about all of you, your powers and body archetypes but that's about it."
"Ohhh," I noted, "Well, thanks for… whatever you did" I said waving as I left to go find the others. I kept taking looks around at the other ambulances and sure enough they all had the same crest as us. I can't believe I didn't notice these.
Adam and a couple others were waiting around for the rest of us to finish our check-up, "How'd you get out so quickly?" I asked specifically Sage.
"I didn't get super hurt," she just shrugged.
"What're we waiting for again?" Will asked.
"Realistically a ride back to the labs," I commented, "Usually a blacked out car or two would be here by now but Quinn ain't here so it might take longer-" RIGHT at the moment as I said that, two big cars rolled out through the crowds, "Wow that was bad timing."
"Mmhmm," everyone else nodded.
When the agents opened the doors, the four of us crammed into the back and then we were off to the labs. We'll just have to wait for the others I guess.
We took the same familiar roads down to the labs… down the same elevator… to the same cold snow white hallway and then to the same dark depressing meeting room, I just sighed an exhale.
"Tired?" Adam sincerely asked.
"Huh?" I didn't hear him at first but then I just said, "Yeah… I guess so."
"Yeah me too," he exhaled himself after unclipping his mask, "The day will soon be over," he said optimistically.
"Yeah, whatever," I just stepped aside and opened the door to the meeting room.
"Woah uh hey," I commented surprisingly. Richard, the new rich guy, was already waiting for us. The holographs on the table were already illuminated, his feet were kicked up leaning against the table while he himself sat back into a big leather chair, he definitely had brought that in.
"Welcome masters," his butler, who was standing diagonally behind him bowed to greet us, "shall I bring out drinks?"
I stared in mild disgust, "uhhhh" I muttered having no idea what to say, I don't know I've never had a butler before.
"Yeah we'll take some drinks," Sage stated as she took her seat, "What do you got?"
Richard snapped using his left hand while sipping on a yellow-orange drink out of a champagne glass in his right hand, "Jeeves here made pseudo-mimosa's using seasonal winter fruits which include mostly citrus at this time. Tis' truly refreshing and perfect to quench thirst after a long and hard fought battle! Speaking of, I'd like to grant another five grand to each member on the battlefield today for devoting your life to humanity!!" he rattled on and on and on and- Dude please shut up~!
"Yeah I'll take some then," Adam said.
"Me too!" Will called out.
His butler grabbed a tray of nine drinks, one for each member, and served each of us one, "enjoy," he told each of us.
I whispered to him when he served mine, "Is your name really Jeeves? Seems kinda cliche for a butler…"
He whispered back, "My name is not actually Jeeves. Master Richard deemed that Jeeves was the appropriate name for a butler and that has been my name ever since." Yeesh that's… actually really weird, I didn't know rich people could just change their servant's names.
"... Okay," I just whispered back in acceptance because I was confused.
He just bowed and then went back to standing diagonally behind Richard. There was a still silence in the room, just the humming of the holographs on the table and the air conditioner running. No one spoke, only occasionally sipping on drinks. This group is hella awkward, I thought while taking a sip of the drink and looking around. I don't really talk with anyone here but Sage. I don't like answering Will's questions, Richard makes me uncomfortable with how much money he has. I know Sage doesn't really talk with anyone but Adam because… well Adam is always following her.
Soon enough the other five came into the door, they got their drinks from Jeeves and finally we can start… except for the fact that Quinn isn't here.
"So are we just gonna wait for Quinn?" Sam asked
"If we are," Andrew was getting ready to stand up, "I'm gonna go work on improving my gear."
"Sit," Xeno held his hand in front of him, Andrew did as Xeno ordered, "The ten of us shall just commence this meeting without him and once Quinn shows up, he can add his ideas."
We just started, "So what do we go over first exactly? The events of the battle? The stuff we learned from it? There's so much to go over," Zack stated.
Xeno started to dig into his sack, "first of all," he threw three full syringes with a neon green liquid in it, "This is the alloy that Quinn desired. The one where magic power gets multiplied."
This time Richard actually sits up, "I'm interested, how did you acquire such an interesting… alloy? Chemical compound? What is it exactly?"
Xeno tried his best to explain, "I'm not a ship engineer, but it's the alloy that's inside the engines that power the ships. Quinn desired this alloy for a project he was toying with. I fought my way into ships to get these and some of the ships have sunk into the river or crash landed into neighboring areas."
Cyrus hissed, "I think we should really call someone about that-"
Andrew scoffed, "clean-up crews in our branch and some first responders are already on it."
"Yeah but shouldn't we help though?" Adam pleaded.
"That's… not our job," Andrew seemed like he had to swallow something as he said that.
"It seems that you wanna help," I commented, "What's stopping you?"
"Perfecting my gear and actively improving my combat ability." he crossed his arms, "Sam, your swordsmanship is sloppy. The same goes with the other swordsman, the ice one. Your edge alignment's off and the way you swing your blades generate such low amounts of force. The same goes with the one I lent my machete to… at least he returned it. The others here use all of their weapons ineffectively, not to the fullest of your abilities. For example: the rock one lost his hammer from ineffective use!" Andrew went on a tangent.
"Hey fuck you man," Cyrus put up the finger to him, "I lost my hammer cause we were stuck fighting someone much stronger than us!"
"Yeah!" Will shouted too, "I'm sorry I don't have enough time to accurately practice well. I also lack a teacher who knows how and can teach me."
Fuck you man! "Y'know Andrew if you're so good and can criticize us, you should teach us!" I suggested it angrily.
"You know we're amateurs, why are you going so hard on us? We lack experience but we grow stronger every encounter." Adam stated while slamming his right fist on the table. It's your first encounter though.
Most of us started going off on Andrew and I kinda like it.
"Now hold on," Zack raised both of his arms out like calming a pack of angry dogs, "Adam what you say is true. We do get stronger each encounter, but I think Andrew wants us to grow into a level of professionalism, experience and technique at an exponentially faster rate than what we have so far." Damn it Zack! you had to ruin it…
Then at that moment the nine of us just started screaming and shouting at each other. I say nine because Richard didn't say anything. Adam and Zack were trying their best to calm us down, it didn't work of course. The rest were yelling at Andrew and he was just scoffing at us.
Suddenly [CLANG!]
"SILENCE!" Xeno shouted. The clang came from Xeno slamming the butt of his spear on the ground, "We must come to an understanding," he trifled, "or else the ones who tear this world apart will be ourselves… not them." he pointed out to the door, "I understand Andrew desire's you to improve your skills, but the fact is that Quinn has not given us the resources to give them the proper training. He himself is trying his best to improve their gear at all times and he's stretching himself thin at the most as it is!"
The door burst open, "That much… is true." Quinn came through gasping for air leaning on the door handle and crouching on the ground.
"What made you so tired?" Sam asked, "Did you run here?"
Sage got up from her chair and helped Quinn stand back up, "you okay?" she asked.
"Yeah I'm okay," Richard's butler came forward and handed Quinn a glass of water.
"Thank you so much… uhhh your name?" Quinn thanked.
"The master calls me Jeeves, that is what you shall address me as," he calmly stated.
Quinn walked up to the table and took his seat, "Sorry for the dramatics. I ran here from entering Brooklyn. There was too much traffic so I decided to run the rest of the way here."
"Truly Insane and remarkable!" Richard complimented while giving him a thumbs up.
"... Thanks?" Quinn was confused, "I heard what Xeno said through the door, and I was also listening through the cameras for this room," he picked up one of the syringes of the neon green liquid alloy, "this is truly remarkable. I can make a lot of weapons with this alloy." He reached down under the table and brought out a large briefcase.
As Quinn unclipped the briefcase revealing soft cushioning in the case meant to carry four syringes, Adam asked, "what're you going to use them for exactly?"
Quinn put in the first syringe, "I told you. Weapons."
"Well yeah," I scoffed, "but I'm pretty sure just a tiny bit sure that he wanted to know what weapons exactly." I'm so tired of these people… they're really making me want to quit.
"Oh… that makes a lot more sense," Quinn stated as he finished putting the second syringe in and closed the case, "I'm going to use these to make special batteries that can hold magic energy."
"Can we get back to the more important topic!?" Zack sat up and shouted, "The one about us amateurs lacking experience. What about that? We can't exactly win the war alone with the greatest weapons in the world if we ourselves are weak! God damn." he leaned back into his chair.
"Ah yes of course… I'm trying my best." Quinn remarked, "I"m trying okay. I have to do eight-hundred million things everyday and somehow it keeps eluding my brain. It doesn't completely. I've sent out notices to martial arts schools, army bases, whatever to get you all teachers but I can't exactly state why to them because a lot of what we do here is classified. It gets complicated really quickly." He said almost like he was holding back tears.
"So what makes you so busy, aren't you just in your office or the labs engineering all the damn time!?" Will asked.
"Well for starters, Do you know why I had to go to DC yesterday and today!?" Quinn shouted for the first time ever.
The room went silent. No one had ever heard him yell before so this was incredibly special. This has to be serious.
No one said anything until Andrew broke the silence with, "To lobby the government about your actions."
"YOU'D BE CORRECT!!" Quinn angrily yelled, "I HAD TO GO THERE TO TELL CONGRESS OF WHY OUR ACTIONS ARE NECESSARY AND EVEN THEN ASK FOR MORE MONEY FOR THIS FOUNDATION!"
He took a deep breath and muttered, "We're being stretched too thin and I'm handling a lot of these actions myself. Sure I have hired engineers, researchers and such but they don't have executive tasks beyond creating new things or discovering scientific principles."
He leaned back up to yell, "And as for the FBI agents, they're just loans for muscle and manpower." This time Quinn actually started to tear up, "I have no one to really help me do these executive works. Look, I'm tired all the time because I have to look through my workers designs and drafts whilst also managing the ENTIRE FOUNDATION! Who do you think calls the first responders!? WHO DO YOU THINK ORGANIZES THE AMBULANCES TO COME CHECK YOU AND BRING YOU HERE! ME!! ALL ME!!!" He broke down and actually started crying.
Xeno stood up and patted the back of Quinn's head, "It's okay comrade. If you desire help, I am able to help."
"You don't even know how our government works," Quinn sniffled through his streams of tears.
"But I can learn. Put more burdens on me, as these kids' teacher for magic," we aren't kids! "I should be the one who searches for teachers for other skills since you're already unable to hire more work." Yeah he realistically should be.
"Hey hey, I got a question here," Adam raised his hand, "if you can't take this line of work and stress so much, why are you working here anyway?" You bitch-
"Dude, why would you ask that?" Sam asked.
"What? If he can't take it then he should leave and the government will find a new person." He leaned back into his chair.
"Dude, shut the fuck up," Sage told him, "That was a really hurtful thing to say. He's literally crying about his work and you're judging him about his work?"
"He's just being honest," Andrew took Adam's side.
The room broke out into arguments from Sam, Sage, Adam and Andrew. Until Cyrus said, "God dayum. Can y'all please SHUT THE FUCK UP!?" He slammed his fist on the table rocking it to his side for a second, "Wouldn't Andrew normally say nothing right now? Why you sayin' shit now? None of y'all are even consistent 'n working with yourselves much less each other."
Xeno immediately stated after Cyrus's point that, "This seems like the optimal time to end the meeting. All of you are dismissed. Leave immediately." and then he kinda booted all of us but Quinn and himself.
Zack and Will went to the locker rooms to change without saying a word to us. While that was happening, Richard and his butler left for the elevator.
"I still don't see what was the big deal." Adam shrugged.
"Dude, y'know what, forget it." Sage was going to say something but didn't, "Just go change and leave." and she waved her hand like she was shooing him away, "Sheila you come with me." Oh- okay I guess I'm following you now.
I walked on her right side and at first it was a little silent and then I asked very quietly because I didn't know if she's still mad or not , "so… do you want to practice together?"
She aggressively blurted out a "huh?" at first. And then, "Oh. Uh… yeah. I don't mind, what do you want to do?"
"Oh I don't really care," I said. To be honest, I just wanna spend time with another girl on the team, "we could do whatever, if you wanna spar or go rooftop running or even practicing spells, you should choose."
"Alright," she nodded, "Let's go rooftop running for a bit and once we're done let's do some spells."
"Sounds good, where and when do you want to meet up?"
"Let's do 9:30 tomorrow morning somewhere lower Manhattan like maybe on Canal street west side so it's not Chinatown." she suggested. Wow, a decent time for me so I don't have to wake up super early!
"West side? That's a bit away from the labs." I noticed.
"Eh, I just don't like being cooped down here and don't like being near it. Plus I don't go to lower Manhattan that much."
"Okay," I clapped my hands once, "We'll meet there then, 9:30. We'll find each other at some point. Maybe show up wearing your masks so if someone's up there for some reason, they won't know who we are exactly."
"Sounds good."
"Cool."