One Must Be Alive

Chapter Two: Next Step Pt. Two

   Drake slowly woke up from being unconscious, again, in an unfamiliar location. A light hung directly above him and shined brightly in his swollen eyes. He looked to his left, watching and hearing two blurs a few feet away arguing and one of them sounded like his wife. One of the blurs stopped talking as soon as he turned his head to look at them and then it ran up to him. The blur became clear once it got closer, it was indeed his wife, it was like looking at her for the first time, his eyes rolled into the back of his head and slipped back into a sleep.

   Two Hours Ago...

   The squad stopped beating Drake then finally left him alone with Malik over Fischer's shoulder, crying for help from his parents but they were unable to do anything. A few minutes later while Melanie wept over him a Caucasian girl, possibly in her twenties, with one side of her hair braided and the other was not, just curly and wavy hair lying on her shoulder dyed with stripes of hot pink, flew in. Some sort of colored flames burst from her as she flew towards them. Melanie looked up at her then her eyes widened, "Ember?" she said, "W-What happened to you? You were just flying." "Are you going to ask me bloody questions or are you going to let me save you and your husband from an upcoming horde? Choose wisely Mrs. Sullivan because I'm totally fucking cool with either."

   Ember knew which decision she's made because she tried picking up her husband and lending him to her. Ember projected a translucent platform beneath them and they took off into the sky, flying in a forward direction. Later, Drake was set down on a worn out couch in Ember's little safehouse, which in fact was a library. She had loads of supplies in the storage room in the back and she took care of Drake. Melanie was behind her as she operated, shaking and hyperventilating, "Don't think I have forgotten what you are, I meant what you have become. I mean look at you! What you can do its.......its...the common pyrotechnic effect. In other words, you can control fire, change its shape, texture, and color. Not to mention you can fly!" said Melanie. After the operation Ember stormed off, bumping Melanie's shoulder.

   She turned around to follow her. Ember knew she was being followed so she walked through a wall leaving visible but minor flames on the wall, almost like she was intangible.

   She whispered to herself, "What happened to you, Ember? Why won't you tell me what happened to you?" Then she turned around in the direction to her husband.

   Two hours later, Drake woke up feeling shitty, looking shitty, and honestly it was true, he looked horrible. His wife ran up to him and helped him up to a more comfortable area. She placed him in a chair near a bookshelf and then took his gun out from her pocket. "Here. I wouldn't have left the most important weapon we have." She handed to him. He grabbed it but it dropped to the floor because he was still weak. Taking a beating as severe as that he just had to weak, maybe even more. Footsteps approached out of nowhere, it was Ember, and she stopped right in front of them then spoke softly, "Reed Fischer, the man who took your loved one. Is it not?" Drake nodded at the question. "I might know where to find him and his goons. But first we need to tear him down, destroy his reputation, his empire. Everything he stood for will be gone then we'll drag a blade into his other eye." Her sweet British accent flowed through the air.

   After she finished with that adrenaline pumping speech Melanie looked over to Drake, "What do you say babe?" Then he looked up at Ember smiling wearily, "I say we go kill that son of a bitch."